THE RISE OF THE "CHARLIE KIRK CONSERVATIVES"

by Robert Bidinotto

(from a 9/24/25 Facebook post)
 
 After watching the televised memorial for Charlie Kirk on September 21, 2025, I'm convinced that his martyrdom for his convictions -- and martyrdom is the only proper word for it -- is going to be transformational to the country, in ways people don't yet grasp or anticipate. 

In recent decades, for reasons many of us know, the American "narrative," like the Christian "narrative," have been under relentless assault by the enemies of Western civilization. The stories undergirding both America and Christianity have stopped being credible or resonant with millions. Cut loose from the steadying anchor and sure rudder these narratives once provided, our society has gone adrift, floating aimlessly into the shoals of cynicism and the swamps of decadence, then sinking into an undertow of political disintegration and division -- and thus allowing, at home and abroad, the incursions of piratical nihilists to plunder and scavenge from the wreckage of our civilization. 

Spiritually, the loss of our unifying Narratives has left a gaping hole in the minds and hearts of Americans (and Western societies, generally) -- a pervasive sense of hopelessness, aimlessness, and anxiety. 

Yes, all this stems from the absence of a coherent, compelling story -- a Core Narrative about the world that is both explanatory and inspiring, that makes sense of the world and provides individuals a purposeful role and a meaningful identity -- a Core Narrative for individuals that, simultaneously, provides a unifying mythology for the broader society and culture. 

As a teenager, Charlie Kirk sought and found such a Narrative for himself in Christianity...but also in America. In his mind and heart, Charlie wedded the Narrative of Christianity to the Narrative of America: to "the American dream" -- and to the Enlightenment values of individualism, self-responsibility, self-reliance, personal liberty, individual rights, free speech, free-market capitalism, and constitutionally limited government. In his mind and heart, he wove together those two threads of Narrative and Myth -- the Christian and the American (with its Greco-Roman and Enlightenment roots) -- into one seamless fabric...into one Core Narrative. 

That Core Narrative became Charlie Kirk. Under its spell, Charlie became a human dynamo of evangelical passion. It transformed him into a young man of boundless self-confidence, irrepressible optimism, passionate truth-seeking, and fearless action. Aided by extraordinary gifts of native intelligence, authentic idealism, appealing good looks, and self-acquired oratorical ability, Charlie's Narrative vision became a compelling magnet that attracted thousands -- especially young lost souls, adrift in the moral and spiritual swamps of contemporary America. 

I have fashioned my own Core Narrative. In many ways, it overlaps with Charlie Kirk's. Its roots and rationale draw mainly from the secular side of the American Enlightenment and Greco-Roman traditions, and not the Christian side. 

Still, in terms of attitudes and practices of daily living -- in terms of how he and I would approach work, human relationships, and politics -- there is not much difference between my vision and that of the late Charlie Kirk. I could very easily, and very happily, live and flourish in the America he envisioned -- and among the kind of Christian Americans that would inhabit it. 

That became obvious to me during the huge, globally watched celebration of Charlie's life on Sunday. As the cameras panned over the thousands and thousands of decent, peaceful, normal Americans in that enormous audience, I thought: "These people are the poorest excuses for 'fascists' I have ever seen." 

I'd like to address the rest of this message primarily to my secular-individualist friends and colleagues, including non-religious Objectivists, libertarians, and conservatives. 

Watching the Charlie Kirk memorial -- and observing how his exemplary personal life, idealism, and decency have touched, inspired, and galvanized huge and growing numbers of Americans -- reinforced my conviction about the irreplaceable necessity of developing not only a philosophy, but also a Core Narrative, to guide individuals and society. 

As I have often written and said, a philosophy and a Core Narrative serve interrelated, but separate purposes. Both offer individuals an integrated view of the world and their role in it. But a Core Narrative is a story that dramatizes your worldview: it offers you a role in that drama, and an identity in the world; and it motivates you to take action. A philosophy, by contrast, only explains your worldview, teasing out its many implications and offering an abstract, systematic rationale for them. But being conscious and abstract, a philosophy has little power to touch your subconscious wellsprings of emotion and motivation -- to personalize those abstractions and inspire you to act. 

A philosophy is like a map to help you chart the course of your life. A Core Narrative is like a video that helps you visualize and experience your life journey. A philosophy is like looking at architectural blueprints of your planned house. A Core Narrative is like taking a 3-D virtual tour through your planned residence -- or like looking at an actual miniature model that helps you experience the reality of your future home, in the here and now. 

And that leads to the problem I pose to my secular philosophical and political colleagues. Yes, we have charted terrific philosophical maps and detailed blueprints for our worldview; but we don't have enough compelling videos, virtual tours, and actual models for our worldview to be properly, fully experienced. 

Now, many of you are going to reply, "What about the novels of Ayn Rand? She created great models of inspiring characters!" 

And so she did. But only two novels -- and written in a style and voice and level of abstraction that don't speak to everyone today. At best, I could say, "Yes, but we need more like these -- a lot more." 

But I think we need something else, too. And I'm not sure we can get it in our lifetimes...or even in the next century. 

You see, the Core Narratives of Christianity and of America have acquired their mythological status and resonance precisely because of their distance from our era. Those who revere historical characters from the Bible or America's founding can do so because the mists of time mask those people's personal foibles and failures, leaving us with stories mainly about the best of their character and achievements. The passing of centuries thus has allowed them to rise to legendary and heroic stature. 

Today, however, even the most exemplary figures are not immune from 24/7 reputational dissection by social media gossips, podcasters, and cable news commentators. It took centuries for Christianity to develop, because the claims of its believers were spread by word of mouth, and not subject to legions of often-hostile "fact checkers" and reputational smears in viral messages. But imagine if Jesus and his Apostles had to undergo a daily onslaught of instant, intrusive scrutiny, "fake news," and internet rumor-mongering. 

My point is that while creating a new Core Narrative for individuals is certainly possible in our time (Rand did that for thousands), creating a new cultural mythology for our entire society is a very different proposition. In America and globally, existing worldviews have social and cultural roots that harken back into antiquity. Uprooting and replacing this mythology with a new mythology would/will take a very long time -- and these days it would have to do so under the glaring spotlight and probing microscopes of the media.

 I think the best we secular individualists can do, for now, is to fashion, flesh out, and live our own Core Narrative(s)...as individuals. The proof of a Narrative's value will be what we make of our own lives. Then, over time -- decades, perhaps centuries -- some singular individual who heroically embodies such a Narrative will arise and stand out as its champion. That exemplary individual may then acquire mythic and legendary status. His own story might become the spark of a new cultural movement and mythology, turning his private Narrative into a social crusade akin to a secular individualist religion -- with its own infrastructure of ceremonies, rituals, and institutions commemorating the legend. 

A second thing we secular individualists can do, for now, is to stop regarding what I hereby label the "Charlie Kirk Conservatives" as our adversaries -- let alone as our "enemies" (like a few morons in Objectivist circles are doing). Far from it. Charlie Kirk may not have shared our metaphysics; but he shared most of our basic ethical and political premises, and in fact he was a model of reason, honesty, independence, integrity, productivity, and justice. He, and the thousands of followers who regard him as a role model, are our natural allies. As I said earlier, I could flourish happily in a world of Charlie Kirk Conservatives -- and so could you. 

For now, we secular individualists have a philosophy, but not a Core Narrative that is sufficiently developed and compelling enough to replace theirs. Nor do we have a heroic exemplar of our worldview who can capture the public imagination as has Charlie Kirk. Nor do we have the cultural legacy of such a hero: an infrastructure of ceremonies, rituals, and institutions that can forge social bonds and traditions built upon shared beliefs and values. We have little if any of that sort of thing -- not yet. 

And you can't replace Something with Nothing. 

I saw something emerging at the Kirk ceremony that, for the first time in decades, has given me real hope for America's future. I saw Charlie Kirk's personal integration of exemplary character, Christianity, and American Enlightenment ideas and values being fused into a Core Narrative that instantly captured the imagination of the country. I witnessed the personal story of Charlie Kirk being woven, before my eyes, into the Core Narratives of Christianity and the American Enlightenment, in a way that was reviving, in millions of people, a passionate, patriotic dedication to our Founding Fathers' legacy. 

His wife called the movement Charlie launched not a revolution, but "a revival." And so it is. I believe this movement is going to grow to become culturally and politically transformational -- and that Charlie Kirk is going to become a pivotal, legendary figure in American history. The story of his life and martyrdom will become an indelible chapter in the broader American Narrative. 

Through his willingness to converse and cooperate with political cousins in Objectivist and libertarian circles, Charlie Kirk will undoubtedly serve as an ecumenical role model for his movement, going forward. And we secular individualists would be colossal fools not to join with them, assist them, and defend them, whenever we can make common cause, culturally and politically. 

Charlie Kirk Conservatives are our natural compatriots in the defense of Western civilization from the nihilists. They represent the best of America, people whom we should welcome into our lives as our allies, as our neighbors, and -- yes -- as our friends. 
 

From Emotions, to Narratives, to Ideologies

In intellectual circles, it is common to believe that ideology is a decisive social force on its own -- that abstract philosophical systems underlie societies and cultures; and that to change a society, you need only promulgate a different philosophy/ideology.

Of course, intellectuals want to believe in the decisive "power of ideas," because as promulgators of ideas, this belief confirms their lofty view of their own social importance and power. And certainly the connection of ideologies to societies, movements, and governments is obvious and undeniable -- which is why, for decades, I accepted this conventional view, too.

But a lifetime of promoting philosophical ideas has caused me to reconsider my views about the role of philosophy/ideology in human life and society. Introspection, observation of people close to me, and sobering realizations about how marginal and fleeting the impacts of philosophical persuasion (by myself and by many other skilled communicators) have been -- all of that has led me to conclude that personal and cultural change is much more complicated than simply spreading the "right" philosophy.

Summarized simply, I now believe...

...that the vast majority of people, including intellectuals, are actually driven not by ideas, but by emotions, often fairly crude ones, rooted in values, often only implicit;

...that over time, these emotions and values, if shared widely in a society, become concretized and popularized in the form of Narratives -- of myths, legends, and stories that are causally instructive, personally motivational, and socially unifying;

...that only later do the more intellectual believers in these emotionally appealing, values-laden stories, myths, and Narratives try to buttress them with more sophisticated, abstract, theoretical rationalizations -- that is, with explanatory philosophies, ideologies, or theologies. They do this to flesh out and support the core themes and underlying motives of their Narratives, granting them the social weight and gravitas of an "intellectual" image and justification.

You see this pattern manifested historically with every creed that has attracted a significant following and become a mass movement. They start with a set of core emotions, rooted in values broadly shared across a large social group; then follows the development of a popular mythology that dramatizes and evokes the group's shared emotions and values; and finally comes a complex theoretical rationalization for the mythological Narrative (and its values-driven emotions), which is crafted by the social group's intellectuals. In this last stage, the abstract system can take on a life of its own: it is taught and promoted in "movement" schools and texts, and believers cling to it tightly, because it offers reassuring intellectual support and explanations for the core Narratives that give their lives meaning, identity, and purpose.

But the foundational appeal of philosophical, ideological, or theological systems does not lie in their theoretical abstractions themselves; pure abstractions carry no emotional appeal or motivational power. Instead, the believers' commitments are fundamentally to their core Narrative -- to their inspirational mythology, or story -- and to the emotions and values it embodies and evokes. All that the theoretical abstractions offer are rationalizations and reassurances that their story is valid.

Why is this so? It is important to come to grips with the fact that we humans are "the storytelling animal" -- that our earliest childhood grasp of causal relationships in the world, like that of primitive peoples, is enmeshed in storytelling. It's only later in life (or in human civilization) that we begin to abstract a systematic, scientific, causal understanding of the world apart from our storytelling roots. But our brains remain wired by storytelling patterns established from infancy, and even in adulthood we are still drawn like moths back toward the light (enlightenment?) that stories provide.

The indelible power of Narratives explains why so often you can argue with someone using reason, logic, and overwhelming facts, until you are blue in the face, yet get nowhere. Or why a person's "intellectual" commitments can seem so shallow and fleeting. Or why politicians and dictators rely so heavily on storytelling about their target constituencies' collective "identity," in the form of a high-stakes drama about villains (their political adversaries), victims (their constituents), and heroic rescuers (themselves). Or why a person's "conversion" requires not just a new ideological argument, but instead begins with an emotional upheaval rooted in profound personal dissatisfaction with their status quo -- which then leads them to an encounter with some appealing new Narrative that promises the dissatisfied individual a fresh identity: a meaningful new life role and purpose. The philosophical argument then comes along as a reassuring explanation for the wisdom of their conversion; but it alone is not the motivator of the conversion.

Abstract theory alone has little persuasive power to motivate major, enduring changes in individuals or societies. Karl Marx's global influence on millions came with The Communist Manifesto, his rabble-rousing Narrative about capitalist oppressors and the working-class oppressed -- and not with his Das Kapital, a theoretical tome read by only a tiny fraction of those whom the former pamphlet brought under his spell. Ditto the Gospels of the Christian Bible, whose stories touched more people, by many orders of magnitude, than did Aquinas's Summa Theologica, which used Aristotelian logic to provide supporting arguments for the Christian worldview. Ditto Ayn Rand's fiction: her novels have inspired and influenced many times the number of "Rand reader" fans than her nonfiction philosophical writings have produced "Objectivists," who are more intellectually inclined. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of self-described Objectivists got interested in Rand's philosophy only after becoming captivated by her Promethean fictional narratives.

Here's another example to ponder. Decades ago, in a lecture that touched on this topic, I observed that it was the seminal storyteller Homer, writing in the 8th century BC, whose mesmerizing epic poems inspired the birth of Ancient Greek culture and of Western civilization. By contrast, Aristotle -- Greece's greatest philosopher, the father of logic and systematic rational thinking, and of countless scientific fields -- came along hundreds of years later, during the decline of Greek civilization. If abstract philosophy were truly the source of cultural transformation, then in the chronology of Western civilization, Aristotle should have appeared long before Homer, and perhaps paved the way for him. But the chronology is precisely the reverse: it was the storytelling giant who preceded the philosophical giant; and the greatest philosopher's boundless contributions to human knowledge still were not sufficient to prevent the fall of Greek civilization.

Let me emphasize that an abstract philosophy can serve legitimate and important purposes; it does not have to offer merely sophistic rationalizations for a bogus Narrative. If the Narrative is grounded in reality, then philosophy can provide a valid rationale for it. A rationale differs from a rationalization, because the former is true (rooted in reality), while the latter is false. And a valid rationale can flesh out and clarify our understanding, teasing out many important and helpful implications of a good Narrative.

To sum up, I now believe that the objective of promoting personal and/or cultural change requires us to effectively present a compelling alternative Narrative to those people who may be open to its emotional appeal. But not everyone is -- not by a long shot. People who are emotionally committed to a Narrative that defines their identity and life purpose -- but which is hostile to one's own values -- aren't going to change, no matter how skillful and logical your presentation of facts and arguments. Abstract arguments will never penetrate the emotional/values barriers surrounding and insulating a contrary Narrative. Even a compelling counter-Narrative may not prove persuasive -- not unless the target of your communication is already deeply dissatisfied with his own Narrative, and thus searching for (or at least open to) a fresh worldview.

One important, corollary point. I believe people with good values, and correspondingly good emotions, will be attracted to good Narratives -- and perhaps later, to good philosophies. But the fact that they, too, may be only "Narrative-driven" rather than intellectually persuaded is not necessarily a bad thing: that doesn't mean they are irrationally driven. If a kid is raised without any explicit philosophy, or even with a bad one, yet becomes enamored of heroes in TV shows, movies, and graphic novels -- and then, inspired, goes on to do great things -- is that irrational?

Specifically, to my many Objectivist friends, I would point out that I've just described the childhood-to-adulthood trajectory of your heroine, Ayn Rand. If you know her biography, you'll realize that she didn't start out in life with a conceptual, philosophical understanding of the world; she started out, in the hellish environment of post-revolutionary Soviet Russia, simply as a brilliant child who became captivated by heroic literature and movies. That emotional orientation, driven by some core values she didn't understand at the time, were sufficient to propel her on a remarkable journey to becoming, as an adult, a great storyteller and seminal philosopher whose worldview was the opposite of everything around her.

And her values-driven emotions first took form as a romantic Narrative of heroic individualism. That Narrative became a core part of her character by the time she reached her early teens. Rand didn't even encounter Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, and other thinkers who influenced her philosophical thinking until college -- by which time her character and sense of life was already established. Her systematic philosophy did not fully take form until she was middle-aged, during the writing of Atlas Shrugged; and I would argue that she had managed to become a heroic individualist long before figuring it all out.

So Ayn Rand's life and character were shaped, initially and indelibly, by a Narrative -- not by abstract philosophy or ideology. If that is true of her, then how can it not be true of others? And what is wrong with that? Do we need formal, systematic philosophy in order to be rational, honest, independent, just, and productive? Were there no such people on Planet Earth before Rand incorporated those virtues formally into her Objectivist system? And let's be honest: what percentage of those who have spent years diligently studying, even teaching, that philosophical system have become living exemplars of its virtues?

To those Objectivists who remain unpersuaded, I suggest that you read, or reread, her book The Romantic Manifesto, especially its opening chapters, where -- in words different from mine here, but very similar in meaning -- Rand explains the enormous power of stories, and of core Narratives, in shaping the human soul and our world. While she declared that art was not a substitute for philosophical thought, she also said that "without the assistance of art, ethics remains in the position of theoretical engineering: art is the model-builder." Specifically, the narrative arts -- stories -- can most fully present good models for our actions. Philosophical thought may provide an abstract rationale for positive actions; but a rationale is not enough. Just as a road map is no substitute for fuel in the gas tank, abstract philosophical guidance is no substitute for the inspiring vision and motivational energy that can be provided by a compelling Narrative. --March 13, 2024

Can We Please Stop Using the Term "Identity Politics"?

One thing neo-Marxist collectivists understand is the power of language. They know that if they can redefine concepts, they can manipulate how we think about things, and thus infiltrate their worldview into billions of uncritical minds. It's a strategy straight out of Orwell's 1984.

The collectivists do this redefinition game constantly, across a wide swath of issues. Take "progressive" (a term I always put in sarcastic quotation marks), which they use to assert they are in favor of some undefined social progress -- which, when actually defined, means a neo-Marxist, social-engineering agenda. Or "liberal," which long ago used to mean favoring freedom, but which today means the opposite: subordinating individual freedom to politically defined, coercively imposed, collectivist ends. "Gender" has supplanted "sex," because the former can be proclaimed subjectively and inflated infinitely, while the latter has an objective biological basis in one's chromosomes and genitalia (which are now dismissed as merely "assigned" at birth, apparently at the whim of the attending medical personnel). "Hate speech" is a term invented to criminalize, hence censor, any expressed opinion that conflicts with that of the collectivists. The charge of "hate speech" rests on psychologizing: ascribing malicious motives to opinions one doesn't like. Similarly, "hurtful speech," a term which attempts to criminalize any expression that allegedly hurts someone's proclaimed feelings.

Again, there is no objective, fact-rooted basis for any of this. But once personal subjectivity is elevated to the status of moral-legal supremacy, then anyone's mere assertions acquire the weight of unquestionable legitimacy.

What offends me most is that many people, including those on the so-called political right, tacitly accept this wholesale hijacking of language without critical consideration or pushback.

A while back, for example, I took issue with the term virtue signaling. This term was actually minted by the political right to criticize the common practice by "liberals" and "progressives" of making a public, symbolic show of their various philosophical and political commitments. Yet the term "virtue signaling" tacitly accepts the premise that what those people are practicing is, in fact, virtuous. That concedes morality to their motives and their causes -- exactly opposite what the political right intends. I suggested the term be replaced with virtue posturing, which indicates the behavior is a phony claim to virtue.

A similar way the political right tacitly, thoughtlessly concedes the premises of the political left is when they use the term identity politics. This term is intended to criticize the left's constant focus on race, sex, and ethnicity in their arguments and agendas. However, what their use of this term actually does is tacitly accept the premise that one's "identity" is equivalent to one's genetic attributes -- and nothing more.

But "identity" is individual, not collective. When we "identify" something, we distinguish it from everything else by focusing on its unique, particular attributes. Your identity is not my identity. But a so-called identity resting on widely shared attributes, like race or sex, is no "identity" at all. It is homogenized class membership.

Using the term "identity politics" thus concedes that identity is, in truth, nothing more than collectively shared attributes. It tacitly ratifies our thinking about identity in terms of groups and classes -- which is exactly the goal of the collectivists. In addition, it is too narrow a term: "identity politics" reduces to mere politics what is actually a much broader worldview and outlook.

Today's "woke" collectivists want to obliterate individualism -- seeing and judging people as individuals -- and instead to substitute tribalism: seeing and judging people as members of DNA-based groups, classes, and collectives. We need to employ language that makes this clear.

To that end, I suggest critics of collectivists use terms like racial tribalism/tribalists or sexual tribalism/tribalists to specify the mindset and worldview they oppose. "I oppose identity politics" is vague and misleading. However, "I see and judge people as individuals, not as racial and sexual tribes" is an easy-to-grasp, appealing, and ultimately winning position.

One caveat: There is a subset of collectivist tribalists on today's political right, too. It's understandable that they'd be uncomfortable with my suggestion that we identify ourselves as individualists who are opposed to all forms of tribalism. But those of us who are individualists can, by publicly rejecting "racial tribalism" or "ethnic tribalism" or "national tribalism," at least get right-wing collectivists to identify themselves. It's always good to know who your real friends and foes are, and it's time we smoked them out.