In CWR
German sociologist Gabriele Kuby has been warning the public about
threats to society and dangers to the Catholic Faith for years. She
has warned of the excesses of the cultural revolution of 1968,
offered a critique of the ideology of feminism, and warned of the
destructive effects of the sexual revolution. But what makes her
especially qualified to speak about such matters is that she herself
was a revolutionary soixante-huitard before
converting to the Catholic Faith in 1997.
Born
in Konstanz, Germany, in 1944, Kuby studied sociology in Berlin and
completed her Master’s degree in Konstanz under Ralf Dahrendorf in
the late 1960s. For several decades before her conversion, she
dabbled in esoteric material and worked as a translator and
interpreter. Her first book, Mein Weg zu Maria—Von der Kraft
lebendigen Glaubens (My Way to Maria—by the Power of the
Living Faith), published by Bertelsmann Verlag in 1998, is a diary of
her encounter with Christ and her life-changing conversion.
Since
then she has published ten other books about faith and spirituality,
the 1968 cultural revolution, feminism, gender and sexuality, and how
to find hope through a reaffirmation of Christian values.
Kuby is
a frequent lecturer in Germany and around Europe, and has written for
numerous print and on-line publications in Europe, including the Die Tagespost in Germany, Vatican
Magazin in Germany, and www.kath.net.
She has also been a guest on talk shows aired by German public
service broadcasters ARD and ZDF, as well as global television
network EWTN.
In
2012, Kuby’s latest book, Die globale sexuelle Revolution:
Zerstörung der Freiheit im Namen der Freiheit (The Global
Sexual Revolution: Destruction of Freedom in the Name of
Freedom), was published by Fe-Medienverlag
in 2012. Recently, she spoke with Catholic World Report about
her book, her work, and today’s dangerous challenges to the Faith.
CWR:
What has most influenced your intellectual development?
Gabriele
Kuby: My lifelong search for truth. My father, Erich Kuby, was a
left-wing writer and journalist. That set me on the path of the 1968
student rebellion and eventually led to the study of sociology in
West Berlin. But to me, neither Communism nor feminism, nor the
sexual revolution, was convincing—especially given the gap between
human reality and the ideals proclaimed by these groups. So I soon
moved on.
After a
direct experience of God in 1973, I began to search for God on paths
where you can’t find Him: esoterics and psychology. For twenty
years I worked as a translator in these fields. And I moved through
the ideological currents of our time—which made it very difficult
to walk through the door of the Church and discover the treasures she
offers. But eventually, in 1997, I did. Since then, I have been
writing books on spiritual matters and socio-political issues.
CWR:
Last September, you published The Global Sexual Revolution:
Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom.Why
did you write this book? What has been the response?
Gabriele
Kuby: After my conversion, it became increasingly clear to me
that the deregulation of sexual norms is at the front lines of
today’s cultural war. So, in 2006, I published my first book on the
topic: Gender Revolution: Relativism in Action. This was,
in fact, one of the first books to shed light on a hidden agenda.
As I
continued to watch developments in our society, I felt a need to show
the whole picture. This is what I have tried to do in The Global
Sexual Revolution.
The
book has had three editions within a few months, although the
mainstream media have ignored it. In German we have the expression
totschweigen, which means “silencing something to death.”
But it doesn’t seem to have worked! The book has been published in
Poland and Croatia, and will be published in Hungary and Slovakia
this autumn. And there are ongoing negotiations with publishers in
other countries, too.
On
September 31, 2012, I had the privilege of putting the book into the
hands of Pope Benedict XVI, who then said to me, “Thank God that
you speak and write.” This is a great encouragement!
CWR:
What is the main message of the book?
Gabriele
Kuby: That the deregulation of sexual norms leads to the
destruction of culture. Why? Because, as established in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the family is the basic unit of
society—and it needs some basic moral conditions in which to
thrive.
But
children—brought up today in a hyper-sexualized society in which
they themselves are sexualized by the entertainment industry, the
media, and mandatory school programs—are increasingly unable to
become mature adults that are up to the demands of marriage, and the
obligations of responsible fatherhood and motherhood.
Furthermore,
such a hyper-sexualized society cannot do without contraception and
abortion. And the outcome of all this is the “culture of death,”
a term coined by John Paul II.
CWR:
Your book is subtitled, The Destruction of Freedom in the
Name of Freedom. What do you mean by that?
Gabriele
Kuby: In the wake of the dictatorships of the 20th
century, and after a few centuries of the philosophical glorification
of the individual, the highest value in our time is “freedom.”
The deregulation of sexual norms has been “sold” to people as
part of this freedom.
But
what happens if you do not control and master the sexual drive? You
become a slave of that powerful drive—a sex addict who is
constantly on the prowl for sexual satisfaction. And as Plato already
showed 2,400 years ago, this leads to tyranny.
Of
course, this is all a rather complex process. But a simple thought
can make it readily apparent: If people live in a culture where they
lose sight of self-giving love—and, instead, use each other
for sexual satisfaction—they will use others for anything that
satisfies their needs. The only limits will be determined by how much
power an individual has. And the ensuing social chaos produced by
such sexual deregulation eventually calls for ever more control by
the state.
CWR:
But doesn’t real freedom mean being able to live without any rules,
norms, mores, or laws?
Gabriele
Kuby: Freedom is, indeed, a fundamental human value. The freedom
of the will is one of the essential differences between man and
animals. Even God respects our freedom and allows us to destroy
ourselves—and our world.
But
freedom can only be realized if it is related to truth—the truth of
man, the truth of the relationship, the truth of the situation. Jesus
says “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Freedom depends
on people who take responsibility for the consequences of their
actions on themselves and on others.
In
every society, the achievement and preservation of freedom is a
battle that can only be fought by mature human beings—people who
have realized an inner freedom within themselves. The idea that
“freedom” means the ability to do what we like is adequate for a
three-year-old child but not for those beyond that age.
CWR:
In Chapter XV, you say: “Man is born an egoist. But he must be
taught virtue.” Can you elaborate on this?
Gabriele
Kuby: A new-born baby cries when he feels any dissatisfaction;
and for a year or two, parents should, as best they can, give the
baby the experience of Paradise: immediate and total satisfaction.
But very soon, as the child grows up, he leaves that Paradise and has
to learn that there are other people around him who also have needs,
and that there is good and bad in the world—this, the child knows
intrinsically.
This
means that the ability to choose good requires self-control—and the
ability to renounce small satisfactions in order to achieve a greater
aim. Sociologists call this a “deferred gratification pattern.”
But it must be learned or taught in children. And more than anything
else, children learn from the example of their parents, whatever that
example may be. Lucky are those children who learn virtue by the
virtuous example of their parents.
CWR:
You make extensive references to Aldous Huxley’s 1931 classic,
Brave New World. Why?
Gabriele
Kuby: It’s amazing to read Huxley’s prophetic work today! In
Brave New World, people are produced in bottles; they are
collectively conditioned to be “happy” by the media and
psycho-pharmaceuticals; children entertain themselves with sex, like
everybody else; and everything is controlled by “Ford (Our Lord).”
While
Huxley had originally conceived of his utopia 600 years into the
future, by 1949 he saw it happening within a century. At that time
there was no artificial insemination, no prenatal selection, no
surrogate mothers, no genetic manipulation, no “parent 1” and
“parent 2.” But it took less than fifty years for all that
“progress” to occur!
For
Huxley, there was no reason why the new totalitarianism should
resemble the old. He was aware that a dictator will give more sexual
freedom—the more political and economic freedom is restricted. He
knew that the real revolution happens “in the souls and bodies of
people.”
CWR:
How is it that human beings have gained so many new rights but have
also lost so much dignity?
Gabriele
Kuby: We have not created ourselves nor can we create life. If we
lose awareness that we have received our life from God, and that He
has made us in His image and endowed us with an immortal soul, then
we lose our dignity. And Man then succumbs to the temptation of
“improving” man through genetic manipulation, and by discarding
human beings at the beginning and end of life ad libitum.
We
protect the copyrights of authors with quite fierce laws. Let us also
protect the copyright of God for the creation of man. It could save
us from many man-made problems.
CWR:
So are we in a crisis–of civilization, of the family, or of belief?
Where do its roots lie?
Gabriele
Kuby: Sometimes at my talks I ask the audience to raise their
hands if they think life for our children will be better, say, thirty
years from now. Hardly any hands go up. We have this strange
phenomenon in which people feel the crisis we are in, but they
largely seem to be blind to the evil that brings it about.
The
cultural revolution of 1968 brought many ideas and social movements
to their apogee. It attacked the Christian values to which the
European culture owes its amazing flourishing—that is, its
family-sustaining values, which even the Nazis and the Communists
were unable to eradicate completely.
CWR:
Can you elaborate on the significance of the 1968 cultural
revolution?
Gabriele
Kuby: The cultural revolution of 1968, brought about by the
well-groomed bourgeois student generation of that time who had
nothing to complain about, united three revolutionary impulses.
First, young people became enthralled with Communist theory at a time
when Berlin was divided by a wall and Russian tanks had rolled into
Prague. Second, they also followed the call of radical feminist
Simone de Beauvoir and others “to get out of the slavery of
motherhood” and, above all, propagated—and lived—“sexual
liberation.” Finally, there was a philosophical impulse that came
from the Frankfurter School, which was made up of people like Theodor
Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse.
The
poisonous temptation was: If you “liberate” your sexuality—that
is, if you tear down all moral restrictions—you can build a society
free of repression. For more simple—and hippie—minds, this was
condensed into the slogan, “Make love, not war (and take
drugs).”
The
academically trained generation of 1968 realized that they could not
mobilize the masses, least of all the “proletariat,” so they set
out to “march through the institutions.” And this actually
brought them into eventual positions of power in politics, media, the
universities, and the judiciary.
The
goals of 1968 are now being realized through institutions like the
United Nations and the European Union, and through left-wing—and
even some “conservative”—governments, in unison with the
powerful support of the mainstream media.
CWR:
The Brussels-based analyst Marguerite Peeters has also written about
the globalization of this revolution. How is this happening?
Gabriele
Kuby: Marguerite A. Peeters' 2007 book The Globalization of
the Western Cultural Revolution was an eye-opener to me. I focus
on the core of this revolution, which involves the deregulation of
the moral norms of sexuality.
This
global sexual revolution is now being carried out by power elites.
These include international organizations like the United Nations and
the European Union, with their web of inscrutable sub-organizations;
global corporations like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft; the big
foundations like Rockefeller and Guggenheim; extremely rich
individuals like Bill and Melinda Gates, Ted Turner, Georges Soros,
and Warren Buffett; and non-governmental organizations like the
International Planned Parenthood Federation and the International
Lesbian and Gay Association.
All of
these actors operate at the highest levels of power with huge
financial resources. And they all share one interest: to reduce
population growth on this planet. Abortion, contraception, the LGBT
(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) agenda, the destruction of
the family—all serve this one aim.
However,
this doesn’t satisfactorily explain why, for example, an ideologue
like American theorist Judith Butler—who wants to destroy the
identity of man and woman in order to undermine society through a
political strategy of “gender mainstreaming”—is considered a
philosopher laureate by these elites. But it perhaps does suggest a
hidden agenda of the new world order.
CWR:
What exactly is “gender mainstreaming”?
Gabriele
Kuby: The term “gender” was introduced into official
documents at the UN’s International Conference on Population and
Development in 1994 held in Cairo, Egypt, and at the Fourth World
Conference on Women in 1995 held in Beijing, China. The idea was to
create the linguistic vehicle for a new ideology. “Gender” was to
replace the term “sex” in the sense of referring to the binary
sexual order of man and woman. Then radical feminist ideas and the
LGBT agenda united and gave birth to the idea of “gender
mainstreaming.”
The
term “gender” implies that a person’s sexual identity need not
necessarily be identical to that person’s biological sex. It breaks
down the binary male-female sexual nature of human beings.
This
dissolution of the binary sexual nature of man and woman serves two
primary purposes: First, it aims to destroy the so-called “gender
hierarchy” between man and woman. In other words, there
are—according to gender theory—not two but many gender
identities, which can include lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transsexual
men and women. Second, it aims to dissolve heterosexuality as the
norm. This gender-based conception of man and woman aims to enter the
mainstream of society—and, indeed, this is already happening at an
incredible speed !
CWR:
What role does pornography play in what you have diagnosed?
Gabriele
Kuby: Pornography plays a huge part in the revolution. Maybe it
is a kind of male revenge for the feminist war against men. People
who drug themselves regularly with pornography lose sight of love,
the family, the ability to become a father and mother. They become
addicted and many end up on a slippery slope into the criminal use of
sex. The alarming fact is that pornography has become “normal”
for young people: 20% of teenage boys in Germany look at pornography
daily; 42% view it once a week. What kind of people will they become?
It is
hard to understand why the EU fights so aggressively against
pollution through smoking but not against pollution through
pornography. The latter is more serious because it destroys the
family. One cannot get rid of the images in one’s mind, even if one
wants to.
CWR:
In Chapter V, you focus on the Yogyakarta Principles. What are they?
Gabriele
Kuby: The Yogyakarta Principles [on the Application of
International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and
Gender Identity] were formulated by a group of so-called human rights
experts meeting in the Indonesia town of Yogyakarta. They were then
presented to the world in March 2007 at the UN Human Rights Council
in Geneva.
This
media event gave the world the impression that it was an official UN
document. It is not! But if you do a quick search on the internet,
you will be amazed to see how many governments, parties, and
organizations are behind it.
I
devoted a whole chapter to this document because it clearly
illustrates the totalitarian drive of the LGBT agenda. For example,
Principle 29 calls for the establishment of “independent and
effective institutions and procedures to monitor the formulation and
enforcement of laws and policies to ensure the elimination of
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender
identity.” This means that a super-structure above the level of the
nation-state should be established to reorganize and control the
whole of society towards the privileges of the LGBT movement.
I urge
people to take a minute and read
the Yogyakarta Principles—or at least just this one Principle
29—in order to get a sense of the document’s totalitarian agenda.
CWR:
Values like tolerance and diversity seem to have been appropriated to
further this agenda.
Gabriele
Kuby: The essential values of our time—freedom, justice,
equality, non-discrimination, tolerance, dignity, and human
rights—have been abused, distorted and manipulated by the cultural
revolutionaries.
In much
the same way that an embryo is manipulated, the nucleus or core has
been taken out of these honorable concepts and filled with something
entirely new. One of the chapters in my book is called “The
Political Rape of Language” and it considers this phenomenon.
We must
remember that the function of language is to communicate truth. So it
is, in fact, very dangerous to corrupt language in the service of
political mass manipulation. Throughout history, every totalitarian
system has corrupted language in their efforts to manipulate people.
Recall that the main Russian newspaper was called Pravda or
“truth.” Sadly, in today’s media age, the opportunities to do
this are much more sophisticated.
CWR:
Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has written that concepts like virtue,
beauty, and truth have lost their meaning in the modern world. How
can we talk of such things in a world in which they are no longer
understood?
Gabriele
Kuby: I don’t believe they are not understood. The problem is
the cultural revolution which aims at destroying their content—and
our cowardliness in failing to stand up for them.
The
very reason why the LGBT movement is becoming more totalitarian is
that it recognizes that man has a conscience, that man yearns for
love, and that he seeks truth, beauty, and goodness. Therefore,
everything which tends to wake up man’s conscience must be
eliminated.
Thus,
children must be programmed and sexualized in kindergarten so that
they may lose their natural ability to distinguish between good and
evil, and lose their natural inner orientation towards the good.
CWR:
John Paul II never shied away from speaking of the sexual nature of
man and the beauty of the conjugal union. How do you understand his
vision?
Gabriele
Kuby: John Paul II gave the Church a great treasure with his
“Theology of the Body,” and with the wealth of encyclicals and
letters concerning the integrated vision of the human person—in
body, soul, and spirit. In this time of great confusion, his is a
light that shines into our minds, our hearts, our bedrooms.
If God
is love, and if we are called to be fellow citizens for God
(Ephesians 2:19), then it follows that in this life we need to learn
to love. The most intimate and all-encompassing expression of that
love is the sexual union of man and woman out of which a new human
being can arise.
The
modern world has reduced this sexual union to bodily satisfaction,
and in so doing, it has separated body and soul. We already have a
word for the permanent separation of body and soul—that is ‘death.’
By reducing sex to the level of the body—that is, the animal
level—we have created a “culture of death.”
We need
to re-learn that sex is an expression of self-giving, of life-giving
love. This would lead to a recovery of our terribly sick society.
CWR:
What is the “new anthropology” that you mention in Chapter X?
Gabriele
Kuby: Pope Benedict XVI gave a very enlightening speech as part
of his Christmas Greetings to the Curia and the Cardinals on December
21, 2012. He spoke then of the “anthropological revolution” of
our time, pointing to the “attack we are currently experiencing on
the true structure of the family” in the form of a false
understanding of man’s sexual nature.
If man
denies that he is created as man and woman in the image of God
(Genesis 1:27), and that his sex is a “given element of nature,”
and that he is called to love and to give life, then the root of
human existence is being destroyed. The “new anthropology” refers
to this conception of man.
CWR:
How would you describe yourself? Do you consider yourself a
cultural critic, an intellectual historian, or a sociologist of
religion?
Gabriele
Kuby: People keep calling me a “prophet.” But I don’t, of
course, compare myself with such giants—and I don’t particularly
like the way they normally died! But as far as the inner obligation
goes to speak the truth, no matter what, I feel I am part of their
extended family.
CWR:
How should faithful Christians respond to the global sexual
revolution?
Gabriele
Kuby: That, of course, is the big question for each and every one
of us. Whether we like it or not, each of us must tidy up our own
sexual life and order it according to the call for true, faithful,
life-giving love. If we don’t, we will not see clearly—and we
will have no motivation or power to participate in the ongoing
battle. It is a battle for the dignity of man, for the family, for
our children, for the future. Ultimately, it is a battle for the
Kingdom of God.
God
wants us to live. Jesus says, “I came that they may have life and
have it abundantly” (John 10:10). There are many encouraging
developments in Europe—stories of resistance to the global sexual
revolution coming out of France, Lithuania, Russia, Hungary, Norway,
and Croatia. But we need a strong, courageous movement in every
country of people who are still able to recognize that 2 + 2 = 4;
that is: that the eradication of sexual norms destroys the person,
the family, and the culture.
CWR:
Do you think we can succeed?
Gabriele
Kuby: Let us not worry about success. We are working for a good
cause now; our lives are worthwhile. The ultimate success is in the
hands of God.
