The Progress of Virtue

A progressive religion

I am the product of an interfaith marriage. My mother was Catholic my father Baptist, neither was particularly devoted to their faith. I spent most of my Sundays in mass at my local Catholic church, and for the first few years of my life I spent my weekdays at a Baptist school. The differences in behavior, in worship, in lives led between Catholics and Baptists was obvious even to a young me. Religion is more than worshiping a deity, it’s more than working off the same book, it is more than a belief in the supernatural. It’s an encompassing world view, it is a lens to filter all life through. It’s applied to scripture as it’s applied to politics, or media, or charitable acts. The lens not only arms the religious with an ethical and moral standard to judge and be judged by, but offers a metaphysical interpretation of the world. This is religion’s true purpose. To answer the questions beyond how, to answer why, to answer ought.

What we see growing from the progressive world view is greater than a mere ideology. It is a lens, it’s a framework for interpreting ethics, behavior, relationships, governance, the soul. It is in every sense of the word a religion, albeit in a nascent state.

This religion does not have a cannon, it has no official places of worship, but it does have a definitive form. It has a set of beliefs, sins and virtues, saints and demons, holy texts and mythologies. I am not a devotee of this new religion; my critiques are voluminous. This essay, and this series of essays, is meant to be descriptive. I will attempt to hold my judgments back as I lay out the structure of this new religion. First, we need a name, for lack of an official title I will be referring to it as The Progress of Virtue (PoV).

All children bear some characteristics of their parents, so too does PoV. PoV is largely a product of the western Christian world, as such it has taken some concepts from Christianity. Equity, caring for the lowest among us, compassion, centering suffering in human existence, but the similarities do not extend beyond the superficial. The interpretation and levels of importance given to these concepts is drastically altered. The fundamental concept upon which all PoV is built-- oppression is a virtue.

In the Hellenistic religion gods were much like man, capricious, prideful, they would grant boons and curses almost at random. When tragedy befalls you the source of your misfortune could be placed on these fickle gods. Judaism and Christianity offered a new, harder way to view the world. Such gods were not real, there was only one God. He has granted you free will. Our imperfections create our misfortune. Fate, destiny, these are no longer written in stone, you are the author of your life’s story. PoV rejects this Christian view. Just as an ancient Greek would blame his financial failures on a vengeful god, so too does PoV blame your suffering on The Systems. PoV does not have patron gods, ones that grant boons, only patron Systems which oppress.

The Systems are both omnipresent and ineffable. Their existence can only be divined by the effects they create. There are many Systems which control the fates of man but chief among them is White Supremacy. All Systems are an offspring of this archdemon. All of the sinful ways of The Systems can ultimately be traced back to White Supremacy. Here I would like to caution readers not to use their common understanding of words such as “White Supremacy.” Familiar words used in deeply unfamiliar ways is a hallmark of PoV, they are Shibboleths. White Supremacy as a System refers to the chief System of Oppression. Oppression is any system where The Virtuous preform worse than the Unvirtuous. Oppression is not wholly negative. It may make life more difficult, but it is viewed as a mark of honor among the PoV devotees. It is a virtue in and of itself.

Virtue as an identity
In PoV virtue can come from the circumstances of your birth. There are seven primary categories of The Virtuous Born (VB), they are described in holy texts such as The Invisible Knapsack which will be covered at a later date. The VBs are:

Black/ POC: Men and women who physically appear to be from the African Diaspora, and men and women who are not white.

Indigenous: The men and women who lived on the land at the time of contact with European explorers/ colonizers.

Queer: Men and Women who identify as any non-traditional sexuality.

Trans: Men and Women who reject their gender assigned at birth.

Disabled/ Fat: any body that has through genetic defect or accident has been altered from the norm.

Women: Women+.

Poor: A misleading name, poor includes both those with low economic value and those who consider themselves class conscious.

Those of virtuous birth are the victims of history. Each VB has a patron System working against their wellbeing. White Supremacy works against every VB, which also hints at the high importance racial hierarchy in PoV. The VBs are how we can measure the existence of The Systems. Any institution, social setting, cultural norm in which a VB is falling behind the nonVB can be labeled as oppressive. The Systems are as follows:

White Supremacy: The chief, all other Systems are derived from this one, include racism.

Colonialism: The act of spreading White Supremacy across the globe, primarily targeting Indigenous VBs

Homophobia: The System primarily targeting Queer VBs

Transphobia: The System primarily targeting Trans VBs

Ableism: The System primarily targeting disabled/ Fat VBs

Sexism: The System primarily targeting Women VBs also referred to as The Patriarchy

Capitalism: Targets all VBs but hurts the poor the most

A young black student is behaving poorly in class, he yells, he refused to sit at his desk, he often starts confrontations with his classmates. His teacher may after some time send him to detention. The teacher has sinned. You see young black students are sent to detention at far higher rates than their peers. One such study found that black students are sent to detention or suspended more than 3.5 times the rate of nonVB students. (1) The sin is called disparate impact, any action that causes a VB to have a worse outcome on average is oppression. The astute observer will note that the teacher is not the only sinner. The nonVB students have also sinned. Their behavior did not cause them to be sent to detention, which means they have lowered nonVB’s detention rate. This has strengthened The System of White Supremacy as much as the VB getting detention. Disparate impact is laid out in the holy texts of CRT. Much can be said of CRT and its implications, but that must wait until a later essay.

The teacher is not to be blamed. You see she operated within The System of White Supremacy that defines such behavior as interrupting, not doing HW, or starting fights as unacceptable. She is merely the agent being used by White Supremacy. Agency is an elusive concept within PoV.

There was a study done asking East Asians and Americans to describe a picture put before them. Researchers found that Americans tended to focus on the actor in the picture, “That fish is swimming, he is blue, he is large…” whereas East Asians would first describe the environmental context, “there are bubbles, light falls from the waves above, large choral in the background…” (2) In this respect PoV has an eastern flavor. Agency can almost always be explained away by context. This is true for sinners, like the aforementioned teacher, and for the VB. The teacher is being used by The System; the student is being oppressed by The System. The VB’s behavior is rarely at fault, even when transgressing another VB, the sin is a result of The System. The nonVBs are sinning by living a successful life. It is the difference between being “not racist” and “an anti-racist.” It’s not enough to be a nonVB not oppress VBs. The only way a nonVB can become Virtuous, is by denouncing and fighting The Systems. In this case any student not advocating for the dismantling of rules that led this young black student into detention is upholding White Supremacy.

An essential truth of PoV is that VBs actions are only viewed as negative because the system has defined the VBs as negative. At the height of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco public officials found that bath house orgies were a primary vector for transmitting HIV. Health officials recommended closure of these bath houses. The Queer community protested. “Out of the baths into the ovens” one sign read. The System of Homophobia was at work. The behavior of a VB was being criticized; the intent was irrelevant. Government officials had to find a way to curb the devastating effects of HIV in the gay community without altering the VBs behavior. Anything short is Homophobia, a sin. More than 20,000 gay men in San Francisco would die from AIDS, Homophobia brings a heavy toll.

The Soul

I have heard many people I respect call this new set of beliefs as materialism. I cannot stress the enough: it is not. In fact, the PoV are steadfast believers in gnostic dualism. The mind and body wholly separate distinct entities. They believe in a place where the soul resides prior to birth (not conception). These souls get assigned at random to a body as its born. This process is often in error, that’s to say the soul is assigned to the wrong type of body. This is the foundation of the VB Trans.

Oppression of the will evolved from thinkers like Descartes and Locke. Tabula rasa, man is a blank slate which society writes upon. This concept has divorced man from his biology, his genes, his heredity, even his body no longer a factor for who he is as a person. The author of the slate has become his environment, and the author in our society is The Systems. These Systems hold the will back from actualizing. They determine its role in society, they define how relationships should operate, they oppress the VBs soul at every level. Any attempt to explain this oppression through scientific or material causes such as biology or genetics (often PoV uses eugenics interchangeably here) is a heresy. Doubting The Systems existence is the gravest sin.

Virtue as Performance

The VBs may be immutable, or very close to it, but that’s not the only way to gain and maintain Virtue. A great number of rituals and performances may bring Virtue. There is the role of Educator, both in schools and online a clergy role to educate the masses about The Systems. There is The Demonstrator, one who attends rallies/ riots, one who signs the petitions, one who sends letters to his superiors demanding The Systems be stopped. There is The Listener one who reads the holy texts, who uses their platforms for the voice of the VBs. These roles are called Praxis, acting out in defiance of The Systems for the benefit of the VBs. NonVBs engaging in Praxis are called Allies, a temporary title to wash the responsibility of The Systems from their hands. This status of Ally does not last long, nor does it fully shield a nonVB from true VB’s fury.

Hierarchy

There are some practitioners of PoV who say they are against hierarchy. That hierarchy is a tool used by White Supremacy to oppress. While true oppression requires hierarchy, PoV has its own set of hierarchies. The most fundamental is defined in The Invisible Knapsack. One may belong to multiple VBs at once. You could be a black trans lesbian who is obese and poor. Each membership in a VB offers a unique brand of oppression that plays off each other and multiplies. Plainly put, the more VBs which one can claim membership to, the more oppression one has, the more oppression one has the more Virtuous that person is. The more Virtuous one is the more correct their behavior is across more domains is. Someone belonging to all of those VBs could do no wrong, aside from denying the existence of The Systems.

PoV Mythology

PoV has a rich mythology. A series of events from history interpreted through the lens of PoV. These stories are many, and I will simply survey them here. Each VB has its own series of myths. The poor tells of class consciousness and of times before the dreaded capitalism. The Disabled tell of cultures who have beauty standards that are wildly different from The White Supremacist west. The Blacks/ POCs tell of the foundation of America their ancestors built, and the evil of police in modern America. The Trans and Queer tell of historical figures and figures from media who were oppressed into rejecting their authentic trans self. Women tell tales of when they were treated like cattle unable to live beyond the servitude of men. The Indigenous tell tales of their peaceful existence before The Systems, and of the poison The Systems brought to the world. These stories all have heroes who are mostly martyrs crushed by The Systems. They are deified in pop art, in prayer candles, in public works. Much is to be said about these myths, but that too shall be for another essay.

Symbols and Icons

Like any religion, PoV has a large selection of iconography. Pronouns and hashtags, flags and lawn signs, prayer candles and statues of saints. The rainbow, the single fist, cartoons and memes, this aspect of PoV is rich and deeply important to The Virtuous. At every level they demand their icons be on display, from the White house ordering pride flags flown at every embassy to grade schools hanging posters of outstretched fists. The Virtuous demand their religion is represented.

Once you begin to understand how PoV views the world a great number of seeming contradictions resolve. How can a black man be a White Supremacist? How can you be born into the wrong body? Why does genetics explain agriculture but not humans?  How can it be wrong to demand promptness, or punish violence? What does White Supremacy have to do with capitalism or views of gender? This is just the first volume. Every topic here demands a greater level of detail. For now, may this act as a guide to better understanding the odd behavior of The Virtuous Born.

Sources
1.      Fadus MC, Valadez EA, Bryant BE, Garcia AM, Neelon B, Tomko RL, Squeglia LM. Racial Disparities in Elementary School Disciplinary Actions: Findings From the ABCD Study. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2021 Aug;60(8):998-1009. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2020.11.017. Epub 2020 Dec 24. PMID: 33359407; PMCID: PMC8860403.                           

2.      Masuda, Takahiko & Gonzalez, Richard & Kwan, Letty & Nisbett, Richard. (2008). Culture and Aesthetic Preference: Comparing the Attention to Context of East Asians and Americans. Personality & social psychology bulletin. 34. 1260-75. 10.1177/0146167208320555.