WOF 411: America’s Cultural Revolution w/ Chris Rufo
Nov 6, 2023
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Chris Rufo, writer, filmmaker, and activist, joins Bishop Barron to discuss America's Cultural Revolution. They explore woke ideology's Marxist roots, the rise of atheism, rejection of mathematics within wokeism, and the loss of objective values. They emphasize the need for a coherent moral framework rooted in eternal law.
Woke ideology masks an anti-Christian agenda that seeks to erase traditional norms and manipulate human nature.
Gender theory rejects human nature, aiming to erase natural limits and replace them with radical notions of gender fluidity.
The success of radical movements in capturing academia and cultural institutions was facilitated by a deliberate strategy of infiltrating bureaucracies and spreading their ideas through various channels.
Deep dives
The Confusion with Woke Ideology
Woke ideology operates at two levels, with euphemistic marketing words like diversity, equity, and inclusion, masking an ideology that goes against the Christian tradition and seeks to erase traditional norms and manipulate human nature. The origins can be traced to Marxism, postmodernism, and gender theory.
The Neo-Nostic Element in Gender Theory
Gender theory rejects the concept of human nature and seeks to transcend it through radical notions of gender fluidity and unlimited human manipulation of biology. This ideology considers human essence as accidental and aims to erase natural limits. It is an anti-human movement leading to nihilism and disregarding the objective truth of human nature.
The Long-Term Conquest of Institutions
The radical movements of the late 60s and early 70s, which failed politically, found their way into academia and gradually infiltrated cultural institutions over several decades. The success of these movements in capturing academia and cultural spheres stems from a deliberate strategy of working through bureaucracies, modifying their ideas, and spreading them through various channels. Conservatives' lack of vigilance and the mistaken belief that communism was defeated contributed to the infiltration of these ideologies.
The Loss of Faith: The Importance of Offering Alternatives to Nihilism
This podcast episode discusses the importance of providing alternatives to nihilism and the loss of faith. The speaker emphasizes that it is incumbent upon people of any faith, including Catholics, to pursue and express their faith in uncompromising terms. They argue that faith is the ultimate answer to nihilism and that it is necessary to offer a vision that can counteract the lack of meaning and purpose people experience. Moreover, the episode highlights the danger of reducing religion to mere social justice, which makes it vulnerable to ideologies like wokeism, which explicitly reject religious traditions.
The Decline of Religious Leaders in Social Movements
This episode explores the decline of religious leaders in social movements, specifically in relation to the civil rights movement and the protests and riots of 2020. The speaker notes that the civil rights movement was led by religious people who were inspired by democratic and biblical principles. However, in contrast, the protests and riots of 2020 were explicitly anti-religious. The lack of religious interest in wokeism and the lack of woke interest in religion are discussed, highlighting the ideological and philosophical differences between these movements. The episode also touches upon the explicitly atheist nature of wokeism and its rejection of religious traditions and founding principles.
Today, we’re excited to share with you the newest episode in our “Bishop Barron Presents” series. In this discussion, Bishop Barron talks with writer, filmmaker, and activist Chris Rufo.
Chris is the author of a new book titled America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. He has directed four documentaries for PBS and is a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of the public policy magazine City Journal. His reporting and activism have inspired a presidential order, a national grassroots movement, and legislation in twenty-two states.
Sit back and take in this latest conversation in our series “Bishop Barron Presents”. Enjoy!
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