It’s a great paradox that in the Information Age, when every book every written and every fact known to man is available on your phone, that our connection to the truth is at great risk. The future that GK Chesterton presciently wrote about over 100 years ago is coming true; we are drawing swords to defend the basic and observable truths in the natural world.

Under the banner of progress, the new Imperialists seek not to seize lands and property, but to colonize minds. Submit and convert to their way of thinking, or submit to a public social execution. These emboldened voices challenge the very ideas that underpinned human civilization for over 3,000 years. As they pull blocks out of the bottom of the jenga tower, human civilization begins to wobble.

In their view, the family is outdated and human sexuality is nothing more than consensual recreation. Masculinity and femininity are not differences to be embraced, but simultaneously anything you want and nothing at all. These new pseudo-ideas posses the logic of a toddler, but we see them roll over institutions with little resistance. The Supreme Court has found in the Constitution, written by deeply religious men in the late 1700s, an unlimited right to kill at child until birth and that marriage is whatever two people say it is.

It can be hard to watch these threats emerge when we instinctively know that they’re wrong. But how do we defend these first principles when we’ve never had to articulate them? Our explanation that the sky is blue is just that; it’s an observable fact across all reaches of the globes by all people. We must find ways to explain this simple truth to people who refuse to look up.

Intellectual exploration is a wonderful thing, and human curiosity continues to expand the reaches of our understanding. Intellectual colonization is a pernicious threat, as evil as any other form of colonization. It seeks to subjugate and enslave its victims, all to gain raw power and control.

The human person, and our understanding of its dignity and importance, is the lens through which we live our lives. It informs how we behave and how we treat others. A solid understanding gives us the ability to recognize the commonalities that we share with everyone that we meet, and to empathize with their pain and sufferings.

A lack of respect towards the human persons results in the depredations that we’ve witnessed throughout history. It’s a conflict that continues today, whether in front of the camera in the villages of Ukraine, or far from the public view in other places.

Applied Bioethics Magazine takes on the bioethical issues of our time. The first issue is out now. In it, we explore and define the human person. It puts into words the truths about the human person that you instinctively know and it only takes about half an hour to read. Once finished, you’ll have a philosophical and theological understanding of the human person.

Confusion and stress can cloud our thinking, but we can’t let it diminish the central truth of our world. The human person is worthy of dignity and respect at every time and in every place. This is a fight worth fighting.

Tags: Reflections