Last Saturday morning a gathering of intellectuals took place in the Humanities building. Over coffee, pastries and modest cheerfulness, a gaggle of scholars had a lively discussion about the culture of death.

School is already too much with us, and weekends, especially Saturday, normally should not be ambushed by talk of “epistemology,” “anthropocentrism,” and similar language plundered from the weekdays. But those who participated in Saturday’s discussion can be forgiven, because the subject, the culture of death, is a worry terribly near. The culture of death is ours.

The culture of death, a term and concept made prominent by Pope John Paul II (primarily in his encyclical Evangelum Vitae), refers to a comprehensive disdain for the value of human life. This disdain has secured the assent of too many Americans, that disdain under the illusion of Constitutional sanction, is marching us enthusiastically, if unwittingly, into barbarism.

Americans, of course, are not acclimated to such ominous terminology. The notion of “culture” and its pairing with “death” does not connect easily with a consciousness largely shaped by the perception that America has mastered human rights. The 40 million unborn babies killed since 1973 and the dozens of criminals put to death each year are thought to be the reasonable consequences of individual freedom and justice.

The same goes for other indices. For example, the astronomical divorce rate, although it is a rate incomparable to a death toll, is considered a forgivable statistic in light of the popular view of-here again-freedom. Those schooled in the ways of the culture of death are not oppressed by the thought of fractured families and the social turbulence that such fracturing produces.

To us, our behavior does not show symptoms of barbarism. Because of our technology which is presumed to be a monument to heightened sensibilities, because our recent wars have been hardly war-like (relatively few deaths, little blood), and perhaps because civil rights as a political issue is no longer omnipresent, many Americans have a diminished appreciation for what it means to be uncivilized. We look around at all that affirms us and think: Gosh, what a rational society. What civilization. What genius.

What nonsense.

America’s manners are not above improvement. Consider the field of biology and the prickly issue of cloning.

Many families (about 800 have petitioned to have their children copied) and scientists have assured themselves that cloning is not merely OK, but a nice selection from the expanding menu of the possible. Their reasoning is similar to the man who, after being asked why he climbed Mount Everest, says, “Because it was there.”

Now, manipulating biology enough to clone a human requires both rationality and genius, but just because something can be done, does that mean it should be done? And if not everything that can be done should be done, then why not? Would doing so hurt our humanity? Would doing so make us slightly . barbaric?

Contemporary America (and, in some measure, the world) proves not that barbarism has ended, but, rather, that it is becoming specialized. It is a barbarism that may not arouse Atilla the Hun (who killed his own brother to gain power), but it is a barbarism that, like all others, can erode social order.

None of our political parties has the answer, as usual. Democrats, under the camouflage of “reproductive rights,” proudly permit abortion. Republicans, especially the current President, wield, despite crushing evidence to the contrary, the death penalty as ethically justifiable. And the Green Party, an accumulation of students, hippies and others under the swoon of Ralph Nader, is frantic about protecting forest preserves, but not fetuses.

So what are Americans to do?

Saturday’s symposium, brimming with Catholic thought, advocated the adoption of the vision of Pope John Paul II. Part of this vision is articulated in his 1995 encyclical Evangelum Vitae, in which the Pope writes that life on earth “remains a sacred reality entrusted to us, to be preserved with a sense of responsibility and brought to perfection in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters.”

Those words, sweet music though they are, are not-at least not now-being heard in America. The separation between Church and State has become a concept so elastic that any introduction of God into politics must withstand an avalanche of scorn. Groups like the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and even NARAL (National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) recoil at the thought that might God gain popularity. Each group knows that, under the shadow of Providence, their agendas are more difficult to pursue.

Supporters of a culture of life, however, do not need to be religious, or even believers in God. What is crucial is that all who believe in the sanctity and inviolability of human life act on that conviction. It is an extraordinary, complex and noble mission, and there are reasons to be hopeful.

But in the meantime, the culture of death thrives-especially in Terre Haute, Ind., where, on May 16, Timothy McVeigh’s death will double as theater.

Matt Emerson is a freshman majoring in political science.