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That's colsoncenter.org slash May. Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Unlike a lot of his fellow atheist contemporaries who thought that moving past God would be an exercise in scientific and moral progress, 19th-century German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche was willing to push the implications of that as far as they could go. And then came French philosopher Michel Foucault.
the most widely cited source in all of Western academia. A student and an interpreter of Nietzsche, Foucault went even further in his imagination about what a world without God would look like, without moral absolutes, without fixed human identity. And in the living out of what he believed, Foucault basically was unparalleled. Foucault epitomized and encouraged the chaos of postmodernism in what he said and how he lived. In his writings, many of which are thoroughly and intentionally unreadable, he pushed the idea that education should be used as a tool of societal control, not just as a means of learning.
As he put it, quote, every educational system is a political means of maintaining or of modifying the appropriation of discourse with the knowledge and the powers it carries with it, end quote. And that was an inevitable application to education of his idea that reality is not fixed, but always socially constructed. The world, Foucault believed, is what we make it. Truth doesn't matter because it doesn't exist. There are only self-referential ideologies.
Now the consequences of Foucault's ideas and influence can be clearly seen across the West. Especially in a quite recent competition of news stories. On one hand, the recent exhaustive report. Describing what happened on October 7, 2023. The full revelations about Hamas's surprise attack on Israel include details so horrific.
I could not share them here. Not only were the slaughter and torture beyond what one would expect humanly possible, it was planned that way all along. As a CNN article about the report noted, the goal for Hamas wasn't resistance or the liberation of Palestine. It was, and I quote, to maximize pain and suffering. According to one of the report's authors, and I quote, the most important finding is the fact that the sexual violence on October 7th and against hostages in captivity has been a calculated strategy by Hamas.
Now, just before that report released, the New York Times published an op-ed by Nick Christoph. In it, he claimed that the Israelis were practicing sexual torture on their enemies. In contrast to the meticulous research of the report about Hamas, even people in his own newsroom expressed doubts about many of his claims, about his sources, and of course, about the timing of it all. Not to mention, the most dramatic of his accusations are basically anatomically impossible.
Now, those who find Christophe believable will likely discount the details of Hamas's atrocities that are contained in the report. While Christoph's sources were anonymous, the report sources were victims, and the live feed video. Videos from Hamas that were shared on social media.
However, trending narratives often supplant facts in today's world. In fact, they become facts for people already convinced of how the narrative should go. In a postmodern era, people are more willing to believe in the unbelievable because, as the academic disciples of Nietzsche and Foucault have been taught, There is no truth. There's only power.
Now, of course, there is more blame to go around, but we certainly would not be here without Michelle Foucault. In a backwards kind of way, he was right. Once we strip God or any sense of transcendence from life or reality, everything is up for grabs. Eternal concepts like truth, justice, and morality have no meaning. They're only tools to be wielded in service of an agenda.
Ben Shapiro famously says that facts don't care about your feelings.
Well, the mark of a world shaped by postmodern ideas is that feelings don't care about pesky things like facts. Truth is a victim of these bad ideas, and so are the people who count on the truth. to know what's good and what's real. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Dr.
Timothy Padgett. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources or to share this commentary with others, go to breakpoint.org. America is celebrating 250 years of freedom this year. Our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom are asking you to take this opportunity to pray for America.
From our country's founding, Americans have been praying people. In every season, Christians have turned to God for wisdom and guidance.
Now, America could use our prayers again. ADF is inviting you to commit to five days of prayer for America this year, thanking God for how He's blessed us and asking Him to equip us for the future. When you sign up, you'll receive daily messages over the next five days with specific prompts and encouragements about how you can be in prayer for our country. Commit to Pray for America today. Visit joinadf.com/slash breakpoint to sign up or text Pray250 to 838-48.
