Truth Over Tyranny: Biblical wisdom for defeating the Technocrats.
These are my insights for defeating the Transhumanist Technocracy movement, based on the teachings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, on the weekly Bible portion.
Why are the Transhumanist Technocrats waging war on the traditional family?
Why are they disparaging historical definitions of masculinity and femininity?
Why are they confusing our children about biological gender?
Why are they encouraging sexual mutilation in our children with Gender Dysphoria?
Why are they pushing drugs and medical procedures that cause infertility?
Why are they grooming our children for pedophilia?
Why are they mandating school “health” practices, such as masking and vaxxing, that are really intended to simply spread fear and blind obedience to government authority?
Why are they discriminating against girls in school bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams?
Why are they promoting teachings in schools that encourage hatred of Jews, Christians, white people, heterosexuals, capiltalists, and Americans in general?
Why are they trying to enforce state rights over parental rights?
In a nutshell, it is because they know that if they can destroy the family, they will destroy the foundation of a free society. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks shows the link between the two in his commentary on Parashat Vayechi called “Family, Faith, and Freedom.”
https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-family-edition/vayechi/family-faith-and-freedom/
Rabbi Sacks starts out by showing how this Parasha delivers a message about the whole Book of Genesis:
“The Torah is telling us an unexpected message here: the family is prior to all else, to the land, the nation, politics, economics, the pursuit of power and the accumulation of wealth. From an external point of view, the impressive story is that Yosef reached the heights of power in Egypt. But when we turn the page and begin the Book of Exodus, we discover that the position of the Israelites in Egypt was very vulnerable indeed, and all the power Yosef had centralised in the hands of Pharaoh would eventually be used against them.”
“Genesis is in fact not about power. It is about families. Because that is where life together begins, and where we learn to care and love.”
He then gives examples from the Torah of how family life is really the training ground for functioning as a responsible adult in society at large. It helps us deal with drives and forces that could lead us to oppress one another, if not properly managed, including:
Competition and rivalry:
“Sibling rivalry is a repeated theme of the Torah. The Psalm tells us “how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together.” It might have added, “and how rare.” Almost at the beginning of the human story, Cain kills Abel. There are tensions between Sarah and Hagar that led to Hagar and Ishmael being sent away. There is rivalry between Yaakov and Esav, and between Yosef and his brothers, in both cases coming close to murder.
Conflict:
“The family is where love brings new life into the world. That in itself makes it the most spiritual of all institutions. It is also where we have our most important and lasting moral education. To quote Harvard political scientist, the late James Q. Wilson, the family is “an arena in which conflicts occur and must be managed.” People within the family “love and quarrel, share and sulk, please and disappoint.” Families, he says, “are the world in which we shape and manage our emotions.”
Primal psychological attachments:
“The Torah guides us through areas that have been identified in the 20th century as the most important arenas of conflict. Freud saw the Oedipus complex – the desire to create space for yourself by removing your father – as one of the primary drivers of human emotion. Rene Girard saw sibling rivalry as a, perhaps the, source of human violence.”
“I have argued in the past that the story of the binding of Yitzchak is directed precisely at the Oedipus complex. God does not want Avraham to kill Yitzchak. He wants him to relinquish ownership of Yitzchak. He wants to abolish one of the most widespread beliefs of the ancient world, known in Roman law as the principle of Patria potestas, that parents own their children. Once this has gone, and children become legal personalities in their own right, then much of the force of the Oedipus complex is removed. Children have space to be themselves.”
“I have argued also that the story of Yaakov’s wrestling match with the angel is directed against the source of sibling rivalry, namely mimetic desire, the desire to have what your brother has because he has it. Yaakov becomes Israel when he ceases wanting to be Esav and stands tall as himself.”
In essence, the entire Book of Genesis is a series of accounts of how some very flawed people make family life work:
“So Genesis is not a hymn to the virtue of families. It is a candid, honest, fully worked through account of what it is to confront some of the main problems within families, even the best.”
‘Genesis ends on these three important resolutions: first, that grandparents are part of the family and their blessing is important. Second, Yaakov shows it is possible to bless all your children, even if you have a fractured relationship with some of them. Third, Yosef shows it is possible to forgive your family, even if they have done you great harm.”
And so the family becomes a threat to people who want government to be god:
“People who look to the state, politics and power, to deliver the good, the beautiful and the true – the Hellenistic tradition – tend to regard the family and all it presupposes in terms of fidelity and responsibility as a distraction. But for people who understand, not just the importance of politics but also its limitations and dangers, relationships between husband and wife, parent and child, grandparents and grandchildren, and siblings, are the most important basis of freedom. That is an insight that runs all the way through Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, summed up in his statement that “as long as family feeling was kept alive, the opponent of oppression was never alone.”
“James Q. Wilson put it beautifully: “We learn to cope with the people of this world because we learn to cope with the members of our family. Those who flee the family flee the world; bereft of the former’s affection, tutelage, and challenges, they are unprepared for the latter’s tests, judgements, and demands.”
“That, surprisingly, is what Genesis is about. Not about the creation of the world, which occupies only one chapter, but about how to handle family conflict. Once Avraham’s descendants can create strong families, they can move from Genesis to Exodus and their birth as a nation.”
“I believe that family is the birthplace of freedom. Caring for one another, we learn to care for the common good.”