Links Edition

Unmasking evil. Limits on love? Curing blindness—or not. Techno-Optimism.

Unmasking Malevolence: Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty—A Review, by Rob Henderson, Rob Henderson’s Newsletter.

I’m not going to offer links regarding the horrific events in Israel and the war with Gaza.  Plenty of thoughtful stuff is out there and it’s not hard to find.  But oddly enough, this review was published just before the author was aware of the catastrophe! The topic, obviously, is relevant.  It’s a long piece, and I’ll admit I didn’t stick with it clear to the end, but I gained enough insight with a three-quarter read to recommend it. From the beginning: 

The book [Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty] by Rob Baumeister is about the psychological understanding of evil, not a philosophical or moral treatise on what constitutes evil.

Baumeister writes, “The hardest part of understanding the nature of evil is to first recognize that you or I could, under certain circumstances, commit many of the acts that the world has come to regard as evil.”

One way to avoid committing such acts is to understand that we are capable of them.

 

Christian call to radical love doesn't mean we can't set boundaries.  By Rebecca Braten Weiss, National Catholic Reporter.

I admit to having mixed feelings about this piece.  Anytime we start trying to nuance Jesus’s commands about loving the enemy, turning the other cheek, and forgiving seven times seventy, I get nervous.  But Weiss’s argument is, for the most part, wise– especially for those who think love just means being nice all the time. 

I once believed it was my obligation to forge friendships across ideological lines, even with those who had treated me unjustly or were open about their bigoted views. I believed that Christian peacemaking, and the mandate to forgive, meant staying on good terms with everyone, even those who had wronged me. I sincerely believed that if we could all just look across the lines that divide us and see the humanity in one another, we could heal the fractures in our culture. I even refused to unfriend people on Facebook.

But in the past few years, with the rise in antisemitic hate, I've discovered what others already knew: that setting boundaries can be as valid a Christian response as building bridges.

Is It Wrong to Cure Blindness? …. should disabilities be fixed—or celebrated? By Francesca Block, The Free Press.

This is another illustration of our culture’s confusion about the human body.  After a wonderful story of one man’s success at curing blindness for many people, there has been harsh pushback, summed up by the author:

Disability, some professionals now argue, no longer needs to be cured. Rather, it should be embraced and celebrated. 

This ideology is now making its way to the highest echelons of medical institutions and dividing doctors in the process, as many ask: isn’t the purpose of medicine to reduce human suffering?  

I have a personal interest in this phenomenon. My late brother was blind from birth. He did not celebrate his disability, and he said it was ridiculous to deny that he was “handicapped.”  He mocked the people who kept coming up with new euphemisms for his condition in an effort to soften the blow of his reality.  He knew he was loved by God and had dignity despite his condition, and looked forward to the day when he would see Jesus face to face.

  The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. By Mark Andreessen, Andreessen Horwitz substack.

 Recently I’ve critiqued Andreessen’s enthusiasm for Artificial Intelligence.  Here is a longer and more nuanced essay on his philosophy.  I admit to finding his enthusiasm and optimism attractive, but I’m too convinced of human depravity to believe that technology can bring “a world of ambition, abundance, and adventure.” As with most human “advances,” there will be winners and losers, happiness and grief, wealth and poverty.  Still, his manifesto is championed by many today, and we should be aware of it, for the good it can bring us, and for the promises it can never fulfill. 

Our civilization was built on technology. 

Our civilization is built on technology. 

Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the spearhead of progress, 

and the realization of our potential. 

For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this – until recently. 

I am here to bring the good news. 

We can advance to a far superior way of living, and of being. 

We have the tools, the systems, the ideas. 

We have the will. 

It is time, once again, to raise the technology flag. 

It is time to be Techno-Optimists. 

Grace and peace,

Mark

 Photo credit: Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash