The American Holy Wars

A few months after I wrote about how 1992 was year one of the Culture Wars —between the time I wrote Make America Magical Again and Revenge of the Normies — I realized that the ‘50s and ‘60s were not the start of the Culture Wars, as many say, but something much larger that still goes on to this day: the American Holy Wars.

What were the sides? For a long time, it was traditional Christianity against everyone else. Needless to say, since at least the 19th century, if not the 18th, the Church has been the enemy of many philosophical and artistic movements. Even Herman Melville considered Moby Dick his “wicked” book. But until 1950s America, these opinions were typically found among the elite and the bohemians. This is not to say the beatniks of the ‘50s, who were the first Jacobins to fire their flaming arrows, were not themselves Ivy League bohemians. What made them different is there was a possibility of a teenager living in the suburbs receiving their message of alienation from Eisenhower’s suburban post-WWII suburban paradise and heeding the prophetic call.

We can debate on the most important or most influential Beat till Substack goes the way of MySpace, but it was Allen Ginsberg who got the Beat Generation widespread notoriety with his obscenity charge for reading “Howl” in San Francisco. Unlike the Dadaists, the Surrealists, or figures like Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky that preceded Ginsberg and the Beats, these rebels suggested alternative spiritual paths, which of course caused more of an outrage. An atheist is like someone going voluntarily celibate and giving up on love. Someone going into Buddhism or pantheism, that’s like dumping the church for a yoga instructor who fills out their pants better.

As American spirituality began to shift, so did American values. A core value of the beatnik era — one that was even more revered among the bebob legends they worshiped — was cool. The word has devolved thanks to corporations exhausting its meaning and devaluing it into a generic synonym for “hip,” “stylish” or “trendy,” but in the ‘50s, “cool” was an ethos. Perhaps its better understood by looking at the expression “play it cool.” In this context, “cool,” means unflappable, nonchalant, not being uptight. It was a Zen-like principle that never announced its Zen-ness, which of course made it more Zen. “Cool” was best articulated by Norman Mailer’s 1959 essay “The White Negro,” where he contrasted the emerging values of the hipster, who valued individuality, authenticity and spontaneity as opposed to conformist suburban Christianity.

The backdrop for all this was twofold: alienation was widespread after WWII, with the anxieties of the Cold War and the atomic bomb as well as the rise of existentialist philosophy that helped give voice and shape this alienation. Typically, such alienation was resolved in Church, but the decline of moral instruction in school after WWII helped create a vacuum that cool beatniks and jazzbos easily filled.

The hippies of the sixties inherited their love of Eastern philosophy from the beatniks, with Ginsberg and Neal Cassady remaining relevant in the Age of Aquarius. By then, the Vietnam War added fuel to the fire that the Civil Rights started against the American mainstream political and cultural establishment. The hypocrisy of suburban Christians supporting segregation and war pushed many youths to drop out, as Timothy Leary suggested. Leary and Ken Kesey helped expand the spiritual agenda of the bebop and bongos crowd by infusing scientific curiosity in general and LSD in particular. This blend of spirit and science was the primordial ooze that Silicon Valley bubbled out of, with prominent Boomer iconoclasts like Terrence McKenna inspired not only by Leary, but by prominent Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan.

From a previous post of mine:

What made the Sixties different was this was the first time in Christian history that alternatives were being openly proposed. Magic and the occult were competitive with Abrahamic religion for the first time.

As Christopher Lasch said, the hippies helped usher in the age of narcissism by making their deeply held beliefs hip. As the movement gained momentum, “cool” devolved into its own type of conformity. Now you joined an ashram or a cult because it was chic. This was what Chogyam Trungpa called “spiritual materialism.”

By the Seventies the Holy Wars had intensified beyond recognition. Long after the last helicopter landed from Vietnam, Americans dove headfirst into astrology, crystals, astral projection, etc. The increasing popularity of new age alternatives helped ignite the conservative Christian Right revolution of the ‘70s.

In the early ‘80s, Christianity has its most outspoken opposition yet, with metal bands like Motley Crue and Slayer flirting with Satanic themes. The Satanic Panic helped put a damper on magic, the occult and also alternative paths of spirituality. While Ronald Reagan was popular both with Americans in general and with the Christian Right in particular in the ‘80s, the Christian Right was not as fortunate. Two major scandals — Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart — hurt any potential mainstreaming of the evangelical movement. Americans at this time seemed more enamored with ruthless titans of industry like Lee Iacocca and Donald Trump (don’t worry, we’ll get to him later).

As the Cold War ended in the ‘90s, liberal individualism became more popular and the Christian Right had an even smaller audience. With the alternative ethos spreading around the world, being weird and different was an asset. Once again Christianity scanned as conformist and stifling.

For the 20th Century Christianity was the primary target. After 9/11, the New Atheists targeted Islam, or as it was called in the ‘00s, Islamofascism. 9/11 was consistently trotted out as an example of religion run amok. ¹ At the same time, gay marriage gained popularity. More than ever, the Christian right’s opposition to this not only alienated them from the mainstream, but helped make liberal values normal (see here, here and here for more about liberal normality). It is worth noting that at this time, gay culture was less about transgression and more about mainstream acceptance.

As the Christian Right Boomers lost ground, especially during the failed neocon project that was the Iraq War, conservatism in the early ‘00s had a cultural realignment itself. There was the rise of the South Park conservative, who loved the cartoon they were named after, natch, along with Vice magazine and the “Opie and Anthony” radio show. It was less about defending God and country and more about making do-gooder liberals mad. Conservatism's “roguish villain” arc began.

Another God arose at this time though: The Other. As Stefan Kelly says, our current social media-era ensures that people never become individuals because they whither in The Other’s gaze. Though social media was not as prominent in the ‘00s, conservatives and liberals became gradually obsessed with being funny and being accepted, respectively, in the eyes of The Other.

The Obama Era of course was when America and the rest of the world fully entered our current era of Other-based moral instruction. The Twitter hivemind dictated all moral precepts and made the most damning moral judgments imaginable. In this world, the Church did not stand a chance against the liberal norm of gay acceptance. The devastation of The Iraq War bought Muslims shelter in the Woke Umbrella, bringing them side by side with Jews who were under that umbrella since it opened. Pope Francis, trying to bring the Catholic Church up to speed with the Council of the Other, had a softer message for the LGBT community, causing much furor among a growing number of Catholics.

In the Woke Era, New Atheists were left to rot due to their perceived Islamophobia. Without a leftist base to support them, many of them, like Richard Dawkins, became cultural Christians, leaving behind faith in a living God but keeping the cultural values that they believed helped Western Civilization prosper.

This is currently where Christianity sits; less as a foundation to the Republican party, more as a customary ornament. The MAGA Republicans, along with some Silicon Valley figures like Elon Musk, have a similar relationship to Christianity that Daniel Plainview had with the preacher Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood, where he yelled “I drink your milkshake,” boasting how much power he had over him and his congregation. The tables have turned. In the ‘80s, Reagan and the Republicans were indebted to the Christian Right. Now it is the Christians — Evangelical, Catholic — who sheepishly supplicate themselves to Trump and Musk’s gaudy capitalist power. Even the Trad Cath craze is more about irony and aesthetics. Whatever can be said about Zen beatniks or hippies, they didn’t do it as a goof.

Christianity isn’t the only religion licking its wounds in the American Holy Wars. Judaism, long considered to be immune from any criticism, lest any critics be accused of anti-Semitism, has had its toughest challenges yet during the Israel-Gaza War. Long reliant on a mainstream media that successfully deflected any criticisms, even Judaism, after the horrors of Gaza were more readily apparent on TikTok and other networks, has been vulnerable to scrutiny. The dirty secret about the war that even social media does not talk enough about is that it’s all about who has the Temple Mount. Hamas would gladly starve in the desert if it meant Muslim Arabs had control of the Temple Mount. As Islam comes under greater scrutiny from the right and Judaism does from the left, it looks like now is a terrible time to be a spokesperson for an Abrahamic religion. Indeed, most of Israel’s justification leans less (publicly) on any religious claims and more on appeals towards liberal individuality. Gays would be thrown off buildings in Gaza, etc. That the liberal media and the Democratic Party echoes these sentiments reinforces what you may have guessed has been the case all along: traditional religion lost the American Holy Wars. Even the Black and Latino community, long understood to be extremely religious communities, currently seem to be more enamored by Trump and/or Musk’s ruthless ambition and hustle than any major religious figures. Whoever wins the election, it is no secret that the Christians have lost their perch.

Still, it cannot really be said that Buddhism or any of the alternative replacements offered in the ‘60s won, either. Meditation has devolved into a corporate exercise. Witchcraft has primarily been used as a device for woke agit-prop street theater. As you may have also guessed, the winner of the Holy Wars was what very well has been the true motivator of all morality from the dawn of mankind: the Church of the Other. Before the Internet, religion was necessary to act as the mouthpiece of the Other. Now, with social media, the Other has its own voice. Much like Trump directly communicates with his followers, the Other now directly smites terrible Bumble matches and heads of state alike.

While the conservatives may have the Church under their thumb, they are at the mercy of the audience. If we do currently live in the age of the Trolligarchy, where the lolz are God, then Tony Hinchcliffe’s recent failed comedy set at the MSG Trump rally shows how being a cynical troll and a jester only works when the crowd is on your side. That is the dirty secret of comedy: a comedian only look like a courageous truth teller when the crowd is on their side. And even if the crowd is off that night, the press better be on your side. Trump’s campaign immediately distanced themselves from Hinchliffe’s Puerto Rico joke, lest they lose an important demographic. If it’s not clear enough how much the new conservative movement loves an audience, look at JD Vance’s recent argument that white people have been becoming trans just to hide their white privilege and get into Harvard. See how Vance imagines people obsessing over what the liberal establishment thinks of them? It never occurs to him that such a scheme might alienate friends and relatives that knew the fake trans person all their lives: according to Vance, people live either to impress the libs or mock them. That is the only language he understands.

If conservatives are in thrall to the siren song of the Other, though, it is the liberals that make up the Other’s Vatican City. And their self-validating witch hunts do not stop at celebrities. From the indispensable Tell the Bees:

While misanthropy has always existed, the flattening of the internet allows these people to speak with authority, when normally they’d be shunned. Refusing to acknowledge the humanity of people around you, refusing to speak to your coworkers, refusing to drive your friends to the airport, keeping logs and ledgers of everything the people you claim to love owe you: none of these things are normal. They’ve become normalized because antisocial people get online and scream about how they don’t owe anyone anything, and then wonder why they don’t have friends or a community (a point I have been making since 2022!). These are not people who are fun or engaging, and I would never take this advice from anyone. Who is asking selfish, miserable people for their thoughts on how to behave in a society? Everyone, apparently.

Flannery O’Connor’s Church Without Christ has been outdone: now there is a Community Without a Community. Now there is a morality without principles.

So is that it? Will we never have a rich spiritual life, or a rewarding life of the mind, or a deep and complex inner life, because the Other’s gaze is stronger than ever? The Holy Wars aren’t over; instead of the stained glass Church, the enemy is now the touchscreen glass one. There may be hope in this new front of the war as well. As Ross Barkan said in his excellent piece on the growing separation between art and culture:

Social media itself, thanks to algorithmic shifts and the explosion of TikTok at the expense of other platforms, can no longer breed consensus in the same way nor intimidate non-conforming voices. The “cancel culture” uprisings are logistically more difficult to achieve. They seem spiritually exhausted, too.

Turns out Gaza has not only been a nail in the coffin for Abrahamic religion: it has even scrambled liberal consensus enough that the standard woke bromides come across as empty (note: please click on the note below to read the whole 2060 sketch).

Another thing: if the Silicon Valley set has not been a bunch of devout churchgoers, they seem to have lay prostrate at the altar of psychedelics like ayahuasca and ketamine. It seems like the drugs, contrary to what the ‘60s hippies believed, has pushed them more right wing than left. But when you are as beholden to the gaze of the Other as these Silicon Valley people themselves seem to be, it may be time for ego death. It’s only fair that a bunch of Daniel Plainview types have their skulls broken.

1. I would be dishonest if I did not admit that at this time I was smoking joints, watching “Real TIme with Bill Maher” and daydreaming of being a panelist on his show cracking jokes about the absurdity of religion. I do not have this daydream anymore. One of the many fruits of recovery.