The atheistic critique of humanism has been all but forgotten

[rug]

The World Atheist Convention is currently under way in Dublin. Among those addressing the conference is Richard Green from Atheism UK. His is a new and small group seeking to establish itself in the marketplace of ideas where the most familiar voices are those of the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association. What is distinctive about Atheism UK, Green insists, is that it's an atheist organisation for all atheists, including those not committed to humanism. "We cater for atheists who are not humanists," he says.

These days, atheists who are not humanists are an unfamiliar breed. Most atheists, and in particular the new atheists, regard themselves as committed humanists. Indeed, they are new in name only for they appeal back to the atheistic humanism of the Enlightenment, with its optimism about human nature and strong belief in the power of human reason and the inevitability of progress. Here humanism and atheism formed an alliance against all that stands over and against human flourishing. God must be dead so that humanity can thrive. Once emancipated from religious tyranny and dogma, humanity will thrive. As Kant believed, humanity must be its own highest being and ultimate end.

Yet throughout the 20th century many atheists rejected this picture. The sunny optimism of the Enlightenment – not least its commitment to progress and a sense of the intrinsic goodness of human nature – was profoundly dented by the horrors of the first world war and the Nazi death camps. The Enlightenment hadn't found another word for sin. And just as Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, a developing anti-humanism started to announce what, in less gender-conscious times, Foucault was to call "the death of man". Indeed, Nietzsche himself insisted the belief in humanity was itself just a hangover from a belief in God and, once God was eradicated, the belief in human beings would follow the same way.

It was mostly Marxists who developed this idea and ran with it. Louis Althusser coined the term anti-humanism. Forget the significance of the human individual, he argued, it is historical processes that make the difference. There is no such thing as intrinsic humanity, we are all the product of external forces. Everything that cannot be analysed structurally is false consciousness. Humanism itself is false consciousness. Others made a parallel critique using Freudian psychoanalysis. Human beings are not little gods free to choose for themselves on the basis of reason alone. We are subject to forces outside the reach of rational scrutiny. And, broadly speaking, the intellectual left all rose in applause. As Emmanuel Levinas observed in 1957: "Contemporary thought holds out the surprise for us of an atheism that is not humanist."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/04/atheistic-critique-of-humanism-forgotten

[Newest Reality]

1. As a non-theist and non-atheist, whith no side

of the coin to be on and no axe to grind ...

If we could only see ourselves past the idea of financial profit as the reason for being and living, while realizing that all hierarchies are imagined power structures that can easily be torn down to the point that each of us is a nation-state unto our selves, then, something real and deep and meaningful could happen to our species.

Otherwise, as centuries of history have shown, it is business as usual, only the names and forms and shapes change along the way.

Rise up, out and be what you really are ... for a change.

[hlthe2b]

2. Depressing philosophy (anti-humanist) IMO

[MrModerate]

3. Yeah, well, sure, maybe. My problem with antihumanism . . .

is that the "historical processes" and "external forces" the author cites -- to be taken seriously -- need to include as very strong influencers our animal, emotional, and intellectual natures. And these natures drive us to behave in ways that are profoundly humanistic, even while individuals are free to not do so.

A perhaps banal example: regardless of religious or sociological framing, most people live with each other in reasonable peace most of the time, and that is only possible if one behaves in accordance with humanistic principles.

For that matter, religion itself has a sociobiological component. Which might explain why the whole phenomenon appears ineradicable.

I don't believe the antihumanist atheist crowd is going to need a bigger phone booth any time soon.

[FarrenH]

4. Thank you

I'm an atheist, and a humanist.

Anti-humanism in the atheist camp is tied to the notion that nature itself (not just ecological considerations, but all of physics) must demand behaviour in order for us to seperate it into good (recommended or prescribed) behaviour and bad (frowned apon or proscribed) behaviour. Ayn Rand's sophomoric philosophy resolves this misperceived requirement by means of a philosophically unsound claim to bridging the is-ought gap. The anti-atheism described in the OP, by denying that it is possible and consequently rejecting compassionate atheistic philosophies.

But the requirement itself is absurd. One can accept that nature has no opinion on human values and still embrace the compassion that underpins older essentially atheistic philosophies like Buddhism. The insistence that we reject with prejudice egalitarian ideas because nature does not demand them is itself a hangover from god-fearing philosophies. Its so accustomed to divine fiat being the rationale it tries to transpose it to natural fiat, and finding none embraces various ideas that make no-one happy.

[MrModerate]

6. For that matter, I'm not sure that nature -- by which I mean human nature . . .

Doesn't demand egalitarian ideas (at least as a tendancy) because such things obviously lend an evolutionary advantage and would therefore have been selected for.

[FarrenH]

8. Thats my instinctive reaction as well, but...

I've still got Gould's reminder that evolution is really just a random walk through the phase space of possible forms in the back of my head.

Its difficult to see how humanity would have arrived at its present level of civilisation without co-operative instincts and I think there's some merit in the idea that humanist-type philosophies lead to a more harmonious life with our own chemistry, but at the same time inter-familial and later inter-group rivalry of a mostly violent form has also shaped us. Borrowing Dawkin's loose concept, memetic evolution is now outpacing genetic evolution, with selection happening between different community/society/nation models.

But all I claim is a lack of certainty. What I do know that anger and hatred is like a poison inside of me, that I have benefited immensely by letting go of every grudge in my life and seeking harmony with other people and creatures, and that I have never met anyone who wasn't a psychopath who is happier hating than loving, so I'm just gonna keep promoting humanism (and beyond that a similarly compassionate attitude to other creatures) and hope that it isn't selected out :)

[Jim__]

5. An anti-humanist view seems inevitably pessimistic.

Pessimistic, of course, doesn't mean wrong.

If you accept that there is such a thing as human nature, I don't see how you can believe that humans can progress. Evolve, maybe; but not progress.

John N Gray is one example, that I'm aware of, of an anti-humanist atheist. His book, Straw Dogs, offers a generally pessimistic view of human potential. IIRC, the best possibility for a future is to live in small, pastoral type groups without trying to dominate nature.

Besides historical processes, and Gray's generally bleak future, do anti-humanist atheists offer anything else?

[dmallind]

7. Interesting. One must differentiate the two "Humanists" though

The philosophical humanism that views humans as autonomous agents with intrinsic equality is the only one that is denied by anti-humanism.

The cause of Humanism that is the part of the name of the BHA referred to above and the equivalent AHA/SCA in the US has a specific set of beliefs - the well known Humanist Manifesto which members are expected to support.

I, for example am a humanist but not a Humanist. I cannot imagine how a BHA/AHA adherent would not also be a philosophical humanist as the philosophy informs the Manifesto quite strongly, but a anti-humanist is not necessarily saying he is against the AHA/BHA.

I'm surprised our poor deluded "atheism is a religion" posters do not make much of Humanism, because unlike atheism it DOES have a central creed or belief system. However it's quite simple - while many atheists are Humanists, not all are, and the Manifesto is not required to be an atheist (I for example differ on some sociopolitical stances Humanists adopt such as the death penalty).