Western ideology tries to erase personal sin

Although you can try to erase sin from a culture, you can’t erase guilt. Photo: Source

"I decide what's right or wrong. I don't need anyone telling me otherwise." So we all bear the burden of  having socially approved groups deciding what should be allowed, no matter the impact on others' lives by way of slander, loss of property, harm to children, or suppression of the right to hear truly countercultural opinions.

And with the current attention given to the wrongs done to a multitude of victims in Western society the cultural impulse is to link the perpetrator to systemic policies and practices and not to freely willed actions or decisions.

Of course, free will has to be informed and developed according to the wisdom of the ages, not molded by what is temporarily the leading philosophy or even a metaphysical concept promoted by the elite in the media, education, the corporate world, and politics.

With the absence of an informed conscience a person is dehumanised in a striking way, namely by their inability to perceive themselves as a being with a spiritual dimension. The spiritual is essential to our identity as it endows us with specifically human capabilities. (See below a partial list of our human capabilities that go beyond the prominent ones such as free will, conscience, the cosmic knowledge of good and evil, a natural desire to experience perfect goodness, love, truth, and beauty, and our interior awareness of transcendent reality ‒ that there is something more than this world.) 

On that point it is worth considering the crucially relevant observations offered by pastor Robb Brunansky of  Arizona on the RealClearReligion site. It's from such an observer outside the mainstream players that we should expect clear insight into the state of our civilisation. He writes:

Sin is not a popular topic of discussion today. Our culture has virtually banished the word from its vocabulary. Sin has been re-defined, re-labeled, re-directed, and even revered.

But although you can erase sin from a culture, you can’t erase guilt. All humans have an innate sense that we are guilty of doing wrong. We are born into this world having been created in the image of God, and because we live in God’s world as creatures who bear His image, we can never escape the reality of our guilt because of our sin.

Attempts to deny the reality of sin seem only to increase the burden of guilt. Wokeness, social justice, anti-racism, virtue signaling, false religions, and vague forms of spirituality all attempt to erase the guilt we feel over our sins and make us feel like good, righteous people. But these attempts at self-justification are ultimately futile and useless.

Denying your sins will never erase your sins before a holy and just God. The real problem we have as sinful human beings isn’t that our existential happiness is hindered by sin; it’s that we are destined for an eternity under the wrath of God because of our sin. This is the tragedy of denying your sin. Simply wishing it away or pretending your sin is a virtue doesn’t deal with the problem of the wrath of God abiding on you.

It's in this setting of a world of sinners in need of real forgiveness from God that the Gospel writer Mark begins telling the story of Jesus of Nazareth. Mark tells his readers from the outset that he has good news to share with sinful people about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. He ensures we understand at the outset of his Gospel that Jesus has come into this world to defeat Satan by bringing forgiveness to sinners. The miracles, the healings, and the casting out of demons are external signs of spiritual truth, that Jesus has the authority to do the most important thing for us that we need: to forgive our sins. That’s the good news of the Gospel that Mark is writing about.

As this Gospel progresses, we learn in Mark 10:45 exactly how Jesus is going to provide forgiveness for our sins. He will do it in the most degrading manner possible, by giving His life for sinners on a cross. There’s one detail, though, that Jesus includes in Mark 10:34 that will vindicate His claim that His sacrifice was accepted by God and brought forgiveness to sinners: He would rise again three days later. 

Here, we come face to face with the most crucial fact of all: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If He is the Messiah, the Son of God who has the authority to forgive sins, then Jesus must not only die for sinners but rise from the grave. Mark ends his Gospel in a unique way from the other Gospel writers. He concludes having proven that Jesus rose from the dead because at that point his work is done. Mark has proven that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. He has proven that the Gospel is true, and that forgiveness is found, not by denying your sins, but through faith in this crucified and risen Savior. 

As said above, informing our conscience about how to live in a truly human way, and being prepared to open ourselves to the internal promptings as to where right and wrong lie, but more importantly to what God's plan for each of us is, all give us knowledge of what is sinful in our lives, and how we should relate to society.

Therefore, we won't need to blindly follow the latest cultural norms and fashionable ideologies, but will have the courage of our convictions in accepting that we are governed by a personal entity of a higher order who guides us in such a way that we thrive, and who ensures we do not succumb to the agony of a one-dimensional existence.

Our Spiritual Capabilities

The human person's spiritual capabilities are extensive. They go beyond the cognitive and are centred on the deeply human quest of gaining meaning in and through life. “People have an inbuilt receptiveness to meaning (the ‘lustre’ of life): we discover and we ascribe meaning and we are also capable of recognising and acknowledging others as people in search of meaning, longing for meaning and absorbers of meaning.”

From the same source, see this list of elements of our spiritual dimension involving each of our head, heart and hands, because this dimension is part of our nature:

• Approach with Openness
• Being Present
• Connecting with the Heart
• Deep Listening
• Deep Questioning
• Discern Hope
• Discernment
• Embracing Silence
• Engage with Mystery
• Explore Layers of Meaning
• Re-Imagine
• Respond beyond Words
• Reverence
• Search
• Sitting with Ambiguity
• Stillness
• Symbolise
• Wonder and Awe

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Jesus, the Loved One in the Trinity

Struggling with insights into a hidden reality Photo PxHere

The Hubble and more recently the Webb space telescopes have given us amazing information about the universe, to such an extent that astrophysicists have been puzzled by unexpected findings.

So, too, humanity has been bequeathed insights into the mystery of God, some elements of which are shared by the main religions today, but for Christians unique insights contain the richness of the understanding of God as one Supreme Being but simultaneously and eternally existing as a perichoresis (mutual indwelling - see at end) of three persons. Unlike the mysteries of the physical universe, the human response to the nature of the Divine reality is crucial to our understanding of ourselves and to how we should worship.

For the Christian Church last Sunday was Trinity Sunday, a day for taking stock of the unseen realities that shape the human reality.

Bishop Robert Barron, of Minnesota, devoted his Sunday sermon on YouTube to teasing out the threads of the mystery of the Trinity and to exploring its implications in our lives. He said:

The Trinity names what’s most fundamental and basic in the whole theology and spirituality of Christians. So we should rejoice in talking about the Trinity.

Can I give you appropriately three kinds of scriptural grounds or justifications for talking about God as a trinity of persons?

First of all, Jesus himself. So Jesus speaks of a Father who sent him. And you say, “Okay, fair enough. But wouldn’t Abraham or Jacob or Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses, or Ezekiel — wouldn’t any of them have spoken of God as their Father who sent them on a mission?”

You know, “So far, so ordinary”. But here’s where it gets really complicated: even though he’s other than this Father who sent him on a mission, he speaks and acts in the very person of the God of Israel. “You’ve heard it said in the Torah . . ., but I say . . .” Well, who can claim that kind of authority except God himself?

“My son, your sins are forgiven.” Who can forgive sins but God alone, and [Jesus goes about] showing his mastery even over the elements of nature, or walking on the water and calming the storm?

“Unless you love me more than your mother and father, more than your very self, you are not worthy of me.”

Well, no prophet would ever say that. That would be the height of arrogance. But only the Supreme Good in person could say that.

Okay, he’s sent by the Father, but yet he seems to be himself the God of Israel.

Now, if you think that’s kind of abstract, every single Sunday we state this truth when, with the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) , we say that he’s God from God, light from light, true God from true God, and remember, consubstantial with the Father. That’s just the English version of “homoousios”; that was the Greek for “one in being, consubstantial.”

Well, that was the dilemma they faced in trying to understand what had been handed down to them.

Jesus is somehow other than the Father but yet consubstantial with the Father. That idea was bequeathed to the great tradition.

And then this:  “The Father and I,” Jesus says in the Gospel of John the night before he dies, “the Father and I will send to you an Advocate. We will send to you a Holy Spirit” — listen now — “who will lead you into all truth.” Who will interpret for you the meaning of Jesus and lead you into all truth.

What human figure or merely created power could lead us into all truth?

The Holy Spirit, in other words, is also one in being with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit shares divinity with the Father and the Son.

And didn’t they experience this at Pentecost when the power of the Holy Spirit came in a divinizing way to them?

Here’s another biblical source, in some ways summing up the idea of the Trinity. We find in the First Letter of John this very peculiar claim that God is love.

Every religion, every philosophy of religion, talks about the love that God has, that love is an attribute of God, that God loves some people, or he loves as a typical activity, or whatever.

But there is no religion or philosophy that makes the truly strange claim that God is love except Christianity.

Well, if that’s the case, then God, in his own most nature, must be a play of lover, of beloved, and of shared love.  If God has love, which any religion would claim to you, I wouldn’t have to say that. I would just say the one God has this activity, that he loves.

But the Christian claim is so much more radical. Love is what God is, inescapably, always, from all eternity. It’s not something he just does; it’s what he is.

Therefore, there has to be…You can’t have love without a lover and a beloved.

And you can’t have love without the love that the lover and beloved share.

And therefore we speak of the Father (the lover), the Son (the beloved), and the Spirit (the love that they share).

See, all of this — and I’ve just been staying within the Bible here; these are all biblical references — they’re bequeathed to the tradition, and some of the smartest people in the early centuries of the Church tried to make sense of this.

The one God of Israel — and no Christian ever denies that. Remember the “Shema” prayer from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy? “Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord your God is Lord alone.”

The oneness of God, the unity of God, is affirmed up and down the biblical tradition. Nobody wants to deny that.

But what was bequeathed to them was this puzzle: that the one God nevertheless subsists as three persons, as a play of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of lover, beloved, and shared love, of the consubstantial Father and Son, who will send a Spirit consubstantial with them.

That’s where the doctrine of the Trinity comes from.

Now, one of the very best places to look if you’re still trying to get a model for understanding all of this is the great St. Augustine. Augustine was, with Aquinas, the greatest theologian in the history of the Church, and I think his signal accomplishment intellectually was this analogy he gave us for the Trinity.

He spoke about mind, self-knowledge, and self-love. But I want to put this in more contemporary language by giving an analogy that we’re more at home with.

Anybody who’s ever been through counseling or therapy or spiritual direction, or even a  profound conversation with a friend when you’re trying to figure something out in your life, what do you do?

Well with the help of a therapist or spiritual director, you might pose your own life as an object, as an issue, as something to be examined. You say, “Okay, what was I doing? What was I thinking when I did X, Y, and Z? Or when I was a kid what was going on in me?”

Now you see what’s happening, that maybe with the help of your spiritual director, you are looking at you. You are examining as an object yourself. Now, unless you’ve lost your mind, no one in that process will think, “Oh, I’ve split into two things.” No one’s going to say, “Hey, I’ve become two different persons.”

No, no, you are both subject and object. The one person, one you, is both subject and object.

Now, take it one more step. Because Augustine calls this third move self-love. Having gone through that process, you’re examining yourself and you come to a deeper understanding.

You come to a deeper appreciation of what you were doing, or what pressures you were under, or what friendships you had or didn’t have.

And in that process, you come thereby to a greater self-acceptance or a greater love of yourself.

There’s a knower. There’s a known. And now there’s a love that obtains between the knower and the known.

And all this is going on in this ordinary process of conversing with the counselor or the spiritual director.

You haven’t become three things. You haven’t split into three. But yet there is a kind of play, a Trinitarian play, within you.

That’s what Augustine saw.

Go back to his language: mind, self-knowledge, self-love. That obtains in every one of us.

The Bible says we were made in the image and likeness of God. And Augustine said maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s it. When you go deep down into your own interiority, you find indeed this remarkable “imago Dei,” this remarkable image of God, in this Trinitarian play that exists even within our own psyches.

The Father — that’s the great mind.

The Son — there’s the great self-knowledge.

The Spirit — the love shared between the Father and the Son.

Fulton Sheen, one of my great heroes, adapted Augustine’s analogy. He said that from all eternity, the Father looks at the Son, his own image. The Son, who is consubstantial with the Father — he has everything the Father has, he’s the perfect image of the Father — he looks back, and he sees sheer perfection. And the two of them looking at each other, exhale… they sigh their love for each other. That’s the “Spiritus Sanctus,” the holy breath. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Okay, if you’re with me so far, you might say, “Alright, alright, I guess it’s all kind of interesting, biblical and theological, and yeah, these analogies. Okay, I kind of get it, but at the end of the day, so what?”

Here’s the so-what: “God so loved the world.” I’m quoting now from the Gospel of John (3:16) When he says “God” here, he means God the Father. “God so loved the world” — note — “that he sent his only Son into the world, that all who believe in him might have life in his name.”

Now he sends the Son where? Down into our ordinary humanity. “Though he was in the form of God” — this is Paul (Philippians 2:6) now — “Jesus did not deem equality with God a thing to be grasped but rather emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”

Now, further, he obediently accepted even death, death on a cross. The Father sends his beloved Son all the way down. Why? To get us who had wandered far from him.

That’s what sin means. It means wandering away from God. So the Father sent the Son all the way to the limits of god-forsakenness, so that he might gather all of us back in the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the love that connects the Father and the Son, even when the Son is all the way down.

The Son’s gone all the way into death itself, but he’s still connected by the love of the Holy Spirit, and in that love, the Father calls the Son back in the Resurrection and Ascension, bringing in principle all of us sinners with him.

Now do you see how all this abstract talk about the Trinity — Father, Son, Spirit, consubstantiality — all that business becomes very viscerally real?

It’s because God is a Trinitarian play of persons that we can be saved. Not just outside of God, us begging for mercy, but now, through God’s grace, inside the dynamics of God’s life, us gathered by the Son into the power of the Holy Spirit.

There’s the whole Christian life, everybody. That’s the whole spiritual life.

God so loved the world that he sent his only Son all the way down, that we might be gathered into the Holy Spirit, the love that connects them. That’s the Trinity.

That’s what we celebrate today, Trinity Sunday.

Ω See also: Cardinal Goh: The Trinity - insights into globalisation and individualism 

Ω Perichoresis in application

The New Testament demonstrates that God brings glory to himself. John's Gospel is important in understanding how Jesus and the Father relate; a key passage for a perichoretic understanding of God's glory is John 17:1, where Jesus prays, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you." We see that the Son brings glory to the Father, the Father brings glory to the Son, and the Spirit brings glory to the Son (cf. John 16:14). Such an understanding of glory exhibits the love expressed within the Godhead by Father, Son and Spirit as they give glory to each other. Theopedia

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The Trinity: insights on globalisation and individualism

Ω By Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore                                                                                   Holy Trinity Sunday, June 4, 2023

We live in a very divided society. Mass communication and social media are supposed to help human beings to communicate better. The irony of it all is that it is one of the causes of breakdown in relationships. Instead of communicating with each other more personally, we have become impersonal with emails. Instead of spending time with our loved ones at home or at meals, we are busy with our mobile phones. Instead of using social media to transmit positive information, we use it to destroy people’s lives, shame those who make mistakes and worst of all, transmit fake news and distort information.

Indeed, society has become more individualistic and self-centred.  It is about the happiness of the individual over the rest of the community.  It is about me and my freedom to do what I like at the expense of the greater good of others.  In the name of freedom and human rights, the freedom and rights of the greater community is compromised.  

When an individual claims complete autonomy from others, he becomes inward-looking.  He is selfish, arrogant and cares only for himself.  He puts himself before others. He cares for others only to the extent that they are of use to him.  People are used, not loved. Relationship is for fundamentally utilitarian purposes, not mutual love.

What is the cause?  A godless society!  Whether we admit it or not, we model ourselves according to our values and conception of life.  A society without good role models to imitate but ourselves would be an impoverished community. Conversely, if we believe in God, we will imitate who we believe.  Our concept of God determines how we live our lives.  The religion or faith we subscribe to will impact the way we relate to each other, especially in family life.  Our values originate from our faith.

How we perceive God is how we will relate to each other.  There cannot be a dichotomy between faith and life.  So those without God will operate from what they think how life should be lived, since they have no models to live by except what they see in the lives of others, depending on who they are attracted or inspired by.   If we choose the wrong models of success and happiness in life, we might end up destroying ourselves.  We can either imitate St Teresa of Calcutta or Hitler.   The implications are colossal.

So what is our concept of God?  In the first reading, we read about the attributes of God. He revealed Himself to Moses as “a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness.”  This concept of God is quite similar to that of Islam and Judaism.  Not surprisingly, we share the same Old Testament roots.  In Islam, God is known as the Compassionate One.  Interestingly, although Buddhism does not speak about God, yet the distinguishing mark of Buddha is that of an Enlightened One and of compassion.  

This explains why Jews, Muslims and Buddhists emphasize the need for compassion for our fellowmen. Charity and almsgiving are important practical expressions of our faith.  So followers of such religions at least tend to emphasize much on compassion, fraternal love for their brothers and sisters, forgiveness and helping each other.  Thus, our beliefs in God determine very much how we relate to our fellowmen.  If God is merciful to us and forgiving, then necessarily, we who receive His mercy and forgiveness would extend the same blessings to others as well.

However, Christian Faith goes beyond proclaiming that God is compassion.  The gospel reading speaks of the being of God as love.  “God loved the world so much.”  When we speak of God as love, then we are claiming that God is relationship.  If the being of God is love, He could not possibly love Himself, as this would be narcissistic.  And how could He be love from all eternity when the world, the universe and human beings were still not around for Him to love? So He would be loving Himself!  Flowing from this truth that God is love, we must posit that although the substance of God is One, since God must be a unity, yet within God there must be relations.  Consequently, Christian doctrine defines God as One in being but three in persons.

God is subsistent relations.  This is to say that the three persons in the Trinity do not have relations like you and me.  We have relations outside of us.  We are related to our parents, our spouse, our children, but we are not constituted of these relations because we are also unique individuals.  We can stand alone but we are also social beings.  In God, however, He is pure relations; that is, the Father cannot exist without the Son and the Son without the Father and both without the Holy Spirit.  

This explains why the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is an advancement of monotheism.  Christianity, although monotheistic, does not conceive of God as a monad, as in Judaism and Islam.  In the One God, the three persons share in the same divine substance.  This is what unites the three persons.  But within the one divine substance, there are three persons.

This doctrine of the One God in three persons is not a philosophical deduction but is rooted in the experience of God in the life of a Christian.  Clearly, in the gospel, we read that God is not merely love but He is also a Father, that is, the origin of life and love.  Jesus revealed to Nicodemus that “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.”  

God is more than love.  He is our Father.  Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, the expression of the Father on earth.  He is the incarnation of God, the Word made flesh.  Together, the Father and the Son saved the world by bestowing their mutual love and mercy on the world.  This is summed up by St Paul when he described the love of God.  “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  In this Trinitarian greeting, we have the summary of the Christian experience of God’s love and mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ made present in the Holy Spirit, especially in the fellowship of the Christian community.

What is the implication of this doctrine of the Holy Trinity for us all?  It means that our happiness and joy in life depends on the depth of our relationship with each other.  Just as the happiness and fulfilment of God is found within the mutual relationship of the Father and the Son sharing in the same Spirit of love, our completion and fulfilment must come in our relationships with our fellowmen.  Although we are individuals, yet we are called to be one with others.  We are unique so that we can complement each other in love, in resources and blessings.  No man is an island.  He needs to relate with others to find himself.  Man is therefore an individual and social being.  He needs to be himself but never without the others.  To love himself is to love his neighbours.

The three persons of the Holy Trinity live from each other, by each other, for each other and in each other.  The unity of the three persons is complete and yet they are distinct from one another.  We too are called to love in such a manner.  We are called to be united in our diversity.  We need each other and we are called to live for each other, with each other and from each other as well.  In all that we do and act, we do it out of love.  It is love that unites us in our distinctions as individuals.  When we define God and human beings as love, it means that we need each other.   God must be a Trinity of persons. We are social beings.

This is also our answer to a world that wavers between globalization and individualism.  The recent political developments in the world exemplify this tension. Some countries are going back to protectionism in the face of globalization. They view others as a threat to their economy and their homogenous society.  So instead of reaching out, they are excluding others by promoting themselves at the expense of other countries. 

At the other end of the spectrum are those who promote globalization, free trade and welcoming migrants.  They believe in free competition and mutual promotion of each other’s interests.  The first is a win-lose approach.  The latter is a win-win approach.  What we need to promote today is the uniqueness of the individual which cannot be denied.  But we must also underscore that no individual and no country can exist for herself but for and with others.  This is the kind of communion that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is offering to the world.  Instead of alienating others, we are called to build bridges of love.  In this way, through mutual love, we can truly transform this humanity into the family of God united as one in love.

Now we can appreciate why the Lord tells us that the greatest commandments are these “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  (Mk 12:29-31)

The concept of God as Trinity therefore reveals to us the key to true happiness, which is the love of God manifested in our love for others, a love that is in imitation of the Blessed Trinity, a love that is mutually giving, caring, and empowering.

 SCRIPTURE READINGS: [EXODUS 34:4-6,8-9; 2 CORINTHIANS 13:11-13; JOHN 3:16-18]

Cardinal Goh...we can truly transform this humanity into the family of God united as one in love.

Let women in West speak - UN expert

                                                                               BBC NEWS

Allow women and girls to speak on sex, gender and gender identity without intimidation or fear: UN expert

A Press Release                                                                                                 

GENEVA (22 May 2023) – Threats and intimidation against women expressing their opinions on sex and sexual orientation is deeply concerning, said Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls in a statement today.

In the context of disagreements between some women’s rights activists and transgender activists in a number of countries in the Global North, Alsalem warned that [there are many cases of] violence against women and intimidation against people for expressing differing views.

“Discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation is prohibited in international and regional human rights law.

I am concerned by the shrinking space in several countries in the Global North for women and feminist organisations and their allies to gather and/or express themselves peacefully in demanding respect for their needs based on their sex and/or sexual orientation.

Law enforcement has a crucial role in protecting lawful gatherings of women and ensuring women’s safety and rights to freedom of assembly and speech without intimidation, coercion, or being effectively silenced. It is clear that where law enforcement has failed to provide the necessary safeguards, we have witnessed incidents of verbal and physical abuse, harassment, and intimidation, with the purpose of sabotaging and derailing such events as well as silencing the women who wish to speak at them.

I am disturbed by the frequent tactic of smear campaigns against women, girls and their allies on the basis of their beliefs on non-discrimination based on sex and same-sex relations. Branding them as “Nazis,” “genocidaires” or “extremists” is a means of attack and intimidation with the purpose of deterring women from speaking and expressing their views.

Such actions are deeply troubling, as they are intended to instill fear in them, shame them into silence, and incite violence and hatred against them. Such acts severely affect the dignified participation of women and girls in society. 

I am also concerned by the way in which provisions that criminalise hate speech based on a number of grounds, including gender expression or gender identity, have been interpreted in some countries. Women and girls have a right to discuss any subject free of intimidation and threats of violence.

This includes issues that are important to them, particularly if they relate to parts of their innate identity, and on which discrimination is prohibited. Holding and expressing views about the scope of rights in society based on sex and gender identity should not be delegitimised, trivialised, or dismissed.

According to international human rights law, any restriction on freedom of expression should be carried out strictly in accordance with the human rights standards of legality, necessity, proportionality and to serve a legitimate aim. Those disagreeing with the views of women and girls expressing concerns related to gender identity and sex also have a right to express their opinion.

However, in doing so they must not threaten the safety and integrity of those they are protesting against and disagreeing with. Sweeping restrictions on the ability of women and men to raise concerns regarding the scope of rights based on gender identity and sex are in violation of the fundamentals of freedom of thought and freedom of belief and expression and amounts to unjustified or blanket censorship.

Of particular concern are the various forms of reprisals against women, including censorship, legal harassment, employment loss, loss of income, removal from social media platforms, speaking engagements, and the refusal to publish research conclusions and articles. In some cases, women politicians are sanctioned by their political parties, including through the threat of dismissal or actual dismissal.”

ENDS

Reem Alsalem is the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences

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Culture and politics

 Isabel Díaz Ayuso's popularity and profile have given her a national presence Photo

Conservatives force Spanish PM into retreat - The Times

The woke Left can be defeated - Telegraph contributor Nile Gardiner 

Spanish PM Sánchez calls snap general election after disastrous results in local elections - Politico Europe:

Spain was due to hold general elections by the end of the year, but the Socialist leader announced his decision to move up the date following Sunday’s local elections, which saw his party suffer heavy losses across the country.

The gains for the conservative People's Party indicate they could unseat the current left-wing coalition led by the Socialists,  if they replicate the performance in national elections, Reuters reports. As a result of these results the government has called a shock snap election for July rather than wait till the due date of December. 

The numbers showed few clear majorities, except in the Madrid region where regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso of the PP looked set to win re-election with an absolute majority.

From an earlier Politico report highlighting the prominence of Diaz Ayuso:

At a campaign rally in a square in Madrid’s wealthy Goya neighborhood, the conservative mayor of Lisbon, former European Commissioner Carlos Moedas, praised her.

“You have got rid of something which is the worst thing about the left today: its moral superiority,” he said. “As if they’re better people just because they’re on the left, as if they’re more human. Isabel has looked them in the eyes and said: ‘No, it’s not like that.’”

Moments later, to rapturous applause, Díaz Ayuso took up the same theme. 

“What [the left] don’t understand is that when people are free and prosperous and united despite their differences, they are unbeatable,” she said. 

-----

“She has taken ownership of the word ‘freedom’ away from the left,” said one person close to her who wanted to remain anonymous because of their position on her staff.

“If you say ‘freedom’ in Madrid, people think of Ayuso … She has waged all the ideological battles possible over the last few years and that explains her success.”

Those battles have included attacking the feminist agenda of the government, as well as casting doubt on climate change.

As for that feminist agenda, a report from Le Monde describes the outcome of a national law on rules for transitioning from one sexual identity to another:

While this law is a "historic victory" for the trans community to become less "stigmatized," it has also provoked the indignation of a part of the feminist movement, grouped within the Alliance Against the Erasure of Women. For this alliance, the law leads to the "legal erasure of biological sex," "inoculates children with sexist stereotypes," "makes it impossible to take any action to rectify the discrimination suffered by women in the public space" and could jeopardize the reserved spaces where women feel safe (toilets, domestic abuse shelters and prisons). 

Political action is certainly central to taking control of the direction of ideology and the shape of the culture, but this task must be coupled with reclaiming influence for the common good within institutions such as education, the media, and the corporate domain. 

American author and social analyst Rod Dreher, writing from the vantage point of his new home base in Europe, is worried by the aggressive US response wherever a nation's cultural heritage is deemed a persona non grata:

The United States is awash in its own many problems now. The ruling class, across institutions, has committed itself to the spread of an insane ideology that trains Americans to see each other in terms of racial identity, and acculturates them to grievances. It is also committed to the spread of a parallel ideology that is destroying biology, destroying science, destroying the mental health of young people, wrecking their bodies and their capacity to procreate, and so forth. The ruling class’s ideology is pulverizing the idea of truth-telling, and of merit and competence. I could go on. AND YET … the United States ruling class believes it has everything all figured out, and has the moral right to push countries like Hungary around, either directly or through its proxies in Brussels.

None of this makes Russia right, either in its invasion of Ukraine or about anything else! But folks, if you could only see how our country is seen by so many people outside of its borders. To be fair, America has a tremendous amount of goodwill built up in the hearts and minds of people all around the world. We are ruining it with our colonialist liberal messianism.   

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Cancel culture can never be regarded casually

There is an important debate about how to negotiate trans rights and women’s rights, but trying to shut down one side of the debate as unacceptable will make it more difficult to work out a fair solution, writes Kenan Malik, a British writer, lecturer and broadcaster.

In his latest Observer column he examines the rising tolerance of censorship whether by the social elites in universities or the government, or among the educated young. For example, the de-platforming of those opposing views caught up in the cult of the fashionable transgender ideology has generated dismay. Though not without blame of censorship themselves, "many of the issues they ["anti-woke free speech champions"] highlight are nevertheless important".

Of particular concern is that "there is growing support in sections of the left and on campuses for the suppression of unacceptable views".

The Higher Education Policy Institute found in a student survey last year that 79% thought “Students that feel threatened should always have their demands for safety respected” and more than a third believed academics should be sacked for teaching “material that heavily offends some students”. “Many people may be surprised, perhaps even unsettled”, the report observed, “by the greater keenness of students to limit what their peers and lecturers can say and do within the law”.

Last week, the Office for Students, as part of its regular reporting on the impact of Prevent guidance, ["the government anti-terror policy that has helped create a climate of self-censorship"], published data on cancellations of university talks. Out of 31,545 speakers in the academic year 2021-22, 260 had their events cancelled. The reasons for doing so are unclear; the OfS data unfortunately does not show how many speakers were banned because their views were deemed unacceptable. Whatever the figure, it is small – less than 1%. This shouldn’t lead us to conclude, though, that there is no issue. Controversial speakers will inevitably be small in number, but attempts to stop them speaking often highlight a deeper problem, particularly the tendency to portray political and social disagreements as “hatred” or “bigotry”.

The aggression of transgender activists disturbs Malik.

The most incendiary issue at the moment is that of trans rights. “Gender critical” feminists such as Kathleen Stock or Julie Bindel, who argue for the importance of sex-based rights and for the exclusion of transgender women from sex-based, women-only spaces, such as refuges or prisons, have faced calls for their meetings to be shut down.

Many of their critics argue that such individuals are not being censored because they have other platforms on which they are able to express their views, from newspaper columns to books. That is to miss the point.

On this Malik would clearly be a full supporter of the "right to hear", so that even the least degree of censorship is an offence against the personal rights of those who would otherwise have been able to hear, maybe for the first time, a speaker offering unfashionable ideas.  He continues, referring to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which became law this month:

At the same time, opponents of gender critical views should be equally free to express themselves. Last week, a tweet from Oxford University LGBTQ+ campaign calling for Stock’s invitation to speak at the Oxford Union to be rescinded was taken down by the student union on the grounds it might infringe the new law. The [anti-woke] Free Speech Union crowed about it as a victory. It was, in fact, a blatant denial of free speech. The episode revealed both how state-imposed free speech can itself be a form of censorship and how little the FSU understands about the meaning of free expression.

Malik offers these points by way of conclusion:

There is an important debate about how to negotiate trans rights and women’s rights, and how best to ensure that both are respected. Shutting down one side of the debate as unacceptable will not settle the issues but merely make it more difficult to work out a fair solution.

For too many people today, on both the left and the anti-woke right, what matters about free speech depends upon which side of the culture wars they stand. It is an issue too important to be treated with such casual disdain.

There is no easy answer to the ostracism a person may face in a work environment, especially if the corporate HR personnel are DEI activists, or even among friends and neighbours. But a guiding principle for us all is: Live Not By Lies.

Ω See also:

"A Generational Threat to Free Expression" ‒ Survey data show that Americans under 30 prize cancel culture over liberty. Eric Kaufmann ‒ City Journal

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The corrosion of social norms without religion

Most clearly in the United States, but significantly so, too, in most WEIRD nations, "shared ideas about norms, about decency, have been seriously corroded". In this there is a correlation with disengagement from participation in religion by the young, the university educated, and those captured by the self-invention promoted by the morality-denying ideology at the core of Critical Theory.   

Hard-headed journalist Jesse Singal is the dismayed source of the quoted view of much of the social discourse on the likes of Twitter. In his latest Substack post he examines a particularly nasty episode of vicious responses from those who opposed the victim's views. His exposition of the implications for Americans of this widespread moral corrosion, evidenced by the abusive language used on social media, come as Australian broadcaster Stan Grant, of Aboriginal parentage, has responded to a deluge of gutter language and threats by stepping away from his roles, making the comment:

"To those who have abused me and my family, I would just say — if your aim was to hurt me, well, you've succeeded."  

One can also think of JK Rowling, so bravely enduring slanderous harassment.

For Singal, the corrosion of traditional social standards is to be observed particularly in those most strongly bound by what has been described as the cult of left-wing activism:

Progressive organizations all over the country are in the midst of wave after wave of embarrassing, time- and money-wasting meltdowns, largely because shared ideas about norms, about decency, have been seriously corroded. Antisocial behavior — both outright, obvious bullying and the more subtle, manipulative variants that tend to weaponize shared lefty contempt for oppression and various -isms and -phobias — is, if not endorsed, certainly endorsed tacitly by the silence of a lot of people who are otherwise super concerned about bullying and meanness and online harassment. At least theoretically.

The Pew Research Center reports:

Seven-in-ten adults who were raised Christian but are now unaffiliated [also termed "nones"] are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, compared with 43% of those who remained Christian and 51% of U.S. adults overall. Some scholars argue that disaffiliation from Christianity is driven by an association between Christianity and political conservatism that has intensified in recent decades.

Singal finds that the foul language, and the urge to inflict pain, are "unfortunately characteristic of a broad swath of the online lefty world, which is just a miserable, deranged, angry place". 

See this Twitter post here.

However, Stan Grant's experience of harassment, presumably from the Right after statements on colonial treatment of Aborigines and present-day racism, illustrates how a society can become desensitised and lose sight of the value of moral guardrails in trying to undertake a peaceful examination of controversial issues. See his article: For years I've been a media target for racism and paid a heavy price. For now, I want no part of it – I'm stepping away

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