Are Our Meaning Problems Derivative of Darwin … or Derivative of Franz Boas? Wilson’s Errant Analysis

In a recent clip Doug Wilson effectively demolishes Russell Moore’s belly aching about Wilson. There is plenty to belly ache about Wilson but all of what Moore was belly-aching about is exactly the opposite of what the problems with Wilson are. Moore was critiquing Wilson from the Cultural Marxist non-Christian Left. My problems with Wilson are from the Dissident Christian right. Still, how can I not rejoice whenever the right side of the left (Doug Wilson) demolishes the left side of the left (Russell Moore)?

So, a tip of the cap and three “Huzzahs” for Doug here!

(10:23-10:43)

There was a major insight though from Wilson as he aptly and ablely picked apart Moore. Wilson said, in the course of his righteous screed against Russell Moore, that where we, as a culture, are at is “All downstream of Darwin.”

Now, that is a major analysis error on Wilson’s part. It demonstrates that he doesn’t really know the times. Indeed, because of this analysis we can begin to locate why Wilson is so often wrong the way he is. It is absolutely false that where we are at as a culture is all downstream of Darwin. In point of fact, the person we are all downstream of held the exact opposite views of Darwin. I would insist that where we’re now is “all downstream of Franz Boas.”

Franz Boas was the anti-Darwinists of his age and perhaps is one of the least known persons today whose thinking has had monumental impact    on our current zeitgeist. Boas abominated Darwin and it is Boas’ worldview that has gained the ascendency. Boas was a cultural anthropologist who argued against Darwin’s “biological determinism,” opting instead for a cultural relativism that allowed for an egalitarian view of all cultures. Further, Boas argued against Darwin’s “scientific racism” by emphasizing nurture over Darwin’s nature argument.

This inability of Wilson’s to see that the battle we are now fighting in the West is not against Darwinism so much as it is against Boasianism explains a good deal about some of the things that Wilson says about race and culture.

The significance of this error on Wilson’s part is monumental.

Now, certainly there remains a good deal of Darwinism extant. It’s not as if Darwinism has gone away. However, the real fight in the trenches is not with Darwinism but is with the exact opposite mirror error of Boasianism. The lost of meaning that we are suffering from as a culture has more to do with the success of (((Franz Boas))) worldview winning out than it has to do with Darwin’s worldview winning out.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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