Anti-Humanism
Recenly Bettina emailed me to say:
I have been rereading and rereading your latest dialogue with your roomate, and at the end of all this, I came to the conclusion that one label was missing, the anti-humanist label.
Basically Bettina thinks I’m an anti-humanist. Given what I know of humanism I think this is fair to say. Intrigued by the notion of humanism I clicked to wikipedia to get a more solid foundation of Humanism. Turns out there are lots of different flavors so I’m not sure which kind of Humanist Bettina thinks I’m opposed to. One that I found of interest was the so-called new-Humanism which have a set of core beliefs only a naïve child could believe is true.
Solidarity – defined as treating other people the way one would like to be treated
It’s probably obvious to say so, but a painfully ill defined proposition. There are many ways to attack this silly proposition, but perhaps the most effective is to say that on some fundamental level it’s simply not possible to accomplish. Imagine a triad in which treating one person a certain way ends up violating the way in which someone else wishes to be treated. How does humanism suggest we resolve this problem.
I must also state that I absolutely hate defaulting to the other person determining how they should be treated. There are obvious examples, like the tyrant that would not wish to be stopped, but there are more prosaic examples. Imagine a prospective student wishing to get into graduate school. He has nothing to offer why should he be the one to determine how the scientist should treat him? Since the scientist has something to offer he should be the one to determine he treats the student. If those demands become to onerous for the student then they should drop out of that lab.
If someone is doing you a favor they determine how they treat you. If that treatment negates the gain of the favor then simply reject the favor. How is this hard? It doesn’t require this quasi-Christian silly proposition that everyone should be actively modeling how others are to be treated and constrain their behavior accordingly. How silly.
Coherence – defined as thinking, feeling and acting in the same way.
Apparently those that crafted the main tenets of Humanism were unaware of the fact that people and circumstances change. This only reflects their jejune worldview.
Placing the human being as the central value and concern, in such a way that nothing is above the human being and no human being is above another.
Again, more childish thinking. It depends on what you mean by no human being is above another, but I can think of many people that are more important than me. Many writers, artists, architect, priests, and scientists are much more important than me. Hell some concepts are more important than human beings. I would gladly sacrifice myself in instance where I felt my freedom was truly being compromised. In this way I would argue the value of freedom is more important than humans. Come to think of it, some people are worthy of sacrifice just to protect objects like rare artifacts. We call them soldiers and they defend our culture.
Affirming the equality of all human beings.
Such a foolish canard that is demonstrably false.
Recognizing personal and cultural diversity, affirming the characteristics proper to each human group and condemning discrimination, whether motivated by economic, racial, ethnic, or cultural differences.
Again the problem here is that its just painfully naïve. Sure there are instances where respecting other cultures is warranted particularly in cases that don’t matter. But when cultures do things that do matter to your culture you must be willing to draw distinctions and classify according to good and bad. Cultures that are into oppressing woman and killing homosexual are bad. Cultures that are into “Recognizing personal and cultural diversity, affirming the characteristics proper to each human group and condemning discrimination, whether motivated by economic, racial, ethnic, or cultural differences are good.” Well at least according to some of you it is.
Developing knowledge beyond the limitations imposed by prejudices accepted as absolute and immutable truths.
This is pretty solid. Of course one must ask is there any reason not to treat these principles of Humanism as ‘absolute and immutable truths’? They sure are written that way. Of course that would mean this principle violates itself which in turn is a violation of the previous proposition ‘Coherence – defined as thinking, feeling and acting in the same way’. Seriously, only a child could genuinely believe this crap.
Affirming the freedom of ideas and beliefs.
Okay, I will stop caging that which has no corporeal form. Sounds good.
Repudiating violence in all its forms.
I will never repudiate violence committed against those I judge to be bad. Those that do, condemn themselves to a life of oppression and death. Again this proposition speaks to the utter juvenile nature of Humanism.
If humanism is to be defined this way, then I gladly, almost ecstatically, embrace anti-humanism. But then again most people become an anti-humanist by age 12.
If you ask me the problem with Humanism is that it took the argumentation for how the state should treat the citizens and applied it to a much larger scope. If you properly seat these propositions in the context of how the state should treat the citizenry I would agree with most of them. When we examine this more closely we see why humanism principles must be bound to the state. The state has a monopoly on coercion and these principles aim to insure that this force is not used in terrible ways by restraining that force.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
a) more precisely, I was thinking about the more philosophical aspects of being an anti-humanist, not so much about the practical implications which you outline here (so, look for “anti-humansim”, and you see what I mean)
b) “Coherence – defined as thinking, feeling and acting in the same way.
Apparently those that crafted the main tenets of Humanism were unaware of the fact that people and circumstances change.”
Are you really serious? Steve, one of the main propostions of humanism, in yet another light (the psychological light) is that human beings DO INDEED CHANGE, so…. who’s having a problem here? Since I believe that you believe that sex-offenders, for example, do NOT change, yet, I believe that, under certain circumstances, they actually DO change (as well as drug addicts, naughty kids, bad friends who never want to go out to dinner), I came to the conclusion that you’re an anti-humanist, so again, who has not done their homework yet and is confusing ideas? Not me.
c) “When we examine this more closely we see why humanism principles must be bound to the state. The state has a monopoly on coercion and these principles aim to insure that this force is not used in terrible ways by restraining that force.”
You are saying that the humanist movement itself fed the forces of “big government” with their own supplies? You are saying that “big government” utilizes the principles of humanism, or differently, that humanist ideas serve the coercive powers of the state? And now you, who despises government coercion, feel good about yourself cause you don’t adhere to the principles that serve this coercion?
mmh - interesting twistaround, not quite credible to me, though.
d) should I take some time out and count the times you used the words “childish”, “naive”, “foolish” and “silly”?? If these are the only attributes you employ to fight off humanist ideas, I would tend to think that you did a lousy job convincing me.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Good point about humanism being a better model for a government than an individual- I think I agree with this assessment.
However, I’m not sure you’re being totally fair in teh interpretation og some of the Humanist principles you listed. Now, let me preface this by saying I’m sure most ‘practicing humanists’ would parrot off the simplistic interpretations you give, so it’s fine to feel contempt for them; but to judge the philosophy itself, I think you have to interpret it’s tenants as it’s most enlightened and well-spoken proponents would express. here are some examples of my reinterpretations, let me know if you still disagree with them.
I wouldn’t assume this just means that if you like hamburgers, you should give everyone else hamburgers whenever you cook. Rather, it should be taken to mean that you would want people to ask what kind of food you like and give you that, and therefore you should do the same for them. Alternately, if you’re a reasonable and considerate person, you probably don’t want your friends to spend thousands of dollars they can’t afford buying you exotic and rare wines for dinner, and therefore you shouldn’t do that for them.
Similarly, for your grad school example, I’ve heard you talk about admissions and you never say ‘they should just let me in because I want them to.’ Your argument is always, ‘If they looked more closely at my history and talked to me and made a better effort to understand my motivations, they’d understand that I’m a good prospect and accept me.’ And therefore, by the principal of Solidarity, if you were later on an admissions board, you would be obligated to look more closely into each applicant’s history and get tto know them beyond their GRE scores before making your decision- and indeed, you’ve told me that this is exactly what you would do, so it seems that you already follow this interpretation of the principle of Solidarity, in this respect.
I don’t think this precludes the idea that your thoughts and feelings, and therefore your actions, can change based on circumstances. I DO think it implies that they should all be in agreement at any specific time or in relation to any specific action, but I’m not sure if you have an argument against that.
We may actually disagree on this one, but let me add some nuance. You’re right that some people are more worthy of protecting than others, but from a humanist view, it would only be because those human beings will improve the lives of other human beings, if they are kept protected. If they didn’t, then they would not be worthy of that privileged status.
Similarly, concepts like Freedom, or artifacts like cities, may be privileged over a human life in cases where those things will bring more benefit to more other humans that the corresponding loss of the person sacrificed. Obviously there’s moral ambiguity into how you measure death for one human being VS convenience/etc for many other human being, but the point is that all of these things only have value in relation to what they can do for us humans.
The diversity principle here only applies to not condemning things because they’re different. It doesn’t say anything about condemning things because they’re bad. Specifically, things like oppressing women already violate the other tenants of Humanism and thus can be condemned on those grounds, rather than on the grounds that they’re different from what we do. This misconception about the implications of multiculturalism is a common erroneous attack, and I think you must know by now that it’s just a straw-man argument.
Feels like your argument against this one is just trying to be cute. These tenants are listed as guidelines for behavior, not as absolute truth- indeed, they’re not statements of fact, so there’s no way that they could be ‘true’ or ‘false’ in the first place.
This is the one where I, also, might get off the Humanism bus, depending on whether they’re talking about true Pacifism, or if they have some weird definition of violence that includes anything done out of spite/anger but still allows you to apply force to solve problems. Let me just note, this is a very real distinction for me- there are certain extreme circumstances where, for instance, I might sanction torture in order to get crucial, lives-saving information out of someone; however, I would consider torturing a criminal when it doesn’t get us something we need to help/protect people, no matter how evil or terrible their crime may have been, to be absolutely evil and wrong.
You may genuinely disagree with me on this point, but if so it wasn’t implied in your post. i’d be interested to know your position.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
even though I agree with you that “solidarity - defined as treating other people the way one would like to be treated” (or any other way you like to interprete Kant) is being heavily abused by a vast majority of people, just to make oneself feel better about their own actions. It has been widely discussed (by experts, philosophical AND psychological experts) that it cannot be assessed how another person wants/needs to be treated, since it is a purely individual assessment.
October 30th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
wow, Darwin once again put it to another level. That is seriously impressive. High quality content, subtle and precise.
October 30th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Why single out new humanism?
“When people speak of Humanism in general, they are sometimes referring to secular humanism as a default meaning.”
October 31st, 2007 at 8:53 am
So, can I have a summary judgment?
Steve cries when I call him a racist. Yet, he continues to claim cultures aren’t equal.
It’s famous “no-nuance” summary judgement time. Is Steve a racist? Or, can he go on crying like a baby when I point out his racist thoughts?
October 31st, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Steve has been very careful to phrase his bashing (at least on this blog) not in terms of race but in terms of national origin or culture. So you can accuse him of triumphalism, bigotry, or even xenophobia, more readily than racism per se.
Unless you’re trying to suggest that when he says culture he really means race, and if this is your argument I would like to see you provide additional support for it.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Ooooh! Where did you get triumphalism? I like that one a whole bunch.
The only problem I have is this part ’should triumph over all others’. I object to ‘all others’. We should triumph over cultures that are clearly into killing citizens for reasons you guys would vehemently oppose such as ethnic discrimination. Well you seem to oppose it, or at least we can say you oppose such things in this this country.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Steve- you need fewer friends. You always respond to the post 5 posts after mine.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Sounds like nuance to me Steve. Can we drop summary judgments?
But seriously Steve, thanks for never answering my question, but rather crying about pointing out the obvious. Feeling that one culture is inherently superior to another is bigotry and racist. The variance within culture will always be far greater than variance between culture. You should further your education by reading some Gould or some Wilson to grab some observations that are way more important than your simple summary judgments on things that you both have no clue about and more troubling refuse to learn about. People and cultures they form are much more intricate than your simple mind will ever grasp.
October 31st, 2007 at 8:25 pm
But everyone knows that the foundation of reality is summary judgments, therefore learning and thinking are ancillary at best.
November 1st, 2007 at 9:48 am
Darwin, Is that better?
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:03 am
lol, yeah, thanks,