Francis Berger
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Humanism Has Run Its Course And Is Being Supplanted By Environmentalism

6/16/2019

10 Comments

 
Most regard humanism as a positive philosophical and ethical stance founded upon rationalism and empiricism. Pitting humanity as the crowning glory of Nature, modern humanism is an essentially secular concept (yes, there were or perhaps still are varieties of religious humanism, but these are not religious in any true sense of the word). Historically, humanism devastated most traditional forms of Christianity by waging a relentless war against what it declared to be dogma and superstition. 

Of course, the argument could be made that humanism was an essential step in the evolution of consciousness, that dispelling Church dogma and recognizing some of the corruption inherent in organized Christianity was an important step forward in the spiritual evolution of Man. This is all well and good, but if one examines our contemporary milieu, one would be hard pressed to point out any meaningful examples of any type of spiritual evolution occurring at all.

True, we are no longer obedient, brainwashed little children accepting everything churches and priests tell us, but we certainly have not evolved into responsible, mature, spiritual adults interested in picking up where organized religions left off. On the contrary, we have devolved into distracted and rebellious teenagers who find meaning only in vulgar hedonism and crass materialism. In addition, the vast majority of us are committed to senseless self-destruction, both individually and collectively. 

If humanism was indeed a necessary evolutionary step, it was a step away from something rather than a step toward something. Humanism managed to loosen the constrictive bonds of traditional religion, grant a certain degree of freedom, individuality, and independence, and recognize the dignity of humanity, but rather than empower Man spiritually, humanism ultimately crippled Man by leaving him to fend for himself in a world stripped of any semblance of the divine. In essence, humanism lured Man away from whatever was left of the divine in organized religion and utterly alienated Man from his own divine self and God. Humanity became the center of everything, and was thus enslaved in the material world.

Humanism destroyed the supernatural and left only the natural. Man ceased being a true subject and became an object. Worse, though Man was touted as the center of the universe, he was actually reduced to being just another objects among objects. Humanism scoffs at the afterlife, at other possible worlds; as a result, it insists Man's happiness and fulfillment can only be found in one brief lifetime and only in the material world. Positivism, naturalism, reductionism all ensued and Man was left with no meaning and with no higher calling other than to satiate his passions and desires. Simply put, humanism is anti-human for the simple reason that it never acknowledged or addressed the full human being. 

Our contemporary Western civilization is now post-peak humanism. There is no ascent left in the humanistic thrust. Even notions of philanthropy and kindness have been distorted and corrupted beyond all recognition. Humanism has created societies based on nothing more than rabid consumption. This rabid consumption has created some environmental problems. The extent of these are arguable. Nevertheless, these environmental problems will now be exploited to knock Man from the pedestal upon which humanism perched him many centuries ago. 

Humanism degraded man by refusing to acknowledge his innate divinity. Nevertheless, in its purely anthropological outlook, it did strive to empower humanity, but the power it granted Man was terribly one-sided. Since humanism denied Man was created in God's image, it sought its own ideals of perfection. This often required the eradication of all within humanity that was considered imperfect. This gave rise to all sorts of horrors including Marxism, Fascism, and predatory Capitalism.

Humanism, which claimed to liberate individuals, was only too happy to enslave and destroy countless individuals in the name of something "higher." As horrible as these ideological systems were, their central goals were still theoretically rooted in humanistic ideals - justice, prosperity, happiness, equality, and all the rest of it. In theory at least, these totalitarian movements still touted that there was something worthwhile in Man, something that justified sacrifice, hardship, even murder.

At its core, contemporary environmentalism does not recognize anything worthwhile in Man. Environmentalism values Nature above all else. For the hardcore environmentalist, Nature is God. Man is Nature's fallen angel - a rebellious, harmful fool who seeks to destroy Nature. For the environmentalist, Nature is the only possible Good. Humanity is a cancer upon Nature. A plague. A disease that must be eradicated. Some environmentalists argue Nature would be better off if Man ceased to exist altogether.

Will this extreme form of environmentalism ever take hold of Western society? Probably not. But you can be sure of one thing, the Establishment will continue to wield environmentalism as a weapon of mass enslavement and control. Humanism succeeded weakening Man's relationship to God. Rather than strengthen Man's relationship to Nature, environmentalism will succeed in weakening it. Rather than regard himself as an intrinsic part of something good, or as part of God's loving creation, Man will begin to think of himself as an ungrateful, worthless parasite whose very existence is an offence against the cosmos. At least, this is what the Establishment seems to be pushing for.

The Establishment will use environmentalism to convince those living in the West that the party humanism started a few centuries ago is now over. The Establishment has already and will continue to tax, curtail, legislate, monitor, penalize, restrict, ration, punish, and ultimately control and enslave Man all in the name of saving the planet. Brainwashed into believing he is a blight upon Nature, Man will willingly comply in a guilt-laden effort to save the thing that knocked him from his pedestal - Nature. 

Think I am exaggerating? Consider some recently levied taxes and recently passed laws. Examine some of the recent discourse at the highest levels of international and globalist governance. Still not convinced? Look a little lower. For example, I recently overheard a conversation in which one individual declared taking vacations could no longer be considered ethical because carbon-footprint, or whatever, and that the government should step in and ban all vacations for everyone in the West. Oh yeah, and cars and factories and air-conditioning and medical waste, too. 

Humanism stripped us of our divinity. I have a feeling environmentalism will be used to strip us of what's left of our corrupted and degraded humanity. The Establishment is working hard to convince us that we are all environmental sinners, and it will demand penance and atonement for these sins, minus all the messy religious stuff, of course.

Naturally, you could argue this could be another step in our spiritual journey, in the evolution of our consciousness, in the same manner humanism was. Then again, Man was still an inherently spiritual being when Humanism kicked in. Could the same be said of Man today? 
10 Comments
bruce charlton
6/16/2019 23:20:53

This is an interesting issue - because at first glance one might assume that getting rid of religion and making humanity 'the most important thing' would make people more humane.

But then there was the twentieth century starting with the Russian Revolution and its mass genocide of Christians, and continuing.

What I think actually happens, at a philosophical level - is that any extremely important thing needs to have something bigger by-which its importance is defined. So for man to be important needs God; for truth to be important (as with science) needs God; for beauty to be important (as with the arts) needs God; for morality to be important needs God...

You get the idea. Without God, instead of these becoming more important, they stop being important at all - and we get inhumane humanism, dishonest science, ugly art and evil moral philosophy - i.e. the mainstream modern world for the past many decades.

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Francis Berger
6/17/2019 08:36:30

@ Bruce - Those are all excellent points. Following this line of reasoning, for environmentalism to be important God is also needed. What I see happening instead is environmentalism being elevated to the level of divinity (idolatry) and Man being degraded to the level of evil doer against this new idol.

The Establishment will milk this for all it is worth - and many contemporary people are completely on board with the idea that "saving the planet" will help unite humanity, etc.

I foresee some scary developments in the near future as far as all this is concerned.

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William James Tychonievich link
6/17/2019 15:18:50

"any extremely important thing needs to have something bigger by-which its importance is defined"

I don't quite follow this. Wouldn't it mean that God himself can only be important if there is something bigger-than-God by which his importance is defined?

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Francis Berger
6/17/2019 17:36:07

@Wm - You are quoting Bruce, so I can't speak for him, but if we think about this in terms of relationships, then perhaps the thing that is bigger than God is the relationship between God and Man? God alone is big. God together with Man is bigger. The same applies when flipped around.

Berdyaev offers the following (which I used earlier on this blog):

"But in God there is a passionate and anguished longing for man. In God there is a tragic deficiency which is satisfied by the great gain of man’s birth in Him. The mystics taught the mystery of God’s birth in man. But there is another mystery; that of man’s birth in God. There is a summons, a call in man, for God to be born in him. This is the mystery of Christianity, the mystery of Christ, which is unknown to the Hindu mystics, to Plotinus, or to any of the abstract monistic mystics. God and man are greater than God alone."

William Zeitler
6/17/2019 19:46:53

This is along the lines of Aristotle's "there must be a first cause". But that ain't necessarily so. Math is quite comfortable with infinite regressions. Why CAN'T we have: "causes can be traced back to God. And what 'caused' God? Why, God God! And what 'caused' God God? Why, God God God!" Etc. (See Georg Cantor's theory of infinity... in his mathematical explorations of infinity he determined that there are an infinite number of different infinities.) There is nothing inherently wrong with infinite recursion, other than it's mind blowing. But then, so is God God God God God God God...

Bruce Charlton
6/17/2019 13:11:07

@Francis - What gets me is that the so-called environmentalists - who claim to put the planet first - do nothing of the sort. Indeed they cause net harm to the environment by pursuing ridiculous (fashion driven) highly specific tactics like focusing on carbon dioxide, light bulbs, drinking straws, demon chemicals (like CFCs) etc. Because modern environmentalists are habitually and systematically dishonest, most of these fail even within their specific remits (and lie to cover up the fact). The modern environmentalist/ Green movement is a bad joke; and the fact that this is not obvious to everyone is a measure of our general corruption.

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Francis Berger
6/17/2019 13:19:53

@ Bruce - Good points. I agree wholeheartedly. And the glaring inconsistencies are too much to bear. Take mass migration, for example.

Environmentalists/Greens claim people must migrate from certain places to escape the negative impacts of climate change, and that Western nations must accept millions of migrants because of this.

Yet, the migrants had relatively low carbon footprints in their home countries. Once they arrive to Western countries, their carbon footprints go up tenfold. How does that solve anything?

It's all manipulative con game and underhanded power grab, in my opinion. Yet the average Westerner is totally on board with it all, it seems.

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bruce charlton
6/17/2019 20:44:08

@WmJas - My understanding is that God is responsible for creation - and it is creation that (as it were) provides the ultimate context for our values.

@WZ - Mathematical techniques are merely tools based on assumptions, some of which are not true in the real world. Mathematics uses lots of abstract infinities, but by my understanding none of these are real (however useful for specifci tasks).

The question is metaphysical - either there is infinite recursion or some thing/s Just Are. I believe the latter: Beings just are, based on primary intuition - you would need to ascertain this for yourself, as we all do, since *everything* depends upon this assumption.

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FamousDoctorScanlon
6/23/2019 23:01:39

You could not possibly be more wrong. Environmentalism is the biggest failure of any social movement in history. It has not achieved even one of it's stated goals which can be summed up as less. Less of everything including human population. Anyone capable of understanding statistics should be able to figure that out by looking at the aggregate numbers for extraction & consumption of every resource. If you individually graph them since WWII ended, you end up with hundreds of exponential hockey stick graphs. The main reason we have not extracted & consumed more is because of the cost of energy to extract resources, because we are using more energy to extract & process/refine energy than before, leaving less net energy. The main role of environmentalism is tribal signaling. If you think diverting a pipeline here or saving a stand of trees there has had any impact on growth, then you have zero comprehension of the global scale of our industrial endeavors. I've spent most of my adult life as a construction Boilermaker building & maintaining much of the industrial energy infrastructure (refineries, oil sands, hydro dams, petrol chemical plants, power plants, tank farms, etc) in Western Canada & the notion that environmentalism or environmentalists did anything other than make a bunch of noise and cause a few delays is laughable. Big, years long pipeline protest in BC over pipeline from the Athabasca tar/oil sands (bitumen actually) to Vancouver terminal to ship to Asia. Years of protesting & screaming - end result? Federal government bought pipe line from corporation & last week ''approved" go ahead for new line. This is par for the course. AKA, BAU. The only people who think environmentalism is a threat are paranoid
political conservatives, usually American ones. Oh don't get me wrong, I agree that for many environmentalism is religious like and it's also a must for progressive tribal acceptance, but there are many facets of N American culture that are religious, like the techno cult. I lived in the US for 8 years & the politics are the religion for many there. Hell, modern culture itself is a religion - so much faith in it's superiority & permanence. Same as all the great, but dead & gone civilizations of yore.

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Francis Berger
6/24/2019 04:45:41

@ FDS - Thanks for that, but you seem to have misunderstood the main argument I was making in this post.

I am not claiming environmentalism is legitimate or has been a success. Of course it hasn't, but it doesn't need to be. I have no doubt the powers that be have zero actual interest in the environment, or could actually do anything to "save the planet", but that is irrelevant.

The environmental agenda is being pushed hard as a pretext for more political/societal control. That's the point I was making here, and I do not believe I am wrong in this assertion.

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