Truth Versus Imagination
What Would Maimonides Say?
Despite an obvious wish by many to be making progress by breaking new ground, the biblical adage that there is “nothing new under the sun” remains true. One of the identifying aspects of “woke” culture is that it has a loose relationship with truth. The usual conservative reaction to this is to accuse those espousing “woke” ideas either of lying or hypocrisy. It is easy to see how one might draw that conclusion. But another possibility was espoused by the medieval Jewish sage and philosopher, Moses ben Maimon, commonly referred to as Maimonides, and one recently revisited by the Israeli scholar Jose Faur in his text Homo Mysticus.
In his Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nevuchim) Maimonides examines the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden and notes- unlike what modern psychiatry suggests- that man’s original mindset was one of pure reason. In this state, primordial man was able to perceive the world directly, as it truly is. But after partaking of the fruit that imparts knowledge of Good and Bad- note that the biblical Hebrew does not refer to it as the tree of knowledge- man’s reason was tainted by imagination. Distinguishing good from bad is an imaginal and emotion laden evaluation. Indeed, evaluating what is moral, as the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume recognized, is never an exercise of pure reason. Rather, judging what is moral is based on one’s desires or requires an external mandated set of guidelines, ones that traditionally were either biblically, or more recently, culturally mandated as post-modern “wokeness.”
It is not a coincidence that “woke” emerged together with feminist thought. Nor is it a coincidence that it was Eve who first partook of the fruit of the tree. A feminist reading of Genesis is generally interpreted as patriarchal denigration of the feminine. But that is to miss the greater argument. Although today it is considered misogynistic to say, women-as-a-group are psychobiologically more rooted in the sensate-imaginal world than men. “Biology is destiny” is still true for many if not all women. Indeed, Kamala Harris is a good example of a woman whose imagination far outweighs her reason, as evidenced by her inability to form coherent sentences.
This sex-based disparity has been a source of conflict between the sexes since the Garden. Today, many of the adherents of “woke” ideas are women, who are strongly opposed to what they view as the overbearing reason of men. Unfortunately, too many men, for reasons to complex to discuss here, have been convinced that women are correct. But this is where diversity becomes inconvenient for the “woke” feminist, and the topic of sexually determined differences can no longer be discussed without fear of recrimination. If there is any doubt, one might ask Lawrence Summers, who was deposed from his position as the Dean of Harvard University for daring to make this suggestion.
Maimonides argues convincingly that it is impossible to assess reality properly, which is isomorphic with his notion of truth, when sensory experience is first filtered through the imagination rather than made directly available to reason. Imagination distorts truth, which is exactly what we are witnessing today in “woke” culture. As a consequence, the facts of reality, which are necessary to properly assess the world around us, are not available to those who rely almost exclusively on their imagination to guide their decisions. In the imagination, anything is possible: elephants can fly, unicorns exist, and one can be any gender one chooses. A strong biological man can beat a weak women in an Olympic boxing match without eliciting outrage, because the possibility that a man can be a woman exists in the imagination.
We are witnessing a clever and insidious transformation of culture in the West. Many Americans have been indoctrinated to believe that their subjective imaginings are the final arbiter of truth, despite having little relationship to reality. In the not-so-distant past, reality testing was the final arbiter of mental health, and those whose imagination were uncoupled from truth and reality were judged psychotic. For those who adhere to this notion, “woke” qualifies as madness. But it is important to keep in focus the fact that these individuals are playing by a different set of rules with different notions of what is good versus bad.
“Woke” ideology did not spring up out of nowhere. It is a modification of Marxist thought that focuses on race and social disadvantage rather than economic disparity. But as the English philosopher Bertrand Russell argued, Marx’s ideas are simply a re-working of the Judeo-Christian ethic. “Woke” activists are quick to refer to Judeo-Christian notions of charity and kindness and to argue for a utopian world in which disparities do not exist. But this is not an accurate reflection of the Judeo-Christian traditions. Rather it takes them out of context and then accuses those who do not agree of being “bad” people. The result has been that those who hold conservative viewpoints are left questioning whether they are in fact less than charitable. But this reflects a general trend in society of questioning whether it is appropriate to hold strong opinions, which in the past were evidence of one’s faith.
Unless there is a major shift in the current societal polarization, the rift between “woke”and conservative ideas will remain unbridgeable. Ultimately, these ideologies cannot peacefully co-exist. However, should “woke” triumph, its departure from reality will spell its ultimate demise, but the damage done by it may well be irreparable.