Category Archives: extremism

Hopeful Realism for 2024, Part 1

January 11th, 2024 | Dr. Charlie Self

Every new year begins with forecasts and predictions for the coming months. Some of these are thoughtful prognostications rooted in good research and reflection. Other are subjective guesses, offered as clickbait in a fantastical or fatalistic spirit. In this essay, I want to offer some pithy statements to stimulate thoughtfulness and ethical action. In a world awash with extremes, I hope these will encourage hearts and empower creativity.

Realism: We will continue seeing President Trump hounded by his enemies and his supporters labeled as extremists.

Hope: Both parties will offer alternatives to the current and previous administrations.

Hopeful realism: Perhaps we can debate important issues like the budget, immigration, foreign policy, and a balanced view of the environment.

Realism: Gender anarchists will continue advocating for unsafe procedures on minors and insist that identity is purely subjective.

Hope: Thoughtful people are waking up to the destructive narcissism and big pharma influences on impressionable young people.

Hopeful realism: Permitting adults (on their dime) to modify and express their identity is part of a free society. At the same time, parents must retain final authority in caring for their children.

Realism: Israel will be criticized regardless of her military or political actions by intersectional radicals that think she is an oppressor of Palestinians.

Hope: Thoughtful folks will see that Israel wants peace with her neighbors. This is only possible with a new generation of Arab leaders willing to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as the national home of the Jewish people.

Hopeful realism: Israel will win the current conflict and will establish security measures, allow aid to flow, and attempt to welcome a peaceful solution for both Gaza and the West Bank.

Realism: Colleges and universities will face further reckonings concerning true freedom of ideas and speech.

Hope: Educational leaders will restore the true exchange of ideas and not allow agitators to veto presentations.

Hopeful realism: We will continue seeing older institutions refuse to change their ways while new, entrepreneurial ones find success.

We will continue exploring the future in the next essay. Here is some food for thought as we step forward this year. Let’s reject fatalism (“Nothing will change…”) and fantasy (Everything will be wonderful…”) and choose faith, hope, and love as our dispositions and discover a future filled with unexpected delights, inexplicable challenges, and increasing wisdom.

What Lies Beneath, Part Four: Recovering True Toleration and Public Ethics

September 30th, 2023 | Dr. Charlie Self

“You are intolerant!” “Your words are triggering and encourage violence.” “You are killing people with your beliefs!” These are just a few of the phrases used by social media “influencers” to shut down free speech and reasonable debate. The same groups excoriate anyone defending the unborn and the aged, and they scream, “keep your laws off my body” as they desire abortion-on-demand, “gender-affirming care’ for children, and access to locker rooms and prisons for people for the opposite biological sex.

In other settings, we have Islamic radicals calling on democracies to punish any criticisms of their religion, and banning visual art concerning Mohammed. There are many locales in Western Europe and a few new ones in the USA where non-Muslims are unwelcome and subject to harassment.

There are also some fringe alt-right groups that peddle racism, theocracy, and xenophobia. A decade ago, a person said to me at a conference, “America went downhill once Ellis Island let in all those Eastern Europeans.” As I tried to recover from the shock, he doubled down and complained about every significant minority group of the last 200 years. I directly, firmly, and kindly said that this was racist and evil, and the opposite of America’s founding principles. I am still shaken by such blatant group hatreds.

What lies beneath all of these narratives is a historical inversion of the meaning of toleration. For context, let’s consider the historical trajectory of toleration, especially, but not exclusively in the West:

By 1700, after centuries of religious and political warfare, some states begin tolerating peaceful, non-conforming groups while still supporting a state religion.
By the 1800s, with the influence of the founders and framers of the USA, and some of the aspirations of other European thinkers, freedom of conscience and religion is seen as the first freedom and essential for human flourishing.
By the mid-1900s, most Western nations have removed all barriers to peaceful religious exercise and people of all faiths or none shared equal citizenship rights.
By 2000, even groups previously marginalized for their racial and sexual identities are now equals de jure (under the law), even while still pursuing de facto access and opportunities in society.

This is progress! Living peaceably with radically different worldviews, political opinions, and moral visions is what true liberty is all about.

Today, we see that extremist voices demand that toleration be redefined as celebration and anything less than agreement with their narratives and visions are reasons for cancellation, derision, and, in some cases, legal actions and physical violence.

We need to define toleration as the maturity to respect and cooperate with people that see the world very differently than we do.

If we get toleration right, public ethics can be approached thoughtfully as we decide the answers to these three questions:

What actions and values will we prohibit because they are inherently wrong and/or proven to be deleterious to a safe and sane world? Heretofore, most civilized lands have protected children from a variety of influences (alcohol, tobacco, drugs, exposure to pornography, and much more), that adults can peaceably pursue. We have also declared several actions verboten, rooted in the ethos of almost every civilization: murder, theft, physical violence, etc. The questions before us today are vital: will we protect children from work and sex slavery? Will we continue to demand that some things are only for adults? Can people of conscience together declare that some things are off-limits?
What actions and values will we permit in a very diverse society? We already agree that freedom of conscience/religion is the first freedom. Will we continue to protect free speech even when debate opponents are uncomfortable? Will we fearlessly seek the truth of matters or be censured by disinformation panels? Can we live with differences and not coerce celebration? I want everyone to share my Christian faith – voluntarily! And I will defend the right of my neighbors to build peaceably their religious communities, arrange their lives differently, and seek my conversion to their thinking.
Finally, what are we supposed to promote as a free and virtuous society? Will we support biological, blended, adoptive, and foster care families as the preeminent educators of children? Will we call on parents to take responsibility for their children and stay engaged financially and personally if possible? Will we foster personal agency and social responsibility, entrepreneurial creativity and the common good? Will we promote true toleration, aiming for hearts of love and respect for all people, while also protecting ourselves from genuine evil?

Friends, becoming thoughtful about these matters is not a luxury for a few. It is a moral necessity for future generations.

Inconvenient Insights, part 2

February 10th, 2020 | Dr. Charlie Self

The American and European public squares are replete with extremism, polarizing language, and moral cowardice. Yes, that is correct: moral cowardice. Political correctness and an unwillingness to confront facts are deceiving millions into buying into false historical narratives and feeling paralyzed about making any absolute statements. Here are some paradoxical realities that deserve critical thinking and deep reflection, not platitudes and soundbites.

Islamic jihadists do not believe in fostering a pluralistic society, with liberty of conscience/religion, free speech and diverse worldviews learning civility and common good unity. While the vast majority of Muslims live peaceably with neighbors of all faiths or none, the agitators are proposing either a gradual or abrupt takeover of the West (and the rest) in the name of their faith. Extremists defend the subjugation and even extermination of all opponents of Islam and in chilling Orwellian fashion, declare that true “freedom” is only found in submission to their version of Islam.

What makes the above particularly nefarious is the cozy relationship between the pagan-secular Left and radical Islam. The political Left will persecute artists and bakers for refusing to endorse same sex weddings but turn a blind eye to the jihadist’s oppression of women, anti-Semitism, and blatant denunciations of gender and sexual liberty! This is moral cowardice where hatred of Jewish and Christian morality triumphs over history and reason.

Abortion kills babies. While a tragic necessity in rare cases of the mother’s survival or baby’s unviability, “pro-choice” advocates are now celebrating the termination of life at all stages, from early gestation to infanticide. And anyone who disagrees is depriving women of reproductive rights. The missing part of this “pro-choice” extremism is the choices men and women make that lead to conception and the irresponsibility of fathers in particular to care for the fruit of their intimacy. While incest and rape may be presented as exceptions, the vast majority (97%+) of abortions are elective due to economic or emotional issues. This is moral cowardice.

The refusal of many conservative Christians to face the realities of emotional and sexual abuse, racism, and sexism within their histories and current structures is also moral cowardice. In a convoluted desire not to bring shame to the church or the gospel, leaders that cover serious transgressions or make excuses for a lack of justice actually do greater harm to Christian witness. Regardless of ecclesial traditions, no person should feel disempowered or marginalized by any church. Becoming intentional about lamenting our tragic history of racism and sexism can lead to new friendships and true reconciliation. Victims of abuse must be heard and helped, and perpetrators brought to justice.

Moral cowardice can be overcome with humility and love, intentional repentance and resolution, and fostering new friendships across the barriers we create, and Jesus died to destroy and transform.