Protecting freedom from its western enemies
from CEN:
Freedom is associated with what humanity is meant to be in the Christian, Jewish and natural law traditions. It is threatened by “exclusive humanism” which asserts the total autonomy of what is human, according to Professor Remi Brague, speaking at an international conference in London on December 1 which addressed the current crisis of freedom in the west.
Professor Brague, winner of the Ratzinger Prize for Theology in 2012, identified four steps in the historical development of humanism: first, that humanity has a value and dignity that is different from, but not necessarily better than other beings; second that humanity has a higher value than others, but this is a gift from God; third that mankind must dominate nature to live a better life and assert their moral superiority; fourth, exclusive humanism can tolerate no being higher than itself. Mankind becomes its own god. Downfall follows quickly. Man without god can organise the earth but will organise it against man; exclusive humanism will destroy itself. The steps are: first man is no longer allowed to exploit the rest of the world; then it is claimed that man is in fact a parasite on and menace to other beings, and finally an ‘anti-humanism’ takes over. The question whether there should be goods for man and whether his existence is a good thing cannot be answered without reference to the creator to say the creation is good. We cannot pull on our own hair to get us out of the quagmire.
Freedom is under threat from the repudiations of the free institutions that have protected freedom according to Sir Roger Scruton. Our times are characterised by the campaign for individual freedom and allow the social dimension only by default. But free citizens are the product not of a multiplicity of rights, but of free institutions in which they place their trust and which are part of a common way of life expressed in fair-mindedness and reluctance to take offence. Instead the positive rights of individuals have been asserted against the existing public order and conventions that make society possible. These rights have no limits and any criticism that threatens their monopoly of the public sphere are curtailed and defined as a phobia and illness. There is no knowing what might suddenly be branded as a heresy to be silenced. As old authorities which protected freedom are removed, only the individual has the right of action, and anyone who disapproves has a phobia. Argument or criticism is an act of aggression and must be silenced and punished.
This process resulted in the terrible failure of the police and civic authorities to protect the vulnerable young girls treated as sex slaves in Rotherham. The police refused to investigate for fear of being called racist and islamophobic by those who asserted a rival identity. Were the police to follow their duty of protecting the citizens of a free society, or to give in to muslim identity which regarded women as either pure and hidden or open and available? A further example of the tyranny of these positive rights is that a carehome in Belgium was fined 6000 Euros for refusing to allow doctors to come to carry out euthanasia which is legal in Belgium. Since the Government has provided the right to euthanasia, care homes have a duty to facilitate this. All religious care homes in Belgium could be forced to close just as Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close in the UK with disastrous effects on the adoption of difficult children.
Freedom is nothing if not protected. Our identity is truly defined by the sovereign territory where we belong,said Sir Roger. A shared home within whose borders we are freely governed. A strong national identity is more able to absorb newcomers because we know who we are and the customs that define us. The success of Brexit and Donald Trump at the polls was traced to the threat which voters saw to the freedoms of contract, association and conscience which politicians had neglected to defend.
Having lost a sense of the common good, expressed in natural law and through conscience, we are now left with the power struggles of groups asserting their conflicting positive rights and the dead end of individual solipsism. Unless we reaffirm the basic structure that allows moral force and flourishing, a culture that loathes itself and where birth rates are low lacks the confidence to feel that maintaining it is a good thing. Such a culture will not survive.
The presentations at the conference can be accessed at http://www.acton.org/event/2016/crisis-liberty-west
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