Woke Ed
One of the casualties of the rising Woke worldview has been traditional education. Story after story of school board curriculum reviews and education colleges tell us that traditional subjects are being replaced with subjects more aligned with this rising worldview. Math, science, history, and economics are being replaced with SEL, antiracism, cancel culture, and various forms of Queer Theory.
It seems that the consequences of this adjustment are coming clear to more and more people. And in the looming fog of the neo-Marxist plan to build good little activists, more educational institutions are rejecting the new waves in curriculum and theory.
Glenn Arbery, discussing Wyoming Catholic College, writes in the Imaginative Conservative:
Many educators today have fostered a false enlightenment, a so-called “wokeness,” that actually closes off inquiry and darkens the mind. Perhaps I may be forgiven a paraphrase of what Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “Woe to you, scholars of grievance! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.” Surely a recognition of this spiritual destitution will convince more and more people to look for real alternatives.
Prison for Prayer
The Left’s need to protect the sacrament of abortion continues to press forward. As reported in World Magazine:
On Oct. 18, members of Parliament voted 297 to 110 in favor of an amendment to the Public Order Bill, affirming the introduction of nationwide abortion center “buffer zones.” Anyone who gets within 492 feet of an abortion facility with the intent to discourage women from getting an abortion could face prison time.
The amendment has broad implications for Christians. Conservative MP Fiona Bruce argued that “the wording of the new clause could even catch those quietly praying. … This clause is specifically targeted at those with faith-based views.” In fact, the law seems to have been drafted with this in mind. Stella Creasy, the lawmaker who proposed the amendment, said, “Let’s be honest, there’s nobody praying outside the places you get a hip operation.”
At one point the pro-life debate centered on whether the fetus was human. Then, the biology being simply overwhelming, the debate moved to whether the fetus was a person with rights. All along the way, short-sighted arguments kept chugging along about “my body my choice”, and shades of nuance related to incest or rape.
It seems, though, that we have reached the point of sheer political and public coercion. There is not much of a case for killing a baby in the womb, so the longer the debate goes, the more apt the pro-abortion movement is to resort to blind power.
With every issue like this, I believe the Christian or pro-life supporter in general should do what they can to advocate for political and legal change. But, in the long run, the work will be won by changing hearts and minds and by the overwhelming application of the truth through pro-life agencies and prayer.
Free Speech
One area in which reason and respect for neighbor is taking a beating is in the area of free speech. In many circles, the Left has successfully created the image that free speech is tantamount to terrorism. It is not just the threat of words that cause “micro aggressions”, free speech is the kind of thing that leads to mass tyrannical movements. It is one of history’s reoccurring ironies that tyrannical movements employ heavy-handed censorship and punishment while convincing many that they are the good guys, and the people they want to silence are the tyrants.
If you do not know the Brownstone Institute, I suggest you find a way to follow them online (Twitter, Telegram, etc.). They have been a thoughtful and relentless voice for the minority report for almost two years now, and a lot of what they publish is vital information. A recent article details Germany’s move the censor Twitter after Musk’s take over. Robert Kogon writes:
In reaction to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, Germany’s ARD public television published a commentary last weekend describing censored Twitter voices as “rats” and calling for them to be “beaten back into their holes.”
And later:
Others pointed to the use of the same imagery in Nazi propaganda: notably, in the 1940 propaganda film “Der ewige Jude” – The Eternal Jew – which compares Jewish immigration to an invasion of disease-spreading rats.
Free speech is a far superior virtue than this kind of censorship and cancel culture. When I support free speech, I honor my neighbor’s right to their ideas and the expression of those ideas. With a few exceptions that have been outlined by courts over a couple of centuries now, individual citizens are valuable enough to have their voice heard. Even it if contradicts what those in power want to say.
And there is the rub. If you support limiting “misinformation” or “disinformation”, you will need to carefully – very carefully – explain who gets to decide what counts in those categories. Any answer that can be reduced to “the government”, or, “science”, or, “experts”, can no longer be taken seriously. Every one of those has abused the trust and rights of citizens around the world (especially over the last 2 years), and it is exactly the voices they want to silence that need to be heard. The definition of what counts as true and false information cannot be reduced to power.
If you disagree, I suggest you spend a few minutes with the Brownstone Institute and give some of their work a fighting chance.