The New Leftism at Princeton

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The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.

Sociologists have documented that Americans are becoming increasingly secular. Many point to American college campuses as evidence of God’s absence in public life. However, I argue that it is not that colleges are irreligious, but that a new kind of religion has taken hold, one which is certainly evident at Princeton. 

Leftist ideology has replaced religion at Princeton. I define leftism as the ideology arguing that power should be controlled and organized to uproot society for the benefit of the oppressed. The oppressed are historically disadvantaged racial minorities and the lower class, or those that society should seek for the Left’s vision of what constitutes equality. Leftism provokes the emotions that religion seeks to cure: guilt and existential significance.

Under leftism, non-believers are excommunicated or treated as heretics (“canceled” in modern parlance). Anscombe Society posters are stripped down from around campus. University of Pennsylvania’s Professor Amy Wax was disinvited to a 2018 event on free speech by Princeton’s American Whig-Cliosophic Society because her views were deemed too controversial. Being labeled as a “conservative” on campus also makes many leftists refuse to associate with you. 

To the leftist cult, things have significance only in their relationship to the cult. The world is interpreted from a transcendental lens. This is represented by the politicization of even the most quotidian aspects of our lives. This might be how we refer to our preferred pronouns or whether we posted a black square on our Instagram accounts in June 2020. Under leftism, our language can only be interpreted in political terms even when there is not inherently any political connection. Professors use gender-neutral terms when quoting philosophers from the 1800s, and classmates correct themselves when analogizing things to slavery.

This is also possible because leftism imbues its followers with existential guilt. Leftism’s followers view themselves as fallen from grace given our structurally irredeemable world. They are obsessed with racial, class, or sexual privilege and their deficiency as allies to marginalized identities because their own privileged identities and histories have perpetuated cosmic injustice. You can use politically correct terminology, take African American Studies classes, or participate in an anti-racist reading group, but it’s impossible to avoid God’s wrath. Leftists are eternal sinners and can only hope for the grace of God.

Leftists’ concept of “justice” has replaced God, and it is “justice” that they seek to satisfy. This sense of existential guilt is at least a contributing factor to the higher prevalence of mental illness among leftists and the Princeton community’s mental health epidemic. 

It’s essential to recognize how leftism transmutes itself into a religion if moderates or the right cannot combat its ideology effectively. If a religion and its corresponding value system comes to dominate our campus life, it is unlikely that anyone would have rationally chosen this one. 

Reid Zlotky

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