Over the years I have followed various national threat assessment analyses. These analyses report, discuss, and predict what are and what will be the major threats to our national security and well-being.
The nature of threats we hear about cut across a wide band of dimensions, from other countries (China, Russia, North Korea) to terrorist groups (ISIS, Al-Qaida). There is also the threat from natural phenomena (COVID, climate change). Modern technology (cyber theft, electrical grid disruption) poses threats as well.
While there are reputable threats, we also hear about some bizarre concerns such as the FBI thinking that conservative Catholics are a terrorist threat. Other bizarre concerns include the Defund the Police movement claiming our country’s law enforcement is a major threat, and Antifa thinking the nuclear family is a threat.
The Threat to Defining our Human Nature
The reality is we do live in a world of serious threats. However, upon reflecting on our cultural environment of the past several years, it seems that the various threat assessments fail to address the threat that I think is one of the most serious. That would be the social engineering effort to redefine who we are as human beings. This threat undermines our education, our places of work, our government, and our social conventions. It is also affecting our freedom of speech and religious expression.
How is this effort a threat? I think that we, as a society, are undergoing a type of “brainwashing.”
The term brainwashing was first used during the Korean War. The Chinese tried to brainwash American POWS into the Communist way of thinking. The process involves the forced acceptance of a specific view. Any disagreements with that view are treated with disdain and even punishment.
I would suggest there are four main examples of brainwashing underway in our current culture.
Abortion
Many contend that abortion is all about women’s rights. It is an issue solely between a mother-to-be and her doctor.
So, how is this a threat?
Beyond the direct threat to the lives of the unborn, abortion is the litmus test for protecting the sanctity of life within a society. The killing of an innocent life in the womb undermines the entire societal ethic of the respect for the dignity of the human person, for justice, and for equality under the law.
If an individual or a culture accepts that it is okay to kill a baby in the womb, it can progress to becoming okay to commit infanticide at any age. It then becomes okay to kill anybody who wishes to die, as we now see in assisted suicide laws.
What does this say about our human nature? Instead of reflecting the dignity of the human person, it says that what is important is the dignity of only “me” and “my” personal freedom of choice. It says we can play God with no obligation for “the other”. A selfish convenience becomes the priority that can influence decisions on other matters.
The right to life is a core tenant of not just our faith but our culture and our laws. It was defined as such in the Declaration of Independence where the first unalienable right defined was “life.” Consequently, the pro-abortion view of our human nature goes against our nation’s founding view of rights.
Transgenderism
The notion that gender is fluid and we can select our sex is undergoing a forced acceptance socially, within the business world, education, and government. Many organizations now accept many gender definitions. Facebook, for instance, lists 58 different genders!
So, how is this a threat?
The immediate threat, of course, is to young folks who undergo gender modification by surgery and hormone therapy. This is especially concerning considering there is research suggesting that many teens outgrow gender dysphoria. As such, those that ‘transition’ have many problems.
The cultural threat of accepting that we can have many genders is a threat to acknowledging the truth of our humanity. Nature and human history both document that there are two biological genders. God created us in his image and likeness as man and women (Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 5:1-2). Gender is not based on feelings or social pressure.
Workplaces, schools, government agencies, and social conventions are forcing us to adopt politically correct language to support transgenderism. Terms such as “sperm producer” and “egg producer” instead of male and female are two examples of this politically correct stupidity. But if one disagrees, he/she is accused of bullying, being bigoted, and/or being transphobic.
As Father Nathaniel Dreyer wrote recently, “the names that we give things should reflect their essences.” And even Confucius advised that the beginning of wisdom, “is to call things by their proper name.”
Promoting the acceptance of a false definition of our human nature is the epitome of relativism running rampant. It can set the stage for our losing the ability to discern the truth about anything.
Same Sex ‘Marriage’
The LBGQT agenda has won the court battle that has forced an acceptance of same sex ‘marriage.’
So, how is this a threat?
It helps to undercut the validity of marriage as an institution for raising the next generation. Attaching mothers and fathers to their children and to one another is not just one purpose of marriage. It is society’s purpose for marriage. Same-sex couples are not positioned naturally with respect to this important purpose of marriage law. It relegates marriage to just a legal expression of togetherness.
Same-sex marriage is the latest variation of the sexual freedom movement that has resulted in 40% of American children being born out of wedlock and a 50% divorce rate. Natural marriage is already on the wane with more and more people not getting married and having children.
Calling same-sex unions marriage blurs the lines about our inherent sexual nature. In short, it contributes to undermining the traditional and historical sexuality as a loving basis for procreation within a stable and secure marriage setting as God intended (Genesis 2:24). It sets the stage for the acceptance of all kinds of relationships to be called marriage. Allowing polygamy with multiple partners is already being discussed.
The traditional family structure has served as the backbone of civilization forever. Anything that lessons traditional families with a mom and dad leaves open space with dangerous consequences. With an absence of normal parental relationships, the government will increasingly be asked to step in for the rearing of children.
Transhumanism
Transhumanism is the belief that we are the masters of our own destiny to the extent that we can evolve beyond the natural constraints of our humanity. We can re-engineer our human nature through science and technology. CS writer Steve Smith has written about dangers of transhumanism a number of times, most recently in an article entitled “The “Trans” Issue that Matters Most.”
So, how is transhumanism a threat?
It is reflective of the belief in eugenics that we can improve the human species by encouraging or permitting reproduction of only those people with genetic characteristics judged desirable. In turn, we can alter our gene structure through gene editing to be whatever we want to be through merging technology with our biology to create a new and better species. Designer babies and cloning are examples.
Supporters talk of how we can change the natural biology of the human species. They say a human can become a “superhuman” who is immortal. The promises of this are addicting – no more disease, no more disabilities, super functionality and intelligence, and no more death.
However, the ethical framework behind transhumanism is that of utility. We can destroy life for the betterment of knowledge or destroy that which we think is not worth living.
Transhumanism and abortion have the same sense of what our humanity is. For both we are but commodities to be used or destroyed to satisfy our needs, desires or convenience. In turn, transhumanism is linked to transgenderism in that proponents think they can alter their biological gender to be whatever they want to be.
Distorting Truth
The evolution of these four examples has followed a similar course. First, they were to be tolerated, but soon after they were to be accepted. Now we are seeing forced support through language and authoritative actions.
Social pressure for these movements has morphed into legal, workplace, and educational regulations. In essence, we are being forced to accept and apply a false and unrealistic view of our human nature with many consequences.
Some of the consequences have already impacted the freedom of religious expression. Examples are Catholic adoption services and Christian wedding cake bakers being sued for denying their services (based on their faith beliefs) to same-sex couples.
Freedom of speech is also being curtailed, especially on college campuses. Speech codes and the use of approved gender language is now mandatory on many campuses.
Support for abortion remains high and gene research “to improve” our DNA continues.
And finally, we see the support and increasing acceptance of the application of the transgender agenda with such bizarre regulations of allowing boys to compete against girls and using girl’s restrooms and showers.
These efforts come under the umbrella of so called “wokism or “political correctness” which affects our perception of the value of the human person. How we view our human nature affects how we view the human person. How we view the human person affects how one is treated by others through social and legal codes. Ultimately, it can affect how our human rights are defined or denied.
Perhaps the most serious consequence is the ongoing distortion of truth. These actions are teaching and demanding a relative sense of perception of what is truth. All these efforts undermine our ability to assess and define what is true. Pope Benedict XVI pointed out such dangers under the name of the “dictatorship of relativism.”
Summary
These four examples represent the relativist view of our human nature. It is a view based on one’s own ego and desires as opposed to God’s design. We do not make ourselves. We are made in the image of God.
The solution to the shifting threats of moral relativism is the timeless truths and moral absolutes of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Retired Archbishop Chaput recently addressed this conclusion:
“What is the bottom-line issue in the culture war afflicting Western culture across the globe? The bottom of that bottom line is whether human beings are really just bundles of desires, all of which are morally equal and should be acknowledged as legitimate in the name of human rights. By contrast, Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) taught that the truth about our humanity is revealed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. In Christ, we learn that we are creatures of a much nobler nature and destiny, and that self-giving, not self-assertion, is freedom lived in a truly human way. Wokery is a world of silos in which race-mania, “gender identity,” and “isms” of all sorts are somehow supposed to foster living in solidarity.”
“How does the West rebuild the shattered foundations of its culture? Vatican II, as authentically interpreted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, teaches that a great awakening to the truths on which our civilization was built will come through a New Evangelization, in which every Catholic (as affirmed by Lumen Gentium and by the Council’s Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem) understands himself or herself to have been baptized into a missionary vocation, bringing others to friendship with Jesus Christ.”
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