HUMANISM’S LEFT TURN

(by Dlanorrenrag*)

HUMANISM’S LEFT TURN:

Some quotes snipped from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism :
Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.
….
Humanism clearly rejects deference to supernatural beliefs in resolving human affairs but not necessarily the beliefs themselves; indeed some strains of Humanism are compatible with some religions.
….
In the United States, the Supreme Court recognized that Humanism is equivalent to a religion in the limited sense of authorizing Humanists to conduct ceremonies commonly carried out by officers of religious bodies.
….
According to Humanism, it is up to humans to find the truth, as opposed to seeking it through revelation, mysticism, tradition, or anything else that is incompatible with the application of logic to the observable evidence. In demanding that humans avoid blindly accepting unsupported beliefs, it supports scientific skepticism and the scientific method, rejecting authoritarianism and extreme skepticism, and rendering faith an unacceptable basis for action.

****

CRITIQUE OF SUCH INTERPRETATIONS OF HUMANISM:

I greatly admire the humanist valuing of rationality --- except when it turns rationality against itself.

Many expressions and interpretations of humanity --- such as tradition, history, sacred stories, parables, and customs --- come to represent more than mere symbols, and come also to represent emotionally conditioned investments in cultural aesthetics and polite sensibilities. Thus, it comes to make rational and moral sense to respect such expressions of humanity, regardless of whether or not they may otherwise be founded in pure logic.

Indeed much, if not all, that humans consider valuable in life (such as spirituality, soul, music, poetry, beauty, comedy, tragedy, drama, and companionship) depends upon conditioning and assimilating tastes, fashions, and interests, which may well have little, if any, basis in pure logic.

To hold all sacred traditions as either worthless or worthy only of deconstruction (unless logic can demonstrate their value) would be to annihilate much, if not all, of what is entailed, both, in being moral and in being human.

Except in figuratively modeled relations, we do not appreciate music, poetry, beauty, comedy, tragedy, drama, and companionship. We no more appreciate or measure such things directly than do we directly appreciate or measure spirituality, soul, or “God.”

Obviously, it would make little rational sense to annihilate music merely because it evades being captured in pure empiricism or rationality, devoid of emotional conditioning.

Likewise, it makes little rational sense to try to annihilate religion merely because the only way religion can meaningfully approach truth is with figures of speech and sacred parables (whose contextual meaningfulness ever changes and assimilates anew, in respect of our ever changing society).

While there is much in Humanism that I greatly admire, there is also much that suggests its leaders have misplaced, if not annihilated, their moral compasses.

To hope to endure, a moral civilization can ill afford to lose faith in the value of inculcating empathetic good faith among its members. For Humanists to devalue all faith is to devalue the only real glue of civilization.

In respect of good faith, mere physics offers no substitute “particle of faith.” And mere rationality offers no basis for valuing, devaluing, choosing or favoring anything, whether species, form, material, or ideal. Yet, we have no choice but to make choices!

Even a “non-choice” must, in some relation, be taken as a choice. (Just ask Carla Jean, in the movie No Country For Old Men (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Country_for_Old_Men_(film).

So, in respect of what fundamental rock should civilization set its moral compass?

LIBERATING EVIL:

Well, under any serious inquiry, does it not seem that monetarist, materialist, libertine, liberal and humanist philosophers have abandoned any serious effort to comprehend a moral compass by which to guide civilization?

We have no shortage of philosophers for justifying the preservation of our earthly environment, but few for justifying the preservation, much less the propagation, of civilization.

We have plenty of smart professors in academia. So, why does there seem to be so much imbalance in what they are rationalizing, teaching, justifying, and leading? What may explain this? Is there some sort of imbalance in “the force”?

What of spiritual philosophers? Is it not readily apparent that followers and money are ripe for the picking? Given our present state of affairs, what sell-out of mediocre intelligence and self love could not find a niche for inventing and selling his/her own special brand of “liberation theology”?

Presently, no prevailing or assimilating vision, code, or norm of yore is trusted if it offends the exotic desires or mores of each newly evolving minority’s preferences or needs in respect of pleasure, sex, ceremony, liberation theology, dress, diet, language, gang, tribe, race, or alliance.

So, who among our esteemed elites and professors has very well considered what forces may be converging, or what aspects of human freedom and dignity may likely die or emerge as a result? Anyone? Anyone?

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Humanist_Association. No doubt, a Humanist Association could/should be a vital and important resource for rationalizing and inculcating civilizing mores. So, why, since 1984 --- apart from E.O. Wilson, William Schulz, Stephen Jay Gould, and perhaps a few others --- has the AHA elected as presidents so few who seem not to be weighted either towards angry atheism or deconstructive justification of every cheap thrill that can find support in some minority?

Where and when has the AHA, Walden II Society, or any moral philosopher, recently found spine enough to advocate a strong basis (or ANY basis) for disapproving of bestiality, polyamory, pedophilia, Nambla, race baiting politics, victim pleading politics, glorification of gang violence, recruiting of children as drug mules, nations bent on imposing Sharia law, annihilation of civilized borders, or laid back toleration of foreclosure on Western Civilization?