20110404

antihumanagenda

In the 80s and 90s, one of the right's rallying hate-ons was "secular humanism." It probably still is, for all I know. I used to think they just didn't understand the deep roots of humanism in our civilization, going back to Renaissance, going back to Greece. I now fear they do know, and intend to unwrite all of our civilization's history and moral progress to root out the philosophical roots of humanism.

Humanism is the notion that humans have moral worth for themselves rather than as servants to lord and Lord. Labor movements, which go back at least a hundred years before Marx, stem from humanistic ideals. Women's rights as they have been hard-won in struggles over decades and centuries, depend on understanding the worth of each person's experience, rather than their fitting into an ordained social role. Racial integration and religious tolerance, scientific inquiry, freedom of conscience, freedom itself, depend on philosophical humanism.
 
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