S8 E1 Willy Woke and the Chocolate Factory
S8 Willy Woke and the Chocolate Factory
E1 A Room Full of Fog
Logic and reason are being ushered out of the room. What’s left is a growing fog of how beliefs and values are expressed and especially the language that is used. Once upon a time logic and reason cleared any foggy notion that came up in conversation, but we are now seemingly left to the unquestionable imbeciles that lack rational thought. These self-regulating halfwits emerge in the room replacing logic and reason like a tribe of Oompa Loompa’s from Willy Woke’s Chocolate Factory.[1] And they don’t just emerge, they come with woeful virtue signaling.
Like peacocks showing their feathers, virtue signaling is nothing more than displaying high moral character and correctness. However, such signaling goes sideways when the very virtues being displayed completely contradict the person signaling. It looks like someone taking the moral high ground supporting vegans while at the same time tucking into a juicy steak whilst wearing leather pants. In short, virtue signaling lacks credibility.
The woke Loompa’s are not limited to pontificating celebrities. The imbecilic brood seem to have crossed over into the world of teachers and professors, church and community leaders, corporations, and entrepreneurship. You see, once signaling is displayed people will hold these half-wits to their own manifest virtues.
Why does woke often end in violence by those who decry violence? Why does the inclusiveness of woke create enemies instead of friends? Why is the blaming woke brigade never to blame for anything? Why is the alleged purpose of wokeness to protect our children when the natural outcome of woke is the corruption of the young innocent minds?
The echo chambers of social media are the common platforms where the unelected and unappointed imbecile Loompa’s rule. Consequently, people on social media are exposed to a one-dimensional thought process regressing civil dialogue back to the days of medieval tribes.
Let’s be clear on that. Though we love the word ‘community’ and all that it socially implies, we are becoming far removed from the ideal of a community or communities. We are moving towards a society of tribes who rarely meet (if at all) with other tribes. So, tribal warfare is fought on Twitter where pontification about inclusion, diversity, freedom, equality, gender, and tolerance are yawningly spewed out to fit the singular narrative of the chocolate factory. But such dogmatizing is never sustainable.
The echo chambers can create a paradox of division that build impregnable walls around the Chocolate Factory while flying their particular flag from the highest point. Across the front gate are the words quia iudicium meum iustum est quia est iustus, non est sententia, quod comites (Latin for “I don’t just know my opinion is right, it is the only opinion that counts). And each factory has its own king or queen, or non-binary monarch to virtue signal the woke Oompa Loompa’s.
John Locke (1632-1704), the English philosopher is known to have developed the concept of identity long before it became fashionable to self-identify. We would call him an empiricist because he dealt with actual experiences. In short, Locke believed that when human beings are born our minds are like a blank sheet of paper and only develop knowledge through experiences, and most importantly, how those experiences are perceived in order to provide meaning. However, when meaning collapses reality is no longer the center of gravity. Unsubstantiated opinion takes its place.
Locke brilliantly said, “Whatever I write as soon as I discover it not to be true my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire.”[2] Surely this is the foundation for education: we learn and we develop, right? Instead, we have something like this, “Whatever I perceive to be true, even when contradicted by the evidence of valid and reliable scientific sources my hand shall be the first to defend it from being rejected.” It is the absolute antithesis of what Locke believed.
Nothing is exempt from being proven wrong, including statements of faith from the church. We cannot have it both ways in Christianity. If we call out the woke Loompa’s for their flimsy values, we in turn, are subject to be called out for our sometimes-flimsy faith. I will table this thought for my next blog, but it is enough to say that a whole bag of marbles has recently emerged within significant church movements and enterprises as we enter a post-pandemic season.
Frankly, I’m tired of the shrieking woke Oompa Loompa’s telling me (indirectly from their echo chambers) what to think, say, write, eat, drink, and even laugh at. But here is one of the greatest ironies about the shrieking. In the US only 20% of the adult population use Twitter; of that 20%, about 10% post 80% of the content; of that 10% it can be assumed that at least 50% fit the category of screaming, shrieking, hissy fitting woke Loompa’s.[3] So, this joyless and very small group of people shriek the loudest to the point where they sound like the majority. Hysteria will always win when logic and reason are ushered out the room.
I had to laugh out loud when I read a comment by Stephen Fry, “If someone is behaving like an [explanative], it isn’t canceled out by you behaving like an [explanative]. Be better. Not better than they are. But better than you are. The shouting, the kicking, the name calling, spitting hatred, the dogmatic distrust, all have to stop.” Yes, I agree it must stop!
Now, I acknowledge that depression and anxiety are at an all-time high and it is further heightened as we come out of a global pandemic. But I’d like to offer a long view of human history, then present another question.
Nick Kristof of the New York Times believes this is the best time to be alive with record low levels of child deaths compared to 1950 where 27% of children died before they reached 15 (now it’s just 4%). Adult literacy is the highest it’s ever been at 90% of all adults. In recent years 350,000 people in the world got access to electricity for the first time, 200,000 more got access to fresh running water for the first time, and 650,000 went online for the first time.
When Kristof was born in 1959 most of the world was illiterate and lived in extreme poverty. He predicts that by the time he dies, illiteracy and extreme poverty may be a very small percentage. People are living longer, more diseases are treatable, and in some cases eradicated. Life expectancy in the world’s population is now 71, and in developed countries 80. Since human history was first recorded, life expectancy on average was just 30. Remember, I’m looking at the long view of human history.
Psychologist Steven Pinker notes there are fewer wars, and less people die from violent crimes today. In prehistoric times, for every 100,000 people, at least 500 were killed by other people. Today it is 6-8 people per 100,000. There are fewer accidental deaths by fire and floods thanks to early warning systems. Extreme poverty is now under 10% of the world’s population. About 200 years ago it was 90%. We are now better educated with IQ’s higher than our grandparents (but without the common sense of our grandparents). In 1850, only 7% of the world’s societies practiced democracy whereas today its 70% with varying degrees of freedoms.
In 1920, the population of the US spend 11.5 hours a week doing laundry. Today it is 90 minutes due to affordable appliances. And the amount of food that is now available to us is staggering. I could go on, but it would appear a contradiction to my point and boring. I’m not trying to paint a more sophisticated view of the world; I’m simply highlighting a long-term view of the world and its progression.
And yet, the imbecile Oompa Loompa’s from the Chocolate Factory have caused the media, entertainment industry, education, politics, religion, and sports to adapt to their ludicrous virtue signaling or else be canceled from the echo chambers of Twitter. In short, it seems that woke Loompa’s have time-travelled from oppressed points in history and gathered today without realizing we actually live in a world of progressive opportunity. Obviously, they have not time travelled.
2021 is a good year to be alive in the world. Furthermore, it is a time of opportunity coming out of a global pandemic, and there is great opportunity for the church. After briefly viewing this long-term history of human beings here’s my question: in what way can the Christian faith welcome back into the foggy room of Willy Woke the rational ways of logic and reason?
First, we must understand that Christianity reconstitutes the whole person instead of simply identifying as a Christian, like checking the box on an application form. This reconstitution is supported with biblical teaching responsive to the lived experiences of people. In short, our response to the Chocolate Factory must deal with the destruction done to our God-given identities because of sin. We are not Oompa Loompa’s working in the Factory of Willy Woke. So, what does Scripture say about the identity of a man, woman, boy, girl, male, female, husband, wife, son, daughter, grandparent, grandchild and so on. Throughout a human lifespan to become so many things to ourselves and to others. This is genuine community that needs logic and reason to sustain inherent truth.
Second, when logic and reason leave the room, it inevitably destabilizes inherent truth. This is not necessarily a direct result of sin, but of the fogginess that remains. Or, as Scripture tells us, “…everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21:25). Without inherent truth social and familial virtue is compromised because it has lost the foundation if reason and logic: love God, love your neighbor, work hard, respect others, be accountable, punctual, reliable, and dependable. None of these virtues needed signaling. They simply need to be built on towards developing something our grandparents told us about: a good reputation.
Third, and this may sound oversimplified, but logic and reason need to come back in the room. Without them, Christianity can flounder in addressing how people can be their ethnic and cultural self in a way that’s consistent with the Bible living fruitfully even in contexts that may not affirm biblical truth. If our context is challenging, Christianity calls us to be better, not better than others, but better than we are. We can do this with great success because we are not orphaned. God has given the Holy Spirit help us.[4]
Finally, perhaps the one driving issue to address about logic and reason coming back into the room as we emerge out of a global pandemic is the paradigm of “get saved” (Christianity’s homogenous equivalent of Willy Woke’s Chocolate Factory) with the enduring commission that has always been there: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Making disciples is a process not an event. I would even add that it is not a program, course, or even a class. It is the messy stuff of living out the Christian life with others who may have a different ethnic and cultural context. Logic and reason is not opposed to faith, it validates the awkward proposition of the Great Commission to “…go and make disciples” without being part of the Willy Woke Chocolate Factory.
[1] If you identify as an Oompa Loompa, I do not wish to offend you, but the name ‘Oompa Loompa’ is silly enough to describe wokeness.
[2] John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1789)
[3] Pierce Morgan Wake Up (2020)
[4] John 14:18-14.