This Feature presents a reading of an article by Margaret Harper McCarthy titled “The Emperor’s (New) New Clothes: The Logic of the New ‘Gender Ideology’.” She argues that there is a dark nihilism embedded in current assumptions about the idea of “gender.” In the name of freedom, the self is redefined as free from any generative or generous relations. What is needed to counter this destructive idea is a recovery of the full Christian account of the generosity of God in the genesis of all things. The article was published in 2019 in the journal Communio, and is available in pdf form on the journal’s website.
68 minutes
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More to hear . . .
The Supreme Court is currently considering arguments it heard last month in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In the Sixth Circuit Court’s decision on this case — which turned on the truthfulness of the concept of “gender identity” — a number of contestable philosophical assumptions were made about human nature. Will the Supreme Court also disregard philosophy, science, and common sense and make its declarations about the meaning of the human the absolute definer of truth? That’s the question asked by a brief submitted to the Court about the issues raised in this case. A copy of the brief is available here. Ken Myers talks with Margaret Harper McCarthy, one of the authors of this brief, about the philosophical and practical implications of fashionable notions of the meaning of gender.
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