Webb images: What the universe is telling us

There's nothing ordinary about the universe. Source: Slice of Webb space telescope image (see below)

The first Webb space telescope's images from the edge of time have astounded the public, amazed the space flight community given its success, and challenged the whole world's body of scientists to explain in simple terms what is being revealed afresh as the raw beauty within the complexity of creation.

Klaus Pontoppidan, project scientist with the Webb Mission Office at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which works with NASA, said before the images were made public that there was a thrill in striving to capture in a comprehensible way the special reality of it all.

It was his team's job to translate infrared wavelengths into colours human eyes can see. He saw the task as like translating a poem written in another language: “It takes a little work to get the poetry across.”

As to the outcome of the Webb telescope's work, Pontoppidan said:

“The universe is huge and varied, and we’ve only scratched the surface of what's there," adding, “I think anybody would say we’re just human, and we cannot predict what the universe is going to tell us.”

A young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.

In brief, scientists hope the James Webb Space Telescope will allow them to glimpse light from the first stars and galaxies that formed 13.7 billion years ago, just 100 million years from the universe-producing Big Bang. The telescope also will scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible signs of life.

So astronomers and physicists want to observe what is already there. It is clear from the excitement we have seen  in scientists such as Pontoppidan interviewed on TV and by print media over the past few days that they come to the task with an ability to marvel in the way that Albert Einstein expressed by quoting Socrates' epigram: "Wisdom begins in wonder."

Einstein is also quoted here concerning "our dull faculties" which, as amazing though our successes are, we remain limited in what we know and understand at any point in time. This is true of the past and present, and it is inescapable for the future. There will always be "unknowns".

One writer in the science field states:

The Webb Telescope is a new era for astronomy and science. Scientists have no idea what they might discover with Webb. But with five observations taken in just one week of operation, they have already found several cosmic Easter eggs that defy expectations — including a few complete and utter unknowns.

That writer, Inverse's Kiona Smith, rejoices at the image of  the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 about 4.5 billion light-years from Earth:

But look closely at the shinier objects, and you see the red and orange dust-like specks of other, much older, much more distant galaxies, thrown into focus using gravitational lensing. 

These primordial galaxies are the faintest objects in the Universe ever observed. But here’s the thing: We don’t actually precisely know how old or distant they might be at this point — but the two motes pointed out here come to us by way of light that travelled 13 billion and 13.1 billion years.

On Twitter, @NASAWebb said of the image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723:

If you held a grain of sand up to the sky at arm’s length, that tiny speck is the size of Webb’s view in this image. Imagine — galaxies galore within a grain, including light from galaxies that travelled billions of years to us! 

The sense of celebration as information about the universe is offered us in a way our intellects can cope with is likewise captured in the words of NASA senior Webb scientist John Mather, a Nobel laureate, speaking after the reveal. What is so exciting about the images is this, he said: 

“It’s the beauty but also the story. It’s the story of where did we come from.” 

Motor racing world champion Lewis Hamilton was moved to exclaim on Twitter:

The universe is so powerful and every single one of us is a part of it. Thank you for sharing the universe’s magic with us.

President Joe Biden called the  publication of the Webb images a historic event "for America and all humanity". 

Monica Grady is professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at Britain's Open University and chancellor of Liverpool Hope University. This is her take on the images:

[I]s the £8.4bn price tag worth it? What might come from the JWST that benefits us all?

For a start, there is the inspirational value of the images. The simple joy in appreciating their beauty. The colour and texture of the pictures we have seen bring to (my) mind works by some of the finest artists. What would Turner or Monet have been moved to paint if they could have seen the JWST’s shot of the Carina Nebula? How might contemporary artists, including poets and musicians, be inspired by the JWST, enriching all of us with their interpretations?

Grady stresses that the discoveries flowing already from the telescope—a million miles (1.6 million kilometres) from Earth—are "important and hugely significant" for science, and she continues with a list of  benefits for us all likely to arise from the technological breakthroughs required to enable the telescope to produce images of such clarity.

The passion to know about the heavens "above" us is not new, with plenty of evidence available that the ancients built up a body of knowledge based on long observations of the movements of the stars and the constellations they seemed to form, as well as the impact of the sun and moon on human life. Though the concept of a fixed Earth was a constant, it was always a work in progress as unexpected astronomical events kept the observers—and astrologers in particular—on their toes. 

The Bible makes many references to the splendour of the heavens, recording the state of knowledge within the ancient world. The Romans named the planets after the gods they inherited from the Greeks, named according to their appearance and movements.

The beauty, the magnificence, the abundance—this reality that has so intrigued us has rightly engendered wonder and awe over the centuries, and these qualities inspired Paul, the highly educated apostle, to write this to the Christians in Rome: 

For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them [the pagans] since God himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and deity—however invisible—have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made. That is why such people are without excuse: they knew God and yet refused to honor him as God or to thank him; instead, they made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened. The more they called themselves philosophers, the more stupid they grew, until they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a worthless imitation, for the image of mortal man, of birds, of quadrupeds and reptiles. 

The idols of each age may be different, no longer carved from stone or wood, but in similiar fashion, these days allegiance is proffered to ephemeral notions such as that humankind has within itself all that is required for understanding life and our place in the cosmos. In this mindset the individual is sovereign, and care for our neighbour is an optional extra unless we want to signal virtue or join a fashionable crusade led by an elite who push Marxist materialism for all it is worth in order to find some kind of meaning in life. the guiding principles for many in the West are

Obviously, what Paul saw in the grandeur of the natural world remains attractive for the minds and hearts of the people of this age. Therefore, it is worth noting the role of Christian (read Catholic) thinkers who laid the foundation for science in the modern era, such as developing the scientific method. In a thorough exposition in Wikipedia titled Science and the Catholic Church,  the point comes across clearly that science and religion are not in conflict, unless in the case of Protestant fundamentalist sects which maintain a literal reading of Genesis and the many other references to creation in the Bible. 

The resources on the NASA website provide much to wonder at. Here is a portion:

A light-year is the distance light travels in one year. Light zips through interstellar space at 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometres) per second and 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometres) per year. 

When we talk about the enormity of the cosmos, it’s easy to toss out big numbers – but far more difficult to wrap our minds around just how large, how far, and how numerous celestial bodies really are.

To get a better sense, for instance, of the true distances to exoplanets – planets around other stars – we might start with the theater in which we find them, the Milky Way galaxy

Our galaxy is a gravitationally bound collection of stars, swirling in a spiral through space. Based on the deepest images obtained so far, it’s one of about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Groups of them are bound into clusters of galaxies, and these into superclusters; the superclusters are arranged in immense sheets stretching across the universe, interspersed with dark voids and lending the whole a kind of spiderweb structure. Our galaxy probably contains 100 to 400 billion stars, and is about 100,000 light-years across. That sounds huge, and it is, at least until we start comparing it to other galaxies. Our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, for example, is some 220,000 light-years wide. Another galaxy, IC 1101, spans as much as 4 million light-years.

Based on observations by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, we can confidently predict that every star you see in the sky probably hosts at least one planet. Realistically, we’re most likely talking about multi-planet systems rather than just single planets. In our galaxy [just one of perhaps 200 billion in the observable universe] are hundreds of billions of stars. This pushes the number of planets potentially into the trillions.

Finally, Carl Sagan spoke in 1981 about a space telescope, almost a decade before the launch of the iconic Hubble Space Telescope. His words about JWST’s predecessor are relevant once again:

“The space telescope is a kind of grand intellectual adventure for all of us, which will cast light, not just on the cosmos, but also, on ourselves.”

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Elite capture is clear within Wokeism

Wokeism's elect and society's elite ... a clownish display of illogic. Photo: Source

The concept of "elite capture" is a useful one in considering what's happening in the West with the rise of the political correctness promoted by Wokeism through its adherence to the brave new world of critical race theory and transgender ideology.

In another illuminating podcast, Yascha Mounk explores the implications of societies and their institutions being dominated by one set of intellectual principles. Mounk, who is a West German-born American political scientist, is Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. He asks:

Do humans generally, including philosophers and social scientists, just have trouble letting go of one master narrative? Are we just hardwired to want to see the world through one prism? As the saying goes, “If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It seems to me that, in so much of intellectual life, [this] ends up being true. 

To find an answer to his question he enters into a discussion with Olúfẹmi Táíwò, who is a philosopher and an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. His latest book is Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else).

Táíwò lays out where the problem lies when there is a sole narrative within and between academia, the corporate sector, the social elite, and all those who aspire to be accepted within that grouping: 

With elite capture itself, I worry there's a kind of path dependency: the longer the more entrenched elite and top heavy social institutions exist, the harder it seems to reverse—barring some kind of weird cataclysm or accident of history. Once you start to lose the kinds of institutions that are designed to challenge elite control over everything (unions, strong social movements, etc.), I worry that even increased attention or understanding of social problems won't do anything. And then there's a worry about the kind of conversation around elite capture and identity politics, so-called “wokeism”, and cancel culture. 

[...] the real thing that's happening is the actual institutions where we develop habits, where we refine our ideas, are more and more owned by and responsive to a very small group of people. That, in and of itself, is the problem. 

Referring to Elite Capture, Mounk says:

I found it quite convincing—this is partially just Miłosz’s explanation of the captive mind—that there is an intoxication in being able to waltz into any conversation and say, “Well, actually, that's all wrong. I have a vocabulary that I've learned—a certain form of Orthodox Marxism—that tells me that this is all about class and class relations in this particular kind of way, and not only does that make me feel like my life has meaning (because I'm a foot soldier in an important, trans-historical movement for justice), but also, I get to lord it over you a little bit, right? Once I've mastered it, I can go in and say, ‘Hey, you're an idiot.’”

Mounk asks for clarification on what "the current framework" of Wokeism fails to achieve. Táíwò replies:

I'm trying to see what the current framework does achieve. What's the output of diversity training, in terms of political outcomes or social interactions? I think what I'm getting at is not just different modes of attacking the problem, but a different understanding of what the problem is in the first place. [...]  I think there's a sense that people feel powerless and disconnected, and there's a question of who and what to put the blame on. [...] I don't think there's any version of responding to that kind of diagnosis of the problem that would solve the thing that, it seems to me, people are worried about.

To which Mounk responds:

[...] To what extent can we summarize the most important takeaway you offer us by saying: we keep thinking exclusively, primarily about race and identity, when we really should be thinking about economics and social class? How much does that capture, and how much important insight does it leave off the table? 

Which meets with limited concurrence by Táíwò: 

There's definitely a way that people can talk about race that might distract us from a more complex understanding of what's going on, and that would include class and economics. But that's not a particular feature of race discourse. You could talk about anything in a close-minded, reductive sort of way. My particular perspective on this has as many bones to pick with class reductionism as it has with race reductionism. So I wouldn't describe the takeaway of this book as an attack on race reductionism in particular. Maybe it would be better to just describe it as an attack on reductionism.

A follow-up question from Mounk: 

We've heard some of your concerns earlier in this conversation about what happens when you try to solve the current problems of the United States through at least one particular kind of race reductionist framework. But if you say, “This is all about class. As long as we elect Bernie 2016—to caricature a little bit—and give lots of nice European-style welfare state benefits to poor people, all of these other problems will go away,” that perhaps would be a form of class reductionism (there are more and less radical versions of it).

What would that get wrong, both about the current state of America and how to fix what's wrong with the current state of America?

Táíwò in reply:

I think that version of class reductionism has a lot more going for it than most other versions of class reductionism. Maybe that would get somewhere: just give people a bunch of money, free healthcare, etc., and the rest will sort itself out. I don't think that's true. But I think it's worth pointing out the differences between a kind of class reductionism about how we should respond to social problems, versus a class reductionism about what those sorts of problems are in the first place. 

[...] It just isn't true that mass incarceration is purely a problem of class. It has a lot more to do with class than people give it credit for, and the way that poor white people are policed is maybe not as different from the way that poor people of color are policed as people might guess, but it is measurably different. There's libraries of social science explaining why it's different.

It just isn't true that the problems of toxic waste and environmental racism are entirely explained by class or the level of income of residents. There are measurable relationships between the demographics of a community and zoning decisions about industrial pollution. If you're looking at what our world is—how it decides who to make predator and who to make prey—there are just more things going on than class. 

Narratives can vary, Mounk says, but the "hardwired" nature of an elite's choice of narrative is important as it has a bearing on the political and social relationships throughout society. Táíwò takes up the issue:

There have been, as a matter of fact, historical eras and epochs where people just seemed willing to accept, or respond to in friendly ways, different overlapping narratives about what the world was like, what was wrong with it, and what to do about it. I think what we're seeing in our time period is not the effect of some deep-seated human inability to move between different narratives of the world, but a manufactured kind of scarcity and competition between political narratives. Part of the manufacture of that has to do with the way that the platforms we use have been constructed.

I think the better part of explaining that has to do with the kind of austerity moment that we're living in, where there's fewer and fewer parts of the economy where people can experience anything like economic security, which fosters a sense of competition between the people who have resources and the people who don't. I think those are the things that we should look at if we're trying to explain why people talk about politics, or many other things, in the ways that they do.

This is the point in the conversation where Mounk spoke the words used at the top of this piece about everyone wanting to comply with the leading narrative. He concludes that thought with this question:

It seems to me like some of our intellectual class today suffers from the same temptation, and can walk into any conversation saying, “Well, this is about white privilege and microaggressions.” [They] get to go into a conversation with people discussing other terms and dismiss them without having to think very hard. Do you think there's something to that parallel? 

To which Táíwò replies:

I think that's right. There's a few kinds of temptation going on. I agree that people want to be able to feel like they understand something, and potentially to lord that over people. They want to feel like they're part of something. They also don't want to feel like they don't understand: complexity is daunting and humbling in ways that not everybody accepts. I'm coming around to why you said “hardwired.” Find me a generation of people where those desires aren’t pushing at us, right?

What's different about what's happening now is not those desires, but the relative absence of the checks on those desires. Decades ago, if you wanted to have the perspective that communism has figured out everything—i.e. ”Our intellectuals have the master narrative of what's good and what's bad, and they have created the singularly most important movement for justice in history”—one of the things you would have had to do is respond to a bunch of people saying, “Well, here's what the Soviet Union is actually doing. Here's what Mao's up to. Here's what's happening in Albania,” and you would have to position yourself in response to that. You may do that in a healthy and honest way, with integrity. You might fail to do that. But those are things that you would have to answer, and not just answer in an interpersonal way.

 Now, in the age of the so-called “end of history” (maybe we won't want to describe it that way anymore), that's no longer the geopolitical situation. In the United States, there is a kind of hegemony of capitalism as the actual master narrative—regardless of whether we give it a thumbs up or thumbs down—that explains what happens in our lives. There's a functional hegemony of the core US political institutions, military and national security.

Again, there are people who would give those institutions a thumbs down, but those institutions do not fear that they will not exist in a few years. So it just means a different thing to have any kind of opinion on political matters, master narrative or not. It means a different thing in our context to succumb to those desires, because there isn't any real political situation or set of institutions forcing you to have a “come-to-Jesus” moment about whether those desires should really be directing your behavior. There's none of the brakes or constraints that there might have been in particular, other eras—or less of them, maybe.

Has the virus of Wokeism infected the United States, and in a secondhand fashion, Canada, the contagion bred in the cesspool of individualism and moral permissiveness? Will America be able to recover its intellectual integrity? Or is America "blinded and hell-bent on its own destruction" as one American wrote for a New Zealand newspaper chain and website? Will Americans being able to excavate their soul to understand why they have "gone completely off the rails", as that American wrote last month, even though expressing his views from a very wokeish perspective. 

💢 See also from Persuasion:

 The Warped Appeal of "Anti-Racism" 

John McWhorter - The Elect: Neoracists Posing as Antiracists 

 When an opinion is an act of violence  

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Moral and legal case against abortion

Dependent, yes, but still of incalculable worth

That an educated American should say that he has not heard or read a proper presentation of the moral case against abortion is a surprising statement to make, but it indicates how our understanding of important issues can be clouded by the assumptions and beliefs arising from the cultural silo in which we tend to live.

That statement admitting to ignorance of the moral case against abortion was made by Yascha Mounk, 40, a West German-born American political scientist. He is currently Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. 

He said in a podcast discussion:

One of the things that it strikes me about my upbringing as a nonreligious person in Europe, and about my intellectual circles in the United States for the last 15 or so years, is that the pro-choice case is so fundamental an assumption that I have barely ever heard the pro-life case. I would love for you to state for me and for my listeners why we should have a deep moral concern about abortion, and why the law may get involved in regulating whether or not women are entitled to getting one.

He was speaking to David French, 53, a columnist for The Atlantic and senior editor at The Dispatch. His books include Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation and The Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore. French received a Bronze Star for service during Operation Iraqi Freedom and, as an attorney, litigated cases surrounding issues of religious and personal liberties.

So, for the sake of all who have never had the opportunity to weigh the arguments supporting a pro-life stance on abortion, here is much shortened version of the discussion between Mounk and French.

French opens his comments on why we should have a "deep moral concern about abortion" this way:

It revolves around a very simple concept: that an unborn child is a human life. It is not the mother, it is not the father. It is a separate human being and quite entire—quite dependent on the mother, of course, and exclusively dependent on the mother prior to viability. But it is a separate human being and as a separate human being a just nation does, in fact, protect innocent life from intentional killing.

The argument that an unborn child is a separate human being isn't just faith-based. From the moment of conception, you're talking about a human being that has separate DNA from the mother and the father; it's not a sperm, and it's not an egg. It's a separate human entity that has the same separate DNA from conception until birth and natural death. A separate human being should receive protection from the law and that status of being dependent on another does not deprive it of worth and value.

A baby is not like a tumor or a toenail or another sort of extension of a person's body. It is a separate body—completely dependent, yes—but another human being. As another human being, why does it have no protection from intentional killing? That's the fundamental argument of the pro-life movement. It's not that women should have no rights over their bodies. It's just that science teaches us it is not, in fact, merely another part of the woman's body; it's a separate living human being.

Mounk picks up on some of those points:

Here, I am torn in two different directions. If I look at a fetus that's five or six months old, and I look at pictures of that fetus, it's very easy to feel that it is, in fact, a different human being. It looks like a kind of little baby. There are complicated scientific arguments about whether or not it is capable of feeling pain at some particular stage of development, but it is clear that it is capable of doing so well before natural birth.

When I look at what a fetus looks like at three weeks or four weeks, I'm starting to be torn in the other direction, which is to say that, yes, I recognize that it is potentially human life, I recognize that it has a unique set of DNA that will remain the same though its natural death, but it does present as a clump of cells. It does not appear to have brain functions. And so at that point, I see there is some moral value there, some reason for moral concern, but it appears to be a lot less than it would be a few months later. 

French stays with the point about the instincts that Mounk owned to where people feel that it is right that a limit should be set on when abortion is allowed. French says:

From where the baby is recognizable as a baby, a lot of moral instinct starts to lock in. What's the scientific basis for this sort of consensus, middle position? I don't know. What's the moral basis for it? Well, it just seems more like a baby then. A lot of the compromise position is really based a great deal on a particular sort of sentiment about the child more than it is a scientific understanding. 

That the fetus is human biologically speaking is accepted by Mounk, but he raises the question of the child's "personhood":

Let's investigate for a moment this question about when the fetus is human, because in some biological sense, it seems obvious to me that two or three weeks in, the fetus is in fact, human; that is, a human entity that has DNA. It can grow to be a full adult human. Biologically speaking, it is human. But I guess the question is, “Is it human in the relevant ways that normally give us moral consideration towards humans?”  

He expands on that question:

I think some of the arguments for why we shouldn't have moral concern for a fetus at six or seven months are bad, precisely by analogy to that question, because you might say, “Well, they can't fend for themselves!” Sure. But nor can a lot of adult humans who we nevertheless want to treat with consideration, right? “They're not capable of rationality.” Alright, so again, if you make that the criterion for how we treat human beings, then you're going to have to treat a number of mentally disabled people in extremely cruel ways. 

There seems to be a background set of assumptions that we want to treat human lives with consideration if they are capable of having feelings, of feeling pain, of having a set of interests and so on. And though this is a very complicated and fraught question, it doesn't seem to me to be obviously wrong to say that in those relevant senses, a fetus at three or four weeks is not human in the way that a fetus becomes human at five or six months.

This is recognised by abortion opponents, says French, and that is why they do not advocate pressing a charge of murder or infanticide against the woman who aborts her baby:

There is an understanding of the large gulf that exists in the state of mind [of the woman] regarding an unborn child at different stages of development. 

Therefore, this discussion has come to a point where there is a common acceptance of the moral status of the fetus, based on the entity being human, even "two or three weeks in", with the heart starting to beat about five weeks in.  

Accordingly, the legality of killing the human entity inside the woman comes into focus. As for the catchcry, "It's my body. I can do what I like with the fetus!" Mounk sets out the areas where difficulty arises:

[We] have a clash of two sets of interests: the interest of a woman to have control over her own body, to be self-determined; and the interest of a fetus which is dependent on her for its survival. It appears that you have two very significant interests clashing with each other. The law deals with clashing interests all the time, but this clash in interests seems to be particularly stark. What does that imply to you for how we can recognize those legitimate interests and try to mediate within this really strong clash of legitimate interests?

Which brings French into the sphere of his most prominent expertise, the law. He says:

This is not an argument that just started with Roe in 1973—America has had abortion laws for a very, very long time that were decided through the democratic process. And I think that the procedural answer to that is that those competing interests should be resolved through the democratic process. And the injury of Roe v. Wade was that it removed those interests from the democratic process. 

Then it becomes incumbent upon pro-life citizens to convince the public of a couple of things. One is that the unborn child in a mother's womb is a life of incalculable worth, and the woman who is carrying the child is a life of incalculable worth. Rather than pitting the interests of child and mom against each other, what healthy public policy should do is harmonize them as much as humanly possible.

Now, public policy is not going to be able to solve everything. But we know why people get abortions, and one of the principal reasons is financial insecurity. That's something that public policy can do something about, along with, for example, private philanthropy. So a holistic pro-life movement knows that it cannot rest its argument solely by talking about the baby, because of the powerful and legitimate interests of the mother.

That's why a holistic pro-life movement is not one that's just simply running around trying to develop evermore creative ways of punishing people who either provide or aid and abet in providing abortions, or evermore creative ways to limit travel out of the state. It needs to be pouring energy into creative ways to be supportive. I'm worried about the state of the “pro-life” right at the moment, because I think it's very focused on one piece of that puzzle, and not nearly as focused on the other. 

I agree with French that not enough has been done to build a public structure that is clearly seen as supporting those in need, especially those who are have a practical difficulty while pregnant. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute states that 93 per cent of women who have had an abortion in the United States did so because they had social or economic concerns, with only seven per cent, therefore, having health concerns relating to mother or child.

The government has a role here, in giving practical support to healthcare, childcare, and adoption services; private philanthropic organisations, Church organisations, and community groups, must also coordinate their efforts to ensure every pregnant mother can recognise that the "village" is with her. 

But to return to the matter of putting abortion into a legal category, it is important that the whole of society agree that the human being carried by the mother must be protected. The democratic process is key—which was the thinking the Dobbs/Roe decision promoted. However, French is despondent about the prospects for a healthy outcome in the immediate term especially. 

He finds great significance in the fact that 1980-81 saw the peak of the US abortions and that rates fell steadily until 2017, when they began to rise again. "...[F]or the first time in 40 years in the United States of America, [the] culture of life is under measurable decay."  

However, if society can rebuild solidarity out of the mess that the aggressive individualism in the West is creating, then there is hope for renewed appreciation of life over money, fame, and the bogus self-invention that attracts so many young people these days.  

A final point: When people have a wish to solve the "problem" of the new life that they are responsible for producing, they may clutch at the straw which is the argument that this life is not a person, and so can be got rid of without moral reproach. However, we need to remember that what is legal is not always morally right or just. Just take the example of the belief that owning humans as slaves is a morally blameless act, a belief held acceptable in the US for a couple of hundred years, but which is now seen clearly as a crime against humanity. 

💢See also:

                  Women will thrive without abortion, but work is needed

                  Legal does not mean ethical

                 Modern slave owners rail against Roe ruling

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Justin Bieber celebrates the goodness of God

SOURCE: INSTAGRAM / @JUSTINBIEBER

 Celebrities are often criticised for living superficial lives, caring only about themselves, how to keep themselves in the public eye in order to advance their own status and wealth. Therefore, it's worth noting those who evidence a deeper element in their life. 

Justin Bieber is extremely talented and, of course, is fully involved in developing this talent within the music industry. But his awareness of the spiritual dimension as key to a balanced life came through in his marriage to Hailey Baldwin, who has spoken of the centrality of their Christian faith in their partnership in life. 

That deeper awareness is seen in Bieber's response to the health problems experienced last month that forced the postponement of his world tour. His statements on Instagram are enlightening about the true character of this idol of a multitude of fans. 

In 2017 he told his fans that he had he cancelled the last 14 concerts of his Purpose world tour because, “I want my mind, heart and soul to be sustainable... so that I can be the man I want to be, the husband I eventually want to be, and the father I want to be.”. He had played 150 concerts across 40 countries. 

At that time he said that he was visiting an Irish castle when he had a stark realisation about his life, as successful as it was in terms of wealth and admiration. He said:

“There was a sense of still yearning for more.” He continued: “It was like I had all this success and it was still like, I’m still sad, and I’m still in pain. And I still have these unresolved issues. And I thought all the success was going to make everything good.” 

This time his health problems involved paralysis of his face. In this trial, God was with him:

Taking to Instagram, the singer spoke to his 244 million followers about the challenges he’s faced with facial paralysis and the peace he feels thanks to Jesus Christ. He revealed that he has been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome. This illness happens when a shingles outbreak affects the facial nerve near a person’s ears. For Justin this has caused paralysis on the side of the face which has been attacked by the virus. He said: “I know this storm will pass but in the meantime I know Jesus is with me.”

On Monday June 20, the singer posted a video to his social media account speaking more about the diagnosis. He said: “I wanted to share a bit of how I’ve been feelin’. Each day has gotten better and through all of the discomfort I have found comfort in the one who designed me and knows me. I’m reminded he knows all of me. He knows the darkest parts of me that I want no one to know about and he constantly welcomes me into his loving arms. This perspective has given me peace during this horrific storm that I’m facing.” 

The Justice world tour begins July 31 in Lucca, Italy, and is set to run through March 25, 2023. Scheduled concerts in the US in June had to be put off for an indefinite time.

Photo from Justin Bieber’s Instagram

In an interview with GQ, Bieber shared about the miracle of God saving him from his past shame and mistakes. One report of that interview focuses on how his spiritual depth comes across clearly:

“Hurt people hurt people—you know? And there’s a quote; The comforted become the comforters. I don’t know if you’ve heard that before. But I really do feel comforted. I have a wife who I adore, who I feel comforted by. I feel safe. I feel like my relationship with God is wonderful. And I have this outpouring of love that I want to be able to share with people, you know?” Bieber said.

But Bieber’s past life and his new life in Christ are only a few short years apart. Bieber said that God redeemed him from an almost inevitable road of emptiness.

“I was surrounded by a lot of people, and we were all kind of just escaping our real life,” Bieber said. “I think we just weren’t living in reality. I think it would have probably resulted in just a lot of doing drugs and being posted up, to be honest.”

Mistakes bring regret and shame, but Jesus is there in the midst of it all:

"He is grace,” Bieber added. “Every time we mess up, He’s picking us back up every single time. That’s how I view it. And so it’s like, ‘I made a mistake. I won’t dwell in it. I don’t sit in shame. But it actually makes me want to do better.’

“My goal isn’t to try and persuade anybody to believe in what I believe or condemn anybody for not believing what I believe,” Bieber continues. “If it can help someone, great. If someone’s like, ‘Hey, I don’t believe that. I don’t think that’s true,’ by all means, that’s their prerogative.” 

“If God forgives me and He loves me and He set these things in motion, if He put these desires in my heart, then I’m going to trust Him,” Bieber said.

I thought all the success was going to make everything good. And so for me, the drugs were a numbing agent to just continue to get through.” 

 Although God’s redemption is evident in Bieber at 28, his faith is active and continues to grow.

“I just kept trusting what He said and what He’s saying to me,” Bieber explains. “And I just believe He speaks to me. It’s not audible. I don’t hear His audible voice. I don’t know if people do. I know people have said it, and in the Bible, it talks about that, but I just never heard it. It’s more like nudges: Don’t do this. Or: Set these boundaries.”

He added: “It’s just rewarding to be all that you were designed to be. And I believe that, at this point in my life, I’m right where I’m supposed to be, doing what I believe that God wants me to do. And there’s nothing more fulfilling.” 

Amid the gloom and doom of life it's great to have someone with the strength of character to face off those would reject all boundaries in their life and make the choice to live without acknowledging the supernatural qualities of their humanity that God has endowed them with. The bland one-dimensional existence that so many people in the West endure is not all there is to life, as Bieber makes clear. 

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Legal does not mean ethical or just

Permissive older generations have blinded the young. Photo: Elizaveta Dushechkina 

Even though under the law or by court ruling abortion or euthanasia/assisted suicide might be permitted, it does not make it ethical—the right and just behaviour that reflects the nobility of the human person.

Such issues come before legislatures and are most often passed, reflecting the poor state of moral understanding in Western societies these days. But all such laws strike at the core of human dignity.

"I want to to be in control of my life" may be a handy slogan when advocating for physician-assisted suicide, but it has been rightly pointed out that such a stance besmirches all doctors, though it is a minority who are willing to engage in this ultimate form of patient abandonment, instead of alleviating by appropriate management of drugs any physical or mental suffering a patient may encounter in the journey to their life's destination. 

For sure, the ultimate failure of health care is when a health care professional chooses to eliminate the sufferer as a means of alleviating suffering.

The Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) notes the dignity of the human person, who is made in the image of God and enveloped in a personal relationship with God, which leads him to the conclusion that the person committing suicide “usurps to himself judgment of a matter not entrusted to him”.

In traditional Christian moral theology, suicide is understood to be “intrinsically evil”, meaning that it can never be pursued, even for the sake of another good like alleviating the patient’s suffering.

In addition, there is no morally acceptable “form of complicity or active or passive collaboration” in suicide. Instead, a doctor must respect “the gift of [a patient’s] life” over “the will of the patient” who seeks to end his or her life. 

Any [medical] action taken should be in harmony with divine principles regarding the transcendent value of life.

Christian love is the animating principle of health care, through which suffering is seen as participation in the redemptive power of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. That is, suffering has a value for the patient and for the family and friends of the sufferer, though this may be appreciated only by those with spiritual insight, sight unblinkered by the ignoble fear of offence to personal pride that sickness may bring. A case in point might be this one, of a British TV personality worried at losing control over her life, though she has a loving son to support her on that journey to death. 

As opposed to assisted suicide, the key point in care of the dying is that patients should be kept as free of pain as much as possible so that they may die comfortably and with dignity, but actions should not be taken with the intent to hasten that death. 

So, even though the law of the land, or a ruling by a court of law, may permit abortion,  doctor-assisted suicide, or suicide itself,  there are strong ethical reasons in the secular sense—such as respect for the person and protection of order in society as a whole—why the permission should not be exercised in fact. A law allowing an act does not make it morally right or an imperative that such an act be exercised.

We see this with the number of abortions in the United States declining markedly from around 1990 until 2017, after which there has been an uptick. Just because some act is allowed, does not mean people should act in that way. 

From the Christian perspective, the ruling principle in moral decisions is that all involved respect the sacredness of every human life from the moment of conception until death. 

Christian strictures against abortion and euthanasia are based on the long-held religious moral doctrine concerning the nature of the human person, God’s commandment not to kill, the meaning of human life, the significance of death, and the mission to offer healing that dates back to the earliest days of the Church so that nearly one in five hospitals in the United States are religiously affiliated, not all Christian of course..

Where a morally illiterate or feeling-focused society has permitted physician-assisted suicide, there can be a severe impact on doctors who feel pressured by society to comply with a person's own request or the request to end suffering by family when they know there is a medical path to alleviating suffering, or that death is being forced upon an elderly or sick person when a natural death is possible with appropriate palliative care. 💢

Drawing further on a survey of doctors in the Netherlands used above, it found that “As a result [of societal pressure], physicians may experience less room for a careful decision- making process and . . . may even feel forced to cross their own moral boundaries.”

A US study found that 29% of Mayo Clinic doctors reported that religious or spiritual beliefs influenced their decision to become a doctor and 64% considered religion important in their lives.

This is where the "feel good" nature of much of the legislative action involving abortion and euthanasia in Western countries has a "deadly" social impact, deadly because the slippery slope warned about by opponents of those kinds of laws actually do prove to be slippery. Abortion becomes not just of a "fetus", but of child ready for birth, and even post birth if that is the desire of the mother. 

What caused widespread outrage when Delegate Kathy Tran presented a Bill in Virginia that sought to remove restrictions on killing a child any time before birth has been taken up by the Democrat party as a whole, with a Bill that would at least enable just that going to the Senate. As for assisted suicide, the examples of Belgium and the Netherlands illustrate vividly how slippery the slope is.

This was made clear in Britain's Economist in a column, "The slippery slope of assisted dying is real".  It states: 

First, there is a steady increase year on year in the number of people being killed or helped to commit suicide by their doctors. Second, once assisted dying has been legalised for one category of people, it is only a matter of time before it is extended to others.

In 2002, euthanasia was legalised for adults in Belgium who met certain criteria, the main one being that they must be in “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain” resulting from an accident or an incurable illness. In 2014, the law was extended to children of any age who were terminally ill. In 2002, just 24 people were euthanised in Belgium. Between 2016 and 2017 a record 4,337 cases were reported to the authorities. In the same year, three children were killed by lethal injection. These were the first minors since the law was broadened to include them.

In Belgium, euthanasia is not limited to those with terminal illnesses. People have been euthanised because of a wide range of conditions, including depression, blindness, deafness, gender-identity crisis and anorexia. In 2014, a prisoner serving a life sentence for rape and murder was given permission for an assisted suicide. Although not envisaged in the original law, organ-donation regulations have now been introduced in cases of assisted dying, raising the unsettling prospect of organ harvesting.

The Netherlands also introduced assisted dying in 2002. The figures also show year-on-year increases. In 2017, the total number of euthanasia cases reported was a staggering 6,585, a massive increase from the 1,923 reported in 2006.

In Switzerland, figures from the Federal Statistics Office show that the number of Swiss residents who died by assisted suicide rose from just 43 in 1998 to more than 1,000 in 2015. 

The writer also finds that advocates typically go soft on initial proposals, aiming only to break through existing moral barriers as a first step, while intending to continue to lobby for an extension of the law to the desired full (horrifying) outcome at a later date.

Society at present is showing how morally unhinged a population can become. Christian principles of love and compassion and respect for human dignity have been taken up by advocates for causes like gender ideology, abortion and suicide, even though the outcomes would destroy all the value placed on life that Christian insights uphold and society so desires.

Society is in danger of losing its ability to protect the vulnerable, which includes the young, the sick and the old, because of the loss of an understanding of the worth of every person from their beginning to their end. Life is no longer seen as a journey, and adventure, where each person is challenged to become a better version of themselves, where each step is taken accompanied by the One who loves. Suffering is part of that journey, and the examples of how people grow through the experience of personal strife are innumerable. 

But neglect of the vulnerable is also a picture of itself that Western society paints large. In Canada, there has been much discussion about how the medical assistance in death programme enables the government to save money that would otherwise would be spent on healthcare of the sick person.

Here is a compassionate response to a news story:

 Re: Choosing death at 20: B.C. man says medically assisted dying is best way to end the pain of undiagnosed illness, June 22, 2022

What a tragic failure we have been to young Eric Coulam. It’s only been six years since Canada legalized euthanasia and while it was first justified as something necessary for those with a terminal illness in the last days of their life, it has now become something nearly everyone can access, including young Canadians who are not able to secure the medical help they need to live.

It is an example of moral decay that we now live in a country where every resource is available to end the life of the sufferer, rather than find solutions to the suffering. The slippery slope is real and it’s time for Canadians to demand an end to this ever-expansive euthanasia regime.  

Young people—Generation Z—are most captivated by a belief that there should be no restrictions on a person's freedom. In being captured by such a belief, which is aided and abetted by the globalised corporate system, they are prey to those who promote the lie that pursuing personal desires makes you free. The intellectual elite of news media and academia go further in an ambition to manipulate social behaviour so that the result is that the good of society is at a far second to individual desire and the self-invention of identity, no matter how unbalanced that desire or identity might be.

Older generations have taught the young well, but the lessons learned are predominantly from the bad example of marital infidelity and divorce, of the addiction to making money, of devoting time and energy into building reputation, in neglect of  the family's spiritual life, and in lack of investment in care of the community, with the outcomes among the young of soaring confusion over sexual identity, and staggering levels of drug addiction and mental health difficulties.

WEIRD societies—Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic—have to accept they have got on to the wrong path as far as the dominant ideology or metaphysical outlook is concerned. An overhaul of the value system that is being promoted worldwide by the West must be rejected and the riches of the Christian tradition brought to the fore afresh.

A starting point is to understand that what the law permits is not the moral standard for our behaviour. We must see that the foundation of well-being in society is not personal freedom but the common good of the whole community. That is the lesson society's elders need to hand down to the next generations. 

💢 See also:

                The duty to die: the hidden assisted-death imperative  

                Suffering: Why does God allow it?

                Journey to death should go all the way

💢 Kirsten Evenblij et al., Physicians’ Experiences with Euthanasia: A Cross-Sectional Survey Amongst a Random Sample of Dutch Physicians to Explore Their Concerns, Feelings and Pressure, 20 BMC Fam. Prac., no. 177, 2019, at 9. 

💢 See also this source

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Modern slave owners rail against Roe ruling

"The human embryo has no right to life"; "It is the woman's right to choose". Each is an echo of  “the negro is not equal to the white man;  slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition,” as stated in the US by Vice President Alexander H. Stephens of the Confederate States in 1861.

The belief in the right to own a slave, and that a white person was superior to an African, was so ingrained in the mentality of the people of that time in the United States that the white residents of the slave-owning states were prepared to die for that cause, along with the defence of more worthy principles.

On TikTok, as emotions were aroused by the pending decision affecting  Roe v Wade, a woman tells her infant daughter: "I could have killed you, but I chose to let you live. Yes, I realize what I just said and I stand by it." 

And then there was this photo:

Amanda Herring, taking part of the post-Roe decision protests. Photo CNN

Abortion activists know abortion kills a child, yet they continue to promote the evil of horrific violence as if the status, the reality, of being a human has no bearing on what they consider is necessary for their own pursuit of "happiness", of the furthering of their own individual existence.

Further, some US states and the federal government itself are putting into place—or trying to—some of the most extremely permissive pro-abortion legislation in the world. The Kaiser Family Foundation lists 20 states that allow late-term abortions for “health” reasons and seven that allow it for any or no other reason. As well, there is the effort of the Democrat politicians in Congress who seek to pass full-term abortion legislation. 

Compare that with the most permissive state in Europe, which is Sweden, where abortion is permitted only until the 18th week of pregnancy.

The mentality of "it's my body—I can do what I like with it" is part and parcel of the Western intellectual and moral upheaval that has occurred since the 1960s.  The causes of the downfall of social solidarity and respect for the traditions and mores of society  lie in the change of perspective toward individualism that came as an extension of "the death of God" that absorbed the mind of Nietzsche. 

Philosopher Charles Taylor, in his book 2007 A Secular Age, warned that "modern civilisation" has produced an "exclusive humanism".

As social analyst Stan Grant states, Taylor wrote that we have swapped God for a "culture of authenticity, or expressive individualism, in which people are encouraged to find their own way, discover their own fulfilment, 'do their own thing'.

Grant also finds insight into our predicament in this direction: 

Scholar of religion and politics Jocelyn Cesari has traced the evolution of secular modernity in her book, We God's People. We have now reached a point in Western Europe, she says, where "worldly" things are all there is.

There is a division between the immanent and the transcendent—between what is Caesar's and what is God's. The immanent is the realm of politics.

Believers, she says, "are expected to keep the transcendent to themselves".

According to Grant, the battle between secularism and faith grew out of the Thirty Years War—the wars of religion—that laid waste to Europe between 1618 and 1648. It led to the birth of the modern state and coincided with an explosion of new ideas that we call the Age of Reason or The Enlightenment. 

Grant continues:

While historically the West was founded on Christianity, the modern West was shaped by the break with God. People were sovereign. Liberalism prized the individual above all.

Sociologist Phillip Rieff said we swapped a sacred order for a social order. That accelerated in the 20th century with social revolutions up-ending society and demolishing old ethical and moral boundaries.

French writer Olivier Roy says "secularisation has given way to large scale de-Christianisation". There is now, he says, "a serious crisis surrounding European identity and the place of religion in the public sphere". 

Roy says: "Little by little, the very definitions of sexual difference, family, reproduction and parenthood have been redrawn." The scandal of child sex abuse in the Church has further stripped religion of its moral authority.

Personal freedom, Roy writes, "prevails over all transcendent standards." Society is now ordered on "new values…founded on individualism, freedom and the valorisation of desire".

Is there still a role for tradition? Grant provides a tentative answer:

Historian Tim Stanley thinks so. He says the "war on tradition" has "translated into a soulless consumerism, and, while some flourished, many felt alienated and unfulfilled."

In his 2021 book Whatever Happened to Tradition, Stanley fears our "liberal order is out of ideas, that's partly because we have deprived ourselves of valuable experience". 

Across the West, he says, "there is a dearth of purpose and spirit: we can't agree on who we are or what we are about, or even of these big existential questions matter." 

This habit of discarding old ways and old knowledge, including of who we really are, leaves us uncertain how to act, Stanley writes.

Therefore, in the West, identity is the new faith, according to Grant. "We are free to re-imagine and reinvent ourselves, untethered from the past; from family or faith."

Beyond the West, religion is booming

A valuable insight that Grant offers is that what is happening to the order of values in the West is not reflected in other parts of the world:

[Secularism] is a peculiarly Western phenomenon. Elsewhere religion is booming. The heart of Christianity has shifted from Europe to Africa and Latin America.

Officially atheist, China has experienced what's been called a Christian revival. It is estimated that by 2030 China may have the world's largest Christian population.

And despite what the census tells us is happening [in Australia], Christianity is not dying. Pew Research shows that in the century between 1910 and 2010, the number of Christians grew from 600 million to more than two billion.

Also, Islam is going to continue to grow as a substantial presence, because of the higher fertility of member groups, if for no other reason. 

Western individualism is off-putting for many in community-minded or family-oriented societies. Grant writes: 

Sudipta Kaviraj, Columbia University Professor of Indian History, asks: "Why should the history of Europe happen elsewhere?" In Bengal, he says, Hindus in the 19th century "rejected an unconditional embrace of the package of moral values of Western modernity". Modern individualism, he says, was seen as "impoverishing the character and content of collective life".

In modern India, he writes, even the secular "need and desire transcendence as intensely as the devout".

Kaviraj cautions against seeing the world through eyes of the West, not to speak, he says, "the facts of one history through the language of another". Yes, the West is more secular, less religious, and hyper-individualistic but that is not how most people in the world live.

The conclusion that Grant draws on his survey of responses to the mindset that bedevils us at this period of history is this:

[M]aking the human divine can be liberating and holds the promise of freedom. But it doesn't speak to all. It doesn't even speak to all in the West who replace old faiths with new faith, who feel alienated and alone, and long for somewhere to belong. 

For older generations in the West, rebellion against traditional mores goes back to the eruption of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, if not to the whirlpool of philosophies of the twenties and thirties that culminated in Jean-Paul Sartre's work Being and Nothingness, which shaped the enduring climate of rootless existentialism. 

A new religion takes shape 

For the generations arriving since Sartre, Camus and the Beat bohemians, this alienation from society has been answered by the search for new communities. The wokeness/wokeism movement and its drive to accommodate self-described rights, is one source of community and meaning. 

 A London street during the Pride month "occupation" 2022. Photo Twitter 

This has been seen over the past month when Pride flags have been flying in many cities of the West, and, of course, the throng of exhibitionists and virtue-signallers in Pride parades have created a temporary fizz of excitement. Though it is fashionable to identify in some way as homosexual or transgender, the young followers see themselves as a community of rebels, with such solidarity in following certain practices that they can be identified as adherents of a religion.

All this is borne out in the case of scholarly scrutiny of adherents of gender identity theory in Ireland. Colette Colfer, who has been studying and lecturing on religious groups for 16 years, began to note the typical marks of  a religion as she explored the world of gender activists. 

 

Colfer writes of her research findings:

Although there is no concept of the divine in gender identity theory, there are elements that could be considered religious. There are symbols, chants, flags, parades, and ‘holy’ days. There is a belief in what could be termed transubstantiation where the substance of the body is believed to change from one sex to another. A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul.

The idea of a heretic or infidel is also relevant. People and organisations who don’t subscribe to gender identity theory, or who publicly criticise or even question it, have been denounced or ostracised, and products and publications boycotted. Detransitioners, who no longer subscribe to the theory, are akin to apostates.

The theory also involves a moral code and a creed that centers around concepts of equality, diversity, and inclusion. There is a clergy in the form of people from organisations who promote the theory and who give ‘sermons’ in training and workshops. Some people signal their adherence to the theory by using certain words or phrases or by including pronouns  in email signatures or on online public profiles. 

The impact of the rapid spread of this cult alarms Colfer:

My aim, as a phenomenologist, is to understand the belief and its associated practices without making value statements about its truth. I understand that gender identity is real for people who believe in it.

However, I am concerned by how quickly and deeply this theory is becoming embedded at the government level and what appears to me to be an increasing compulsion to believe.

So we return to the issue of why and how beliefs such as the right to own slaves, and to kill a human being at any stage as that human develops in the womb, take hold of a population. The answer can be found in the search for meaning that a community of believers provides. For our modern situation, when Christian beliefs have been sloughed off there is a gaping hole in one's life. If a social elite can provide a substitute system of belief, then that system will be accepted with joy. Until it all crumbles, as any purely human project is bound to do.

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Porn and the youth mental health epidemic

Eleanor Mills...porn is not a recipe for a happy love life 

Eleanor Mills is a former high-level British journalist who has founded a digital newspaper for women. In a opinion piece in The Telegraph she argues that the frequent explicit sexuality on television passes without comment only because porn has become so prevalent.

Mills, the mother of two teen daughters, declares:

The show may be called Love Island, but it is really “Sex Island”. This generation’s relationship code is so programmed by all the porn they have been clicking on since they were kids that feelings are not in their sexual script. The ideal for them is to engage in as much vigorous gym-honed rumpy-pumpy as possible while keeping their hearts intact. It may work in porn, but it’s not a recipe for a happy love life.  

This show is typical of "reality TV" and "it is a window into the sexual and relationship mores of Gen Z" (those born from 1997 to 2012). Mills writes:

Now it seems that sending nude pictures on social media has become the new flirting, with a third of teenage girls saying they have been pressured into doing so, according to a recent study.

Sixty per cent of girls under the age of 18 told researchers they had been asked to provide a nude picture of themselves by a boy; 46% said they had been pressured into doing so, even though they felt “disgusted” by sharing images.

Though Mills has been mixing with all sorts of characters and sexual behaviours common to the London  journalistic circle, she is shocked by what passes as "normal" TV:

The extent to which the next generation’s sexual expectations have been set by porn is frankly terrifying. I go into schools to talk to teens about sex because I have been writing and campaigning about the dangers of unfettered access to largely violent and misogynist porn on young minds for over a decade. The speed at which sexual norms have shifted is alarming. 

In a survey I conducted of young women, all but one said they were regularly choked during sexual contact (the exception was 1.8 metres/5ft 11 tall). The others reckon erotic asphyxiation (strangulation), common in porn, is as standard as a boy putting his hand on their bottom or breast. Or take pubic hair: Gen Z don’t have it – nor do porn stars. There isn’t much connection or foreplay in porn either – it’s mostly pounding with men lasting for hours and women coming effortlessly through intercourse. None of that leads to replicable pleasure in real bedrooms, either. 

The choking that has become routine is just one example of how sexual intercourse has become degrading but also dangerous:

“The biggest change in the past decade is the level of aggression girls today are encountering from boys,” explains Alison Havey, co-founder of the RAP Project which campaigns in schools around consent.

“It is normal now for girls to be forced, for boys to get them drunk intentionally and to assault them. This generation has been bred on internet porn which is all about violently pounding different orifices – there is no consent, no condoms, no foreplay and no sexual pleasure for women. The levels of violence are shocking and have got worse as viewers get desensitised to the material.”

When I point out in schools that it didn’t used to be like this – that in fact even a decade ago the sexual landscape was different – I find the kids are relieved. It’s like this generation are lobsters being boiled in a pot – their sexual dials have been set to extreme before they have even touched another human being. This is normal for them. And it matters because when you think porn is sex there are real casualties. And it’s not just the girls.

Mills goes on to illustrate how the lives of young men, too, are being fouled up by the porn style of relating to women. She give the example of "Jimmy" who is able to study at a top university. Living with other students he got into drugs and alcohol, and the "sport" of getting young women into bed – "It’s like a RedTube porn menu. The more degrading, the more the points."

One night Jimmy was out on the town and brought a female student home, whereupon they went to bed, both naked. After a time the woman left and Jimmy blacked out. But he came to when the woman's boyfriend arrived and beat him up. As Mills explains:

The girl said he had assaulted her when she had said no. Jimmy can’t remember what happened. He feels terrible about all of it.

His friends say the girl was all over him all night – but that she has a boyfriend and maybe that was why she departed in a hurry. Jimmy is tortured; maybe he did something terrible. But it’s tricky to work out the lines when both parties are intoxicated, get into bed naked in a consensual way... and when the sexual landscape is so weird, that much of what they do looks like assault to us anyway. Only the two of them know what happened and one of them can’t remember.

The upshot? Jimmy was cancelled by his entire cohort at university. The girl accused him of assault on social media (though not to the university authorities, or the police). And he was ostracised. He is now back home depressed. His mum is worried he might kill himself (suicide is currently the biggest killer of young men).

Mills says she knows of other cases where the young man has been the victim of a female's antics on social media after a sexual encounter.

I am not making any judgments here; I’ve always been on the girls’ side instinctively as a feminist and a mother of two teen girls. But this whole area of consent and pressure is muddled; we all know what it is like to feel bad in the morning after a bender. But I can also see boys are under pressure too; there are many tales of “bigorexia” and boys being shamed about not being buff enough, for not being hung like porn stars – it is a culture which doesn’t help anyone.

The message that Mills gives to this point is powerful enough to make parents take a countercultural stance on behalf of their family. They have to set an example on limiting their own use of social media or in accessing the internet in general. The stories are old hat now about tech industry leaders, including Steve Jobs, had strict rules for their children about use of smart devices. But Mills has further advice:

The point of sharing these stories is to make a plea to parents to talk to their youngsters. Now that there are no rules, it is all about individual choice. We need to help kids pick their way through these thorny thickets, understand how quickly all of this has changed and encourage them to think about the consequences. It sounds daunting but it is surprising how relieved they are to discuss it; many are confused and upset.

I suggest using Love Island as a jumping off point. I recommend radical honesty – talk about what it was like for you and your partner. Remind them that you were not a nun; when we were young we had no idea what sex was meant to look like, it was all about how it felt.

Get them to read this article and ask them what they think. The key is to ask open questions, without judgment and to show you are genuinely interested in their take. The car is a good place to chat – you don’t have to look at each other!

Also the upside of all that porn is that Gen Z aren’t shy about talking about sex. Ask them what they think it is like for girls, for boys – the key is empathy, getting them to understand that sex is something you do with someone you like, not to a stranger. Talk about what alcohol and drugs do to inhibitions and warn them of the long term legal and social consequences of a wrong move. Particularly on social media. 

Talk to them about “exclusivity”: for our kids there is no assumption of exclusivity unless that is explicitly said; so you can be dating someone for six months and they can be sleeping with everyone else in sight – and that is fine if it is an “unexclusive agreement” – known as a “situationship”. Although of course it’s not fine because if you are sleeping with someone regularly you inevitably catch feelings and end up hurt. No wonder our kids are confused. No wonder we have a youth mental health epidemic.

For Christians who have decided to commit as a family to live in a countercultural way, a lot of the confusion disappears because decisions are made simple by the positivity of a "No!", where a vision of a loving and permanent relationship is key to matters sexual. Every "Never!" to casual sex is a declaration of intent to pursue only what is noble and lovely in a person of the opposite sex. With such a family, and a circle of like-minded friends, the attraction of porn is hugely diminished, and the strength of resolve to shun what is dangerous – personally and for our society as a whole – is supported as we strive to achieve all that is best in ourselves in God's eyes. 

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