Doze, the Opposite of Woke
- Christmas 2023 message-
Historians suggest that the United States periodically passes through religious “awakenings”. Religious revivalism swept through the colonies in the 1730s, the first ‘great awakening.’ It may have prepared colonialists for the American Revolution, strengthening the appeal of liberty. The second awakening ran from 1800–1835. Huge crowds showed up to hear revivalist preachers, from upstate New York, through the Alleghenies, and into the Ohio River Valley. Church attendance doubled. The third awakening was around the turn of the 20th century, with the rise of mainstream Protestant denominations that shifted attention towards social failures, rather than personal failure. The fourth awakening emerged in the 1960s, with the rapid spread of ‘enthusiastic’ religious experience, ‘born-again’, charismatic, fundamentalist.
This formalism shoe-horns history too neatly into categories. The second awakening was concerned with making people, and the country, fit for the second coming. It contributed to the abolitionist movement, eventually forming the Republican party in opposition to southern ‘corruption.’ The third was a social movement, as much political as religious, to reform big business and make labor conditions decent. The fourth was, in part, a reaction against both civil rights and government-led reforms.
What they have in common, perhaps, is that leaders, whether itinerant or formal, led groups to generate community. People met, they listened, they shouted and cheered, and in the company of others also listening, shouting, and cheering they felt revitalized.
The Trump phenomena has some of this. People who were isolated, alone, suddenly found groups of like-minded fellow travelers. They meet local strangers in restaurants and share their common beliefs, the conspiracies about elections and evil elites, instant conversation. It’s titillating to be ‘in the know,’ empowering to feel one has inside knowledge. While any cult may have these attributes, this cult is multi-level. One can go from a small town, to regional hub, to state capital, and find larger and larger networks of Trump cultists.
Media outlets are devoted to serving Trump cultists new material, and reinforcing old beliefs. No American religion has this kind of media reach.
But the Trump cult is not an awakening, which were, at least in part, individuals admitting they sinned, recognizing the faults of their communities, and pledging to better themselves and their communities. Even the fourth, in its assertion of conservative morality, was a response to perceived moral failures of individuals who joined.
Trump cultists believe themselves to be superior. They may admit they were unplugged from the “true” knowledge in the past. But their decision to follow and serve Trumpism did not flow from moral failures. They are not pedophiles, it’s those other people who are. Their flaw was social failure. They had not formed convivial networks.
It’s not a coincidence that Trump cultists seized on the term “woke” to attack opponents. These are not people engaged in an awakening, but its reverse. They are sleepening.
The know-nothing party emerged in the 1850s opposed to immigration; they were called know-nothing because they refused to divulge details of their organization. I think some Americans assumed the name know-nothing also spoke to a willed ignorance. Sometimes people label themselves or others for reasons they don’t grasp fully. When Trumpists deride wokism, they are also admitting they prefer dormancy.
“Sleepism” is their goal. They are nodding, as in nodding off, or dozing, as in dozing off, or drowsing, drifting, napping.
Doze is the opposite of woke. Dozism runs rampant. If Democrats are the party of woke, Republicans are the party of doze.
