Lemon: The Philosophical Bankruptcy of Humanism

Western society, having its wellspring in emigration from lands with little tolerance, has developed as the most tolerant place that has ever existed in the known universe. Western societies, and the Judeo Christian value systems that are inherent, are pretty much the only societies that offer pluralistic environments where everyone within can be expected to be treated humanely and are offered an unlimited chance to thrive.

Outside of countries born from Judeo Christian values, only Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore stand out as places that offer economic, educational, security and social opportunities for its residents.
There are no countries that are not democracies that offer similar well being and freedom to its citizens. There is not a single Islamic country, not a socialist country, not a developing nation that offers similar benefits to its residents. Indeed, of the 200 odd members of the United Nations, the societies that offer such wealth of life to their residents can almost be counted on a person’s fingers and toes.

People are evidencing their approval of Judeo Christian societies with their feet. People are lining up to move to the Canada, the UK and the United States. Turks are flooding to Germany, Moroccans and Algerians to France, Albanians to Yugoslavia, Angolans to South Africa. No one is rushing to live in Syria, China, Iran, Indonesia or Russia. Before long, Israel’s population will be more than half Muslim.

Judeo Christian Values are where it’s at. But many in our western society, for reasons known only to themselves, are fleeing away from and denying them to accept a value system that believes in everything and nothing: humanism.

The value systems that have produced the most successful and most admired societies in the universe are based on the laws of Moses and the principals of Jesus. They are not derived from the Koran, nor do they come from Voltaire, or the so-called founder of Humanism, Petrarch.

Humanists, believers of nothing that they can’t see and blind to the evils that they can, credit this aforementioned fifteenth century poet as being the first modern man and inventor of humanistic thought. This because he was the first person of note to deny the Church and supernaturalism. He wrote fairly decent love poems, was madly enthralled with a woman he never met, and never thought as highly of himself as devotees do today. It looks to a not-too-interested observer that these current day Petrarchian devotees looked long and hard to find anyone that they could pin this dubious “founder” title on, as early in history as they could.

Humanism is a morally bankrupt, bizarro-world collection of meandering thought that assumes that we can, as a basically-good species, objectively look at all things and act accordingly in a rational manner. They think the human race is a fluke of the universe. Humanism accepts naturalism (not nudist camps, but the rights of nature) and rejects all supernaturalism and only accepts an understanding that the essence of humanity relies upon reason and science, democracy and human compassion. This without any evidence that this has ever been a normal, much less accepted, practice of the species whatsoever throughout recorded history.

I have known well hundreds or thousands of humans, and even the most humanist of them seldom act rationally, much less objectively. And most often, the only good they do is to reasonably well polish off a side of ribs and a half case of beer.

Science has brought us the bomb, democracy has tended to replace a single tyrant with millions, reason is permitted to only come from the lips of appointed jurists, and compassion is most often only exhibited by those who strongly believe in the supernatural and a higher being.

As far as basic goodness, I’m sure an especially articulate humanist could rationalize how the basic goodness of mankind (and womankind) can be related to Islamic terrorists, or Rwandan genocide, or the Yugoslavian massacres, or the Inquisitionists, and so on.

Humanists are a bunch of darn do-gooders, and to quote P.J. O’Rourke, “Everybody wants to save the world and no one wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

Jack Nicholson likes Fidel Castro because, as he puts it, “he’s a good humanist.” This speaks volumes about where these 'believers' come from intellectually.

How does this humanist philosophical collection of meandering pseudo beliefs impact on our current society, and even more, our governing representation.

Well, much, maybe most, of the contemporary day-to-day decisions by governments in Canada come from this belief system (if it can be called this). Examples:

Since man (generically speaking, of course) is basically good, then criminals are owed a little nudge back toward goodness and murderers should be able to while away their time with at least a “faint hope” (Of what? Being able to murder again?). Since the pressures of society cause drug / alcohol addictions, then tax dollars must be used to buy needles and wine. The homeless need only a little guidance to find their way from Toronto City Hall to a shelter, but if they want to live outside in the cold, they have a right to this. Public health care becomes a philosophy, instead of an insurance policy to keep us alive, affordably. People who prefer to drive private vehicles and expend fossil fuels are much worse that those who take public transit and expend fossil fuels and electricity generated by petroleum fueled turbines. A pregnant woman, being basically good, is entitled to her convenience, but, an unborn child has no rights at all: embryos and foetuses can be harvested to extend the lives of those basically good people who have lived for a long time. People don’t kill people, guns kill people. No one is better than anyone else, and everyone has a right to anything. New arrivals to Canada must be supported with financial, emotional and institutional support, regardless of whether they need, want or expect or ask for it, because, well, just because.

Under the humanistic philosophy, there is always an external reason for a person’s failure to do something good, or for a person who does something bad there is no personal responsibility for any outcome. PMS, stress, post-partum depression or in the case of a recently resigned Member of Parliament, just general-all-around depression, are all reasons enough to deny personal responsibility for crimes. As if Svend Robinson is Jean Valjean. There is no reward for living a clean, honest, contributing life other than the benefit of paying more taxes to cover the tab.

A Google search yields 912,000 post-something syndromes that allow sufferers to absolve themselves of responsibility for something they did or didn’t do. It just ain’t their fault.

Critics of humanist philosophy are labelled lunatics, whackos, neo-nazis, racists, sexists, enemies of the planet, capitalists, imperialists, homophobes. Or the new perjorative, “Neo-con”. I wear this badge of honour proudly