Humanism

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Article Summary
The philosophical term humanism refers to a series of interrelated concepts about the nature, defining characteristics, powers, education and values of human
persons. In one sense humanism is a coherent and recognizable philosophical system that advances substantive ontological, epistemological, anthropological,
educational, aesthetic, ethical and political claims. In another sense humanism is understood more as a method and a series of loosely connected questions about
the nature and character of human persons.
From the fourteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, humanism minimally meant: (1) an educational programme founded on the classical authors and
concentrating on the study of grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy; (2) a commitment to the perspective, interests and centrality of human
persons; (3) a belief in reason and autonomy as foundational aspects of human existence; (4) a belief that reason, scepticism and the scientific method are the only
appropriate instruments for discovering truth and structuring the human community; (5) a belief that the foundations for ethics and society are to be found in
autonomy and moral equality. From the end of the nineteenth century, humanism has been defined, in addition to the above, by the way in which particular aspects
of core humanist belief such as human uniqueness, scientific method, reason and autonomy have been utilized in such philosophical systems as existentialism,
Marxism and pragmatism.

Humanism
Humanism is an attitude of thought which gives primary importance to human beings. Its outstanding historical example
was Renaissance humanism from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, which developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of classical
Latin and Greek texts. As a reaction against the religious authoritarianism of Medieval Catholicism, it emphasized human dignity, beauty, and
potential, and affected every aspect of culture in Europe, including philosophy, music, and the arts. This humanist emphasis on the value and
importance of the individual influenced the Protestant Reformation, and brought about social and political change in Europe.
There was another round of revival of humanism in the Age of Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a reaction against the
newly prevalent dogmatic authoritarianism of Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism, and the Counter-Reformation from around the end of the
sixteenth century to the seventeenth century. During the last two centuries, various elements of Enlightenment humanism have been manifested in
philosophical trends such as existentialism, utilitarianism, pragmatism, and Marxism. Generally speaking, Enlightenment humanism was more
advanced than Renaissance humanism in its secular orientation, and produced atheism, Marxism, as well as secular humanism. Secular
humanism, which denies God and attributes the universe entirely to material forces, today has replaced religion for many people.
Secular humanism, in its neglect of God the source of human values, risks an impoverishment of meaning. Yet humanism is an inevitable reaction
to theism when it is authoritarian and dogmatic. For human beings created in the image of God, the values of humanism express human beings'
God-given nature. Hence, while secular humanism is antithetical to theism, religious humanism and theism are complementary.
Humanism in Renaissance and Enlightenment
Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was a European intellectual and cultural movement which began in Florence, Italy, in the last decades of the fourteenth
century, rose to prominence in the fifteenth century, and spread throughout the rest of Europe in the sixteenth century. The term "humanism" itself
was coined much later, in 1808, by German educator F.J. Niethammer to describe a program of study distinct from science and engineering; but in
the fifteenth century, the term "umanista," or "humanist," was current, meaning a student of human affairs or human nature. The movement
developed from the rediscovery by European scholars of many Greek and Roman texts. Its focus was on human dignity and potential and the place
of mankind in nature; it valued reason and the evidence of the senses in understanding truth. The humanist emphasis upon art and the senses
marked a great change from the contemplation on the biblical values of humility, introspection, and meekness that had dominated European
thought in the previous centuries. Beauty was held to represent a deep inner virtue and value, and an essential element in the path towards God.
Renaissance humanism was a reaction to Catholic scholasticism which had dominated the universities of Italy, and later Oxford and Paris, and
whose methodology was derived from Thomas Aquinas. Renaissance humanists followed a cycle of studies, the studia humanitatis(studies of
humanity), consisting of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy, based on classical Roman and Greek texts. Many humanists held
positions as teachers of literature and grammar or as government bureaucrats. Humanism affected every aspect of culture in Europe,
including music and the arts. It profoundly influenced philosophy by emphasizing rhetoric and a more literary presentation and by introducing Latin
translations of Greek classical texts which revived many of the concepts of ancient Greek philosophy.
The humanist emphasis on the value and importance of the individual was not necessarily a total rejection of religion. According to historians such
as Nicholas Terpstra, the Renaissance was very much characterized with activities of lay religious co-fraternities with a more internalized kind of
religiosity, and it influenced the Protestant Reformation, which rejected the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and declared that every
individual could stand directly before God.[1] Humanist values also brought about social and political change by acknowledging the value and dignity
of every individual regardless of social and economic status. Renaissance humanism also inspired the study of biblical sources and newer, more
accurate translations of biblical texts.
Humanist scholars from this period include the Dutch theologian Erasmus, the English author Thomas More, the French writer Francois Rabelais,
the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch, and the Italian scholar Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
Enlightenment humanism
The term, "Enlightenment humanism," is not as well known as "Renaissance humanism." The reason is that the relationship of humanism to
the Enlightenment has not been as much clarified by historians than that between humanism and the Renaissance. But, there actually existed
humanism in the Enlightenment as well, and quite a few historians have related humanism to the Enlightenment. [2] Enlightenment humanism is
characterized by such key words as autonomy, reason, and progress, and it is usually distinguished from Renaissance humanism because of its
more secular nature. While Renaissance humanism was still somewhat religious, developing an internalized type of religiosity, which influenced the
Protestant Reformation, Enlightenment humanism marked a radical departure from religion.
The Enlightenment was a reaction against the religious dogmatism of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The religious dogmatism of that
time in Europe had been developed in three domains: 1) Protestant scholasticism by Lutheran and Calvinist divines, 2) "Jesuit scholasticism"
(sometimes called the "second scholasticism") by the Counter-Reformation, and 3) the theory of the divine right of kings in the Church of England. It
had fueled the bloody Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and the English Civil War (1642-1651). The Enlightenment rejected this religious dogmatism.
The intellectual leaders of the Enlightenment regarded themselves as a courageous elite who would lead the world into progress from a long period
of doubtful tradition and ecclesiastical tyranny. They reduced religion to those essentials which could only be "rationally" defended, i.e., certain basic
moral principles and a few universally held beliefs about God. Taken to one logical extreme, the Enlightenment even resulted in atheism. Aside from
these universal principles and beliefs, religions in their particularity were largely banished from the public square.
Humanism after the Enlightenment
After the Enlightenment, its humanism continued and was developed in the next two centuries. Humanism has come to encompass a series of
interrelated concepts about the nature, definition, capabilities, and values of human persons. In it refers to perspectives
in philosophy, anthropology, history, epistemology, aesthetics, ontology, ethics, and politics, which are based on the human being as a point of
reference. Humanism refers to any perspective which is committed to the centrality and interests of human beings. It also refers to a belief
that reason and autonomy are the basic aspects of human existence, and that the foundation for ethics and society is autonomy and moral equality.
During the last two centuries, various elements of humanism have been manifested in philosophical views
including existentialism, utilitarianism, pragmatism, personalism, and Marxism.
Also in the area of education, the late nineteenth century educational humanist William T. Harris, who was U.S. Commissioner of Education and
founder of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, followed the Enlightenment theory of education that the studies that develop human intellect are
those that make humans "most truly human." His "Five Windows of the Soul" (mathematics, geography, history, grammar, and literature/art) were
believed especially appropriate for the development of the distinct intellectual faculties such as the analytical, the mathematical, and the linguistic.
Harris, an egalitarian who worked to bring education to all children regardless of gender or economic status, believed that education in these
subjects provided a "civilizing insight" that was necessary in order for democracy to flourish.
Modern humanist movements
One of the earliest forerunners of contemporary chartered humanist organizations was the Humanistic Religious Association formed in 1853
in London. This early group was democratically organized, with male and female members participating in the election of the leadership and
promoted knowledge of the sciences, philosophy, and the arts.
Active in the early 1920s, Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller considered his work to be tied to the humanist movement. Schiller himself was
influenced by the pragmatism of William James. In 1929, Charles Francis Potter founded the First Humanist Society of New York whose advisory
board included Julian Huxley, John Dewey, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Mann. Potter was a minister from the Unitarian tradition and in 1930, he
and his wife, Clara Cook Potter, published Humanism: A New Religion. Throughout the 1930s, Potter was a well-known advocate of womens
rights, access to birth control, civil divorce laws, and an end to capital punishment.
Raymond B. Bragg, the associate editor of The New Humanist, sought to consolidate the input of L. M. Birkhead, Charles Francis Potter, and
several members of the Western Unitarian Conference. Bragg asked Roy Wood Sellars to draft a document based on this information which
resulted in the publication of the Humanist Manifesto in 1933. It referred to humanism as a religion, but denied all supernaturalism and went so far
as to affirm that: "Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created."[3] So, it was hardly religious humansim; it was rather
secular humanism. The Manifesto and Potter's book became the cornerstones of modern organizations of secular humanism. They defined religion
in secular terms and refused traditional theistic perspectives such as the existence of God and his act of creation.
In 1941, the American Humanist Association was organized. Noted members of The AHA include Isaac Asimov, who was the president before his
death, and writer Kurt Vonnegut, who also was president before his death.
Secular and religious humanism
Secular humanism rejects theistic religious belief, and the existence of God or other supernatural being, on the grounds that supernatural beliefs
cannot be supported rationally. Secular humanists generally believe that successful ethical, political, and social organization can be accomplished
through the use of reason or other faculties of man. Many theorists of modern humanist organizations such as American Humanist Association hold
this perspective.
Religious humanism embraces some form of theism, deism, or supernaturalism, without necessarily being allied with organized religion. The
existence of God or the divine, and the relationship between God and human beings is seen as an essential aspect of human character, and each
individual is endowed with unique value through this relationship. Humanism within organized religion can refer to the appreciation of human
qualities as an expression of God, or to a movement to acknowledge common humanity and to serve the needs of the human community. Religious
thinkers such as Erasmus, Blaise Pascal, and Jacques Maritain hold this orientation.
Assessment
As long as human beings were created in the image of God, their values and dignity are to be respected. But history shows that they were very
often neglected even in the name of God or in the name of an established religious institution like church. So, it was natural
that Renaissance humanism occurred in the fourteenth century as a reaction against the religious authoritarianism of Medieval Catholicism. If the
Renaissance was a humanist reaction, there was also a faith-oriented reaction, which was the Protestant Reformation. Hence, Medieval
Catholicism is said to have been disintegrated into two very different kinds of reactions: Renaissance and Reformation. In the late sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, there was again religious authoritarianism, which arose from among Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism, and the Counter-
Reformation. Therefore, Enlightenment humanism naturally emerged as a movement against it, and its more faith-oriented counterpart was Pietism.
Enlightenment humanism was more advanced in its secular orientation than Renaissance humanism, and its tradition even issued
in atheism and Marxism. Today, so-called secular humanism constitutes a great challenge to established religion.
Secular humanism, in its neglect of God the source of human values, risks an impoverishment of meaning. Yet, humanism is an inevitable reaction
to theism when it is authoritarian and dogmatic. For human beings created in the image of God, the values of humanism express human beings'
God-given nature. Hence, while secular humanism is antithetical to theism, religious humanism and theism are complementary. As the American
theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said, a "new synthesis" of Renaissance and Reformation is called for. [4]

Christian Humanism
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice
of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles.
The ancient roots of Christian humanism may be seen in Jesus' teaching of the parable of the Good Samaritan and Saint Paul's emphasis on
freedom from the external constraints of religiouslaw, as well as the appeal to classical learning by the Christian apologists. Although its roots thus
reach back to antiquity, Christian humanism grew more directly out of Christian scholasticism and Renaissance humanism, both of which developed
from the rediscovery in Europe of classical Latin and Greek texts.
Renaissance humanism generally emphasized human dignity, beauty, and potential, and reacted against the religious authoritarianism of
the Catholic Church. While Renaissance humanists stressed science and sensuality, Christian humanists used the principles of classical learning to
focus on biblical studies, theology, and the importance of individual conscience, thus creating the intellectual foundations for the Protestant
Reformation.
Later Christian humanists challenged not only the Catholic Church but the authority of the Bible itself and developed liberal Christian theology of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, stressing Jesus' humanity and the realization of God's kingdom in Christian community. The term
today describes a variety of philosophical and theological attitudes, but tends to reject secularist ideologies which seek to eliminate religious
discussion from the political arena.
Origins
Christian humanism can be seen as existing at the core of the Christian message. Jesus himself held the commandment, "Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself" (Luke 10:27, Leviticus 19:18) to be essential. The parable of the Good Samaritan demonstrates this principle in action,
stressing that even a member of a despised social class can embody true religion more than priests. Elsewhere, Jesus emphasized that charitable
works such as feeding the hungry and caring for the sick are more important than mere acknowledgment of him as "Lord" (Matthew 25:34-40).
The writings of Saint Paul, the earliest Christian writer, may be interpreted as applying classical Greek ideas to traditional Jewish beliefs and thus
developing a new religious philosophy. Paul emphasized the freedom of Gentile Christians from Jewish law and wrote of the liberty of the individual
conscience in a personal relationship with God. A more direct type of Christian humanism can be seen in the second century, with the writings
of Justin Martyr. Justin demonstrated the usefulness of classical learning in bringing the Christian message to a pagan audience, and also
suggested the value of the achievements of classical culture itself in his Apology and other works.
Many years later, Church Fathers also made use of classical learning in developing Christian theology and explaining it to audiences in the Roman
Empire. Apologists such as Origen engaged in dialogs with pagan writers and referred to classical texts to defend the Christian faith. The
development of Logos theology, a critical phase in the evolution of the mature trinitarian doctrine, emerged from the application of Greek
philosophical ideas to the Christian message. Later, influential writings of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, for example, confirmed the
commitment to using pre-Christian knowledge, particularly as it touched the material world and not metaphysical beliefs.
Background
After the Muslim conquest, however, Greek learning was largely lost to western (Latin) Christianity. The rediscovery and translation of formally lost
Greek texts in Europe, especially those of Aristotle, resulted in new approaches to theology.
Peter Abelard's work (early twelfth century), which emphasized the use of formal logic both to expose and reconcile contradictions in the writings of
the Church Fathers, encountered strong ecclesiastical resistance, but also unleashed a powerful new spirit in theological studies. After a period of
ecclesiastical reaction in which some aspects of classical learning were banned from theological discourse, writers such as Thomas
Aquinas (thirteenth century) succeeded, though not without considerable difficulty, in establishing that Aristotelian principles could be used as an
effective tool in expressing Christian theology.
The Renaissance
Both Christian and classical humanists placed great importance on studying ancient languages, namely Greek and Latin. Christian humanists also
studied Hebrew, focusing on scriptural and patristic writings, Church reform, clerical education, and preaching. Whereas non-
Christian humanism valued earthly beauty as something worthy in itself, Christian humanism valued earthly existence specifically in combination
with the Christian faith. Christian humanism saw an explosion in the Renaissance, emanating from an increased faith in the capabilities of humanity,
combined with a still-firm devotion to Christian faith.
One of the first great texts of the maturing Christian humanist tradition was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man (c. 1486).
However, the country of Pico's birth, Italy, leaned more toward civic humanism, while specifically Christian humanism tended to catch hold further
north, during what is now called the Northern Renaissance. Italian universities and academia thus stressed classical mythology and literature as a
source of knowledge, while the universities of the Holy Roman Empire, France, England, and the Netherlands applied classical learning more to the
study of the Church Fathers and biblical texts.
Near the end of the fifteenth century, Johann Reuchlin became a champion for the humanist cause when he defended the right of Jews to read
the Talmud and other Jewish works, which conservative Dominican intellectual leaders in Germany insisted should be banned as anti-Christian,
prompting major debates between humanists and traditionalists in the great universities of Europe. Reuchlin's younger contemporary, Erasmus of
Rotterdam, became the leading Christian humanist thinker of the era and completed the first New Testament in Greek in 1514. His work would
come to play a major role in the theological debates of the early Protestant Reformation.
The Reformation and beyond
Christian humanism thus blossomed out of the Renaissance and was brought by devoted Christians to the study of the sources of the New
Testament and Hebrew Bible. The invention of movable type, new inks, and widespread paper-making put virtually the whole of human knowledge
at the hands of literate Christians for the first time, beginning with the publication of critical editions of the Bible and Church Fathers and later
encompassing other disciplines.
Erasmus pioneered this movement with his work of publishing the New Testament in Greek, producing a firestorm of interest in the "original" text of
the Bible. Martin Luther went even further by translating the scriptures into his native German, and arguing for the "freedom of Christian conscience"
to interpret the scriptures without interference from the Catholic Church.
John Calvin, at the Sorbonne, began studying scripture in the original languages, eventually writing his influential commentary upon the entire
Christian Old Testament and New Testament. Each of the candidates for ordained ministry in the Reformed churches in Calvinist tradition was
required to study the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek in order to qualify. In England, Christian humanism was influential
in the court of King Henry VIII, where it came to play an important role the the establishment of the Church of England.
Meanwhile, Christian humanism continued to find advocates in the Catholic tradition as well. Erasmus, for example, remained a Catholic, and many
of the leading thinkers of the Counter-Reformation were deeply immersed in Christian humanist thought. By the beginning of the eighteenth century,
Christian humanism was the prevailing intellectual thought of Europe.
Legacy
As the primary intellectual movement which laid the foundation for the Protestant Reformation, the legacy of Christian humanism is immense. In
subsequent decades and centuries, Christians continued to engage the historical and cultural bases of Christian belief, leading to a spectrum of
philosophical and religious stances on the nature of human knowledge and divine revelation.
The Enlightenment of the mid-eighteenth century in Europe brought a separation of religious and secular institutions and challenged Christian faith
in ever more radical ways. At the same time, the idea of God-given human rights beyond the authority of any government, initiated by the English
philosopher John Locke and enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, represents a direct outgrowth of Christian humanist thinking.
Biblical criticism and the development of liberal theology in the late nineteenth century may also be seen as manifestations of the Christian
humanist spirit. However, Christian humanism stops short of secular humanism, which seeks to divorce any religious discourse from public political
debate. Indeed, Christian humanism emphasizes the need to apply Christian principles to every area of public and private life.
Today, the term "Christian humanism" is used widely to describe widely divergent viewpoints including those of such Christian writers as Fyodor
Dostoevsky, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Henri-Irne Marrou, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Humanism (viso marxista)
The system of views which makes the human being its central value, as opposed to abstract notions such as God, religious or political ideals,
abstractions like History or Reason, or sectional interests such as race or gender. In the theory of knowledge, Humanism holds that concepts
are human products (rather than coming from God or Nature) and regards social relations as more fundamental than concepts like Laws of
History, or Matter which ought to be explained in terms of human relations, rather than explaining humans through a given set of ideas.
Humanism has its origins in the Renaissance and reached its zenith in the Enlightenment.
In his Private Property & Communism, Marx wrote: ... communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully
developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man the true
resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the
individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution..
Humanism itself does not rise higher than the social consciousness of the epoch of which it is a part. The bourgeois conception of humanism
bases itself on private property, the central value of bourgeois society; on the other hand, proletarian humanism is based on cooperative social
activity.
For Structuralists like Louis Althusser, humanism means the illusion that individual human beings are autonomous, thinking subjects,
whereas for structuralists (and poststructuralists), individual human beings are nothing but unconscious agents of structural forces, in much the
same way as organisms are agents for the spread of a disease. Thus structuralists associate humanism with a naive and unproblematic conceptions of
language and consciousness, and illusory belief in the autonomy of human beings.
It can be argued that humanism, in taking the generic human being as its starting point, abstracts from the real human being who is male or
female, black or white, capitalist or worker, etc., and from this point of view can be argued as obscuring conflicts of interest, or even as being tied to
some notion of what is essentially human behind the various determinations of class, gender, etc. A Marxist humanist would argue that what
is essentially human is to produce oneself, to be free in the fullest sense of the word. From this point of view, the essentialist charge is turned on
itself.

How the Humanist Movement Fosters Economic Injustice

a social system which year by year witnesses the increase of the pauper class, and the increase of their miseries, stands condemned before
the tribunal of justice, how long will it take before that is understood and taken to heart?
~Felix Adler, Creed and Deed, 1880
In early 2010, religion historian and longtime university professor R. Joseph Hoffmann wrote a blog post offering his thoughts on the
incoherence of contemporary humanism. Hoffman, who in addition to his other roles is on the faculty of The Humanist Institute in New York
City, observes that, being unsure of its real convictions, secular Humanism has become a mess the garbled message of freedom, science,
democratic values, and church-state separation spread out over a playing field with no ball and no rules. Thus, it ends up taking a free-base
approach to whatever grabs its attention on a given day.
Hoffman is right, but he misses a huge and critical part of the picture. Whats wrong with todays mainstream Humanism goes far beyond
philosophical confusion and strategic anarchy. Strangely, the difficulty is one that, almost universally, Humanists seem wholly oblivious to, even
though, as it happens, it is right out in the open. Whats more, because the problem concerns Humanisms often admirably vanguard ethical
fundamentals, it amounts to no less than a moral crisis.
Put simply, the Humanist movement, in the United States anyway, is badly broken. As jolting as that assertion may be to some, it is nevertheless
necessary, because in major respects Humanism is blatantly betraying the core principles it was created to champion. We can explore just one of
those principles here, namely Humanisms foundational commitment to economic justice. The ugly truth is that nowadays the movement serves
the narrow interests of the elite and the comfortable at the expense of everybody else, especially of poor and working class people.
It does so by the rather straightforward means of deliberate neglect. For the most part, it looks upon problems of poverty and economic inequality,
when it looks upon them at all, as low priorities for secular activism and remedial public policy. More on that theme presently, but first, to see how
incredibly far the Humanist movement has wandered astray, we need to look at some essential, mostly forgotten history.
Organized Humanism: The First Century
In his posthumously published book The Genesis of a Humanist Manifesto (1995), Edwin H. Wilson (18981993), an early executive director of
The American Humanist Association (AHA), reflects on the development of Humanist Manifesto I (HMI). The buildup to HMI, which was
promulgated in 1933, occurred during the miserable early years of the Great Depression, prior to the advent of the New Deal. The principal
political hope to many persons of humanist and humanitarian outlook, Wilson writes was found in the leadership of Norman Thomas, who
advocated a democratic, non-Marxist form of socialism, or in refrains from [socialist] labor leader Eugene Debs or in the writings of workers
rights theorist and land reformer Henry George. The time seemed ripe to break the dead branches from the past. The Manifesto was a
principal expression of the movement.
Wilson could have formulated a better metaphor. In calling for radical changes in the socioeconomic order, many thinkers, a good many
Humanists among them, sought to get past the surface down to the roots of what ailed American society. So, when HMI was published in The New
Humanist magazine, forerunner of todays The Humanist, it explicitly called for the adoption of a democratic socialism. The document contains
fifteen provisions, one of which (point fourteen) reads:
The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical
change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that
the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily
and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.
Humanist Manifesto I explicitly calls its perspective a religioushumanism, but that fact in no way compromises its relevance for our purposes
here. As reflected, for example, in the various secular religions of humanity that arose in Europe and the U.S. during the nineteenth and early
twentieth-centuries, for a significant minority of people religion did not necessarily entail theism. Thus, Humanists could be secular without being
irreligious, a position of some practical benefit given the ironclad link in the public mind between religiosity and goodness. In any event, as the
document clearly conveys, the author and signers of HMI were non-theistic metaphysical naturalists.
Thirty-four people, most of them philosophers and Unitarian ministers, signed the socialistic Manifesto. One of them was Wilson himself, who,
decades later, would co-author Humanist Manifesto II. Other signers included philosopher Roy Wood Sellars (18801973), author of a book of
socialist political philosophy (The Next Step in Democracy, 1916) and writer of the first draft of HMI; John H. Dietrich (1878-1957), one of the
founders of modern Humanism, anti-capitalist, and advocate of a co-operative system of economics largely inspired by the utopian socialism of
Robert Owen; and William Floyd (18711943), editor of the Humanist magazine The Arbitrator, pacifistic socialist, and author of People vs. Wall
Street: A Mock Trial(1930).
The most famous signatory was the philosopher John Dewey (18591952). Philosophically, as the historian Alan Ryan puts it, Dewey was a non-
Marxist naturalized-Left Hegelian (John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism, 1995). Often referred to by historians and political
scientists as a social democrat or a democratic socialist, Dewey was in fact a market socialist who opposed the profit motive. He was also an ardent
union advocate, enthusiast (like his philosophical rival and fellow Humanist Bertrand Russell) for guild socialism, president of the socialistic
League for Industrial Democracy, supporter of the socialist Eugene Debs in the Presidential election of 1912, and, as Matthew Festenstein notes a
leading critic from the left of Roosevelts New Deal. Deweys detestation of the capitalist order Ryan remarks had a semi-religious quality.
One of the various social movements Dewey influenced was Ethical Culture. According to Professor Joe Chuman, a longtime Ethical Culture
leader, although Dewey was never a member of the movement, his influence on it was transformative. He continues: Under the pressures of
Deweyan instrumentalism during the first third of the twentieth century, and in response to the influx into Ethical Culture of newly arrived
immigrants from Eastern Europe, who brought with them commitments to socialism and Marxism, Ethical Culture increasingly moved into the
humanist camp (Toward a Humanist Politic, in Toward a New Political Humanism, 2004). As Steven Rockefeller relates, in the years after its
founders death Ethical Culture came to function as a kind of religious humanist fellowship founded upon Deweys philosophy (John Dewey:
Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism, 1991). Hence the term Ethical Humanism, which eventually came into regular use as a synonym
for Ethical Culture.
The factors Chuman points to did influence Ethical Culture, but he seems to miss the fact that the movement was both philosophically Humanist
and broadly socialist from the very beginning. The New York Society for Ethical Culture (NYSEC), whose school Deweys children attended for
several years, was founded in 1876 by Felix Adler (18511933), a philosopher, humanitarian social reformer, and secular Jew. Chuman himself
notes that in its early decades the animating spirit of Ethical Culture was a felt need to redress the evils wrought by the industrial revolution.
In her perceptive study of Adlers social justice advocacy, Esther Lifshitz shows that, as a graduate student in Germany, Adler came under the
influence of, among other strains of thought, the political philosophy of Friedrich Albert Lange. Author of Die Arbeiterfrage (The Labor Question,
1865), Lange was a social democrat (or reformist socialist) who, as Lifshitz writes, compelled Adler, whose mother had inculcated in him a deep
concern for the poor when he was a boy, to admit the legitimacy of socialist grievances and to square [him]self with the issues that socialism
raises. Lifshitz goes on:
Lange determined the course of his [i.e. Adlers] future social activity. He convinced Adler that the progress of civilization depended on the
advancement of social justice and assistance to the working class. As he read The Labor Question with burning cheeks, Adler
incorporated his new appreciation for practical social reform into his developing ethical thought. Thus, he became one of the earliest
proponents of social justice and labor cooperation, proving his commitment to Langes mission a few years later with the founding of Ethical
Culture.
Prior to leaving Germany, in charting the course he intended to take upon his return to the U.S., Adler expressed his intention to arouse the
conscience of the wealthy, the advantaged, the educated, to a sense of their guilt in violating the human personality of the laborer.
For the rest of his life Adler was a staunch advocate for economic justice. In 1904, he became the founding chairman of the National Child Labor
Committee, a position he held for 15 years. Lifshitz notes that Adler had been actively concerned about child labor issues since 1872, when in
Germany he read with horror Karl Marxs description of Englands orphanages, mills, and child maltreatment in Das Kapital. He was a
tenement reform activist and served on the New York State Tenement House Commission. He pioneered the idea of a maximum wage (or income
cap) by way of a steep graduated income tax with a top rate of 100 percent. In its early years, Adlers Society established a District Nursing Service
to provide health care services in poor neighborhoods, opened a free kindergarten (the first school of its type in the United States) for the children
of the working poor, and contributed to the founding of the Settlement House movement.
Adlers outlook is reflected in his writings and speeches. In his first book (Creed and Deed, 1880), he lamented what he saw as the terribly tragic
plight of exploited workers and of the poor in general, and insisted that changing the conditions that spawned oppressive inequalities was an
urgent need. In an address honoring the twentieth anniversary of Ethical Culture in 1896, he called for scientific research to ascertain whether
the positions of individualism and socialism are not susceptible of being united in a deeper philosophy of life. In 1903 (Life and Destiny) he
wrote of his guiding vision for a new kind of society in which no men or class of men shall be mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for
others; in which no man or woman, or class of men or class of women shall be used as tools for the lusts or for the ambition or for the
greed of others. The root disease from which the world suffers, Adler wrote in 1918 (An Ethical Philosophy of Life) is the dominance of the
commercial point of view.
Fittingly, then, as Chuman notes, one enthusiastic member of NYSEC was Samuel Gompers (18501924), founder and longtime president of the
American Federation of Labor. Of all the religious and affiliated associations in New York, Chuman writes, Gompers saw NYSEC as the most
supportive of the interests of labor. And among the leaders of such associations, in Gompers estimation Adler was certainly the most outspoken
in the cause of the working class.
The New York Society provided the model for the Chicago Society for Ethical Culture (CSEC, now The Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago),
founded in 1882. Its first and longtime leader was William M. Salter (18531931), an author, scholar, and anarchist who was deeply involved with
social welfare work. His book Anarchy or Government? (1895) is in large part an argument for active government regulation of big business in
the interests of preventing the exploitation of workers. He proclaimed the mission of the new Society to promote a nobler private and juster social
life. Society members believed themselves bound by a sacred duty to do all within our power to raise our less fortunate fellow-men out of the
sorrowful condition into which they have fallen. During its early years CSECs activities generally mirrored those of NYSEC. One difference was
the formers establishment of a Bureau of Justice, an early forerunner of the Legal Aid Society, for the purpose of providing legal assistance to the
poor.
One notable member of CSEC was Clarence Darrow (18571938), a defense attorney who himself performed a good deal of pro bono work for
poor clients. Darrow first drew national attention as a labor lawyer in a series of high-profile cases, defending among others, radical union leader
Eugene Debs, the United Mineworkers, and Big Bill Haywoodlike Debs a socialist founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World. As
S.T. Joshi writes in his book The Unbelievers (2011), such cases solidified Darrows reputation as a radical firebrand and ardent friend of labor.
The Chicago Society was especially close to the local Settlement House movement, to which it gave organizational and material support. The
leading figure in that movement, Jane Addams (18601935), was cofounder of the Illinois Womens Trade Union League (WTUL), a close friend
of Deweys, a lecturer at Adlers summer School of Applied Ethics in Massachusetts in 1892, a frequent speaker at CSEC, and a social democrat.
(Its indicative of Addams own radicalism that, when she cofounded Hull House, her partner, Ellen Gates Starran Anglican who ultimately
turned Catholicwas an anti-child labor activist, member of the WTUL, opponent of industrialization, and member of the Socialist Labor Party.)
One of Hull Houses resident staff members during the 1890s was Florence Kelley (18591932), whom Chuman calls one of Ethical Cultures
moral heroes. One of the most impressive figures of her time, Kelley (in addition to being a civil rights activist and cofounder of the NAACP) was
a Marxist, a friend of Friedrich Engels, translator of Engels book The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (the version is still in
print), an activist against sweatshops and child labor and for the eight hour day and a minimum wage, and cofounder (along with Upton Sinclair
and Jack London) and president of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. A protg of Kelleys who spent time working at Hull House was the labor
rights advocate Frances Perkins (18801965). During her twelve-year tenure as Secretary of Labor under Franklin Roosevelt, among many other
reforms a minimum wage bill was enacted, child labor was ended, and the National Labor Relations and Social Security Acts were signed into law.
Kelleys biography, posthumously published in 1953, was written by Adlers sister-in-law, Josephine Goldmark (1877-1950). Goldmark was a
progressive labor law reformer and a longtime publications secretary and researcher for Kelley at the National Consumers League. In the latter
role Goldmark oversaw the production of publications such as the Child Labor Legislation Handbook (1907) and the Handbook of Laws
Regulating Womens Hours of Labor (1912), both of which, according to The Selected Letters of Florence Kelley, became blueprints for reform
legislation during and after the Progressive Era.
Another activist who worked for Kelley was Alzina P. Stevens (1849-1900), a CSEC member and, during the 1890s, a resident of Hull House.
Stevens was an experienced union organizer of women, coeditor of a weekly labor newspaper, and a regionally prominent member of the Knights
of Labor. When Kelley was named chief factory inspector for Illinois, she appointed Stevens to be her top assistant. Among her other projects,
Stevens collaborated with Darrow and with H. D. Lloyd on the promotion of anti-sweatshop legislation. Upon Stevens death, the NYSEC
journal The Ethical Record memorialized her as an indefatigable and heroic worker in behalf of social progress.
Henry Demarest Lloyd (18471903) was Kelleys close friend, CSEC member, and a radical labor advocate. A social democrat and staunch anti-
monopolist, Lloyd envisioned a better society in the form of a cooperative commonwealth. In 1888 he ran for Congress under the banner of the
Union Labor Party, during the 1890s he was a leader of the left wing of the Populist movement, and in 1894 he ran for Congress on a Labor-
Peoples Party fusion ticket. His published works include A Strike of Millionaires against Miners, Labour Copartnership, Country without
Strikes, Lords of Industry, and the highly influential Wealth against Commonwealth. His speech The New Conscience, or the Religion of Labor,
delivered at CSEC in 1888, was widely read after it subsequently appeared in a national magazine.
In the same way, then, that Wilson had explained that HM1 emerged, as much as anything else, out of concerns about the class problem, Lifshitz
observes that a desire to fight class oppression was at the heart of the rise of Ethical Culture:
Reflecting on the initial motivation for the movement, Adler insisted that Ethical Culture did not begin as a series of rationalistic societies
comprised of an intelligentsia embittered by religion, but as a movement for progressive reform. It originated as a positive action for
humankind, not a negative reaction against Judaism. From its inception, Ethical Culture was bound with labor strugglesthe chief moral
question of the dayand the tangible and philosophical problems of the modern industrial world. (emphases mine)
Many humanists are aware that the most famous person ever to identify himself with Ethical Culture was Albert Einstein (18791955). However,
few of them know that the greatest scientist in history was also a left-wing radical. In his essay Why Socialism?, written in 1949 for the inaugural
issue of the socialist magazine Monthly Review and published in his book Essays in Humanism (1950), Einstein argued for the adoption of
democratic socialism. Contemporary man was highly driven in anti-social directions, he observed, and in his view the culprit was no great
mystery. The real source of the evil, he wrote, is the economic anarchy of capitalist society. In practice, capitalism creates inequities that lead
to an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.
He went on: I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy,
accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. As biographer Walter Isaacson notes, Einstein was a fierce
defender of the underdog whose socialism was a product of his commitments to equality and social justice. Isaacson quotes Einsteins stepson-in-
law: Socialism to him [i.e. Einstein] reflects the ethical desire to remove the appalling chasm between the classes and to produce a more just
economic system.
Like Adler, Einstein was a secular Jew. According to Sherwin T. Wine, writing in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (2007), Ethical Culture was
one of five distinct varieties of Jewish secular Humanism. One of the others, Secular Zionism, included a Socialist Zionist (or Labor Zionist)
element whose members (one of whom, although Wine does not say so, included Einstein, whose case illustrates that individuals were sometimes
part of multiple Jewish Humanist traditions) dreamed of a model egalitarian state where clerical, bourgeois, and military domination would
cease to exist. A notable aspect of Socialist Zionism was the kibbutz commune, a dramatic example of secular socialism. Interestingly, unlike
the Bourgeois and Nationalist types of Secular Zionism, Wine explains, Socialist Zionism is the only variant that has remained fiercely secular. A
third type of Jewish secular Humanism was Jewish Socialism. For many Jews, Wine writes secularism was an aspect of their socialist
commitment. Jewish socialists, he goes on could not separate secularism from egalitarian politics. Dismissing God went hand in hand with
elevating the proletariat. A significant number of Socialist Zionists, and a large number of Jewish Socialists, were part of the Jewish Diaspora in
the United States.
Einsteins Humanist ties went beyond his affiliations with Jewish secular Humanisms. During the 1930s, he served on the advisory board of the
First Humanist Society of New York. His colleagues on the board included, among others, John Dewey, historian and socialist-turned-progressive
labor advocate Will Durant (18851981), and author and activist Helen Keller (18801968).
Kellers political views, which would come as an utter shock to most people, are fascinating. She was a lifelong radical socialist and a member of
the revolutionary labor union Industrial Workers of the World. Convinced that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of
the physical deafness and blindness within the human population, Keller applied a class analysis to that subject in her book Social Causes of
Blindness (1911). Her other published books include The Unemployed (1911), and The Underprivileged (1931). The FBI, always on the lookout for
subversives audacious enough to attempt to humanize American life, was concerned enough about Kellers support for international socialism and
her friendships with communists that it maintained a file on her throughout the last two decades of her life.
In 1973, the AHA released Humanist Manifesto II (HMII), coauthored by Wilson and Paul Kurtz (1925-2012). These days, the taken-for-granted
view is that the new Manifesto represented a retreat from the socialist economics of HM1. Its a plausible outlook, so long as you dont examine it
too closely. The inveterate, often truculent tradition of state repression of leftist political activity had not, to their great credit, dissuaded the
drafters of HMI, but forty years later that tradition was steeped in a changed political and cultural atmosphere. The middle decades of the
twentieth century had prominently included the long post-war economic boom, McCarthyism, and ubiquitous conflation of any sort of radical left
democratic philosophy with authoritarian communism. As was the case with intellectuals in general, a good many Humanists, Kurtzs mentor
Sidney Hook being the most famous (or infamous), responded to sociopolitical currents by discarding their Marxist and or socialist commitments.
With HMIIs preamble stating that the history of that period made HMI seem far too optimistic and with the explicit call for a socialized and
cooperative economic order now absent, Humanism had seemingly de-radicalized toward a more realistic, responsible, andundoubtedly for
liberals the most important considerationrespectable, political orientation.
But that interpretation is wrong. For one thing, if they intended to extirpate socialism from the canon of mainstream Humanism, Kurtz and
Wilson were like a remodeling crew that changed the appearance of the building but left the foundation and basic structure fully intact. In HMII
they averred that Humane societies will emphasize improvement in the quality of life and enhanced economic well-being for all individuals and
groups, an ethic which, in light of its then-obvious non-fulfillment, necessitated the consideration of alternative economic systems. They also
called for a worldwide lowering of military spending and transfer of resulting savings to peaceful and people-oriented uses, an end to poverty
everywhere, reduction of extreme disproportions in wealth, income, and economic growth, a robust social safety net, and economic democracy.
Given its insistence on both popular control (We must extend participatory democracy in its true sense to the economy [and] the workplace
Decision-making must be decentralized to include widespread involvement of people at all levels social, political, and economic.), and on
relative economic equity, and in light of the profound social reconstruction the realization of those ideals would entail, it could be argued that, by
implication, HMII demands democratic socialism. However that may be, its stated vision is, at minimum, social democratic, which, in fact, is what
the journalist and Humanist activist Steve Ahlquist calls it. And that designation makes sense, given that, on government economic policy, Kurtz
explicitly identified himself as a Marxist social democrat.
Here it is worth noting a subtle and hitherto overlooked, but intriguing historical connection. Kurtzs favorite normative ethical theory was
utilitarianism. As many readers will know, utilitarianism is a form of ethical consequentialism. According to the website of the Council for Secular
Humanism (CSH), secular Humanists are consequentialists. Arguably, the greatest of all consequentialist thinkers was the utilitarian philosopher
John Stuart Mill. As it happens, Mills idea for a Religion of Humanity was an early version of secular Humanism, and, although the fact is
seldom remembered today, he was, as reflected in the later editions of his Principles of Political Economy, a socialist.
For another thing, in the section titled Democratic Society, HMII endorses the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),
the principles of which it expresses a commitment to safeguard, extend, and implement. The UDHR, adopted by the UN General Assembly in
1948, was coauthored by Eleanor Roosevelt, who, as it happens, was a longtime board member of NYSEC. The principles articulated in
the UDHR include the following:
22: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international
co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable
for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
23.1: Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against
unemployment.
23.3: Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human
dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
25.1: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well- being of himself and of his family, including food,
clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
28: Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
From the perspective of mainstream economics these are truly radical notions. Capitalism is unequipped to deliver on such principles and in fact
doesnt even believe in them. This was true even before the rise to dominance of neoliberalism, the values of which are so sociopathic that, as Nina
Power poignantly puts it permanent accumulation is the only post-religious infinite permitted to matter. These factors (i.e., HMIIs stated
economic principles and endorsement of the UDHR) should go a long way toward accounting for the curious fact that, as will become clear below,
the left-wing signers of HMII were even more radical than most of the people who signed HMI.
An emphasis on economic rights appears again, coupled with a call for broadly socialist economics, in the Declaration of Interdependence: A New
Global Ethics, issued in 1988 by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). Therein, the IHEUs board of directors assertsthat
adequate health care, freedom from want, and moral equality, meaning equal opportunity and equal access, are basic human rights. In place of
the existing economic system, in which ethical egoism reigned at all levels, the declaration calls for A new global system based on economic co-
operation and international solidarity.
As I have shown elsewhere, genuine concern about economic inequality was a recurring theme in the writings of HMIIs coauthor, Paul Kurtz. To
cite a further example from his later years (Free Inquiry, Dec. 2004/Jan. 2005), the pioneering Humanist philosopher identified what he took to
be the greatest threats to democracy in the United States. After noting that economic democracy is a precondition for a just democratic society,
Kurtz elaborated at length on what he took to be four especially dangerous threats to democracy in America. Three of them are structural
aspects of the broad system of economic oppression: plutocracy, mega-corporations, and media-ocracy, i.e. effective control of public debate
by mega-media corporations (the fourth threat was theocracy). For Kurtz economic injustice matters a great deal, for The erosion of democracy is
especially disheartening to the humanist outlook, which has been intimately tied to the democratic philosophy. So if economic democracy is
a sine qua non for popular sovereignty, Humanists ought to be focusing on it.
Signers of HMII included A. Philip Randolph (18891979), towering civil rights activist, longtime union leader, and democratic socialist; Paul
Blanshard (18921980), author, union advocate, and socialist-turned-New Dealer; Mark Starr (1894-1985), enthusiastic student of Marxs
political economy at the Central Labour College in London, democratic socialist, and longtime labor union educator in the U.S.; Corliss Lamont
(1902-1995), President of the AHA, Marxist, and two-time U.S. Senate candidate in New York (American Labor Party, 1952; Independent-Socialist
Party, 1958); James Farmer (19201999), cofounder of the Congress of Racial Equality, national secretary of the socialist Student League for
Industrial Democracy, and honorary vice chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America; Maxine Greene (19172014), educational
philosopher, social democrat, leading figure in the left wing critical pedagogy movement, and scholarly collaborator with former Weather
Underground leader Bill Ayers; and Kai Nielsen (born 1926), political philosopher and Marxian democratic socialist.
There were many other prominent Humanists for whom economic justice was a central concern. The following is a partial list. It consists of
individuals who were active in the Humanist movement, or were celebrated by it (eight of them received the AHAs Humanist of the Year Award),
or who in some fashion explicitly identified themselves as Humanist, but who never signed one of the manifestos. Like the figures previously
mentioned, they all saw Humanism as entailing some form of radical or semi-radical left-wing political economy. Most of them were social
democrats or democratic socialists: Hubert Harrison (18831927), Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), Lillian Wald (18671940), Lewis Hine
(18741940), John Lovejoy Eliot (1868-1942), Stanton Coit (18571944), James Peter Warbasse (1866-1957), Michael Schwerner (19391964),
Lorraine Hansberry (19301965), Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), Herman Joseph Muller (18901967), Erich Fromm (19001980), Roger Nash
Baldwin (18841981), Gene Roddenberry (19211991), Algernon Black (1900-1993), Maggie Kuhn (19051995), Benjamin Spock (19031998),
Stephen Jay Gould (19412002), James Forman (1928-2005), Murray Bookchin (19212006), Kurt Vonnegut (19222007), Howard Zinn (1922
2010), Barry Commoner (19172012), Gore Vidal (19252012), and Beth Lamont (born 1929).
Clearly, then, from its beginnings in the 1870s into the late decades of the twentieth century, the amelioration of poverty and economic inequality
was a central concern of the Humanist movement. In fact, for many prominent Humanists, the only problem as important as economic injustice
was the threat of nuclear war. Among African-American Humanists, economic oppression was, of necessity, thoroughly mixed together with
racism as the paramount body of concern.
Humanist Principles I
This history of class consciousness makes perfect sense. Humanist writings and speeches go on endlessly about how the main point of the
philosophy is the promotion, primarily through the exercise of reason and the cultivation of goodness, of human flourishing. In this regard,
among the psychosocial insights reason inevitably leads to, surely one of the most important is that human flourishing requires personal
freedomto be understood, I would suggest, in the Deweyan sense of being a cultural and social rather than an individual condition. But as
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who proposed an Economic Bill of Rights (a.k.a. the Second Bill of Rights, the main inspiration for the UDHR) was fond of
saying necessitous men are not free men. Surely it follows then, that human flourishing requires what I will call economic wellness. Such
considerations prompt Ahlquist to take the view that If Humanism is not about the working class, its about nothing at all.
One of the rare contemporary Humanists who gets the importance of all this is Barry Seidman, producer of the radio show Equal Time for
Freethought and editor of the book Toward a New Political Humanism (2004). To be a humanist, he writes is to be anti-capitalism.
Humanists have all these ethical codes and affirmations and principles, which if applied, would have to take into consideration capitalism and
class or they would be neutered. As he brilliantly puts it Understanding Humanism without class/economics is like understanding biology
without evolutionary theory. (Email correspondence with the author, 21 Aug. 2014.)
A Movement Transformed
Unfortunately, nowadays, as radical leftists Ahlquist and Seidman belong to a tiny and mostly ignored minority within Humanist circles. Signs of
a moderating tendency on economics began to appear within Humanism in the early 1980s. Although more research needs to be done on this, its
likely that that tendency steadily strengthened during the administrations of corporate Democrat Bill Clinton. By the time Humanist Manifesto III
(HMIII) appeared in 2003, the shift away from economic radicalism had become pronounced (more on HMIII below). Beginning in the mid
2000s, the movements change of direction was reinforced by, and in turn helped to strengthen, the state-and-corporate-power-serving New
Atheist movement. Since then, the Humanist movement has followed along with determined docility while the mainstream of American political
culture has moved further and further to the right. Today, ideologically, the realm of self-described Humanist bloggers, writers, conference
speakers and panelists, magazine editors, podcasters, and organizational directors, is pretty thoroughly dominated by neoliberal values and thus
mostly indifferent to the problems of poverty and inequality.
That indifference is evident all across the mainstream Humanist landscape. Anti-poverty advocates seldom appear as speakers or panelists at
Humanist conferences, where economic oppression is rarely a main topic of discussion. Writings about poverty and inequality appear infrequently
on Humanist blog sites and in the major Humanist magazines. Unless I have missed somebody, only two well-known Humanist figures, authors
Sikivu Hutchinson and Barbara Ehrenreich, exhibit a serious and sustained concern about economic injustice (although, born in 1941, Ehrenreich
belongs to the earlier, class conscious period of Humanist history as much as to the current one). It is a strange spectacle indeed: a movement
that, at its inception, and which, for at least a century, took the alleviation of economics-based suffering to be a core part of its raison dtre,
existing now in a context where A typical American household cannot raise $400 without borrowing money or selling possessions, but for which
the class problem is usually an afterthought.
On that score, the websites of the two major Humanist organizations in the U.S., the AHA and the CSH, are quite revealing. On the
Issues page of the AHA website, where eight focus areas are listed (as of 24 May), economic justice is not among them. The topic is alluded to
under Womens Rights only in terms of a few selected issues. The UDHR is mentioned under Human Rights, but for a decade now at least,
most references to the UDHR within Humanist circles have had to do with the Declarations statements on freedom of thought, conscience, and
expression.
Its worth pausing here for a moment to let that information sink in. As we have seen, as a matter of both history and principle, a heavy emphasis
on economic justice is supposed to be a defining element of the Humanist movement. Yet today, with more than 46 million Americans on food
stamps, with millions more people food insecure but not receiving assistance due to unrealistic eligibility requirements, the folks who run the
AHA consider the poverty/inequality problem unworthy of a place on their list of priorities.
The situation is no better on the CSH website. Its Activities pagemakes it clear that the organizations focus is on promoting a secular-based
worldview and on defending the rights of nonbelievers. In his long definitional essay on Secular Humanism, CSH executive director Tom Flynn
does state that the broad goals of secular Humanist ethics are Human happiness and social justice and that the conditions necessary for human
flourishing include freedom from want. Beyond that, however, amongst the 4000 words he devotes to explaining Humanism the problems of
poverty and economic injustice are never mentioned.
So what does organized Humanism focus on these days? Four issues are paramount and get most of the attention: feminism (mostly in terms of
the topics of sexual abuse and reproductive rights), LGBT equality, the promotion of science and reason, and the defense of secularism. But it is
the latter project, increasingly coupled with the promotion of atheism, which is clearly the core concern. Last year, the movements intense
privileging of a relatively narrow secularist agenda compelled James Croft, a Humanist blogger and Leader in Training at the Ethical Culture
Society of St. Louis, to express concernthat, in recent decades it seems secularism has become the primary value of the American Humanist
movementindeed it sometimes seems to be the movements only value.
The New Disposition: Two Examples
To get a better sense of what Humanism amounts to under the guiding ethic of secularity uber alles, consider the following examples of writings
by high profile Humanist leaders. The first is a July 2012 blog post by Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, the CSHs
parent organization. The whole article is problematic, but it will be enough for our purposes to consider just the following excerpt:
Aim to Reduce Drastically Income/Wealth Inequality. How? Why? theres no intrinsic merit in a drastic reduction in disparities in
income and wealth. My dignity as an individual is not affected by the fact that some others have 50, 500, or even 5000 times my assets.
The way I interpret humanism, it has no problem with significant disparities in income and wealth.
The amount of wrongness contained in this small collection of words is truly something to behold. Lindsay implies that reducing inequality would
be exceedingly difficult. Much of the seeming intractability of the problem, though, is the product of plutocrats and their legions of enablers such
as Lindsay himself, standing like a militarized police barricade in the way of reform. Economists and social critics have offered hundreds of ideas
for decreasing inequality. In a 2012 essay, I recommended two dozen of those ideas which, taken together, wouldit seems reasonable to believe
drastically reduce inequality and virtually eliminate poverty in this country.
Claiming there is no intrinsic merit in a drastic reduction in disparities is a weird, inefficiently abstract way of thinking about the problem.
Would it be worth our time and effort to consider the opposite proposition that theres no intrinsic merit in leaving disparities right where they
are? I dont see how. Since Lindsay has started us down this dead end road, let me turn the car around by pointing out that acting or not acting on
income and wealth disparities is a means to an end either way. Under Lindsays value system, seemingly that end is the maintenance of a
profoundly oppressive and unjust class order that not only causes, but absolutely requires, widespread human misery and harm. Under the value
systems of most people reading this, presumably, the end is a humane society in which everyone can flourish and in which most people do. Were
we to pose the actually useful question which of these ends has intrinsic value? surely the answer would be obvious.
Any proper explanation of why we ought to reduce economic disparities takes us right to the heart of Humanistic ethics. One of Humanisms
stated principal values is the promotion of human well being. If inequality militates against human happiness and welfare, then it must be
acknowledged as an important problem after all. Obviously, poverty militates against human flourishingto such a large degree, in fact, as to
cause a hopelessly immeasurable amount of human suffering. Unfortunately for Lindsays position, high levels of inequality entail that huge
numbers of people must suffer from poverty and its wide assortment of associated harms.
Indeed, the close connection between wealth and income inequalities and poverty is well established. As scholars at the University of Wisconsins
Institute for Research on Poverty observe poverty and inequality are intimately linked. The Economic Policy Institutes Elise Gould, an expert
on the economics of poverty and inequality, reports that, over the past few decades, of all the factors contributing to increases in poverty income
inequality was the largest. In his book, The Price of Inequality: How Todays Divided Society Endangers Our Future (2013), Columbia
University economist Joseph Stiglitz attributes the high poverty rate, more than one in every seven Americans, primarily to inequalities in income
and wealth.
The effects of inequality are especially devastating for children. As Stiglitz writes The growing concentration of wealth in the U.S. has meant
less money to spend on investments for the public good, like education and the protection of children, 15 million of whom are in households
below the poverty line. He elaborates:
Income inequality is correlated with inequalities in health, access to education, and exposure to environmental hazards, all of which burden
children more than other segments of the population. Indeed, nearly one in five poor American children are diagnosed with asthma, a rate
60% higher than non-poor children. Learning disabilities occur almost twice as frequently among children in households earning less than
$35,000 a year than they do in households earning more than $100,000.
As Paul Buchheit reports, due to widespread poverty more than one-half of public school students qualify for lunch subsidies. He also notes that
On a typical frigid night in January, 138,000 children, according to the U.S. Department of Housing, were without a place to call home. That, he
goes on, is approximately the same number of households that have each increased their wealth by $10 million per year since the recession.
On a related note, as Eduardo Porter recently explained in the New York Times, another casualty of economic inequality is low infant mortality.
American babies, he writes, die at a higher rate than in most of the other 33 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development. He explains: As economists from the University of Chicago, M.I.T. and the University of Southern California put it in a recent
research paper, much of Americas infant mortality deficit is driven by excess inequality.
There is more. According to researchers at the Institute for New Economic Thinking rising inequality is now holding back the U.S. recovery
from the Great Recession and the lack of purchasing power faced by most people is a job killer not just for a few quarters but also over a number of
years. Regarding Social Security, our biggest anti-poverty program for both retired people and children, the Center for American
Progress warns that Rising income inequality poses a direct threat to Social Securitys financial health. Moreover, Professor Richard G.
Wilkinson relates that
A wide range of social problems are worse in societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor. These include physical and
mental illness, violence, low math and literacy scores among young people, lower levels of trust and weaker community life, poorer child well-
being, more drug abuse, lower social mobility and higher rates of imprisonment and teenage births.
So, the answer to the question Why should we reduce inequality? is that maldistribution is a major cause of poverty and poverty-related harms
to large numbers of people. For those who may need instruction or reminding, poverty is bad because, as the World Bank (of all sources)
competently explains
Poor people live without fundamental freedoms of action and choice that the better- off take for granted. They often lack adequate food and
shelter, education, and health. They also face extreme vulnerability to ill health, economic dislocation, and natural disasters. And they are
often exposed to ill treatment by institutions of the state and society and are powerless to influence key decisions affecting their lives.
This is a description of a socioeconomic reality with which scores of millions of Americans are all too familiar. Scientists are now even finding that,
among the urban poor, chronic stress linked both to income level and racial-ethnic identity significantly speeds up aging by damaging DNA. It
cannot be emphasized enough that the values which fuel the economic oppression resulting in poverty are completely antipodal to Humanisms
stated commitment to furthering both social and individual well being. Remarkably, however, Lindsays article never mentions poverty or poor
people.
Interestingly, although his essay focuses on the subjects of inequality and the perverting influence of money on politics, there is another essential
term Lindsay never uses, namely justice, which, more than anything else, is what those two issues are about. The philosopher T. M. Scanlon
makes the suggestion that Workers, as participants in a scheme of cooperation that produces national income, have a claim to a fair share of what
they have helped to produce. But in a country where the median wage is $27,851, that perfectly reasonable normative position has an aura of
quixotic fantasy about it. The journalist Saeed Taji Farouky nicely gets at the crux of the matter: inequality is the abuse of power the failure of a
society to value its citizens equally, and the success of institutions (governments, corporations, etc.) in keeping some people oppressed and
exploited. The product of unchecked privilege, inequality, he goes on is the ritual humiliation of the less powerful for the benefit of the more
powerful.
To Lindsays assertion that his dignity is unaffected by the fact that there are people out there wealthier than him, two responses are in order.
First, given that Lindsay makes a good salary (its specified on a tax document available on CFIs website), and was formerly a corporate lawyer,
that is easy enough to believe in terms of his subjective mental experience. But leaving aside the necessary question of whether each of us has an
ethical obligation to care about fairness, I would say to Ron Lindsay that the inequality debate is not about you. It is about each one of us (or all of
us) and about the common good. In large measure, it is about human suffering and what we are willing or unwilling to do about it. Second, as we
have seen, because of the close connection between inequality and poverty, the distribution of wealth matters a great deal. While the total amount
of wealth is variable over time, there is only so much at any given moment. If distribution becomes lopsided enough, some people are going to be
not only disadvantaged but impoverished. Any effort to reverse that requires the transfer of wealth from people who have to people who dont.
That is exactly why greedy and selfish people feel such visceral hatred toward the word redistribution. Because too many people do in fact have
5000 times Lindsays assets, the bottom 40 percent of Americans essentially have no assets at all.
The way I interpret humanism, Lindsay writes it has no problem with significant disparities in income and wealth. This is rather like
concluding that libertarianism has no problem with food stamps and the minimum wage. Here we seem to have a new type of eisegesis, for
apparently, Lindsay has subjectively read his alternative, ideologically preferred view into texts that are in no way open to interpretation. HMI
calls for socialism. Eliminating significant disparities in income and wealth is part of the whole point of socialism. HMII is perfectly perspicuous
on this point: World poverty must cease, the document states Hence extreme disproportions in wealth, income, and economic growth should
be reduced on a worldwide basis.
Much more could be said here, for, as Stiglitz asserts Americas inequality distorts our society in every conceivable way. But you get the idea.
When it comes to the problem of economic inequality, Lindsays views have no relation to Humanist principles.
Had Lindsay shown this sort of callous disregard for womens rights or for LGBT equality, inside the secular blogosphere all hell would have broke
loose. But, because it was only economic injustice Lindsay was defending, there was barely a whisper of protesta rather stunning contrast if you
stop and think about it.
Among Humanist leaders, though, by far the most common way of handling issues of economic injustice is simply to ignore them. Our second
example, David Nioses 2012 book Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans, is typical of this tendency (for a similar example, see my
2012 discussion of Humanist author Greg Epstein). Currently the legal director of the AHAs Appignani Humanist Legal Center, Niose is a
longtime board member and past president of the AHA. While Nonbeliever Nation is technically about secularism, its inclusion here is not only
warranted but apposite, for Humanism is a frequent topic of discussion in the book, the general perspective is that of a longtime Humanist
activist, and, when Niose defends a particular public policy position, such as the need for LGBT equality, he does so from an explicitly Humanist
orientation.
As its dust cover description tells us, Nonbeliever Nation examines the intersection of the recent marked increase in the number of nonbelievers
in the U.S. and the unchallenged [political] dominance of the Religious Right. The rise of nonbelievers is cause for great celebration, Niose
writes in the book, for the religious right, which advocates extreme policy positions, is responsible, to one degree or another, for many of our
problems, from the immature level of our societys internal dialogue to the misguided direction of our public policy. In contrast with religion,
secularity embraces forward-looking values and, because secular people can be counted on to foster critical thinking, sound science, and
reason-based policy, as they gain social acceptance the center of gravity moves in the direction of rational and critical thought.
There are several major problems with Nioses book, but here we must limit ourselves to those directly having to do with the topic of economic
justice. To begin with, as with most literature coming out of the Humanist movement, the problems of poverty and economic inequality are
considered unworthy of attention. In fact, the books 225 pages of text contain no discussion of these problems whatsoever. Evidently, when
nonbelievers finally assume full control of public policy in America, the goal of reducing, to say nothing of putting an end to, poverty and
inequality will not be on their enlightened, reason-based agenda.
And why would it be? As Niose and most other liberal and progressive liberal Humanists see it, secularism is an identity-oriented movement in
which the class struggle plays little or no role. Instead, the main business of the secular movement is to defend the rights of nonbelievers, to
actively oppose the public policy agenda of the religious right, and to work to normalize secularity in American culture.
Niose lists several social problems, including, in a dont-blink-you-might-miss-it reference, the disappearing middle class, and suggests that the
empowerment of secular citizensa necessary prerequisite to long-term progresswould open up the possibility for real, lasting positive
change. All other issues, including economic policy, he writes near the end of the book will be greatly affected by how America addresses the
problems caused by religion, which, he emphasizes, is the most important issue of the twenty-first century.
Secularization and Economic Wellness
However, as some readers of this article have doubtless already recognized, when it comes to the fundamental relationship between secularization
and socioeconomics, Niose gets the basic dynamics all wrong. The idea that solving the social problems produced by religion will allow for solving
the problems of economics in fact gets the reality of the matter backwards. The demand to give up the illusions about its [i.e. the peoples]
condition Marx wrote concerning the link between economic hardship and the religious impulse is the demand to give up a condition which
needs illusions. As Michael Rectenwald, Professor of cultural history, science studies, and critical theory at New York University and an expert on
the history of secularism, recently suggested to me, with such comments Marx may well have invented what is now called the Existential Security
Hypothesis (ESH). In defense of their powerful arguments for the ESH, which maintains that the publics demand for transcendent religion
varies systematically with levels of vulnerabilities to societal and personal risks and threats Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart demonstrate that
socioeconomic security, the product of sustainable development and strengthening economic equality and welfare safety nets within societies, is
the driver of secularization.
As it happens, just last month there appeared in the press a perfect illustration of this process. In an article titled What is secular
fundamentalism? by C.J. Werleman, an Australian (U.S. based) Humanist writer, one section contrasts the experience of Muslim immigrants
who migrated to France from North Africa in the decades after World War II with that of their descendants. The former (Werleman quotes Henri
Astier) had no desire to find in France the mullahs they had left behind and they were generally accepting of lacit. Their descendants,
however
see the world very differently. Full employment was almost guaranteed to those who migrated to France during the 1960s and 70s. Todays
generation of French Muslims, however, are faced with poverty, alienation, ghettoisation, anti-migrant sentiment and a youth unemployment
rate of 23.7 percent. Faced with these economic and social pressures, third and fourth generation French Muslim citizens view Islamic
headscarves and outward displays of Muslimness to be a way of expressing anger and forging an identity. Conservative Islamic traditions
have become a vehicle for disenfranchised French Muslim youth to rebel against the state, i.e. the secular fundamentalist state.
More than 1400 French citizens, Werleman reports, have left the country in order to join Islamic State groups in the Middle East.
Fascinatingly, as Professor Kevin M. Kruse shows in his new book One Nation under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America,
the religious right was an invention of American capitalism. Here we see yet another example of how, in general, religious trends tend to follow
from economic conditions. When it comes to social justice activism, then, it makes more sense to focus on causes rather than, as Humanists tend
to do, on symptoms. Thus, as Rectenwald writes a true humanist doesnt work hard to eradicate religion. A true humanist works to eradicate the
conditions that make religion necessary. In other words, a true humanist condemns liberals more than religions, because liberalism permits such
oppression as makes religion necessary.
It gets worse. Niose often characterizes the religious rights policy preferences as extreme, a quality that accounts for much of their dangerousness.
But if extremism bothers him so much, why is he not up in arms about neoliberalism, todays version of what Lloydwriting to Darrow in 1894
called the radicalism of the fanatics of wealth? Consider. The neoliberal order requires that huge numbers of people be unemployed,
underemployed, poorly paid, overworked, homeless, or imprisoned. It maintains an official child poverty rate of 20 percent, which of course is bad
enough, but a true rate, recently estimated by UNICEF, of 32.2 percent. It exploits and promotes race antagonism. It has imposed on the U.S. an
austerity regime of the sort that has devastated every economy around the world on which it has been inflicted. It prevents the practical realization
of health care as a human right. It degrades popular democracy. It insists that, collectively, 80 percent of Americans make do with just 11 percent
of the nations private wealth. Worldwide, it puts into the hands of 66 billionaires wealth equal to that held by one-half of the worlds population
or 3.5 billion people. It is a system of political economy that, as Naomi Klein correctly adjudges is at war with life on Earth. If neoliberalism,
which is transforming the U.S. into a third world country in which the police are increasingly repressive and out of control, is not extreme, then
surely the word has somehow been rendered meaningless.
To top it all off, neoliberalism is itself a kind of religion. Strip off his pinstripe suit, author Chase Madar remarks and our fictional friend the
free market is just a lightly secularized, more Calvinist version of Tlaloc, the Aztec harvest god who had to be propitiated by blood, and lots of it.
These days, belief in this non-god god, as he observes is far more pernicious than belief in an old-fashioned god god. As Chris Wright, author
of Notes of an Underground Humanist (2013) writes, neoliberalism is a Free Market theology that has destroyed millions of lives around the
world and is threatening to destroy the species. If such comments strike you as perhaps more than metaphorical, probably it has to do with the
sacred status so many people ascribe to money and with the blind faith on display whenever free market fundamentalists sermonize about how
the only practical path open to us is that of unregulated finance capitalism. Wright argues, sensibly, that yes, theistic religious practices ought to
be opposed wherever they are harmful, but that in most of the world, public intellectuals would be well-advised to follow the examples of Glenn
Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Norman Finkelstein, and other such leftists if they want to have beneficent influence on society.
The Marxist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, author of Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), had a handy but well considered label for thinking like
Nioses, namely humanisme bourgeois. Its a useful and fitting phrase, for, in tacitly suggesting that the current economic order is in no urgent
need of radical reconstruction, Nonbeliever Nation functions, more than anything else, to support systems of structural oppression as they
currently operate under neoliberal capitalism. In his Critique of Dialectical Reason (1985) Sartre writes that as a practical inertia, bourgeois
humanism constitutes a passive activity of exclusion and rejection, a form of solidified ideological violence in which the vast majority of people
are looked upon in purely instrumental terms and treated by the power elite and their loyal legions as essentially subhuman, their lives being of
value only to the extent they are deemed necessary for filling the roles that serve the interests of the bourgeois classes. By failing to challenge a
deeply unjust and oppressive class structure, a political book like Nonbeliever Nation sanctions its many dehumanizing elements. Ironically, by
performing this right-wing function, Nonbeliever Nationindirectly promotes the religious right it so ardently claims to oppose.
Croft observes that Efforts to police the boundary between church and state have taken on increasing prominence, to the extent that they have
begun to crowd-out other issues which are even more pressing. That is a considerable understatement, as the crowding out process is already
extensive and well advanced, but the observation is essentially correct. In a space filled with many hugely important concerns that are gasping for
air, secularism is sucking up most of the oxygen.
They deserve a great deal more attention than we can give them here, but we should note what must count as two such concerns. To practice
political quietism concerning the class problem is to do a terrible disservice to everyone victimized by a ruthless and profoundly unjust economic
order. But the especially destructive overall impact of such neglect on particular populations is another dimension of the problem that, for
Humanists, ought to be a focus of both thought and praxis.
One concern, then, is institutionalized racial discrimination. According to the U.S. Census, in 2013 the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites was
9.6 percent. Among Latinos it was 23.5 percent and among African Americans 27.2 percent. Inexplicably, the census does not report the figure for
Native Americans, but according to the Pew Research Center, in 2012, among those who indicated American Indian or Alaska Native as their only
race the poverty rate was 29.1 percent. The Economic Policy Institute reports that the poverty rate among children below age six is 14.5 percent
for whites and 45.8 percent for African Americans.
In a 2010 online article, Sikivu Hutchinson writes that for many black Humanists coming from African American communities where religion
has become the opiate for a people under socioeconomic, political and cultural siege, the reductive science worship of the white non-theist world is
a problematic luxury. In her book Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (2011), Hutchinson notes that, the
election of a black man to the Presidency notwithstanding, African American communities are worse off now in many key equality index areas
than during the Jim Crow era. In a recent interview, reflecting on the context of hyper-segregation, downward economic mobility, mass
incarceration and the neoliberal privatization of public education in black and Latino schools, she observes that These systems have had the
most devastating impact on our communities and have only intensified the grip of organized religion and faith precisely because there is no
comprehensive social welfare safety net that addresses these disparities. There and elsewhere, Hutchinson tacitly supports the ESH. In Moral
Combat, she writes that, because within communities of color the lifeblood of organized religion is economic injustice only economic justice
can truly redress the cult of religiosity. In Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels (2013), she asserts that Unless structural inequality is
radically redressed, religious belief amongst disenfranchised peoples, both globally and within the U.S., will continue to thrive. Whats needed,
among other things, she rightly insists, is the construction of a comprehensive social safety net.
The other concern is gender inequality. According to the Institute for Womens Policy Research (IWPR), in 2013 55.6 percent of the 45.3 million
people living in poverty in the U.S. were women and girls. The IWPR goes on: Womens higher likelihood of living in poverty exists within every
major racial and ethnic group within the U.S. The National Womens Law Center reports that, in 2013 More than one in seven women, nearly 18
million, lived in poverty. About 43 percent of these women (7.8 million) lived in extreme poverty, defined as income at or below 50 percent of
the federal poverty level. Worldwide, as the United Nations explains, the vast majority of poor people are women. Or as Terry Eagleton puts it
(Why Marx was Right, 2011) in an era of Third World sweatshops and agricultural labour, the typical proletarian is still a woman. So bad are
the problems of female poverty and gender based injustice that, as the World Bank reported in 2011, women own just 01 percent of the worlds
wealth. In its Platform for Action from the Beijing Conference in 1995, the UN averred that The eradication of poverty will require democratic
participation and changes in economic structuresin order to ensure access for all women to resources, opportunities and public services.
(emphasis mine)
In Godless Americana, Hutchinson writes powerfully about the space where these two concerns overlap with the religiosity of African American
women. Black women are the most religious people in America, she notes, and for the same reasons religious observance is high among Latinas:
their generally high level of religiosity cannot be separated from [the] limited economic, educational, and social opportunities open to them. In
the context of widespread poverty and economic insecurity, one in which the median net worth of white households is 22 times that of black
households, it makes sense that, for most black women, Gods, goddesses, spirits, and ancestors are still deeply seductive, culturally binding, and
visceral in a way that the unvarnished natural world, and its sole guarantee of everlasting death, is not.
As we have seen, generally speaking todays Humanists want to focus above all else on promoting secularism. However, as Hutchinson contends
Secularism in a capitalist economy without unlimited access to reproductive health care, living wage jobs, transportation, housing, and education
is especially untenable for women of color. In Moral Combat she again echoes the ESH: Embracing humanism as a form of liberation struggle is
paramount for African Americans, precisely because blacks ironclad investment in organized religion is a function of capitalism, sexism, and
institutional racism. These three factors, she goes on operate in harmony with each other to deny African Americans and other people of color
basic human rights. Racism, classism, and sexism, she writes are amplified and reinforced by economic injustice institutionalized under global
capitalism and buttressed by organized religion. Therefore, radical humanism a vital lens for critical consciousness is especially relevant
for people of color living in conditions of structural inequality in which the state serves only the human rights of the wealthy.
A Study in Contrasts
So, on the earlier side of a late twentieth-century historical divide, Humanism gave us the first Ethical Culture societies with their core emphasis
on improving the lives of the poor and the working class. It issued socialistic manifestos aimed at eliminating classes altogether. It was teeming
with anti-capitalists and with champions of labor. It could boast of anti-imperialists like Felix Adler, Jane Addams, William Salter, John Dewey,
Helen Keller, and Howard Zinn, among others. Its most accomplished institution builder was a proud social democrat and great admirer of the
Scandinavian welfare state who, in his book Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz (1991) opined that Marx was no doubt
the greatest humanist thinker of the nineteenth century. Although it was far from perfect, Humanism was an admirable type of radical meliorism.
On our side of the divide, within mainstream Humanism a serious concern about economic injustice is rather rare and the presence of socialists
even rarer. Judging by their writings and public appearances, most Humanist leaders seemingly feel about as much concern for the poor and the
exploited as your average U.S. Senator does. Humanism looks at the reigning economic paradigm of neoliberalism and responds to its many
fascist features with a casual shrug of the shoulders. For the most part, it acts as if it has never heard of anti-imperialism. In recent years, its most
famous organization, the AHA, has made some truly appalling choices for its Humanist of the Year award, for example, in 2014, bestowing that
honor on former congressman Barney Frank, longtime friend of the financial services industry who voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program
(2008), quite possibly the most anti-humanist piece of federal legislation signed into law during the past 40 years. Humanisms indifference to
poverty and inequality is such that, as far as I can tell, the man who currently serves as Pope of the Catholic Church, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has
spoken out on behalf of the poor and the economically exploited more than all current Humanist leaders and public personalities combined have
done (Sikivu Hutchinson excepted). Where the crisis of economic injustice is concerned, todays Humanism is neither radical nor meliorist.
This devolution is about what we should expect from a movement that, in 2003, saw the AHA issue the embarrassing, platitudinous document
called Humanist Manifesto III. The whole of its commentary on economics is contained in this lame, anti-ecological statement: We seek to
minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of natures resources and the fruits of human effort so that
as many as possible can enjoy a good life. Reflecting on the ethical backsliding involved here, Ahlquist correctly observes that mainstream
Humanism has little to offer in terms of economic wisdom.
What we have here, then, in the trajectory of the movement from the earlier period through the current one, especially over the past dozen years
or so, is a decline of truly epic proportions.
Humanist Principles II
Many readers favorably inclined toward the Humanist movement are doubtless having thoughts along this line: just because economic justice is
supposed to be at the forefront of Humanist concerns, that doesnt mean the promotion of secularism hasnt always been there too. My
descriptions (above) of the rise of Ethical Culture and of the formulation of HMI utterly refute that idea, but, given the current hyper-valorization
of secularism (along with science and atheism) within Humanist circles, its a belief that is not likely to die easily.
So, for good measure, let us briefly explore the matter from another angle. In HMI, which Hoffman appropriately calls an idealistic paean to
common sense and high morality, secularism is mentioned only once, in a non-political sense. The drafters were not unconcerned about what
they took to be the dangers of theistic religion, but for them Humanisms chief concern was the enhancement of human life and the satisfaction
of human needs. The centrality of economics to that mission can be seen in the fact that economic justice is the onlysocial issue addressed in the
document. The socialism of point fourteen, quoted above, is correctly seen to be logically entailed by Humanist ethics:
[T]he humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-
being. We assert that humanism will endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this positive
morale and intention humanism will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow.
This passage, coupled with point fourteen, constitutes a kind of firm insistence that the road to human flourishing lies not through the spread of
secularism, but through social change aimed at justice.
So much for the political/legalistic branch of secular Humanism; what about the communitarian branch, Ethical Culture? On May 15, 1876, Felix
Adler gave the founding address to NYSEC. It contains more than 4500 words, but secular and secularism are not among them. It expresses
some sharp criticism of religion, but its focus, in light of the tremendous psychological and social strains and dislocations caused by industrial
capitalism, is on the need for a new emphasis on morality. Fearing the continuing loss to memory of lifes grander motives and meanings, most
of the speech is a kind of vague and applied philosophical prescription for a society drifting on the seething tide of business, each one absorbed in
holding his own in the giddy race of competition. (Much later, in Humanism as the Next Step, 1954, a similar sentiment would be articulated by
Lloyd and Mary Morain, who, imagining a world transformed according to Humanist principles, envisioned that The money god and rabid
consumerism will have retreated and there will be general appreciation of that ideal whereby free time for creative expression or recreation is
valued as highly as mere pieces of silver.) Helping the poor to realize justice, Adler wrote in 1880 (Creed and Deed), is the loftiest cause of the
age. In an article titled The Aims of the Ethical Society (The Ethical Record, Oct. 1889), he wrote:
The Ethical Society is not a club of free-thinkers, having for their sole aim the emancipation of the multitude from superstition. It does not
appeal exclusively to the cultured classes; it does not seek to draw together an intellectual elite; it brings into the foreground those
fundamental moral needs and aspirations, in regard to which all men are equal. The Ethical Society emphasizes the sublime moral idea of
universal brotherhood.
Consider also the history of organized secularism. As Rectenwald observes Secularism didnt and doesnt have only to do with being an arbiter in
the political sphere. In fact, it was not founded as such. It was founded, he goes on, during the nineteenth century, in both England and the U.S.
as a social and political movement for the amelioration of human conditions, in particular those of the working class.
It is worth noting that, historically in the U.S., even within Humanist currents that did have a focus on secularism, a serious concern about the
problems of poverty and economic oppression was rarely if ever absent. Consider the case of proto-Humanist Robert Ingersoll, the popular
nineteenth-century lecturer whom Croft calls a stalwart champion of an early form of modern Humanism. According to Susan Jacoby, author
of The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought (2013), Ingersoll espoused many causes supported by American socialists.
In addition to holding enlightened views on a wide variety of other issues, Ingersoll called for equality and economic justice for women; for the
eight hour workday; for the rights of workers to organize and go on strike; for the election of Henry George, author of the radical treatise on
inequality Progress and Poverty (1879), in the New York mayoral race of 1886; and for the alleviation of poverty and the ending of economic
exploitation. How a human being can consent to live on profit from poverty, is beyond my imagination, Ingersoll wrote If nobody has too much
everybody will have enough.
In two of her books, The Great Agnostic and Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (2004), Jacoby quotes a Shakespearean passage
much admired by Ingersoll. It is a soliloquy spoken by King Lear:
Poor naked wretches, wheresoer you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loopd and windowd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have taen
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
 Ingersoll called this the greatest prayer that ever fell from human lips. For Jacoby, the passage is the essence of the secularist and humanist
faith.
Radicalism
In response to the severely truncated, elite-serving Humanism of recent years, a small number of people have begun calling for a radical
Humanism, one that would put class, race, and sexism at the forefront of Humanist concerns. Their reasons for doing so are admirable, but Ive
come to think that use of that term probably does more harm than good. As a concept, Sartre writes in the Critique, bourgeois Humanism
crumbles and disappears. In other words, bourgeois Humanism, the moral arc of which very often bends away from justice, is really no
Humanism at all. But if, for all its considerable usefulness as a descriptive category, bourgeois Humanism is essentially an oxymoron, radical
Humanism presents the problem of being a tautology. Creating the conditions in which all people can flourish, in which their human rights are
honored in practice, and in which their worth and dignity can be said to be fully respected, all require a radical transformation of the
socioeconomic and political order. This is all the more true given that we need to realize these ideals while shifting to an eco-centric way of being
within the natural world. Thus, Humanist philosophy is already radical, a fact that Croft, unlike most of his peers within the Humanist leadership,
seems, to some degree, to understandHumanism, he writes is a movement for the radical improvement of human life on this planet (a
serviceable partial definition, although in my view one marred by a lack of appreciation for what Roderick Nash and others have called the rights
of nature). The word radical, then, is superfluous, or as Ahlquist calls it, redundant. Use of it, it seems to me, gives people the idea that there
are alternative readings of Humanist philosophy from which to choose, including a moderate one friendly to the status quo but incompatible with
core Humanist values.
However, it will not do for us to act in the manner of conservative legal scholars, who talk of a dearly missed Constitution in Exile, by (ourselves)
lamenting a Humanism in Exile. Doing that would require overlooking the Humanist movements historical failure to adequately emphasize,
among other issues, racism, sexism, and, later, the anthropogenic environmental crisis. We need to be clear about how and why the movement
used to be fundamentally different, but we wont do ourselves any favors by romanticizing it either.
Is the Humanist movement worth keeping around? Im not sure. Part of my motive for writing this article has been the hope that it might spark a
widespread conversation about that question.
If the answer is yes, then, as Seidman puts it humanism needs a re-boot. Its a great metaphor, for to reboot a computer is to return it to the
condition it was in before things went haywire. So from the atheist/secularist movement is has morphed into, Humanism must be reshaped into
the kind of thing it originally was, namely, a radical reform movement. A restored humanism, Seidman writes, would be best defined as a
sociopolitical philosophy, both democratic and non-hierarchal, which is informed by scientific naturalism, and [which] promotes individual
freedom, economic and social equality, human cooperation and planetary peace. He goes on: Where there are atheists or other freethinkers
who defend the politics or economics of oppression and regression from war to capitalism to neo-liberalism to neo-conservatism there must
be humanists to point out that atheism is not the same thing as humanism.
So rather than superimposing a radical space onto the movement, the whole of which is supposed to be radical anyway, the need becomes to
make the movement more perceptive and militant, that is to say, more acute about the ethical and political implications of its principles and more
vigorous in advocating for radical change. Or, putting it in different terms, Humanism needs to stop making the massive and inexcusable category
mistake of emphasizing the importance of human well being while mostly ignoring the problems of poverty and economic inequality. Or to say it
still another way, now and for the foreseeable future, with state and corporate power so heavily invested in serving the antisocial interests of a
small and obscenely privileged minority, if it is to have any ethical coherence Humanism must become keenly counter-hegemonic.
Going forward, there will be many key questions, including the following three. First, will the Humanist movement continue to support
capitalism, an economic system which, as Wright reasonably argues, is an ecocidal form of fragmented totalitarianism? Second, what kind of
relationship should the movement seek to have with Socialist Humanism, a distinct tradition that, to a degree, overlapped with mainstream
Humanism during the latter decades of its class-conscious period? And third, what kind of commitment will the movement make to changing its
outlook and priorities with a view toward eliciting the respect and participation of poor and working class people?
Conclusion
Joseph Hoffmann is absolutely correct, then, in asserting that organized Humanism has been turned into a parody of serious humanist principles
and ideals. He is also right in observing that Humanist philosophy deplores injustice, oppression, and poverty because they are attacks on our
humanityon the principle of the dignity of mankind. What he misses, along with nearly everyone else, is the deep connection between the two:
a major reason why the Humanist movement makes a mockery of Humanist convictions is that its foundational and customary commitment to
the goal of economic justice has been, for the most part, abandoned.

What is Humanism?
At its most basic, humanism involves any concern with humans, first and foremost. These including human needs, human desires, and human
experiences. Often, this also translates into giving human beings a special place in the universe on account of their abilities and faculties.
HUMANISM CONSIDERS HUMANS FIRST AND FOREMOST
Humanism is not a particular philosophical system or a set of doctrines, or even a specific system of beliefs.
Instead, humanism is better described as an attitude or perspective on life and humanity which in turn serves to influence actual philosophies and
systems of beliefs.
The difficulty inherent in defining humanism is summed up in the "Encyclopedia of Social Sciences" entry on Humanism:
"Humanism as a technical term and as an intellectual or moral conception has always leaned heavily on its etymology. That which is
characteristically human, not supernatural, that which belongs to man and not to external nature, that which raises man to his greatest height or
gives him, as man, his greatest satisfaction, is apt to be called humanism."
The encyclopedia cites examples of the wide-ranging interests of Benjamin Franklin, the exploration of human passions by Shakespeare, and the
balance of life described by the ancient Greeks. Just because humanism is difficult to define doesn't mean that it can't be defined.
HUMANISM CONTRASTED WITH SUPERNATURALISM
Humanism can also be better understood when considered in the context of the attitudes or perspectives it is normally contrasted against. On the
one hand is supernaturalism, descriptive of any belief system which stresses the importance of a supernatural, transcendent domain separate from
the natural world in which we live.
Belief in would be the most common and popular example of this. Quite often this sort of philosophy describes the supernatural as being more "real"
or at least more "important" than the natural, and hence as something we should strive for even if it means denying our human needs, values, and
experiences in the here and now.
HUMANISM CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTISM
On the other hand are types of scientism which take the naturalistic methodology of science so far as to deny any genuine importance of, or at times
even reality of, human feelings, experiences, and values. Humanism is not opposed to naturalistic explanations of life and the universe on the
contrary, humanists see it as the only viable means of developing knowledge of our world. What humanism does oppose are the dehumanizing and
depersonalizing tendencies that sometimes appear in modern science.
It is one thing to observe that humans are not valued by the universe at large, but quite another to conclude that therefore humans are not really
valuable after all. It is one thing to observe that humans are but a tiny aspect of the universe and even of life on our own planet, but quite another to
conclude that humans can have no important role to play in how nature progresses in the future.
BOTTOM LINE ON HUMANIST PHILOSOPHY
A philosophy, world view, or system of beliefs is "humanistic" whenever it shows a primary or overriding concern with the needs and abilities of
human beings. Its morality is based upon human nature and human experience. It values human life and our ability to enjoy our lives so long as we
don't harm others in the process.
What is Humanism? History of Humanism, Humanist Philosophy,
Philosophers
What is Humanism?:
Humanism involves any concern with humans (including human needs, human desires, and human experiences) first and foremost. This often
means giving human beings a special place in the universe on account of their abilities and faculties. Humanism is less a philosophical system, a set
of doctrines, or even a specific system of beliefs, than it is an attitude or perspective on life and humanity.
This perspective in turn influences various philosophies and belief systems. What is Humanism?
Important Books on Humanism:
Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding (1772) , by David Hume
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), by David Hume
Essays on Religion (1874), by John Stuart Mill
Age of Reason (1794), by Thomas Paine
Important Philosophers of Humanism:
Epicurus
Desiderus Erasmus
Baruch Spinoza
David Hume
Jeremy Bentham
John Stuart Mill
Thomas Paine
Paul Kurtz
Keith Parsons
Origins of Humanism:
Humanism as we understand it dates to the Italian the Renaissance. It did not, however, spring fully formed from the writings of a few Italian
scholars. These early humanists created a philosophical movement based upon what they discovered in ancient Roman and Greek manuscripts.
Humanist thought can also be found in ancient China, India, and other cultures. Humanism as a spirit of inquiry and thinking has an ancient
pedigree and a widespread influence on human culture.
Origins of Humanism
Humanism and Religion:
Humanism is critical of traditional religions and religious ideologies, but humanism is sometimes portrayed as a modern, philosophical replacement
for religion. Some forms of humanism are explicitly religious. Thus, humanism can stands as both critic of and replacement for religion.
Does that make humanism anti-religion because of its criticism, or pro-religion because it acknowledges the role religion has played in human
culture and seeks to offer an improved version? Humanism and Religion
Humanist Metaphysics:
What sort of metaphysical beliefs do humanists have? Humanists don't have what would be considered a typical metaphysical outlook because
humanists don't normally accept the existence of anything which isn't a part of nature (or, if they do, they don't believe that it is 'more real' than our
own existence). Humanists are essentially naturalists, explaining the nature of reality in naturalistic and materialistic terms. Humanist Metaphysics
What is Cultural Humanism?:
Cultural Humanism refers to cultural traditions which originated in ancient Greece and Rome, evolved through European history, and have come to
be a fundamental basis of Western culture. It includes law, literature, philosophy, politics, science, and more. Sometimes, when fundamentalists
attack modern secular humanism and accuse it of infiltrating our cultural institutions for the purpose of undermining Christianity, they are
conflating secular with cultural humanism. What is Cultural Humanism?
What is Religious Humanism?:
Religious humanists treat humanism in a religious manner. This means defining religion from a functional perspective which identifies
psychological or social functions as distinguishing religion from other belief systems. The functions of religion cited by religious humanists include
fulfilling the social needs of a group of people and satisfying the personal needs of individuals. For religious humanists, meeting these needs is what
religion is all about. What is Religious Humanism?
What is Secular Humanism?:
Secular humanism is necessarily non-religious. This doesn't mean that secular humanists are anti-religious - there is a difference between non-
religion and anti-religion. The "secular" of secular humanism means that, as a philosophy, it does not give any place to the veneration of things holy
and inviolable.
Secular humanism also commonly makes advocacy of secularism a defining principle. What is Secular Humanism?

Religious vs. Secular Humanism: What's the Difference?

The nature of religious humanism and the relationship between humanism and religion is of profound importance for humanists of all types.
According to some secular humanists, religious humanism is a contradiction in terms. According to some religious humanists, all humanism is
religious even secular humanism, in its own way. Who is right?
DEFINING RELIGION
The answer to that question depends entirely upon how one defines the key terms in particular, how one defines religion.
Many secular humanists use essentialist definitions of religion; this means that they identify some basic belief or attitude as comprising the
"essence" of religion. Everything that has this attribute is religion, and everything that doesn't cannot possibly be a religion.
The most commonly cited "essence" of religion involves supernatural beliefs, whether supernatural beings, supernatural powers, or simply
supernatural realms. Because they also define humanism as fundamentally naturalistic, the conclusion follows that humanism itself cannot be
religious it would be a contradiction for a naturalistic philosophy to include the belief supernatural beings.
Under this conception of religion, religious humanism could be thought of as existing in the context of religious believers, like Christians, who
incorporate some humanist principles into their world view. It might be better, however, to describe this situation as a humanistic religion (where a
pre-existing religion is influenced by humanist philosophy) than as a religious humanism (where humanism is influenced to be religious in nature).
As useful as essentialist definitions of religion are, they are nevertheless very limited and fail to acknowledge the breadth of what religion involves
for actual human beings, both in their own lives and in their dealings with others. In effect, essentialist definitions tend to be "idealized"
descriptions which are handy in philosophical texts but have limited applicability in real life.
Perhaps because of this, religious humanists tend to opt for functional definitions of religion, which means that they identify what appears to be the
purpose of function of religion (usually in a psychological and/or sociological sense) and use that to describe what religion "really" is.
HUMANISM AS A FUNCTIONAL RELIGION
The functions of religion often used by religious humanists include things like fulfilling the social needs of a group of people and satisfying personal
quests to discover meaning and purpose in life. Because their humanism constitutes both the social and personal context in which they seek to reach
such goals, they quite naturally and reasonably conclude that their humanism is religious in nature hence, religious humanism.
Unfortunately, functional definitions of religion are not much better than essentialist definitions. As is pointed out so often by critics, functional
definitions are often so vague that they might apply to absolutely any belief system or shared cultural practices. It simply will not work if "religion"
comes to be applied to just about everything, because then it won't really be useful for describing anything.
So, who is right is the definition of religion broad enough to allow for religious humanism, or is this actually just a contradiction in terms?
The problem here lies in the assumption that our definition of religion must be either essentialist or functional. By insisting on one or the other, the
positions become unnecessarily polarized. Some religious humanists assume that all humanism is religious (from a functional perspective) while
some secular humanists assume that no humanism can be religious in nature (from an essentialist perspective).
I wish I could offer a simple solution, but I cannot religion itself is much too complex of a subject to lend itself to a simple definition that might
produce a resolution here. When simplistic definitions are attempted, we only end up in the morass of disagreement and misunderstanding that we
witness above.
All I can offer is the observation that, very often, religion is defined in a highly personal and subjective manner.
There are objectively discernible qualities which are common to religions and which we can describe, but in the end, which of those qualities take
precedence will vary from system to system and from person to person.
Because of that, we must allow that what we describe as the basis and essence of our religion cannot necessarily comprise the basis and essence of
another's religion thus, a Christian cannot define "religion" for a Buddhist or a Unitarian. For the exact same reason, those of us who have no
religion also cannot insist that one thing or another must necessarily comprise the basis and essence of a religion thus, secular humanists cannot
define "religion" for a Christian or a Religious Humanist. At the same time, though, religious humanists also cannot "define" secular humanism as a
religion for others.
If humanism is religious in nature for someone, then that is their religion. We can question whether they are defining things coherently. We can
challenge whether their belief system can be adequately described by such terminology. We can critique the specifics of their beliefs and whether
they are rational. What we cannot readily do, however, is assert that, whatever they might believe, they cannot really be religious and humanists.

What Does It Mean to Be a Humanist?

Knowing about humanism doesn't tell you what is necessary for being a humanist. So what does it mean to be a humanist? Is there a club to join or a
church that you attend? What does being a humanist require?
HUMANISTS HAVE DIVERSE OPINIONS
Humanists are a very diverse group of people. Humanists may agree and disagree about many things. Humanists can be found on different sides of
significant debates like capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, and taxation.
Granted, you are much more likely to find humanists defending certain positions rather than others. But there is no requirement that they adopt
particular conclusions on these or other issues. What is more important for humanism than the conclusions a person reaches are the principles they
use when addressing difficult matters.
HUMANISTS AGREE ON PRINCIPLES OF FREETHOUGHT
Humanists agree on principles of freethought, naturalism, empiricism, etc. Of course, even here we can find diversity. The more generally the
principles are formulated, the more agreement there is, even to the point where there is no dissent. When these principles are stated more
specifically, however, the chances increase that individuals might not entirely agree with the specifics of that formulation. A person might feel that it
goes too far, doesn't go far enough, is worded incorrectly, etc.
HUMANISM IS NOT A DOGMA
Does this suggest that humanism doesn't really mean anything?
I don't believe so. It's important to understand that humanism is not a dogma. Neither is it a doctrine, a creed, or a set of rules that a person must
sign off on in order to become a "member" of a club. Requiring people to agree to a specific set of statements in order for them to qualify as
humanists or even as secular humanists would create a dogma and thus undermine the nature of humanism itself.
No, humanism is a set of principles, perspectives, and ideas about the world. Humanists are allowed to disagree, not only on the conclusions they
draw from those principles but even on the formulation and extent of those principles themselves. Just because a person doesn't happen to
subscribe 100 percent to every phrase and statement that appears in humanist documents doesn't mean that they cannot be humanists or even
secular humanists. If this were necessary, then that would make humanism meaningless and there wouldn't be any realhumanists.
YOU MAY BE A HUMANIST IF...
What this means is that there isn't really anything to do in order to "be" a humanist. If you read any statements of humanist principles and find
yourself agreeing with pretty much all of it, you are a humanist. This is true even when it comes to those points you don't entirely agree with, but you
are inclined to accept the general thrust or direction of the point being made. Perhaps you are even a secular humanist, depending upon the way in
which you approach and defend those principles.
This may sound like "conversion by definition," by which a person is "converted" to a point of view by simply redefining that point of view.
It is not unreasonable to raise this objection because such things do happen, but that isn't the case here. Humanism is a name given to a set of
principles and ideas which developed over the long course of human history. Humanism essentially existed before it had a name and before anyone
thought to try to bring it all together into a coherent philosophy.
As a consequence of these principles existing as a part of human culture even apart from organized humanist philosophy, there are many people
who continue down to this day to subscribe to them without also giving them a name. This is, to them, simply the best way to go about things and to
approach life and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. A philosophy doesn't have to have a name in order to be good and effective.
Nevertheless, it is time that people come to understand that this philosophy doeshave a name, it does have a history, and it does offer serious
alternatives to the religious, supernaturalistic philosophies which tend to dominate culture even today.
Hopefully, as people come to realize this, they may think about these humanist principles actively rather than passively. Only when people are
willing to stand up openly for humanist ideals will it have a real chance at improving society.

Secularism 101 - History, Nature, Importance of Secularism

Secularism is one of the most important movements in the history of the modern West, helping differentiate the West not only from the Middle Ages
and more ancient eras but also from other cultural regions around the world.
The modern West is what it is largely because of secularism; for some, that is a reason to cheer, but for others it is a reason to mourn. A better
understanding of the history and nature of secularism will help people understand its role and influence in society today.
Why did a secular vision of society develop in Western culture but not so much elsewhere in the world?

Defining Secularism
There isn't always a lot of agreement on what secularism is. One problem is the fact that the concept of "secular" can be used in multiple, related
ways which are different enough to create difficulty in knowing what people mean. A basic definition, the word secular means "of this world" in
Latin and is the opposite of religious. As a doctrine, then, secularism is typically used as a label for any philosophy which forms its ethics without
reference to religious beliefs and which encourages the development of human art and science. More

Secularism Is Not A Religion

Some try to claim that secularism is a religion, but that's an oxymoron, analogous to claiming that a bachelor can be married. Examining the
characteristics which define religions as distinct from other types of belief systems reveals just how wrong such claims are, which raises the question
of why people try so hard to defend the position. More

Religious Origins Of Secularism

Because the concept of the secular stands in opposition to religion, many people may not realize that it originally developed within a religious
context. Religious fundamentalists and conservatives who decry the growth of secularism in the modern world may be the most surprised because
this fact demonstrates that secularism isn't an atheistic conspiracy to undermine Christian civilization. Instead, it was originally developed for the
sake of preserving peace among Christians. More
Secularism As A Humanistic, Atheistic Philosophy
While secularism is usually used to denote the absence of religion, it can also be used to describe a philosophical system with personal, political,
cultural, and social implications. Secularism as a philosophy must be treated a differently from secularism as a mere idea. More
Secularism As A Political & Social Movement
Secularism has always carried a strong connotation of a desire to establish an autonomous political and social sphere which is naturalistic
and materialistic, as opposed to a religious realm where the supernatural and faith takes precedence.

Secularism Vs. Secularization

Secularism and secularization are closely related, but they do not offer the same answer to the question of the role of religion in society. Secularism
argues for a sphere of knowledge, values, and action that is independent of religious authority, but it does not automatically exclude religion from
having authority when it comes to political and social matters. Secularization, in contrast, is a process which does involve such exclusion. More
Secularism & Secularization Are Vital For Liberty And Democracy
Secularism and secularization are positive goods which must be defended as foundations of liberal democracy because they enhance the broad
distribution of power and oppose the concentration of power in the hands of a few. This is why they are opposed by authoritarian religious
institutions and authoritarian religious leaders.
Does Secular Fundamentalism Exist? Do Secular Fundamentalists Exist?
Some Christians allege that America is threatened by "secular fundamentalism," but what is that? The most basic characteristics of Christian
fundamentalism can't apply to a secularism of any sort, but even the characteristics which apply most broadly to fundamentalisms of many sorts
can't be applied to secularism.
Religion In A Secular Society
If secularism opposes the public support of religion or the presence of ecclesiastical figures exercising public authority, what role is left for religion
in a secular society? Is religion doomed to a slow decline and attrition? Is it relegated to a web of quaint but unimportant cultural traditions?
Opponents of secularism and secularization fear exactly such things, but those fears are misplaced at best.
Critiques Of Secularism
Not everyone has regarded secularism as a universal good. Many fail to find secularism and the process of secularization to be beneficial, arguing
that they are in fact the primary sources of all society's ills. According to such critics, abandoning atheistic secularism in favor of an explicitly theistic
and religious foundation for politics and culture would create a more stable, more moral, and ultimately better social order. Are such critiques
reasonable and accurate?

What Is Religious Humanism?

Because Modern Humanism is so often associated with secularism, it is sometimes easy to forget that humanism also has a very strong and very
influential religious tradition associated with it. Early on, especially during the Renaissance, this religious tradition was primarily Christian in
nature; today, however, it has become much more diverse.
Any religious belief system which incorporates humanistic beliefs and principles might be described as religious humanism thus, Christian
Humanism could be thought of us as a type of religious humanism.
It might be better, however, to describe this situation as a humanistic religion (where a pre-existing religion is influenced by humanist philosophy)
rather than as a religious humanism (where humanism is influenced to be religious in nature).
Regardless, that is not the type of religious humanism being considered here. Religious humanism shares with other types of humanism the basic
principles of an overriding concern with humanity the needs of human beings, the desires of human beings, and the importance of human
experiences. For religious humanists, it is the human and the humane which must be the focus of our ethical attention.
People who have described themselves as religious humanists have existed from the beginning of the modern humanist movement. Of the thirty-
four original signers of the first Humanist Manifesto, thirteen were Unitarian ministers, one was a liberal rabbi, and two were Ethical Culture
leaders.
Indeed, the very creation of the document was initiated by three of the Unitarian ministers. The presence of a religious strain in modern humanism
is both undeniable and essential.
THE DIFFERENCES
What differentiates religious from other types of humanism involves basic attitudes and perspectives on what humanism should mean.
Religious humanists treat their humanism in a religious manner. This requires defining religion from a functional perspective, which means
identifying certain psychological or social functions of religion as distinguishing a religion from other belief systems.
The functions of religion often cited by religious humanists include things like fulfilling the social needs of a group of people (such as moral
education, shared holiday and commemorative celebrations, and the creation of a community) and satisfying the personal needs of individuals (such
as the quest to discover meaning and purpose in life, means for dealing with tragedy and loss, and ideals to sustain us).
For religious humanists, meeting these needs is what religion is all about; when doctrine interferes with meeting those needs, then religion fails.
This attitude which places action and results above doctrine and tradition meshes quite well with the more basic humanist principle that salvation
and aid can only be sought in other human beings. Whatever our problems might be, we will only find the solution in our own efforts and should not
wait for any gods or spirits to come and save us from our mistakes.
Because religious humanism is treated as both the social and personal context in which one might seek to reach such goals, their humanism is
practiced in a religious setting with fellowship and rituals for example as with Ethical Culture Societies, or with congregations associated with the
Society for Humanistic Judaism or the Unitarian-Universalist Association.
These groups and many others explicitly describe themselves as humanistic in the modern, religious sense.
Some religious humanists go further than simply arguing that their humanism is religious in nature. According to them, meeting the
aforementioned social and personal needs can only occur in the context of religion. The late Paul H. Beattie, one-time president of the Fellowship of
Religious Humanists, wrote: There is no better way to spread a set of ideas about how best to live, or to intensify commitment to such ideas, than
by means of religious community.
Thus, he and those like him have argued that a person has the choice of either not meeting those needs or of being part of a religion (though not
necessarily through traditional, supernatural religious systems). Any means by which a person seeks to fulfill such needs is, by definition, religious
in nature even including secular humanism, although that would appear to be a contradiction in terms.

Philosophic Humanism
Humanism as a philosophy today can be as little as an perspective on life or as much as an entire way of life; the common feature is that it is always
focused primarily on human needs and interests. Philosophic Humanism can be distinguished form other forms of humanism precisely by the fact
that it constitutes some sort of philosophy, whether minimalist or far-reaching, that helps define how a person lives and how a person interacts with
other humans.
There are effectively two sub-categories of Philosophical Humanism: Christian Humanism and Modern Humanism.
MODERN HUMANISM
The name Modern Humanism is perhaps the most generic of them all, being used to refer to almost any non-Christian humanistic movement,
whether religious or secular. Modern Humanism is often described as Naturalistic, Ethical, Democratic, or Scientific Humanism each adjective
emphasizing a different aspect or concern which has been the focus of humanistic efforts during the 20th century.
As a philosophy, Modern Humanism is typically naturalistic, eschewing belief in anything supernatural and relying upon the scientific method for
determining what does and does not exist. As a political force, Modern Humanism is democratic rather than totalitarian, but there is quite a lot of
debate between humanists who are more libertarian in their perspective and those who are more socialist.
The naturalistic aspect of Modern Humanism is somewhat ironic when we consider that early in the 20th century, some humanists stressed that
their philosophy was opposed to the naturalism of the time. This is not to say that they adopted a supernaturalistic outlook in how they explained
things; instead, they opposed what they considered the dehumanizing and depersonalizing aspect of naturalistic science which eliminated the
human part of the equation of life.
Modern Humanism can be conceived of as either religious or secular in nature. The differences between religious and secular humanists are not so
much a matter of doctrine or dogma; instead, they tend to involve the language being used, the emphasis on emotions or reason, and some of the
attitudes towards existence. Very often, unless the terms religious or secular are used, it can be difficult to tell the difference.
CHRISTIAN HUMANISM
Because of the modern conflicts between fundamentalist Christianity and secular humanism, it might seem like a contradiction in terms to have
Christian Humanism and indeed, fundamentalists argue just that, or even that it represents an attempt by humanists to undermine Christianity
from the inside. Nevertheless, there does exist a long tradition of Christian humanism which actually predates modern secular humanism.
Sometimes, when one speaks of Christian Humanism, they may have in mind the historical movement more commonly referred to as Renaissance
Humanism. This movement was dominated by Christian thinkers, most of whom were interested in reviving ancient humanistic ideals in
conjunction with their own Christian beliefs.
Christian Humanism as it exists today does not mean exactly the same thing, but it does involve many of the same basic principles.
Perhaps the simplest definition of modern Christian Humanism is the attempt develop a human-centered philosophy of ethics and social action
within a framework of Christian principles. Christian Humanism is thus a product of Renaissance Humanism and is an expression of the religious
rather than the secular aspects of that European movement.
One common complaint about Christian Humanism is that in attempting to place humans as the central focus, it necessarily contradicts the
fundamental Christian principle that God must be at the center of ones thoughts and attitudes. Christian Humanists can readily respond that this
represents a misunderstanding of Christianity.
Indeed, it can be argued that the center of Christianity is not God but Jesus Christ; Jesus, in turn, was a union between the divine and the human
who continually emphasized the importance and worthiness of individual human beings.
As a consequence, putting humans (who were created in the image of God) in the central place of concern is not incompatible with Christianity, but
rather should be the point of Christianity.
Christian Humanists reject the anti-humanistic strands of Christian tradition which neglect or even attack our basic humans needs and desires while
devaluing humanity and human experiences. It is not a coincidence that when secular humanists criticize religion, exactly these features tend to be
the most common targets. Thus Christian Humanism does not automatically oppose other, even secular, forms of humanism because it recognizes
that they all have many common principles, concerns, and roots.

Secularism Vs Secularization: What's the Difference?

Although secularism and secularization are closely related, there are real differences because they do not necessarily offer the same answer to the
question of the role of religion in society. Secularism is a system or ideology based on the principle that there should be a sphere of knowledge,
values, and action that is independent of religious authority, but it does not necessarily exclude religion from having any role in political and social
affairs.
Secularization, however, is a process which does lead to exclusion.
PROCESS OF SECULARIZATION
During the process of secularization, institutions throughout society - economic, political, and social - are removed from the control of religion. At
times in the past, this control exercised by religion might have been direct, with ecclesiastical authorities also having authority over the operation of
these institutions - for example, when priests are in charge of the nation's only school system. Other times, the control might have been indirect,
with religious principles constituting the basis for how things are run, such as when religion is used to define citizenship.
Whatever the case may be, either those institutions are simply taken away from religious authorities and handed over to political leaders, or
competing alternatives are created alongside the religious institutions. The independence of these institutions, in turn, allow individuals themselves
to be more independent of ecclesiastical authorities - no longer are they required to submit to religious leaders outside of the confines of a church or
temple.
SECULARIZATION & CHURCH / STATE SEPARATION
A practical consequence of secularization is the separation of church and state - in fact, the two are so closely associated that they are almost
interchangeable in practice, with people often using the phrase "separation of church and state" rather when they mean secularization.
There is a difference between the two, though, because secularization is a process that occurs across all society, whereas the separation of church
and state is simply a description of what occurs in the political sphere.
What the separation of church and state means in the process of secularization is that specifically political institutions - those associated with
varying levels of public government and administration - are removed from both direct and indirect religious control. It does not mean religious
organizations cannot have anything to say about public and political issues, but it does mean that those views cannot be imposed upon the public,
nor can they be used as the sole basis for public policy. The government must, in effect, be as neutral as possible with respect to divergent and
incompatible religious beliefs, neither hindering nor advancing any of them.
RELIGIOUS OBJECTIONS TO SECULARIZATION
Although it is possible for the process of secularization to proceed smoothly and peacefully, in reality, that has often not been the case. History has
shown that ecclesiastical authorities who have wielded temporal power have not readily handed over that power to local governments, especially
when those authorities have been closely associated with conservative political forces.
As a consequence, secularization has often accompanied political revolutions. Church and state were separated in France after a violent revolution;
in America, the separation proceeded more smoothly, but nevertheless only after a revolution and creation of a new government.
Of course, secularism has not always been so neutral in its intent. At no point is it necessarily anti-religious, but secularism does frequently promote
and encourage the process of secularization itself. A person becomes a secularist at the very least because he believes in the need for a secular sphere
alongside the religious sphere, but more likely than not he also believes in the superiority of the secular sphere, at least when it comes to certain
social issues.
Thus, the difference between secularism and secularization is that secularism is more of a philosophical position about the way things should be,
while secularization is the effort to implement that philosophy - even sometimes with force.
Religious institutions may continue to voice opinions about public matters, but their actual authority and power are restricted entirely to the private
domain: people who conform their behavior to the values of those religious institutions do so voluntarily, with neither encouragement nor
discouragement emanating from the state.
Humanism, Specism, and the Baggage of Words
In a recent op ed article in The New York Times, Natasha Lennard and Cary Wolfe asked the question is humanism really humane? (see link
below)
While the authors rightly point out that the term humanism has many meanings, Natasha Lennard falls into the fallacy of equating humanism
with specism. But before we look at the critique, its a good idea to look at the usual mistakes the uninformed make about Humanism.
The term humanism developed in the second half of the nineteenth century, part of a matrix of terms for the developing secular thought of the
erasecular itself was one term; others were freethought; agnostic; materialist, naturalist . . . and others.
Though there has been no general agreement, humanism has become the most generally used of the termsbesides atheistto indicate a
naturalistic, non-supernatural, ethical way of life. There have been two branches of Humanism: congregational and secular, though the worldview of
both groups is identical.
We Humanists choose the term because we see it as a positive description, whereas atheist is a negative descriptor. We dont see why we should
describe ourselves as non-theistic, since we see the gods as outmoded and complicated answers to what have proven to be simple questions.
There are several fallacies concerning Humanism, perhaps chief of which is that Humanists deny the supernatural. Humanists dont do that. We
merely ask that the supernaturalif we are to include it in our understanding of realityact in a way that is not explained by natural phenomena. So
far, this hasnt happened.
Another fallacy is that Humanism has not evolved since the 1933 Humanist Manifesto. There have been several manifestos since 1933 in the US,
and, both domestically and internationally, Humanism has developed into a pluralistic movement of several varieties. Humanists are people who
are quite aware of the most recent developments in human thought.
Another fallacy is that Humanism is overdependent upon individualism and the self. While Humanist ethics insist upon the freedom and flourishing
of each individual, Humanism is a communal tradition, teaching that the highest good is compassion and cooperation as animals that have evolved
to be social.
Another fallacy is that Humanism is all head and no heart. Though Humanists believe that reason, the scientific method, and scholarship are the
most dependableand universalmethods for discovering and describing reality, we understand the difference between description and narration.
Humanists believe that the story of evolution is the most moving and awe-inspiring story of all. Besides, science teaches us that all thought is
embodied thought.
Another fallacy is that Humanists believe that human beings are born good. This was a fallacy of liberal religion in the twentieth century, but
Humanism is based firmly on natural selection, which clearly does not lead to a conclusion that human beings are good. Natural selection teaches
us that human beings are animals. Animals are neither good nor bad. Animals are . . . as we are . Now back to the fallacy in the NYT, that
Humanism is human centered and speciest because of its name. There was indeed an over-valuation of human capacity in the early twentieth
century, a mistake eradicated in the conflagration of the Second World War. Nowadays, Humanists have no illusions concerning the human. Our
only distinction as a species is our ability to harm and heal in a global, calculated manner. Not all Humanists are vegetarian or vegan, but I daresay
many are. My humanist congregation serves lunch each Sunday, and there are always vegetarian and vegan options.
Humanists are committed to embracing the best in human thought. What happens to Humanism as we discover the power of the microbiome over
our thinking? Humanists have profound interest in this new idea. Does this discovery destroy the notion of free will? No worries for Humanists.
Concepts such as free will and individualism have long been scrutinized by Humanists.
What happens to Humanism if the Big Bang theory is disproven? Nothing but profound interest among Humanists. What if one god or another
actually shows up and does something? No problem. Humanists are interested in what happens next. We are not dogmatically anti-supernatural, we
are merely naturalistic until the supernatural makes more sense than it does at the present time.
Everything interests us. Since we have no dogma, no idea upsets our apple cart!
Fact is, it is those who are working from a naturalistic framework who are capable of dealing with the implications of new discoveries. Humanists
embrace the best of human thought, wherever that leads. As critiques of specism evolve, Humanists are ready to learn and adapt.
We are interested. We are ready to learn. We are awe-struck by both the beauty of the human arts and the beauty of reality.
As far as Humanists are concerned: Wow. Just wow.
Humanistas tentando se livrar da culpa pelo nazismo e mentindo aos borbotes? Refutar isso no tem preo!
Imagine se um grupo de hackers se juntasse e compilasse a maioria de seus principais truques em um livro, que, aos poucos
poderia facilitar a vida dos Gerentes de Segurana da Informao.
Pois , os neo ateus fizeram exatamente isso, em um livro chamado The Christian Delusion. O livro, ao que parece,
exatamente uma compilao dos neo ateus que jogam mais baixo (ex. Richard Carrier, Hector valos), em textos repletos de
fraudes intelectuais e truques psicolgicos.
Para o neo ateu que sofreu a insero humanista, obviamente um deleite. Para um ctico em relao ao humanismo, o livro
funciona igual um guia de truques hackers funcionaria para um Gerente de Segurana da Informao.
O blog Rebeldia Metafsica, de Gilmar Pereira dos Santos, est to empolgado, mas to empolgado com o livro (e por que eu no
estou surpreso?), que resolveu traduzir captulos inteiros dele. (Para quem no sabe, Gilmar postava nos comentrios deste blog
com o nick Dalila, o nome de uma cadela como se nota, a argumentao dele se coaduna com o que ele pensa de si prprio)
Em 21 de abril, ele traduziu o captulo Historiadores Cristos: Incompetentes, Desonestos ou Iludidos? , de Richard Carrier.
Como era um artigo exclusivamente de ataque ao cristianismo, no dei muita ateno, pois como sou ateu esse tipo de
provocao no me afeta tanto. O problema quando a baixaria vem de humanistas, e a obviamente na guerra entre
humanismo X cristianismo, toro para o ltimo. Seja l como for, no pensei em responder, e na prpria caixa de comentrios
um dos leitores de meu blog denunciou os 3 truques de Carrier. Investigador de Ateus escreveu o seguinte:
AS REFUTAES AO TEXTO DO CARRIER SO FCEIS DEMAIS:
A ELE CONFUNDIU DE PROPSITO CINCIA PRIMITIVA COM CINCIA MODERNA, E TENTOU ENROLAR O LEITOR, POIS O QUE
DINESH DISSE ERA DA RESPONSABILIDADE DO CRISTIANISMO PARA COM A CIENCIA MODERNA, NO A PRIMITIVA
B ELE TENTOU DIZER QUE NO EXISTIU REVOLUO CIENTFICA NA ERA MEDIEVAL, MAS ISSO NO SIGNIFICA CINCIA
MODERNA, O TERMO REVOLUO CIENTFICA ERA MAIS RETRICO QUE PRTICO
C A CEREJA DO BOLO QUANDO ELE DIZ QUE OS CRISTOS QUE FIZERAM CINCIA TINHAM QUE SE ESCONDER OU FINGIR,
REALIZANDO LEITURA MENTAL, APELAO QUE O CARRIER J TINHA FEITO QUANDO TENTOU DIZER QUE ANTONY FLEW AO DIZER
QUE ACREDITAVA EM DEUS NO QUERIA DIZER ISSO NA VERDADE
SO 3 TRUQUES DE BAIXSSIMO NVEL QUE NO VALE NEM A PENA COMENTAR. O TEXTO LONGO DEMAIS E NO PASSA DA
REPETIO DESTES 3 TRUQUES. MUITO TROVO PARA POUCA CHUVA, OU MELHOR, MUITO PEIDO PARA POUCA MERDA.
Creio que no h mais nada a comentar sobre o texto de Carrier, e um cristo (suponho que o Investigador de Ateus seja
cristo) j fez o servio. O que me interessa mais o texto publicado nos ms passado, O Holocausto Judeu: O Mais Trgico
Captulo da Histria do Cristianismo. Mais do que atacar o cristianismo, o texto ISENTA de forma absurdamente desonesta o
humanismo de qualquer culpa pelo nazismo.
O responsvel por esse captulo Hector valos, que ganha a vida dando aula sobre estudos da religio. Quer dizer, o sujeito
odeia a religio tradicional mais do que tudo nesta vida, e vive dando aula sobre ela. Naturalmente, ele usa essas aulas para
converter seus alunos em fanticos humanistas, que obviamente saem odiando os cristos.
Para piorar a situao de Dalila, ele coloca a seguinte informao no final da biografia de valos: Avalos um ateu militante e
um defensor da tica humanista secular. Quer dizer, j entregou e confessou o crime. Se o sujeito humanista, ento claro
que tem que seguir um programa mentindo o tempo todo contra o cristianismo, ao mesmo tempo em que isenta o humanismo
de qualquer culpa. (E, como mostrarei aqui, as culpas do humanismo no podem ser negadas)
Comecemos, ento, a anlise das desonestidades de valos:
EM SUA RPLICA S ACUSAES DOS AUTORES NEOATEUS DE QUE A RELIGIO LEVOU A MATANAS EM LARGA ESCALA, DINESH
DSOUZA, O COMENTARISTA CONSERVADOR, ASSEGURA-NOS QUE O NAZISMO FOI UMA FILOSOFIA SECULAR E ANTIRRELIGIOSA
QUE, DE MODO BASTANTE ESTRANHO, COMPARTILHOU DIVERSOS ELEMENTOS COM O COMUNISMO DESSE MODO, DSOUZA
CAPAZ DE RESPONSABILIZAR O ATESMO NA ALEMANHA NAZISTA POR 10 MILHES DE MORTES, INCLUINDO AS DE 6 MILHES DE
JUDEUS. DE FATO, PARA DSOUZA, OS REGIMES ATESTAS DE JOSEPH STALIN E MAO ZEDONG OCUPAM OS DOIS PRIMEIROS
LUGARES NO RANKING DA VIOLNCIA ATESTA. DE UM MODO GERAL, DSOUZA AFIRMA QUE ESTES TRS GRANDES REGIMES
ATESTAS ASSASSINARAM CERCA DE 100 MILHES DE PESSOAS.
Tecnicamente, realmente Dinesh errou ao associar os crimes do nazismo ao atesmo. Nesse ponto, Dinesh caiu no mesmo nvel
dos autores neo ateus, que associam os crimes do nazismo ao tesmo. Na verdade, nem tesmo nem atesmo podem ser
responsveis por crimes. No h ideologia alguma em se crer que Deus existe ou Deus no existe. No entanto, sistemas que
abarcam cosmovises (e estes so cristianismo, judasmo, humanismo, marxismo) a sim podem dar justificas ou no para
atitudes.
O que no deixa de ser curioso, no entanto, notar que valos poderia ter feito essa correo, mas, pelo contrrio, manteve o
erro, e portanto todo o texto dele j poderia ser invalidado pelo engano (proposital ou no) de confundir categorias.
Sigamos:
DSOUZA EXEMPLIFICA PERFEIO A CATEGORIA DOS APOLOGISTAS CRISTOS CUJA MELHOR RESPOSTA AOS GENOCDIOS
COMETIDOS POR AUTOPROCLAMADOS CRISTOS AFIRMAR QUE OS ATEUS ASSASSINARAM AINDA MAIS. COM EFEITO, DSOUZA
CALCULA QUE AS MORTES CAUSADAS POR REGIMES CRISTOS AO LONGO DE UM PERODO DE 500 ANOS EQUIVALEM A APENAS
UM PORCENTO DAS MORTES CAUSADAS POR STALIN, HITLER E MAO NUM INTERVALO DE POUCAS DCADAS.
valos aqui parece se confundir, pois qualquer resposta que diga que sistemas ateus mataram mais que sistemas cristos refuta
a alegao neo atesta de que o cristianismo mais perigoso que atesmo. Novamente, acho uma grande bobagem confundir
cristianismo com atesmo, assim como toda a argumentao contra o tesmo cai no vcuo.
Alis, a afirmao de Dinesh correta. O erro, claro, associar as mortes unicamente ao atesmo, quando o correto seria
associar todas as mortes de Stalin, Hitler e Mao ao humanismo, defendido arduamente por valos.
Em frente:
J DISCUTI EXTENSAMENTE A FALCIA DE CONCEBER A VIOLNCIA ESTALINISTA EM TERMOS DE ATESMO. A MAIOR PARCELA DA
VIOLNCIA ESTALINISTA RESULTOU DA COLETIVIZAO FORADA, E DOCUMENTOS PUBLICADOS RECENTEMENTE MOSTRAM A
CUMPLICIDADE DAS AUTORIDADES CLERICAIS COM A AGENDA ESTALINISTA. DSOUZA NO FORNECE UM NICO DOCUMENTO OU
DECLARAO DE STALIN MOSTRANDO QUE ELE ESTAVA COLETIVIZANDO OU ASSASSINANDO POR RAZES ATESTAS.
A defesa de valos s faria sentido se ele comprovasse que as mortes da Inquisio, por exemplo, fossem causadas por razes
testas. Percebam que at o momento valos prossegue com os erros de Dinesh, e os amplia, tentando a todo tempo confundir
o leitor com manipulao indevida de categorias.
Vamos corrigir a baguna:
Cristianismo est para o humanismo assim como o tesmo est para o atesmo
Tesmo e atesmo no podem ser acusados de nada, pois no so cosmovises e/ou ideologias
Cristianismo e humanismo, por sua vez, devem ser objeto do exame crtico em termos de cosmoviso, ideologia
e/ou consequncias polticas
O truque de afirmar cumplicidade das autoridades clericais com a agenda estalinista obviamente uma falcia extremamente
desonesta. Recentemente, Edir Macedo apoiou a agenda do governo Lula. Para algum desonesto como valos, isso seria uma
prova de que o cristianismo tem responsabilidade pelo governo Lula. , gente, eu avisei que valos era um rei da baixaria neo
atesta. Eu no estava exagerando.
O fato que o stalinismo um sistema humanista, de crena no homem, e nisso oposto ao pensamento cristo. Se Stalin no
estava coletivizando ou assassinando por razes atestas, com certeza o fazia por razes humanistas.
Mais baixarias frente:
ALM DISSO, O COMUNISMO, ENTENDIDO COMO UM SISTEMA DE PROPRIEDADE COLETIVIZADA, UMA NOO BBLICA J
ENCONTRADA EM ATOS 4:32-37. ESSE SISTEMA COMUNISTA CRISTO TAMBM RESULTOU NO ASSASSINATO DE UM CASAL (ATOS
5:1-11) QUE QUEBROU SUA PROMESSA DE RENUNCIAR SUAS POSSES. PORTANTO, O PRINCPIO DE MATAR OS QUE NO SE
RESIGNASSEM COLETIVIZAO DE SUAS PROPRIEDADES BBLICO.
No texto O Deuteronmio manda voc matar segundo Sam Harris, j desmascarei o truque tentado acima. Nesse caso,
uma variao comunista,para fingir que a Bblia DERIVA no comunismo. O fato que a Bblia narra muitos eventos, e no h
nenhuma orientao para que as pessoas REPRODUZAM esses eventos em suas vidas. Nos tempos em que era cristo, eu sabia
que as orientaes crists eram os 10 mandamentos, e vrios eventos estavam citados na Bblia para servirem como
ensinamentos, mas no orientaes para reproduo de eventos. Enquanto valos no trouxer trechos bblicos dizendo algo
como Um casal foi assassinado por no renunciar s suas posses, e todo cristo dever assassinar casais que no fizerem essa
renncia, a tentativa de valos de definir o comunismo como algo endossado pelo cristianismo no passa de uma deslavada
mentira.
O prximo truque sensacionalmente engraado:
ALM DISSO, DSOUZA NO POSSUI A COMPETNCIA NECESSRIA PARA AVALIAR AS ALEGAES DE VIOLNCIA MAOSTA PORQUE
TAL TAREFA REQUER UM TREINAMENTO EXTENSIVO NA LNGUA E NOS DOCUMENTOS CHINESES PARA AVERIGUAR A ACURCIA
DAS INFORMAES FORNECIDAS PELAS FONTES INGLESAS. COMO EU TAMBM CAREO DE ESPECIALIZAO NO IDIOMA E NA
CULTURA CHINESA PARA AVALIAR A VIOLNCIA MAOSTA, NO ABORDAREI O MAOSMO AQUI. O QUE SABEMOS QUE DSOUZA
NO APRESENTA UMA NICA CITAO DE MAO OU MESMO DE ALGUM DOCUMENTO CHINS TRADUZIDO PARA RESPALDAR SUAS
ASSERES DE QUE MAO ASSASSINOU POR CAUSA DO ATESMO.
Ou seja, o no conhecimento do dialeto chins permite que eventos ocorrido na China no possam ser investigados (!!!). Essa
provavelmente a maior sabonetada que vi em muito tempo. Livros com Mao, A Histria Desconhecida narram em detalhes
as atrocidades de Mao. Foram escritos em chins e traduzidos para o ingls, portugus
S uma correo: realmente Mao no assassinou por causa do atesmo, mas do humanismo.
Abaixo, a promessa de valos:
NA VERDADE, DEMONSTRAREI QUE:
O Holocausto nazista, em vez de resultar de algum tipo de atesmo darwinista, efetivamente a mais trgica
consequncia de uma longa histria de racismo e antijudasmo cristos.
O Nazismo assassinou pessoas por sua etnicidade ou religio seguindo princpios enunciados na Bblia.
E, nesta refutao, demonstrarei que:
O Holocausto nazista realmente no resulta de algum tipo de atesmo darwinista, mas a consequncia bvia de
uma longa histria de genocdios do humanismo
O humanismo assassinou pessoas por que eram bodes expiatrios, sendo uma consequncia natural desta tcnica
(a de elencar bodes expiatrios que atrapalhiam projetos de remodelao de mundo)
Para comear seu ataque, valos faz novamente uma interpretao desonesta do texto de Dinesh:
DE ACORDO COM A CONVENO DAS NAES UNIDAS CONTRA O GENOCDIO (TAMBM CHAMADA DE PRIMEIRA CONVENO DE
GENEBRA), O TERMO GENOCDIO DESCREVE ATOS COMETIDOS COM O OBJETIVO DE DESTRUIR, PARCIAL OU TOTALMENTE, UM
GRUPO NACIONAL, TNICO, RACIAL OU RELIGIOSO. NO EXISTE NENHUMA DISTINO TICA ENTRE ASSASSINAR UM GRUPO
RELIGIOSO OU UM GRUPO TNICO. NO EXISTE NENHUMA DISTINO TICA ENTRE ASSASSINAR UM GRUPO RACIAL OU UM
GRUPO NACIONAL. TODOS SO IGUALMENTE PROIBIDOS PELOS PADRES DAS NAES UNIDAS. ISTO IMPORTANTE PORQUE
DSOUZA MUITAS VEZES TENTA ATENUAR A VIOLNCIA RELIGIOSA ALEGANDO, GERALMENTE SEM RESPALDO DOCUMENTAL, QUE
ALGUNS ATOS ATRIBUDOS VIOLNCIA RELIGIOSA SO NA VERDADE CASOS DE VIOLNCIA TNICA OU RACIAL.
valos tentar apelar aos padres das Naes Unidas no passa de um discurso pattico. uma mistura de distino de
emergncia (estratagema erstico) com apelo autoridade. como se as definies das Naes Unidas para genocdio fossem a
DEFINIO OFICIAL. Tudo bem que como humanista e adepto do governo global, valos talvez tente convencer sua patulia de
que Se o rgo das Naes Unidas falou, est falado.
Se o truque do apelo autoridade (Naes Unidas), est descartado, irrelevante ele apresentar a definio das Naes Unidas
como prova.
Nesse truque de simular a definio das Naes Unidas como se fosse a definio oficial, ele tenta dizer dizer que violncia tnica
igual a violncia racial e/ou religiosa. Na verdade, a distino existe sim, embora a definio de genocdio englobe todas as
categorias. O fato que atingir um grupo pelo fato de pertencer a um grupo nacional diferente totalmente diferente de atingi-
lo por causa de sua religio.
Richard Dawkins at tentou argumentar em Deus, um Delrio que, sem religies diferentes, no haveriam divises entre as
pessoas, mas isso s demonstra uma ignorncia cabal do processo gregrio nas espcies. Na verdade, religio apenas um
motivo de diviso, e, sem esse motivo, a espcie encontrar outros. Portanto, a afirmao de valos dizendo que DSouza falha
em ver que a etnicidade pode ser criada e/ou exacerbada por diferenas religiosas no faz o menor sentido. E quando ele diz
no possvel dissociar religio e etnicidade to facilmente quando DSouza tenta fazer, podemos refutar facilmente
mostrando vrios outros motivos para o gregarismo que no a religio.
Por isso, uma violncia cometida por motivos tnicos e/ou nacionais, no o mesmo que uma violncia cometida por motivos
religiosos. Nesse ponto, Dinesh acerta, enquanto valos, como sempre, est errado.
Sigamos:
DSOUZA TAMBM RESSALTA MAIS OS NMEROS DO QUE O PRINCPIO TICO DE QUE ERRADO ASSASSINAR GRUPOS DE SERES
HUMANOS EM VIRTUDE DE SUA RAA, ETNICIDADE, NACIONALIDADE OU RELIGIO. MAS SE, COMO DSOUZA APARENTEMENTE
PENSA, O GENOCDIO SEMPRE CONDENVEL, ENTO OS NMEROS NO IMPORTAM TANTO QUANTO O PRINCPIO. SE DSOUZA
NO PENSA QUE O GENOCDIO SEMPRE CONDENVEL, ENTO ELE NO MENOS RELATIVISTA MORAL DO QUE OS ATEUS, E
AGORA TERAMOS SOMENTE SUAS RAZES ARBITRRIAS PARA JUSTIFICA-LO.
Aqui outro truque. claro que os nmeros importam. Se estamos estudando as consequncias de algo, obviamente 10
pessoas contaminadas pela gripe algo diferente de 150.000 pessoas. Ou ser que valos quer reescrever a forma pela qual as
organizaes de sade trabalham? A crena no homem, trazida pelo humanismo, traz autoridade moral que HABILITA o
aumento de crimes, e por isso essas consequncias so importantes. O erro de Dinesh foi, como j citei, apenas associar as
mortes ao atesmo. Se associasse as mortes ao humanismo, seria irrefutvel. o que estou fazendo aqui.
PORTANTO, A NICA COISA QUE DSOUZA CONSEGUIU FOI MOSTRAR QUE O CRISTIANISMO NO MORALMENTE SUPERIOR EM
SEUS PRINCPIOS DE GENOCDIO. CRISTOS PODEM E TEM PROCURADO ASSASSINAR GRUPOS INTEIROS DE PESSOAS. UM
MERO ACIDENTE HISTRICO QUE OS SALDOS DOS REGIMES ATESTAS SEJAM MAIORES EM COMPARAO COM OS REGIMES
CRISTOS, MESMO SE CONCEDERMOS A TESE ERRNEA DE QUE HITLER REPRESENTOU UM REGIME ATESTA.
Como sempre, valos distorce as coisas. Dinesh estudava os regimes por sua PERICULOSIDADE. Ento, uma doena que
contamina 10 pessoas e as mata diferente de uma que contamina e mata 150.000. Se o caso dos neo ateus para dizer que a
religio perigosa envolve citar vtimas, para denunciar o humanismo como muito mais perigoso basta citarmos todas as
vtimas de Stalin, Mao e Hitler. E mais ainda, as vtimas de Pol Pot, Castro, etc.
Agora, valos tenta o que parecia ser sua causa mor: o de imputar ao cristianismo a culpa pelo nazismo. O truque se baseia
em dizer que Lutero era contra os judeus, portanto o cristianismo era contra os judeus. Vejamos como ele comea:
AO CONTRRIO DA POLMICA TESE DEFENDIDA POR DSOUZA DE QUE O NAZISMO UMA FILOSOFIA ANTIRRELIGIOSA, O NAZISMO
NA VERDADE UM CAPTULO DA LONGA HISTRIA DO ANTIJUDASMO CRISTO. O NAZISMO NO REPRESENTA UM DESVIO RADICAL
DAS ATITUDES DOS CRISTOS TRADICIONAIS EM RELAO AOS JUDEUS. ISTO RECONHECIDO PELO HISTORIADOR CATLICO
JOSE M. SANCHEZ: H POUCAS DVIDAS DE QUE O HOLOCAUSTO REMONTA MILENAR HOSTILIDADE DOS CRISTOS CONTRA OS
JUDEUS.
Essa tese no se sustenta pelo fato de que sistemas cristos deveriam ter provocado holocaustos judeus semelhantes MUITO
ANTES de Hitler, que no era cristo (embora adotasse uma viso de Deus que remonta a cultura viking, dentre outras). Alm
do mais, a hostilidade de ALGUNS cristos (da turma de Lutero) contra os judeus se deviam questes polticas momentneas,
mas nem de longe projetos de salvao de mundo. Lutero, por exemplo, no prometia em momento algum criar um mundo
melhor sem os judeus. por isso que o Holocausto judeu s veio a ocorrer em um governo humanista, mas no em governos
anteriores, que estavam distantes do humanismo.
Em relao ao texto Sobre os judeus e suas mentiras, de Lutero (que pode ser visto aqui), valos tenta dizer que ele
responsvel pelo Holocausto. No h evidncias disso, pois no temos casos histricos de genocdios judeus provocados pelos
sistemas cristos. Mas uma investigao dos sistemas humanistas, nos mostra que pouco antes, entre 1918 e 1922, j tnhamos
genocdios humanistas causados pelos russos, incluindo a grande fome russa de 1921, que matou 5 milhes de pessoas. Na
verdade, vrios genocdios humanistas vieram antes, incluindo aqueles cometidos na Revoluo Francesa.
Voltando ao nazismo, o que podemos notar que Hitler usou como um pretexto um texto de Lutero (dentre muitos outros), mas
sem este texto iria arrumar um outro qualquer. Para piorar a questo de valos, uma questo pessoal de Lutero contra os
judeus no implica no cristianismo contra os judeus. por isso que podemos chamar Hector valos e os neo ateus de
mentirosos, mas isso no implica no atesmo como mentiroso.
valos segue:
OS CRISTOS CATLICOS POSSUEM UMA HISTRIA AINDA MAIS LONGA DE ANTIJUDASMO. O DCIMO-SEXTO CANNE DO
CONCLIO DE ELVIRA (CA. 306), POR EXEMPLO, PROIBIU O CASAMENTO ENTRE JUDEUS E CRISTOS. DE MODO QUE AS LEIS DE
NUREMBERG NAZISTAS, QUE PROIBIRAM O CASAMENTO ENTRE ALEMES E JUDEUS, SO UMA MERA EXTENSO DE UMA
TRADIO CRIST, NO UMA RUPTURA RADICAL, COMO DSOUZA QUER NOS FAZER CRER. NO OBSTANTE O ANTIJUDASMO
REMONTAR AO NT, NA IDADE MDIA QUE COMEAMOS A TESTEMUNHAR ALGUNS DOS MAIS BRUTAIS E SISTEMTICOS ATAQUES
CRISTOS CONTRA OS JUDEUS. EM PARTE, A CODIFICAO DO CNONE LEGAL CATLICO FOI RESPONSVEL POR UMA POLTICA
MAIS UNIFORME EM RELAO AOS JUDEUS. E APESAR DAS MIGALHAS DE TOLERNCIA MOSTRADAS ESPARSAMENTE NO CNONE
LEGAL, A REALIDADE QUE OS JUDEUS FORAM EXPULSOS DA INGLATERRA EM 1290 E DA FRANA EM 1306. POR VOLTA DE 1492,
COMO SE SABE, A ESPANHA TAMBM EXPULSOU OS JUDEUS.
Aqui novamente, um truque. Comparar expulses de judeus por questes de divergncia poltica apelar a um expediente,
novamente, baixo demais. Nenhum desses eventos resultou, por exemplo, em qualquer tipo de genocdio judeu, o que torna a
comparao invlida. Alis, a proibio de casamento entre judeus e cristos no tem nada a ver novamente com Holocausto.
Os prprios judeus atuais defendem que judeus s se casem com judeus, ou pessoas que tenham se convertido ao judasmo.
Neste pargrafo de valos, o que tivemos foi apenas estratagemas de ampliao indevida, que s podem ser entendidos como
piada, mas no como trabalho histrico srio.
Mais ampliaes indevidas seguem abaixo:
DE QUALQUER MANEIRA, A PRIMEIRA CRUZADA, QUE TENCIONAVA LIBERTAR A TERRA SANTA DO DOMNIO MUULMANO, DEU
ORIGEM A UMA NOVA ONDA DE VIOLNCIA SISTEMTICA CONTRA OS JUDEUS. A PRIMEIRA CRUZADA FOI PROCLAMADA EM 1095, E
OS PRIMEIROS CONTINGENTES COMEARAM SUA VIAGEM EM DIREO AO LESTE EM 1096. ESTES CONTINGENTES, COMPOSTOS
MAJORITARIAMENTE POR LEIGOS, FORAM RESPONSVEIS PELA MAIOR PARTE DA VIOLNCIA ANTIJUDAICA. HORDAS DE
CRUZADOS TOMARAM DE ASSALTO CIDADES COMO COLNIA, MAINZ E WORMS, E DEIXARAM CERCA DE 3 MIL JUDEUS MORTOS.
Aqui, novamente a fraude intelectual de valos fica clara. Hordas de cruzados tomaram de assalto no s cidades habitadas
por judeus como tambm cidades habitadas por islmicos. Alis, tomaram cidades habitadas por cristos. Portanto, as
cruzadas no podem ser classificados como um movimento anti-judaico nos mesmos moldes que o Nazismo, que tem como
maioria de suas vtimas os judeus. Ainda mais frente vemos que as coisas no so bem como valos afirma:
VRIOS DOS JUDEUS CAPTURADOS NESTES POGROMS RECUSARAM-SE A SE CONVERTER AO CRISTIANISMO. SEGUNDO OS
RELATOS JUDAICOS, A SEGUINTE JUSTIFICATIVA PARA O MARTRIO FOI PROFERIDA: DEPOIS DE TUDO, NO H DVIDAS DOS
CAMINHOS DO SANTSSIMO, LOUVADO SEJA QUE NOS DEU SUA TOR E NOS ORDENOU QUE PERMITSSEMOS QUE FSSEMOS
MORTOS E CHACINADOS EM TESTEMUNHO DA UNICIDADE DE SEU SANTO NOME. FELIZES ESTAMOS SE SATISFAZEMOS SUA
VONTADE E FELIZ AQUELE QUE TOMBA E MORRE ATESTANDO A UNICIDADE DE SEU NOME.
Agora o truque mais apelativo ainda. A parte entre aspas citada a partir do livro The Jews and the Crusades: Hebrew
Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades, de Shlomo Eidelberg, que no fala dos Cruzados, mas de grupos de saqueadores
que no tinham autorizao da monarquia e nem dos papas para agir. E a prpria justificativa de morte por no converso no
tem muita sustentao arquivstica. O que mais aparenta que um grupo judeu foi atacado por saqueadores, e tentou dar um
tom herico sua morte. Mas, se os ataques surgiram a partir de grupos no ligados religio, as mortes no podem ser
atribudas ao cristianismo.
ESTES JUDEUS, VITIMADOS PELOS CRISTOS, CERTAMENTE VIRAM O DIO QUE LHES ERA DIRIGIDO COMO ENRAIZADO NA
RELIGIO. A DEFESA DE DSOUZA DE QUE PELO MENOS OS JUDEUS MEDIEVAIS PODERIAM TER SE CONVERTIDO, AO CONTRRIO
DA SITUAO NA ALEMANHA NAZISTA, FRACASSA PELOS PADRES DAS NAES UNIDAS. PROIBIDO EXTERMINAR QUALQUER
GRUPO BASEADO EM SUA ETNICIDADE OU RELIGIO, DE MODO QUE A OPORTUNIDADE DE SE CONVERTER NO FAZ A MENOR
DIFERENA.
Como mostrei antes, no h evidncias de que os ataques feitos aos judeus teriam sido provocados por questes religiosas. Na
verdade, eram disputas territoriais. Como se nota, valos mente em repetio para tentar convencer a platia por desistncia.
Sabemos que existe uma diferena lgica entre deixar de matar algum que prope se converter ao seu grupo gregrio com
matar algum sem lhe dar esta chance. Isso conhecido desde as guerras tribais, em que os habitantes vencidos de uma tribo
aceitam bandear para a outra tribo, multiplicando o exrcido da tribo conquistadora. Hitler no deu essa chance aos judeus,
mostrando que o dio era to profundo que no aceitaria converses.
[]POR OUTRO LADO, OS LEIGOS PODEM TER AGIDO DA MANEIRA COMO O FIZERAM POR CAUSA DE PALAVRAS COMO AS DO PAPA
INOCENTE III, QUE NO DIA 9 DE OUTUBRO DE 1208 EXPEDIU AO REI DA FRANA PHILIP II AUGUSTUS O SEGUINTE DITO A RESPEITO
DOS HEREGES E DOS JUDEUS: A FIM DE QUE A SANTA CIDADE DE DEUS, DISPOSTA COMO UMA ASSUSTADORA FRENTE DE
BATALHA, POSSA PROSSEGUIR CONTRA SEUS MAIS CRUIS INIMIGOS, EXTERMINAR [AD EXTERMINANDUM] OS SEGUIDORES DE
HERESIAS ABOMINVEIS, QUE COMO UM VERME OU UMA LCERA, INFECTARAM A PROVNCIA INTEIRA, FORMAMOS GUARNIES
DE SOLDADOS CRISTOS A SEREM CONVOCADOS JUNTOS. OBSERVE QUE, MESMO QUE NEM SEMPRE OBEDECIDAS
LITERALMENTE, A IDIA DE EXTERMNIO DE GRUPOS DE PESSOAS (HEREGES, JUDEUS) J EST L, BEM COMO O USO DA
LINGUAGEM GENOCIDA MEDICALIZADA (LCERA INFECTARAM) COMPARTILHADA COM O NAZISMO.
Acima, outra fraude intelectual. Na verdade, os judeus nem de longe eram vistos como um grupo representativo a ser
exterminado na poca da Inquisio, conforme j demonstrei aqui. As ordens do Papa Inocente III mencionam seguidores de
heresias abominveis, mas no faz meno especfica alguma aos judeus. Note que em seguida, valos tenta usar o truque da
manipulao ao dizer a idia de extermnio de grupos de pessoas (hereges, judeus) j est l. No, no estava idia de
extermnio de judeus. Mentir feio, valos.
J o extermnio de grupos rivais existia muito antes dessa declarao do Papa Inocente III, portanto no se pode definir um
mero extermnio a grupos rivais como a origem do sistema que criou a campanha Nazista.
E qual a diferena especfica do nazismo? Simples. uma proposta humanista, de salvao do mundo, com a definio de bodes
expiatrios (no caso, os judeus). como os marxistas fizeram, propondo salvar o mundo, definindo os burgueses como bodes
expiatrios. E como os humanistas atuais fazem, propondo salvar o mundo, definindo os religiosos tradicionais como bodes
expiatrios. Ou seja, Hitler apenas seguiu um humanismo igual ao de Hctor valos, no uma filosofia do cristianismo, que
sempre foi modesta em suas ambies de domnio territorial.
O FATO DE QUE HITLER VIA O QUE ELE ESTAVA FAZENDO COMO UMA CONTINUAO DA POLTICA CATLICA CONFIRMADO POR
UMA CONVERSA QUE ELE TEVE EM 26 DE ABRIL DE 1933, COM HERMANN WILHELM BERNING, BISPO DE OSNABRIICK, ALEMANHA. DE
ACORDO COM UM RELATRIO REGISTRADO NOS DOCUMENTOS SOBRE A POLTICA EXTERNA ALEM: [HITLER] ENTO TROUXE
BAILA A QUESTO JUDAICA. JUSTIFICANDO SUA HOSTILIDADE PARA COM OS JUDEUS, ELE REFERIU-SE IGREJA CATLICA, QUE
IGUALMENTE SEMPRE CONSIDEROU OS JUDEUS COMO INDESEJVEIS E QUE EM VIRTUDE DOS PERIGOS MORAIS ENVOLVIDOS
PROIBIU OS CRISTOS DE TRABALHAR PARA OS JUDEUS. POR ESTAS MESMAS RAZES A IGREJA BANIU OS JUDEUS PARA O
GUETO. ELE VIA OS JUDEUS COMO NADA ALM DE INIMIGOS PERNICIOSOS DO ESTADO E DA IGREJA E, POR ESSA RAZO, QUIS
EXCLUI-LOS CADA VEZ MAIS, SOBRETUDO DOS CARGOS PBLICOS E DA VIDA ACADMICA.
Notem o nvel da baixaria. Como no consegue uma fonte primria para validar sua argumentao, ele apela ao hearsay.
Significa ouvi dizer. Toda a parte entre aspas no est em uma declarao formal de Hitler. Tambm no est em documentos
oficiais. Est em uma declarao contida em um relatrio narrando uma suposta conversa entre Hitler e Berning. Mas e as
evidncias dessa conversa? Ela foi gravada? Infelizmente, no serve como prova. O fato de valos ter apelado evidncias
anedotais confirma a m inteno de sua empreitada. Em relao alegao acima, como sempre, fcil refut-la.
Sigamos:
CONFORME SUMARIZADO PELO RENOMADO HISTORIADOR DO HOLOCAUSTO GUENTER LEWY, HITLER SIMPLESMENTE ESTAVA
FAZENDO O QUE A IGREJA HAVIA FEITO POR 1500 ANOS. NA VERDADE, HITLER SIMPLESMENTE DISPUNHA DE TECNOLOGIAS E
LOGSTICAS MUITO SUPERIORES PARA FAZER O QUE OS CRISTOS MEDIEVAIS QUISERAM FAZER AOS JUDEUS. TAMBM HAVIAM
MUITO MAIS JUDEUS VIVENDO NA ALEMANHA NA POCA DE HITLER. PORTANTO, DSOUZA DEVERIA ESTAR CONTANDO OS
ACRSCIMOS NAS POPULAES-ALVO, NO APENAS AS POPULAES COMO UM TODO, PARA AVALIAR A PROPORCIONALIDADE DA
VIOLNCIA ATESTA E RELIGIOSA.
Guenter Lewy era um historiador de esquerda, tambm conhecido por suas crticas ao norte-americana no Vietn. Uma fonte
duvidosa, no mnimo. E a prpria Igreja Catlica j refutou as alegaes de Lewy. Usar declarao de esquerdista, sem
evidncias, simplesmente no uma evidncia de nvel sequer razovel.
Mais pattico ainda dizer que Hitler s conseguiu matar por causa de tecnologias e logsticas muito superiores para fazer o
que os cristos medievais quiseram fazer aos judeus.
Como j mostrei aqui, no h evidncia alguma de tentativa de extermnio dos judeus, por parte dos cristos. Alis, uma prova
disso que naes essencialmente crists foram as que lutaram para condenar os alemes pelos crimes cometidos contra os
judeus na Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Quanto afirmao de que Hitler s conseguiu matar por tecnologias e logsticas superiores uma piada sem igual. Na
verdade, uma tecnologia de morte superior pode ser exemplificada no caso da bomba atmica, por exemplo, pois com uma
bomba de larga potncia foi possvel matar mais pessoas do que com bombas menores. Mas no caso de extermnios em campos
de concentrao, isso irrelevante. Se Hitler usasse faces para matar os judeus, conseguiria matar tantos quantos matou com
cmaras de gs. Portanto, isso de Hitler matou mais s por causa de tecnologia que poderamos chamar de prosopopia
flcida para acalentar bovinos. Em portugus claro, conversa mole pra boi dormir.
DSOUZA LEVANTA A POLMICA TESE DE QUE O NAZISMO FOI UMA FILOSOFIA ANTIRRELIGIOSA, MAS OFERECE ESCASSAS
EVIDNCIAS INCONTESTVEIS PARA ESTA ALEGAO. SE DESEJAMOS CONHECER MOTIVOS, UM PROCEDIMENTO RAZOVEL
BUSCAR AS RAZES QUE AS PESSOAS OFERECEM PARA O QUE FAZEM. SE SEGUIRMOS ESTE PROCEDIMENTO, ENTO A SEGUINTE
DECLARAO DE HITLER NO MEIN KAMPF BASTANTE RELEVANTE: POR ISSO HOJE ACREDITO QUE ESTOU AGINDO EM
CONCORDNCIA COM A VONTADE DO CRIADOR TODO-PODEROSO; AO ME DEFENDER CONTRA O JUDEU, ESTOU LUTANDO PELA
OBRA DO SENHOR.
O estranho que antes valos dizia que provaria que o massacre de judeus oriundo do cristianismo. Agora mostra Hitler
falando de obra do Senhor, mas sem mencionar o cristianismo. A enrolao dele evidente.
Mas uma coisa eu concordo. O nazismo no foi uma filosofia anti-religiosa. Foi uma filosofia religiosa, mas no da religio
tradicional, e sim da religio poltica. A mesma pela qual valos nutre f apaixonada.
A coisa vai ficar mais divertida a seguir:
MAS DSOUZA DESCARTA A DECLARAO DE HITLER COMO EVIDNCIA DE QUE HITLER REALMENTE PRETENDEU DIZER O QUE
DISSE. EM VEZ DISSO, DSOUZA SUGERE QUE UMA FONTE MELHOR PARA OS PENSAMENTOS DE HITLER SOBRE A RELIGIO
ALLAN BULLOCK, AUTOR DE UM LIVRO CHAMADO HITLER E STALIN: VIDAS PARALELAS, DE 1993. CONFORME DSOUZA EXPRESSA
EM SUAS PALAVRAS: DESDE A MAIS TENRA IDADE, O HISTORIADOR ALLAN BULLOCK ESCREVE, HITLER NO DEDICOU TEMPO
ALGUM AO CATECISMO CATLICO, CONSIDERANDO-O UMA RELIGIO ADEQUADA SOMENTE PARA ESCRAVOS E DETESTANDO SUA
TICA. ESTA CLARAMENTE UMA TTICA DE ESQUIVA, J QUE DSOUZA NO EXPLICA PORQUE BULLOCK SABE O QUE HITLER
PENSAVA MELHOR DO QUE O PRPRIO HITLER.
De novo, valos tenta enrolar o leitor. DSouza tirou a associao das idias de Hitler com o catolicismo, e no com uma suposta
crena em Deus. valos somente estaria correto se nica forma de crena em Deus fosse pelo catolicismo, e sabemos que no .
Assim como a nica forma de gostar de futebol no torcer pelo Flamengo. Ademais, depois do desmo e do pantesmo, citaes
Deus nem sempre encontram ressonncia em explicaes sobrenaturais, como podem inclusive mencionar um arqutipo da
mente humana. Pelo humanismo de tom secular de Hitler, evidente que ele pode mencionar a vontade do Senhor sem estar
atrelado a religies tradicionais.
Portanto, DSouza no diz que Bullock sabe o que Hitler pensava melhor do que o prprio Hitler. Bullock apenas explicou o que
Hitler disse sem os truques desonestos de retrica cometidos por humanistas como valos.
ALM DISSO, MESMO SE HITLER DETESTASSE OS ENSINAMENTOS CATLICOS, DSOUZA CONFUNDE ATESMO COM
ANTICATOLICISMO. E A CITAO ACIMA NO A NICA EM QUE HITLER INVOCA DEUS, A RELIGIO OU O CRISTIANISMO PARA
EXPLICAR SUAS IDIAS POLTICAS NO MEIN KAMPF. HITLER TAMBM DECLAROU: POIS A VONTADE DE DEUS DEU AOS HOMENS
SUA FORMA, SUA ESSNCIA E SUAS HABILIDADES. QUALQUER UM QUE DESTRUA SUA OBRA EST DECLARANDO GUERRA
CRIAO DO SENHOR, A VONTADE DIVINA. NO ENCONTRO COM BERNING, HITLER INSISTIU QUE NEM UMA VIDA PESSOAL NEM
UMA NAO PODERIA SER CONSTRUDA SEM O CRISTIANISMO.
Em uma das raras verdades de valos, ele afirma que DSouza confunde atesmo com anticatolicismo. Na verdade, o correto
seria DSouza demonstrar que Hitler era humanista, e esta ideologia em essncia anticatlica. por isso que no h diferena
conceitual entre Dawkins, valos, Stalin e Hitler. Todos so humanistas. So ateus por serem inimigos da religio tradicional,
mas esse tipo de atesmo raivoso consequncia do humanismo secular, no do atesmo. Tanto que sou ateu e no demonstro o
mesmo dio pela religio tradicional que Hitler e valos possuem.
O livro Deus, um Delrio, de Richard Dawkins chega a trazer declaraes de Hitler em 1941 com o seguinte tom: O pior golpe
que j atingiu a humanidade foi a chegada do cristianismo. O bolchevismo o filho ilegtimo do cristianismo. Ambos so
invenes dos judeus. A mentira deliberada na forma de religio foi introduzida no mundo pelo cristianismo [] O mundo da
Antiguidade era to puro, leve e sereno porque no conhecia duas grandes escrias: a varola e o cristianismo. Falando
francamente, no temos motivo para desejar que os italianos e os espanhis se libertem da droga do cristianismo. Sejamos o
nico povo imunizado contra a doena.
O que, definitivamente, implode todas as tentativas de valos em associar Hitler ao cristianismo, mas segue permitindo que o
associemos ao humanismo, pois as declaraes dele contra o cristianismo so semelhantes quelas dos anti-clericaristas mais
raivosos do Iluminismo.
OUTRA TENTATIVA DE EVITAR AS IMPLICAES BVIAS DAS DECLARAES DE HITLER O APELO DE DSOUZA AO ASPECTO
PROPAGANDSTICO DO MEIN KAMPF. DSOUZA ALEGA QUE O PRPRIO HITLER DIZ NO MEIN KAMPF QUE SUAS DECLARAES
PBLICAS DEVERIAM SER INTERPRETADAS COMO MERA PROPAGANDA QUE NO GUARDA A MENOR RELAO COM A VERDADE,
SENDO ANTES PLANEJADAS PARA EXALTAR AS MASSAS. DSOUZA NO CITA UM TRECHO DIRETO DE HITLER PARA ESTA
ALEGAO E APENAS NOS REMETE S PGINAS 177-85 DO MEIN KAMPF, O QUE MAIS UMA VEZ REFLETE UM PSSIMO TRABALHO
DE PESQUISA HISTRICA. DSOUZA PARECE NO NOTAR QUE ESTA GENERALIZAO GROSSEIRA SOBRE O MEIN KAMPF NO
GUARDAR NENHUMA RELAO COM A VERDADE CRIA UM CASO DE INCOERNCIA AUTORREFERENCIAL. SE A PROPAGANDA DE
HITLER SEMPRE ESCONDE A VERDADE, ENTO SEGUE-SE QUE O PRPRIO ENUNCIADO SOBRE COMO ELE ESTAVA USANDO A
PROPAGANDA DEVE SER FALSO. E HITLER NO ACREDITOU REALMENTE QUE OS JUDEUS SO MALIGNOS PORQUE O QUE ELE DIZ
NO MEIN KAMPFNO POSSUI RELAO ALGUMA COM A VERDADE? EM VEZ DISSO, UM PROCEDIMENTO HISTRICO SUPERIOR
INTERPRETAR LITERALMENTE OS ENUNCIADOS DE UM AUTOR SOBRE SUAS PRPRIAS CRENAS A MENOS QUE O CONTRRIO
SEJA PROVADO. NADA DO QUE HITLER DISSE DESMENTE QUE ELE ACREDITOU ESTAR FAZENDO A VONTADE DE DEUS.
Acima, temos apenas um parangol desesperado. Lembremos que nada do que Hitler disse desmente que ele acreditou estar
fazendo a vontade de Deus, mas no define que Deus seja conforme os religiosos tradicionais apregoam. Alis, at o budismo
define uma variao de Deus conforme o atesmo. Mas com certeza, nada do que Hitler disse no desmente que ele acreditou
estar levando o mundo a um estgio superior com sua eugenia, em um projeto claramente humanista.
O fato de no guardar nenhuma relao com a verdade simplesmente o truque esquerdista que Lenin apregoou
anteriormente. Basta dizer uma mentira vrias vezes e esperar que ela se torne verdade. Isso o que Hitler confessou fazer no
Mein Kampf, ao invs de pedir para desconsiderarem tudo que ele escreveu, de forma que podemos catalogar este truque de
valos como um estratagema de ampliao indevida.
ALM DISSO, DSOUZA DEIXA INEXPLICADO POR QUE HITLER TERIA PENSADO QUE SUA RETRICA ANTIJUDAICA PODERIA
COMOVER AS MASSAS A MENOS QUE AS MASSAS FOSSEM RECEPTIVAS A UMA MENSAGEM ANTIJUDAICA. ISTO IMPORTANTE
PORQUE AS MASSAS DAS QUAIS DSOUZA FALA SE AUTOIDENTIFICAVAM MAJORITARIAMENTE COMO CRISTS. POR EXEMPLO, UM
RELATRIO NAZISTA INDICA QUE POR VOLTA DE 1938, 51,4% DOS MEMBROS DA SS FORAM IDENTIFICADOS COMO PROTESTANTES,
22,7% COMO CATLICOS, E 25,7% COMO CRENTES EM DEUS (GOTTGLAUBIGEN). COMO O ANTIJUDASMO NO ENCONTRA-SE
ASSOCIADO S OBRAS DO PRPRIO DARWIN, TRABALHAR TENDO COMO PANO DE FUNDO UMA HISTRIA DE ANTIJUDASMO
CRISTO SERIA MUITO MAIS EFETIVO NO CONVENCIMENTO DAS MASSAS CRISTS.
Agora ele mudou de truque. Aqui ele passa a considerar o pretexto como a causa raiz. Pode at ser possvel que Hitler tenha
POTENCIALIZADO E ALTERADO a rivalidade entre cristos e judeus (que era exclusivamente ideolgica) para uma questo
tnica, mas isso no torna o cristianismo responsvel por isso. como no exemplo que eu trouxe do fato da expresso Sou
professor ter atingido politicamente um gerente. A culpa no da expresso, que foi usada apenas como um pretexto, mas sim
do uso poltico de uma expresso, adaptado a um contexto organizacional. Tecnicamente, a raiva de Hitler contra os judeus
similar quela propagada por Lenin e Marx contra os burgueses, ou mesmo quela propagada por valos e Dawkins contra os
cristos e demais religiosos tradicionais. Os alvos de dio so escolhidos pelo poder que tem e o risco destes grupos atingirem os
objetivos de obteno de poder dos totalitrios.
Portanto, a tentativa de dizer que Hitler S CONSEGUIU atacar os judeus por causa de uma grande quantidade de cristos
obviamente uma grande bobagem.
A parte do cristianismo positivo, a seguir, amplia o grotesco do OANI (Objeto Argumentativo No Identificado) de valos:
OUTRO ASPECTO DO NAZISMO QUE DSOUZA DESCARTA SEM MUITA INVESTIGAO A IDIA NAZISTA DO CRISTIANISMO
POSITIVO. A PRIMEIRA OCORRNCIA DO TERMO REMONTA AO PONTO 24 DO PROGRAMA DO PARTIDO NAZISTA DE 1924, QUE DIZ: O
PARTIDO ENQUANTO TAL REFLETE O PONTO DE VISTA DE UM CRISTIANISMO POSITIVO NO LIMITADO CONFESSIONALMENTE A
QUALQUER DENOMINAO ESPECFICA. ELE COMBATE O ESPRITO MATERIALISTA JUDAICO. MAIS UMA VEZ, O ANTIJUDASMO FOI
UM DE SEUS PRINCIPAIS PILARES, O MERO RESULTADO DE UMA LONGA HISTRIA DE ANTIJUDASMO CRISTO. NESSE SENTIDO,
MAIS UMA VEZ, O NAZISMO NO UM DESVIO RADICAL DO CRISTIANISMO HISTORICAMENTE ORTODOXO.
Resumindo a palhaada acima. valos tenta convencer o leitor de que uma idia deturpada, a partir de uma idia original,
responsabiliza a idia original. mole? O cristianismo positivo, definido no Programa do Partido Nazista, mostra simplesmente a
tentativa de um truque similar Teologia da Libertao, uma deturpao do cristianismo para tentar enrolar um povo
essencialmente cristo. O cristianismo no culpado nem pela Teologia da Libertao e nem pelo Cristianismo Positivo.
Repetindo: uma idia deturpada, a partir de uma idia original, no culpa a idia original por sua deturpao. No existe uma
argumentao lgica de valos a favor de que uma idia deturpada responsabiliza a idia original pela deturpao.
Simplesmente, no d. Baixar o nvel tem limites, valos!
QUEM LER O MITO DO SCULO XX, UM TRATADO SOBRE O NAZISMO ESCRITO POR ALFRED ROSENBERG, A QUEM ATRIBUDA A
AUTORIA DO PROGRAMA DO PARTIDO DE 1920, ENTENDER QUE ELE CONCEBIA O CRISTIANISMO POSITIVO COMO UMA
RESTAURAO DOS ENSINAMENTOS PUROS E ORIGINAIS DE CRISTO. DE FATO, ROSENBERG NOS DIZ QUE A VIDA DE CRISTO O
QUE DEVERIA SER SIGINIFICATIVO PARA OS ALEMES. ROSENBERG REPUDIOU A IDIA DO SACRIFCIO DE CRISTO COMO UMA
CORRUPO JUDAICA, E VIA JESUS COMO UMA FIGURA CUJA VERDADEIRA OBRA, O AMOR PRPRIA RAA, FOI DISTORCIDA PELA
CRISTANDADE ORGANIZADA NUM AMOR UNIVERSAL, EM VEZ DE UM AMOR RESTRITO AO GRUPO RACIAL A QUE SE PERTENCE
(SOBRETUDO EM SUA INTERPRETAO DE LEVTICO 19:18 E 25:17).
Toda a parte acima deixa evidene que o cristianismo positivo deturpao absoluta do cristianismo, portanto a cada tentativa
valos vai atirando no prprio p ao usar tais citaes.
SIM, ROSENBERG SINCRETIZOU OS CONCEITOS CRISTOS ENCONTRADOS NO NT COM MITOS GERMNICOS, E MITOS DE SUA
PRPRIA CRIAO OU ADAPTAO. MAS EM QUE A EXEGESE BBLICA E O SINCRETISMO DE ROSENBERG DIFEREM DO QUE
OUTROS AUTOPROCLAMADOS CRISTOS ESTIVERAM FAZENDO AO LONGO DA HISTRIA? COM EFEITO, VRIOS ESTUDIOSOS
DEFENDEM EXATAMENTE QUE O CRISTIANISMO FOI O RESULTADO DA COMBINAO DE IDIAS JUDAICAS COM OUTRAS
HELENSTICAS. AO CONCEBEREM A SI PRPRIOS COMO RESTAURADORES DO CRISTIANISMO PRIMITIVO, OS CRISTOS POSITIVOS
NO FORAM MENOS CRISTOS DO QUE OS PRIMEIROS LUTERANOS OU ANABATISTAS. NA VERDADE, O CRISTIANISMO POSITIVO
POSSUI PRECURSORES ILUSTRES DENTRE OS PRIMEIROS CRISTOS QUE REJEITARAM O JUDASMO. ESTES INCLUEM MARCIO
(SEGUNDO SCULO), O CRISTO GNSTICO QUE REPUDIOU O ANTIGO TESTAMENTO (AT) POR INTEIRO, E PROMOVEU UM CNONE
CONSISTINDO APENAS DE UM EVANGELHO DE LUCAS EXPURGADO E ALGUMAS DAS EPSTOLAS PAULINAS. O MARCIONISMO
REPETIU-SE NA HISTRIA CRIST, ESPECIALMENTE ENTRE ALGUNS GRUPOS ANABATISTAS E TELOGOS CRISTOS (POR
EXEMPLO, FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER).
Vejam o nvel da bizarrice. No mundo humanista freak de valos, se um darwinista criar uma verso bizarra do darwinismo
misturado com criacionismo, ele passa a ser to darwinista quanto algum que acredita no darwinismo original. Qual o critrio?
Basta declarar ser darwinista. Vamos adaptar os truques de valos para essa possibilidade: Com efeito, vrios estudiosos
defendem exatamente que o Darwinismo foi o resultado da combinao de idias de Lamark e Wallace. Mas os darwinistas
criacionistas da Terra Jovem, ao conceberem a si prprios como restauradores do darwinismo original, no foram menos
darwinistas do que os primeiros adeptos da teoria de Darwin, ou mesmo os posteriores, como Stephen Jay Gould.
O padro do truque maquiar os fatos para FINGIR que a idia deturpada to legtima quanto a original, inclusive no uso do
rtulo da idia original. Qual o critrio para isso? repetir exausto. Que valos tenha baixado o nvel a esse ponto, algo que
no me surpreende. Me surpreende o fato do blog Rebeldia Metafsica ter considerado truques assim como o grande trunfo na
causa anti-crist dele.
DSOUZA TAMBM DEIXA DE DIZER A SEUS LEITORES QUE ANTES DO PAPA PIO XI SE DISTANCIAR DO NAZISMO EM SUA FAMOSA
ENCCLICA DE 1937 (MIT BRENNENDER SORGE/ COM ARDENTE PESAR), ESSE MESMO PAPA ASSINOU, NA POCA, EM 1933, UM
PACTO COM OS NAZISTAS, QUE HITLER INCLUSIVE APRECIOU COMO UM INESTIMVEL AUXLIO PARA LEVAR ADIANTE SUA
BATALHA CONTRA A JUDIARIA INTERNACIONAL (DER KAMPF GEGEN DAS INTERNATIONALE JUDENTUM). E OBSERVEM COMO
DSOUZA NO QUESTIONA SE O PAPA PIO XI TEVE MOTIVOS POLTICOS EM VEZ DE SUBLIMES MOTIVOS HUMANITRIOS PARA SUA
REPROVAO AOS NAZISTAS EM 1937. DSOUZA NO INDAGA SE PIO XI REALMENTE PRETENDEU DIZER O QUE ELE DISSE, COMO
FAZ QUANDO HITLER AFIRMA ESTAR ACATANDO A VONTADE DE DEUS. NO ENTANTO, QUANDO SE L ESSA ENCCLICA DE 1937, O
PAPA PIO XI ADMITE FAZER ACORDOS COM A ALEMANHA NAZISTA: QUANDO, EM 1933, CONSENTIMOS, VENERVEL BRETHREN, EM
ABRIR NEGOCIAES POR UM PACTO, QUE O GOVERNO DO REICH PROPS COMO BASE DE UM PROGRAMA DE MUITOS ANOS DE
COLABORAO ESTVAMOS PROPENSOS PELA VONTADE, COMO NOS PRPRIO, DE ASSEGURAR ALEMANHA A LIBERDADE
DA MISSO BENEFICENTE DA IGREJA E A SALVAO DAS ALMAS SOB SEUS CUIDADOS, BEM COMO PELO DESEJO SINCERO DE
PRESTAR AO POVO ALEMO UM SERVIO ESSENCIAL PARA SEU DESENVOLVIMENTO PACFICO E PROSPERIDADE. ASSIM, APESAR
DE VRIAS E GRAVES DVIDAS E INQUIETAES, DECIDIMOS ENTO NO RECUSAR NOSSO ASSENTIMENTO POIS FOI NOSSO
DESEJO POUPAR OS DEVOTOS DA ALEMANHA, NA MEDIDA EM QUE FOSSE HUMANAMENTE POSSVEL, DOS JULGAMENTOS E
DIFICULDADES QUE ELES TERIAM QUE ENFRENTAR, DADAS AS CIRCUNSTNCIAS, HOUVESSEM AS NEGOCIAES MALOGRADO.
POR QUE ISSO NO SE QUALIFICARIA COMO UMA MANOBRA POLTICA, J QUE ALMEJA PROTEGER OS INTERESSES DE UM GRUPO
DISTINTO (CATLICOS)? POR QUE NO PODEMOS TAMBM DIZER QUE A HIERARQUIA DO VATICANO NO PRETENDEU DIZER O
QUE DISSE EM 1937? E SER QUE NENHUM DOS CONSELHEIROS DO PAPA ESTAVA FAMILIARIZADO COM O MEIN KAMPF, QUE FORA
PUBLICADO APROXIMADAMENTE UMA DCADA ANTES DE 1933?
Nota-se que a medida que o texto vai caminhando, valos vai baixando cada vez mais de nvel.
Se Pio XI, com a encclica de 1937, tentou proteger os interesses de um grupo distinto (catlicos), as associaes humanistas
vo proteger os interesses dos humanistas, as associaes atestas vo proteger os interesses dos ateus, oras. Portanto, valos
no tem um caso a favor da tese de que cristianismo causou o Holocausto.
Quando ele questiona E ser que nenhum dos conselheiros do Papa estava familiarizado com o Mein Kampf, que fora publicado
aproximadamente uma dcada antes de 1933?, isso tambm irrelevante, haja vista que at as declaraes de Gramsci foram
consideradas irrelevantes pelos militares brasileiros. Isso no torna os militares brasileiros CONIVENTES com os terroristas. No
mximo, isso permitiria uma crtica em relao estratgia de atuao.
Enfim, qualquer tentativa de citar Pio XI, j foi devidamente refutada e um truque dos mais baixos. Que valos tente esse
mesmo recurso essa altura do campeonato, isso pode ser um sintoma de que seus leitores realmente no tem mais senso
crtico para discernir fatos de uma propaganda anti-religiosa barata.
NA VERDADE, DIEGO VON BERGEN, O EMBAIXADOR DO REICH NA SANTA S, RELATOU QUE ENQUANTO O PAPA ESTAVA DIZENDO
UMA COISA, EUGENIO PACELLI, O CARDEAL SECRETRIO DO VATICANO E O HOMEM QUE SE TORNARIA O PAPA PIO XII, PROMETEU
QUE RELAES NORMAIS E AMISTOSAS SERIAM REESTABELECIDAS O MAIS CEDO POSSVEL ENTRE O VATICANO E OS
NAZISTAS APS ESSA ENCCLICA. DE FATO, POR VOLTA DE 1939, O ARCEBISPO CESARE ORSENIGO, O NNCIO PARA BERLIM,
ESTAVA ATAREFADO ABRINDO UMA RECEPO DE GALA PARA O QUINQUAGSIMO ANIVERSRIO DE HITLER. ISSO ENCERRA A
QUESTO DO SUPOSTO REPDIO DA IGREJA CATLICA AO REGIME NAZISTA.
Quer dizer, se uma organizao catlica faz uma recepo aos lderes polticos do pas (como de praxe isso ocorrer), ento
passa a se coadunar com TODOS OS OBJETIVOS do regime poltico. De novo, mais um salto indutivo completamente desonesto
de valos, encerrando a questo de termos ou no dvidas de que ele um humanista perfeito. Raros teriam a cara de pau de
mentir tanto. Lenin, como j disse, estaria orgulhoso.
Agora, ele tentar impugnar as Conversaes Informais, de Hitler:
OS PROBLEMAS COM AS CONVERSAES INFORMAIS FORAM MINUCIOSAMENTE ESTUDADOS POR RICHARD CARRIER. DO MEU
PONTO DE VISTA, NA QUALIDADE DE HISTORIADOR ACADMICO, EXISTEM PELO MENOS TRS PROBLEMAS COM A UTILIZAO
DESTA FONTE; (1) NO EXISTEM ORIGINAIS AUTGRAFOS, DO PRPRIO PUNHO DE HITLER, DESTA FONTE. NO TEMOS FITAS DE
UDIO PARA VERIFICAR AS TRANSCRIES. O QUE TEMOS SO CPIAS CLEBRES QUE MUITAS VEZES FORAM FILTRADAS
ATRAVS DE MARTIN BORMAN, AUXILIAR DE HITLER. O FATO DE ESTAS VERSES CONCORDAREM SUFICIENTEMENTE PARA
SUGERIR UMA FONTE COMUM NO NECESSARIAMENTE PROVA QUE ESTA FONTE COMUM TENHA SIDO O PRPRIO HITLER. (2) AS
VERSES S VEZES SO DISCREPANTES. ALGUMAS PASSAGENS ESTO AUSENTES NA EDIO DE TREVOR ROPER EM RELAO
EDIO DE PICKER. DE MODO QUE DIFCIL DIZER O QUE VEM DE HITLER E O QUE VEM DOS EDITORES. (3) TREVOR-ROPER
AUTENTICOU OS DIRIOS DE HITLER, APESAR DE ESTES MAIS TARDE TEREM SIDO DESMASCARADOS COMO UMA FRAUDE.
GENOUD TAMBM UM PERSONAGEM DE REPUTAO DUVIDOSA QUE PODE TER ESTADO ENVOLVIDO EM OUTRAS
FALSIFICAES. E COMO CARRIER TEM MOSTRADO, AMBAS AS EDIES DE GENOUD E TREVOR-ROPER MUITAS VEZES
TRADUZEM COM ERROS GROTESCOS O ORIGINAL ALEMO. ALM DISSO, O PRINCIPAL MEDIADOR EM TODAS AS VERSES
CONHECIDAS DAS CONVERSAES NTIMAS O SECRETRIO PESSOAL DE HITLER, MARTIN BORMANN, CONHECIDO POR SEUS
PONTOS DE VISTA ANTICRISTOS. DE MODO QUE S VEZES PODEMOS ESTAR LENDO OS PENSAMENTOS DE BORMANN EM VEZ DE
OS DE HITLER.
Carrier de novo? Quando se juntam dois mentirosos profissionais (valos e Carrier), o que temos seno mentiras em 3D?
Se o critrio no ter fitas de adio, ou no ter originais autgrafos, de prprio punho de Hitler, ento todas as evidncias
dizendo que os massacres de judeus em 3 cidades por Cruzados, tambm vo automaticamente pelo ralo. Notem o que valos
disse anteriormente: O fato de que Hitler via o que ele estava fazendo como uma continuao da poltica catlica confirmado
por uma conversa que ele teve em 26 de Abril de 1933, com Hermann Wilhelm Berning, bispo de Osnabriick, Alemanha.
Espere a, o fato? Mas no tinha fita de udio e nem originais autgrafos. Mas a ele aceita? claro que essa dupla est
usando um peso e duas medidas. Por que no estou surpreso?
A diferena que nas Conversaes ntimas, temos a mediao do SECRETRIO PESSOAL de Hitler. Mas quer dizer ento que
agora valos defende a tese de que o secretrio pessoal de Hitler registrava algo diferente do que o chefe queria? Quais as
provas para isso? Simplesmente ele no tem. Enfim, at termos prova em contrrio: sabemos que secretrios cumprem as
ordens de seus chefes. Eu tenho uma secretria. Se valos quiser dizer que ela documenta coisas diferente das que eu mando,
ele que prove. A alegao extraordinria passa a ser a de valos.
Essa parte aqui tambm suspeita : As verses s vezes so discrepantes. Algumas passagens esto ausentes na edio de
Trevor Roper em relao edio de Picker. De modo que difcil dizer o que vem de Hitler e o que vem dos editores.
Bastaria que valos demonstrasse as discrepncias, de forma cientfica. Dizer que s vezes so discrepantes no configura
prova.
Mais uma: Trevor-Roper autenticou os Dirios de Hitler, apesar de estes mais tarde terem sido desmascarados como uma
fraude. O que no prova que as Conversaes ntimas so uma fraude.
O show no termina: E como Carrier tem mostrado, ambas as edies de Genoud e Trevor-Roper muitas vezes traduzem com
erros grotescos o original alemo.. Ora, se a traduo est errada, que mostrem a traduo correta, oras.
Como se nota, no d para levar a srio os neo ateus.
TAMBM SABEMOS, A PARTIR DE OUTRAS FONTES, QUE HITLER DISCORDOU DE BORMANN E TAMBM DISCORDOU DE SUAS
PRPRIAS OPINIES EXPRESSAS NAS CONVERSAES NTIMAS. POR EXEMPLO, ALBERT SPEER, QUE FOI O ARQUITETO PESSOAL
DE HITLER, DISSE: MESMO APS 1942 HITLER PROSSEGUIU SUSTENTANDO QUE CONSIDERAVA A IGREJA INDISPENSVEL NA VIDA
POLTICA. NUMA DESSAS CONVERSAS HORA DO CH, ELE AFIRMOU QUE FICARIA FELIZ SE ALGUM DIA UM ECLESISTICO
RENOMADO SE REVELASSE ADEQUADO PARA LIDERAR UMA DAS IGREJAS OU, SE POSSVEL, AMBAS, A CATLICA E A
PROTESTANTE, REUNIDAS. SPEER TAMBM RELATA CASOS EM QUE HITLER CENSUROU AES ANTICRISTS COMETIDAS POR
SEUS SUBORDINADOS. ASSIM, SE UTILIZARMOS SOMENTE AS FONTES MAIS CONFIVEIS, DSOUZA DEFINITIVAMENTE NO
DEMONSTRA SEU CASO.
exatamente o oposto. As tais fontes mais confiveis, segundo valos, nem sequer possuem fitas de udio ou assinatura
de prprio punho, portanto possuem tanta confiabilidade quanto as demais. Reparem que valos seleciona suas fontes pela sua
concluso apriorstica.
O fato de Hitler torcer para que um eclesistico pudesse liderar as igrejas catlica e protestante reunidas foi uma citao
precipitada de valos, pois configura um interesse que no nem dos catlicos e nem dos protestantes. Alis, o ecumenismo
uma iniciativa que os humanistas adoram, tornando cada vez mais esmagador o meu caso demonstrando que a culpa do
Holocausto Judeu no do cristianismo, mas do humanismo.
Que DSouza comete alguns erros, isso um fato, como o de associar o nazismo ao atesmo, quando ele deveria estar
associando ao humanismo. Mas em todas as refutaes quanto a associao de cristianismo positivo com o nazismo, e a
tentativa safada de definir Pio XVII com o nazismo, DSouza esfarela valos com facilidade.
DSOUZA NO CITA UMA NICA PASSAGEM DO MEIN KAMPF, UMA FONTE INCONTESTAVELMENTE ATRIBUDA A HITLER, EM QUE
ESTE DIZ QUE SEUS MOTIVOS FORAM ATESTAS. TODAVIA, PODEMOS ENCONTRAR UMA SRIE DE PASSAGENS DO MEIN KAMPFEM
QUE HITLER, NO MENOS DO QUE MARTINHO LUTERO, REIVINDICA ESTAR REALIZANDO A VONTADE DE DEUS.ALM DISSO,
DSOUZA NO REVELA A FRASE COMPLETA, QUE NA VERDADE ENCONTRA-SE NOS PRONUNCIAMENTOS DE HITLER, UM LIVRO
HISTORICAMENTE DESACREDITADO DA AUTORIA DE HERMANN RAUSCHNING: MAS ATRAVS DO CAMPESINATO QUE REALMENTE
SEREMOS CAPAZES DE DESTRUIR O CRISTIANISMO PORQUE EXISTE ENTRE ELES UMA VERDADEIRA RELIGIO ENRAIZADA NO
SANGUE E NA NATUREZA. ASSIM, EM SUA VERSO INTEGRAL, O ALEGADO OBJETIVO DE HITLER UMA RELIGIO MELHOR
(VERDADEIRA RELIGIO), NO RELIGIO NENHUMA.
Opa, religio verdadeira? Pronto. Esta a alegao do humanismo, a religio da humanidade, baseada no positivismo. Ei,
algum se lembrou do cristianismo positivo? De novo, valos atira no prprio p.
HITLER ACRESCENTA: PODE-SE PERGUNTAR SE O DESAPARECIMENTO DO CRISTIANISMO ACARRETARIA O DESAPARECIMENTO DA
CRENA EM DEUS. ISSO NO SERIA DESEJVEL. A IDIA DE UMA DIVINDADE CONFERE MAIORIA DOS HOMENS A OPORTUNIDADE
DE CONCRETIZAR O SENTIMENTO QUE ELES POSSUEM DA EXISTNCIA DE REALIDADES SOBRENATURAIS. POR QUE DEVERAMOS
DESTRUIR ESTE MARAVILHOSO PODER QUE ELES POSSUEM DE ENCARNAR O SENTIMENTO PARA O DIVINO QUE H EM SEU
INTERIOR? ASSIM, MESMO AQUI HITLER DISTINGUE ENTRE NO ACREDITAR NO CRISTIANISMO E NO ACREDITAR EM DEUS.
U, no mximo aqui Hitler est FAZENDO USO da crena dos outros em realidades sobrenaturais. Basta ler o que ele escreve: o
sentimento que eles possuem. Eu no concordo com Hitler em termos de ideologia humanista, pois sou opositor do humanismo.
Mas fiz algo semelhante no meu texto O inimigo do meu inimigo meu amigo, em que mostro apreciar a crena em um Deus
sobrenatural de forma conveniente, mas no como objeto de minha crena.
NA VERDADE, NO ORIGINAL ALEMO DAS CONVERSAES NTIMAS, HITLER MANIFESTA SUA ESPERANA DE VIDA ETERNA NO
PARASO E SEU REAL DESPREZO POR AQUELES QUE ESCARNECEM DA PROVIDNCIA DIVINA, DECLARANDO EM VEZ DISSO QUE
ELE PENSA SER POSSVEL QUE DEUS O TENHA ESCOLHIDO, E QUE NOSSA CRENA NUM CRIADOR QUE NOS DISTINGUE DOS
ANIMAIS.
Fico no aguardo das evidncias, que seriam essas declaraes traduzidas. Se algum humanista quiser traz-las, que o faa. Pelo
que vi, valos foi muito cara de pau ao escond-las. Alis, no mximo ele tenta teorizar sobre uma das possibilidade para o
homem ser distinto dos demais animais, o que uma crena humanista, independente da crena em Deus ou no. Uma crena
que no tem sustentao darwinista, diga-se.
REIS CRISTOS MUITAS VEZES MATARAM CLRIGOS E PERSEGUIRAM IGREJAS QUE DISCORDAVAM DELES. O QUE ESTAMOS
VENDO NO NAZISMO UMA GUERRA SECTRIA OU UMA GUERRA INTRARRELIGIOSA, QUE NO DEVERIA SER CONFUNDIDA COM
ANTIRRELIGIOSIDADE.
verdade que reis cristos j mataram pessoas que discordavam deles em termos religiosos. Mas se havia uma guerra
intrareligiosa no nazismo, era uma guerra da religio da humanidade (nazismo um dos perfis humanistas) contra uma religio
tradicional.
Em relao s associaes de Darwin com o nazismo, discordo frontalmente de Dinesh DSouza, portanto no tenho muito o que
refutar. Mas mesmo em sua tentativa de dissociar o darwinismo do nazismo, valos segue propagando mentiras, as quais tenho
que refutar:
PRIMEIRO, A PRPRIA NOO DE QUE O DARWINISMO FOI NECESSRIO PARA O NAZISMO DESMENTIDA PELO PLANO DE LUTERO
PARA OS JUDEUS DE 1543. POR VOLTA DE 1543 ERA POSSVEL LEVAR A CABO COM XITO UM PROGRAMA QUE AT OS
ESPECIALISTAS NA OBRA DE LUTERO RECONHECEM SER SEMELHANTE AO NAZISMO, E NO HAVIA DARWIN ALGUM ENTO.
WEIKART SE ESQUECE COMPLETAMENTE DE LUTERO, E RARAMENTE MENCIONA A LONGA HISTRIA DE ANTIJUDASMO CRISTO
QUE CERTAMENTE SERIA MAIS IMPORTANTE DO QUE O DARWINISMO. A MAIORIA DOS ALEMES NO ERA TO FAMILIARIZADA COM
AS OBRAS DE DARWIN COMO ERAM COM A BBLIA OU COM AS TRADIES ANTIJUDAICAS DE PERSONAGENS DA HISTRIA ALEM
COMO LUTERO.
Na verdade, Hitler usou um conjunto de idias, a maioria delas humanistas, para criar seu paradigma que envolvia a soluo
final contra os judeus. Esse paradigma essencialmente humanista, mas tem quase nada a ver com Darwin. A prpria eugenia
de Hitler baseada em extrapolaes bizarras do darwinismo, que nada tem a ver com o darwinismo original. Na verdade, o
darwinismo de Hitler, envolvendo eugenia, est to prximo do darwinismo quanto o cristianismo positivo est prximo do
cristianismo. Como um adendo ele usou as opinies de um cristo (Lutero), que no passavam de posies polticas. Chamar as
opinies polticas de Lutero de o cristianismo mais uma safadeza intelectual sem limites. Resumindo, nem o darwinismo e
nem o cristianismo so culpados pelo nazismo. Somente o humanismo carrega essa culpa em sua integridade.
CONSIDERE A IDIA HITLERISTA DA PUREZA DO SANGUE (REINHALTUNG DES BLUTES). ESTA NOO NO TEVE INCIO COM
DARWIN, NEM SEQUER FOI DISCUTIDA COMO TAL POR DARWIN EM A ORIGEM DAS ESPCIES. EM VEZ DISSO, A TERMINOLOGIA
ESPECFICA DE HITLER CORRESPONDE MUITO DE PERTO TERMINOLOGIA CATLICA ESPANHOLA (LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE/LIMPEZA
OU PUREZA DO SANGUE) APLICADA CONTRA OS JUDEUS NA ESPANHA. EM PARTICULAR, JUAN MARTINEZ SILICEO, O ARCEBISPO
DE TOLEDO, PROPS EM 1547 UMA LEGISLAO BASEADA MUITO ESPECIFICAMENTE SOBRE ESTA NOO DE LIMPIEZA DE
SANGRE. NORMAS DECRETADAS EM TOLEDO EM 1449 TAMBM SE CONCENTRARAM NA PUREZA DO SANGUE COMO UM MEIO PARA
DISCRIMINAR OS JUDEUS QUE HAVIAM SE CONVERTIDO MAS NO ERAM ESPANHIS DE SANGUE.
Aqui o truque pensar por palavras. A lgica de valos a seguinte. Se h o termo pureza de sangue usado no passado por
religiosos cristos, ento eles endossariam as prticas de Hitler. Nada mais falso. Todas as culturas sempre buscaram meios, no
passado, de saber quem era do grupo ou no. E isso nada tem a ver com o radicalismo do Holocausto Nazista. Enfim, mais uma
ampliao indevida, junto com generalizao apressada. Esto perdendo as contas das fraudes intelectuais? Eu j perdi
COMO AT MESMO OS ESTUDIOSOS JUDEUS OBSERVARAM, DIVERSOS PERSONAGENS BBLICOS PODEM SER INTERPRETADOS
COMO DEFENSORAS DE PRTICAS EUGNICAS SCULOS ANTES QUE O TERMO FOSSE INVENTADO. O RABINO MAX REICHLER, UM
DOS AUTORES DE EUGENIA JUDAICA E OUTROS ENSAIOS, NOS DIZ: CERTAMENTE A EUGENIA COMO CINCIA DIFICILMENTE
PODERIA TER EXISTIDO ENTRE OS ANTIGOS JUDEUS; MAS DIVERSAS REGRAS EUGNICAS DE FATO FORAM INCORPORADAS NA
VASTA COLEO DE LEIS BBLICAS E RABNICAS. NA VERDADE EXISTEM INDCIOS INEQUVOCOS DE UM ESFORO CONSCIENTE
PARA UTILIZAR TODAS AS INFLUNCIAS CAPAZES DE AUMENTAR AS QUALIDADES INATAS DAS RAAS JUDAICAS E RESGUARDAR
CONTRA QUAISQUER PRTICAS QUE PODERIAM CONSPURCAR A PUREZA DA RAA OU PREJUDICAR AS QUALIDADES RACIAIS DAS
FUTURAS GERAES SEJA FSICA, MENTAL OU MORALMENTE O PRPRIO FUNDADOR DA RAA JUDAICA, O PATRIARCA ABRAO,
RECONHECEU A IMPORTNCIA DE CERTAS QUALIDADES HEREDITRIAS, E INSISTIU QUE A ESPOSA DE SEU NICO FILHO AMADO
NO DEVERIA VIR DAS FILHAS DOS CANANITAS, MAS DA SEMENTE DE UMA LINHAGEM SUPERIOR.
O truque agora similar ao do Deuteronmio Manda Voc Matar segundo Sam Harris, de novo. Nesse momento, os truques
comeam a ficar repetitivos e a leitura de valos cansativa. Alis, tudo que foi repetido vrias vezes eu cortei da anlise
investigativa do texto. Mas, para no deixar passar barato: eventos dos tempos de Abrao no necessariamente significam
regras de conduta do cristianismo. D sono ter que refutar esse truque neo ateu de novo.
SE OLHARMOS PARA AS JUSTIFICATIVAS RACIALISTAS DO PRPRIO HITLER, DESCOBRIREMOS QUE ELE INVOCA A BBLIA, NO O A
ORIGEM DAS ESPCIES, PARA RESPALDA-LO. UM EXEMPLO ESTA PASSAGEM DO MEIN KAMPF A RESPEITO DA MISCIGENAO:
UMA DAQUELAS A RESPEITO DO QUE DITO COM TO GRANDIOSA E TERRVEL JUSTIA QUE OS PECADOS DOS PAIS SO
VINGADOS AT A DCIMA GERAO O PECADO CONTRA O SANGUE E A PROFANAO DA RAA SO O PECADO ORIGINAL NESTE
MUNDO MAS DE ONDE HITLER TIROU A IDIA DE QUE A PROFANAO DO SANGUE UM PECADO QUE MACULA AT A DCIMA
GERAO? NO A VEMOS EM NENHUMA DAS OBRAS DE DARWIN. MAS NO LIVRO DE ESDRAS, CAPTULO 9, VERSCULOS 1-2 E 12,
LEMOS: ACABADAS, POIS, ESTAS COISAS, CHEGARAM-SE A MIM OS PRNCIPES, DIZENDO: O POVO DE ISRAEL, OS SACERDOTES E
OS LEVITAS, NO SE TM SEPARADO DOS POVOS DESTAS TERRAS, SEGUINDO AS ABOMINAES DOS CANANEUS, DOS HETEUS,
DOS PERIZEUS, DOS JEBUSEUS, DOS AMONITAS, DOS MOABITAS, DOS EGPCIOS, E DOS AMORREUS. PORQUE TOMARAM DAS
SUAS FILHAS PARA SI E PARA SEUS FILHOS, E ASSIM SE MISTUROU A LINHAGEM SANTA COM OS POVOS DESSAS TERRAS; E AT
OS PRNCIPES E MAGISTRADOS FORAM OS PRIMEIROS NESTA TRANSGRESSO. () AGORA, POIS, VOSSAS FILHAS NO DAREIS A
SEUS FILHOS, E SUAS FILHAS NO TOMAREIS PARA VOSSOS FILHOS, E NUNCA PROCURAREIS A SUA PAZ E O SEU BEM; PARA QUE
SEJAIS FORTES, E COMAIS O BEM DA TERRA, E A DEIXEIS POR HERANA A VOSSOS FILHOS PARA SEMPRE. (NFASE DO AUTOR)
O truque de valos aqui fingir que TODO o nazismo e todo anti-semitismo baseado nessa questo da dcima gerao. Nem
de longe. Na verdade, essa mais uma deturpao do cristianismo (pois como j mostrei no texto O Deuteronmio Manda Voc
Matar segundo Sam Harris, uma deturpao do cristianismo no o mesmo que o cristianismo). E responsabilizar a existncia
desse trecho no Velho Testamento com a ocorrncia do nazismo um truque bem sujo. Seria como responsabilizar a frase Hay
que endurecer pero sin perder la ternura jams pelos atos criminosos de Che Guevara.
E AO CONTRRIO DA AFIRMAO DE WEIKART DE QUE A ORIENTAO ESPIRITUAL DO JUDEOCRISTIANISMO RESISTIU A TAIS
IDIAS RACIALISTAS, ROBERT KNOX, O FAMOSO ESCRITOR RACIALISTA ESCOCS, DECLAROU: AGORA, ESTEJA A TERRA
SUPERPOPULADA OU NO, UMA COISA CERTA, OS FORTES SEMPRE IRO SE APODERAR DAS TERRAS E DAS PROPRIEDADES
DOS FRACOS. ESTOU CONVICTO DE QUE ESTA CONDUTA NO , EM ABSOLUTO, INCOMPATVEL COM A MAIS ELEVADA MORAL E
MESMO COM O SENTIMENTO CRISTO.
Se antes Lutero virou o cristianismo agora ele transforma Robert Knox em um porta voz do cristianismo tambm. mole?
Concluso
Realmente existem dois equvocos de DSouza, que valos nem de longe abordou com a profundidade adequada. So eles:
1. Associar o nazismo ao atesmo
2. Associar o nazismo ao darwinismo
valos provavelmente no abordou esses dois equvocos de DSouza por estar to emocionalmente envolvido em sua causa
humanista de dio ao cristianismo, que confundiu um ataque forte que ele poderia fazer DSouza com uma pregao anti-crist
de baixo nvel, recheada de mentiras, falcias, estratagemas ersticos, citaes fora do contexto e um caudal realmente
impressionante de fraudes intelectuais.
O fato que o atesmo no responsvel pelo nazismo, mas sim o humanismo. O humanismo a filosofia que defende a idia
de que o ser humano uma espcie A PARTE das outras espcies, e por isso pode criar o paraso na Terra. O humanismo
tambm essencialmente rival de qualquer religio tradicional, pois estas pregam uma crena em Deus, ao invs da crena no
homem. Hitler precisava desta crena no homem, tal qual Stalin precisava para implementar a ditadura do proletariado e tal qual
os arquitetos do governo global precisam para estabelecer uma ONU fortssima, a ponto de estabecer esses ncleos de poder
controlando o Globo. Esta crena d o tom no s de toda a manifestao marxista, como tambm de toda a ao humanista
(inclusive a de Hector valos). Naturalmente, o padro seguiu-se na Alemanha Nazista. Revisando os padres:
Nazismo -> Judeus
Marxismo -> Burgueses
Humanismo Secular -> Religiosos Tradicionais
Cada um dos trs uma variao do humanismo, que compreende toda a esquerda, definindo ento a religio poltica. Todos
eles trabalham com bodes expiatrios. O truque de promover um paraso em Terra, a partir da crena no homem, fazer os
adeptos se sentirem parte desse movimento para criar um paraso e definir um bode expiatrio que impede o paraso de ocorrer
COMPREENDE TODO O FRAMEWORK ESQUERDISTA.
Conforme j mostrei aqui, valos no aborda decentemente a questo de Darwin. Este, se bem entendido, derruba toda a
iniciativa da religio poltica. por isso que afirmo que Darwin no responsvel pelo nazismo. O estudo profundo de Darwin
ajudaria a demolir no s o nazismo, como tambm qualquer outra forma de humanismo, inclusive o de valos. Provavelmente
por isso, a defesa dele do darwinismo foi pfia.
Os fatos: valos foi razovel ao mostrar que Dinesh DSouza estava errado ao associar o atesmo ao nazismo. Foi o nico acerto
dele. A defesa do darwinismo foi pattica, e poderia ser mais contundente, e novamente mostraria que DSouza errou. S que
os erros de valos foram mais gritantes pois ele lanou uma coleo realmente impressionante de mentiras para tentar transferir
a culpa (erradamente atribuda por DSouza) dos crimes do nazismo do atesmo para o cristianismo, no que pareceu uma
birrinha ridcula. Conforme mostrei, nem cristianismo e nem atesmo so os habilitadores do nazismo, mas sim o humanismo,
crena pela qual valos demonstra paixo inacreditvel.
Para finalizar esta anlise, no posso deixar de notar um padro comportamental no jogo de valos. assim: primeiro o sujeito
mente 3 ou 4 vezes, e v essas mentiras refutadas. Depois mente 40 vezes. E as 40 so refutadas. Depois mente 400 vezes, e
espera que os oponentes desistam de refutar, pelo cansao.
Deu trabalho de refutar? Sim. Fazia tempo que eu no escrevia um texto to longo. Mas eu tambm estava sentindo falta de
esmagar um fraudador que comete tantas fraudes em sequncia como valos.
Agora, os humanistas do blog Rebeldia Metafsica no tem mais motivos para comemoraes.
Aguardo a prxima falsa proclamao de vitria.
Fascismo e totalitarismo na magna viso de George Orwell
A verdade, claro, que os inmeros intelectuais ingleses que beijam o traseiro de Stlin no diferem da minoria que fiel a Hitler ou Mussolini (). Todos
eles esto cultuando o poder e a crueldade bem-sucedida.
George Orwell um nome obrigatrio para qualquer um que se interesse pelos grandes movimentos e fenmenos polticos e civilizacionais do sculo passado.
Com seu nome de batismo, Eric Arthur Blair, oculto pelo seu famosssimo pseudnimo, Orwell um dos indivduos de seu tempo que mais tiveram capacidade e
sensibilidade para perceber o que estava acontecendo na poltica de sua poca.
Seu famoso romance, 1984, pode ser previsto em seus artigos para variados jornais do Reino Unido, na primeira metade do sculo passado. Nesta organizao
brasileira chamada O que fascismo? E outros ensaios, Orwell fala de poltica, sociedade, hipocrisia, cultura, literatura, filmes, moral e tambm procura teorizar
sobre alguns rumos que o mundo tomaria aps a II Guerra Mundial. Apesar do nome da obra, o livro no trata exclusivamente, ou tem um foco maior, nos
movimentos fascistas da Europa do sculo XX. Os textos escolhidos, em sua maior parte, falam mais do fenmeno do totalitarismo, do comunismo, dos
movimentos revolucionrios e seus males, do que tem um foco direto no fascismo. De fato, apesar do ttulo, no existe um nico artigo presente na obra que defina
o que o fascismo.
Com vinte e quatro artigos escritos entre 1938 e 1948, podemos entender e observar parte das mudanas e convices que o autor tinha nesse perodo de dez anos.
Suas crticas aos movimentos revolucionrios de esquerda so latentes j nos primeiros textos; o fascismo ocupa um lugar importante em apenas certas resenhas e
crticas sociais, em que ele serve de exemplo da falta de moralidade e objetividade nos debates e aes polticas dentro do Parlamento Britnico, onde, por vezes,
pessoas mais alinhadas direita davam crditos ao fascismo.
Orwell no tem d, e seu senso de realidade e honestidade intelectual o apoia em suas crticas: ele recolhe exemplos de grandes personalidades da poltica de seu
pas, durante a dcada de vinte, que deram apoio aos feitos de Mussolini acreditando que o fascismo seria um tampo para sanar o problema comunista; contudo, o
autor, da mesma forma, no se esquece de salientar as comemoraes que a esquerda fez quando Hitler e Stalin, juntos, fizeram um pacto de no-agresso e
invadiram a Polnia.
A resenha sobre o livro Mein Kampf, de Adolf Hitler, pontua algo interessante. O socialismo e o capitalismo possuem algo que o fascismo no tem: uma viso em
prol do prazer, da felicidade, que cai muito facilmente em um hedonismo. Ao ignorar a propenso humana para a violncia, para o autoritarismo, tanto o
socialismo quanto o capitalismo (embora faam isso com maneiras e objetivos extremamente distintos) procuram criar um mundo mais justo, feliz; j o fascismo
investe na brutalidade humana, no desejo e no bojo que o Homem possui na e pela violncia. Segundo Orwell, tanto o liberalismo quanto o comunismo falham em
focar mais em uma viso muito hedonista do mundo em um livre-mercado de Estado fraco, ou em uma Utopia de felicidade plena.
Existe outra crtica, mas dessa vez sobre um filme antifascista. O Grande Ditador, estrelando Charles Chaplin, analisado em suas virtudes e defeitos, com
acentuao no fato de que a trama da pelcula se trata, no fim, do contraste entre um homem comum com o mundo dos professores, dos intelectuais estes que
podem, com muita facilidade, defender qualquer regime totalitrio: algo comum em qualquer faculdade de humanas ontem e hoje. Para Orwell, o filme pode
mostrar a ciso do mundo poltico e fascista para com a populao mais humilde, mais crist, que sabe o que certo e errado.
O artigo que, enfim, o responsvel pelo nome do livro, no responde questo que levanta, porm apresenta um dado interessante, pois pode ser visvel no Reino
Unido da dcada de quarenta, mas tambm em todo o mundo atual: a mania de chamar um inimigo poltico de fascista.
Os britnicos eram acusados de fascistas por sindicalistas e nacionalistas indianos, os conservadores eram acusados de fascismo, a poltica catlica tambm, os
comunistas, pacifistas, trotskistas, socialistas, nacionalistas, os que apoiavam a guerra mas todos que se acusavam ou que recebiam a acusao de serem
fascistas, no bojo da II Guerra Mundial, compartilhavam algo em comum: no davam a mnima para as descries prprias das caractersticas econmicas e
polticas do fascismo. Orwell aponta que existiam fascismos sem a caracterstica antissemita do nazi-fascismo, assim como aponta que a admirao por Hitler
tambm no consistia em uma guinada para o fascismo de fato, com exceo de um nmero relativamente pequeno de simpatizantes do fascismo, quase todo
ingls vai aceitar troglodita como sinnimo de fascista. a coisa mais prxima de uma definio a que chegou essa to abusada palavra.
O termo fascismo foi degradado a um palavro, destitudo de todo seu aspecto poltico de fato. O mal que isso causa a total falta de compreenso do
significado real do que seguir o fascismo. Atualmente, como na poca de Orwell, a truculncia poltica virou o mesmo que ser fascista mas basta pensar alguns
minutos para perceber o quo baixo e intil chamar qualquer violncia poltica de fascismo: a violncia partidria nasce com o sculo XX? Com os movimentos
nacionalistas? Basta pensar um pouco para ver que no a no ser que algum tenha a capacidade de afirmar que Czar, Henrique IV, Napoleo, Robespierre e o
prprio movimento da Comuna de Paris eram fascistas antes de o fascismo existir!
Mas o livro, como j dito, no se centra no fascismo. O autor se preocupa, muito mais, com o problema do totalitarismo e de como a ideologia poltica pode cegar
ou nublar a moralidade, sanidade e a viso de mundo de um Homem.
Na primeira resenha da obra, sobre um livro acerca da Guerra Civil Espanhola (evento este de que o prprio Orwell participou ativamente), Orwell analisa um
trabalho historiogrfico de um esquerdista, Frank Jellinek, que apesar de considerar um pesquisador talentoso e sua obra em questo ser excelente, pontua algo
interessante, para alm de Jellinek: a respeito do trotskismo, Jellinek se comporta como um comunista, e como tal, no consegue ter bom senso. Os mitos, viles e
heris comunistas mudam como que da gua para o vinho, mostrando uma incapacidade de analisar a realidade a velocidade com que os anjos da mitologia
comunista tornam-me demnios tem seu lado cmico () preciso lidar com ele com certa cautela, porque o autor est pressionado pela necessidade de
demonstrar que, embora outras pessoas possam s vezes estar certas, o Partido Comunista tem sempre razo. No importa muito que quase todos os livros de
comunistas sejam propaganda. A maioria dos livros propaganda, direta ou indireta. O problema que os escritores comunistas so obrigados a reivindicar a
infalibilidade dos chefes de seu partido. Como resultado, a literatura comunista tende a cada vez mais se tornar um mecanismo de explicao de erros.
Esse apontamento inicial de Orwell para a mentalidade comunista diante da literatura (creio que Orwell, apesar de estar se referindo a uma obra historiogrfica,
considere o mesmo para todo gnero literrio possvel) o que ir se refletir em outros artigos, at mesmo em seu grande livro, 1984. Para o comunismo e isso
no mudou , verdades objetivas no existem, apenas polticas corretas e no-corretas para com a ideologia, o partido.
Em outros textos, Orwell ainda aponta a mesma tendncia, em diferentes situaes, existente nos movimentos revolucionrios. A fora com que um agente
revolucionrio se gruda em sua causa, em seu meio, o modo como cria um endeusamento para com sua ideologia, desgraam totalmente as capacidades normais
que um indivduo teria para ponderar certas coisas. No artigo chamado A literatura e a esquerda, existe a seguinte reflexo: seriam os esquerdistas capazes de
sair de seu mundo poltico? Poderiam sair da caixa, romper a casca ideolgica que assombra suas aes, suas mentes e seus juzos?
Para um exemplo tosco, que comunista ousaria admitir em pblico que Trotsky melhor escritor que Stlin o que, claro, ele ? Dizer X um escritor
talentoso, mas um inimigo poltico, e eu farei o melhor que puder para silenci-lo relativamente inofensivo. Mesmo que voc acabe por silenci-lo com uma
submetralhadora, no estar de fato pecando contra o intelecto. O pecado mortal dizer X um inimigo poltico; portanto um mau escritor. E se algum diz
que esse tipo de coisa no acontece, eu simplesmente respondo: d uma olhada nas pginas literrias da imprensa de esquerda, desde o News Chronicle at o
Labour Monthly.
Se quisermos ser mais atuais e localizados em nossa plena realidade brasileira, podemos substituir os jornais esquerdistas do Reino Unido dos anos quarenta por
quase todos os festivais de cinema brasileiros atuais (a exceo de um), que censuraram previamente o documentrio O Jardim das Aflies, no importando a
qualidade filosfica transmitida pela pelcula, tampouco as caractersticas tcnicas do filme.
Esse defeito na mente do revolucionrio, muito bem trabalhado em 1984, pode ser visto em outra distopia, O Zero e o Infinito, de Arthur Koestler. Em sua
resenha sobre a obra de Koestler, Orwell resume a trama de um militante comunista acusado falsamente de ter trado o partido. No final, o protagonista se entrega,
no porque se v cansado das torturas, para acabar logo com o sofrimento, mas sim porque sua mente se dobrou para a vontade do partido: se este quer, deve ser
real.
A falta da Verdade Objetiva nas mentes de vrios esquerdistas relatada em seus artigos. Transformar heris em monstros, adulterar a Histria, ignorar fatos e
criar falsidades sempre foram (e so) o modus operandi do revolucionrio de esquerda.
Orwell tambm rejeitava o socialismo de tipo marxista, considerando-o incapaz demais, mecnico e carente ao retratar a realidade de fato. Mas ele ainda se
considerava um socialista. Sim: um dos homens que mais tiraram sangue dos crebros de esquerda era de esquerda, se considerando um socialista
democrtico algo que seria parecido com um PSDB atual, embora seja um erro chamar Orwell de um Social Democrata.
O autor chegou, at, a prever o nosso conhecido socialista de IPHONE, afirmando que muito poucos dos socialistas ingleses de sua poca defenderiam de fato
o que pregam, dado que uma revoluo socialista, pelo simples fato de acontecer, abalaria toda a vida material desses intelectuais de esquerda, que dependem
exclusivamente do sistema que querem morto tambm relata algo que compartilha com o escritor russo Yevgeny Zamyatin, criador da distopia Ns, a qual
Orwell resenha. Zamyatin, desiludido com a esquerda, fugindo do fascismo, teve um amplo contato com a esquerda francesa e, como Orwell, percebeu uma
peculiaridade esquerdista: eles no tinham um contato, de fato, com a classe trabalhadora. Eram, normalmente, pertencentes s classes mdias.
impressionante o nvel de conservao que as esquerdas possuem. Quase d para dizer que, em termos de desonestidade, canalhice e pouca vergonha a
esquerda de ontem tem muito poucas diferenas com a de hoje.
Em um de seus textos sobre a esquerda e a literatura, como j dito, George Orwell comenta o quo pattica a ideia de rotular ideologicamente a qualidade deste
ou daquele escritor. Poderamos, com facilidade e razo, estender essa crtica para vrios outros estilos de arte, ou para cincias, opinies, constataes Mas,
para nossa atualidade, por que no jogar essa mesma luz para a direita?
Em pocas de convulso poltica, mesmo as que no se mostram violentas, no nada incomum os lados polarizados demonizarem-se. Como Orwell bem sabia, e
bem soube mostrar ao mundo, existia algo nos revolucionrios que, desde j, sistematizavam o assassinato da Verdade em nome da ideologia. Mesmo que a
hipocrisia, a desonestidade e a canalhice existissem em vrias correntes polticas diferentes, apenas na esquerda comunista, nos socialistas revolucionrios,
tamanha fratura para com a realidade era feita.
Outra coisa que podemos, devidamente, considerar sobre Orwell seu enorme peso intelectual, sua capacidade (to falada aqui) de enxergar a realidade, a
Verdade. Se ele no era um liberal, um conservador, preferindo, ainda, um socialismo no-utpico, com claras admiraes para a cultura geral e a moral crist
que banhavam a cultura popular, isso no significa muito. Mas como a direita no , nem de longe, perfeita, preciso dizer que certos erros existentes na esquerda
tambm vivem na direita. No incomum, por exemplo, direitistas ignorarem autores de esquerda (embora seja mais comum um esquerdista nunca ter ouvido falar
de um G. K. Chesterton ou um Russell Kirk, do que um direitista nunca ter ouvido falar de Theodor Adorno e Michel Foucault, verdade seja dita). Orwell,
entretanto, pode ser uma seta a se seguir, na vida intelectual: ele lia da direita esquerda. O que ns, brasileiros, redescobrimos (ou descobrimos) de poucos anos
para c, Orwell lia quando tais obras eram, praticamente, publicadas. No incomum, no livro aqui tratado, Orwell saber diferenciar os tipos de direitas existentes
no Reino Unido. Ele conhecia T.S. Eliot, Chesterton, e entendia suas obras. O ltimo artigo da obra, alis uma resenha de Notas para uma definio de cultura,
de T.S. Eliot, a qual ele d uma crtica negativa Orwell no via com bons olhos o pessimismo caracterstico dos conservadores; tampouco era ridculo, tentando
taxar qualquer direita de fascista. Ele sabia da drstica diferena entre o conservadorismo e o fascismo.
De fato, posso dizer com segurana que, mesmo sendo um socialista, Orwell um mestre, e assim deve ser pensado, tratado e considerado. Pouco importa se ele
no era de direita, se no se afinaria com minhas concepes culturais e polticas. O que interessa sua capacidade de atingir a Verdade.
Se existe algo com que a direita deve se preocupar, com sua ignorncia e arrogncia. No temos os mesmos males cognitivos e de carter que a esquerda possui,
porm no por isso que iremos deixar de ter autocrtica, de avaliar nossos erros e carncias.
Se, como parte de uma reflexo, aprendi e tirei algo de O que o fascismo? E outros ensaios, que julgar tudo a minha volta por um prisma ideolgico
canalhice, estupidez e um sinal claro de falta de capacidade intelectual. Se, para aconselhar meus leitores brasileiros, puder acrescentar algo, :
Vo ler bons esquerdistas! Leiam Graciliano Ramos, leiam a literatura esquerdista brasileira da primeira metade do sculo XX. Vo ler, apreciem uma boa obra.
Acreditar que algum como Ramos, por exemplo, um escritor ruim em tudo pelo fato de ter sido um comunista, um sinal claro de quo pattica uma pessoa
pode ser.
Thoughts on Posthumanism
Yesterday a friend of mine related a criticism of posthumanism often heard from colleagues: What is the point of posthumanism if the analysis is
still conducted by humans? I think this is a good question. The term postmodernism is itself a highly contested term, meaning a variety of
different things, so the question is difficult to answer in a way that will satisfy everyone. For example, there are the posthumanisms of
the transhumanists that imagine fundamentally transforming the human through technological prostheses and genetics. More recently, David
Roden has imagined a pre-critical posthumanism that entertains the possibility of the emergence of a new type of intelligent species altogether
that would arise from humans, but would no longer be human. Such a posthumanism would be genuinely posthuman.
While I am intrigued by both of these conceptions of posthumanism, this is not the way in which I intend the term. As I understand it, a position is
posthumanist when it no longer privileges human ways of encountering and evaluating the world, instead attempting to explore how other entities
encounter the world. Thus, the first point to note is that posthumanism is not the rejection or eradication of human perspectives on the world, but
is a pluralization of perspectives. While posthumanism does not get rid of the human as one way of encountering the world, it does, following a
great deal of research in post-colonial theory, feminist thought, race theory, gender theory, disability studies, and embodied cognition theory,
complicate our ability to speak univocally and universally about something called the human. It recognizes, in other words, that there are a variety
of different phenomenologies of human experience, depending on the embodied experience of sexed beings, our disabilities, our cultural
experiences, the technologies to which our bodies are coupled, class, etc. This point is familiar from the humanist cultural and critical theory of the
last few decades. Posthumanism goes one step further in arguing that animals, microorganisms, institutions, corporations, rocks, stars, computer
programs, cameras, etc., also have their phenomenologies or ways of apprehending the world.
I think this is a point that is often missed about OOO. OOO is as much a theory of perspectives, a radicalization of phenomenology, as it is a theory
of entities. While the various strains of OOO differ amongst themselves, they all share this thesis in common. There is a phenomenology for, not of,
every type of entity that exists. One of Graham Harmans central claims is that the difference between a Kantian subject and any other object is a
difference in degree, not a difference in kind. When Harman claims this, his point is that just as Kantian subjects structure the world in a particular
way such that they never encounter things-as-they-are-in-themselves, the same is true for all other entities as they relate to the world. Atoms
structure the world in a particular way, just as red pandas structure the world in a particular way. No entity directly encounters the other entities of
the world as they are. In The Democracy of Objects I argue that every object is an observer or particular point of view on the world, and propose,
following Niklas Luhmann, that we need to engage in second-order observation or the observation of how other observers observe or encounter
the world about them. In Alien Phenomenology, Ian Bogost proposes a new type of phenomenology, not unlike Jakob von Uexkulls animal
ethology, that investigates how nonhuman entities such as cameras and computer programs encounter the world. In The Ecological Thought,
Timothy Morton formulates a similar idea with his account of strange strangers. This is one of the things that makes the realism of OOO
weird. Far from defending one true perspective on the world, OOO instead pluralizes perspectives infinitely, arguing that each entity has its own
way of encounter the world about it. It is a radicalization of perspectivism. It is an ontology that is fascinated by how bats, cats, shark, tanuki,
NASA, quarks, computer games, and black holes experience or encounter the world around them. The realism of OOO is thus not a realism that
says this is the one true way of encountering things, but rather is a realism that refuses to reduce any entity to what it is for another entity. The
tanuki or Japanese raccoon dog (right) cant be reduced to how we encounter it. It is an irreducible and autonomous entity in its own right that also
encounters the world about it in a particular way.
Hence the all important distinction between phenomenology-of and phenomenology-for. A phenomenology-of investigates how we, us humans,
encounter other entities. It investigates what entities are for-us, from our human perspective. It is humanist in the sense that it restricts itself to
our perspective on the beings of the world. Though phenomenology has made significant strides in overcoming these problems, it is nonetheless
problematic in that it assumes a universality to human experience. For example, this phenomenology tends to gloss over the worlds of autistics like
Temple Grandin, blind people, gendered bodies and how the world is experienced differently by different sexed bodies, people from different
cultures, etc. Even though it talks endlessly about perspectives (horizons), it nonetheless tends to universalize the perspective of its own lived
experience. Luhmann explains well just why this is so, insofar as all observation is based on a prior distinction that contains a blind spot that is
unable to mark what it excludes.
By contrast, phenomenology-for is a phenomenological practice that attempts to observe the manner in which another entity experiences the
world. Where phenomenology-of adopts the first person perspective of how I experience the world, where phenomenology-of begins from
the unity of that first person perspective on the world and what things are in the world for me, phenomenology-for begins from the disunity of a
world fractured into a plurality of perspectives and attempts to enter into the perspectives of these other entities. In Luhmannian terms, it attempts
to observe the other observer or observe how another observer observes the world. It begins not from the standpoint of the sameness of
experience, but from the standpoint of the difference of experience.
The plate to the left drawn from Jakob von Uexkulls Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans gives a sense of this alien
phenomenology. The top picture depicts how humans experience a field of flowers, while the bottom picture depicts how bees experience a field of
flowers. Von Uexkull doesnt ask what are bees like or for us?, but instead asks the question what is the world like for bees? In other words, von
Uexkull adopts the perspective of the beeand attempts to infer how bees experience the world. He is able to learn something of the experience of
bees through a knowledge of their physiology and optics that allows him to infer what their vision is like, through observation of their behavior,
through observation of their responsiveness in situations where we can discern no stimuli that they would be responding to (thereby allowing him to
infer that theyre open to stimuli that we cant sense), etc. Alien phenomenology thus practices a different transcendental epoche. Rather than
bracketing belief in the natural world to attend to the givens of our intentional experience alone, he instead brackets our intentionality, so as to
investigate the experience of other entities. This is a practice that can be done with armies, stock markets, computer programs, rocks, etc.
It is natural, of course, to ask how this is even possible. Arent we still the ones examining the experience of other beings and thus arent we
ultimately talking about the experience of ourselves and not the experience of other beings? To be sure, we are always limited by our own
experience and, as Thomas Nagel pointed out, we cant know what it is like to be a bat. However, all this entails is that we cant have the experience
of a bat, not that we cant understand a great deal about bat experience, what theyre open to, what theyre not open to, and why they behave as they
do.
The problem is not markedly different from that of understanding the experience of another person. Take the example of a wealthy person who
denounces poor people as being lazy moochers who simply havent tried to improve their condition. Such a person is practicing phenomenology-
of, evaluating the poor person from the standpoint of their own experience and trying to explain the behavior of the poor person based on the sorts
of things that would motivate them. They reflect little understanding of poverty. They are blissfully unaware of the opportunities that they had
because of where they are in the social field, of the infrastructure they enjoy that gives them opportunity, the education they were fortunate enough
to receive, etc., etc., etc. All of this is invisible to them because, as Heidegger taught us, it is so close it is not seen at all. As a consequence, the
wealthy person assumes that the poor person has all these things. However, we can imagine the wealthy person practicing something like alien
phenomenology or second-order observation, thereby developing an appreciation of how the world of poverty inhibits opportunity. Prior to
developing this understanding, the wealthy person behaves like the person with vision who berates a blind person for not seeing a sign.
Clearly there is a difference between the person who is completely blind to the experience of others, assuming their experience is identical, and the
person who has some understanding of others. Take the example of the man who screams at his infant child for crying and beats her. If we look at
this person with disgust and contempt, then it is not simply because this person beats the infant, but also because his abuse is premised on the idea
that infants can understand screaming and yelling and modify their action accordingly. This person is unable to adopt the perspective of the infant
and is unaware of how infants experience the world. As a result, he relates to the infant in brutal and cruel ways.
Just as we readily recognize that theres a difference between the person who assumes the experience of all other humans is like their own and the
person who develops an awareness of how other people experience the world differently, there is a difference between a person who relates to an
animal as a mere object to be used as he sees fit, and the person that recognizes that animals have a perspective or way of encountering the
world. Through ethology, second-order observation, or alien phenomenology, we can begin to learn something of what the world of the animal is
like as Temple Grandin did in the case of cows. While I will never myself have the experience of being a cow, I can develop some understanding of
what it is like to be a cow and this understanding will lead me to relate to cows differently.
Returning to the question with which I began this post, whats the point? Why bother? I think there are a number of answers to this
question. Recently, on NPR, I heard an English professor discussing the importance of the novel Black Beauty (sadly I didnt catch her name). She
remarked that Black Beauty contributed to better treatment of horses because it depicted, among other things, to the perspective of the horse. As
she put it, to recognize that other beings have a point of view, is already to grant them some ethical status or deserving of ethical regard. We see
this point in the case of civil rights struggles. A big part of these struggles consisted in the recognition of the point of view of minorities and
women. In recognizing that these people also have perspectives, that they arent simply objects in the pejorative sense, we also recognize that they
deserve to be treated with dignity. The same is true with animals. To recognize that animals have points of view, that they have perspectives, is to
recognize that they deserve to be treated with dignity. Our attitude towards them changes when we adopt their perspective. Similarly in the case of
the disabled and those suffering from mental illness. When we adopt their perspective were less likely to treat them in brutal and horrific ways as is
so often the case in many homes.
From an ecological perspective, alien phenomenology is crucial to understanding of the dynamics and impact of climate change and properly
responding to it. When bees began disappearing a couple years ago, we had to know something about how bees encounter the world to respond to
this crisis. It wasnt enough to just approach bees in terms of what they are for us pollinators of plants we had to understand something about
what its like to be a bee, how bees are related to their world, to respond to this crisis. Alien phenomenology is a vital component to responding to
the extinction of species upon which we depend.
In our political struggles, we need something like alien phenomenology to strategically respond to the entities against which we struggle. If it is true
that institutions like governments, corporations, militaries, etc., are intelligent actors in their own right, over and above the humans that serve as
their neurons, then it is necessary to figure out how these entities encounter the world about them, to properly combat them. We need to learn
what it is like to be a corporation? to find ways to fight the exploitation of corporations. If we assume that they experience the world in the same
way as humans, chances are we wont be able to respond in the appropriate ways at all. There are all sorts of reasons for adopting a posthuman
perspective at the ethical, political, and ecological level. There arent many good reasons for not adopting such a perspective.

Cary Wolfe What Is Posthumanism?

As with many post- configurations, posthumanism is a term that elicits suspicion from some critics and scholars. Humanism is also such a term,
and Cary Wolfe opens his aptly titled What Is Posthumanism? with a definition of humanismunfortunately, in this case, from Wikipedia. While
the metacritical moment here may be thematically clever, the books straightforward title suggests, appealingly, that some precision lies behind the
cover, and its opening recourse to what the internet says feels coy (Wolfes clearest statement about humanism comes on page 99). It takes a little
while for Wolfes sense of his own key terms to emerge with any tensile clarity, but one valuable point is made very carefully in the introduction:
posthumanism is not a rejection of the category of the human. Wolfe is critical of N. Katherine Hayless How We Became Posthuman (1999),
asserting that the ground tone of that well-known book is to associate the posthuman with a kind of triumphant disembodiment.1 On the other
hand, Wolfe points out, his use of the term, which names the embodiment and embeddedness of the human being in not just its biological but also
its technological world, is exactly the opposite: posthumanism in my sense isnt posthuman at allin the sense of being after our embodiment has
been transcendedbut is only posthumanist, in the sense that it opposes the fantasies of disembodiment and autonomy, inherited from humanism
itself (xv).
Throughout What Is Posthumanism? Wolfe attacks what he interprets as the fantasies of scientists, artists, philosophers, activists, and others about
what constitutes the human. Wolfe, editor of the Posthumanities series at University of Minnesota Press, which includes important contributions
such as Donna Haraways When Species Meet (2007), is renowned as an articulator of the link between posthumanism and the question of the
animal, as Derrida frames it in his late writing on animals (seen in The Animal That Therefore I Am).2Wolfe is a theorist of posthuman animality
studies, aspiring to change the view of animals as diminished or crippled versions of that fantasy figure called the human (45) and to highlight the
move, as Marianne DeKoven also advocates in Why Animals Now? (an essay that references Wolfe), beyond human-only and only-human
paradigms (367).3 For Wolfe, as he elaborates in the books most compelling, and lengthy, chapter, Flesh and Finitude: Bioethics and Philosophy
of Living, the animal question is part of the larger question of posthumanismthe question of who and what can count as a subject of ethical
address (49).
But while animality studies, or animal studies (its adherents often disagree about terminology in this expanding field) occupies a large portion
across multiple chapters of Wolfes focus, this area is not the only subject, or even, in terms of coverage, the primary subject, of this long
study. What Is Posthumanism? performs a kind of virtuoso roving criticality over its ten chapters, taking on through what feels like sheer energetic
determination a wide range of cultural practices and objects. (Of the ten chapters in What Is Posthumanism? nine were previously published, and
some were published more than twice.) Wolfe analyzes contemporary art (drawing and installation), Lars von Triers infamous musical film and
Bjrk vehicle Dancer in the Dark (2000), Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Maus urban landscape design Tree City for Torontos Downsview Park, Ricardo
Scofidio and Elizabeth Dillers architectural project Blur, Ralph Waldo Emersons essays, Wallace Stevenss philosophical poetry, and Brian Eno and
David Byrnes album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), among other sources of intellectual inspiration. The book feels invested in demonstrating
that there is no area of culture and interrelation that is untouched by the relevance of posthumanist insight and practice.
Across animality studies and The Idea of Order at Key West and Brian Eno, what is consistent in What Is Posthumanism? is a heavy emphasis on
deconstruction and on systems theory. This book is centrally about systems theoryspecifically, what Wolfe identifies as the second-order systems
theory of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, which followed the first-order systems theory of people like MITs Norbert Weiner, the
mathematician regarded as the originator of cybernetics. If first-order systems theory was interested in feedback, second-order systems theory, as
Wolfe tirelessly excavates, is interested in emergence and self-organization. Wolfe is deeply smitten with systems theory and with Luhmann (1927
98), and large (too large) portions of the majority of his chapters are given over to quotations from Luhmann. If the book has one takeaway, besides
the takedown of that old critical punching bag liberal humanism, then it might be summarized, simply, as: systems theory is relevant to
everythinganimals, Emerson, what have youand people ought to start paying more attention.
The other, related theoretical anchor in Wolfes book is deconstruction; Derrida is his main intellectual interlocutor across the diverse terrain of the
study. Wolfe, in his opening, manifesto-like chapter Meaning and Event; or, Systems Theory and The Reconstruction of Deconstruction, argues
that the joining of forces between deconstruction and systems theory is crucial (26). They share a conceptual rivet point; in Wolfes view of
systems, via Luhmann, these are self-referential and self-producing, which means they are autopoietic, a keyword for Wolfe introduced in the early
1970s by the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturala and Francisco Varela. In Wolfes view, both systems theory and deconstruction turn on what
Luhmann names openness from closure (15). The formal dynamics of self-reference, iterability, and recursivity are also articulated by
deconstructionwhich, writes Wolfe, needs systems theory to help carry out work toward which it hasonly gestured (24). Wolfe is so attracted to
systems theoryand so devoted to demonstrating Luhmanns wide reach to just about everythingbecause it is functional as opposed to
ontological. Its postulates replace the familiar ontological dichotomies of humanism (culture/nature, mind/body, spirit/matter, reason/feeling,
and so on) with the functional distinction system/environment (254). Further, systems theory replaces what questions with how questions; it
amplifies deconstruction by linking its knowledges to historical emergence and the specificity of particular social forms (26). And while neither
deconstruction nor systems theory is the same thing as posthumanism, it can help us, in Wolfes view, draw the insights of these methodologies and
practices forward.
This is most clear in Wolfes writing on an established area of his expertise, the question of the animal. His chapters on animality studies sometimes
feel unwieldy, but thats because they are ambitious: choppy but full of insight and clarity. The constitution of the field and its objects of analysis are
broken down expertly by Wolfe. Although he sometimes fall prey to soft targets, like bioethics textbooks, he effectively takes on prejudice based on
species difference, rejecting, among other philosophies, the (anthropocentric) rights discourse of Martha Nussbaum as the wrong axis and the
analytic philosophy of Peter Singer as similarly, in its utilitarian calculus, missing the mark, because it avoids the stuff of ethics in avoiding the
ordeal of ethics in its sum-based formulations. Whats fascinating in these chapters is how clear the insights of posthumanism are (philosophical
work that takes on the moral status of nonhuman animals is posthumanist) and how deft Wolfe is addressing subtleties of argument and also
addressing the most core of core issues, such as the fundamental one of the definition of the ethical. Wolfe lands on a sense of the ethical, through
Derrida, as a struggle, the unforecloseable, a practice of eternal vigilance (96).
Where Wolfe is less convincing is in, for instance, his analysis of contemporary art. Outside of his examinations of animality studies, in which he
captures nuance, both praising and pointing to limitations in the philosophy of Cora Diamond, for instance, in his later chapters he tends to pair
figures, one good and one bad, or he tends to simply hold up work as exemplary (part of the films genius [188]; the genius of Blur [229]). This
results in unconvincing chapters like From Dead Meat to Glow-in-the-Dark Bunnies, on the drawer and printmaker Sue Coe, author of a book
project called Dead Meat (1995), and the installation artist Eduardo Kac. Wolfe is not particularly sensitive to media aesthetics and the difference in
platform of these artists (its immediately obvious who is going to be the criticized artist and who will be the revered one). His analysis of still images
lacks energy and rigor, even as he argues that Coes images lack sophistication in their supposed sentimentality, their witnessing. If the ethical
function of art is what Coe thinks it is, why not just show people photographs of stockyards, slaughterhouses, and the killing floor to achieve this
end? he asks clumsily (152). His revulsion with Coe extends a familiar fear of the visualparticularly of visual display (one criticism is of her works
plenitude: nothing is hidden, he complains) (152). Further, it is surprising that Wolfe does not bring Adornos crucial essay Commitment into
the discussion, as its schema of committed artwork versus art that struggles against itself maps exactly onto what Wolfe argues about Coe and Kac.
In this chapter, as elsewhere, Wolfes analysis also falls prey to favoring an artists own interpretation and intentiona tension in his methodology,
as it seems a very unposthumanist critical procedure.
On the key topic of vision and visuality, Wolfe is prone in spots to rehearse commonplaces about mastery and visuality, its role as the human
sensory apparatus par excellence (162) and our lust for the visual and its (humanist) centrality (163). Kacs installations are praised for
decentering or displacing visuality. In Wolfes reading of von Triers Dancer in the Dark, the protagonists agency grows with lack of vision.
Luhmann opens up Emerson because he demonstrates observation without vision. And so forth. Since the book is so engaged with Haraway, the
absence of her textured and important take in The Persistence of Vision feels profound, like a missed step; it might have complicated matters
productively. Haraway writes, I would like to proceed by placing metaphorical reliance on a much maligned sensory system in feminist discourse:
vision. Vision can be good for avoiding binary oppositions. I would like to insist on the embodied nature of all vision, and so reclaim the sensory
system that has been used to signify a leap out of the marked body (677).4
Luhmann and the insights of systems theory make plausible but not always compelling frameworks for every chapter. The strength of What Is
Posthumanism?its ranginess, its thoroughness in examining the system (what Wolfe thinks of as a detotalized totality)is also in some parts a
deficit, and the book, although evidently learned, can be repetitive. This collection is not one to sit down and read from start to finish, but it is a book
in which to sampleespecially its passionate posthumanist grapplings with animals, which constitute an intellectual core of the studyand Wolfes
ambitions for enacting and widening the purview of systems theory is admirable and ambitious. In the end, one does in fact come away with a useful
series of propositions about posthumanism. Perhaps the most simple unites everything Wolfe is interested in: we are not we.Rather, we are
always radically other, already in- or ahuman in our very beingnot just in the evolutionary, biological, and zoological fact of our physical
vulnerabilitybut also in our subjection to and constitution in the materiality and technicity of a language (89). The human is always
heterogeneous to the human.
Notes
1N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (University of Chicago Press, 1999).
2Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am, ed.

Marie-Louise Maller and trans. David Wills (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008).
3Marianne DeKoven, Why Animals Now? PMLA 124, no. 2 (March 2009): 36169.
4Donna Haraway, The Persistence of Vision, in Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, ed. Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina,

and Sarah Stanbury (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 28395.
Humanism and Its Aspirations: Humanist Manifesto III, a Successor to the
Humanist Manifesto of 1933
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead
ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
The lifestance of Humanismguided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience encourages us to live
life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who
recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings
advance.
This document is part of an ongoing effort to manifest in clear and positive terms the conceptual boundaries of Humanism,
not what we must believe but a consensu s of what we do believe. It is in this sense that we affirm the following:
Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is
the best method for determining this knowledge as well as fo r solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We
also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience each subject to analysis by critical
intelligence.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-
existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine the m
to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human
welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and bey ond. We are
committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of
freedom consonant with responsibility.
Lifes fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible
development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human
existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Human ists rely on the rich
heritage of human culture and the lifestance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of
plenty.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a w orld of mutual care
and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to
violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of ot hers,
and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.
Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the
brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improv e society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize
the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of natures resources and the fruits of human
effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.
Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane
views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it
is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect natures integrity, diversity, and
beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.
Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to
progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours
alone.