The Universal Exodus

We need to tell and retell the story in a manner that preserves human freedom rightly understood.

Source: Antonio Filigno

Enemies of freedom and the West are keen to destroy and desecrate our canon. This has already happened in the academy, where the very idea of a Western canon has long been under attack. Our collection of great works, to the extent it is still studied, is being deracinated and deconstructed.

To be college-educated about the West in 2026 is to have great works run through some combination of critical theory, identity politics, and post-colonial studies—the teeth used to chew our identity and our ideals. (Thankfully, there is a group of insurgents keeping the best of the West alive online, though one has to learn to separate signal from slop.)

Now, if you were to ask me what the most important work of the Western canon is to our sense of shared identity, it is surely the Exodus story. That story has interesting and important details. It’s full of symbolism, yet it is also based upon peoples and cultures that once lived to tell the tale.

But I want to do something risky with Exodus.

I want to isolate its skeleton—its narrative-psychological scaffolding. Because if we are to preserve the blessings of freedom and order, we’ll do well to retell the following in different ways.

1. Captivity—Our people are not free.

2. Awakening—A visionary helps us see beyond our captivity.

3. Confrontation—Authorities of the old order deny our vision.

4. Exit—We make a decisive break with the old order.

5. Wilderness—Our newfound freedom is tested.

6. Covenant—Our freedom becomes ordered.

7. Homeland—We, a free people, create a durable home and flourish.

This narrative-psychological story structure can move mountains. So we have work to do.

Be warned, though.

The above can be appropriated by our adversaries. All they have to do is redefine freedom, and the Exodus scaffolding serves ends we want no part of. In other words, if freedom is defined as freedom from need and poverty created by x who hoard resources—where x=oligarchs, white people, or landlords—the Exodus story scaffolding will serve the parasites who will eventually become the predators.

No, we must define freedom and defend that definition just as we defend freedom itself. Freedom is the absence of interpersonal coercion. It is a condition in which a person who has brought harm to no one is not subject to the coercive will of others and can therefore act according to his own decisions and plans. In such a condition, all interpersonal relationships are consensual.

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