Forty years ago, the iconic British comedy group Monty Python released their third feature film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The movie follows a young Jewish man who happens to be born on the same day as, and next door to, Jesus Christ and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah. Now a classic, the film initially proved highly controversial due to its perceived blasphemy.
The film also pokes fun at political correctness, satirizing attitudes that would today be described as woke. It features skits about the left eating itself, a perennial trope. In light of the current state of political discourse, this particular combination of religious and political themes seems almost prophetic.
It’s telling that the Pythons satirize religion and what we today call wokeness in the same film. There is, after all, a religious component to woke culture. There are dogmas, myths, taboos and a tendency to moralize. And dissenters are denounced, or called out, with a fervour reminiscent of the persecution of witches and heretics in centuries past.
Woke thinking is often characterized by a belief in something akin to original sin (white guilt). It promises a path to virtue and redemption and has all the characteristics of a cult. This cult revolves around the sacred values of diversity, inclusion and equity, particularly in relation to race, gender and sexuality (identity politics). Defined in opposition to white patriarchy (good vs. evil), these totemic values are safeguarded by a high priesthood in academia and the media.
There is also an underlying belief that everything is political, which may explain the desire to implement political correctness in every area of life. This dissolves the distinction between the political and the personal, the public and the private. In other words, wokeness is not secular, because, like other totalitarian ideologies, it seeks to establish an all-pervading orthodoxy.
Woke people seem to be especially concerned about politically incorrect language. The idea that language shapes our perception of reality, which has some merit, has morphed into a pervasive superstition—that some words are so powerful and offensive as to be dangerous, regardless of context or intention. For example, it has become completely unacceptable for a white person to use the so-called N-word, even in a metalinguistic context. Netflix executive Jonathan Friedland’s ouster after using the word in a staff meeting about offensive words is a case in point. Even the word niggardly, which is etymologically unrelated to the N-word, has got people into hot water.
The stoning scene in Life of Brian brilliantly illustrates the absurdity of stringent language taboos. An elderly man faces execution for using the taboo word Jehovah. When he defends himself by saying, “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was, ‘That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah,’” the cleric reading out the verdict shouts, “Blasphemy! He’s said it again!” A member of the crowd throws a stone at the convict’s head, for which she is reprimanded—the stoning hasn’t officially started yet. After a number of incidents of this sort, the cleric, now visibly furious, makes an announcement: “No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand? Even—and I want this to be absolutely clear—even if they do say ‘Jehovah.’” For which the crowd promptly stones him to death. This brings to mind Goethe’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”: “Spirits I have cited, my commands ignore”—a perfect metaphor for woke mob dynamics.
Monty Python star Terry Jones is probably right to say that Life of Brian “couldn’t be made today,” partly because some of the scenes make light of transgenderism. Leaving aside the fact that Brian’s mother is played by Jones, a man, part of the humour in the stoning scene, for example, comes from the fact that the stone-throwing crowd is made up of women disguised as men, since only men are allowed to participate in stonings. However, being women (biologically female), they have a hard time maintaining their cover.
Offensive as it may be to woke audiences, this particular scene was almost certainly not intended as a commentary on transgenderism. There is one scene, however, that explicitly addresses it. At an informal meeting of the radical People’s Front of Judea (not to be confused with the Judean People’s Front or the Judean Popular People’s Front), one of the characters, Stan, keeps interrupting his comrades, insisting that they use gender-inclusive language. A discussion ensues:
—Why are you always on about women, Stan?
—I want to be one.
—What?
—I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta.
—What?
—It’s my right as a man.
—Why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
—I want to have babies.
—You want to have babies?
—It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
—But you can’t have babies.
—Don’t you oppress me!
—I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb. Where is the foetus going to gestate? You’re going to keep it in a box?
A member of the group has an idea:
—Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
—What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?
—It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
—Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
What was clearly satire in 1979 has become a reality in recent years. Take the famous case of Jessica Yaniv, the trans woman who, according to journalist Meghan Murphy, “filed 13 Human Rights complaints against female aestheticians in the Vancouver area” for refusing to wax Yaniv’s penis and testicles. This demonstrates the conflict between radical feminism and transgenderism. According to intersectional theory, however, there is no conflict. It’s all part of the same struggle against oppression.
Reality does not conform to woke theories. Indeed, such theories often seem to reflect a “struggle against reality,” such as the reality of biological sex differences. However, as the woke ideologues’ postmodern intellectual heritage has taught them, reality is a function of power, and to challenge a person’s subjective concept of reality is, therefore, an act of oppression. Not only is there no evidence for this seemingly progressive claim, but it also undermines the possibility of open inquiry and objective reasoning, thus impeding progress.
The People’s Front of Judea is, in many ways, a fictional precursor of the modern woke left. Take the 2019 National Convention of the Democratic Socialists of America. In a viral video, we see a young delegate raise a “point of privilege” regarding the noise level in the auditorium. “Guys,” he says, “can we please keep the chatter to a minimum. I’m one of the people who are very, very prone to sensory overload.” A moment later, he is admonished by another delegate to “stop using gendered language to address everyone.”
What is also striking about the footage is how much time is spent discussing procedural formalities. After all, the DSA’s ambitious goal is, according to one speaker, “to defeat capitalism.” This combination of idealism and pedantry brings to mind another scene from Life of Brian. At a meeting of the People’s Front of Judea:
—Right. Now item four: attainment of world supremacy within the next five years.
—Uh, Francis, you’ve been doing some work on this?
—Yeah. Thank you, Reg. Well, quite frankly, siblings, I think five years is optimistic—unless we can smash the Roman Empire within the next twelve months.
—Twelve months, yeah?
—Twelve months. And let’s face it, as empires go, this is the big one, so we gotta get up off our asses and stop just talking about it.
—Hear! Hear!
—It’s action that counts, not words.
—And we need action now!
—Hear! Hear! You’re right. We could sit around here all day, talking, passing resolutions, making clever speeches.
But even when Brian gets arrested for being a member of the group, they fail to take action to liberate him. Instead, they pass a new resolution. On the occasion of their comrade’s subsequent crucifixion, they issue a formal statement on behalf of “Jews of both sexes and hermaphrodites” before voting to sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” in honour of Brian’s martyrdom.
The crucifixion scene once again highlights the parallels between religion and ideology. Not only is Brian mistaken for the Messiah by a group of religious fanatics, but he also becomes a martyr for the anti-imperialist revolution.
“Revealing and dismantling colonialist power in all its forms” (decolonization according to postcolonial theory) is part of woke ideology. Monty Python’s “What have the Romans ever done for us?” skit satirizes the anti-imperialist left, as represented by the People’s Front of Judea. After a brief discussion, the question is rephrased: “Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
Also relevant today is another theme of the film—the perennial idea that the left has a tendency to eat its own. Accusations of bigotry, from racism to transphobia, are tossed around recklessly today, and disagreement is often seen as a threat. By impeding the possibility of good-faith rational discourse, this has led to schisms within the left. As a member of the People’s Front of Judea puts it, “The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People’s Front.”
The scene in which PFJ activists break into Pontius Pilate’s palace to kidnap his wife epitomizes the phenomenon of left-wing cannibalism. In the palace, they run into another anti-imperialist commando group, Campaign for Free Galilee. The two groups discover that they have exactly the same plan of action. Rather than band together, however, they start arguing about who came up with the idea first. Brian intervenes: “Brothers, we should be struggling together! We mustn’t fight each other! Surely, we should be united against the common enemy.” But to no avail. The two groups kill each other.
Watching Life of Brian today, forty years after it was made, is still an eye-opening experience. Juxtaposing progressive pretension with Judeo-Christian dogma, the film brilliantly reveals the parallels between religious and political orthodoxy. Monty Python understood that what we today call wokeness—excessive political correctness at the expense of reason, open inquiry and free speech—is incompatible with an enlightened society.
Yet wokeness has become pervasive. In the words of Douglas Murray, “A new dogma has turned beliefs that once seemed common sense into hate crimes.” Unsurprisingly, the Pythons have found themselves on the receiving end of this phenomenon. But they have never admitted to any wrongdoing. Having learned from their experience with religious censors, they know better than anyone that, as Eric Kaufmann notes, “Norms are strengthened when the accused plead guilty of their ‘crimes’”—a lesson we should all take to heart.
44 comments
this doesn’t mean they predicted woke culture. it means it was around forty years ago too, it’s just that nobody took them seriously back then.
now, if instead of being a small cadre of ineffectual revolutionaries, the Peoples Front of Judea were actually in charge of anything and had some control over the rules of social order, and the ability to destroy lives on a whim -for example, if they were the Roman Empire- then it would truly be a prediction.
Great article, and makes me appreciate even more one of my top 10 movies! It is truly amazing how some of the scenes in LOB crystalize both today’s dogmatic woke left and religious right.
Please stop using the word woke. It’s just bad and lazy writing. The point of using words is to convey something. The word “woke” conveys nothing except how hip the writer hopes to appear by showing themselves to be up with the lingo. It gives no indication whatsoever of why this is a bad or toxic thing to be. If anything, it trivializes it by making it sound like a silly but harmless fad. These clunky derivations like “wokeness” sound even more cringeworthy.
To all the people who downvoted my comment, could you please explain your defense of the word? For me, it ruined what should otherwise have been an interesting article.
To all the people who downvoted my comment, what is it about this word that you like so much? For me, it ruined what should otherwise have been an interesting article.
Sorry for the duplicate. It didn’t seem to go through the first time.
I’m sorry, with all your comments you are looking like a typical offended snowflake. Grow up, please. And keep in mind, crybaby deservedly is a favorite target for ridicule
Not cringy to me at all. “Woke” is a useful catchall phrase for the dogmatic left. If you’ve read any articles on this sort of topic in the last five years I’d think that would be understood. The fact that it’s been appropriated from the left itself, which inaugurated it as a positive term, is a sort of delicious satire
if the woke hadn’t started calling themselves woke we wouldn’t have had “woke” to use against them.
as a self-ascribed word it’s rather arrogant. it says “I’m awake, and you’re all still in the illusion of a dream”. effectively, “I see the light, and you’re all stumbling in the darkness”. or to it’s natural conclusion “God hath spoken to me, and your gods are false gods. come to my side or suffer the wrath of God!”
hence it deserves to be mocked, and mocked ruthlessly until it becomes something that no one would want to be associated with. and it’s becoming that, so good job everyone.
In my opinion, as long as we keep using their language we’re letting them control the discourse. It’s bad enough that their clunky vocabulary has completely infiltrated the mainstream. We don’t need to add to that by using it ourselves. Same goes with the word shaming.
Plus I don’t see the religious undertones.To me it just sounds like parents trying (and failing) to sound cool by awkwardly aping teen talk.
agreed.
And while we’re at it perhaps,for starters we can cut back on the word ‘activist.’ You and I work jobs but may support through financial contributions but don’t have time to walk in protest marches and attend sit-ins but somehow we’re not ‘active.’ Seems to me like another appelation,an addition to a portfolio like musician,author,actor,etc and designed to make one look like a big deal
Also, I don’t see that it’s becoming something no one wants to be associated with. As far as I can tell, it’s still going as strong as ever.
all this shows is that none of these things are as new as we think they are.
Well, as for as the U.S. left is concerned, it has gotten far worse in the last 3-5 years.
The word woke is of course cringy, the author is using it as a pejorative term for modern pc thinking.
The real irony tonme about the Python Troupe and Life Of Brian, and their humor in general, is that in real life the guys are pretty much SJWs themselves, especially John Cleese. And yet they routinely made fun of the far left and as you state, predicted unintentionally what the far left would eventually become.
That irony is rather amusing in and of itself.
not to mention hypocrtical
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Fantastic article!
Dr. Ambrosch wrote “In light of the current state of political discourse, this particular combination of [Monty Python’s] religious and political themes seems almost prophetic.” Yes, but nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition, did they?
Large chunks of Python are more satirical now than when they were written.
Similarly the “B” Ark in Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Moderately satirical at the time, but nowadays most of the western world would be in the “B” Ark.
Great article. It has motivated me to watch the entire film again rather than just some of the funnier sketches on YouTube. I think that most or all of Monty Python could not be made today. Has anyone else noticed that the famous “Bruces” sketch, which I used to be able to find easily with a search, seems to have disappeared completely from the web? I couldn’t help noticing that in “Take the famous case of Jessica Yaniv, the trans woman who, according to journalist Meghan Murphy, “filed 13 Human Rights complaints against female aestheticians in the Vancouver area” for refusing to wax Yaniv’s penis and testicles,” the author neatly avoids using a possessive adjective instead of “Yaniv’s.” Intentional satire or unconscious political correctness?
As an Aussie I’m delighted to hear that it’s politically incorrect to depict us as bigoted backwoodsmen, and shocked to discover that the Bruce sketch is still readily available. 😉
Thanks. Audio only unfortunately. As a Canuck, I’m pleased that video versions of the Lumberjack Song are much easier to track down. Similar theme.
I will be stealing the phrase “struggle against reality”, thanks for bringing that to my attention
Thanks a lot. It’s nice to see a sane person here 🙂
“And dissenters are denounced, or called out, with a fervour reminiscent of the persecution of witches and heretics in centuries past.”
Really? Are they being tortured and burned at the stake?
Now everything is much more humane. Now heretics may be simply deprived of their livelihood. Or get hit in head with a motorcycle chain. That’s not fatal. Yet…
I don’t know which case you’re referring to, but hitting people with motorcycle chains is against the law in the US and I would assume also Europe. People accused of witchcraft were tortured not in spite of the law, but *by* the law. In the US, the only people who have called for the legalization of torture, as far as I can tell, are the Republicans.
No one forces an employer to fire a controversial anti-woke person. You can even hire them selectively. And in the worst case, there are welfare systems in place even for the unemployable, usually politically defended by the left. I don’t condone firing controversial people in all cases, sometimes it may be justified, sometimes not. But this is a far cry from justifying the statement that anti-woke people are treated now like people accused of witchcraft were treated in the past.
I don’t care about defending woke culture, but I do care about getting the question right who is or is not a torturer.
I’m sorry. It was a bike lock. As I told, not fatal yet. The left professor(!) was incredibly humane. Yet…
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/04/antifa-terrorist-beat-bloodied-trump-supporter-bike-lock-identified-professor-video/
But we are at the stage of shunning heretics, which was always the step before burning both witches and heretics.
And what is it you think you are doing with your culture of mass-downvoting? Encouraging polite discourse and rational dissent? I made a necessary and true remark about the proportionality of language, and you immediately ganged up on me like I’m your enemy for merely pointing this out. You clearly want an echo chamber, and I’m willing to let you have it. Just don’t kid yourself thinking you are any better than the people you are criticizing.
The irony is that I have nothing to gain from fixing the political culture’s dysfunction. It’s not my job and it’s clearly not working. There’s no reward in it, which means tribalism is inevitable.
So what I’m going to do now instead is this: Drop the good-faith communication completely, and when the inevitable tribal civil war starts, I will very carefully evaluate which side has harmed my personal interests more, then I will join the other side to eviscerate them ruthlessly. Good day Sir.
A problem I have with the politically correct is that they refuse to recognize degrees of severity – everything is as bad as everything else. But I’m a bit of a pedant and so like to say that some things can be worse than others. I have gotten a tongue lashing for this but know this is nothing remotely like getting burned at the stake. But the politically correct think that words are also deeds and so think that a tongue lashing is worse than it is. This discussion shows that their more strident critics can make the same mistake.
There’s nothing like literal thinking and pedantry, eh?
Stop being like Hitler!
What, you think that statement is not productive? Why, you wouldn’t want to be literal and pedantic, now would you?
The insidious part here is that such deflection of exaggerated, disproportionate bullshitting can be done selectively. You can create arbitrarily bad propaganda bullshit and everyone who calls it out is simply a pedantic literal-thinker. This is how you can turn any communication space into a dysfunctional echo chamber.
so I guess the McCarthy witch hunts were okay cause no one got burned at the stake, right?
Except I didn’t imply that in any of the comments I wrote here. Which of course you’re perfectly well aware. I didn’t even defend woke culture.
And what are YOU adding to the conversation by being a contrarian? In a culture where you’re not ‘allowed’ to speak the truth because it offends some people, you may as well be burned at the stake, because when you say the ‘wrong thing’ people act like you’re dead, or want you to be dead. And the LAW often backs the people who are ‘offended by truth’ and punishes the other party. It isn’t death, but it’s still wrong.
“And what are YOU adding to the conversation by being a contrarian?”
I pointed out a false historical equivalence. Nothing more, nothing less. Making relevant distinctions like that is the basic prerequisite for rational discourse. I thought areomagazine was capable of that, and that turned out to be a false assumption. This basic Bayesian update now complete, I will no longer partake here.
Enjoy your echo chamber.
Not yet.
You are right, we should be on the lookout for torture-normalization. But this needs to be done in a fact-based manner, not as an exercise in tribal affiliation signalling bullshit.
So, just answer the question, which political parties in the US have openly endorsed state-sanctioned torture? Was it Obama and the Dems? Or was it Trump and the Republicans?
I’m sure you’re old enough to do your own basic internet search for quotes on the matter from these enlightened individuals.
No, just doxed and fired from their jobs, publicly shamed, boycotted and have their lives destroyed
Of course not. But social media and the anonymity it affords has allowed that fervor to blossom in some arenas. Careers really have been destroyed, and books removed from shelves, on this account. I think the word “reminiscent” is a suitable description of this fervor.