“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” early-20th-century occultist Aleister Crowley infamously declared. At the time, he was labeled “the wickedest man in the world,” but his influence was eclipsed by Communist Vladimir Lenin. The Russian revolutionary championed the formula “Who Whom?,” reducing politics to a struggle over class dominance.
The New Criterion dubbed this ideology “Leninthink” in 2019. Others, however, view it as pure moral corruption. Whatever its label, such principles persist and have metastasized into a destructive spread across contemporary society.
The New York Post recently lamented that “the no-standards left is run by scoundrels, fraudsters and morons.” This phrase encapsulates the core tenet of this ideology: “Do what thou wilt.”
In recent writing, the Post’s Isaac Schorr detailed how leftist amorality manifests. He cited the reinstatement of journalist Karen Attiah by The Washington Post after she was fired for allegedly expressing anti-white-male sentiments and spreading misinformation about conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Attiah claimed that “black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously,” urging that “you have to go steal a white person’s slot.” In reality, Kirk made these remarks specifically about four black women, not black women as a whole. Misrepresenting this nuance constitutes serious journalistic misconduct.
When Attiah was reinstated, former President Barack Obama publicly defended her, citing First Amendment protections. The move underscored that even the most influential Democratic figure had embraced this ideology at its lowest level.
Schorr further noted that Piker has made light of the September 11 attacks and blamed American Jews’ persecution on their affinity for Israel, calling it “Jewish ISIS.” Piker openly identifies as a communist—a status once associated with social ostracism—yet Democratic politicians such as Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed have welcomed him as a campaign partner. Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders criticized Democratic strategist James Carville for rejecting Piker’s influence.
Schorr described Piker as “perverse, yes—but hardly unexpected.” The Democrats have long been associated with supporters who celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk and dismissed the 2020 toppling of a Christopher Columbus statue. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarked that “people will do what they do,” while Representative Ayanna Pressley encouraged “unrest in the streets” during an MSNBC interview.
These examples reflect a broader trend: the abandonment of moral absolutes. Two millennia ago, Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero observed that the demagoguery of Julius Caesar was not solely his fault but also the result of those who supported him. Similarly, today’s ideological leaders rise on the shoulders of millions who lack moral vision.
As commentator George P. Brooks recently noted, this phenomenon stems from the “death of moral absolutes.” Without a shared understanding of right and wrong, society collapses into relativism.
Consider: if people abandoned beliefs in health rules but embraced dietary relativism, they would have no way to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy food. Similarly, without absolute morality, concepts like “right” and “wrong” become meaningless.
A Barna Group study from 2025 found that only six percent of teenagers believed in “moral truth as absolute”—the same figure observed in a 2002 survey. This decline reflects a growing societal shift toward moral relativism.
The origins of this trend lie in two possibilities: either society determines morality (social-construct theory) or an external force—such as God—does. Under social-construct theory, if 90 percent of humanity preferred chocolate over vanilla, that would not make chocolate “right” and vanilla “wrong.” Similarly, the idea that murder is wrong cannot be reduced to a majority preference.
One individual once stated: “Murder isn’t wrong. It’s just that society says it is.” This view conflicts with the existence of unchanging moral law established by God. Without such an objective standard, all moral claims become subjective.
If God does not exist—or if His will is irrelevant—then Lenin’s “Who Whom?” becomes a viable moral framework. This reality breeds a population unable to distinguish between right and wrong, as they lack the foundational belief in objective morality.
What we see today is a dark, misbegotten premise: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”