Donald DeMarco:

“Dialogue” is a word that brings to mind fairness and respect for both sides of the debate. For the most part, however, it is a concerted attempt on the part of one side to achieve a triumphant monologue. In other words, certain people who propose dialogue use the word as camouflage to conceal their own intentions. 

I once taught a course in contemporary moral issues. The popular assumption is that there are two sides to every issue. It was my naïve belief that using foul language is an issue. I discovered, to my dismay, that my students insisted that since “everybody swears,” this is no longer an issue and they refused to discuss it. There was a time when it was an issue. We read in the New Testament that Christ turned to the crowd and said, “Hear and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” (Matthew 15:11). Are moral issues on a time line? 

In a sense, my students were right. Bad language is no longer regarded as bad. End of issue. From a personal point of view, however, I am saddened when strangers use blue language in my presence assuming that I do not find it objectionable. I feel kidnapped into a world where I do not belong. “Words are as beautiful as love, and as easily betrayed,” wrote the distinguished journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge. “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:26).

It was also difficult to present abortion as having two sides. This is a difficulty that all pro-life people encounter. Where is the “dialogue?” Pro-lifers are “fanatics” while pro-choice people defend women’s “rights.”

The 1993 movie, Indecent Proposal, almost never got off the ground. The plot centered on a wealthy man (played by Robert Redford) offering a married woman (played by Demi Moore) a million dollars to spend the night with him. Adultery, as we know, is proscribed in the Bible. But does $1 million make it acceptable? The producers felt that no married woman of any degree of common sense would pass up so much money for a single night of romance. Where is the tension, they asked? They were finally convinced that they might have a movie that would make money and produced it.

Bad language, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and other moral issues that at one time were “issues,” have been deemed as “settled.” My students wanted me to talk about the ozone layer, climate change, and the evils of capitalism. Dialogue lives on, but only as a word.

Joseph Sobran, former long-time senior editor of the National Review, weighs in on the subject: “It is one thing to take a controversial position, but another to pretend that it’s not even controversial. This is the new hypocrisy: the suppression of any admission that there can be two points of view even as we pretend that we are somewhat daring in taking one of them.” Swearing is said to be risqué, but why, if it is innocuous? Abortion is alleged to be a right, but why are women who have abortions credited with courage?

In one of his Western movies, actor, radio, and television personality, John Dehner asked, “Since when is it against the law to kill Indians.” In the mind of Dehner’s character, killing Indians was not an issue. In due time, it certainly became an issue. Ultimately it was settled, and for the right reason. To kill an Indian is homicide and subject to legal prosecution.

Moral issues go through stages within a particular culture. At one time they are controversial, at another time they are not controversial. They may vacillate from one to the other. They may shift from vice to virtue and back again to vice. Alexander Pope was mindful of this inconsistency. In his Essay on Man, he stated that, “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien. As to be hated, needs but to be seen.  Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face. We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”  Pope, no doubt, was not thinking about abortion when he wrote these lines. Nonetheless, they relate perfectly to it.

The mere fact that something is controversial does not make it good or bad. Moral values are grounded in the natural law, which does not change. And yet, even the natural law has become controversial. It belongs to the nature of the human being to want to go on living. Hence, homicide is a moral evil. Man has an innate desire to know the truth and to worship God. Therefore, opposing these inclinations is also against the natural law. Neither the natural law nor the nature of the human mind change. Consequently, the human mind in conformity with the natural law tells us what we should do and what we should not do.

Divorce was once considered anathema. Today it is commonplace and usually without recriminations. Neither time nor culture are barometers that tell is what is right.  The aim of dialogue is to determine what side of a controversy is most reasonable. Therefore, reason itself cannot be controversial. And yet, it is often supplanted by emotion.

Dialogue should not degenerate into monologue. Its Greek root helps us to grasp its meaning. Dia (and) logos means to follow the path of reason. Since reason is a universal faculty, we are all capable of genuine dialogue. To abandon reason is to abandon our humanity.