Hornsby: How can anyone familiar with the sordid history of the treatment of mental illness in the West swear allegiance to the status quo? It wasn't long ago that lobotomy for children under age seven was considered an irrefutable surgical achievement.
> Estrangement Ideology, this entirely natural phenomenon of seeking coherence in chaotic times is weaponised against parents. If an adult child does not share their parent’s viewpoint—whether it be about COVID-19 policies, vaccine mandates, MAGA, LGBTQI+ issues, election fraud or global governance—they are encouraged to see the parent's perspective as not just misguided but mentally destabilised
At risk of being obvious, what if it is? Estranged children who are upset that their parents will not get vaccinated or even take basic precautions against spreading COCID-19 even as said want to visit their grandchildren, who are upset that their parents are supporting terrible political causes, who are upset that their parents are advocating homophobia, who are upset about deep mysterious conspiracies—a lot of these parental beliefs are probably wrong, are deeply dysfunctional in practice, and are quite capable of causing harm.
It’s fair to say that there are legitimate differing opinions depending on how people interpret scientific evidence, personal values and lived experience. However, this diversity of perspectives is hardly a justification for cutting off contact, especially without first attempting to understand why parents may hold certain views—views that may stem from their own life experience, research, or generational context. While disagreements can certainly be intense, reducing parental beliefs to being inherently dysfunctional or harmful without deeper exploration risks dismissing the complexity of why people arrive at different conclusions in the first place
If anyone is set on doing something that can cause harm—if grandparents are demanding to see a young child without being vaccinated or even taking basic precautions—I would think that the reason they are intent on causing the harm is much less important than the harm itself. They might have all manner of reasons for what they are doing—maybe they are afraid fo needles, maybe they think the child should catch the disease and get over it that way, maybe they think international bankers are conspiring, etc—but those reasons are less important than the actions they bring about. Sincere belief does not change realities, and parents who insist this is the case are knowingly creating barriers.
Randy, your comment actually helps illuminate the core tension I was trying to explore. When disagreement—particularly around high-stakes or emotionally charged issues—is quickly framed as harm, it shifts the conversation from dialogue to moral triage. The problem isn’t that some beliefs can’t be harmful. Of course they can. The issue is what happens when the existence of disagreement becomes sufficient grounds for estrangement, especially in the absence of dialogue. This framing risks collapsing the difference between sincere divergence and malicious intent. One doesn’t need to defend any particular position (on vaccines, politics, or anything else) to be concerned about a broader pattern: that relational bonds are increasingly mediated through ideological litmus tests. When the test is failed, the person is not simply “wrong” but unworthy of contact. That’s the heart of what I refer to as Estrangement Ideology.
It's a phenomenon not just about individual choices but about how ideological narratives transform disagreement into disconnection, often in ways that foreclose empathy on all sides. My concern is less with whether someone is “right” and more with what we lose when the possibility of mutual understanding is abandoned in favour of moral sorting.
But with the vaccine question I mentioned, to name one example not at random, there is actual real harm. If the grandparents refuse to get vaccinated while also demanding access to their grandchild, they can definitely cause the grandchild harm, even possibly lead to their deaths. Deciding that the parents have not got the right to protect the children from an obvious harm because the grandparents choose to not believe there is a harm associated with their actions seems odd. Fervent belief counts for nothing, and it does not matter if someone sincerely believes in their innocence.
Hornsby: How can anyone familiar with the sordid history of the treatment of mental illness in the West swear allegiance to the status quo? It wasn't long ago that lobotomy for children under age seven was considered an irrefutable surgical achievement.
> Estrangement Ideology, this entirely natural phenomenon of seeking coherence in chaotic times is weaponised against parents. If an adult child does not share their parent’s viewpoint—whether it be about COVID-19 policies, vaccine mandates, MAGA, LGBTQI+ issues, election fraud or global governance—they are encouraged to see the parent's perspective as not just misguided but mentally destabilised
At risk of being obvious, what if it is? Estranged children who are upset that their parents will not get vaccinated or even take basic precautions against spreading COCID-19 even as said want to visit their grandchildren, who are upset that their parents are supporting terrible political causes, who are upset that their parents are advocating homophobia, who are upset about deep mysterious conspiracies—a lot of these parental beliefs are probably wrong, are deeply dysfunctional in practice, and are quite capable of causing harm.
It’s fair to say that there are legitimate differing opinions depending on how people interpret scientific evidence, personal values and lived experience. However, this diversity of perspectives is hardly a justification for cutting off contact, especially without first attempting to understand why parents may hold certain views—views that may stem from their own life experience, research, or generational context. While disagreements can certainly be intense, reducing parental beliefs to being inherently dysfunctional or harmful without deeper exploration risks dismissing the complexity of why people arrive at different conclusions in the first place
If anyone is set on doing something that can cause harm—if grandparents are demanding to see a young child without being vaccinated or even taking basic precautions—I would think that the reason they are intent on causing the harm is much less important than the harm itself. They might have all manner of reasons for what they are doing—maybe they are afraid fo needles, maybe they think the child should catch the disease and get over it that way, maybe they think international bankers are conspiring, etc—but those reasons are less important than the actions they bring about. Sincere belief does not change realities, and parents who insist this is the case are knowingly creating barriers.
Randy, your comment actually helps illuminate the core tension I was trying to explore. When disagreement—particularly around high-stakes or emotionally charged issues—is quickly framed as harm, it shifts the conversation from dialogue to moral triage. The problem isn’t that some beliefs can’t be harmful. Of course they can. The issue is what happens when the existence of disagreement becomes sufficient grounds for estrangement, especially in the absence of dialogue. This framing risks collapsing the difference between sincere divergence and malicious intent. One doesn’t need to defend any particular position (on vaccines, politics, or anything else) to be concerned about a broader pattern: that relational bonds are increasingly mediated through ideological litmus tests. When the test is failed, the person is not simply “wrong” but unworthy of contact. That’s the heart of what I refer to as Estrangement Ideology.
It's a phenomenon not just about individual choices but about how ideological narratives transform disagreement into disconnection, often in ways that foreclose empathy on all sides. My concern is less with whether someone is “right” and more with what we lose when the possibility of mutual understanding is abandoned in favour of moral sorting.
But with the vaccine question I mentioned, to name one example not at random, there is actual real harm. If the grandparents refuse to get vaccinated while also demanding access to their grandchild, they can definitely cause the grandchild harm, even possibly lead to their deaths. Deciding that the parents have not got the right to protect the children from an obvious harm because the grandparents choose to not believe there is a harm associated with their actions seems odd. Fervent belief counts for nothing, and it does not matter if someone sincerely believes in their innocence.