ESSAYS

FREEDOM AND THE ALLURE OF TOTALITARIANISM

This essay is the first in a series of reflections on memory, conscience, freedom, loyalty, and the temptations of certainty. These themes also lie at the heart of my forthcoming novel, The Whisper of Falling Snow (July 2026), a work of literary speculative fiction concerned with the preservation of human dignity under ideological pressure.

Many of us have spent years listening to pundits on the news and in the classroom sharing often deep, well-thought-out analyses of the multiple crises facing our globalized civilization. Too many of us have experienced the lived reality of an extended family sundered by arguments over political and social values. Holiday gatherings have become the front lines in familial civil wars. The alienation of everyday people from one another over who they voted for in the last election, which political party they support, and their opinions on who gets to play on what sports team has led me to wonder if we are not, in fact, on the verge of something larger and more terrible. We have all been pulled into the cyclone of debate over the nature and meaning of freedom and the limits, if any, that may be imposed on it. Yet exactly what is this contentious thing called freedom?

In my experience, freedom is, first and foremost, a habit of the mind, even a matter of faith. It requires a high tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity, and imperfect outcomes. A free mind thrives best in a civil society; it requires a spirit of inquiry, respects the rights of others, and honors public debate. I’ve come to see democracy, liberty’s political expression, as a messy business that many find exhausting—especially in times of sustained anxiety, social tension, and political and cultural polarization. I have become convinced that freedom does not die from hate, but out of fear. Freedom dies from fear.

Our natural disposition, though, seems to prefer certainty, clarity, and agreement. Most of us seek peace in our homes, harmony among friends, and cooperation in our work. Conflict wears us down. It exhausts us and makes us less likely to be sympathetic to opposing points of view. We are, by nature, social beings, and in perilous times, we draw together for mutual protection. “There is safety in numbers,” the old saying goes, and there is wisdom in it. Yet there is danger in it, too. Open minds may swiftly close in a densely packed crowd.

We do not debate the merits of an opposing team while in the heat of a game. Under fire, soldiers do not ponder the origins of war. We are disinclined to grant grace to those who seem to belittle our most deeply held beliefs. The very people with whom we may once have had fruitful disagreements become odious to us when their ideas are associated with persons and political causes that we find morally deplorable. Our feelings may be justifiable, but they also hold a paradox. A desire for moral purity that excludes others whose ideas also deserve careful and respectful consideration is troubling, regardless of our political, social, or religious convictions. It approaches the line of strident righteousness that marks the boundary between the natural desire to do the right thing and the adamancy of unyielding dogmatism, the hallmarks of totalitarian habits of mind.

While the loss of a championship game is unlikely to leave lasting scars, war often does. Soldiers may return carrying memories of things they have witnessed, suffered, or done that can haunt them for the rest of their lives. The death of a beloved pet may bring sorrow; the loss of a child can alter the course of a life. A local election may disappoint us. A national election, fought amid profound moral and political divisions, may shake our confidence in the future itself.

The point is not to compare griefs or injuries, but to recognize that stress comes in degrees. The greater the shock—and the more persistent its effects—the more likely it is to alter established habits of mind and heart. Individuals change under pressure. So do nations.

The English Civil War (1642-1651/1660) put to rest the idea of Absolute Monarchy in Great Britain and established a Constitutional Monarchy with the rudiments of Parliamentary democracy. The American Civil War forever outlawed slavery, fully established the supremacy of the federal system, and continued the slow but steady expansion of democracy across racial, sexual, and class lines. Alternate histories are written about what might have emerged had Absolute Monarchy or Quasi-theocratic Republicanism fully triumphed in Britain. Likewise, the success of the Confederacy in the American Civil War (1861-65) would have created not only a virulently racist regime (even if the slaves were eventually freed), but also, perhaps, a less democratic remnant of the United States, and a host of international disputes that we can only imagine. The real-world outcomes in England and America promoted the success of liberty and democracy in both places. Change the results of a couple of battles, and we would be living in a very different world.

Real people, real battles, hundreds of thousands of lives, were caught up in struggles to expand freedom and establish democracies. The results were often unclear, ambiguous, uncertain, and imperfect for those who lived through them and for the generations that came after. We are those people; we are the inheritors of those struggles and many others. Our individual and collective habits of mind have been shaped by them.

This leads me to further thoughts about habits of mind: they are not uniform and, when threatened, they may change. Lovers of freedom develop a broad tolerance of others, but what if the lovers of freedom become polarized into two (or more) seemingly irreconcilable worldviews? Are some ideas truly intolerable, so morally corrupt that they cannot be debated in good faith? Are there ideological limits to freedom? Who gets to decide which version is right and by what means? This is where, to me, the allure of totalitarianism seems most dangerous. Once we start determining that certain ideas and beliefs are beyond the pale of discussion, coercive habits of mind become tempting. Confusion and exhaustion from endless debates over concepts once unimaginable can lead to ugly reactions.

Are there warning signs that free habits of mind and social order are in trouble? If so, what are they? I was tempted to create a list, but I think that, once again, history offers an incomplete but useful paradigm.

The story of Germany over the first half of the twentieth century is an example of a society that moved from the position of a young but dynamic democracy-in-process to a brutally racist, warmongering dictatorship. While the Kaiser and his appointed Chancellor held immense executive powers, the legislative branch (Reichstag) consisted of numerous parties, ranging from left-wing Marxists to right-wing Nationalists, with a healthy set of centrist parties in between. Rapid industrialization was accompanied by a surge in the size of the leftist parties, but not enough for any faction to rule alone. The center was essential to forming a government and fluctuated between left- and right-wing partners, acting as a moderating influence. Following defeat in the First World War, vast numbers of returning soldiers, many severely injured and alienated from the social order, flooded the cities. Harsh retributive reparations caused the economy to flounder and collapse, the rise of partisan militias brought chaos in the streets, and the liberal republican form of government was increasingly threatened as left-wing Marxist factions and right-wing Nationalists squeezed out the middle. The results are too well known to have to continue. Fear for the country’s future, the hyperpolarization of society, and the eventual appointment of Hitler to the most powerful political office spelled the end of a democratic polity. Elections played a huge role in the process.

There are parallels, but also profound differences between the German example and our own times. History never fully repeats itself. Rather than giving us a blueprint for the collapse of a democratic society, the twentieth-century German tragedy provides us with a good model for what happens when habits of mind favoring (or at least tolerating) the ambiguities and often unsolvable puzzles of democracy are replaced by habits of mind demanding the certainties and state-policed unity of totalitarianism. The German people, exhausted and afraid, for the most part, chose to place themselves under the authority of a political system that promised an end to civil disorder, a pathway to economic security, a restoration of national honor, and a sense of safety for the majority of its citizens. Liberty was extinguished, and freedom died of fear. It was, by and large, a conscious decision by voters.

Where does this leave us? I have no real answer other than to give pause while we still have time to pause. Twenty-first-century America is not twentieth-century Germany. Our political system is more robust, and our democratic traditions are still strong, but there are also real indications that our society, our democracy, and our habits of mind favoring freedom are under duress.

And yet, there is still hope. Many of us are quite aware of the strains on our political and social order, and while we may disagree on exactly what we need to do, most of us are not ready to hand our republic over to the rule of tyrants. Hyperbole aside, few of us really believe we are living under a dictatorship, nor are we inclined to find ultimate answers from the most radical and least democratic players in the halls of political power. We may be stressed, we may even be afraid at times, but we are, as a whole, far from ready to be deprived of the blessings of liberty. So long as we pay heed to the warning signs of potential dangers ahead and hold fast to the messy, uncertain, ambiguous, and often frustrating thing called freedom, there is still hope. Hope, too, is a habit of mind and perhaps the best indicator that the will to be free and to honor the freedom of our fellow citizens is still alive in us.

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Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing further reflections on memory, resistance, the concrete reality of what happens when human beings are reduced to utility, and the power of love and forgiveness in the face of political, psychological, and spiritual oppression.

Thank you for your time. I’d love to hear what you think.

MEMORY AS RESISTANCE

This essay is the second in a series of reflections on memory, conscience, freedom, loyalty, and the temptations of certainty. These themes also lie at the heart of my forthcoming novel, The Whisper of Falling Snow (July 2026), a work of literary speculative fiction concerned with the preservation of human dignity under ideological pressure.

The first things to go are the names: streets, buildings, cities, and towns. The images go next: statues, pictures, movies. Then come the books, public records, school curricula, and finally the language itself, altered until familiar words no longer mean what they once did. The totalitarian state, the totalitarian habit of mind, requires the excision of dangerous memories—and their replacement with new ones.

Those who choose not to forget, who choose not to accept the alteration of what was, are reckoned as enemies, perhaps even the greatest of them all, because they call into account the new rendering of truth. They refuse to bury the past. They refuse to lie.

In the Soviet Union, during the 1920s and 1930s, a whole nation was subject to the blatant removal not only of the names and symbols of the former Russian Empire but also of some of the greatest leaders of the new Revolution. One of the first signs of the emerging new order was the literal erasure of newfound Enemies of the People. Those who had fallen out of favor with the dictator, Joseph Stalin, disappeared from photographs of the leadership and were stricken from references in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, denounced as spies and counterrevolutionaries. Students were instructed to ink out whole sections from their textbooks. It was an extraordinarily public act of denying reality, devoid of even the pretense of truth. Millions of people were made to forget—chose to forget—the evidence of their own eyes.

Why would millions engage in such a palpable ruse? The obvious answer is that fear of the consequences of not going along was stronger than any moral compulsion to tell the truth.

The outrageous behaviors of the Soviet state during the great purges of the twentieth century are an example of mass self-indoctrination, but what of the frightened silences of our own times? The brutal punishments of those who dissented from the culture of lies back then are one thing, but what of the far less bloody forms of social, political, and cultural exclusion of today’s dissenters across the globe?

And yet, who would argue against the removal of reminders of the shameful past, or the silencing of opinions that would have us hold on to them? How do we distinguish the suppression of the past by egomaniacal tyrants and the removal of the tokens of repression and disgrace from our own? No one willingly broadcasts their own shame in public or eulogizes the most outrageous behaviors of their own family or People. We needn’t be a Stalin to recognize that sometimes the best course of action is to leave behind unsavory memories of the past.

The question is whether or not the suppression of memory is the same as forgetting. The children who blacked out whole sections from their textbooks may have forgotten exactly who was under the ink, but they could hardly forget that it was someone dangerous. The adults who had watched as former heroes disappeared from newspaper photographs might not admit they’d ever been there, even to themselves. The millions who participated in state-enforced amnesia might not dare to say so aloud, but the pretense of forgetting came at a cost. The psychic stress of the experiment in compulsory mass forgetting during the harshest period of Stalin’s purges rendered memory itself suspect. When every reminiscence—even among trusted family members—has to be weighed before being shared, and the cost of making a mistake could destroy not only oneself, but dozens of others by association, then the past is too dangerous to revisit, and memory dies in silence.

How does this speak to us, here and now? Street names have been changed, statues have come down, state flags have been redesigned. Public school and college curricula have undergone radical rehauling in many places. Even so, it can hardly be said that we live in a full-blown dictatorship. Our times may be politically fraught, but saying the wrong thing in public or at a family gathering will not cost us our lives. The names that have been changed, the images that have been removed or destroyed, were often reminders of the suppression of millions of people because of their race. Curriculum overhauls have been done to widen the spectrum of knowledge to include new voices and new understandings of history, the arts, and literature. And yet there is something disquieting afoot. Our collective memory is being altered, and our perception of who we are is changing—often, but not always, for the better.

How do we respond to the new state of affairs we find ourselves in? How do we know what to embrace and when to resist? It is one thing to critique another society nearly a century ago; it’s another to live in the midst of our own. Part of this has to do with the scope of the differences between the 1930s and the 2020s. We are no longer dealing with a primarily print society. The emergence of the internet, social media, and the accelerant of Artificial Intelligence have increased the pace of change and molded opinions at a speed that is orders of magnitude greater than in the past. The challenge is to discern what is of lasting import from what is ephemeral and to distinguish what is true from what is not. To do this, we must have a reliable scale of measure.

There are three measures without which there can be no reliable criteria for truth. The first is the ultimate value of the human person; the second is a political and juridical system that, however imperfectly, attempts to uphold the first; and the third is the reference point of a long history of moral reflection, correction, and gradual expansion of human liberty. It requires a degree of faith, not necessarily religious, and a respect for long-established norms that have been adopted and adapted across widely varying cultures. It asks and attempts to answer whether truth can be known in the first place, whether political and legal systems can act justly and impartially, and whether imperfect human beings can live them out morally, individually, and corporately. Ultimately, it asks whether human beings and societies can move, however slowly, toward a universal application of fundamental, inalienable rights.

Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder whose slaves were ultimately sold and scattered to pay off his debts, wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” We might justly accuse him of hypocrisy, but we cannot reject the fundamental truth of his words. The point is that Jefferson was elucidating a philosophical idea with roots in three or more thousand years of metaphysical, moral, and ethical reasoning. He did not make it up on the spot, and his personal moral failings cannot erase its importance in the ongoing advancement of human dignity.

Thomas Jefferson is but one in a long line of philosophers, deliberately chosen in spite of his outrageous failure to act out the implications of his own beliefs. He is an example of how important memory is to human flourishing. Memory, in the broadest sense, serves as the means by which we can reliably judge whether a project tends toward good or evil, and how it upholds the first and resists the second. It does not demand perfection from any individual or group, nor does it tolerate the degradation of any person or People. Memory does not call for existential purity; it does not seek the creation of a perfect society or of perfect human beings. In fact, it resists exactly the purism and utopianism that have led to so much suffering and degradation throughout human history. The establishment of a truly just and moral social order is a work in progress, not the foundation of the reign of heaven on earth.

The first thing to return when a totalitarian regime is overthrown is the recollection of names and places, and of the silent resistance of millions over the years who refused to forget. The images come next, transformed to meet new conditions. Then the arts and education, habits of mind that contribute to human flourishing, released from the thrall of ideology. Finally comes the recollection that words have substance and meaning, of the literary tradition, carried on in the shadows and transfigured through suffering into something greater. It is at this point that a profound choice has to be made: to pursue and punish the perpetrators of past repression, or their descendants, or to demand accountability but also reconciliation.

Memory as resistance is grounded in reality and truth. It consists of the intention to do right and good, hand in hand with tangible results. It is a habit of mind that seeks what is true and beautiful. It is the moral response to past and present wrongs. Resistance alone, however, is insufficient for the long-term maintenance of a good person or a just society. There must also be justice and its often-ignored partner, mercy. Truth requires acknowledgment of wrongs done and accountability from the wrongdoers, but justice without mercy and accountability without forgiveness only lead to further rounds of injury and deeper divisions within an already wounded society.

Forgiveness, not forgetfulness, is key to healing past wrongs. Forgiving is not forgetting; it is the healing of wounds and an act of love. This applies to everything from personal and familial injuries to communal wounds. It is a process, not an endpoint, and it requires the conscious willingness to work out the grief and grievances of the past. It is the lowering of pointed fingers and softening of contemptuous faces. While there may be legal and political ramifications to the process, ultimately, it is personal. Two of the most extraordinary examples of this happening in deeply traumatized societies occurred in Africa in the late twentieth century. In Rwanda and South Africa, systems were set up where the perpetrators of crimes against humanity could acknowledge their guilt and seek forgiveness or amnesty. The results were mixed, but the conscious attempt to heal terrible wounds, often between neighbors, avoided the real possibility of further civil strife and uncontrolled revenge. In Rwanda, in particular, society had to deal with hundreds of thousands of brutal murders of one ethnic faction against the other, committed by neighbors, sometimes even by family members. The process of healing and forgiveness was hard and often incomplete, but it did much to permit the rise of a new sense of belonging based not on ethnic identity but on a shared national belonging. The healing process in Rwanda will take generations and will require frequent renewal, but it is a symbol of hope that even the most egregious wounds can be healed if all parties desire it.

Memory as resistance ultimately ends in hope, the hope that there is a way out of the darkness and pain inflicted by totalitarianism, ethnic violence, and ancient wrongs that were never acknowledged. If there is one truth that needs to be broadcast in hurting relationships, families, and wider society, it is that there is still hope; human beings and societies are capable of growth. Resistance demands the acknowledgment and resolution of the harms we have done to others and those we have endured from others. Forgiveness and hope light the path beyond.

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Thank you for your time. I’d love to hear what you think.

ARE SOME HUMANS MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS?

Can a society that values human rights measure the value of individual human beings according to their usefulness?

This essay is the third in a series of reflections on memory, conscience, freedom, loyalty, and the temptations of certainty.

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“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” — George Orwell, Animal Farm.

What does it mean to say that all humans are created equal and endowed with certain ‘inalienable’ rights simply because they are human? Does the question stand up to close scrutiny, or is it simply a form of wishful thinking—quasi-religious hyperbole?

Almost every society makes distinctions between classes of people and the individuals within them. Insurance companies determine insurance costs using metrics such as age, health, and occupation.

Hospital emergency rooms operate on a triage system; the most critical cases are taken first. A person having a heart attack or gravely injured in an accident will be taken before the one who is suffering from flu symptoms. The person with flu symptoms and a high fever will be taken before another person with symptoms but no fever.

The militaries of most countries have stringent age, health, and strength requirements for acceptance under most circumstances. Universities require advanced degrees when hiring faculty. Sports teams reward the most talented members with the highest salaries. Corporations reward their employees based on their ability to increase profits.

There are many other examples, but the same general methods, with variations depending on culture and political ideology, apply to virtually every component of for-profit economies and state-controlled economies alike. Humans are constantly making distinctions between other humans, favoring one individual over another based on metrics particular to the situation at hand.

Very few readers will disagree with the idea that, at least in some situations, choices must be made when emergency room resources are limited or when positions for specialized work require a specific level of education and training. Eliminating triage in an emergency room in favor of a “first-come, first-served” policy would constitute medical malpractice. Putting poorly educated and untrained personnel in teaching positions would wreak harm to students. CEOs ignorant of the basics of the corporations they lead would have economic repercussions that would negatively affect the economy. This is basic common sense.

If we are constantly making hierarchical distinctions between people, many of them based on an individual’s value to society, then what’s wrong with saying “not all human beings are equal,” when we can demonstrate in so many ways that they are not? Here lies the conundrum for societies that enshrine human equality as an inalienable philosophical and political fact. If equality is more than a metaphysical hope — if it is a concrete right — we have to face this problem head-on. If we fail to do so, we risk reducing the measure of human worth entirely to the metrics of usefulness (utility).

It is one thing to say that an individual or group of individuals (doctors, professors, scientists, leaders) does work that is of greater social value than another; it is another to say certain persons or professions are ipso facto more valuable than others in terms of personal worth. Or is it? Some thinkers would say there is no equality between those who contribute and those who don’t. The first are obviously more valuable than the second; value and worth are measurable. Let’s briefly examine this as philosophy and in historical application.

First, we must accept that the philosophers, sociologists, technicians, and ideologists who hold to rigorously utilitarian applications of social and personal worth do not do so out of malice or contempt for other human beings. Their fundamental goal is Jeremy Bentham’s famous axiom, “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Their practical application of Marx’s axiom, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” might best be rephrased as, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their usefulness/utility.”

Peter Singer, a prominent utilitarian philosopher and (now emeritus) professor of bioethics at Princeton University, is one of the best-known voices advocating clear and logical measurements (metrics) of human worth. Singer—and numerous others in his field—hold that the morally right path is to allocate limited resources according to measurable standards based not on generalized human rights but on specific ones based on ‘personhood’ and quality of life. The corollary of a person’s capacity for usefulness/utility in contributing to the betterment of the whole is either implied or explicitly stated, depending on circumstances. Put simply, some humans are of more concrete value/worth than others. In some cases, the implication becomes a matter of life and death, not out of hardness of heart but from compassion for both individuals and society as a whole. For example, in this worldview, or habit of mind, it is not compassionate to permit a person who has little or no chance of attaining/regaining self-awareness, and/or who is suffering from serious physical illnesses or defects, to live. Nor is it compassionate towards the larger society to expend limited resources and funds in an attempt to lengthen the lives of persons in those conditions.

The practical, real-life applications of this philosophy can be found in the QALY metrics in the UK (and elsewhere) and the Groningen Protocols in the Netherlands. While major physical and cognitive defects are very often detected prior to birth and aborted, newborn humans with Down syndrome and other profound physical and cognitive disabilities may be euthanized with parental permission and medical advice under some circumstances. The euthanizing of adults suffering from terminal illnesses or incapacitating mental conditions is becoming increasingly legal in the West, first as assisted suicide, then as active voluntary euthanasia. In the case of infants, young children, and the elderly with late-stage dementia, where voluntary assent cannot be given, the permission of relatives or the advice of medical personnel may allow for technically involuntary mercy-killing. We are not speaking here of mass killings of unwilling victims by atrocious regimes like the Nazis, but of a kinder, gentler form of death, and for many, this is a sufficient distinction. There is anecdotal evidence of social and clinical pressure to abort or euthanize in these societies.

The introduction of social credit points in places like the People’s Republic of China, based on political and social utility, and the use of Consumer Surplus and LTV (Lifetime Value) Scores, FinTech, and Alternative Credit Scoring algorithms based on financial and social risk in the West, has extended the healthcare applications of utility into much broader strata of society. In both systems, individual persons are rated from high to low with consequences that vary between systems.

The Chinese system is enforced by the Chinese Communist Party and the government. High-utility citizens receive a broad range of services and privileges; people on the lowest rung are entitled to basic services but are denied the right to travel abroad and to attend higher-echelon schools. The American version of social utility is not government-enforced and goes under different acronyms. Apart from overtly political metrics, the results for high and low ratings are similar in many respects to those of the Chinese system. Credit ratings determine access to financial resources; High User Utility ratings determine access to customer service, hidden discounts, and other benefits; Low Utility results in the opposite. Deplatforming — the cutting off of credit by banks and credit card institutions when tied to social behavior or ties to objectionable organizations — is most like the system in place in the PRC, though its amorphous nature and the right to appeal for legal redress greatly limit its scope.

The point here is not to enter into an in-depth analysis of socio-political-economic metrics used to determine the value/worth/utility of a person or group of people, but to point out that their mere existence greatly impinges on concepts of human equality. Theory becomes practice with the backing of governments, health insurance, banks, credit, and the incredible power of algorithms to determine who deserves benefits and who may be denied them. It is easy to see the potentially dystopian implications.

Is there a way to mitigate such a future, one brought on not by the desire to do harm, but quite the opposite, the intent to do the greatest good for the greatest number?

Perhaps the way out is found in a story from Peter Singer’s own life. When Singer’s mother, Cora, was diagnosed with advanced dementia, he and his sister faced a number of options. Together, they chose to provide their mother with the best possible care at a cost of many thousands of dollars a year. Singer recognized the tension between his actions and the strict application of his philosophy. He did not renounce his philosophy but recognized the power of emotional bonds. Though he did not say so, I think this is where two different ways of knowing, two habits of being, come together.

Habits of the mind and habits of the heart, often mistakenly opposed to one another, operate with distinct criteria, distinct metrics—to continue with a term we’ve been using in this essay. One tends toward theory, the other toward experience; one is intellectual, the other is incarnate, that is, having to do with the intimacies of living in the flesh with others. If we sunder the connection between these two forms of knowing, these two habits of being, we cripple ourselves. On a larger scale, the separation of habits of the mind and habits of the heart can and does lead to a crippling of the social order. The danger of a society based on feelings alone lies in the tendency toward superstition and hysteria. A society built solely on intellect, though, will become monstrous; the real danger of utilitarianism run wild is the reduction of individual human beings to data points, atoms in a depersonalized mass.

This is where we bring things down to the personal level and affirm human equality on its most fundamental level—the place where the individual person intersects with the communal or societal whole. It begins with the most basic relationships, the building blocks of the larger social order: family, friendship, and, for many, a sense of or connection to the transcendent. Put simply, it is about the bonds of love, which have their own set of metrics every bit as rigorous as those of utility. The love parents feel toward a child whose utility is at most potential falls into this category; if that love is directed toward a child whose potential is severely limited, it speaks even more powerfully.

Love, in this sense, may not be logical in the utilitarian sense, but it is a hallmark of being human. It has its own logic and is fundamental to the creation of compassionate individuals and to the creation and maintenance of compassionate societies where human beings thrive at the most basic level—as persons. It does not deny utilitarian values, but it does set limits to them. It recognizes triage in the emergency room as much a matter of justice and love as it is of clinical practice. Among some species, a sick member of the herd may be left behind to the predators; many birds will push a deformed hatchling out of the nest. We don’t do that—we oughtnot do that—even when the utility/usefulness of one of our own is negligible. The advancement of the gifted does not require the humiliation of the deprived. These are fundamental values of a sane, healthy, and human family, whether at the smallest level or the largest. How we tend to the least is the sign of what we will become as a whole.

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The themes of memory, conscience, freedom, loyalty, and the temptations of certainty also lie at the heart of my novel, The Whisper of Falling Snow (July 21, 2026), a work of literary speculative fiction concerned with the preservation of human dignity under ideological pressure.