Progressivism is Hostile to Humanism

8 Responses

1. Humanism, in its original meaning, which comes from Cicero’s HUMANITAS, cannot be considered a theory of life based on natural and social science. Unfortunately, 20th-century polemic against religion, in trying to co-opt this term, has made it too confusing to be of much use.

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2. As someone who has worked as a high school teacher for about 3 decades in San Francisco USD, I have had the experience of drowning in an ocean of progressivism. SFUSD does not make any room for critical discussions. If you make a statement that contradicts any aspects of “equity”, the implication is that you are racist. They are experts at cherry-picking data and rationalizing their own opinions.
   Much of SFUSD’s ideology is based on Paulo Freire, as I would imagine him as a classic progressivist.

   We are fortunate that our Constitution was written at the height of the Enlightenment. Let’s keep to it!

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3. Stan, science comes from Latin “scientia,” but the meaning has changed, and the knowledge content has vastly improved since Aristotle. The same is true of Humanism. It has become far more meaningful and coherent starting at the Enlightenment, and continuing thereafter

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4. By the way, Stan, Humanism isn’t so much a theory of life (in the scientific sense of theory) as a systematic method of approaching life with an ethical consideration of self and others.

   In that regard, note that my article discusses how Progressives abuse the word “justice.” Their abuse doesn’t make the concept of justice too confusing to be of use.

   Their attempts to muddy the waters just means we have to be tough-minded and focused, and be consciously aware of their perverse attempts to abuse justice in the name of justice.

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5. I’ve understated my point. “Humanism” is like “liberalism.” The meaning has changed so radically in the 20th century that it has come to mean something nearly opposite to what it had always meant. Originally, humanism was concerned with the individual man and his intellectual and moral potential. It is in this sense that the Italian Renaissance or the Romantic movement of the late 18th century were “humanistic.” As currently used, “humanism” regards, not the individual, but collective humanity, and in much the same way that a nationalist regards his nation: as a source of meaning and a proper object of worship. The 21st-century “humanist” believes it is the duty of every human being to labor to the material benefit of the human tribe, especially through science. It is no wonder that “humanism” in this sense is espoused by progressives, being little more than a variant of socialism!

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6. We should probably use the term “classical humanism” to distinguish true humanism from what all too often passes under that name.

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7. Stan, equating Humanism with Liberalism implies that philosophy is identical to politics. We know this is not true.

   If “Humanism” as a term is abused by progressives, we should rescue it rather than abandon it.

   Alan Kors published a history of Humanism in Free Inquiry magazine 32(3) 2012 April/May.

   Here’s how he described it, “The new philosophy [of Humanism] involved a rejection of the presumptive authority of the past and an experimental and often mathematized model of natural knowledge. This new philosophy, as it indeed was called, emerged within a deeply religious culture. Its unintended consequences, however, would create an increasingly secularized culture in terms of scientific and ethical belief. At the heart of this were the fruits of the systematic study of nature.”

   And his final paragraph included this, “[The Enlightenment thinkers] announced a set of goals that changed the possibilities and, at times, the course of history: not only life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but legal equality, a free science, a secular society within which religion is a matter of private and voluntary life, religious toleration, and a belief that government is the servant not the master of its citizens.”

   An experimental and even mathematical model of natural knowledge is not a form of politics. And Humanism’s prescription of government as the servant of the people is antithetical to all forms of socialism.

   So, rather than retreat before the studied depredations of progressives and their attempt to confuse ethics by means of tendentious equivocation, we should stand our ground, claim our language, and defend the line of intellectual integrity and individual freedom.

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8. You gave me this link on WUWT and I would rather answer your remarks here, if that is acceptable, then I will make a brief case about the electoral college being the tyranny that disenfranchises many millions of voters and causes many millions of Americans to not vote for the president. However, the explanation of American Fascism cannot be made effectively with a brevity- but I will be addressing the detailed argument in a long one-act play in which the Yellowstone super-volcano blows affecting characters broadcasting at a political talk radio station. Also, I will be integrating in the dialogue how I have been duped by various politicians in the two evil war parties throughout most of my life and my naive support of the Greens during the past twenty years. Perhaps you might want to analyze my plan for getting a Green Libertarian Socialist Labor voting coalition established in Los Angeles where there is a homeless epidemic of massive proportions being willfully ignored by the fascist-tool sellout politicians owned by unchecked corporate power intertwined with governmental controls which Mussolini refered to as Corporatism, his attempt to rebrand the fascism label his war criminal regime was given. What is the right word for American Society? It’s not Democracy or Totalitarian, so the term Corporatism might be more appropriate than Fascism at this point depending on how you perceive this basic description:

   EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF FASCISM

   1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
   2. Disdain for human rights
   3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
   4. Rampant sexism
   5. Controlled mass media
   6. Obsession with national security
   7. Religion and government intertwined
   8. Corporate power protected
   9. Labor power suppressed
   10. Disdain for intellectual and the arts
   11. Obsession with crime and punishment
   12. Rampant cronyism and corruption

   I would add fixed elections and unfair taxation plus manipulative agendas for big money profits, even the Green New Deal which is one of the reasons I left the Green Party and joined the Peace & Freedom Party recently.

   Thanks for your input, Herk

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