April 03, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
The Delusion of Humanism
It is on our delusions that we survive and
even thrive, much to the dismay and perils of other species on this planet.
One of the great modern myths that we apes
have woven and developed around ourselves (besides that of omnipotent single or
multiple gods up in sky somewhere) is that of humanism – which besides
everything sensible about it prides in treating human apes as not only special
but intellectually superior to all other life forms on this planet.
As Yuval Harai points out that modern
humanism is a humanity-worshipping religion that basically believes that Homo
sapiens possesses a “unique and sacred nature that is fundamentally different
from the nature of all beings and phenomena.
The supreme good is the good of humanity.”
Further, humanism according to Harari can
be classified into three types:
(1) Liberal Humanism: which considers ‘humanity’
to be individualistic and the supreme commandment of this particular sect of
the religion is to protect the inner core and freedom of each individual Homo
sapiens.
(2) Socialist Humanism: which believes that
humanity ic collective and the supreme commandment is to protect equality
within species.
(3) Evolutionary Humanism: considers
humanity to be a mutable species that can degenerate into subhumans and evolve
into superhumans.
So the supreme commandment for this sect is
to protect humankind from degenerating into subhumans and encourage its
evolution into superhumans.
The first and second categories, according
to Harari, have their roots, not in Western antiquity but Judeo-Christian
monotheism.
They are not rebellious against faith in a
supernatural deity but rather clear derivatives of it.
Individual human beings can be ultimately
deemed important only when they are as proposed as being made in the image and
likeness of a Creator God.
“Without recourse to eternal souls and a
Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what
is so special about individual Sapiens.”
On the same logic, Harari says, “the idea
that all humans are equal is a revamped version of the monotheist conviction
that all souls are equal before god.”
Only evolutionary humanism has broken loose
from the traditional monotheism, and its most famous representatives are,
undoubtedly, the Nazis.
Such are the stories our brain generates to
itself - almost like a self-fulfilling wish- to keep its sanity and continuing
the activities required for both the individual and species survival.
Several examples of stories or narratives can
be enlisted that we create as a collective cultural society and indoctrinate
each other, most of them no different from the religious narratives that I
personally so despise.
In the nights to come we shall ponder (and
only ponder since we have no sensible answers) how the brains of this
particular twig of the great apes has developed this kind of dreamy sophistication
that almost necessitates creation of ideologies and religions that are
obviously not true.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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