“What are you doing in our planet?” asked the Secretary of State. “Your planet? This is not your planet”, was the response of the alien interpreted by Keanu Reeves in the 2008 movie “The Day that the Earth Stood Still”. Later on, we learn that the extraterrestrial’s mission was to build a modern Noah’s Arch in order to save all other species on earth, while exterminating the humans, who were endangering the world with their pollutions.  Humans had had their chance, but now it was time for other species to rule the world.

The argument of the movie is not original, but the underlying ideology is more real than some may think. Probably not some ETs will come to punish us anytime soon, but the thought that the human race has become a danger and a liability to the world is now widely spread among academics and liberals.  If you combine radical environmentalists with those who have turned evolution into a modern godless religion, then the plot of the movie sounds like a logical scientific proposal.

According to the cult of evolution (which requires certain doses of faith) life is just a result of a happy coincidence and the human race is nothing but another link in a long chain of evolution. We are the dinosaurs of tomorrow. But, if we are just particles of stars’ dusts, as evolutionists would describe us, then there is nothing valuable or special about human beings. Maybe more scaring, there is nothing ethical about our actions, because we have no real freedom. We do what our genes tell us to do in order to survive and evolve, and nothing else.  David Berlinsky in his book The Devil’s Delusion quotes science writer Tom Bethell, saying that it is “an article of our secular faith that there is nothing exceptional about human life”.  We are just as important and meaningful as an ant or a cockroach (actually the cockroach might be more important, because it has been around longer, and has better survival chances). 

Also, the idea that some races are superior is a natural consequence of the scenario of constant fight for evolving and surviving. It is not a secret that Darwinism was an important source of inspiration for Nazism. But not only the Nazis tried to terminate what they believed were inferior races and get rid of the handicapped. Unfortunately, some followed a similar path on this side of the Atlantic that would ultimately leave 50 million victims and counting. Alan Sears and Craig Osten, in their excellent bookACLU vs. America, tell us that in 1964 lawyer Harriet Pilpel demonstrated interest in eugenics, in an effort to breed a “better human race”, by suppressing the birthrate of the handicapped, poor and minorities. She also spoke in favor of sterilization, particularly for the poor and underprivileged, and of course of abortion. We further read in ACLU vs. America that, testifying on behalf of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Pilpel said that severely restricting abortion would place an “enormous economic burden on the country” (this latest argument sounds alarmingly similar to the reason exposed by House Speaker Pelosi, when recently defending her initiative to allocate funds of the so called stimulus package to birth control). Once again, the underlying idea is that people can be a burden or a liability to the world, so the lucky ones can play God and reserve for themselves the right of admittance, and restrict the right to live of others.

Margaret H. Sanger, American socialist and founder of Planned Parenthood – and whom Hillary Clinton described as one of the most transformational figures in the entire history of the human race (see Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review) - was also a firm subscriber to eugenics as a way to eliminate social and racial problems and to achieve a better race. According to Carl H. Middleton in Great Quotations that Shaped the Western World, Sanger’s slogan was “more children from the fit, less from the unfit”.

I wonder, which is the difference between these thoughts and the Nazis’ ideology? The message is, again, that many should die, so that the better few can enjoy the world. But now, even those few chosen are at risk of becoming fewer and fewer. And this time, it is not for the benefit of the others, but worse, human life has to be limited for the benefit of the earth!

The Sunday Times of London recently quoted Jonathon Porrit, who chairs the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commission, stating that curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He went even further to state that couples having more than two children are being irresponsible by creating an unbearable burden on the environment.  Not only this would sound more reasonable coming from China or other communist regime, but it is also ironic, considering that Britain, as well as most of Europe, has a shrinking population, well below the so called replacement rate.  Are entire countries and populations going to sacrifice themselves, in the altar of the old pagan god “earth”?

In that case, how long would it take until another enlightened discovers that they are not the babies or the unborn those leaving the largest “carbon footprints”, but the elder people who, thanks to an expensive healthcare system, have managed to endure their “unproductive” retirements? After all, they have lived a long life, why not sacrifice for the benefit of those coming behind? Yes, I know that unborn babies cannot draft legislation or judicial opinions, but, as in the Nazi Germany, euthanasia seems to be making its way in our “civilized” world too.  David Berlinski quotes in The Devil’s Delusion the Journal of Medical Ethics, which in reviewing the case of Holland, where euthanasia is legalized, found out that in 1995, 3% of deaths were “assisted suicides”, and of those, fully one-fourth were involuntary. As a result, he adds, a great number of elder Dutch carry around sanctuary certificates indicating that they do not wish their doctors to “assist” them to die.

Not as drastic as this eco-fascist solutions, but radical and senseless nevertheless, I recently heard an “anti-obesity advocate” discussing in TV how obese people were using more natural resources, and therefore the government should be able to “intervene” (she used that exact word). One of the suggestions was that obese might have to pay for the extra burden of their medical care.

There is a same underlying thinking in all these radical positions and proposals, a common denominator. Unlike what has been assumed until the last century in the western world, the Judeo-Christian idea that men and women are at the center of the creation is now being dismissed as old fashioned by liberal elites and the academia. Therefore, the human kind has lost its special dignity, and we have been downgraded to just another animal inhabiting the world (actually some animal rights groups seem to believe that animals deserve more protection than people).  This is a real and unprecedented Copernican change. With our dignity lost, we have become more and more disposable and as useful as the trash that we recycle. The mindset of the modern western world has drastically changed.  Traditional values and virtues, such as sacrifice, hard work, honor, honesty, moderation, spirituality, frugality, are becoming démodé, in a world where selfishness, materiality, immediate gratification, success at any cost and “carpe diem” are the rule.  By the same token, the real meaning of charity has been replaced by this new snobby “adoration” of the earth, which includes closing its doors to generations to come.  There is an ironic twist to the old evolutionist theory that Darwin would have never anticipated.  Species were supposed to fight for the survival of their descendants.  What are we fighting for? our own destruction? Just as another example, the production of the new bio-fuels has increased the price of grains and the risk of hunger for the poorest countries.

The western civilization is in crisis, and if it wishes to survive, we need to recover our lost dignity of God’s creatures. We must beat relativism and rescue the notions of good and wrong, truth and error. We must find our bearing, follow the compass of the everlasting values, and accordingly set the right course.