Putting the human back into humanism by Frank Furedi

[applegrove]

Frank Furedi
Putting the human back into humanism
Spiked


The real threat to humanism today does not come from religious cranks and creationists, but from an army of secular misanthropes.
SKIP

"Indeed, there is a widespread conviction that the development of human civilisation – particularly the advance of science and technology, and the resulting subordination of the natural order to the demands of human society – is the source of today’s problems of environmental destruction and social disintegration. This perception of civilisation itself giving rise to today’s perils shows what a degraded view some people have of the human species. At times, this sentiment expresses plain old loathing for humans, such as when Earth First campaigners chant: ‘Four legs good! Two legs bad!’ People are regularly portrayed as loathsome parasites who threaten the Earth’s existence.

As I have written elsewhere, the real challenge facing humanism is the low esteem accorded to the status of humanity (6). Today, the world seems dominated by a widespread disenchantment with humanity’s achievements, and a manifest lack of confidence in the capacity of people to reason and influence the course of events. The past is frequently looked upon as a sordid tale of people destroying the planet. This focus on a past of human selfishness and destruction boosts the current project of dispossessing humanity of any unique or positive qualities.

The depiction of human activity as itself a threat to the world paints a negative picture of the human species. Civilisation, instead of being viewed as a source of positive transformation and progress, is portrayed as a history of environmental vandalism. Such a misanthropic view was clearly expressed in 2003 by Michael Meacher, the former New Labour minister for the environment, when he spoke about how ‘we are the virus’ infecting the Earth’s body. His colleague, the now late Labour MP Tony Banks, echoed this view in a proposed motion to the House of Commons. It stated: ‘This House…believes that humans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the Earth and wipes them out, thus giving Nature the opportunity to start again’ (7). Such intense loathing for people is only really an extreme variant of contemporary anti-humanism.



SKIP

It is ironic that expressions of moral revulsion against the evils of modern society are often accompanied by a repudiation of the framework of rationality and purposeful intervention in nature and society that could make it possible to develop a more truly human society. What we need is a more balanced assessment of the state of society, one that rejects the gross exaggeration of problems and recognises what we have achieved. Most important of all, we need to understand that, whatever mistakes we have made, we can extract from them lessons that can guide us to move forward. The reconstitution of agency does not require the invention of grand philosophies, but the humanising of humanism through empowering personhood."

........SNIP"

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2044