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Humanism

lord henry strikes back

17:47 / 27.03.07

I've been an atheist for a long time. I was raised, very loosely, protestant. My grandparents are/were all believers and my father still hangs on to some belief though never took me to church.

I don't believe in a/the god, I don't think that there's an afterlife. I don't think that any particular power governs the universe. For a long time this has been fine but I'm starting to think that this is all framed far too much in terms of what I don't believe.

I don't know a great deal about Humanism but from what I've picked up it seems a more positive outlook framed in terms of people as creative beings and a 'good' (maybe more accurately self aware or 'true') life as an end in of itself. Does this sound about right?

Can anyone direct me towards some sources of Humanist ideals (if such a thing exists)? Comments and pointers here would also be very welcome.

Sorry if the above doesn't make too much sense. I'm trying to find a line between vague and proscriptive. If it would 'help you to help me' (damn it, I must get Dr Cox out of my head) then I'm very happy to answer questions.

18:29 / 28.03.07

Apart from the wiki I don't have much,, but I will come back when I do. K?

21:16 / 28.03.07

Well there is New Humanist magazine...

Foust is SO authentic

04:11 / 29.03.07

What humanism is will change depending on who you're talking to, obviously. Probably the best discussion of it you'll get is Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism" -- the gist of that is, how should humans live their lives in a universe without God? Humanism is all about human action: how should humans act in a human way?

12:22 / 29.03.07

The first thing that comes to mind is a couple of potential pitfalls:

I imagine that some would argue that, as an ideology, Humanism relies too much on the idea of some essential Human Nature which is hardwired into either our physiology or our soul and that this conception of "humanity" is falsely optimistic.

I suppose that under that argument humanists would be seen to take the construct of Human Nature as unitary fact, assuming that humans are, at there core, compassionate, loving and reasoning animals above all else.

That said I think Humanism has some useful components such as basing one's conclusions on reasoned analysis of one's experiences rather than accepted doctrines from organised religious social structures.

lord henry strikes back

18:13 / 30.03.07

Hester, you raise a very good point.

I certainly don't see any level of 'goodness' or 'compassion' as hard wired into humanity. I tend to view humans as, primarily, social constructs. Would this put me at odds with main stream (or all) humanist thinking?

I don't want to get off the topic of humanism, as it's something that I am interested in learning about, but how could my views (as expressed so far) be termed as a belief system? Could 'structuralist humanism' be a meaningful phrase?

11:30 / 31.03.07

yes, i think so. Since adopting a critical standpoint towards Humanism would seem to reveal a constructed core which relies on a Human Nature, It would seem to be more useful and paradoxically, more "Humanist" to remove the word Human from the ideology.

Which seems quite confusing. What i think i mean to say is that it seems like a good idea to adopt values which promote compassion, reason and self determaination even if those values are constructed into a supposed Human Nature socially and not intrinsically.

02:31 / 02.04.07

perhaps you could discover what humanism isn't in order to ascertain what it is. In other words look at writers who critque humanism. having just started reading John Grays book 'Straw Dogs' the first two chapters raise some of the main tenets of humanism, in order to disprove them. Somewhat oblique, but perhaps that might help?

07:47 / 07.04.07

my own feeling is that, while compassion, etc, are not so much hardwired into every human (ie species member), it is within the capacity of that organism to effect compassion, etc - and this is the precept of humanism - an ideology that would have each human dismiss 'irrational' beliefs of the supernatural to explain anything, and to assign ourselves a rational place in nature with a biological necessity toward compassion etc to maximise our potential as a 'human'.

always thought, in this sense, that nietzsche was an uber-humanist; best way i've found to cope with reading him...

any thoughts on this?

(i wonder, if in the context of the 'crisis of climate change' a manifesto iv will be penned, with a particular focus on the environment. seemed a contemporary lack in the manifesto iii to me.)

04:20 / 18.04.07

transcendental empiricism...

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:33 / 18.04.07

Why do so many people who have read Deleuze think that just dropping the word "Deleuze" or a phrase coined by Deleuze into a discussion is in itself a useful contribution? Please try to explain in your own words what transcendental empiricism is, RustyGoldhouse, and how it is relevant to humanism or any other issue that has been raised in this thread.

Good Intentions

04:14 / 19.04.07

No need to jump from this particular case of name dropping to a general condemnation of autodidactic Deleuze readers.

Me, I think humanism sits on top of a false dilemma, but a difficult one to deal with. The implication of humanism is that no other intellectual movement treats people well - humanism, in my reading, being the belief and the movement around the belief that we should treat people well by virtue of nothing more than them being people, to value the humanity of ourselves and others. This is a false dilemma because damn-near every movement has valued some quality of humanity, (excepting the truly ascetic ones, but I can twist them this way as well) and utlimately does so in a way that is substantively no different to the way humanism does, though the form of this belief differs.

I think you could pretty fairly characterise humanism in one way that sets it apart from other value systems, in that according to humanism every person alive is a member of your moral community. Compare this to, to use a hackneyed example, a tribal mentality where you only have obligations to those in your extended family. I think this oversimplified comparison works because humanist arguments always narrows the discussion of where the boundaries of our moral communities must lay between tribalism (nationalism, communitarianism, etc) is always characterised as tribalistic in that it draws such boundaries, whereas the more 'enlightened' humanism does not.

I don't however believe that keeping such an undiscriminate moral community is tenable, and I'm uncertain about how desirable it is anyway. But I have some strong anti-humanistic sympathies. I particularly detest the implication that only by being a humanist can you care about other people - this makes light of the very real value of narrower conceptions of community.

14:35 / 19.04.07

No need to jump from this particular case of name dropping to a general condemnation of autodidactic Deleuze readers.

Not sure anyone's actually doing that, GI.

Good Intentions

14:42 / 19.04.07

Well, it was a little off-center rethorical device on COTT's part.

sdv (non-human)

18:15 / 01.05.07

'transcendental empiricism' nice concept through i habitually loathe any reference to transcendence. (In brief and if it's not clear you'll just have to read the book). Empiricism references the view that the understandable derives from the sensible whilst transcendentalism assumes that human experience must stand on a logical foundation. The empirical side of the phrase rests on the work of Hume and the transcendental effectively rests on the work of Kant. Kant is defining all the possible conditions of grasping human knowledge whereas Hume argues that ideas are derived from sensory impressions and that any test of a concept should engage with the connection between them. A concept for Hume can exist prior to the sensory impression.

Without going into the concept in to much detail, Deleuze challenges both sides the equation for on the one side he denies the transcendental through emphasizing the actual rather than experience, and on the other the effect of the actual is to remove the centrality of the(any) human subject, because the actual does not presume any being or subject that experiences and exists.

For this reason then deleuze is a deeply anti-humanist philosopher. Which is a coded way of stating that the human is not understood as the centre of things, which is precisely what humanism always implies.

bye

18:30 / 01.05.07

Deleuze also represents the worst bits of postcolonialism for some of us, in that he (and Guattari), in dehumanizing humans, often re-colonize sociological theory. Mongrel literature is not a humanist, or dignity-for-all-people, approach.

Whereas, as astrojax69 states above, Nietzsche loved humanity or the potential of humanity.

Believing the in the inherent dignity and decency of humankind is definitely a self-fulfilling kick, in that whether or not it's objectively defendable or provable, as a coping mechanism and very deliberately chosen perspective, it presents a livable world.

I don't know that I go so far as to position humanity as the most significant or useful thing in the whole world, but then, I have a bit of a problem not humanizing (not anthropomorphising) the extant everything. Dignity in dry leaves across the pavement, intellect and compassion in the dog down the road, et cet.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

09:48 / 18.05.07

Good Intentions The implication of humanism is that no other intellectual movement treats people well

Does it really? Isn't that like saying that the implication of Christianity is that no-one else believes in a God, which is obviously not true?

As mentioned above, there's a lot of slippage between what humanism meants when it was first coined, what it means now, what it means to people who may or may not consider themselves Humanists.

18:20 / 26.05.07

I always liked Vonnegut's (RIP) view of humanism, which was all about being good to people without the thought of after death rewards. We should be good to each other regardless of if there is a man in the sky holding damnnation over our heads if we aren't good or offering eteral happiness if we are. A view, if I remember correctly, also held by one of Vonnegut's influences, Eugene Debs.
-Sam
(I think that it is basically secular humanism explained in as few words as possible, one of the things that man was amazing at)