It presents as a rest from the Culture War; it succeeds, but only partially. A common theme is the critique of ideology as rigidity, demonization of the opponent, refusal to listen and dialogue. It embodies this...partially. In the broader, non-pejorative sense "ideology"...an underlying network of assumptions, beliefs, values either explicit or assumed...is a human inevitability. It is best to recognize our ideology at work. The NY Encounter has a pronounced liberal attitude.
This is mostly a good thing. In NY city, it reaches out to communicate with the young, idealistic, progressive. It is unrestrained positivity and immensely attractive to the secular, urban, educated young. This is marvelous. It succeeds so because it avoids elements of our faith that would be dissonant for sophisticated NYC. As such it is intolerant of conservative Catholic intuitions which I myself treasure. This is not entirely bad; but it is best that we recognize a certain intolerance, a soft cancelation of aspects of Reality.
Last year I was thrilled to give a short presentation on Magnificat Home. It was well received as it is very much in the spirit of the Encounter as a work of mercy. Prior to my panel was one on race relations. The participants were inspiring: fervent Afro-American Christians...intelligent, appealing, rock solid in Christ-like values. They shared troubling experiences of racism. They agreed about the persistence of systematic racism. I do not share that judgment. It is unlikely that my views would be voiced, by for example a prominent black conservative, in that conference. It is effectively canceled as intolerable. Systematic racism is assumed and cannot be discussed.
Several years ago we listened to glowing praises of the Pontificate of Francis from our Apostolic Nuncio (understandably!) and hagiographer Austen Ivereigh. That is fine. But it is unthinkable that a respectful critic (say Ross Douthat) be heard or the concerns of the Latin Mass community be voiced.
This year the main event was a congenial conversation between David Brooks and Francis Collins. They are good friends; think highly of each other; agree about covid and the vacines. To his credit, Brooks admitted that the anti-vax movement flows from distrust by the underclass of his type...educated, powerful, affluent, liberal elites. They agreed about the dangers of polarization, tribalism, refusal to listen to the opponent and the need for epistemic humility.
But Collins' views were troubling: a pure rendition of the liberal narrative around covid. He grieved the hundreds of thousands who died due to refusal of the vaccine. He seemed to attribute this failure to a disinformation campaign of the right and the gullibility of the under-educated. He was blissfully satisfied with the NIH he headed; his friend and colleague Tony Fauci; and his happy reconciliation of an evangelical faith with the highest level of science. I found him to be very impressive in his scientific intelligence and his sincere Christianity. But his version was entirely unbalanced by the alternate narrative which was implicitly dismissed as at best ignorant and at worst homicidal. In place of the love fest of friends, I would love to have heard him questioned combatively by a professional journalist (Chris Wallace) or an worthy opponent (Reno, Douthat, Vance).
Collins was the rock-star, the celebrity, the hero of the event. But there are serious problems with his ethical views from a Catholic perspective.
- He supports legal abortion, for example of Downs Syndrome embryos. He funds embryonic stem cell research. He encourages the problematic implanation of human cells into animals.
- At the outbreak of the pandemic when prominent scientests noted the probability that the virus was engineered he colluded with Fauci and the entire establishment to repress this concept. It was CANCELLED as conspiracy theory. Now the alternate evolution and animal market theory of the Chinese is seen as highly improbable. He needs to explain this as he heralds the objectivity of science.
- In the middle of the Covid, Fall of 2020, thousands of scientists signed the Great Barrington Declaration which argued that covid policy should protect the elderly/vulnerable and open the society for the young and healthy, especially the schools. The Collins/Fauci power grid crushed that discussion. In retrospect, many of us agree with those dissident scientests. Okay: Collins and Fauci made a defensible, prudential decision. But cant't we at least argue about it? Not only in the Fall of 2020 but in February 2022 at the NY Encounter?...not likely! I would love to have heard one of those scientests challenge Collins in debate.
- In tune with the conference theme "This Urge for Truth" it would have been good to hear from Collins whether the NIH deliberately or unintentionally funded gain of function research at the Wuhan Lab!
Ironically, outside the conference doors, in the freezng cold, a handful of anti-vax demonstrators were distributing literature. I read it: it raises good questions. It would be good if those could have been directly addressed inside the conference doors.
To be fair: if I attended a conference of a conservative group (First Things, EWTN, Crisis, The Catholic Thing) I would surely detect a corresponding rightwing bias, an imbalance, a failure to hear the other side. But they would not have been so self-consciously open-minded, dialogic, and non-ideological. (Personal aside: Is there any conference where I would be happy in a balanced, integral Catholicism? Yes, two: a Catholic Charismatic Conference and a Communio Conference at the John Paul Institute in Washington DC.)
At an enjoyable family dinner after the event we processed all the good things of the day. I dared not voice my reservations expressed above. It would have been dissonant, disagreeable. I am thrilled that my grandchidren were there to benefit from all the good things. I can only hope they also get to hear other aspects of "this urge for the truth."
No comments:
Post a Comment