For almost two centuries, we have seen various attempts to overthrow the assumptions, beliefs, premises, and conclusions of Christian ethics, sometimes called Judeo-Christian ethics.  The Christian worldview and its underlying belief system have been challenged by transcendentalism, Marxism, Darwinism, pragmatism, Freudianism, and existentialism.   

These anti-Christian schools of thought in turn have spawned subcategories of "answers" [sic] to the human dilemma — namely, what is the purpose of life and how shall I live in order to fulfill that purpose?  These subcategories advanced by that part of the political class known as Democrats include globalism (explicit and implicit rejection of Western civilization); embrace of non-binary sexuality (the nuclear family is an artificial construct); critical race theory calling for repudiation of "whiteness"; ecumenicalism in religion (i.e., we all worship the same god); and ownership of all means of production by the state (but the state is to be perceived as a global village — i.e., as an extended family, not as a people led by an elected government).

Let us now consider three of the above post-Christian philosophies and briefly view their application to the ideological program of the Mobocratic Party:

Transcendentalism — This 19th-century American philosophical movement whose leading spokesman was Harvard professor Ralph Waldo Emerson was itself sourced in three schools of thought.  First, love of nature was adapted from the English Romantic poets.  God's transcendence was dispensed with.  Instead, the divine presence was mystically incorporated into nature itself.  Nature itself was to be revered.  The transcendence of the Godhead in Christianity was eliminated.  Thus, God's immanence was retained, but His transcendence was dispensed with.

This view still finds acceptance.  This writer was in a food store in Tampa, Florida a few years ago and purchased a bottle of orange juice (the best I ever tasted).  The woman behind the register and I had a brief conversation, and she referred reverentially to "Mother Nature."  Because of my pedantic inclinations, I noted, "Of course, Mother Nature is not an actual being, but that term is a metaphor for the nurturing and gifts provided to us by nature's provision of food and water, as well as nature's beauty."  She frowned and said Mother Nature is indeed a type of being.  

Emerson also sourced his Transcendentalism in Immanuel Kant's transcendental theory of knowledge expressed in his Critique of Pure Reason.  For Kant, writing in the 18th century, there is an array of transcendental categories that describe the highest activities of our minds.      Claims outside those categories like belief in a holy God are incompatible with reason.  Kant thus dramatically severed the unity of reason with belief that had obtained since the writings of Aurelius Augustine in the late 4th and 5th centuries.

Lastly, Emerson also imported theosophy and Eastern mysticism onto the American continent.  Spirituality through meditation and connecting with the "oversoul" was a path to enlightenment that does not posit a divine Creator, prophets, or a Savior.  He embraced theosophy.  The meditation craze of the 1960s carried the Emersonian ideal forward.

Marxism — In 1859, Karl Marx published his classic Das Kapital (tr. Capitalism).  This work portrays the movement of history as a dialectic — Thesis (class) producing an Antithesis (another class), which challenges the Thesis for economic and political hegemony, and out of that challenge comes a Synthesis.  Thus, the overthrow of feudalism gave birth to society ruled by the bourgeoisie, who in turn would be challenged by the working class (proletariat), and this challenge would give rise to communism (with dictatorship of the proletariat needed in the early stages to phase in full blown communism based on the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."  However, even a casual observer has noted in the years since Marx that societies that turn toward communism never seem to get past the dictatorship phase.  This observation always comes as a surprise to the stupido class, which, while not noted by Marx, seems to exist in every stage of history.

Most importantly, religion is repudiated by Marxism as the "opiate of the people."  It is reduced to being a tool of the ruling class to maintain its self-interested control over the masses, an instrument of exploitation and self-aggrandizement.  Marxism shares a rejection of faith and Christianity with transcendentalism and rejects even the spirituality of immanence that we find in transcendentalism.  Instead, it takes hold of a pure materialism without even a trace of attraction to love, mercy, nature, or beauty as aspirational values.

Existentialism — While it is not clear cut as to who should be called an existentialist, it is generally assumed that thinkers such as Søren Kirkegaard and Martin Buber can rightly be called religious existentialists.  However, the anti-religious or atheistic existentialists have, I believe, had more far-reaching influence embracing Frederick Nietzsche and the political leftists Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.  During the latter part of the 19th century, Nietzsche announced that "God is dead."  Instead, just as humanity is part of an evolutionary process, humans are themselves evolving to a new, higher level.  The human so-called of the future will be called the übermensch or superman.  This new species will not be distinguished by wearing a red cape and a giant letter "S" on its shirt.  Rather, these supermen will express what Nietzsche calls the "transvaluation of values."  They will reverse the pathetic Christian value system.  Instead, what was considered bad will be considered good, and what was considered good will be bad.  Although many Nietzsche fans consider it wrong to attribute Nazism to Nietzsche's writings (preferring to blame Nietzsche's sister), this writer is satisfied that Nietzsche's thought contributed significantly to the Hitlerian vision.

The three philosophical schools above laid the groundwork for the oppressive distortions now supported by many modern rioters as well as legitimately elected leaders of the Mobocrats.  The onward and upward theme of Nietzsche and the Marxists, whereby the achievements of Western civilization are disparaged — including the rejection of the nation-state model — are embraced by the globalists.  Society is evolving to a better way of seeing life divorced from anything resembling biblical values or John Locke's natural rights of man. 

Nature becomes God and is glorified as in Transcendentalism via climate change advocacy.  The class struggle and race-based themes merge as an updated Marxism, and anyone considered possessing goodness to any degree — such as white people — is to be de-legitimized and marginalized.  For the terror-minded fanatics, even sex and gender are part of society's retarded caste system that must be smashed.  Spirituality is a private affair — thus, if you need to be spiritual at all, then by all means meditate alone.  Churches are part of the collective system of exploitation and false teachings.  They use religion combined with social sanctions to reinforce thinking that, according to the left, is retrograde and bourgeois.

To the rascals and criminals who are now trying to take over our socio-political system, "faith of our fathers" is so much malarkey.  "Don't you see the national and worldwide suffering?!" they shriek.  But all this writer sees is their shrill and pathetic ignorance.

E. Jeffrey Ludwig teaches philosophy in New York City and is a regular contributor to conservative online publications.  His latest book is entitled The Liberty Manifesto Vol. 1, and it's available here.