“Dark” Humanism: A Defence

Humanism has received a bad press lately. It has been attacked as “dark” by extreme relativists and labelled a “dodgy brand” by religious apologists.

This is my response to the following article criticising Humanism in the former sense.

http://historyschipwrapper.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/twitterstorm-dawkins-dark-humanism/

So extreme relativists (who I will for brevity henceforth term relativists) argue that barbaric actions do not necessarily lead to a barbarian.

“... if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm sorry, but a person who repeatedly performs barbaric actions, is a barbarian for all intents and purposes. That's how it's defined. But this is just a point of semantics. That fact that relativists can get so worked up over a simple designation should tell you something about their bloody-minded contrariness.

The relativists' resistance to the idea that one way of living can be even slightly better or worse than another is simply staggering. It demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the principles of the way things change and evolve. Over time, cultures and empires have risen and fallen, not all due to some outside influence! There happen to be ways of doing things that are favoured over other ways, in particular circumstances. We have no proof that distinctly self-destructive cultures and societies have not existed at one time, and then become extinct because that social adaptation didn't work out. Of course there are unlikely to be any contemporary examples, as these things are necessarily short-lived.

We need to challenge ourselves to improve our societies and dismantle the barriers to progress. Relativism is a distinct obstacle in this regard: if one's culture is as valid as any other, improvement is precluded unless made in unison.

We all share some degree of relativism as Humanists. But the extreme relativism of the post-modernists and religious apologetics is just taking it too far. They have a cosily created bubble where everything looks great and feel comfortable for them. The trouble is, it doesn't have much bearing on the real world; all the inequalities and injustices we see are made to seem necessary artefacts of the constructed model.

But it is wrong and misleading to assume that humanists will think the worst of barbarians. We will not attack them or reject them as outcasts. Humanists recognise the perils of in/out group thinking very well, thank you. Above all, humanists respect all other forms of humanity. To suggest that we view “inferior” cultures as needing “correction” is highly misleading. They stop short of claiming that humanism would lead a great crusade on the Middle Eastern cultures, Dawkins at the helm, sword raised with blood-lust. But I can imagine this picture flowing through their minds. It says more about the insecurities of the post-modern and religious apologist's position than it does humanism. People don't have anything to fear from Humanism. It is the natural value system or philosophy to supplant religion for non-believers such as atheists, agnostics, skeptics and freethinkers.

Within humanism, I think that these barbarians would be shown the error of their ways by demonstrating the damage to the bigger picture that barbarism does. And they will be given the opportunity to reduce that behaviour. Outreach, if initially unsuccessful, will lead to tolerance and inclusion, until such time as relations improve. But humanists have learnt not to give up on something just because it's difficult. This is because humanism has been through so much that it has become stronger. Thousands of years of being somewhat oppressed have given us patience, understanding and empathy with the human condition.

The real problem that I have with relativism is that it assumes that cultures which have hardly advanced in 100s or 1000s of years are working just as well as Western culture. Tell that to the young family who is being offered a place in the developed or Western world, instead of their current plight in say sub-Saharan Africa or the Arabian peninsula under a dogmatic, unelected dictatorship. Most would jump at the chance. Or if they didn't, years down the line that decision would be playing on their minds. I don't think a valid argument has been made yet to counter this. Humanism would not try to change any culture beyond recognition, only encourage it to see the benefits of development. It's not as if Humanism can see no value in other less developed cultures and wouldn't want to learn anything from them.

Another point raised is that Dawkins refuses to debate the “great” William Lane Craig. The guy is a philosopher and Christian religious apologist, debunked here by the excellent Rosa Rubicondior:

http://rosarubicondior.blogspot.co.uk/p/apologetics.html

So asking this genius to debate Dawkins would be like Einstein debating the Cookie Monster. Craig has no real valid arguments. He is also a polished professional debater who excels at "scoring points" without actually saying anything valuable. It would be pointless. Dawkins needs challenges in his dotage, for goodness sake!

So, “Dark Humanism” is a “dodgy brand”, indeed. Leave it up to uber-relativists and apologetics to come up with those; the non-scientific, whiny, intellectually dishonest people that they all too often are. They would say that, wouldn't they?

Instead, I submit that “history's chip wrapper” will live up to its metaphorically eponymous standards as a greasy, smelly covering to some old, now unwanted food-for-thought, destined for the garbage tip of religious apology.