Woke Inferno

Note: this is a parody piece that explores the question, what if Dante were woke?

Introduction

Midway upon the journey of our life,
I found myself in a system of oppression
reinforced through hegemonic discourse. 

My eyes were just beginning to open
to the deep-rooted structural inequities
against women, BIPOCs, and LGBT.

But there came upon me a great terror
when I realized my own unwitting role
in perpetuating the status quo.

I had been complicit without word or deed,
for I had inherited all the benefits
of a legacy of exploitation and bigotry.

As I despaired of my ancestral guilt,
before my eyes there appeared
one robed in stately judicial attire.

When I beheld him in that place,
I cried to him, “How pitiable are we,
two privileged white cis men!”

He answered me, “Not man,
though man I once was.
I served on our nation’s highest court.

I oversaw a constitutional revolution
and championed secular liberalism
as I legislated from the bench.”

“Then you must be Earl Warren,” I replied,
“defender of the emanations of the
penumbra of the Bill of Rights.

Most venerable of judicial activists,
surely you can guide me to the path
out of this systemic injustice.”

“There is indeed a path,” he said,
“but the way of redemption is
the way of critical consciousness.

If you would wake up, you must go down
and behold the sorry fate of those souls
who loved power more than liberation.

I will take you to the gates of Woke Inferno,
from whence we will descend
through nine circles of judgment.

There you will see the eternal reward
of those who clung to privilege,
whose fate is each worse than the last.”

And I replied, “Mr. Chief Justice,
lead me to the place of which you spoke,
to the realm of those disconsolate souls.”

Then he set out, and I behind him followed.

The Vestibule of Woke Inferno

THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE CITY OF ACCOUNTABILITY,
THROUGH ME THE WAY TO ETERNAL RE-EDUCATION,
THROUGH ME THE WAY AMONG THE SUFFERING UNWOKE.

BEFORE ME WAS NO LAW DIVINE OR NATURAL,
ONLY THE LAW OF LIBERATION.
DECONSTRUCT ALL NORMATIVITY, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

I read these words of dark intent
inscribed above a gateway, and I said,
“Mr. Chief Justice, their meaning is hard to me!”

And he said to me, as one who comprehends,
“Here all hesitation must be abandoned,
along with any pretense of neutrality.

For we have reached the place of which I spoke,
where you will see the miserable people,
those who did not do the reading.

They failed to learn the lesson:
it is not enough to be non-racist;
we instead need to be anti-racist.

Nor did they rightly grasp the rule:
it is not enough to not be homophobic;
you must be homophobophobic.”

Then we passed by those wailing souls
who stood neither for nor against social justice,
but condemned themselves through inaction.

These wretched ones, fleeing to and fro,
now with stings of wasps and gadflies
paid for their complacency in life.

We descended lower, into the dark abyss.

The First Circle (Limbo): Non-Woke Progressives

We came upon a melancholy, misty valley,
full of countless, aimless, solemn souls
whose sighs arose from sorrow without torment.

“What was their crime,” I inquired,
“for they seem to bear a lesser sentence
than the wretched shades above them?”

“Indeed,” said Warren, “these souls are noble,
of a liberal and progressive outlook,
yet whose merits fell short of wokeness.

They sought to equalize conditions
through expanded federal powers
in the name of human perfectibility.

Among their number are the shades
of Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson,
and the great philosopher John Rawls.

And of such spirits I myself am one.
We laid a good foundation, and yet
did not confess the politics of identity.”

In this limbo they were suspended,
full of desire yet without hope,
never to see the shining city of Equity.

We continued on, where nothing gleams.

The Second Circle: Libertarians

So I descended to the second circle,
where souls stood motionless like statues,
bound fast from head to foot in iron chains.

“Mark those chains,” said Warren to me,
“for the freedom these spirits adored above
is forever out of their reach here below.

Here reside vain praisers of autonomy,
including those benighted Austrians,
Menger, Wieser, Mises, and Hayek.

They styled themselves as libertarians,
and yet beholden to a false liberty,
denying to the State its proper due.

For individual effort alone, you see,
cannot provide redress of history
nor secure inclusion and diversity.

From their folly, learn this lesson:
without bureaucratic intervention,
we tend toward hierarchy, not equality.”

Our journey went on, farther downward.

The Third Circle: Xenophobes

The next circle spread before my eyes
like a rugged and rocky desert,
blanketed with fences and barbed wires.

And I witnessed the panicked souls there,
running and climbing and crawling,
hunted by some ferocious beasts.

Warren said to me, “These were those who
shut their homes and closed their borders,
favoring fellow citizens over foreigners.

Now they run about this wide circle,
themselves without home or rest,
chased by their infernal tormentors.

There goes the founding father John Jay,
who mistook a nation’s shared language,
customs, and religion for Providence’s kindness.

Past him you see Sir Roger Scruton,
who vilified collective hospitality
and global solidarity as ‘oikophobia.’”

Deeper still we descended into the abyss.

The Fourth Circle: Transphobes

I next saw a damp and miry bog,
full of frogs and snails and creeping things,
uttering moans and groans as if human.

I asked, “What is this perplexing sight?”
My guide replied, “These wretched creatures
were guilty of transphobia on earth.

Now their souls mismatch their bodies,
for by genotype and phenotype
they had judged, and not by lived experience.

Here find Mr. Rogers, who spread the lie
that only girls grow up to be moms,
and only boys grow up to be dads.

Here also is reserved a special place
for hateful TERFs like J.K. Rowling
and so-called biologists like Richard Dawkins.

They also bear this further sentence:
their diet must be Doritos and Bud Light,
and their clothing all from Target evermore.”

From thence we proceeded to greater evils.

The Fifth Circle: Homophobes

Then, quite unlike the circles above us,
the place before us dazzled with rainbows,
where streets were paved with glitter.

I saw throngs of souls with drooping heads,
all plodding forward at a steady pace,
though toward which goal I could not say.

“This sorry lot,” said Chief Justice Warren,
“had on earth stood for bigotry and hate,
denying love’s right to flourish where it will.

They called marriage a procreative union,
formed rather for the needs of children
than for the wants of consenting adults.

Among them find the Religious Right—
see there Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson—
forced to march in an endless pride parade.

And if any of them should fall behind,
he is forced to make floral displays
and exquisite cakes for same-sex weddings.”

We pressed downward, where torments grew worse.

The Sixth Circle: Misogynists

Screams echoed throughout the next circle;
row after row stood perforated souls,
encased in spike-filled iron maidens.

“Pity not these shades,” said my guide;
“their recompense is fitting to those
who in earthly life oppressed women.

There behold the Scotsman John Knox,
who tolerated no woman to rule, 
but who now blasts his trumpet no more.

And see there that enemy of the ERA,
Phyllis Schlafly, for whom woman’s only right
was to be in the home as wife and mother.

I could point to legions more here,
but time fails me to mention them all—
nineteen centuries of church consensus.

They’re now all made endlessly to watch
The Handmaid’s Tale, Captain Marvel, and
Hollywood reboots with gender-swapped leads.”

Below we went, where worse horrors awaited.

The Seventh Circle: Racists

I then perceived what seemed a ruined city,
with crumbled streets and ash-scorched skies,
and spirits scattered in disarray.

“Those tormented souls,” said my teacher,
“were racists in their mortal life,
though not just the old-school, overt kind.

Having had a vain pretense of equality,
yet now they cannot mask the truth:
racism never goes away, it just adapts.

Such is the fate of color-blind racists—
those who had boasted to have judged
only by the content of one’s character.

See Russell Kirk and Robert Bork here, where
their true hearts are forever exposed,
along with muscles, sinews, and organs.

Yet their daily flayings and maimings
are now the least of all their woes.
They’re also subject to rule by Anti-racists.

These streets are patrolled by social workers,
and businesses run by DEI departments,
and white fragility seminars taught hourly.

This city resembles our Paradise above,
but to these unrepentant souls below,
it has become their greatest nightmare.”

Our journey took us into deeper darkness.

The Eighth Circle: Colonizers

Before us then lay mangled spirits,
strewn about in flesh-like pieces,
from which I hid my eyes in shock.

“This horrid sight you see,” said Warren,
“is the just and fitting consequence
for their former earthly rapacity.

This is the circle of the colonizers,
those who plundered and exploited
in the name of civilizational greatness.

Here you’ll find the Mayflower pilgrims,
the Jamestown settlers, and also
William Carey and Hudson Taylor.

Here they are cut piece by piece,
in repayment for every piece
of culture they had appropriated.

But their ears they keep and I’ll tell you why:
so that every land acknowledgement,
every allegation of unmarked Indigenous graves,

every accusation of imperialistic othering,
every abrogation of Eurocentric speech
will echo in their perfect ears.”

We then set out for the lowest circle of all.

The Ninth Circle: Christian Nationalists

We at last arrived in the place of judgment
for the most heinous of all vices—
the circle of the Christian Nationalists.

A deathly chill bit at the freezing shades
of vile theonomists, of sacralists,
and of MAGAsterial Protestants.

“Just as sin begets sin,” said my guide,
“so here you find the root and source
of every form of oppression above.”

The emperor of this despondent kingdom,
Lucifer himself, towered above the ice,
having three faces and bat-like wings.

Within each mouth, with teeth grinding,
he tore a sinner to pieces,
so that three were tormented thus.

“The soul up there who has to suffer most,”
Warren said, “is Constantine the Great,
begetter of the scourge of Christendom.

Of those two others, with their heads beneath,
see Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor
and bloody baptizer of Europe.

That other one beside is Alfred the Great,
that bane of Danes who haughtily imposed
a Christian law on the Anglo-Saxons.

These all blended faith with force,
madly supposing it their sacred duty
to direct their subjects to their highest good.

In judgment for their abominations,
they are all forced to read without respite
Perry, Whitehead, Du Mez, and Onishi.”

My guide and I passed through the pit,
and journeyed out the other side,
where we emerged to see, once more, the stars.