Elon Musk and the Mind Virus

Civilizational Threat

Not until very recently did I hear the terminology, “mind virus,” and it came from Elon Musk (the wealthiest man in the world) in various podcast interviews.  In a few of those by various individuals, he talks about the “mind virus” as a civilizational threat.  When asked why he bought Twitter (now X), even though it was an apparently very bad investment, he explains that he did it to ward away again, “civilizational threat.”  He saw a particular mind virus, which took the world in a trajectory that he assessed would result in the destruction of humanity.  His purchase of X would push that back for a time, Musk surmised.

Elon Musk could be right, depending on what the real “mind virus” is.   The terminology hearkens to a biblical truth that gets at the crux of the real problem in the world. The actual mind virus is not, however, we know, the same one of which he speaks, based on scripture.  Yet, mind virus as a concept, I would agree, depending on its definition, is the greatest civilizational threat.

Richard Dawkins and “Viruses of the Mind”

It seems that the words “mind virus” originated with Richard Dawkins with a 1991 article, entitled, “Viruses of the Mind,” originally delivered as a lecture.  Others that then used the terminology equated a similar concept.  Dawkins saw religious faith as the chief mind virus, but really faith itself, people with which he calls “faith sufferers.”  His point, albeit very false, was that faith bypassed evidence, so it mainly blocked or impeded evidence.

In most recent times, maybe the most common usage of “mind virus” refers to the technical terminology, “woke mind virus.”  Googling those three exact words brought me 123,000 hits.  This seems to be where we’ve settled in the realm of “mind virus.’  “Woke mind virus.”  References to “mind virus” now mean “woke mind virus.”

Meaning of Woke Mind Virus

Musk’s Definition

At the top of a google search is an article at Rolling Stone, titled, “Elon Musk and Bill Maher Fear the ‘Woke Mind Virus’.”  When asked, Musk defined this virus as “anything anti-meritocratic and that results In the suppression of free speech.”  He said the main cause of it is “the amount of indoctrination that’s happening in schools and universities.”  One man, I think, accurately described the woke mind virus with the following quote by G. K. Chesterton:

We shall soon be in a world in which a man may be howled down for saying that two and two make four, in which furious party cries will be raised against anybody who says that cows have horns, in which people will persecute the heresy of calling a triangle a three-sided figure, and hang a man for maddening mob with the news that grass is green.

Some of that to which Musk refers is what I also believe is the mind virus, including in his assessment of Netflix.  Commenting on the hemorrhaging of Netflix subscriptions, Musk said Netflix was “unwatchable” because of its “woke mind virus.”

The Real Woke Mind Virus

“Woke” became contemporary terminology to describe a state of totally subjective enlightenment, untethered to objective reality.  Someone woke is awake to something probably invisible to almost everyone.  An apparent woke person can see someone is a racist like a Geiger counter picking up radioactivity.  No evidence of racism is necessary.  His inner Geiger counter detects racism; therefore, it must be there.  A woke practitioner also sees more than two sexes and even fluidity in gender identity, where someone can label himself a woman, when he is a man, even depending on the day of the week.

A Reprobate Mind

What Musk called the “woke mind virus” is what Romans 1:28 calls “a reprobate mind,” that does not “like to retain God in [its] knowledge.”  Concerning the same, 2 Timothy 3:8 says, “these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.”  It’s what 2 Thessalonians 2:11 calls a “strong delusion.”  In modern vernacular, someone infected with the woke mind virus is delusional.  2 Corinthians 3:14 and 4:4 say these people’s minds are blinded, so that they cannot see the light of God’s truth.

Musk himself rejects the light of the gospel.  He considers the earth billions of years old and that man emerged from naturalistic evolutionary processes.  Musk also contends that an extinction event for earth is inevitable.  He says, “An extinction event is inevitable and we’re increasingly doing ourselves in.”

Public schools keep teaching lies of the most fundamental and foundational nature.  These lies are the root that poison every fruit on the entire tree.  They are what Paul calls, “imaginations that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  These ways that seem right unto man, Solomon says are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12).

Prevenient Grace

How do Musk and other’s like him, themselves deluded, correctly identify the woke mind virus? In a default manner, God gives every human “the law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:15).  The same verse says, “the conscience also bearing witness.”  In the previous chapter, the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1:19:  “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.”  C. H. Spurgeon said in a sermon entitled, Prevenient Grace, preached:

PREVENIENT GRACE, or the grace which comes before regeneration and conversion. I think we sometimes overlook it. We do not attach enough importance to the grace of God in its dealings with men before He actually brings them to Himself. Paul says that God had designs of love towards him even before he had called him out of the dead world into spiritual life.

That grace doesn’t end in salvation for everyone, as seen in Romans 1:18.  Even though they know God through many general means, men still suppress the truth in their unrighteousness.  As a result, they become “vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21).  This is another description of the “woke mind virus.”

The virus also creeps into churches.  Churches accommodate the world system.  They subjugate themselves to conventional wisdom, what James 3:15 calls “wisdom [that] descendeth not from above, earthly, sensual, devilish.”  These are what the Apostle Paul calls in 1 Corinthians 2:13, “the words which man’s wisdom teacheth.”    He also calls it “the carnal mind [that] is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7).

The True Woke Mind Virus

Musk doesn’t know or understand the true woke mind virus.  Yes, the god of this world deludes most men, including Musk, and God turns them over to a reprobate mind.  They are bewitched like the Galatians, “that they should not obey the truth” (Galatians 3:1).

The only escape from the woke mind virus is what Paul calls ‘the law of the mind’ (Romans 7:23).  This is akin to replacing the “heart of stone” with a “heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26).  With this change of nature, man can and will think characteristically how God wants him to think.  This is the only true and real cure for the woke mind virus.  God can and will deliver through the Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul writes (Romans 7:25):

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God.