I’ve spent twenty years studying pride and humility, and I’ve reached an unfashionable conclusion: the great theologians of past ages were right all along. All sin and failure is rooted in pride, and pride usually goes undiagnosed.
The cultural phenomenon we call “wokeness” is a textbook case. It demonstrates three classic manifestations of pride: moral absolutism (my opponents aren’t just wrong, they’re evil), moral grandstanding (public virtue signaling to elevate status), and libido dominandi (the will to power disguised as compassion). But here’s the uncomfortable truth: these same patterns appear in the church whenever we’re more certain of our rightness than our fallibility.
This essay isn’t about “them.”
Whatever "woke" means today, the mindset behind it reveals something ancient: pride-driven moral certainty. In Superbia: The Perils of Pride. The Power of Humility, I argue that pride lies at the root of most human conflict and dysfunction. Wokeness isn't a mental illness or even primarily an intellectual error—it's a moral issue. Common elements of a prideful mindset include moral absolutism, moral grandstanding, and a compulsion to control others. Let's consider each in turn.
Many people, including many conservatives, assume that in broader society, moral relativism is the dominant mindset. That train left the station years ago. While relativism enjoyed some popularity in the latter 20th century, it is inherently unstable. Prideful people derive too much satisfaction from making rules and imposing them upon on people.
“Legalism is like gravity. Its pull is constant, pervasive, and nearly irresistible.”
Superbia, p. 29
Some of the prime influencers in western progressive culture are university faculty and students, particularly in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. No wonder, then, that a 2021 study in American Sociological Review found that increasing levels of university education, especially in the arts, humanities, or social sciences, leads to a higher degree of moral absolutism. The authors keenly noted:
“Our results indicate that higher education liberalizes moral concerns for most students, but it also departs from the standard liberal profile by promoting moral absolutism rather than relativism.”
One of the first expressions of pride – rooted in the Garden of Eden – is the will to usurp the role of God by defining right and wrong on our own terms. From that perspective, legalism and license are just two sides of the same old coin. The ostensible moral principles of progressivism, such as justice or fairness, are deeply rooted in the Christian worldview. But in practice, they are redefined in terms that are neither just nor fair.
Moral grandstanding, also known as “virtue signaling,” refers to a well-documented tendency to advertise our moral superiority through public display. It comes in many forms, from ostentatious moral pronouncements to more aggressive and toxic behaviors like attacking and tearing down others.
Woke theatrics run the gamut from canceling or shouting down campus speakers, to Twitter storms, to the mind-numbing banality of corporate DEI training. It’s easy to form the impression that the activist is more concerned with being noticed than being heard.
Grandstanding is a common practice and no less common in conservative or Christian communities. Jesus’s critique of performative religion in Matthew 6:1-8 is, first and foremost, an admonition against grandstanding.
“It is pride when we undertake to dominate others.”
Superbia, p. 88.
Research into moral self-appraisal has shown that most of us think that we’re better than most of us. Since we feel morally superior, it seems only reasonable that we ought to be the ones calling the shots for everyone else.
“The urge to dominate is a hallmark of our fallen nature and rooted in pride. In City of God, St. Augustine called it the libido dominandi: the lust to dominate. As Augustine relates, the earthly city is formed by love of self and contempt of God; the heavenly city by love of God and contempt of self. In the earthly city, men are ruled by ‘love of ruling’ (libido dominandi), in the heavenly city, by love of serving. Yet as he notes in the preface, the proud are made subject to their own desire. The lust to dominate becomes the lust that dominates.”
Superbia, p. 89-90
Clearly, the objective of the “woke” crowd is not to persuade, but to impose their beliefs and will upon all others. From a perspective of human behavior, it seems that pride lies at the root of most dysfunction.
But even conceding that their objectives might be altruistic could be granting too much credit. Recent research suggests that self-interest is the true driving factor:
“A 2020 study by researchers at the University of British Columbia examined the causes and consequences of victimhood and virtue signaling. The ones signaling both ‘virtue’ and ‘victimhood’ scored significantly higher in measures of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy; and were more likely to engage in or endorse unethical behaviors. The investigators saw such behavior as a ‘resource extraction strategy’—a way to get stuff from other people. To control them, in other words.”
Superbia p. 90
This is precisely what an understanding of the human psyche, driven by pride, would predict.
Such behaviors are neither left-wing nor right-wing: they are human. While it is fair to criticize, may the followers of Christ not be equally guilty. Let’s drag those mirrors down from the attic, dust them off, and take a long, hard look. Am I (are you) legalistic? Self-righteous? Grandstanding? Controlling?
Instead, may we live according to the injunction of Scripture:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
Pride is the vice that compounds itself—the more it grows, the less we can see it. That's why I created a free 6-week study guide for Superbia designed specifically for small groups. It includes discussion questions that help us recognize pride's patterns in ourselves, not just diagnose it in others.
When have you witnessed someone express moral outrage for an audience rather than address the actual harm they claimed to care about?
Think of past conflicts at home, in the workplace, or at church. Did the conflict center on genuine harm, or was it really about power and control?
What are the potential harms of moral absolutism? Is absolutism always wrong—or are there cases where moral absolutes are justified? Where might they be necessary, and where might they be misguided?
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