Thursday, December 9, 2010

Marguerite A. Peeters

If you have never heard of her, today is your lucky day. Brilliant.
The postmodern ethic of choice boasts of eliminating hierarchies. Yet by globally imposing the “transcendence” of the arbitrary choice, it engenders a new hierarchy of values. It places pleasure above love, health and well-being above the sacredness of life, the participation of special interests groups in governance above democratic representation, women’s rights above motherhood, the empowerment of the selfish individual above any form of legitimate authority, ethics above morality, the right to choose above the eternal law written in the human heart, democracy and humanism above divine revelation - in a nutshell, immanence above transcendence, man above God, the “world” above “heaven”. 
The new hierarchies express a form a domination over consciences - what pope Benedict XVI, prior to his election, called a dictatorship of relativism. The expression may seem paradoxical: dictatorship means that there is a top-down imposition, while relativism implies the denial of absolutes and reacts against anything it considers as “top-down”, such as truth, revelation, reality, morality. In a dictatorship of relativism, a radical deconstruction of our humanity and of our faith is somehow being imposed on us in “nonthreatening” ways - through cultural transformation. Relativism wears a mask: it is domineering and destructive.
As she correctly points out, even the church has bought into this crap. Oh, look at the time! Must get to Queen's House for my Holy Yoga session; then it's on to the Development and Peace rally against bottled water.

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