Philosophy Now Forum

if asked, I often say my "religion" is humanism...
and what exactly does that mean?

I put my faith and tender in the values of being human...
I am not interested in any metaphysical values like god or
heaven or any idea that man is anything other than an animal...

all ideas about what it means to be human must begin there..
in the biological fact that we are descended from animals
and our basic nature is animal...a good deal of the ism's and ideologies
of our time are only interested in keeping human beings as animals...
with no attempt to become more...

for example, nationalism is tribalism writ large.. and the belief
in tribalism is most likely the first faith of human beings..
faith in tribe before all else.. a faith that exists into today...
a faith that no longer has any value to us in our modern day world...
for which tribe are we going to put first, in our multiculture universe?
for the white supremacists, they will put white people first, but
who today is pure white? no one I know... for we are so mixed
from the past that no one outside of, perhaps, Eskimo's are a "pure race"
and we certainly are not pure in any other fashion, biological, socially,
culturally, politically, philosophically or legally or religiously...

in fact, if we were to describe human beings, the best description
would be, far more than any other animal, to be mixed in all
sorts of ways... in every aspect of being human is mixed, or
an amalgam of all sorts of facts, beliefs, idea's, traditional
and modern...
we are educated with a wide assortment of values, ideas, beliefs,
that quite often are so incoherent or so diverse as to defy belief..
and for the vast majority of people, we hold beliefs and values
that aren't even ours... we have simply carried on the values
we were indoctrinated with, without any thought as to
what those values and beliefs actually mean or commit us to..

we are taught to embrace bigotry or prejudice or hate of others
from birth.. but we can also be taught to embrace others
and their values and beliefs...
and that is the beauty of values and beliefs.. that they are not
written in stone... they can be, as easily held as they can
be changed or discarded... and that is the essence of humanism...

values and beliefs can and must be changed to match the conditions
on the ground that we face... in the stone age, a value system like
existentialism isn't going to do shit for us... it won't do the job
that is required of a belief system.. which is to allow us to survive...

every new environment requires a new value/belief system
in order to survive...

in our modern day society/state.. we have no need for a god or
heaven or hell or angels to help us survive.. but we need other values
and beliefs that will allow us to successfully navigate our society/state/
culture.... diversity is a better adaptation system to our modern society
than uniformity or identicalness.... ours world today is diverse and a very
mixed bag of values and beliefs... and we must be able to adapt
and change our values and beliefs in order to successfully fit into
our world....

so in short, humanism is the ability to adapt and change to the ever
changing conditions we face.... so the new changing technologies
we face require a different set of values than the old world of
horse and buggy...

I am deaf and one of the options for me is to get a cochlear implant...
which is technology implanted into my ear... I just don't have the 30,00
dollars needed to even begin this process...
now there is a wide school of thought that absolutely hates transhumanism,
the movement that advocates the enhancement of the human condition
by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies
that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition... technology used
to at least give me the chance to hear again... but if I am stuck in
anti-transhumanism, then I will never have the chance to hear again...

that is just one example of the prejudice of human beings against
something that is different or has changed within us....
anti-transhumanism is prejudice and a sort of bigotry...
is there threats in transhumanism, yes, but there are also benefits...
and the anti-crowd is always focused on the threats, not on the
benefits....

so humanism is the possibility of choice...
and choice is what makes us human....

so my values and beliefs are focused on my being human
and on you being human... which values and beliefs will
allow us to succeed and prosper and progress the most?

and that is humanism...

Kropotkin

we have two different diverse human situations
that we must work out... one is the individual who lives
and dies with their own values, beliefs, viewpoints...
and the second situation is that same individual within
the state/society/civilization.....

Marx calls the second situation and bases his entire philosophy
on the notion of the relationship between the individual
and the state/society... the idea of communism arises from
his understanding of the relationship between the individual
and the society/state....

and existentialism arises from the first understanding of the one,
and their own values and beliefs.. what does it mean to be
human needs not be connected to any sort of understanding
of what it means to have a relationship with a society/state...

communism is about the one and others and existentialism
is about the one and themselves...

the best I can say about communism is that it brings us awareness
and attention to our relationship with the state/society/civilization...
and the best I can say about existentialism is that it bring us awareness
and attention to our values and beliefs...

I tend to hold to the existential side of existence, which
means I am aware of what it means to be human...
and of late, I have been bringing attention to our
connection, our relationship with the state/culture/society....

how do we connect/relate to our humanity with its connection/relationship
with the state/society? How do I fit into society? how do I fit into
the state? these are questions more to the theory of communism,
than they are to the theory of existentialism....
and how do I hold to my values and what are those values?

are my values really just values I was indoctrinated with,
or are they actually my values? that is in line with
existentialism, and not communism...

I see the two theories, of communism.. the many and existentialism,
the one, as very similar to the physics question of the relationship
between the micro, the very small quantum mechanics and the
large, the society/state/civilization... how do we connect the two?
the very small and the very large... quantum mechanics doesn't seem
to connect the macro/the large at all... and thus we see the
this question within existentialism and communism...

how do we connect the two? is there a commonality between the two
that isn't seen, as yet, between the two.. or are they simple two
distinct and separate ideas?

a life spent seeking out the connection between existentialism
and communism is a life well spent...

and for most people, they are, existentialism and communism,
two distinct and separate ideas... and there is no uniting or
connecting the two... but it has been my philosophy for many
years that what seems to be two, quite often is really one..
we think that two ideas are quite different and distinct..
but we now know that "good" and "evil" are really the same..
they look completely different, but then at closer inspection,
we see that they are two sides of the same coin
and then we see that they are the same thing...
and we can thank Nietzsche for that understanding...

and so, we think that the two ideas, existentialism and communism
are two different and distinct ideas...but in the end,
they are one and the same, we just have to figure it out...

Kropotkin