Political Correctness is my enemy

I loathe political correctness.

I think that political correctness is poison to society, and poison to human friendships and relationships.

The idea that we must speak according to the strict and punitive dictates of a political agenda so as not to "offend" others who do not want to hear a different (yes even "offensive") viewpoint? It's abhorrent to me.

The demands of political correctness (and its growing fruit, the speech code) are a bit totalitarian, are they not? To mandate, with real social and now even financial/legal penalties, that we speak according to what one group of Americans finds "comfortable" and "acceptable" is dangerous.

Promoters of political correctness will insist that PC's aim is simply civility, respect, and politeness. Nonsense. I am at the same time anti-PC and pro- civility in discourse, pro- respect for human dignity (not respect for all ideas), and pro- politeness in dealing with others.

No, political correctness is something else altogether. It's about control and coercion, not manners. It's about suspicion and conformity, and it's about forcing agendas that not everyone accepts.

I am so, so sad for the purveyors (prisoners) of political correctness. They truly believe that they are shaping, effecting, and marching toward a golden age of social justice, a utopia of equality and harmony. What they are actually doing is killing discourse, killing human relationships, and ending the free-flow of ideas among people of goodwill. PC is a strait jacket on thought and speech, which is a barrier to real human intimacy.

PC is enslavement, and we've been warned about it for many decades. Remember George Orwell's classic book, 1984, published in 1949? Do students read that anymore? This, and other classic books like it, were cautionary tales, yet it appears a whole segment of society (including a whole lot of young Americans who have never seen life any other way) didn't heed the warning.

Last night I looked up Newspeak, the mandated new language forced on the populace in Orwell's novel:

Newspeak intended not only to force the populace to conform their thoughts and ideologies towards those of The Party, but to make it impossible to even conceive of any other point of view. 

Thoughtcrime, a word used in the novel to describe the act of thinking socially unacceptable thoughts or holding opinions that are ideologically distinct from The Party’s.

Thought police, the term for the group in Nineteen Eighty-Four that monitored the populace for any signs of unorthodox thought or action.


Sounds a little too familiar, doesn't it?

I'm going to give you my rules for speech, for anyone who wants to talk to me or be my friend:

1. Be polite and respectful when in dialogue, but do not limit thoughtful discourse out of fear that an idea you have might "offend" another.

2. Black people/White people/Hispanic people/Asian people are all human beings and are allowed to comment and have opinions on any aspect of any human culture or human nature. I place no restrictions based on ethnicity or race. You all have free speech, without fear!

3. Women can comment on "men's issues", and men can comment on "women's issues." In fact, since men and women are human, you all can comment on any human issue whatsoever, without fear!

Basically, I have just given you your freedom. I have confirmed your human dignity. It is beautiful and joyful to be free, isn't it?

I will never in my life surrender my human dignity and my free conscience.

I have never felt like a victim (nope, not even as a woman in this land of the "war on women" -- I must have missed the memo), and I have never spoken the words or even implied, "You are not allowed to speak on that because you are a woman/man/Latina/African-American/Caucasian!"

I am a mother, I am middle-aged, and I have a longer perspective on what has come to pass recently in our society. Therefore, I am compelled to say this:

I am truly sad, even heartbroken, for all those who are growing up in a PC culture without knowing anything different. Not only are we less polite and more coarse as a society these days, but those slavishly committed to PC will find it a struggle to achieve interior joy. PC is a fearful, suspicious, closed-off place to be.

I wish and pray that the politically correct and perpetually offended could feel what freedom of speech and freedom in relationships -- the true and honest give-and-take of a human conversation -- feels like. Because it must take a lot of energy to stay in line with "approved" speech and thought, to constantly walk on eggshells wondering if one has a "right" to speak about or discuss an idea. And since the "rules" about exactly who can say exactly what are ever-changing and increasingly restrictive, the difficulty, division, and misery inherent in political correctness is only going to get worse.

Get out while you can! Run, I say!

Now, I imagine this post has been a "microaggression" to some, but as long as it's still legal for me to speak and write what is politically incorrect, I will continue to do so. And if I'm ever jailed for my "offenses" someday, I'll still be gloriously free in my mind, and that's no small thing.

Quick Takes: 50 Shades of BS

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Revisiting dissenting Catholics and the excuse of "conscience"

[Forgive my absences! I'm battling some back pain that makes it difficult to sit at the computer. In the meantime, in light of this season of open dissent by Catholics in politics and elsewhere, I thought it good that we revisit this Little Teaching from December 27, 2010, with a few edits. This is the Church's answer -- your answer -- to any dissenting Catholic who uses "primacy of conscience" as their excuse to contravene Church teaching.]

This is what I will call a "reference post" -- bookmark it and refer to it anytime a Cafeteria Catholic tells you that as long as one follows his conscience, he is in good standing with the Church.

Ummmmm, not exactly.

We've had a fascinating discussion in the comments section of a previous post. At one point, atheist commenter Tony linked to an anti-Catholic article* riddled with errors, which put forth this (commonly accepted) falsehood:

In any case, Catholic theology tells individuals to follow their personal conscience in moral matters, even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views. 

Again, not exactly.

Let's briefly discuss what the Catholic Church actually teaches about conscience, beginning with this statement about moral conscience from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which quotes the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes (16):

"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."  [emphasis mine]

So, our conscience is where we hear the law of God which has been written on our hearts. Our conscience moves us to do good and avoid evil, and judges whether an act is moral or not. 

Another Vatican II document says:

In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.     Dignitatis Humanae (3)

Okay, so we must follow our conscience in all things. We must not be forced to act against our conscience, nor must we be stopped from acting according to the dictates of our conscience.

That sounds about right to me!

But wait.... Then don't those dissenting Catholics who reject the moral teachings of the Church have a point? They claim that their conscience is the final authority, after all.

Well actually, the dissenting Catholics always leave something out. They like to talk about always following one's conscience, but they never talk about one's obligation to correctly form one's conscience in the first place. That's a pretty big omission!

In fact, when dissenters say that Catholicism teaches that Catholics may follow their consciences with impunity "even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views", they are actually ignoring Church teaching, which states explicitly that personal conscience "should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church." (Catechism, 2039)

Pretty clear, no?

Now, what if someone (perhaps a dissenting Catholic) wants to be ignorant of the moral law? Well, willful ignorance is itself a sin:

This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin." In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits. (Catechism, 1791)

In other words, if one has a poorly formed conscience precisely because he refuses to seek truth, or if he has deadened his own conscience by repeated sins, or if he willfully rejects what he knows to be legitimate Church authority -- then he is culpable.

We are responsible for seeking truth. Then, once we have found truth, we are responsible for conforming our lives to it. To the extent that we decide not to seek truth in the first place, we are accountable for that unfortunate decision.

I have personally known Catholics who have declined to learn more about Catholic morality precisely because they don't want to be held accountable for their actions. But of course, God doesn't play games like that. He knows every human heart and its intentions. And a soul who is willfully clinging to "ignorance" is not truly ignorant at all.

If, on the other hand, a soul is invincibly ignorant of the moral law (i.e., their ignorance or their poorly formed conscience exists through no fault of their own), then they are not culpable for those sins, even though their actions are still objectively sinful.  

One can only be responsible for what he knows or what he should know. He cannot be responsible for what he is incapable of knowing. That's justice. Wouldn't you agree?

From the Catechism (1793): 

[If] the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

That last sentence is why we Catholics must learn and then teach our Faith. 

So, to sum it up, there are really two parts to the discussion of conscience: 

1) We are first obligated to form our consciences properly. 

2) We are then obligated to follow our consciences.

Pretty simple, huh?

The end!

*The source of the article is the well-known and misleadingly-named "Catholics For a Free Choice." This is not a Catholic group, and it has been roundly denounced by the U.S. Bishops. It's sort of like if there were a group called "Vegans For Meat-Eating" -- are they really vegans? Commenters should always consider the source and please use only authentically Catholic sources when attempting to represent Catholic teaching.

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Laughing at dead babies and the avenging conscience

A few weeks ago, I read a disturbing blog post by Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic and author of the book, UnPlanned.

She recounts her early experiences in the clinic:

It took a few weeks before I got the alarm code to our clinic. I guess it takes that long for them to trust you. I remember getting the code and feeling shocked. The code was 2229. That seems innocent…until they told me what it spelled out…BABY. Really. Wow. We were really joking about that…our alarm code was mocking the murder of children. 

A few weeks later I was introduced to our freezer in the POC (products of conception) lab. This was the freezer that held the fetal tissue until the biohazard truck came for disposal. I found out the name for that freezer…the nursery. Again, that was a joke. How had that become a joke? 

A few days later I learned the password to our phone system…2229…BABY. 

A couple years later I remember walking in on my supervisor making jokes with the abortionist and another employee in that same POC lab. They were joking about how the fetal tissue floating in this dish looked like bar-b-que. Did I hear that right? Did they really just say that? Then one of them said, “I actually think this part looks like strawberry jam.” I turned around and walked out without saying a word. I felt sick to my stomach. How did that conversation begin? How could they say that? Was it enough to make me leave? No. I was one of them now. I am drenched in the evil of this place.

Later, she joined in their ghoulish humor:

About a year before I left, the Coalition for Life group had moved in next door to our clinic. We joked about sending them a “welcome to the neighborhood” gift. Maybe we should send them cookies in the shape of babies with red icing on them that resembles blood. We laughed. We thought we were so witty. It was not wit. 

I could go on and on. I look back now and wonder how I could let my mind become so numb to something so terrible.

Abby's post was remarkable to me, because just days earlier I had read an eerily similar account from another former abortion clinic worker, Jewels Green:

Even the macabre became commonplace. The gallows humor I’d seen in movies about medical staff that work around disease and death day in and day out was right at home in an abortion clinic. 

I vividly remember the cleaning lady who quit after finding a foot in the drain of the one of the sinks in the autoclave room (where the medical instruments were cleaned and sterilized after abortions) and how we all laughed and joked about it in the staff lounge for days and weeks afterward. 

When the power went out one time for hours and we were all explicitly instructed NOT to open the freezer where all of the medical waste was stored (read: dead baby parts in bio-hazard bags) but inevitably, someone did open that freezer and I will never, ever forget the stench of decaying human flesh for as long as I live —but we all laughed as we gagged and joked how at least “they” had it better in that non-functioning freezer because at least they couldn’t smell it. 

[I]n my heart I always knew it was wrong. All of it was wrong….

Horrifying as their stories are, it makes sense that they joked about what they were doing, to the point of mocking the dead babies themselves. For one to cooperate in an unthinkable evil, one must assuage the avenging conscience in some way or another.

Professor J. Budziszewski discusses the conscience -- and the revenge of conscience -- in his book, What We Can't Not Know (which I reviewed here).

The human conscience operates in three modes:

In the cautionary mode, the conscience acts as teacher:  "I shouldn't do that; it's wrong."
In the accusatory mode, the conscience acts as judge: "I should never have done that; it was wrong."
In the avenging mode, the conscience acts as executioner. We shall see how that works in a moment.

The "Five Furies" of conscience that come into play when we transgress the natural law (i.e., the universal moral law) are something we can all grasp:

1. Remorse
2. Confession
3. Atonement
4. Reconciliation
5. Justification

Professor B describes the rightly ordered way that the guilty conscience responds to the Five Furies (emphases mine):

The normal outlet of remorse is to flee from wrong; of the need for confession, to admit what one has done; of atonement, to pay the debt; of reconciliation, to restore the bonds one has broken; and of justification, to get back in the right.

However, if the guilty party does not respond to the Furies in rightly ordered ways and return to moral goodness, the Furies don't just suddenly go away (emphases mine):

But if the furies are denied their payment in wonted coin, they exact it in whatever coin comes nearest, driving the wrongdoer's life yet further out of kilter. We flee not from wrong, but from thinking about it. We compulsively confess every detail of our story, except the moral. We punish ourselves again and again, offering every sacrifice except the one demanded. We simulate the restoration of broken intimacy, by seeking companions as guilty as ourselves. And we seek not to become just, but to justify ourselves.

All the furies collude. Each reinforces the others, not only in the individual, but in the social group.    (pp. 150- 151)

In the buildings where women's wombs were forcibly opened and their living babies were shredded and dismembered and thrown out with the trash:

"We laughed. We thought we were so witty."
"We all laughed and joked about it for days and weeks afterward."
"We all laughed as we gagged and joked."

"In my heart I always knew it was wrong. All of it was wrong."
"I look back now and wonder how I could let my mind become so numb to something so terrible."

Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down.    -- G.K. Chesterton

Praise God for the gift of the avenging conscience. For to be pursued by the Five Furies, even to the very edge of the pit of hell itself, is a severe mercy given by a loving God Who will use drastic means to call us back to Himself.







.

Dissenting Catholics and the question of conscience

This is what I will call a "reference post" -- bookmark it and refer to it anytime a Cafeteria Catholic tells you that as long as one follows his conscience, he is in good standing with the Church.


Ummmmm, not exactly.


We've had a fascinating discussion in the comments section of a previous post. At one point, atheist commenter Tony linked to an anti-Catholic article* riddled with errors, which put forth this (commonly accepted) falsehood:

In any case, Catholic theology tells individuals to follow their personal conscience in moral matters, even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views. 

Again, not exactly.


Let's briefly discuss what the Catholic Church actually teaches about conscience, beginning with this statement about moral conscience from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which quotes the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes (16):

"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."  [emphasis mine]

So, our conscience is where we hear the law of God which has been written on our hearts. Our conscience moves us to do good and avoid evil, and judges whether an act is moral or not. 


Another Vatican II document says:

In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.     Dignitatis Humanae (3)

Okay, so we must follow our consciences in all things. We must not be forced to act against our conscience, nor must we be stopped from acting according to the dictates of our conscience.


That sounds about right to me!


But wait.... Then don't those dissenting Catholics who reject the moral teachings of the Church have a point? They claim that their conscience is the final authority, after all.

Actually, the dissenting Catholics always leave something out. They like to talk about always following one's conscience, but they forget to talk about one's obligation to correctly form one's conscience in the first place! That's a pretty big omission.

Okay, so what happens if someone (perhaps a dissenting Catholic) wants to be ignorant of the moral law? Well, willful ignorance is itself a sin:

This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin." In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits. (Catechism, 1791)

In other words, if one has a poorly formed conscience because he refuses to seek truth, or if he has deadened his conscience by repeated sins, or if he willfully rejects Church authority -- then he is culpable.


The dissenters who say that Catholics may follow their consciences with impunity "even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views" are actually ignoring Church teaching, which states explicitly that personal conscience "should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church." (Catechism, 2039)


We are responsible for seeking truth. Then, once we have found truth, we are responsible for conforming our lives to it. To the extent that we decide not to seek truth in the first place, we are accountable for that unfortunate decision.


I have personally known Catholics who have declined to learn more about Catholic morality precisely because they don't want to be held accountable for their actions. But of course, God doesn't play games like that. He knows every human heart and its intentions. And a soul who is willfully clinging to "ignorance" is not truly ignorant at all.


If, on the other hand, a soul is invincibly ignorant of the moral law (i.e., their ignorance or poorly formed conscience exists through no fault of their own), then they are not culpable for those sins, even though their actions are still objectively sinful.  


One can only be responsible for what he knows or what he should know. He cannot be responsible for what he is incapable of knowing. That's justice. Wouldn't you agree?


From the Catechism (1793): 

[If] the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

That last sentence is why we Catholics must learn and then teach our Faith. 

So, to sum it up, there are really two parts to the discussion of conscience: 

1) We are obligated to form our consciences properly. 

2) We are obligated to follow our consciences.

Pretty simple, huh?

The end!

*The source of the article is the well-known and misleadingly-named "Catholics For a Free Choice." This is not a Catholic group and it has been roundly denounced by the U.S. Bishops. It's sort of like if there were a group called "Vegetarians For Meat-Eating" -- are they really vegetarians? Commenters should always consider the source and please use only authentically Catholic sources when attempting to represent Catholic teaching.