|
Morning Reflection
February 3, 2026
Shouts and Whispers
“In his illuminating book The Revolt Against Humanity, poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch observes that a once-unthinkable proposal has begun to sound plausible in polite company: that humanity’s reign on earth may be nearing its end, and that rather than dreading our coming extinction, we should welcome it. Call this the anti-human: not a conscious hatred of people, but an Edenic whisper that the human condition—our limits, our dependencies, our vulnerabilities, our very mortality—can and should be treated as a defect to be dissected and corrected rather than a reality to be borne.”
Anne Snyder: Comment Magazine
Reflection by Peter Vanderveen
I have tired of the social and cultural battles that seem to energize so many others. I’m exhausted by them. They’ve become the constant din of everyday’s news: people shouting at, over, and past one another. I’ve often wondered how we got here.
Do we really have such intractable dislike and distrust of people who differ from us? This has never been my actual experience.
When I read Anne Snyder’s comment last week, the concluding sentence stopped me dead in my tracks. It was an epiphany of the first order – an insight that I have been groping after for years – and she delivered it: an “Edenic whisper.”
Whispers are often more powerful than shouts. They are more subtle and beguiling. The serpent in the original Garden of Eden wasn’t a carnival barker. Whispers suggest that inside information is being conveyed. And who could argue with that soft voice that inclines us to think that if we parse life into a large enough set of problems to be solved we could, eventually, claim victory and restore that mythic Eden where everything was in order and all was happiness?
Across the numerous divisions that are setting us against one another, the shared foundational conceit is that there is, indeed, a set of solutions to be identified and implemented. We are all racing to claim that there are answers to whatever troubles us. And since answers are primary, people are secondary. If people get in the way, they can and should be silenced or canceled or exiled or killed. And if this is acceptable for some, maybe this holds for all of us. Extinction isn’t out of bounds. It’s the whisper of the technological oligarchs who we assume are the problem solvers par excellence.
Let it be noted, however, that there’s not a single account in the Gospels of Jesus convening a conference of leaders and innovators and influencers to work out a solution to a problem. Had he had the opportunity, Jesus would probably have skipped Davos. He didn’t address problems. He didn’t look on the world or others with this frame of mind. The Gospel message is entirely different. It is that God has granted humanity an infinite value; God has chosen to bear with us, no matter what comes. How bold and beautiful this is. This is essence of living for all of us: not solving the problem of the human condition but caring for one another in the time we are given. This doesn’t fundamentally change the world; but more profoundly, it changes everything about how we see and experience the world.
| 
