Humanism and Misanthropy

Historical Relativism, Contradictions, Twin-Ideologies

For the sake of this piece, I mostly analyzed American humanization, because I know my audience is mostly of this history. Greek xenophobia, Christian missionaries, early agricultural ecocide are all examples of what I am discussing.

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What defines a Human? Is it a set of biological processes? Is it a cognitive ability? Perhaps it is a socio-economic and ecological relationship. We need to understand Humanization and Dehumanization (an idea I want to elaborate on in the future! )are historical processes and related to social relations.

The Three-Fifths Compromise is such an example of (De-)Humanization being a product of social relations. One is only considered a Human when it benefits a dominant social and economic class, or when Capital necessitates new labor.

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Other Persons were, of course, Slaves, African descendants or those only recently ripped from their Homeland. The reasoning was the South wished to count their slaves as citizens in order to gain pull in Congress, while the North wanted only to count Free Persons (including Free Africans). It made it so out of every 5 slaves, 3 were counted as Persons.

Turn the clock back to the original 13 Colonies, and see the requirements just to participate in the electoral system:

• Connecticut: an estate worth 40 shillings annually or £40 of personal property
• Delaware: fifty acres of land (twelve under cultivation) or £40 of personal property
• Georgia: fifty acres of land
• Maryland: fifty acres of land and £40 personal property
• Massachusetts Bay: an estate worth 40 shillings annually or £40 of personal property
• New Hampshire: £50 of personal property
• New Jersey: one-hundred acres of land, or real estate or personal property £50
• New York: £40 of personal property or ownership of land
• North Carolina: fifty acres of land
• Pennsylvania: fifty acres of land or £50 of personal property
• Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: personal property worth £40 or yielding 50 shillings annually
• South Carolina: one-hundred acres of land on which taxes were paid; or a town house or lot worth £60 on which taxes were paid; or payment of 10 shillings in taxes
• Virginia: fifty acres of vacant land, twenty-fives acres of cultivated land, and a house twelve feet by twelve feet; or a town lot and a house twelve feet by twelve

Unlisted is the requirement of being a White Male (unlisted because the only way to fulfill these requirements was often to be a White Male). Only roughly 80 years later were all White Men allowed to vote, not restricted by access to capital. Voting laws have of course changed substantially since then, allowing (on paper) women, Asians, Africans, Indigenous people and others to vote. The voting age was also lowered from 21 to 18 due to the Vietnam War.

So, we can thus compare a Human, in the eyes of historic trends, as someone with a certain relation to social and economic relations. Another way to say this is a Human is one who has personhood in a social context. Personhood was expanded, generalized, to fit the needs of Capital, of Progress. The Leviathan demanded a larger and more modern workforce. However, of course, Slavery still exists in the prison system, especially the private prison system of America. The contradictions are innumerable.

If we can explain personhood through the lense of a material development, Humanism is but an ideological justification of these developments. It brings logic to a world individuals and groups have little sway over (Some may see what I am alluding to as Historical Materialism or Dialectical Materialism — I would agree. I have my disagreements and do not consider myself a Materialist, but I believe this is an effective method as to explain it simply).

Humanism is an approach to life based on reason and our common humanity, recognizing that moral values are properly founded on human nature and experience alone.

– The Bristol Humanist Group

The Bristol Humanist Group fails to see that human nature, and what even defines a Human, is often viewed through a historical bias, and subject to conditions often pervading individual agency. Humanism is a philosophy born to convince altruists that ‘Progress’ was a conscious ‘Human’ act.

Even more obvious, experience is a subjective, dynamic phenomenon. How can morality be probed through constantly changing experiences, of 7-billion individuals? We must decide all experiences may lead to vastly separate moral codes, thus negating the apparent usefulness of generalizing a moral code, that Humanism seeks to do; or that not all experiences are useful in creating such a code, leading to show how useless the analysis of ‘Humanity’ is. One can also elaborate on the problematic nature of this rationalistic utilitarianism and how we define ‘goodness,’ but I find there are many others who can better explain.

More simply put, perhaps to condense my rambling, Humanism fails to define a Human, and in trying, fails to see the historical relativism of such an object, falling into a hypocritical metaphysical mess, especially given Humanism, at large, is a secular venture.

As Julian Langer said (and I paraphrase), “Humanity is just a stereotype.”

And this leads to another critique….

That of Misanthropy. Followers of his trend fall into the same as Humanism, instead a love for ‘Humans’, it is a distrust or hatred. How can they hate what is relative and ever-evolving?

A misanthrope may have a rainbow of reasons for their hatred, but I’m targeting those who do so on the grounds of Wild Nature, Ecology, etc.

‘Eco-misanthropy.’

What does a Hunter-Gatherer in say the Amazon have in common with say, Jeff Bezos, or Ma Huateng? Little, when we use the logic of Humanity being a historically relative notion. This is especially true in terms of our ecological role.

Homo has its roots as seed-carrying forest dwellers, who, after several millennia, began to scavenge, then hunt. Their tools and ecological footprint developed alongside their role in their ecosystems (which quickly spread to a global scale). Then, skip ahead to a not so distant past, we see agricultural societies with wide stratification. After this, in a blink of an eye, industrial society, with its own wide ranging power dynamics. An African Farmer is not comparable to an Anglo Industrialist, even in the eyes of eco-misanthropes, if they wished to be logical.

Groups like ITS are misanthropes as they compare the Human with the Civilized, which itself reflects the same notion as the Human, becoming a point that just falls on its own face. Where do we draw the line on what is Civilized? A farmer, a landlord, an industrial worker, an industrial leader?

It becomes more difficult to confront when we see while one may be a ‘Human’ or ‘Civilized,’ but maintain ideas contrary to their own existence, much like a Colonizer who wishes to break down colonial power dynamics. Even still, this goes to show that ITS and other eco-misanthropes maintain a civilized ideology, generalizing groups on what are nothing but widely accepted stereotypes, ie upholding Humanism.

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Re-reading this, I find some points lack a good flow between one another or I may have over and under explained certain ideas. Honestly, in the case of this piece, I find that excusable, given my targets are in their own ways, contradictory and far from nuanced.