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Because it’s 2015.” That’s how newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answered a reporter’s question about why his cabinet had been selected with a rigorous balance of women and men. In doing so he also illustrated the New Moralism I wrote about in my last column.
In our post-postmodern culture, our society increasingly makes decisions according to intuition, according to what seems luminously obvious to the person or group deciding. The prime minister doesn’t argue why it’s best for the federal government to have a gender-balanced cabinet. He appeals to what he assumes are the values he shares with the rest of Canada (or, at least, that he assumes the rest of Canada ought to share with him).
He just has to remind the public what year it is – a strategy that chides the reporter for even asking the question. Isn’t it obvious?
In our era of what I call the New Moralism, the correct view of public issues is being established by the politics of the crowd. The majority rules.
Three problems arise, however, when decisions of all sorts are relegated to consensus.
First, crowds can be arrogant. Crowds tend to stifle minority voices by shaming or threatening them rather than patiently listening and then arguing with them. The majority therefore misses out on the improvement offered by engaging a contrary viewpoint and evidence they have overlooked or found inconvenient.
Second, crowds can be incompetent. Some decisions ought not to be made by majority opinion, no matter how wide the consensus or how deeply felt the opinion. Some questions are so complex, so difficult, that only experts can even understand them properly, let alone solve them effectively.
That is why we Canadians historically opted for representative democracy, not direct democracy. Many decisions not only require the prudent balancing of competing values and interests, but the consideration of a lot of information the average citizen lacks the time, staff and training to understand. So we have elected representatives
Not just trolls, doxxers and other online troublemakers, but even your own friends and family summarily dismiss a contrary opinion, and then rain down fire on those who persist in it.
in hope that they will inform their views with expertise and decide better than we could on our own.
Third, crowds can be wrong. No matter what the crowd affirms, 2 + 2 = 4. Some immigration policies will result in injustice, economic strain or cultural confusion, despite the best efforts of proponents. Some fiscal policies will necessitate inflation, unemployment or a tariff war with a neighbour no matter what we might intend. Some forms of policing are ineffective or immoral, no matter what lots of people believe. The real world pushes back on our preferences and our prejudices, no matter how popular.
In this post-postmodern moment, however, companies, schools, industries, media, courts and legislatures increasingly decide things, increasingly decide everything, by mass opinion. And it is increasingly difficult to offer a view contrary to that of the crowd. Not just trolls, doxxers and other online troublemakers, but even your own friends and family summarily dismiss a contrary opinion, and then rain down fire on those who persist in it.
This situation poses a critical problem for Christians.
The next national census or survey (2021) will almost certainly show a further decline of Christian identity, likely somewhere around 50 per cent of the Canadian population, down from 60 per cent in 2011. Christians can no longer count on agreement or even benign tolerance from Canadian crowds today.
Freedom of religion – which is, most basically, the freedom of an individual or group to disagree with the crowd on some of life’s most basic issues – is increasingly imperilled. Typically, nowadays, it is merely acknowledged and then set aside as less important than whatever the crowd really values.
This therefore is a difficult era for those of us who want to tell the rest of Canada we have Good News that everyone else should believe and a way of life everyone else should adopt. If we are not allowed to argue for our positions because few want to listen to any argument and the majority are shouting us down as dissident troublemakers, how can we possibly evangelize?
In the next column I’ll offer some constructive suggestions. It’s going to take something more, and something other, than shiny apologetic arguments and clever advertising campaigns to attract the positive attention of Canadians in the current climate of groupthink.
ChristAndCulture. www.FaithToday.ca/
More and more of us are finding ourselves caring for an ailing or incapacitated parent or loved one. Many of us are not ready or equipped for this experience. Millions of people around the world find themselves in a caregiving role. In Canada, one in four people over age 15 care for a family member or friend with a long-term health condition, physical or mental disability, or problems related to aging. In addition to these informal caregivers, others have chosen caring professions, including health care, social work, education and ministry.Whether they sought caregiving as a vocation or were unexpectedly thrust into the role, many caregivers feel overwhelmed and depleted – physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Beloved Christian writer and teacher Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932–1996) deeply pondered the spirituality of caregiving and compassion, and wrote extensively about these themes. While living at the L’Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, Nouwen discovered the gifts and challenges of physically caring for others. He learned about the richness inherent in caring, the mutuality in the care relationship, and the need for self-care and spiritual practice to remain healthy.
Knowing Nouwen’s life and writings had something unique and essential to offer caregivers, the Henri Nouwen Society launched its Courage for Caregivers initiative in 2017. This initiative focuses on developing a wide variety of resources to support and inspire informal and professional caregivers alike. Resources include books and videos featuring caregiver stories and retreat leader training.
In its Stories of Caregiving Series, the society partnered with the Church Health Center of Memphis to publish three inspiring books for informal caregivers. In Courage for Caregivers: Sustenance for the Journey and its companion retreat workbook, best-selling author Marjorie Thompson, a close personal friend of Nouwen’s, weaves his wisdom with her own stories of caregiving and the experiences of many others.The books offer a practical Retreat Leader’s Guide, making it possible to use these resources in a group or congregational ministry setting.The third book in the series is Hope for Caregivers, a 42-day devotional inspired by the works of Henri Nouwen, intertwined with scripture and prayer. This beautiful book summons us away from our stressful lives for a few moments each day, to draw us to a new framework for the experience of caregiving.
This spring, with support from Stronger Philanthropy, the society approached me to develop a book specifically for professional caregivers. Healthy Caregiving: Perspectives for Caring Professionals, in CompanyWith Henri J. M. Nouwen, is an excellent resource filled with valuable information, uplifting stories and questions for self-reflection. It is published in Canada by Novalis and by TwentyThird Publications in the U.S.
In the next phase of the Courage for Caregivers initiative, the society will launch a web portal to house its caregiving resources in one location. The web portal will enable caregivers to find the resources they need easily.The hope is that through these resources people can feel connected to a community of care.
“Care is not an endurance test. We should, whenever possible, care together with others.” —Henri Nouwen