Bullying, Relativism, and Youth Suicide

In September 2010, Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington bridge after a roommate video-taped him having an intimate encounter with another older man.  He became a nationwide symbol of the problem of bullying, especially among homosexual youth, and youth suicide.  The nationwide reaction included anti-bullying campaigns and calls for greater tolerance of homosexuality. 

It was not only Clementi; in the preceding year another thirteen year old girl hanged herself after bullying from peers that included sexting, text messages of a sexual nature.  The problem is not only homosexuality, but bulling and youth suicide more broadly.  The philosopher Peter Kreeft has recently pointed out that since the 1950s, we have seen a 5,000 % increase in youth suicide (1).   Increasing intolerance toward homosexuality simply does not explain this. 

Since the 1950s, American society has only become more tolerant and accepting of homosexual behavior, not less.  Until 1973, the American Psychiatric association classified homosexuality as a mental disorder.  So did the American psychological association until 1975 (which caused my grandfather to leave the APA in 1975).  In the 1950s movie, The Road to Bali, starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, a character commented that the gods would never allow the abomination of a marriage between two men.  Today, however, homosexual practice is widely accepted and surely had no stronger supporters than Hollywood itself.  So, on the contrary, as homosexual practice has become more widely accepted, the rate of youth suicide has not decreased, but has actually increased.  Why is this so?  Why has youth bullying and suicide become more of a problem, not less?

Clementi did not commit suicide because he felt bullied because he was gay.  He committed suicide because for some reason, he decided that there was nothing in the world worth living for.  If decreasing tolerance cannot explain youth suicide, what else can?  What else changed at the same time?

The answer is secularism and increasing moral relativism.  If I asked a class of my students today whether objective moral values existed (by which we mean moral values that exist independent of what people think), their answer would nearly be identical.  Most students would reply that of course objective moral values did not exist “because different societies thought different things.”  I do not dwell here on the disastrous lapse in logic, the confusion between moral epistemology (perception of moral values) and moral ontology (existence) of moral values.  Obviously to say that a person does not believe in x is not proof that x does not exist.  Otherwise we would have to say that the fact that 12^th century Europeans did not believe in America was proof that American did not exist, which is absurd.

What really concerns us is the terrible consequences that follow when the youth become convinced, as they are today, that moral values are wholly subjective.  If a person thinks that moral values are subjective, then he thinks that they are wholly dependent on what other people think.  If a person thinks that moral values, including his own moral value are wholly dependant on what other people think, then what other people think becomes of paramount importance.  If moral values depend on society, and if one’s society, whether American, college, fraternity, or high school peers decide that a person does not have moral value (through bullying), then it necessarily follows that that person does not have moral value.  If subjectivism is true, then what is left to such a person save to throw himself off of a bridge?  If moral values are subjective, they depend on what other people think, and if everyone else thinks that that person is worthless, then he really is!  Second, moral subjectivism also provides an enormous incentive to be the bully.  Better to bully other people into thinking they are worthless than risk being thought worthless oneself. 

The cries for greater tolerance will not solve the problem.  Society is more tolerant and accepting than it ever has been, yet the problem of bullying and youth suicide is worse than ever.  The only hope is for people to begin to recognize again that human beings really do have objective moral value.  Modern secular society provides no basis for this.  Having denied God, it has denied any basis for objective moral values.  Without God, morality is just the result of evolutionary conditioning or societal norms- there is nothing objective about it.  As secularism and denial of God has increased since the 1950s, so has bullying and youth suicide. 

Hope for the youth lies not in more secularism, but in less.  For in Christianity a human being knows that they have objective moral value, no matter what anyone thinks.  They know that they have been created by a perfectly good, loving God, who made them in his image, suffered and died on a cross for them, and wants them to enjoy eternal union with Himself.  What bully could have a chance against such knowledge?

(1) http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/2011/11/dr-kreeft-how-to-win-the-culture-war/ 

Gay Marriage and the Wrong Side of History

As president Obama has recently proclaimed his support for same-sex “marriage,” supportive commentators have labeled his action “historic.”  One news anchor warned lest opponents of such unions should find themselves on the “wrong side of history.”

The expression is magnificent rhetoric.  Proponents use it to conjure up images of those who opposed civil rights for blacks or resisted the abolition of slavery.  Yet like many slogans in a culture that thrives more on rhetoric than reason and more on emotion than evidence, it is hollow at heart. 

Presumably such  people who warn the backward amongst us not to be on the wrong side of history think that we should make history our moral guide.  History says thus and we must obey.  The tide is flowing and we must follow it, lest we be caught like children in sandcastles.  Where the tide of history goes, so must we.  But this is not sound, for the tide may sweep us out to sea.  In following the tide, we may find ourselves drowned.

 In plain language, history does not always move in a positive direction.  It is not a safe guide for a man’s moral decisions.  The modern world may (or may not) have moved toward greater democracy and civil rights, but it also moved to world war and genocide.  The Middle Ages saw neither world war nor holocaust.  It was left to the modern world to discover those.  Nor should we think that history will always move in a positive direction in the future.   It has not always done so in the past, why should we think it will do so in the future?   History is a fickle mistress.  One century she may command freedom, the next genocide. 

Further still, history is no guide of morality because it is morally neutral.  This is the fallacy of seeking to derive an ought from an is.  History tells us what has happened.  It does not tell us what should happen.  Those who would try to derive their morality from history are in the same position as those who would derive it from science.  Both tell us what is, not what ought to be.  There is no rational inference from the claim “in history, x happened” to “x should have happened,” or “we should do x.”   

Indeed, making history out moral guide would put us in the absurd position of trying to anticipate what will happen in the future and then make it happen faster.  Perhaps, we project greater freedom in the next century.  Then we must work to make this happen even more quickly.  Yet, perhaps we anticipate a move to greater slavery two centuries hence.  If our mistress History commands it, I suppose we must work for it.

This brings us from the absurdity of history as a moral guide to the evil of history as  a moral guide.  If we are to always follow history, to not be on the wrong side of history, then we shall never be able to resist her.  There will be no room for the last desperate stand against the tide, no heroic resistance against inevitable onslaught. 

Only if morality is something beyond history and even beyond society, if it is something transcendent and what is more, divine, will we ever have a firm ground on which to stand, to plant our flag, and to cry “maybe thus far, but no farther.”   

Into the Fire: Towards a Life Worth Living

“If [Jesus] is what he claimed to be, a Savior, a Redeemer, then we have a virile Christ and a leader worth following in these terrible times; One who will step into the breach, crushing sin, gloom, and despair; a leader to Whom we can make totalitarian sacrifice without losing, but gaining freedom, and Whom we can love even unto death.  We need a Christ today who will make cords and drive the buyers and sellers from our new temple; Who will blast unfruitful fig trees; Who will talk of crosses and sacrifices and Whose voice will be like the voice of the raging sea.  But He will not allow us to pick and choose among his words, discarding the hard ones and accepting the ones that please our fancy.  We need a Christ who will restore moral indignation, Who will make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water.”

            --- From The Life of Christ (p.8), Archbishop Fulton Sheen

For years in his radio and then television show, Fulton Sheen insisted to American audiences that life was indeed worth living.  It was a message  needed as much then as it is now. 

Sheen wrote in a time of continuing industrialization, consumerism, and materialism in both senses of that terrible word.  As man denied God, either by the fast route of outright and immediate denial taken by the atheist or marxist or the slow route of increasing apathy, non attendance at mass, and increasing deism, modern man found there was nothing left to lend meaning, purpose, or value to his life.

Nietzche, one of the earliest prophets of the God-is-dead movement proclaimed that since God was dead, nihilism, the destruction of all meaning, value, and purpose in life was the consequence.  Others proclaimed the absurdity of life as well.  Heidegger wrote “If God... is dead... then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself.”  The French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre  spoke of the “nausea” of existence. Camus (The Stranger) has the hero of his novel realize in a flash that the universe had no God and hence no meaning.  Indeed, to Camus the only serious question in life was whether or not one should commit suicide. 

Unfortunately, our world today followed these thinkers in denying both God and hence any meaning or purpose in life.  Nietzsche was right, the death of God leads only to nihilism.  Confronted with an apparently pointless and meaningless life, many choose to leave it.  Thence the current problem of suicide among the youth.  It is hard to live in a world where everything means nothing and nothing means anything.  After a century of world wars, genocides, ethnic cleansings, abortions, how is man to look on life without despair?

I can think of only one way out and one hope for the world.  It was given by St. Augustine when he said “you have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  It was given by Thomas Aquinas, who when told by God that he might ask for any one thing replied, “I will have thyself.”  It was given by St. Francis when he proclaimed “My God and My All.”  And it is given above by the Archbishop Fulton Sheen. 

In Jesus there is a leader Who we can follow into the fire, because He went through it first.  In Him is someone not only worth living for, but worth dying for.  In Him is hope not only for the sunrise beyond the veil of this world, but hope for the world itself.  In Him the world becomes a place of meaning, purpose, and value.  In Him is hope that suffering and death will not have the last word.  And, in Him, is our Captain, and banner, and Resurrection.

Obstacles to Understanding NFP

NFP part 2

(Thoughts continued from NFP Part 1)

One main obstacle to understanding NFP is that it is constantly compared to and considered as an alternative to contraception. NFP is not contraception, nor is it an alternative to it. Contraception is contrary to Natural Law, and is against the sacrament of marriage itself. Morally, it is simply not even relevant in a discussion on NFP. It would be as if during a discussion on hospital vs. home care for the terminally ill, someone was to chime in and say, "Well, what's wrong with euthanasia?" NFP is not "Catholic contraception," any more than annulment is "Catholic divorce." Approaching it with a contraceptive mindset is an obstacle to properly understanding both marital sexuality and Natural Family Planning.

NFP exists as an effective, scientifically-based alternative to complete abstinence. It is not an alternative to contraception. NFP allows a married couple to still have sex in their marriage, because sex is part of marriage. This brings us to the second obstacle to understanding:

The second obstacle is to forget that sex is an integral part of marriage. Sex is not just something that is only allowed once you're married. (You can't even validly get married if you can't physically consummate- that's how intrinsically important it is.) It is literally part of living the sacrament of marriage, which was given to us by God, not designed by man. It is unitive, and procreative, and also, of course, pleasurable. However, if all three of these characteristics are not present, it falls to an act of lust, rather than love. Lust is defined as "self-seeking sexual desire," or the use of another for self-gratification.[1] One should not want sex only for the pleasure, nor only for unity, nor only for procreation. Contraception is against natural law and Church teaching because it intentionally severs the connection between sexuality and one of its major purposes.

A third obstacle to understanding NFP is that is it too often confused with the "rhythm method" or some other out-dated or ineffective means of spacing pregnancies. This confusion always calls into question the actual effectiveness of NFP. I would like to think that this obstacle may be the easiest to clear up, since use of NFP is not necessary in order to simply understand and acknowledge the facts about it. The fact is that NFP is based on science. It is based upon knowing how the female body properly works, and using that knowledge prudently. If NFP users follow the rules of their method diligently, it can be highly effective in avoiding pregnancy if necessary. The highly convenient corollary is that it is also very helpful when a couple begins trying to conceive.

Additionally, the information that NFP helps its users to establish can be useful to everyone, not only Catholics. For instance, many contraceptive users also employ fertility awareness as a means of knowing when they will "need" to use contraception in order not to conceive. This is the difference between Natural Family Planning (NFP) and the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). The book we used to learn NFP was actually a book on FAM. I had seen it recommended numerous times on the Catholic Answers Forum before I bought it (FAM simply becomes NFP by abstinence). It is a highly informative book about women's bodies and fertility cycles. The fact that this book is written for a primarily secular audience is a testament to how useful the benefits of fertility awareness really are for all women, not only Catholics who are using NFP. [2]

Along with a few other bloggers who have recently expressed their opinions, I think that NFP does need to be evangelized. It needs to be evangelized effectively. In order for it to be effective, information about NFP needs to cover all of its facets, though, not only the ones most relevant to us Catholics. There must be an appropriate balance between Natural Law, and Catholic teaching and morality, and facts about the female body and fertility awareness that are informed by medical science. If the scientific information is spread as well as the Catholic information, perhaps it could correct some of the misinformation that is out there. I think that more people will be open to at least hearing facts based on science, especially people who are completely engrossed in secular culture. NFP is like many other moral issues that can be supported both by theological and secular arguments. We need to be well-versed in both in order to get our information across.

---

[1] Christopher West, Theology of the Body for Beginners (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2009), 26, 131.

[2] Toni Weschler, Taking Charge of Your Fertility (New York: Collins, 2006)

The method Weschler teaches is essentially sympto-thermal NFP. While her FAM method allows for use of barrier methods, she does say that abstinence is most effective. She also lists a number of Catholic NFP resources in the back of the book.

Natural Law and Family Planning

NFP part 1

                                                             

When we hear or look at the phrase "Natural Family Planning" what comes to mind first? With the first word of the phrase being "natural," some people may, unfortunately, think that the only thing NFP has going for it is that it is not artificial. Sometimes this may even feed into the common misconception that the Church's main disagreement with contraception is that it is artificial. Other obstacles to understanding NFP come from mainstream culture's inherently contraceptive mindset.

To explain the above misconception, I think it is important to point out that "Natural" is not the main event of the phrase, "Natural Family Planning." In fact, "natural" is not an event at all-- it's a descriptor. Remember when learning grammar, being told to find the verb of the sentence to figure out what's going on with the subject? Well, in Natural Family Planning, both grammatically and ideologically, the subject here is a family and the action is planning. NFP is most importantly about planning a family. Planning is intended to mean anticipation of something actually happening eventually, not an act of indefinite postponement.  Included in the planning are the important aspects of knowing how to do the planning and commitment to carrying out the plans. "Natural" is the adjective describing the means of carrying out the plans.

Being natural is important to the context of the family planning, but not in the way many may think. The "N" in NFP does not merely mean "not-artificial." This important descriptor not only signifies a lack of man-made intervention, but it conveys a context of God-established law.  Natural law dictates that procreation results from sexuality. For this reason, the main purpose and intent of Natural Family Planning is to plan a family, and to do so in cooperation (not contradiction) with Natural Law. This is what it means to be "open to life."[1] Being open to life does not mean that a woman ought to become pregnant as often as possible. It does mean that a couple ought not to take actions that directly interfere with the natural result of sexuality.

To most people, NFP (aided by the mistaken idea that it is meant solely to serve as Catholic contraception) is only a mindset that comes into play during the "let's not have a(nother) child yet" stage. However, the principle of abiding by natural law continues to apply once conception is being actively sought. The statement that procreation results from sexuality as a principle of natural law deserves more elaboration on this. As we know, artificial contraception is against natural law, not only because it is artificial, but because it intentionally severs sexuality from its natural (law) result. Just as sexuality ought not to be severed from its natural result, so too must sexuality's result not be severed from its natural source. Thus, the principles employed in Natural Family Planning, as an ideology based upon natural law, are applied to both ends of the family planning spectrum. When these concepts are ignored, there is a two-fold result. The result is a culture that is both contraceptive in seeing children as a burden to be avoided but also, paradoxically, one that has a view of human life so consumerized that children are also seen as things to be procured according to desire.[2]

---

[1] For further explanation on being open to life, there is really good post explaining openness to life at Conversion Diary, by Jennifer Fulwiler

[2] Two previous topics of mine: Contraceptive Culture and The Paradox Surrounding Conception

Thoughts continued in NFP part 2, Obstacles to Understanding NFP