We are marked from the day of our birth with an end date; all is indeed vanity. To forget our mortality is thus to lose something human, to become inhuman.
From O’Brien’s perspective, Christian civilization and the Church are failing in critical ways, inducing a sense of collective kenosis, and the temptation to social despair. The raw pain of collective suffering puts supernatural hope to the test.
To label one’s opponents as ‘antidemocratic’ may make rhetorical sense, but if the values held as sacred have no foundation besides being considered so by the majority, they will inevitably fail when significant minorities beg to differ.
