I was fascinated by something Doug TenNapel (creator of Earthworm Jim if anyone knows that) said in an interview: “Culture tells us what is popular, not what is true.”
This is one of the things I’ve been trying to say when talking about historical context. We rightly condemn Nazism and slavery today, thinking that they are horrors that should have never happened. But they did happen, and we must struggle not only with the “why?” but also remember their lessons as we move forward and create history ourselves. The question I’ve been asking is, “will those in the future look back on that history and make some of the same judgements that we today are making of the past?”
And so, in light of TenNapel’s statement, we should really be asking ourselves, “are we right, or are we just popular?” What are the consequences? What is the damage being done? We must be able to accept, using the lessons of history, that If we turn to culture for our answers we could discover later that we are horribly wrong. When we turn to the culture of the time, we are turning to something that is fluid. What the Nazis were doing was generally accepted within their society – and if not accepted, then (as history has clearly shown us) tolerated and allowed. The same can be said for slavery in the United States.
Given today’s slide toward relativism, TenNapel’s observation should be even more alarming. If we are able to speak – as Oprah so famously put it – our own “truth,” then how are we to challenge those who hold views that may someday be deemed dangerous or morally wrong? If this relativistic view permeates to the cultural level, will the people within that culture be even more blinded to the possibility that a great moral wrong is happening within their midst? In a day before the ubiquity of social media, the citizens of Germany could turn a blind eye to the plight of the Jews, and to some extent some could plead ignorance. But what of a people who simply refuse to recognize a truth that is right before their very eyes — those who have no option to say “I had no idea”?
You must understand then why I so vociferously advocate for moral objectivism – that is, that there are things that are right and wrong independent of the person, culture, or society in which they are presented. It is important not to appeal to exceptional cases as “gotchas” when debating this. It is reasonable to believe there are times when it is justified to kill a person (self-defense). But we all know that killing someone out of self-interest is clearly wrong. It is not just wrong in America, it is wrong in China, South Africa, Papua New Guinea, etc.
But some may say “humanity is evolving.” The obvious question in response is “Are you saying that mid-20th-century German citizens did not understand that rounding up Jews and gassing them was wrong?” Are we really evolving? Humanity has known for millennia that murdering people for convenience is wrong. In the same way, the framers of the Declaration of Independence are condemned by their very words – they knew that the enslavement of human beings was wrong. They just chose to go with what was popular in the culture at the time.
And the same still applies. As much as we don’t want to admit it, our culture today continues to partake in an activity we know is wrong yet tolerate out of convenience. Ironically, while Christians are mocked for being anti-science, our society chooses to ignore the science of embryology and denies that when a woman becomes pregnant, the baby within her womb is a distinct human being.
And worse still, those who are pro-abortion follow the very same pattern as those we condemn in history: to first dehumanize; then exterminate (or enslave). Remember history. Jews are vermin. Blacks are little more than apes. The American Indian is a pagan savage.
And the baby in the womb is a “fetus.” It’s a “clump of cells.” It’s a “parasite.”
I am a Christian. I believe every human has value and dignity as a creation of God regardless of the circumstances of their existence. Unfortunately, the pro-abortion crowd uses my faith as a screen to divert attention from the science. And yet I don’t need to appeal to my belief in God to say it is wrong to kill an innocent human being. I only need to appeal to the same moral objectivism that I spoke of earlier – something we all understand. Not, as culture tells us, because it is popular, but because it is true. Perhaps someday we will recognize this for what it is and so put this evil in the past as we have done with Nazism, slavery, and genocide. We can only hope it happens sooner rather than later. It quite literally is a matter of life and death.
