Welcome to True World View, your place for intelligent conversation on ultimate questions and the issues that matter. I'm Christy Johnson. I'm here with Paul Dean. Today we're talking about the consequences of identity politics. That's right, Christy, and I came across a piece recently by Paul Craig Roberts. And, of course, he's going to cite someone from the former Soviet Union, and we'll get to that in a moment. But this whole issue of identity politics tied into, say, intersectionality, the whole woke culture that we've talked about before, The idea that if you're a part of a minority, then you've been oppressed by the majority. You've been oppressed by the hegemonic power. Old white men, they're the ones that have the power. The more minority groups you can identify with, the more entitled you are to relief of some kind or another, or the more power you actually garner for yourself. If you're a lesbian, that's one thing. If you're a black person, that's another. If you're a woman, that's another. So if you're a lesbian woman who's black, then you can garner more power, that kind of thing. And the whole issue of identity politics, they say they're striving for a level playing field, equality with those who have been in power, but they're not. They're really not. They're the ones that are wanting power for themselves, and we see that in so many ways. You see people who have the – well, let's just say they have an opinion that doesn't comport with woke culture today. And they're marginalized, if not outright canceled. And you've mentioned this whole cancel culture before. Yeah. The idea that if you say something that the masses disagree with, then all of a sudden nobody's going to follow you anymore. Nobody's going to, you know, if you're a YouTuber, nobody's going to watch your videos. If you're a newscaster, you're going to get fired. Nobody's going to love you anymore. So you're done. Yeah, that's right. And I think just on the way to what we want to talk about, there's a lot of lamentable things, you know, with the rise of identity politics, things like, you know, the whole Me Too movement you and I've talked before, just by way of illustration, obviously certain things about it, you know, We applaud, because as Christians, it's not a good thing to make unwanted, sexually suggestive comments to women or to demean women or pressure women in any way, for example. On the other hand, part of that whole Me Too movement was that if a woman accuses a man of something, then we're always going to believe the woman, and that's not right either. Some of the things that have been sacrosanct in our culture are going by the wayside. One of those is innocent until proven guilty. Where's the evidence? Where's the evidence, you know? And so those are those are things that are lamentable. And it's, you know, quite frankly, it's hypocritical. And. I just go back, I lived through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and that was about equality. But the movement that we are experiencing today, identity politics, woke culture, Progressivism, it's not about equality. It's about somebody achieving the new hegemony, the new power. That's what they want. They want power. That makes sense. Yeah. And I also think that if you say something wrong, they're going to get you know, jump all over you because in a sense they want to, like you said, exercise their power over you. But not only that, I've seen it happen where maybe you say something wrong by mistake or you say something that you didn't mean to say or maybe you're just immature. I've seen, you know, young people get cancelled, quote unquote. because they did something, you know, where they're just acting like a young person, a teenager or something. And then it's almost like, well, you have to be perfect or else, you know, we're going to show you how powerful we are over you. Yeah, and I think that kind of helps us to segue into the heart of what we want to talk about. You know, this piece by Paul Craig Roberts, he talks about a college professor who immigrated to the United States from the old Soviet Union. And she's got a little phrase here. She's talking about the Sovietization of America. And that's a striking phrase to me. I'm not one of those who's living in fear of Russia and Putin today, I think we ought to have talks with them so that we can get along. I live more in fear of those who don't want peace talks with Russia. But in my younger days and before that, during the Cold War, and again, I'm not saying Russia is a great The government is – I'm not applauding their government. It's anti-liberty. There's no doubt about that. So anyway, I don't want to confuse people. The point I'm making is when I think of the old Soviet Union, though, I think of harsh communism, atheism, totalitarianism, the whole bit. That's what I'm saying. And so here's a woman coming out of that historical background in the old Soviet Union. She's a college professor, and when she talks about the Sovietization of America, she's not talking about economic communism or socialism. What she's talking about is the... Now, listen to this. And you're aware of this, but we're just informing our listeners. She's talking about the rise of denunciation in place of reasoned discourse. You know what I mean? Yeah, she's talking about wokeness and how identity politics has creeped into the education system. She said these ideologies allow people to hound and persecute with impunity. People love it because it allows a little person to completely destroy somebody who has done something great. And she goes on to say on her campus, we have this bias response team that prowls the campus looking for signs of noncompliance. We had the same thing in the Soviet Union. Right now they're on campus, but eventually they're going to be in every workplace. So I think she's talking about the idea of if you don't do what the culture says is the right thing to do, or if you act wrong or you do something we don't like, then they're going to look for you and find you and say you weren't complying, just like she's saying they had the same thing in the Soviet Union. Yeah, and that's kind of the staggering connection that we want to make. We're going down a road that is not indigenous to our particular culture. It's something outside. It's something foreign or alien to our particular culture. You know, Christy, you've heard and our listeners have heard, what do you call it when somebody says something that doesn't comport with the status quo? They have to go to, what is it, re-education training or sensitivity training or something like that. Yeah, there's memes about like, I saw a meme, Starbucks is closed indefinitely so they can have their baristas learn sensitivity, you know, go through sensitivity training. It was a joke, obviously Starbucks is not closed, but saying like all the things that we have to be sensitive about, it's going to take us forever to teach this to our employees. Yeah. And so the notion that you have bias response teams on American college campuses looking for noncompliance, I mean, again, daunting. And of course, we all know the whole safe spaces and the things that we see in the news on a daily basis where You know, people are getting shouted down and, you know, somebody comes in with a minority opinion. Let's just say a conservative opinion. And, you know, they want to beat the doors down. We've talked about that before. And here's this professor, you know, lamenting this and making a prediction. She's saying it's going to be all over in the workplace. And we see evidence of that. Of course, it's already happening. But you know essentially the in the workplace as well as the college seen the college campus the culture you know that's created by diversity and sensitivity training it's essentially and i think in her mind it's essentially turning co-workers into enemies. Yeah, and it's almost like you can get in trouble with just an accusation and you have to be worried that you're constantly going to offend someone and so it really can turn co-workers into enemies. Yeah, I think probably the latest example is Chris Matthews. Now, I'll be quick to say I am not, never have been a Chris Matthews fan. We don't share the same, uh, political persuasion, but he's been on what MSNBC or something like that. I'm not even sure which, which station he's on where the CNN, but I think it's, is it CNN? I think it's MSNBC. Yeah. MSNBC. Yeah. He's liberal. But, you know, recently he was forced to step aside, step down, because I guess it was I don't know all the details, but some woman said that he was, you know, he said inappropriate things to her and a lot of other women over the years. And another woman came and said, oh, I liked it. And then she got excoriated because You know, not every woman liked it. And look, I get that. Like I said, from a Christian worldview, you shouldn't say inappropriate things. But essentially, because this one woman said what she said, he's now persona non grata. He's anathema. I mean, not only is he no longer employed at MSNBC, but you know, his whole reputation, his whole life has been destroyed just because she wanted to. And that that's that's the issue there. You know, there are other ways to handle things like that. I mean, if there's criminal activity, let's deal with that in a criminal justice sort of way. If if it's just inappropriate activity in the workplace, let's let's get some inner workplace disciplinary action going. But but to just destroy someone or cancel someone's complete body of work because of One woman's accusation. Again, I'm just throwing that out as a plausible example of what we're talking about. A lot of people might just say he was just a flirt, but who knows the truth, but you understand what I'm saying. Right. And I think what we see right now is we see these instances of public figures having their reputations destroyed, whether justifiably in some cases or not. In other cases, I think because we have so much of who we are as a culture wrapped up in the internet and the latest headlines and that kind of thing. It's going to get spread around a lot and we're going to have, you know, headlines that are clickable. And so people are going to jump on the bandwagon because it helps to make the media outlets, you know, money and helps to promote their cause. But we see it really often in the public circle. But I think I think it's going to creep in to affect our lives too, not just celebrities or newscasters or people who are public. I think eventually if you start to take this into the workplace, as this person's saying, then it's going to start to affect us too, where people in your workplace, you know, can cancel you and you can lose your job or your reputation. And we see this breaking down, I think. Yeah, that's right. And I think you're right on target there and ties into one of the fears that this, this woman has, you know, this woman, uh, from the Soviet union, she says, you know, when you get people or set people against each other, whether they, uh, uh, you know, it doesn't matter who they are, but, uh, they're much easier to control. And she said, this is what would, what was happening. you know, under totalitarianism. But she says essentially that in the United States, the conformity is not being imposed by the government. It's the offspring of the left wing. And that's what we're seeing. It's not even being imposed on us by government. This is where our culture is going. Well, let's talk about the coronavirus as an example. I think we see whether, I mean, it's being called a pandemic, rightly so or not. I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I think we see really the media has put fear into people and it's not just the government. Sometimes I think maybe the government is doing certain things because the media is putting pressure on them, but we see that all of the sudden people are being easier to control because we've put all this fear in them. People are staying in their houses, not going to work, you know, because of the fear. And I think it's, it's, it's absolutely true. When you put people against each other, they're much easier to control. Yeah, that's right, and if you think about the old Soviet Union and the government imposing these things, they were rooted in atheism, communism, a rejection of God. Well, our culture has rejected God, and we've talked about that on previous broadcasts, and so you can see you don't need the government anymore, because when you reject God, you reject a lot of things with God. And, um, you know, folk begin to embrace any idea that sounds good that comes down the pike. It's going to be, you know, the me too movement. Now, again, again, we, we, we think the way patents talk to one another in a sexually explicit way is wrong. Okay. But, but you understand what I'm saying that there's going to be another trend. Um, you know, in the not too distant future. So right now, people have the power to destroy, elevate themselves or so they think. But I think, you know, what goes around comes around and the kind of culture that you create to destroy others, eventually it's going to turn around and seek to destroy you. I think you're exactly right. And going a little bit further, let's move on to a second issue. I think it's leading to not only the rise of denunciation in place of reasoned discourse, but the elimination of reasoned discourse altogether. We see this in culture where there's no longer reasonable or logical conversations taking place. There's just threats or shouting or accusations and then it just leads to fighting and not actually sitting down and having a conversation. Yeah, that's exactly right. And you see this in academia, which is where this professor is coming from. And it even moves into the area of they don't want new ideas. They don't want you to do research and come to different conclusions than the conclusions which they're touting as the right conclusions today. For example, this college professor says this, the Soviet Union Um, when, when you were a student and assigned to write a paper, you knew that the thing to do was to go straight to the correct books in the library and copy the relevant articles word for word with no deviations. When I entered the university in Canada. The teacher really did want me to think for myself. It was so weird, but so liberating. Now I'm seeing young people who are just like we were in the Soviet union. They were afraid to think for themselves. They only want to know what the right answer is and repeat it. See now you're, you're, you're, you're squelching true academic research. And new ideas and new conclusions, and the young people are afraid to step out on their own. It's a grievous thing. She goes on to say, Christy, that she mentors younger folk in the academy. But the graduate student, she says, they're not capable today because of the culture. It's not a lack of intelligence, but because of the culture, they're not capable of producing scholarship. Essentially, they turn in collections of woke slogans, she says. She goes on to say it seems like all they get in the schools is dogma. They have no real knowledge of anything. They just repeat slogans. And when you ask them to explain it, they turn blank. Now that's disconcerting, isn't it? I think, yeah, that is really disconcerting. I think not only can you see students turning blank when you ask them to explain their topics, I think you can also have it lead to people who who are so indoctrinated in quote-unquote the right materials or the right resources or the right ideas that then all of a sudden they become passionate about those ideas and they are then like unable to be swayed from them and they'll become argumentative, I think. I think we see that today in our culture, we see so many people being unwilling to listen to reason because They just know for a fact that the things they've been taught are right as if there's no other option. Yeah, and I think the American education system as a whole, just like our culture, and this is what this woman's lamenting as well, people are afraid to express their opinions if they go against the hegemony. I said that wrong. But again, you can be canceled, denounced, it stifles learning, and there's this fear out there. I know even Christians, Christi, who are now afraid to say certain things in certain situations in our culture. Boy, that doesn't bode well for the gospel, and that kind of brings us to our whole purpose in talking about these things. We want to propagate the gospel that men and women, boys and girls might be saved, but at the same time, you can see how the gospel and the implications that flow from it has bearing on Everything. So here we find ourselves in a culture where denunciation is the thing, cancellation is the thing, destroying others is the thing. If you get a biblical worldview, those things are not the way that things are in our culture. And so it's not just the rampant sexual immorality, for example, that most Christians are worried about with the rejection of God in our culture. Everything changes when God is marginalized. Yeah, and going back to that fear, I mean, I see this personally in my own life and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I do become afraid of people who are really strong on their progressive views because I sometimes feel like I don't know how to talk with them because they're so impassioned about their beliefs and their ideas as if it is absolute fact and absolute truth. And so when I come in and say, well, I don't know that that's right, but then they're so passionate about it that it is right. That really does put fear into me because I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing and being viewed as dumb or something like that. I know is sad, and that's the whole reason we're talking about it, because I need to be more informed, I think, about what she's talking about, and I say she because it's a friend of mine, what they're talking about and where they're coming from and understanding I need to do the research and say okay where is she getting her facts from and why does she believe that this is fact but then I also need to go and go back to the scriptures and say well how does this compare with the scriptures and what is really true and maybe do more research on that as well so that I can not just look like an idiot in front of her, but I can actually have a conversation and say, well, let's talk about that. Let's think. And so it really does lead to fear in Christians. And I'm saying I'm one of them. Yeah, and what you're saying is true. Paul says we should walk in wisdom toward those who are outside the faith. Peter says that we should always be ready to give a reason for the hope that lies within us. The Bible says that we, on the one hand, should not answer a fool according to his folly, which means that we should not buy into their worldview to talk to them. And then he goes on to say that we should answer a fool according to his folly, meaning we should point out the folly of what he's saying. And the only way that we can do that, of course, is to be more and more, as you just said, rooted in the Scriptures. And we have to have absolute confidence in the gospel, absolute confidence in the authority of Scripture. And we need to figure out how to derail people in a loving way. A lot of times I'll just ask a question, well, where do you get that? Why do you believe that? And then we're off to the races, as it were. And then, of course, you have to distinguish between two different kinds of people. There are those who you're talking about folk who are really passionate about what they believe. Maybe they'll never let you get a word in edgewise. They don't want to hear what you've got to say. They don't want to engage in real dialogue or discourse. Well, sadly, the Bible calls them fools, and sometimes you have to shake the dust from your feet. On the other hand, those that have legitimate questions, those that really do want to engage in dialogue, even if they're entrenched in what they believe, even if they're passionate, at least they'll listen. Those are the kinds of folk that you'll talk to over and over and over again, praying for both kinds of folk, praying for both peoples. I'm not saying just give people one chance and they don't like what you have to say, you walk off, but I'm just saying you have to have a little bit of discernment there. You can beat your head against the wall sometimes, but the love and the compassion that God puts in our hearts demands that we care for others, of course, and they're good in God's glory. That's right. And it demands that we know what we're talking about, but also it, it demands that we don't. become prey to this type of thinking ourselves where, I mean, you can see it in Christian circles as well, where if you think something while you're anathematized, you think something different than what the popular opinion is or whatever, and we need to stay away from that and we need to promote truth and reason and kindness and understanding and getting to the facts. That's right. Yeah, we don't want the future of America to be like the Soviet Union, the former Soviet Union, as Paul Craig Roberts says. And we don't want the future of the church to be like the former Soviet Union either. And so we've got to do our part to love one another, be kind to one another, bear with one another. And that means in church and in culture, all the while speaking the truth in love and praying mightily. The reality is if we keep going like our culture, essentially the Bible says you live by the sword and die by the sword. We don't want to do that. We want to exalt Christ because it's the gospel that overcomes. Well, you're right, and that's why we harp on it twice a week here on our podcast. Really quick before we sign off, I did want to mention here at the end that we do have an Instagram page. You can find us on Instagram at true underscore worldview. And we have a brand new series from you, Paul, And we have a series called True World View today, which are daily videos that are going to be going out on the weekday. So check it out. Follow us on Instagram. We also have a Twitter. It's also True underscore World View. And you can find us on Facebook at True World View as well. So look us up, find it. And I hope you are blessed by those videos. And we're excited to be here on the podcast and also now on Instagram. So with that said, Join us next time on True World View. You've been listening to True World View, an analysis of news, culture, and theological trends from a biblical perspective. To access archived broadcasts, go to trueworldview.net, where you'll find other helpful resources as well. Thanks for listening, and join us next time on True World View.