Re: So what!

Dear John,

        By "mothers and fathers" I meant the generation of socialists
raised on the philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and others like
them, the humanist and materialist founders of the modern Left.  This is a
heritage now for all practical purposes discarded (except for the economic
and political thought), as you say.  Deprived of the ethical and
metaphysical insights of the founders, contemporary people of the Left
are philosophically adrift, with what I think are perilous consequences.
Yes, I know what happened when a whole country was forced to embrace
"diamat."  For various reasons, unrelated in my judgment to diamat, the
experiment failed, and now the citizens of that same country are
rebuilding their cathedrals.  This does not prove, for me, that scientific
humanism is invalid, any more than a good Catholic should abandon her/his
faith because of the Crusades, the Inquisition, or Hitler's Pope.  The
point is, to follow up on Steven Sherman's question, what should our
world-view be in the 21st Century?  If not scientific humanism, then what?
If anyone has a better idea, let's hear it.  I think the question is
important precisely because I believe that religion in the sense of shared
beliefs about the good and the real and the ground of knowledge is vital
to our mental health.  But reversion to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
and the rest violates reason and promotes human divisiveness.  Is there an
alternative?  People like Marx and T.H. Huxley and Bertrand Russell and
Sigmund Freud thought so.  Were they so wrong?

        By the way, my own family background was not that different from
yours.  I did not imbibe scientific humanism from my parents.  I was not
born a Lefty.  I was raised a petty bourgeois Presbyterian, sang in a
high-church Episcopal boy choir, and thought FDR was the closest thing on
Earth to Jesus.  I changed.  All by myself.

        Meanwhile, we mark the countdown to the next Crusade--oops, I mean
Campaign--as One Nation Under God continues its march to well-deserved
oblivion.  The various recent posts on WSN about American motives and
goals vis-a-vis Iraq have all been enlightening, and I thank the senders.

        Warren



On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, John Till wrote:

> Warren:
>
> Your response illustrates my point. My mother and father were Irish and 
>German Catholics, not scientific humanists. So were a lot of other mothers and 
>fathers. Or Lutherans, Baptists, Jews, Muslims, shamanic peoples, etc. Outside 
>the USSR and China, where people didn't have any choice about confession (both 
>states being officially "scientific socialist"), and tiny comprador elites and 
>leftist vanguards in the rest of the world, the faith of most folks has never 
>been scientific humanism. Scientific humanism is pretty thin gruel as 
>religious experience, and I'm pretty sure that for all intents and purposes 
>it's a dead religion.
>
> John Everett Till
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wwagar@binghamton.edu [mailto:wwagar@binghamton.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 12:03 PM
> To: John Till
> Cc: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
>
> [SNIP] Having said this, of course I must add that I believe the best way to
> reanimate and mobilize socialism is to return to the religion of OUR
> mothers and fathers--scientific humanism.  Being hominids, we still need
> religion, but let it be a religion that squares with our reason and
> experience as denizens of the 21st Century, not the 7th or the 1st.
>
>       Warren
>
>
>