Facebook groups are helpful for many reasons. For instance, Facebook groups allow you to gather demographic information. Is there a group for Reformed Latinos? Yes, there is? Is the group large? Is it small? What percentage of the group is Presbyterian? What percentage is Reformed Baptist/Confessional Particular Baptist? What percentage is particular Baptist? What percentage of the aforementioned divisions of reformed people tolerate heresy? And so on.
It was by means of a Facebook group called "Reformed Latinos" that I gained insight into why Marxism has made its way into Reformed camps, at least online. Some time ago, a member made post to remind the group's members that Karl Marx's critique of capitalism was correct. This got a mixed response from the group members, with many ridiculing the original poster for his claim. What struck me, however, was that among those who disagreed with the OP, I found many who debated the claims made by Marx against capitalism without considering the foundational ideas apart from which they cannot be properly understood.
When I engaged with the OP, he attempted to avoid dealing with the fact Marx's critique of capitalism rests entirely on his overarching worldview assumptions. This was incorectly characterized as being unrelated to the original post praising Marx for his keen economic insights.
This opened my eyes, as the putatively reformed in this group were either (a.)promoting Marxism via his critique of capitalism, or (b.)only dealing with the fruit of Marx's philosophical roots. I learned that many today are attempting to deal with things like socialism, Marxism, critical race theory, and wokeism in a manner that is entirely inadequate because it merely prunes the tree, as it were, which actually needs to be uprooted and burned to ashes.
Unconscious Bias?
To give you a clearer picture of what I mean, consider the claim made by wokeists that many (white) people have "unconscious biases." The phrase is an accusation of sin (namely, the sin of partiality), and so it evokes a defensive response from most people. The accused will often reply by saying something like "Well, don't we all have unconscious biases?" or "I don't think I should be vilified just because I have unconscious biases." The problem here is that while the accused are understanding correctly that they are being accused of sin, they are conceding that "unconscious bias" exists. And that simply is not the case.
In reality, given that having a bias for x is akin to, if not identical to, having a preference for x, then it follows that "bias" cannot ever be "unconscious," for one is biased when he consciously entertains a preference for one object/idea/etc and not another. The phrase "unconscious bias" is self-contradictory, then, and does not correspond to anything in reality.
So to what do studies on "unconscious bias" refer?
Simply put, they are referring to a particular behavior or set of behaviors that are being interpreted as biased. That behavior or set of behaviors, however, may simply be a habit/set of habits that have yet to be changed in relation to a new context that may require such a change. The origin of that habit/set of habits, in other words, may have nothing to do with the offended's gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, etc.
So why is this particular terminology used?
Many years ago, Sigmund Freud envisaged the psyche/mind as being comprised of three parts - the id, the ego, and the superego. The Id, which is core self, is animalistic, and is concerned with security, power, dominance, sex, violence. As one writer explains,
...[in] psychoanalytic theory, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.
(Source)
Every person, on this view, is forced to deal with (a.)his internal desires and drives, in light of(b.)the constraints placed on him by society as he tries to fulfill those desires and drives. One's explicit speech about what one desires, then, is never really what one actually desires. Rather, one's explicit speech conceals the desires of the id in order to protect an individual from being ousted from society. In a word, one says about his desires what one feels he can get away with, according to Freud.
Consequently, it is one's "unconscious" actions - e.g. slips of the tongue, dreams, body language - that speak more clearly about an individual's true desires than do his words. One's innocuous habits, then, are anything but innocuous. Rather, they are actions which the ego either felt did not need to be suppressed or, by some accidental means, forgot to suppress.
The question we must ask now, therefore, is: Is man's psyche made up of three parts - an animal center, a social exterior, and an intermediary between these? Is such a view rational? Is it Biblically defensible?
If it is irrational, and cannot be defended by an appeal to properly exegeted Scriptural data, then the Id/Ego/Superego concept is false. And if the Id/Ego/Superego concept is false, then the claim that one can be "unconsciously" "biased" is also false and must be rejected by Christians.
It is necessary for us to think through what a person is accusing us of, therefore, seeing as some accusations are self-contradictory non-sense. Moreover, it is necessary for us to consider the context of their accusations. We need to get to the root of the tree, pull it up, and burn it to ashes, and no longer aid the enemy by only pruning the corrupt tree.
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