Through lack of understanding they remained sane. − George Orwell, 1984

An illusion of sanity prevails among the “woke” and among “great reset” specialists, including the brightest and best among corporate brain trusts who, pretending to know what people are, make it their business to change people. Some actually intone the phrase “what it means to be human” in their talk about “making the world better,” while marching with authorities who treat the world and people like numbers in equations. Do they not know that they are exhibiting an arrogance, an indifference to morality, and a faith in technology that show an extreme lack of common sense?

Who is to say what even a child is, let alone what a human being is? Yet “great reset” mavens presume to know the answer, or don’t care. We may never know the answer completely to what a child is − and by extension, what a human being is − but we can be sure that children are not suitable raw material for power elites to build their despotic “New World Order.” We know this because brainpower alone will never explain love, hate, will, and all the things about human life that refuse to quantify for the calculations required for successful world government. Ignoring first things about life in the effort to change people and the world is a way to arrest human progress and set it backwards.

Aware that people in fact do not change in all the essentials of humanity, some prominent, self-appointed masters of our lives – I think of Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates − are counting on altering human nature and turning people into “trans-humans” – to borrow from their language − capable of acting like robots. A good many people are already behaving that way, even without subcutaneous, hi-tech implants. How these reset masters of our lives will avoid becoming robots themselves should give them pause, I would say, although purists among them are aiming for a post-human world, meaning no human beings at all!

Futurism, now aging over a century and ready to be considered a tradition, has little use for questions about being human, something futurists evidently despise since they are forever wanting to radically change people. Stubborn facts about life and about the world, however, constantly interfere with their projections of the future. Elements of humanhood that affect progress – such as letting children develop into their best selves for everyone’s benefit − are dismissed as irrelevant. Throw out what doesn’t fit the calculations appears to be the modus operandi of radical futurists − which, I would say, amounts to “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

Because of their humanity, most people typically have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the value of children than progressives have. Some of what doesn’t fit the calculations of futurists has a place here, by way of commentary

Part of the joy of the love between a man and a woman is bringing children into the world, one of the greatest and happiest realities of human life for a majority of earth’s inhabitants. Couples truly in love acknowledge the fact that begetting children is not a coincidence of being human but part of being human.

Respect for human life, even for the life that arises from alleged “accidents” or from in vitro procedures, is unconditional among those who truly value life. Removing the advent of children from the act of love betrays an intense selfishness, at one extreme, and an excessive measure of disdain toward life, at the other extreme. Such self-centered bias toward children doesn’t square with “what it means to be human,” I would say.

The spark between earth and heaven that generates a new human being touches the heart of every man and woman who is grateful for the miracle of life. People of conscience acknowledge the sacredness of childbirth and the coexisting sacredness of marriage. Being parents and having a family, a defining aspect of marriage, is a reality embraced by all who understand the importance of this social arrangement to the health of a society.

Millions before us have taken the job seriously of being parents. Conscious of it or not, they have acted in the knowledge that because children are the next generation, they deserve our protection, our respect, and our guidance. No way would they treat a child as something disposable, something to use for gain, an object for pedophiles, a servant of the state – none of which advances human progress.

It was clear to me and my wife that disregarding insights on parenthood garnered over millennia of human experience was foolish, to say the least. It was obvious that the joy of having children included hands-on lessons in becoming parents, hopefully good ones. We did not blindly follow “expert advice” since it too often ignores timeless wisdom, which in our view is unintelligent.

Interacting with our children directly, without heeding expert advice on “parenting,” yielded knowledge that we could not have obtained any other way. Bypassing the latest child-rearing instruction made it possible for us to deal with our children as they are, not “as they are supposed to be.”

Such a take on child-rearing might be construed to represent a “conservative” predisposition, making it a bias that ought to be banished, for the sake of “progress.” To this I say, what is the problem with believing that children are not objects but persons, not raw material for the state but the most wonderful unit of humanity? What is wrong with not wanting the minds and hearts of kids to be molded so as to make them virtual robots, ready to obey and serve an increasingly despotic ruler class?

Pulling children up from the roots of their being and processing them for state consumption instead of allowing them to grow and flourish into their best selves generates adults that are less than useful to themselves, their community, and their leaders.

I must ask, where is the progress touted by leaders who ignore first things regarding human life? Where is that “better world” that progressives have been activating over the last century? Six decades of observation have led me to believe that the efforts of our leader class of people are more like the work of men and women who have lost their minds, their senses, and their hearts.

The inexcusable disregard for the intrinsic value of human life and the unconscionable neglect of children’s lives that we have witnessed over the past many decades in education, entertainment, and media, in no way point to progress toward a sane and vibrant life for all. A social order where children are truly loved, nourished intellectually and morally, and allowed to grow and blossom into their best selves is a better way to a better world.

Photo credit: Frame from Village of the Damned (1960)

Anthony J. DeBlasi is a lifelong culture warrior.

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