Category: Culture

medicine

Medicine by captivity: the rise of the hostage physician

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When doctors spend more time serving systems than serving patients, medicine changes. When physicians are afraid to speak honestly, medicine changes. When documentation matters more than human presence, medicine changes.
by Joseph Varon, MD
[This article, reproduced here by permission, was originally published by the Brownstone Institute in
Austin, Texas.]

The ICU before sunrise

The intensive care unit (ICU) was crowded before sunrise, again. After 40 years in medicine, I am not sure what “full” even means anymore. Every ICU now feels just one patient away from disaster. Patients wait in emergency departments for beds that do not exist. Another transfer is already on the way because someone thinks our ICU still has space. Nurses are exhausted. Residents are exhausted. Families are scared. Doctors try to think clearly while phones ring, alarms sound, charts pile up, and somewhere, someone checks dashboards and occupancy numbers while real people struggle to breathe just a few feet away.

I remember one morning clearly because it still bothers me years later. An administrator came into the ICU and asked about the “game plan” for one of my patients since his insurance would run out at the end of the week. I remember feeling angry, not because I cared about getting paid, but because I realized how much institutional pressure had taken over medical decisions. The focus was no longer on whether the patient needed ICU care or if the family understood what was happening. Instead, the conversation was about the “insurance clock”. I stood there wondering when this became normal. When did hospitals stop feeling like hospitals and start feeling like big systems moving people through pathways, numbers, and coverage limits?

Nobody in the room seemed shocked because everybody already understood the environment we were functioning inside. That may actually be the part that bothers me the most and made me write this article. We adapted to it. We normalized it. Human beings can normalize almost anything if they live inside it long enough. Physicians are especially vulnerable to this because medicine trains doctors to absorb enormous pressure quietly. We keep going because patients still need us. We keep functioning because sick people keep arriving. We convince ourselves this is simply modern healthcare. But there are nights, usually very late at night after rounds are over and the ICU becomes quiet for a few minutes, where I sit there wondering when medicine started losing part of itself.

I remember another conversation from years ago that also made me feel sick. Someone explained, almost casually, that if we transferred a patient to a long-term acute care facility (LTAC) and they stayed the required 21 days, they could come back to the hospital, because “the insurance clock resets”. Hearing that phrase for the first time sounded less like medicine and more like someone describing a loophole in a business contract. Meanwhile, a real person was lying in that bed, connected to ventilators and feeding tubes. A family was somewhere, terrified about whether their loved one would survive. But the discussion was about clocks, timelines, insurance days, and logistics.

I still think about those conversations. Not because they shocked me completely. After enough years in modern healthcare, very little surprises doctors anymore. Maybe that is part of the problem. We get used to things that should still bother us.

When hospitals became factories

I have now spent four decades practicing medicine. Four decades inside ICUs, emergency departments, trauma bays, hospital corridors, family meetings, codes, and nights where sleep never happened because too many people were too sick. I entered medicine because I genuinely cared about patients. Most physicians did. That is the part many people outside medicine still do not fully understand. Doctors do not sacrifice years of their lives, miss holidays, destroy their sleep schedules, and carry this kind of emotional burden because they dream about maximizing throughput metrics or documentation compliance. We entered medicine because we wanted to help people. It sounds simple saying that now, maybe even naïve, but it is true.

Somewhere along the line medicine changed. Hospitals changed. The language changed first because that is always how these transformations begin. Patients slowly became “throughput issues”. Beds became “capacity management”. Discharges became “flow optimization”. The ICU became “utilization”. Doctors became “providers”. Everything slowly started sounding less human and more operational. And eventually, hospitals stopped feeling like places centered around caring for human beings and started feeling like giant processing centers where movement itself became the priority.

Basically “Get them in”, “Get them out”, “Open the bed”, “Reduce the stay to maximize profit”, “Move the patient to an LTAC”, “Clear the ICU”, and so on.

Every hospital now has dashboards, graphs, throughput committees, operational targets, discharge metrics, and endless meetings about movement. Everything is about movement. Sometimes it feels like modern healthcare is one big revolving door. Patients come in one side, and everyone starts figuring out how quickly they can safely, or sometimes not so safely, move out the other side.

The strange thing is that many younger doctors probably think this is normal because it is the only medicine they have known. They inherited the system after it changed. Endless clicking. Mandatory modules. Documentation requirements. Throughput meetings. Insurance battles. Constant electronic interruptions. For them, this already feels like medicine. But it was not always like this. Hospitals once felt slower in some ways, not inefficient, just more human. Doctors had time to think, to sit with families, and to focus on the patient without constant operational pressure.

Now everything feels rushed. Even death feels rushed sometimes. I hate to write that, but it is true. Families barely have time to process terrible news before talks begin about placement options, transfer plans, insurance limits, or discharge plans. Sometimes, the machinery around medicine completely overwhelms its humanity. And honestly, I think physicians feel this loss more deeply than many people realize.

The patient somewhere in the middle

Doctors complain about administrators because they frustrate everyone. Doctors complain about electronic medical records because they take up so much time. But beneath all these complaints, something deeper is happening in medicine. Many doctors quietly feel that the profession they gave their lives to is slowly disappearing, even as everyone calls it progress. Maybe I sound old saying that. Maybe I sound frustrated. The truth is that I am frustrated. Very frustrated. Because we did not enter medicine to become highly educated employees inside giant healthcare corporations. We entered medicine to care for human beings during the worst moments of their lives.

That was supposed to remain the center of everything: the patient, the suffering human being in the bed. Not the dashboard. Not the metric. Not the throughput target. Not the insurance clock.

Somewhere along the way that became too easy to forget. The part that bothers me most is not that hospitals need money to survive. Of course they do. Ventilators are expensive. ICU nurses are expensive. Keeping hospitals open costs enormous amounts of money. I understand all of that. What bothers me is watching the patient slowly become secondary inside conversations where everybody claims to be acting in the patient’s best interest. All of this happens while the administrator thinks about occupancy, the insurance company thinks about authorization, the hospital thinks about length of stay, the case manager thinks about placement, and the physician tries to think about the patient while absorbing pressure from every direction simultaneously.

That is not how medicine was supposed to feel. I have had families look at me and ask what I would do if the patient were my own father or mother. That question cuts through all the institutional language immediately. They are not asking about metrics or throughput or utilization review. They are asking for honesty. Judgment. Humanity. They are asking for a doctor. And at that moment all the dashboards in the world suddenly feel ridiculous.

Doctors became servants to the machine

The electronic medical record sped up much of this change more than people realize. Hospitals promoted the electronic medical record (EMR) as a big step forward. We were told it would improve communication, reduce mistakes, streamline work, and let doctors spend more time with patients. Now, that almost sounds like a joke. The EMR did not free doctors. It buried them.

Doctors now spend huge parts of their lives working with electronic systems, mostly designed by people who have probably never spent a night in an ICU. We click boxes, answer alerts, fill out required forms, meet compliance rules, and write notes that are more for billing, auditors, administrators, insurance companies, and lawyers than for patient care. You stop writing notes for physicians. You start writing notes for the machine. This changes people (clinicians) psychologically even if they do not recognize it immediately.

There are moments now during rounds that honestly feel absurd. A family member is crying while the physician tries to maintain eye contact and complete mandatory documentation before another alert appears on the screen. The patient is talking. The nurse is asking questions. Laboratory values are changing. The phone rings. Another admission waits downstairs. Somewhere, someone is reviewing occupancy numbers while physicians are trying to keep critically ill people alive.

And through all of this chaos, doctors are somehow still expected to think clearly, compassionately, and deeply about human suffering.

Late at night after ICU shifts, I sometimes realize I spent more time with software than with real people. Think about how strange that really is. Somewhere along the line doctors stopped using computers and became servants to them. Everybody inside medicine knows it. Almost nobody says it publicly.

Burnout is the wrong word

I have become more irritated with the word burnout because I think it does not capture what many doctors are really going through. Burnout sounds temporary, like something in your mind. It makes it seem like doctors just need more yoga, resilience workshops, mindfulness apps, or wellness seminars. Hospitals like to talk about physician wellness because it lets them treat the problem as psychological instead of structural. But many physicians are not burned out. They are morally exhausted.

There is a big difference between being tired and slowly realizing that the profession you gave your life to no longer looks like the one you started in. That feeling builds up quietly over thousands of moments. A patient is discharged earlier than feels right because beds are needed. A doctor spends more time on paperwork than thinking. A hard family conversation is cut short because charts are unfinished. An ICU transfer is rushed because someone is watching occupancy numbers. A treatment discussion is quietly shaped by pressure no one talks about.

None of these moments alone defines modern medicine. That is what makes the situation psychologically dangerous. Rarely does somebody walk into a room demanding something obviously unethical. The pressure is subtle. Administrative. Financial. Constant. Eventually physicians begin anticipating institutional pressure before anybody even speaks it aloud. That is how systems shape human behaviour most effectively. Not through force. Through environment.

Covid-19 and the breaking point

Covid-19 exposed many realities physicians will never fully forget. The pandemic did not create institutional control inside medicine because the machinery already existed long before Covid-19 arrived. But Covid-19 revealed how powerful that machinery had become and how quickly independent clinical judgment could become secondary to institutional management once systems entered crisis mode.

At the beginning uncertainty existed everywhere. Physicians were trying to understand a disease process in real time while caring for critically ill patients under extraordinary emotional strain. In theory this should have been a moment for open scientific debate, flexibility, disagreement, and aggressive clinical observation.

Instead, many physicians experienced the opposite. Protocols hardened rapidly. Institutional rigidity intensified. Independent thinking suddenly became dangerous in ways many doctors had never previously experienced.

I remember exhausted physicians privately admitting frustrations during late-night ICU conversations they would never publicly express. Doctors quietly questioned policies in hallways while repeating institutional messaging during official meetings. Physicians felt trapped between what they observed clinically and what institutions expected them to communicate publicly.

Many doctors realized during Covid-19 that they were far less independent than they once believed. That realization changed some physicians permanently.

And honestly, I do not think medicine has emotionally recovered from that period yet.

This is not burnout. It is captivity.

This article is not nostalgia for some mythical golden age because medicine has always been difficult and
healthcare systems absolutely require organization, technology, and structure. Standardization sometimes saves lives. Electronic access to information has obvious benefits. Nobody seriously wants to practice medicine without modern tools. But professions can gradually lose their soul without visibly collapsing. That is what worries me after 40 years in medicine.

When doctors spend more time serving systems than serving patients, medicine changes. When physicians are afraid to speak honestly, medicine changes. When throughput quietly shapes bedside decisions, medicine changes. When documentation matters more than human presence, medicine changes. And when physicians slowly begin feeling emotionally trapped inside giant institutional systems that they no longer control, we should probably stop calling that burnout because burnout does not adequately describe what many doctors now feel. It feels more like captivity.

About the author
Joseph Varon, MD, is an American critical care physician, professor and president of the Independent Medical Alliance. He has authored over 980 peer-reviewed publications and serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Independent Medicine. The above article, reproduced here by permission, was originally published by the Brownstone Institute (Austin, Texas) on May 18, 2026, here . All of Dr Varon’s Brownstone Institute posts may be found here.

Christian

Historic ‘Christian Freedom Index’ launches at Parliament House

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A landmark report released at Parliament House on Thursday found that nearly three-quarters of Australian Christians have felt pressured to conceal their beliefs in public, online or at work. The Christian Freedom Index revealed that 74 Acts of Parliament restrict basic freedoms.

by the Canberra Declaration Team

Australia’s first comprehensive audit of Christian freedom — drawing on the survey responses of 10,808 Christians, over 40 documented cases, and 74 Acts of Parliament — was launched at a breakfast at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday morning, with cross-party parliamentarians and church leaders among those receiving a hand-signed copy of the report.

The inaugural Australian Christian Freedom Index (ACFI) found that 92% of respondents in its flagship survey felt it is riskier to affirm Christian beliefs publicly than it was five years ago.

The report traces this near-universal perception of deteriorating freedom to the acceleration of restrictive legislation across all eight Australian jurisdictions over the same period.

“The right to religious freedom is being plundered in Australia,” Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney Anthony Percy said of the report. “This Index lays the ground for some rearguard action.”

Seven of the report’s eleven authors addressed the breakfast, with parliamentarians and church leaders also attending.

Among those present were Liberal MPs Alex Hawke and Julian Leeser, One Nation Senators Malcolm Roberts and Tyson Whitten, and Labor MP Alison Byrnes — a cross-party attendance the organisers said reflected the high stakes of Christian freedom in Australia.

A nation under legal pressure

The report’s legislative audit counted at least 74 Acts across Australia’s nine jurisdictions — six states, two territories and the Commonwealth — that affect Christian belief and practice, with nearly half enacted in just the last five years.

Between 2000 and 2020, an average of two such Acts passed each year. From 2021 to 2025, that average jumped to more than six per year — a more than threefold increase.

The ACFI Restriction Index, derived from an audit of 20 specific legislative restrictions, ranked Victoria as the most restrictive state by a wide margin.

Pastoral conversations and certain forms of prayer are now criminalised under Victoria’s conversion practices legislation; sermons on biblical sexuality can attract vilification complaints; and Christian schools face narrowed hiring exemptions.

Western Australia ranked as the least restrictive state, having resisted many of the impositions that have taken hold on the eastern seaboard.

The report identified six primary drivers of discrimination against Australian Christians — four external, two internal.

The first three work in sequence: secular progressivism has recast biblically orthodox belief as social harm; an expanding state apparatus has given that moral vision legal teeth; and the combined effect is a legal asymmetry in which religious freedom rests on narrow exemptions that can be litigated away or later repealed.

The sixth driver is Islamist extremism — documented in the high-profile 2024 stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel.

Two further drivers operate from within the church itself: doctrinal drift, where institutions have accommodated secular-progressive values at the cost of legal protection for those who will not; and what the report terms “misplaced meekness”: the belief that Christian humility requires silence in the face of injustice.

The silence gap

Survey findings revealed what the report calls a “silence gap” — the distance between Christians who had felt pressured to keep their beliefs private and those who had actually experienced formal marginalisation.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents — 73% — said they had felt pressured to conceal their beliefs in public, online, or at work. Only 25% reported having actually been denied opportunities or marginalised.

The chilling effect — where the fear of consequences reshapes behaviour before any penalty arrives — is outrunning formal discrimination, the report noted, with cultural pressure doing much of the work that law has not yet needed to do.

The survey also mapped the gradient of Christian freedom from the sanctuary to the public square.

Nearly half of respondents — 49% — rated Christians as somewhat or very free to conduct church ministry and worship. That figure fell to 24% for sharing faith in public, 19% for Christian education, 13% for workplace settings, and just 8% for Christian healthcare.

Asked specifically about Christian hospitals, 92% rated them as restricted, heavily restricted, or not free to operate according to their beliefs.

The report documented over 40 named cases spanning the first five of eight stages on an internationally recognised persecution scale, from ridicule and discrimination through to attack — the latter of which included the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari and the ACT government’s forced acquisition of Calvary Public Hospital in 2023.

The baseline is now set

Former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies said the report “carefully analyses the erosion of freedoms in our country over forty years or more,” and called on parliamentarians and religious leaders to read it.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher said the index brought
to light “recent attempts to minimise the role of faith in everyday life and exclude it altogether from the public square.”

The report also noted defensive wins.

In the Northern Territory, partial hiring exemptions for Christian schools were restored in 2025 after earlier amendments removed them. In New South Wales, pro-life groups and medical professionals worked together in May 2025 to defeat proposed extensions of abortion legislation that would have forced Christian hospitals to perform abortions. In Melbourne, the Royal Show reversed its decision to ban the Good News Booth — a Christian exhibit with 108 years of continuous history at the event — following concerted advocacy from Christians across Australia.

The report describes the Restriction Index and its companion survey data as a baseline against which future annual editions will measure change.

The index is designed to be published annually, with the next edition tracking developments across all Australian jurisdictions.

The report is available at australianchristianfreedomindex.org.au.

The Australian Christian Freedom Index is an initiative of the Canberra Declaration.

Republished with permission from The Daily Declaration. The Daily Declaration is Australia’s largest Christian news site. It is dedicated to providing a voice for Christian values in the public square. Its vision is to see the revitalisation of our Christian values for the common good. 

Children

Rising costs aren’t stopping young couples from having children

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Despite our assumption, it is not financial concerns that are stopping young couples from having children; rather, it is a lifestyle choice.

By Sarah Wilder at Intellectual Takeout

It’s no secret that rising costs are devastating Americans right now, and that young people are feeling the brunt of it. For the generation currently starting families, these costs are particularly stressful. Undoubtedly, the prospect of pinching pennies to pay for astronomical labor and delivery bills, car seats, formula, and strollers on top of life’s basic necessities is too significant to bear, causing some to forego having children in the first place.

“It’s just crazy right now,” one would-be mother said in a recent New York Times interview. “I have always told my husband, like, if we were rich, I would definitely have kids.”

Why aren’t young couples actually having children?

But do such financial hardships truly account for our plummeting birth rates?

Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse went viral this week, bemoaning the fact that Americans are foregoing children because they’ve “decided that being distracted by a dopamine hit around Candy Crush might be a good way to spend your time.” Folks were quite angry by this comment. Rising petrol costs, lack of paid parental leave, and expensive childcare are the real reasons adults aren’t having children, they argued.

Yet that’s not what statistics say.

In 2024, Pew Research surveyed childless adults. Infertility, wanting to focus on “other things,” or lack of the right partner were among the reasons for not having children. The cost of children was on the list, but hardly on the top.

Almost 40% of childless adults age 50 or older said the top reason they didn’t have kids was because “it just never happened.” Childless adults under 50 listed their top reason for not planning to have kids as “they just don’t want to.” Indeed, for adults over 50, that reason accounted for 31% of those surveyed, compared to 57% of respondents under 50.

Economic concerns admittedly ranked higher for those under 50 than those over, but didn’t even make it into the top three reasons. Only 12% of adults over 50 chose “couldn’t afford to raise a child” as their reason, and still only 36% of those under 50 chose that reason.

It seems that young people mostly don’t want kids because they don’t see why they should want them. In other words, young people believe the proponents of kids bear the burden of proof, while those over 50 found some tangible reason (however faulty) for their childlessness.

Alleviating the economic hardships of young Americans to encourage childbearing and to ease the burden of those with children is surely a worthwhile cause. But it won’t fix our birth rate.

It’s time to encourage young families

In order to encourage young people to have kids, we must address the real reason they aren’t having them. They’re simply not sure if they’re valuable – economically, socially, or relationally.

Regarding the economic front, young people should realize that more kids were born in worse conditions throughout history. That’s not to dismiss the economic woes of this generation, but they simply aren’t at the level yet that should keep anyone from having children.

Socially speaking, it is true that communities don’t welcome children and the chaos and joy they bring like they once did. Public spaces often shun children and their parents. Child-free spaces are considered the right of every childless adult. But the way to fix that isn’t to reinforce our willfully-barren society in their efforts to avoid having children. Instead, the more children there are in a community, the more that community will have to adapt to their presence.

On the relational aspect, consider that children will love you, and you will love them, in the most selfless and pure way one can be loved by another human. They will show you how fulfilling a life lived for others can be. With each child, your capacity for love will simply expand. In your old age, they will be the living legacy that carries you in your twilight years.

Yes, children are worth every cent.

By Sarah Wilder. The above article first appeared in Intellectual Takeout (Bloomington, Minnesota), and is reproduced by permission.

education

AI robots do not a good education make

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The suggestion that AI robots should be used to educate children is an opportunity for a renewed focus on the real nature of education.

by Sarah Reardon at Intellectual Takeout

Several weeks ago, Melania Trump garnered attention for proposing an innovative educational methodology: robot education. At the “Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit,” she was escorted by a humanoid, “American-made” robot as she presented the potential lustre of AI’s future: humanoid robots could provide a “personalised” education, reminiscent of the tutoring models of centuries gone by.

Melania asked her audience to envision a robot called Plato through whom “access to the classical studies is now instantaneous.” She continued: “Humanity’s entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home. Plato will provide a personalised experience, adaptive to the needs of each student. Plato is always patient, and always available.”

Forget about the fact that an “always available” robot sounds somewhat ominous. Instead, Melania appealed to the virtues lauded by the corporate world, “analytic skills and problem solving,” as well as “deep critical thinking and independent reasoning abilities.” Children who learn from such robots, she maintained, could have a “more well-rounded lifestyle,” including more time for play and extracurriculars.

Can robots really teach?

Melania’s proposition sounds similar to programs already in operation, such as homeschooling platforms that utilize AI or the in-person Alpha Schools, where students, under the direction of human guides, spend about two hours daily on schoolwork, thanks to personalised AI tutors. Where her proposition differs is in the use of a three-dimensional humanoid robot, not merely a web-based persona, as tutor. Regardless, Melania’s “Plato” and existing AI education models both spring from a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and education.

Any education model that tasks AI with teaching or training human beings undermines the fundamentally relational nature of humans. This is merely one aspect of its danger, but a significant one. Human beings require physical interaction and relationship with other humans in order to flourish, whether in spiritual, emotional, or intellectual areas of life.

Without a certain amount of relational input, whether from classmates in a traditional classroom, a homeschooling mother, or a private (human!) tutor, learning becomes an isolating and Sisyphean endeavor. This is one reason why programs of individual “self-education” in the style of “Good Will Hunting” require a rare and precocious personality to be effective.

Nowhere is the need for relational input in education more evident than in research about COVID. When lockdowns and mandates pushed institutions toward online and asynchronous classes, student outcomes suffered. Students simply did not learn as much when their education was mediated by screens, video calls, and online discussion boards as when education was mediated by physical interaction. While students have returned to physical classroom since COVID, student outcomes continue to suffer as “heightened absenteeism” and “educational technology” gain steam. While computer-based learning and educational technology can be utilised for good in some circumstances, as in specialized degree programs, they are not wise pedagogical models when applied broadly.

Education should be communal

Our need for human interaction is not a “bug” that can be fixed by increased exposure to or refinement of computer-based learning or humanoid systems. It is part of our nature: from the Garden of Eden onward, it is clear that “it is not good for man to be alone” – that we are designed for fellowship with each other and God.

We are, after all, not computers ourselves, however much our minds and bodies follow discernible patterns. We are living, breathing, earthly, fleshy creatures. “It is easy for me to imagine,” Wendell Berry famously wrote, “that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”

AI education requires a mechanistic view of man. It outsources human tasks of teaching, guiding, conversing, and correcting to a non-human entity, thus treating the student as a machine for knowledge accumulation rather than a creature needing formation and direction.

In this way, the faulty pedagogical theory behind AI education is also evident. AI education assumes that the end of education is the mere acquisition of knowledge, which, in this framework is “an inert substance that can be delivered by robots,” as Mary Harrington recently wrote. If the primary aim of education is for students to learn facts, then robots could be useful. They could even, in some cases, make for good teachers, better at least than the forgetful grandfather who worked as a professor for 40 years or the eager but unpracticed recent graduate new to the elementary school.

But knowledge is not an inert substance composed of discrete facts, and education aims at more even than knowledge.

Robots can’t develop the whole person

If the aim of education is wisdom and the shaping of a person, then people will be needed, body and soul. If the aim of education is to, as John Milton wrote, “repair the ruins of our first parents,” or to, as Hugh of St. Victor wrote, “restore within us the divine likeness,” then students will not only need people, but those whose souls seek the true, good, and beautiful and their source in God alone.

“Plato,” however patient he may be, will be no match for a flesh-and-blood human teacher, with all his faults, who loves his students and directs them toward divine wisdom.

by Sarah Reardon. The above article first appeared in Intellectual Takeout (Bloomington, Minnesota), and is reproduced by permission.

Ehrlich

The anti-natalist legacy of Paul Ehrlich

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The recent death of Paul Ehrlich (1932–2026), that master of anti-natalist propaganda, should cause us to consider the far-reaching consequences of his doctrine. As the author of The Population Bomb, (Note: all page references given below refer to this work) written in 1968, Ehrlich helped shape the disastrous demographic policies which many countries around the world are currently scrambling to reverse.

by Kathy Clubb

Among his predictions was the frightening spectre of overpopulation and world-wide famine to be experienced in the 1970s. By tying food availability to increasing population, Ehrlich successfully sowed enough fear into the academics of his day to ensure that his message would be taken up and disseminated into the unsuspecting community at large.

Contraception

Ehrlich

Central to Ehrlich’s policies for population control was contraception; this was to be subsidised by the government and especially was to be made available to the poor.

He lauded the U.S. government’s multi-million-dollar funding of the supply and research of contraception during the 1960s, saying that, until that time, the government had spent as much on family-planning as it had on “rat control” (p. 85).

Perhaps the Freudian slip reveals the disdain Ehrlich had for human fertility.

He even suggested that some form of sterilisation agent could be added to the water or food supply, writing that “doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size” (p. 131).

Ehrlich singled out the Catholic Church for its stance against contraception, mentioning the controversy elicited by the 1968 papal document, Humanae Vitae. He noted,

“The announcement of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae was greeted by a great wave of protest from within the Catholic Church. This dissent was not limited to lay people; it existed throughout the clergy as far up into the hierarchy as the rank of cardinal.” (p. 136)

In The Population Bomb, he praised U.S. federal bills aimed at limiting families to two children and legalising abortion. Although the former thankfully never came to fruition, the latter was eventually to be realised with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

Abortion

Ehrlich deemed legal abortion a sign of progress in the fight to stop population growth. He praised state abortion laws — already one-third of the American states had legalised abortion by the time his book appeared (p. 89).

He was at pains to ensure that scientists indoctrinate the populace with the notion that a newly- conceived zygote is in no way the same as a fully-formed foetus. He said: “They must point out the biological absurdity of equating a zygote (the cell created by joining of sperm and egg) or fetus (unborn child) with a human being.” (p. 138)

By every metric, this goal has been achieved, perhaps beyond his wildest dreams. Readers may recall attempts by the UK Guardian newspaper in (October 18, 2022), to show what “a real pregnancy looks like” in the first trimester. An accompanying image shows white fibres with the caption, “Tissue from five weeks of pregnancy to nine weeks”:

Ehrlich
Image from the UK Guardian (photo credit: MYA Network). Reproduced under “fair use” terms.

By contrast to anti-natalist propaganda, a science-based Baby Life Begins diagram shows what a child at five weeks’ gestation actually looks like. (Click here for the video version)

Ehrlich

Demographics and population control

Unsurprisingly, Ehrlich praised China’s attempts to halt the growth of its population. He lauded its one-child program, citing the “very strong social and political pressures also are exerted to limit
amilies to a maximum of two children…” (p. 206), while failing to mention that those “very strong pressures” include forced abortion — even in the third trimester — as well as forced sterilisation.

Ehrlich also praised the early efforts of Japan to curb its population through the legalisation of abortion, which he said was “a highly effective weapon in the armory of population control”. Through its anti-natalist agenda, Japan was able to halve its birth rate, but it later realised the demographic impact of a falling birth rate and tried to reverse course.

Ehrlich condemned this policy change, writing that “one can only hope that young Japanese couples have more sense than their government does” (p. 84). It would seem his confidence in Japan’s younger generation was not misplaced: a recent poll shows that 60 per cent of young Japanese are planning never to have children.

Like the Japanese authorities, many nations are discovering that their efforts to halt population growth were ill-advised. Even the ultra-progressive leaders at the United Nations acknowledge there is a problem with declining populations. Yet, thanks in large part to the efforts of Paul Ehrlich, they are unable to devise a way to encourage women to have more babies.

The ‘bright side’ of global famine

According to Paul Ehrlich and the scientists he cited, the optimum global population limit was around 1 billion citizens. He thought the earth possibly “had a chance” if a population of four to five billion could be maintained (p. 157).

Yet, for all his dire predictions of global famine, Ehrlich was remarkably upbeat about the consequences of such an event. In fact, he believed human tragedy of such a scale could actually serve his agenda. He wrote:

“Indeed, even if the worst happens, short of the end of civilization, efforts toward solving the population problem may not be in vain. Suppose we do not prevent massive famines. Suppose there are widespread plagues. Suppose a billion people perish. At least if we have called enough attention to the problem, we may be able to avoid a repetition of the whole mess. We must make it impossible for people to blame the calamity on too little food or technological failures or ‘acts of God’. They must at least face the essential cause of the problem — overpopulation.” (p. 158)

The role of academia

Ehrlich’s influence points to the role played by universities and other academic institutions in furthering anti-Christian agendas such as population control. Techno-Marxism’s “long march” through the institutions chose those platforms for good reason: it is difficult for spineless politicians and other policy-makers to dissent from apparently well-researched conclusions being thrust on them by the intelligentsia.

According to the pro-life author, “Alyosha” (a pseudonym), at his Between Two Ages Substack account,

“Real policy isn’t debated in X threads, YouTube clips of normie legacy news shouting matches, or in the campaign rhetoric of elections. It is formulated in dry academic literature, incubated in the classrooms of elite universities, and ultimately executed through the quiet, logistical restructuring of society.”

His conclusion reminds us that Ehrlich was not alone in his calls for population control: he was simply one of the loudest voices at a particular moment in history:

“The core objective of the transnational elite has remained remarkably consistent for over half a century: the scientific management, reduction, and absolute control of the human population.”

Our greatest asset

As most Christians acknowledge, a nation’s greatest asset is its children, especially those raised in stable households by both of their biological parents. While Ehrlich spread the lie that the reproductive act should be separated from its consequence — procreation — the future belongs to those who can integrate both, welcoming children as gifts from God and trusting in Him to provide for the needs of their families.

About the author 
Kathy Clubb is an Australian mother and grandmother and home-educated her children for the
best part of 30 years. She has undertaken official pro-life work for 10 years, first in Tasmania, and
then in Victoria. In 2016, Kathy was part of an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Victoria’s abortion
exclusion-zones, which led to a constitutional challenge in the High Court of Australia in late 2018.
Her articles have also appeared at Family Life International, LifeSiteNews, Online Opinion, Caldron
Pool and Fidelity magazine.

Easter

Good news! An Easter meditation

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This Easter meditation presents the essential Good News which helps us make sense of an increasingly desolate world. It reminds us that the answers to all our problems are found in Jesus Christ Who died for us. The source for this meditation can be found here.

Christ was made sin for us

When the Divine Word offered Himself to redeem mankind, there were before Him two ways of redemption – the one of joy and glory, the other of pains and insults. It was His will, not only by His coming to deliver man from eternal death, but also to call forth the love of all the hearts of men, and therefore He rejected the way of joy and glory and chose that of pains and insults.

In order that He might satisfy the Divine justice for us and at the same time inflame us with His holy love, He was willing to endure this burden of all our sins, that, dying upon a cross, He might obtain for us grace and the life of the blessed. This is what Isaias intended to express when he said, “He Himself hath borne our pains and carried our sorrows.”

Of this there were to express figures in the Old Testament: the first was the annual ceremony of the scapegoat, which the high priest represented as bearing all the sins of the people; and therefore, all, loading it with curses, drove it into the desert, to be the object of the wrath of God. This goat was a figure of our Redeemer, who was willing to load Himself with all the curses deserved by us for our sins, being made a curse for us in order that He might obtain for us the Divine blessing.

Therefore, the Apostle wrote in another place, “He made Him to be sin for us, who knew not sin, that we might be made the justice of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). That is, as St. Ambrose and St. Anselm explain it, He made Him to be sin who was Innocence itself – that is, He presented Himself to God as if He had been sin itself. In a word, He took upon Himself the character of a sinner and endured the pains due to us sinners, in order to render us just before God.

The second type of the sacrifice which Jesus Christ offered to the eternal Father for us upon the Cross was that brazen serpent of the Old Law which was fixed to a tree, by looking upon which the Jews who were bitten by fiery serpents were healed. Accordingly, St. John writes: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that every one who believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 4:14).

We may here notice that in the Book of Wisdom the shameful death of Jesus Christ is clearly foretold. Although the words of the passage referred to may apply to the death of every just man, yet, say Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Jerome and many other holy Fathers, they principally refer to the death of Christ. It is said: “If He is the true Son of God, He will defend Him, and will deliver Him from the hands of his enemies” (Wisdom 2:18).

These words exactly correspond with what the Hebrews said when Jesus was upon the Cross: “He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him, if He will have Him; for He said, I am the Son of God” (Matt. 27:43). The Wise Man goes on to say, “Let us try Him with insults and torments,” that is, those of the cross, “and let us prove His patience; let us condemn Him to the most shameful death.”

The Hebrews chose the death of the cross for Jesus Christ because it is shameful, in order that His name might be forever infamous and no more held in remembrance, according to the other text of Jeremias: “Let us put wood on His bread, and cut Him off from the land of the living, and let His name be remembered no more” (Jer. 11:19). How, then, can the Hebrews of the present day say that it is false that Christ was the promised Messiah because His life was ended by a most shameful death, when the prophets themselves foretold that He should die with a most dishonorable death?

And Jesus accepted such a death. He died to pay the price of our sins: And therefore, as in the case of sinners, He desired to be circumcised, to be redeemed with a price when He was presented in the temple, to receive the baptism of repentance from the Baptist and lastly, in His Passion, to be nailed upon the Cross to atone for our guilty wanderings, to atone for our avarice by being stripped of His garments, for our pride by the insults He endured, for our desires of power by submitting Himself to the executioner, for our evil thoughts by His crown of thorns, for our intemperance by the gall He tasted, and by the pangs of His Body for our sensual delights.

Therefore, we ought continually, with tears of tenderness, to thank the eternal Father for having given His innocent Son to death, to deliver us from eternal death: “He sparred not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all; and how shall He not also with Him give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). Thus said St. Paul, and thus Jesus Himself said in the Gospel of St. John: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16).

On this account, Holy Church exclaims on Holy Saturday, “Oh, wonderful is it which Thy love has done for us! O Inestimable Gift of Love, that to redeem a servant, Thou shouldest give Thy Son.” O infinite mercy, O infinite love of our God! O Holy Faith! How can he who believes and confesses this live without burning with holy love for God, who is so loving and so worthy of love?

campus

Campus life by a young Christian woman

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A previous article featured an essay from a conservative male college student entitled Gen Z,
Social Media, and Envy. This month we present an essay on campus life from a female Christian
perspective.

I am a young, conservative, Christian woman attending a large state university. I chose to attend state university because I wanted a good education in Economics and I thought it would give me valuable opportunities and cost less than attending a solid liberal arts college. While my time spent at the university has been fruitful and I have learned a great deal, it has also opened my eyes to many cultural problems with Gen Z in particular, as well as with our public higher education system.

I desire to pursue knowledge, while simultaneously pursuing the good, the true and the beautiful. I find that at state university, school is often drudgery instead of enjoyment in the challenge of pursuing truth and knowledge. Many students dread showing up to class, skip when they can and eagerly anticipate the end of the semester. When I hear from other students at smaller liberal arts colleges, many of them have their ups and downs, but overall they enjoy their education and the challenges that come with learning and mastering difficult subjects and ways of thinking.

What is different about the state university world? First of all, I have noticed my generation’s chronic
reliance on technology on my campus. It’s practically revolutionary to have a class that’s “tech free”
(including tests)—I have one of those, and it’s refreshing. In between class periods, the majority of
students walk to their next class with eyes glued to their phones or impenetrable headphones covering their ears. Students rarely make eye contact when walking, and when they do, they quickly avert their eyes.

Starting a conversation with a stranger—even to ask for directions—is one of the most intimidating things you can do. Discussion does happen in class, but it usually takes a while to get going. When students refuse to engage verbally, our professors are noticeably disheartened, but there’s not much they can do.

More tech, less reading

As technology use increases, it seems that reading is decreasing. Just last week, when I walked into class with a three-volume set of Civil War history that I was taking home, my classmate looked shocked.

I showed him what I had, and he told me that he had a couple of boxes of Encyclopedia Britannica books from his grandmother, boxed up in his basement. He said he was going to put them up on shelves by his TV. “Not to read,” he explained—“just for show.”

“Are you not much of a reader?” I asked.

“Why would I read?” he replied.

“To learn?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t read a book since probably sophomore year.” He is a senior in college.

As someone who was raised to love knowledge and reading, I found his statements discouraging. On a broader note, this makes me more concerned for my generation. Covid-19, with its lockdowns and cancelled school, forced students my age online. Now, tech use is through the roof, and hobbies and necessities that used to be common, like reading, are in steep decline.

In terms of the university’s approach to reading, we do not read economic theory in my economics classes. We discuss policy ideas, and we briefly mention famous economists, but all we know about these economists is roughly when they lived, and what equation or concept they popularised. We do not read Friedrich Hayek, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman or even Karl Marx. The most economic theory reading I have done thus far in my time at college is in my technology-free class on the history of Western political thought.

Campus Professor: ‘Friedman was wrong’

As an example of the economic theory teaching we get, my professor in my (required) environmental economics class began the semester by telling us that “Friedman was wrong.” He proceeded with a less than adequate two-minute summary of who Friedman was and why he was wrong, and then moved on. He ended that inaugural lecture by stating that “binary thinking is born from simplification” and encouraging us to be openminded, always looking for things to change our minds about.

I was shocked by his obvious lack of belief in objective truth and saddened that a public university was promoting—and even requiring—a class that encouraged this. We reduce problems to policy and an equation. Instead of looking to history to formulate solutions for present problems, we blindly plow full speed ahead, ignoring the wisdom from those who came before us.

This is not a problem that is unique to the economics department. A couple of my friends have expressed their annoyance with classes and professors that are not challenging them. It seems to be a common pattern throughout the humanities to offer a relatively small number of in-person courses, require few if any tests, provide open-note quizzes and short-answer questions, mandate online discussion boards (as opposed to in-person dialogue) and require minimal reading of primary sources and the classics. As students, we often pay hefty sums of money for our education. If we are not learning useful, challenging material, what is the point?

In the realm of civil discourse, it’s even more difficult—particularly for me as a conservative. Not all of my professors are liberal, but I can usually tell which ones are, aren’t or don’t care. It’s hard to challenge a professor when he is an “expert” in a topic and in charge of a class, and you are neither. It’s even harder when your fellow classmates don’t say anything.

It’s also difficult to bring up questions about politics, policy or religion with my classmates. Growing up, my generation was taught never to discuss politics, religion or money—yet those are the very things we should be talking about, especially as young people! We are all in school, wrestling with what we’ll do with the rest of our lives. Universities used to be great forums for debate. Now we’re afraid we’ll offend someone by asking a genuine question.

Dating by phone apps, hookups

Another problem is the dating aspect. I didn’t attend college with the belief that I would find my husband here, but of course there’s always that hope. Yet my generation was raised with a dependence on phones, video games and dating apps. Don’t want to leave the comfort of your home to meet someone? No problem. There are countless apps you can get that enable you to “meet” someone in every way possible except for the one that truly matters—face to face.

Walking around my campus, I’ve been disheartened to see that many of my schoolmates find greater enjoyment in the party and hookup culture than they do in searching out a spouse with whom they can faithfully spend the remainder of their lives. No wonder it’s hard to find a good man here.


Radical feminism doesn’t help

Add to that the problem of radical feminism. The men in my generation have been taught since birth that women are entitled to exactly the same treatment as men. Women can work all the same jobs as men, women can and should provide for their families, women are just as strong as men, etc. Gone is the chivalrous protector role that men used to strive to fill.

I’ve been shocked recently at how rare it is for my fellow male students to hold doors for the female
students. Since there is no longer a difference between the sexes, there is no longer a need—or even a desire—for men to step into a provider role. In my experience, this has led to young men who are afraid
to ask young women out, unsure of their place in their girlfriend’s life, and afraid of committing to long term relationships.

They also struggle with their role as a natural-born leader. I only know a few openly conservative men on campus—most of my conservative friends are female. I have more male friends who are deeply religious, but they tend not to speak publicly about their political beliefs.

Conservative women exist on campus

And yet, there is hope. In a culture where we’re told that Gen Z women are the most liberal demographic, most of my conservative friends at the university are women. They are women who want to do something to save America and her people. My best friend wants to be a lawyer, another good friend wants to teach history to kids, another wants to work in state and local government, and another wants to work in international politics.

All of these women are strong, godly and driven to make changes. We are equipped to make these changes and find community through a few clubs on campus, internships, and fellowship and seminar opportunities.

I have had incredible opportunities to network and build relationships with likeminded conservative students through a political dialogue club on campus and through the campus College Republicans club. I have the privilege of serving both as an officer. I met my best friend through the political dialogue club, and I was able to join up with some of my conservative friends to restart our defunct College Republicans chapter.

Clubs and internships

In the College Republicans chapter, we are continuing to recruit new members and planning events where conservatives can meet one another and find friendly community in the face of opposition.

Our goal is to develop responsible, conservative citizens, change the minds of others through respectful debates and dialogues, and protect conservatism on our campus. Through working with fellow students to advance conservative values, we have built a community of intelligent and driven young people who I am confident will continue the fight for truth at our university long after I graduate.

My conservative professors have helped me with internship and networking opportunities as well, including an internship at the Heritage Foundation this past summer. At Heritage I was blessed to work in the DeVos Center for Human Flourishing (formerly the DeVos Center for Life, Family, and Religion), where I did focused research on issues such as abortion, transgender hormone “therapy” and vaccines.

Through our weekly lecture series, I learned about domestic and foreign policy issues, the natural law, and the definition and application of conservatism, among other things.’

All the interns were given copies of Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order and Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions. One of the policy directors, who had majored in economics, gave me Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and encouraged me to read it.

The goal of the internship directors, and I believe everyone at Heritage, was to equip us as young conservatives to go out on the offensive for conservative values—not just defending them but promoting them.

At Heritage, I made friendships that will last my whole life, learned what it means to be a “happy warrior” and emerged equipped to further the conservative movement wherever I find myself in the future.

In addition to my time spent at Heritage, I had the privilege of interning for the Acton Institute and twice for the Center for Arizona Policy. Through these wonderful experiences, I learned the process of lawmaking, took notes on numerous legislative floor sessions, committee and caucus meetings, performed topical research, catalogued books, learned hospitality and reception work, and so much more. My time spent at the Center for Arizona Policy is even more applicable now, after my summer at Heritage.

At Heritage, I was more focused on learning conservative policy and values and implementing those in a focused area. At the Center for Arizona Policy, those values connected directly with lawmaking of all shapes and sizes. These experiences have shaped my understanding of America and her political system, and I am excited to apply what I have learned wherever I may go.

While sometimes I regret not attending a conservative liberal arts school, when I reflect on the experiences and opportunities I have had at state university, I repeatedly conclude that I would not be where I am today if I had not chosen to attend state university. And, despite its shortcomings, I do believe there is hope for the state university world—but it is not found in more federal funding or in forcing students to write more papers.

How to improve classes on campus

Instead, it will be found in

  • teaching good, comprehensive, challenging history and humanities courses,
  • supporting students in pursuing knowledge with excellence,
  • fostering a more Socratic method of teaching and interacting with teachers and fellow students in the classroom, and
  • encouraging students to respectfully debate and challenge one another’s ideas of religion, policy and more.

The young conservatives I have met at my state university are intelligent, motivated and dedicated individuals who are committed to working together to defend and promote conservative values. There may not be many of us at our university now, but our hope is that our actions now will change the future.

This article is published by the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation in St Louis, Missouri, USA. The original article is available from the foundation’s website:  www.mindszenty.org. The Mindszenty Report is not copyrighted, and readers are invited to forward copies to their local bishops, priests and pastors.


Gen Z social media

Gen Z, social media, and envy

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

Social media causes desensitisation to things that should disturb us and hypersensitivity to things that should not disturb us. It afflicts Gen Z with a toxic culture of envy.

My generation, Gen Z (born between 1996 and 2010), finds itself in the throes of individual depression, pessimism about the future, and a strong tendency not to take personal responsibility. As a 20-year-old college student, I have witnessed this firsthand. I believe much of the problem can be traced to social media and its creation of a make-believe world, a world defined by pronounced social envy.

Only 39 percent of Generation Z aged 18-29 believe that achieving the American dream is still possible, while 60 percent do not.1 It is disheartening, to say the least, that a large majority of our youth do not believe in the American tradition of achieving success through hard work and determination.

Gen Z has grown up in a different world from previous generations—an online world, one that immerses them in fantasy. Fantasy leads inevitably to disappointment as this made-up online world creates unrealistic expectations for the real world.

Abundant research shows that social media is harmful to youth. Social media use is correlated with rising instances of self-harm and suicidality in boys and girls.2 At the same time, American girls use social media far more than boys.3 While boys are off playing video games or consuming online porn, girls succumb to toxic self-comparison at a time when they are most confused about their identity. This allows them to be taken advantage of by predators, by influencers espousing extreme ideology, and by other women who tell them to prioritise themselves above all others.

The results of this gender gap are ominous for the future of America. More young men than young women report wanting to have children.4 At a time when America’s birth rate continues to plummet below replacement, Gen Z is dropping the ball on family formation. It is not just apathy towards having a family. Gen Z is growing more anti-capitalist, more anti-natalist and more callous about the deaths of others. Reactions on social media in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s horrific assassination come to mind.

Social media causes desensitization to things that should disturb us and hypersensitivity to things that should not disturb us. It afflicts Gen Z with a toxic culture of envy.

The inside view

Generation Z’s ailments are clear from the outside, but even more so from the inside. It is important to note that the author is a member of Gen Z himself, born just a few years after the turn of the millennium. I have been spared the despair of my generation because of my family.

Raised in a large family with close bonds with my siblings, I was never alone in the sense that many Gen Zers report themselves feeling. My parents ran a household that was strong in moral teachings and founded upon family values. Furthermore, my parents had the foresight to withhold social media from my siblings and me far longer than most of our generation. We were not subject to the culture of envy that we watched our friends endure. I made it all the way to my 19th birthday before I became curious, suspecting that social media might prove useful or practical as an adult in college.

I deleted all my accounts in less than a year. My experience on social media was far from anything I had expected. Perhaps I was naive to expect pictures of pleasant scenery and the occasional post about a family trip. But I could not have foreseen the extent to which social media is riddled with depravity, dishonesty and delusion. What I saw as an outsider to my own generation made plain precisely why my close friends and peers seemed so distant and anxious. It was clear why they had lost faith in themselves, their communities and the American dream.

The reason social media has had such a horrendous effect on American youth is that, fundamentally, social media is not what it seems. The photos and videos that are posted online are often edited into an unrecognizable version of the truth. What is presented as a casual selfie is often an hours-long commitment that requires professional equipment, painstaking attention to detail and constant revision. Instead of honest photos, our youth sees perfection. But it is perfection presented as something attainable. Or rather, something that seems attainable, but isn’t attainable in reality. This is the root of Gen Z’s envy.

Incessant comparison

Social media’s inherent culture of envy is bad enough. But what makes it particularly dangerous to Gen Z is that members of my generation are obsessed with comparing themselves to their peers. Gen Zers average about nine hours of screen time every day.5 It is not unusual to have a screen time of 10 or even 14 hours a day. Some of my friends can spend 20 hours a day looking at screens.

Social media takes up a significant amount of these appalling screen times. Sixty percent of Gen Z spends at least four hours a day on social media, and 22 percent report spending seven or more hours a day.6 Time spent on social media is time not spent socializing, working, exercising, reading, spending time with family, and more. Rather than engage with the real world as much as possible, a sizable majority of Generation Z spends the greater part of their day in an online fantasy.

Living in the fictional world of social media is a major cause of Gen Z’s pessimism, and Gen Z’s members know it. About 83 percent of America’s youth have tried to limit their social media use, albeit largely unsuccessfully.7 Gen Z recognizes the harms of social media as a group. But while 48 percent of teenagers agree that social media is harmful to people their age, just 14 percent believe that social media affects them personally.8

What these statistics reveal is an element of denial. The youth culture’s expectation of perfection requires hiding imperfections. But upon a closer look, it becomes clear that this perfectionism is a symptom of envy. The desire to be as affluent, powerful, attractive and popular as influencers on social media comes from spending too much time in the online world. Carefully curated posts that are funneled to the right audiences create an infinite network of nested mini-worlds in which our youth have become lost. The resulting lack of direction is part of why Gen Z feels so pessimistic. Generation Z’s pessimism expresses itself in many ways: class resentment, hetero-pessimism, apathy and sensitivity.

Class resentment is the byproduct of economic forces on social media. Online sites kick consumer culture into hyperdrive. It begins with extravagant displays of wealth. Influencers who advertise perfect dress, flawless appearance, ideal travel experiences, luxurious homes and fine dining inevitably attract viewers for the simple reason that wealth is desirable. Considering that Gen Z is significantly more dissatisfied with their economic situation than other generations, it is no surprise that young people are drawn toward such content in large numbers.9 Much of Generation Z sees what they want but cannot have, for hours at a time each day.

Displays of unrealistic wealth

Individual envy is then amplified into pessimism. Social media algorithms recommend to users what they are most likely to click on. The more outraged users are, the more likely they are to become even more outraged and to be connected to other users who reinforce their indignation. Since Gen Z is uniquely susceptible to economic pessimism, they are at a greater risk of falling victim to this outrage. As time passes, young social media users fall farther down the rabbit hole, becoming more radicalised and more pessimistic.

The consequence is a strong current of anticapitalism and economic pessimism that views the American system as fundamentally unfair. And so long as they remain isolated in their online echo chambers, my peers will continue to be overexposed to the shortcomings of American capitalism and underexposed to its many benefits.

The hyper-individualization of Gen Z encouraged by social media applies to dating and family dynamics as well as economic concerns. Just as algorithms radicalize the youth into anticapitalism, they do the same for hyperfeminism.

Recent surveys continue to show that young women are ranking their career and individual interests ahead of starting a family.10 This is unsurprising given the prominence of anti-male trends on social media. As of late, a proliferation of social media posts with the hashtag childfree suggests that childlessness as an identity is growing.

There are also movements encouraging women to become “boysober” and swear off all emotional and physical relationships with men.11 Some women online are using the term “mankeeping,” which is primarily used to complain about the burdens of supporting their partners through hard times. Popularized in 2016, the MenAreTrash movement swept social media platforms and gained rapid popularity for disparaging men and heterosexual dating in any way possible.

Toxic feminism

The online environment culminates in a general pessimism about dating and family called “hetero-pessimism.” Originally coined in 2019, hetero-pessimism refers to a movement where women are ashamed of being straight and view “heterosexuality as a prison within which they are confined against their will.”12 Gen Z women are especially vulnerable to trends like hetero-pessimism.

Again, considering the radicalising nature of social media algorithms, it is easy for girls to fall for ideas that promote individualism and the prioritisation of self over pair-bonding or community. As a result, teenage girls sometimes enter the dating scene with unrealistic expectations because of exposure to fake relationships on social media. Young men who encounter such women are then treated to a rude awakening where they are expected to act as an accessory to a woman who is more interested in superficial pleasures and material wealth than true partnership.

It is worth pausing to emphasize that this is a somewhat extreme characterization of a complex phenomenon. Not all young women who use social media are anti-male. Yet, anti-male sentiment weaves itself into social media in various ways.

social media

More widespread than hetero-pessimism is the creation of echo chambers by social media algorithms that amplify and radicalise opinions and perspectives.

Consider the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk. In the era before social media, it may be true that the victim of such a horrific and violent act would have received near total sympathy from the American public, including its youth. Regardless of whether this was the case in the past, it is certainly not true now.

Apathy—and in some cases jubilation—from the left over the murder of Charlie Kirk is not originally because of inherent cold-heartedness and cruelty. It is because of desensitisation. This is an important distinction. Desensitisation by social media is what leads to coldheartedness and cruelty when left unchecked. Such apathetic and jubilant individuals did not express sympathy because that is not what they were shown. Social media algorithms likely predicted that such viewers, especially some progressive youth, would not have clicked on such content. Instead, they were fed increasingly extreme posts that dismissed or mocked the death of Charlie Kirk. And in viewing such posts, their views were validated and radicalised instead of moderated.

The condoning of Kirk’s assassination that spread across the internet is emblematic of a growing apathy towards the plight of persons outside each individual’s social media bubble. Within these anonymous echo chambers, algorithms supercharge this apathy into a callous joy that is not just inappropriate, but dangerous.

The tyranny of online policing

Online policing of political correctness reached a fever pitch during the Covid-19 pandemic, when American society was as far from the real world as it had ever been. This had a detrimental effect on Generation Z, given that they came of age around the use of chosen pronouns, progressive terminology like “safe spaces,” and leftist ideology that accused most social and economic institutions of being inherently bad. So rather than work to develop empathy for those different from them, Generation Z was immersed in a ruthless online culture that focused on the faults of those who were different from them, instead of what we have in common as Americans.

Generation Z is steeped in a fabricated version of reality that amplifies outrage, promotes individualism and heightens our differences. The culture of envy engendered by social media has made our youth so pessimistic that many of them no longer believe in the American dream. Who can blame them? Because of social media, much of Gen Z is entering adulthood unchallenged, un-self-aware, and unable to see that they are part of something greater than themselves.

As a member of Gen Z, I place my hope in those of us who are strong enough to stop looking at our screens and start looking at all that is happening around us. For when we do so, we begin to see that the beauty of reality is far more rewarding than any online illusions of perfection.

This article is published by the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation in St Louis, Missouri, USA. The original article is available from the foundation’s website:  www.mindszenty.org. The Mindszenty Report is not copyrighted, and readers are invited to forward copies to their local bishops, priests and pastors.

  1. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/02/americans-are-split-over-the-state-of-the-american-dream/ ↩︎
  2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6278213/ ↩︎
  3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9176070/ ↩︎
  4. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/ ↩︎
  5. https://www.hiddengemsaba.com/articles/average-screen-time-statistics ↩︎
  6. https://theharrispoll.com/briefs/gen-z-social-media-smart-phones/ ↩︎
  7. Ibid ↩︎
  8. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/22/teens-social-media-andmental-health/ ↩︎
  9. https://www.mtlc.co/how-to-handle-the-optimism-pessimism-paradox-of-gen-z-at-work/ ↩︎
  10. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-without-children-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/ ↩︎
  11. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/03/style/boysober-celibacy-hope-woodward.html ↩︎
  12. https://thenewinquiry.com/on-heteropessimism/ ↩︎
Premature baby in NICU

Tiny but mighty: Tenayah’s story shows the truth of life at 22 weeks

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Tenayah’s tiny body tells us something louder than any argument: that hers is a real life. Let us recognise that every baby in the womb is as real as she is.

When little Tenayah Gimbert arrived into the world, she weighed just 409 grams and was scarcely larger than her mothers hand.1 Born at 22 weeks and 3 days her odds of survival were slim. Most babies born so early do not make it. Yet thanks to the extraordinary care at Brisbane’s Mater Mother’s Hospital, Tenayah is not only alive, but thriving. At just 128 days old, she has shown no signs of major complications, avoided surgery, and is now tipping the scales at a healthy three kilograms.

Screenshot from Sunrise on 7 Instagram account

Her story is rightly being hailed as a miracle, but is also something more. It is a reminder that even at 22 weeks, what we are speaking about is not a “bundle of cells” or merely a “foetus”. We are speaking about a baby – tiny and fragile but as real and human as any child in a postnatal ward. 

The humanity of the unborn

To truly grasp the miracle of Tenayah’s life we must first recognise who she is and what every child in the womb is. She is unmistakably human. At 22 weeks, a baby has a beating heart that has been working since six weeks. Her brain is active, sending signals that control movement, swallowing, and even primitive sleep cycles. She has eyelashes, eyebrows, unique fingerprints, and tiny fingernails. She can move her arms and legs with purpose, responding to touch and sound. Her lungs are forming, her skin is thin but already covering a complete, small body. In fact, her proportions are recognisably those of a newborn – only smaller.2

Parents who see ultrasound scans at this stage often describe the shock of recognition, their child sucks a thumb, hiccups or stretches out a hand. These are not impersonal medical images, they are windows into the life of a son or a daughter who has a purpose in this world. 

When Tenayah was born prematurely, no one mistook her for anything other than a baby. Nurses wrapped her in blankets, doctors fought for her survival, and her parents were in awe of how well she was doing. Her size did not diminish her humanity; it only underscored her fragility. She was not a ‘potential person’ suddenly made real by her early birth. She was the same child she had been the day before, only now visible to the world outside the womb. 

This is why stories like Tenayah’s matter so deeply. They strip away the euphemisms that cloud our moral vision. Words like “foetus” or “tissue” may be clinically accurate, but they can be used to obscure rather than clarify. The reality is very clear: at 22 weeks we are looking at a baby who is capable of life outside the womb – and whose humanity does not depend on location. 

Mater Hospital: saving lives not ending them 

In recent months, the Mater Brisbane Hospital was heavily criticised in the media for refusing to provide abortions, accused of putting religion before women.3  Yet this very same hospital is one of only four in Queensland equipped to save babies born on the edge of viability. Without the skill and care of the team at the Mater, Tenayah would almost certainly not be alive. 

The contrast could not be clearer. The Mater is condemned for refusing to end lives at the very same time it is demonstrating its extraordinary ability to preserve them. 

The law in Queensland

The inconsistencies in abortion policies in Queensland is very evident. Under Queensland law, abortion is lawful on request up to 22 weeks gestation, with no reason required. Beyond that point, abortion is permitted right up until birth, provided two doctors agree it is appropriate.4

That means that at the age Tenayah is being celebrated as a miracle of modern medicine, other babies at the same stage of development can legally be aborted, and if before 22 weeks, on request with no reason required. It is difficult to reconcile this contradiction: in one hospital ward, a 22 week old baby is being fought for with every resource available, while in another, a 22 week old baby is being aborted. 

Survival rates for very premature babies

Often at 22 weeks we would be told the chances of survival are very slim. But Tenayah’s life shows that behind every number is a child worth fighting for. 

  • In Australia and New Zealand, five in ten babies admitted to the NICU at 23 weeks survive. This jumps up to seven in ten babies who survive at 24 weeks.5

These aren’t just statistics. They are children, thousands of them across the world, who now grow up to attend school, play and live full lives because someone believed they were worth saving. 

And so the question becomes unavoidable. If five in ten babies born at 23 weeks gestation given care in Australia survive, how can we possibly turn around and say that babies of the same age in the womb are disposable? 

Medicine is racing ahead, stretching the margins of viability further back every year. Yet our laws disregard that completely, allowing Queenslanders to kill unborn babies at any stage. It is in some ways a cruel irony that we can cheer on the survival of a 22 week old baby in one room while providing for the destruction of a life in another. 

A hopeful ending 

Tenayah’s story is one of courage – her parents’, her doctors’ and her own. But it is also a challenge to us as a society, it shows how real life is at 22 weeks. It is life that we must fight to protect at every stage. 

As we celebrate her survival, let us recognise that every baby in the womb is as real as she is. They all deserve the chance to live, whether born early in the delivery room or still growing in the safety of a mothers womb. 

Tenayah’s tiny body tells us something louder than any argument – that this is life we are talking about. Real human life. Life that is so worth protecting.

by Hannah Newton. This article first appeared at Cherish Life and is republished here with permission. Cherish Life Queensland was founded in 1970 (as Right to Life Queensland), to advocate for the right to life from conception until natural death and remains one of the largest pro-life organisations in Australia.

  1. Jackie Sinnerton, ‘Tenayah Gimbert: The premature baby defying the odds’. Courier Mail. https://www.couriermail.com.au/health/family-health/pregnancy/tenayah-gimbert-the-premature-baby-defying-the-odds/news-story/f27f42789309f2edd1a9215070bf9d96?campaignType=external&campaignChannel=syndication&campaignName=ncacont&campaignContent&campaignSource=the_courier_mail&campaignPlacement=edm&net_sub_id=284386009&type=free_text_block&position=1 Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
  2. Cleveland Clinic, ‘Fetal Development’. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/7247-fetal-development-stages-of-growth Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
  3. Emma Pollard, [23 July 2025] ABC News, ‘Mater Hospital’s religious abortion ban left couple feeling ‘abandoned’. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-23/mater-hospital-religious-abortion-ban-couple-feeling-abandoned/105532550 Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
  4. Queensland Government, ‘Termination of Pregnancy’. https://www.qld.gov.au/health/children/pregnancy/termination-of-pregnancy Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
  5. Queensland Health Parent Information, Queensland Clinical Guidelines. Babies Born very early. https://www.health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/1007935/c-xtreme-preterm.pdf Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎

Charlie Kirk

On the senseless death of Charlie Kirk

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

Charlie Kirk’s death has sparked an outpouring of grief and bewilderment at the intolerance of those who would murder rather than engage in honest dialogue. Some commentaries on his death are reproduced below.

Charlie Kirk (1993–2025) was an American conservative Christian political activist, author and media personality. He co-founded the conservative organisation Turning Point USA (TPUSA) in 2012 and was its executive director. His organisation is credited with having mobilised a large number of young Americans to vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

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Charlie Kirk didn’t insult anyone …

by Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog

X account, September 10, 2025.

URL: https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1965886770903699605

All that Charlie ever did was have conversations with people. He didn’t insult anyone. He made arguments. He debated. He wasn’t an extremist in any way. Everyone who knew Charlie personally loved him. That’s the kind of guy he was. And they still killed him. I am furious and heartbroken in equal measure. I cannot put into words how I feel. Maybe that is for the best.

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The day the masks came off: what Charlie Kirk’s murder reveals about the left

by Jamie K. Wilson

PJ Media (Irving, Texas), September 10, 2025.

URL: https://pjmedia.com/jamie-wilson/2025/09/10/the-day-the-masks-came-off-what-charlie-kirks-murder-reveals-about-the-left-n4943553

Excerpt

Charlie Kirk should be alive today. He should be at home tonight with his beautiful wife and their two little children — three bright futures entwined with his own, now stolen away forever. He should be grinning that irrepressible grin, telling stories, cracking jokes, and planning his next campus stop. Instead, he was gunned down in Utah while doing what he always did: speaking directly to anyone willing to listen.

Charlie had a gift that made him unique in our movement. He carried himself like everyone’s little brother — fearless, approachable, quick with a smile. He walked into hostile rooms and faced jeers, insults, and ugly words with a kind of radiant good humor. And then, instead of lashing back, he answered with questions. He wanted to draw people out, to meet them where they stood, to turn confrontation into conversation. Often he didn’t change minds, but he left behind something just as valuable: respect.

Charlie valued all lives, regardless of color, creed, or nation of birth. But he had a special place in his heart for the smallest and most defenseless — the unborn, the voiceless, the forgotten. That conviction animated everything he did. He believed America could still be a place where truth mattered, where faith mattered, and where human dignity mattered.

I don’t remember ever seeing him without a smile. Even when he was under attack, even when the words were venomous, he seemed to carry joy as a weapon. He feared nothing and no one, and he made friends wherever he went — on the right, and yes, even among some on the left who couldn’t help but like him despite their politics.

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Evil is poisoning our societies. Charlie Kirk is the latest, tragic victim

The world is losing its mind. This feels like more than a cultural war: it’s spiritual

by Tim Stanley

The Daily Telegraph (London), September 11, 2025.

URL: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/09/11/evil-poisoning-societies-charlie-kirk-latest-victim/

Excerpt

I am devastated. I didn’t know him, but I’m devastated. Charlie Kirk was the Cicero of the Maga movement, energetically debating anywhere, anytime, a one-man campaign for the right to speak your mind. He was so utterly self-assured, he never looked vulnerable, but now I guess he was.

Maybe we all are. The world is losing its mind.

Conservatives rallied around the world like an extended family. He was only 31. He had two children. We messaged back and forth — what have you heard? Will Charlie make it? — and retreated to that Alamo of the lost: prayer.

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The assassination of Charlie Kirk

Cheerful warrior cut down in the act of being an engaged American citizen

by Rod Dreher

Rod Dreher’s Diary (Budapest, Hungary), September 11, 2025.

URL: https://roddreher.substack.com/p/the-assassination-of-charlie-kirk

Excerpt

Last night, as Charlie Kirk lay dying in the hospital, and was probably already dead, TikTok filled up with young leftists celebrating the shooting. On MSNBC, ex-GOP analyst Matthew Dowd speculated that one of Kirk’s own follower shot him (the network fired him subsequently). Others on MSNBC immediately began supposing that President Trump would exploit Kirk’s shooting to crack down on dissent. A 31-year-old father of two was gunned down on stage in Utah, and the first thing that came to the minds of those talking heads was how it might hurt them politically.

Let me remind you of the core of David Betz’s case that we are on the brink of civil war in countries throughout the West:

1.  Multiculturalism and social disintegration: Betz contends that multiculturalism has eroded social cohesion by fostering competing identity-based groups with little shared sense of national identity. He describes Western societies as “incohesive”, with segregated communities competing for diminishing resources, creating conditions ripe for conflict.

2.  Asymmetric multiculturalism and perceived injustice: He highlights an “asymmetric multiculturalism” where minority groups are encouraged to express ethnic pride and solidarity, while similar expressions by white majorities are stigmatized as supremacist. This perceived double standard fuels resentment and a sense of “downgrading” among majority populations, providing a narrative of injustice that could justify revolt.

3.  Ethnic and cultural tensions: Betz predicts that future civil wars will likely be demarcated along ethnic lines, exacerbated by demographic shifts where white majorities are becoming minorities in some areas. He references the “Great Replacement” theory as a powerful narrative driving majority discontent, aligning with civil war theories about status reversal.

4.  Urban vs. rural divide and infrastructure vulnerability: He foresees conflicts with a rural-urban dimension, where cities, described as “feral” and poorly governed, become flashpoints. These wars may involve low-tech, savage tactics like targeting infrastructure, exploiting the West’s fragile systems to cause mass disruption.

5.  Elite disconnect and political polarization: Betz argues that Western elites are increasingly disconnected from the public, exacerbating distrust and polarization. The failure of “managed democracy” and declining social capital, coupled with economic decline, further destabilizes societies.

6.  Imminence and inevitability: Based on statistical trends, social attitudes, and civil war causation theories, Betz warns of a “high statistical probability” of conflict in multiple Western countries before 2030, potentially spreading across borders. He believes societal arrangements are failing rapidly, making conflict “practically inevitable”.

Betz says that judging by academically well-established standards that predict the likelihood of civil war breaking out in a given society, conditions in the West today meet not one or two of them, “but effectively all of them, extremely well”.