Recently I was discussing strategies for educating the public regarding scientific realities concerning a technical matter (e.g., climate, energy, medical), and an ally said: “We need to be careful not to offend anyone!”.
OMG! Let’s unpack that concern and assess its legitimacy.
To begin with, the Left has created a broad collection of new standards (like social justice). If we listen closely, we will see that their communications are now infused with value assessments (e.g., Democrats calling a border wall “immoral”).
This has bled into areas of Science — which should be based on facts, not subjective values. For example, leading Climate Change advocate, Dr. Michael Mann, stated that he is “fighting on the right side of a battle between good and evil.”
In the same vein, carefully consider this official statement from the Dean of Duke’s prestigious Nicholas School of the Environment, on receiving that appointment:
“At a time when we’re so deeply divided as a society, and issues seem to grow more contentious daily, we can no longer treat environmental issues as solely scientific or technical problems. We have to wade into the complex value choices that are at the heart of policy decisions. Science will always be a central and essential input into the decision-making process, but policy decisions require choices. And choices reflect values.”
What is going on here?
Basically. this is part of a larger campaign, where our traditional Judeo-Christian standards (an integral part of America’s foundation) are being attacked, undermined, discarded, and replaced.
They argue that traditional religions are archaic, corrupted, and inappropriate for today’s “enlightened” world. (The trend of this thinking is clear.)
Note: They employ similar arguments against traditional Science!
However, as Carl Jung (the founder of analytical psychology) insightfully observed: "You can take away a man's gods — but only to give him others in return.” (Ironically this was in one of his greatest books, where a key message was: “the future depends on our ability to resist society's mass movements.”)
Essentially what is transpiring is that the Left is following Jung’s insight by substituting a secular religion for traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs.
The core belief of this new religion is environmentalism. It doesn’t take much reflection to see that environmentalism has literally evolved into a religion (e.g., see here, here, here, and here).
OK, so what?
Well, the first so what is that we need to appreciate that this is an important element in the campaign to promote world governance (vs individual countries that we have now). The idea is that if we all have the same world belief system, then there will be little resistance to the concept of a world government.
But there are a multitude of unanswered questions about this new global secular religion, like:
1-Exactly who is it that determines what the acceptable “values” are?
2-Specifically where are these fundamental “values” published?
3-Who has the judicial authority to ascertain whether we are properly adhering to these said “values”?
4-Who has the power to punish the miscreants who do not properly adhere to these said “values”?
The implications of these matters are literally unfathomable!
Just to make sure that they have covered all the bases, the Left is promoting an alternative to secular religions: relativism. This gives them new power, as “a true relativist can do anything and doesn't have to respect the views of anyone.”
This brief overview brings us back to the initial question: is it rational to set up criteria that we engage with the Left, and do not offend any of them?
Since they are making up “standards” — usually self-serving, and often on the fly — there is no possible way of not offending them. Of course, that is one of their objectives — so they then can play the victim…
The answer is to do Critical Thinking — and then speak the Truth. If it offends someone, that’s their problem.
Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:
Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.
WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?
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Insightful observation. I am not totally convinced the new religion is exclusively environmental, but it is “ecumenical” in its reach for allies of a common goal. The powers behind this push needed a unifying mission to sell the people in limiting oneself and his/her agency. Also, it comes with a timeline, an urgency for action.
You can’t sell feudalism and self-surrender on the self-same “merits”, so “climate commitment” is the perfect framework: one globe, one government, one size fits all. The “wizard” behind the curtain doesn’t give two wits about the environment. The iatrogenic effects of almost every initiative taken are in fact destroying the environment…wind farms and solar arrays papering over arable land, driving the whales mad in offshore wind farms, lithium and cobalt strip mining, etc.
There is a vision emerging of what this is.
It is not healthy and it is most definitely not the stewardship of our environment.
“Know them by their fruits.”
Excellent! They have no foundational truths, so everything, anything, or nothing is accepted depending on the philosophical trend of the moment. For decades they demanded we eat more natural foods. Now the Left is demanding should eat highly processed foods like fake meat. It never ends with these nitwits because nothing is truth.
“A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative,’ is asking you not to believe him. So don’t."! ― Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey