Nazism and Evolutionary Humanism

 These lines from Harari's book stood out:

Even though liberal humanism sanctifies humans, it does not deny the existence of God, and is, in fact, founded on montheist beliefs. The liberal belief in the free and sacred nature of each individual is a direct legacy of the traditional Christian belief in free and eternal individual souls. Without recourse to eternal souls and a Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens.

Another important sect is socialist humanism. Socialists believe that "humanity" is collective rather than individualistic. They hold as sacred not the inner voice of each individual, but the species  Homo sapiens as a whole. Whereas liberal humanism seeks as much freedom as possible for individual humans, socialist humanism seeks equality between all humans. According to socialists, inequality is the worst blasphemy against the sanctity of humanity, because it privileges peripheral qualities of humans over their universal essence. For example, when the rich are privileged over the poor, it means that we value money more than the universal essence of all humans, which is the same for rich and poor alike.

Like Liberal humanism, socialist humanism is built on monotheist foundation. The idea that all humans are equal is a revamped version monotheist conviction that all souls are equal before God. The only humanist sect that has actually broken loose from traditional monotheism is the evolutionary humanism, whose most famous representatives were [are] the  Nazis. What distinguishes the Nazis from other humanist sects was the different definition of "humanity", one deeply influenced by the theory of evolution. In contrast to other humanists, the Nazis believed that humankind is not something universal and eternal, but rather a mutable species that can evolve or degenerate. Man can evolve into superman, or degenerate into subhuman.

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind, (pp. 230, 231)

This is curious, since we anecdotally observed human efforts to sideline monotheistic ideologies throughout years/decades/centuries and under various projects. But the most modern attempt is nothing less than prime debauchery and barbarity. More than anything, this dark period indicates the perils of the hegemony of anti-enlightenment sects. Any type of forced distillation of a racial/ethnic, ideological, religious, or cultural milieu is an anti-enlightenment aspiration, and its outcomes have hitherto proven to be tragic human milestones.

Adam Smith's Sympathy (Part II)

 Sympathy, as Smith defines it, is a cognitive capacity rather than an emotional one. It is not to be identified with sympathetic feeling. Smith points out how difficult it is to feel concern for people who are remote from us. If we did not have conscience to give us some sense of proportion, then, says Smith, we would care more about a trifling injury to ourselves than about the entire destruction of China in an earthquake: 

If [a man] was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep tonight; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. 

He dismisses those ‘whining and melancholy moralists’ who claim that we ought to make ourselves unhappy by imagining the unhappiness of people unknown to us. There is no virtue in merely caring (or professing to care) about unknown persons. Passive emotion is feeble and ineffectual, but active virtue is motivated by a far stronger force – that of conscience, originating in a desire for others’ approval and hence for self-approval. 

We have, moreover, a ‘general fellow-feeling . . . with every man merely because he is our fellow-creature’. Our strong emotions, however, are directed towards individuals, beginning with our friends and relatives. General fellow-feeling underlies our attachment to the principle of justice, without which, Smith insists, society would collapse into anarchy. The importance of justice for the good of society is confirmed by reflection. Humane people may well feel sorry for a condemned criminal, especially as, having been captured, he can do no more harm, and may wish him to be spared the death penalty. On further reflection, however, ‘[t]hey counterbalance the impulse of this weak and partial humanity by the dictates of a humanity that is more generous and comprehensive’, and acquiesce in the criminal’s execution. What underlies our love of justice, however, is not an abstract regard for the good of society, but an ingrained feeling, which makes us detest the idea of a murderer escaping punishment. 

Misguided emotions need to be corrected by ‘reason, principle, conscience... the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct’, which has itself a foundation in the deep emotions implanted in us by nature. Smith thinks well of the emotional self-control advocated by the Stoics. He even praises the astonishing ‘magnanimity and self-command’ of native North Americans, who endure torture with ‘heroic and unconquerable firmness’. But the Stoic virtues are one-sided. Stoics are wrong to recommend insensibility. Affectionate feeling is itself a source of pleasure: ‘The poets and romance writers, who best paint the refinements and delicacies of love and friendship, and of all other private and domestic affections, Racine and Voltaire; Richardson, Maurivaux [sic] and Riccoboni; are, in such cases, much better instructors than Zeno, Chrysippus, or Epictetus.’ They teach ‘that moderated sensibility to the misfortunes of others, which does not disqualify us for the performance of any duty’.

Robertson, Ritchie. The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 (pp. 271-272). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Adam Smith's Sympathy

Adam Smith, who attended Hutcheson’s lectures at Glasgow, and subsequently held the chair of moral philosophy there from 1752 to 1764, dissented from his teacher’s ‘amiable system’. He thought Hutcheson expected too much of people’s benevolence. We may remember the famous sentence from The Wealth of Nations: ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ When Smith set out his own system of moral philosophy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), he placed the emphasis not on benevolence but on sympathy, and described its working in a complex way. Smith uses ‘sympathy’ to mean not benevolence or compassion, but ‘our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever’. Sympathy depends on imagination. It is the ability to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, to imagine what we would feel in their situation. We feel pleasure when our feelings correspond to another’s – that is, when the feelings he expresses are what we would experience in his situation. But we feel displeasure if his feelings appear to be either more or less than we would feel: if someone complains of a misfortune that would not upset us, or if someone pusillanimously accepts an injury which we would resent. 

Smith insists that there is nothing selfish about sympathy. It would be selfish if, condoling with a bereaved father, I were to think about what I would feel if I were to lose a child. Sympathy goes much further: ‘I consider what I should suffer if I was really you, and I not only change circumstances with you, but I change persons and characters.’ Hence, I can feel sympathy with people whose misfortunes I could never possibly experience myself: Smith gives the example of a man sympathizing with the pains of a woman in labour.

Robertson, Ritchie. The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 (pp. 268-269). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

The Monarchy of Fear

   Fear was the driving force behind Donald Trump's rise to power. This is a take on the 2016 elections that shook many pundits, commentators, philosophers, and casual observers. A body of publications attempted to analyze this choice and focused on specific demographic and social classes supporting Trump in stronghold states for Republicans. However, Nussbaum applies another approach that cuts deeper into the matter by investigating the cause and effect behind this election. This is a philosophical approach to the pertinent subject with heavy connections with social psychology. The toxic brew of misogyny, envy, and fearful anger threatens democracy and its related values. 

   The major hurdle in this philosopher's job is to recognize the unruly emotions and bring them into the fold. The book studies the interconnected emotions of anger, envy, hatred, disgust, sexism, and misogyny and their ramifications on current social affairs in the US. The book describes globalization as one factor bringing about a sense of helplessness and marginalization to a group of citizens. This negative feeling of abandonment eventually transforms into resentment and blame. 

   One aspect of this book is the idea of us "human beings" as a species being vulnerable in our existential terrain, which causes fear as an inherent emotion. If left unattended, this primal feeling can develop into a corrosive agent with monarchial traits controlling various domains of our behavior. Society tends to scapegoat those who are unpopular. In her own words "monarchs feed on fear" "Fearful people run for protection and care, they turn to strong absolute rulers, ... in democracy by contrast we must look one another in the eye, as equals". This horizontal trust is the firm foundation of democracy.

   Amidst disturbing news and divisive rhetoric readily heard and widespread rapidly, reading "Monarchy of Fear" provides a soothing perspective, a timely respite in an onslaught of tribalism and hateful polarization. The ideas of building secluded empires, and hostile policies toward outsiders are alarmingly gaining traction. These may be symptoms of a world marching to a different beat than what Nussbaum describes as our healthy social construct. A lot of the "us versus them" mentality has been propagated by those claiming to be progressive and abiding by human rights. A large portion of stigma is generated by apathy and lack of feeling of any association. 

   Aligned with the unwavering idealism in the book, the proposed solutions look unfashionable and far-fetched: an obligatory three-year service for the American youth and integration of the public school system.  

   Now, at the cusp of a new Cold War era, this anthology on fear is relevant more than ever. The omnipresent vibe of hope and optimism is felt throughout the book with the author vigilantly addressing the issue but not consigning to the doom-and-gloom siege mentality ruled by fear. Quite the opposite, she manages to stay balanced and fair-minded.

Hobbesian Trap

Thomas Hobbes underlines three axes that define human quarrels:

1. Competition which spearheads toward gain
2. Diffidence which targets safety
3. and Glory with the objective of reputation 

In his seminal work, Leviathan (1651), Hobbes points out these mechanisms in a succinct language:

So that in the nature of man, we find principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first market men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, wither direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name. 

The diffidence which can be better translated to fear is the root cause of what is known as the Hobbesian trap or security dilemma in political terminology and in the arena of international relations. 

Nazism: an Antirational and Anti-Enlightenment Stance

 It is impossible to understand so destructive a policy without recognizing that Nazi ideology was, for the most part, not only irrational-but antirational. It cherished the pagan, pre-Christian past of the German nation, adapted romantic ideas of a return to nature and a more "organic" existence, and nurtured an apocalyptic expectation of an end of days, whence the eternal struggle between the races would be resolved... The contempt for rationalism and its association with the despised Enlightenment stood at the core of Nazi thought; the movement's ideologues emphasized the contradiction between weltanschauung ("worldview"), the natural and direct experience of the world, and -welt-an-denken ("thinking about the world"), the "destructive" intellectual activity that breaks reality down through conceptualization, calculation, and theorization. Against the "degenerate" liberal bourgeois' worship of reason, the Nazis championed the idea of a vital, spontaneous life, unhindered and undimmed by compromises of dilemmas. 

Rationality and Holocaust, Yaki Menschenfreund, 2010 

Fragile Tranquility

A sense of security and tranquillity can signify being in despair; precisely this sense of security and tranquillity can be the despair, and yet it can signify having conquered despair and having won peace.

Kierkegaard, Søren. Kierkegaard's Writings, XIX, Volume 19: 21 (p. 42). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

True Wretchedness (Excerpt from Sickness unto Death)

There is so much talk about human distress and wretchedness—I try to understand it and have also had some intimate acquaintance with it—there is so much talk about wasting a life, but only that person’s life was wasted who went on living so deceived by life’s joys or its sorrows that he never became decisively and eternally conscious as spirit, as self, or, what amounts to the same thing, never became aware and in the deepest sense never gained the impression that there is a God and that “he,” he himself, his self, exists before this God—an infinite benefaction that is never gained except through despair. 

What wretchedness that so many go on living this way, cheated of this most blessed of thoughts! What wretchedness that we are engrossed in or encourage the human throng to be engrossed in everything else, using them to supply the energy for the drama of life but never reminding them of this blessedness. What wretchedness that they are lumped together and deceived instead of being split apart so that each individual may gain the highest, the only thing worth living for and enough to live in for an eternity. 

I think that I could weep an eternity over the existence of such wretchedness! And to me an even more horrible expression of this most terrible sickness and misery is that it is hidden—not only that the person suffering from it may wish to hide it and may succeed, not only that it can so live in a man that no one, no one detects it, no, but also that it can be so hidden in a man that he himself is not aware of it! 

Kierkegaard, Søren. Kierkegaard's Writings, XIX, Volume 19: 21 (pp. 44-45). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Nietzsche and The Nazis (Book Review)

A very educative read. Touches on a very controversial intellectual of the modern era and how he might have influenced Nazism.
The blueprints are timeless and can be interpreted in any context. The author well describes the antagonists of Nazi ideology:
1- Individualism against collectivism
2- Science, philosophy of reason, and logic against passion and instincts
3- Productiveness and trade against inclination toward conflict and war
4- Individual freedom as opposed to political authoritarianism and top-down leadership
5- Free market capitalism against socialism promoted by Nazism

Pandora's box

 " It is the greatest temptation of the rational faculty to glorify its own capacity and its own productions and to claim that in the face of its theories nothing transcendent or outside its domain need exist. "  Excerpt from Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life 

 I think this is very relevant to the matters we deal with on a regular basis in the academic milieu. Interestingly, the story is the same where you are amongst ideological fanatics in political or religious campaigns. There is an aversion to dialogue and affinity to seal the codebook of life in your limited lifetime. The tradeoff is understandable: the state of calm in return for blinding yourself to the (often convoluted) truth. 

Stig Dagerman: An Elegy

Stig Dagerman has had the touch of magic on my soul, irritably shaking the core with his shockingly direct and masterfully aggressive style. Daggerman epitomize the very simple and defenseless intellectual exposed to harsh reality of 20^th century. Sweden, his homeland was passing a crucial period with much pressure hinging on the low-income working class. Anarchism and syndicalism was surging all across the Europe stirring up the calm nature of region. Joining syndicalism was the fruit of a complicated political/social background which is less dignified in Dagerman's profile. Like all well-known public black-outs, a surging interest in his works has appeared since 1980s and a reward is called to his honor. He was the full-view representative of intellectuals highly affected in the wake of post-world war II era. His writings convey the themes of existentialism via artfully expressed feelings of fear and uncertainty. Imagine Kierkegaard’s level of consciousness stripped of all arbitrary chase for spirituality (Kierkegaard’s 2^nd and 3^rd layers) more focused on aesthetics of social conducts and family affairs. A malicious anxiety woven in the very texture of his words, a hail of abhorrence and rejection (look at his heart-wrenching short story "Surprise"), all and all a very unique, a very uneasy and yet a very modern experience for the readers. Ideologically i must confess i'm against his political school of thinking. I rate the line pretty  premature then and outdated now. Yet I still like him and his works. I respect him as the son of his harsh circumstance, who stands for some principles and express his thoughts artfully.

I think something, still unrecognized or less understood dominate his lines. Some of the features in his short stories and novels are so hard to decipher, like the man himself. Definitely some sorry themes in Dagerman’s family life and emotional conflicts have made the fair ground for his outstanding streak of writing to flow. I’ve spent a number of my desolation days with the highly emotive pulsation of Daggerman’s “Snake” under my skin. Feeling insecure, lonely and hopeless is not a heavenly gift but admittedly transformed into some literary masterpiece, as history has shown.

Pedram, June2013