...in our personal lives and in our communities, [we] can encounter a hostility, something dangerous; a poison which threatens to corrode what is good, reshape who we are and distort the person for which we have been created. Examples abound, as you yourselves know. Among the more prevalent are alcohol and drug abuse, and the exultation of violence and sexual degradation, often presented through television and the internet as entertainment. I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitations "explain" that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form are considered merely "entertainment?"
There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth. This is fuelled by the notion,. widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives. Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made "experience" all-important. Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair.
you can pretend they're restraining you.
