Do humans have a nature? This was something famously denied by the existentialist Sartre, implying that we just make things up as we go along. Note that Sartre's philosophy came out of the carnage and horror of WWII. What we experience collectively matters a great deal, obviously. But take the NYT's ubiquitous warning to all commenters: " Comments are moderated for civility." Without common civility we don't really have civilization, the accumulated knowledge, technology, and social systems that make our existence possible. What distinguishes humans from all other animals is that we have a moral system and they don't. We are able to share with others, to cooperate in a myriad of complex ways that are not open to other kinds of animals precisely because we have common civility. It is not instinct, it can be and has been eliminated, with predictably disastrous results. We stand or fall as human beings based on our common civility.
Our evolved species of animal is as ugly as a rat. As communal as a pack of rats. Civility is only a selfish evolutionary sacrofice to achieve our individual survival.
just more soialist abuse of language. who elected him as the arbiter of what the word human means? Nonsense again designed for the pudding headed.
Atheists are "Judeo-Christians in their own way"? Has it never occurred to the author that people raised Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. might also be atheists? What a naive and sloppy statement.
1
@R.S. I suggest you read a little more deeply. Religion was born in the west - the concept that there is a sphere of existence separate from the state, from community, and from the self that is religion. And thus the concept of the separate of religion and state came to fruition in the West.
Negation of that sphere is the follow-on result. That is called atheism. Please raised in other religions can of course be atheists. But, only because the Judeo-Christian West made it a category for occupation.
@Jason Smith
I suggest you read a little more deeply Eastern Philosophy and history. Philosophy is theory alone. History is reality of how things actually manifest.
To claim that the 'West' invented the concept of religion and indeed the concept of atheism is ridiculous. There are similar concepts (with equally profound words to describe in more ancient languages in Hinduism). Buddhism which has its roots in Hinduism and is as old as Christianity is essentially based on atheism. So is Jainism, Confucian, etc.
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
Joan Didion
Becoming human is changing our stories by looking around, seeing consequences, realizing injustices, perceiving happiness in ourselves and others, and taking a stand against human suffering.
2
Levy asks the question: “What does it mean to be human?” He then proceeds to answer it based on the principle: “Determination is negation.”
I was reading through the comments, and one of the commenters used the following quote from Lewis Carroll:
"I see nobody on the road," said Alice.
"I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see Real People, by this light!".
This made me reflect on the reason the humor of the passage worked: the single word “nobody” has several different meanings and Carroll was highly skilled at juxtaposing and playing upon the variations.
That a single word has several different meanings is what Wittgenstein called the bewitchment of language. He held that all philosophical problems arose from this bewitchment and could be solved simply by a kind of meditation that would illuminate and clarify a word’s meanings.
So to answer, “What does it mean to be human?” We should reflect on the various ways the word “human” is used. Examples: Don’t kill him. He’s human. Or: Don’t judge him too harshly. He’s only human. These are two very different usages and meanings of a single word, human.
According to Wittgenstein, we all know what it is to be human. We just have to recover our ordinary common usages of everyday speech. The specific usages are real. The universal concept is an imaginary abstraction.
Lévy rightly identifies the social implications of Western modernity's increasingly predominant nihilistic ontology of violent negation; of force and counter-force. But there have been contending Western doxological ontologies characterized by gift for over 2000 years. Lévy's thoughts here amount to his "take" on human nature, assuming his uncompromising vision of an ontology of violence. Given this, his conclusions on human nature follow. The point is that his "take" is not inevitable.
“We Are Not Born Humans”
The author, Bernard- Henri Lévy, argues in favor of philosopher GWF Hegel and his principle that “determination is negation”. However this principle is not applicable to “being human” as described in works such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Lévy first claim is that God must be negated. Some people “strive to topple God from his throne.” He later goes on to say how the negation of nature is a step to becoming human.
These ideas are simply outrageous for anyone to believe.
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, after humans have their basics covered (food, water, shelter, etc.), humans will naturally want to progress to non-materialistic things like love and belief systems we know as religions. As complex and intelligent creatures, us humans want to believe and put our trust in something greater. It is only natural for us to do so since we have our basics covered and because we have souls, minds and can emote. Furthermore, wanting to be something above nature is the complete opposite of humanity. Being immortal or other such unnatural things is wanting to be machine-like. There is no denying we are all biological organisms subjected to the same rules that other organisms are subjected to and that going against these rules is to have no humanity.
Personally, after reading the article, I was so shocked it made me think what it means to be human. That is when I realized being human is something I feel strong about and something we all should too.
1
The consciousness of self that is “given” in Western civilization is only one of many possible modes of consciousness. Indeed, it is one of the most pedestrian of those possibilities. The world-wide mystical tradition gives us hints of other ways of being, and meditation enables us to experience those alternative states. The cranky old man god holed up in some corner of the universe is an obsolete phantom, acting as a diversion — even an excuse — for not trying to dive deeper into our human nature.
3
Contemporary physics tells us we have our being in an abstract universe they call a space-time continuum, a term that doesn’t offer much insight into who we are and why we’re here. We are further advised that this continuum universe can’t be imagined but only expressed in abstract mathematical terms.
Says who? The mystical tradition tells us that we humans are able to comprehend and experience much more than just these mundane three or four dimensions. We have evolved as a species from the Big Bang, from simple molecules to slime and then upward to human beings, all the while totally embedded in and totally shaped by those factors expressed in the abstract formulae of the physicists. So it’s not a totally wacky proposition to posit that our minds may possess the ability to know the totality of the reality from which we are sprung and in which we have our being. There’s a mountain of literature that maintains we do have that ability and a number of people these days are giving it a try.
2
@White Prius Agree entirely that the notion of "[t]he cranky old man god holed up in some corner of the universe is an obsolete phantom" -- but only because that was ever a fiendish caricature.
It is wrong to impute human passions or reactions to the Monad (however anyone conceives of the Source of Existence, once they are mature enough to accept the high probability that A greater intelligence exists in the Cosmos than any Homo sapiens sapiens specimen, no matter how brilliant, might manifest through even the most complex & articulate brain).
Even the human-generated quip, "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner," voiced by Tolstoy but more likely originating in George Sand (who may have herself been quoting a wise one of her acquaintance) implies that having a Complete Set of Data (that no human being will ever possess) will account for everything, explain everything & ultimately heal all.
Pain, however, is a very real part of the human condition: the single biggest reason why anyone should think long & hard before they decide to create new human beings.
Don't blame "cranky old man god": God made your brain, for you to use. Who has ever given you as much, free of charge? God is no one's Majordomo, charged with making sure the linens are pressed, the accounts accurate or breakfast to your liking.
The power/gift of "becoming God's Sons/Daughters," actual members of God's Family (John 1:12), arises out of Exertion: wise, diligent & relentless use of our own human brains
So - to be human requires:
o Negation of God - the first birth- into a nature of atoms and cells - the first stage of humanity
o Negation of the “natural” - atom and cells - the second birth - second stage of humanity “to desire transcendence”…. “to be endowed with a soul, which — acts as a passport out of nature and into our human essence.”
o A third birth into society - but “to also to preserve… a place of intimacy and secrecy into which the greater whole cannot set foot.” The soul?
o Then a fourth birth into a “private power” which he says “may not be accessible to us at first.” The soul?
————
Lévy seems to say that one is physically born, negated from God, then discovers or creates a soul (maybe about 3 to 5 years old, before school,) in a second birth then is born again (third) into society (perhaps at school). But retains a secret place. Then is born again into that private place. About age 30 to 50 when one understands that he or she is not bound to society?
As in "Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth...Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. "- Rumi
Yet the soul is not considered the end-all by many. There is an “oversoul” some say. An enlightened union of souls. So would there be a “fifth birth” into the oversoul?
Five births! wow. Now that is complicated.
1
Given how malleable human nature is under accident of birth, we aren't much of anything, except Silly Putty.
1
Does BHL still have credibility on this planet? That's puzzling. Most publications plucked and chucked his card out of the Rolodex long ago.
4
Dear Henry-Lévy: I am against (your) freedom. Your "opinion" is nothing but a superstitious babbling. Nice end for a "Philosophe". I am an atheist (and proud ti be) in the sense that I believe in an order ruled by the laws of nature (I am a physicist: do you remember J.P. Vigier?) not endowed with a personality, as God usualli is. As a consequence I do not need to prey (nobody listens), or behave according the laws imposed by "someone", but according to the laws of nature. On the other hand ancient Greeks mantained a similar opinion. As Herodotus says (Histories, I, 91) the Delphi oracle answered to a defeated Croesus : "No one may escape his lot, not even a god" This is my atheistic belief
1
"For atheists (who, let’s not forget, are Judeo-Christians in their own way)"
Ridiculous. I stopped reading when I hit this line. Didn't want to waste my time. I am an atheist and am in no way a Judeo-Christian.
3
Unfortunately for many people the word philosopher implies great intelligence and wisdom. Some philosophers such as Mr. Levy however are just narrow-minded thinkaholics.
2
Pure nonsense. The bankrupt nature of Western Philosophy is readily apparent here.
2
Ayn Rand and the worship of god are entirely too similar to be considered "humane". I'm for me first? I'm for God first? How about I'm for all first?
2
Mr. Levy either has no clue what atheism is or is being purposely false about it.
1
Film maker and activist, yes.
Philosopher ? No !
1
How truly bizarrely ignorant, that someone on earth would think to displace God. No small wonder that "he who sits in the heavens shall laugh" at the arrogance and stupidity of modern science.
Christopher Lee's photography is exquisite.
Atheists are not, in any sense "Judeo-Christians in their own way." That is a an erroneous and arrogant characterization that foists this author's view on non-believers. No non-believer is characterized by the silly, antiquated narrative of Theists. They do not seek to de-thone a god for which there is not a shred of proof exists. They are not tilting at windmills. They are acknowledging that we can understand our world through rational thought, observation, and good science. They are saying there is no windmill -- and no need of one. You might say something about Anti-Theists that is derivative of Theism. But even then it is just a virulent expression of how awful it would really be if such a celestial dictator, to reference Hitchens, possible existed. We are all Atheists with respect to hundreds if not thousands of long-abandoned religions. But we do not characterize our beliefs (or lack thereof) on the abandonment of the ridiculous -- for good reason. And good Reason.
4
@Michael
I'm sorry that I can only 'recommend' this comment once...well said and composed sir!
"For atheists (who, let’s not forget, are Judeo-Christians in their own way), man’s purpose is in part to topple God from his throne"
Utterly nonsensical statement. I'm an atheist and my purpose is to be left alone by the Judeo-Christians, the Hindus and the Muslims to live my life unencumbered by threats from a vengeful god. My atheism only comes into play when some theist starts to proselytize me and i ask him of some tangible proof of his or her particulate god's existence.
A trite wordy essay, very Chopra-esque. Manages to convey nothing at all, which is quite a feat...
2
If the author is suggesting that we humans exclusively bring the gift of soul to an otherwise soulless world, he might try asking the question, where does the soul within myself come from? And ask that question to your own soul, not your brain, and then listen patiently for an answer.
This article proves my definition of 'philosophers': "Those who think too much with too little information or too little insight."
2
Atheism is part of the Judeo-Christian tradition? That's odd, I wasn't aware the 1 billion+ atheists living in China, Japan, etc were considered Judeo-Christians.
3
This is a snarky way of saying some of us are more human than others. Unless some thing like this is contrived, humanity has no purpose. I'm okay with that.
Atheists are NOT in the world to "topple God from his throne". An atheist does not believe there is a god to topple. What atheists like myself do believe is that organised religion, especially in its more extreme forms, has been an unbelievably destructive and divisive force in human history with far too much influence in secular political decisions.
2
We're not born human? What nonsense! If we're not human at birth, what are we--dogs, apes? Levy thinks we must pass a test--we must "desire transcendence"--to qualify as human. What about those who are not interested in "transcendence," and fail the test? Will they remain non-human? Can Levy tell us who among us now has failed? Will he, or anyone who shares his view, tell us which of us today is not human? Of course not: the task is impossible, because Levy's postulate ("we are not born human") is absurd.
2
Bernard-Henri Levy is obviously quite an intellect, but less obviously not much of a Bible scholar. He lost a huge number of people in his falsely divergent characterization of the Christian and Jewish conceptions of God and humanity. Both faiths read Genesis 1:27 as mankind having been made in the image of God. Even a Hasidic Jewish translation of that verse has it: "And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8165/jewish/Chapter-1.htm
Mr. Lévy is musing within a 19th century frame of mind—Cartesianism, Negative Dialectic—that led to 20th century nihilism. Heidegger's notion of the INAUTHENTIC "we" is a sign, for Heidegger, of this path (discerned in the 1920s by Heidegger!) which led to Total War in the 1930s.
A “negation of nature” leads to the arrogant domination of nature by techno-Capitalist avarice that is now so obvious to environmentalists (and all of us suffering global warming). Being transcendental in spirit is not being anti-natural. We don’t take “a leap out of the natural order” when we, as children, love to explore and learn. That IS our nature: BORN human, born to love learning.
Lévy confuses traditional conceptions of being human (which are retrospective) with BEING human, which is inately forward looking, i.e., oriented to what is desirable to do, to be.
And be confuses the difference between the heartfelt, cultural “community of others” and the cold notion of “society” (an aggregate of civil strangers), even as he cautions against seeing community as “faceess mobs” (thereby equating civil society with masses?).
It is not that “To be human is to preserve,..." oneself. “Preserve” to what end? For flourishing. Preservation itself is defensive—negative.
Lévy says “We aren’t born human; we become it.” False. To become human is to be born. We are born with innate potential to love being. We are generative beings, aware of our own potential to design the future of our lives and humanity.
2
How could anyone think that the primary purpose of atheists, who have no belief in the existence of gods or other supernatural constructs, believe either that man has an externally imposed purpose at all, or that that purpose is to dethrone God? Or that there is any “atheological” difference between atheists coming from a Judeo-Christian (thanks, Hef) society versus those coming from other societies?
1
With all due respect BHL's musings in this article make no sense at all. Those of you who have expressed bafflement and are concerned that you may have missed the point are looking at an instance where the emperor is wearing no clothes.
3
I give Levy a B minus in philosophy, and a caution to stay away from religion until he's practiced one long enough to "get it."
2
I imagine that philosophy hobbyists are familiar with the author’s works; I am not, and have trouble wringing much out of this word salad, even allowing for the imprecision of translation. So, for this dumb kid, can someone organize this, perhaps into bullet points or graphic novel balloons?
While I wait, I have to stick with the more provable aspects of human thought and behavior. You know: science, history, and how we finished our evolution with Donald Trump.
2
Monsieur Lévy and Ms. Hamilton
"Nobody will deny — most of all not Spinoza — that a human is “natura naturata,” a thing among things, a nature among natures, a figure of the world woven from the same fiber as all other ordinary figures. "
In French, using the double negative is a common and acceptable way to amplify the negation. In English, the double negatives are supposed to cancel each other out. For clarity's sake, would it be possible for either of the two of you to restructure the sentence (without the double negative construction) so it is clearer what it means?
NY Times readers will interpret the content as they believe you meant it to be expressed but it would be better for everyone of the sentence was written to eliminate the confusion.
1
A pathetic production of my fellow Frenchman BHL. A pinch of Rousseau Spinoza Hegel Descartes, and then a tepid commonplace flow of banalities, apparently from a gifted and pretentious high school pupil. In the meantime (since at least 150 years), scholars struggle and sweat to reach some actual knowledge, models confronted to hard facts, on what is a human being : social sciences, cognitive sciences, neurosciences... Not to mention the unique expressions of human nature conveyed through poetry (La Fontaine) and literature (Nabokov). Misère!
2
“Ultimately, I am sure of nothing. Philosophy is strictly concerned with the field of the possible, not the knowable, so I can only wager on what may be.”
The reason this piece is so unsatisfactory is that Levy misunderstands philosophy. Modern philosophy, starting with Descartes, is concerned first and foremost with what we can know with certainty. Descartes held that it was his thoughts. Existentialists, later criticized this and held that what is most indubitable is our existence and experience of life, not our thoughts. This is true. Levy is an existentialist but not a very good one. In this piece Levy talks about birth and death as if they were unproblematic. In fact two things we will never experience are our birth and our death. Somebody had to tell us we were born. And we will experience life up to the very instant of our death but not death itself. So although death is the one thing we fear more than any other, it is the one thing we will never experience.
4
Thank you for introducing me to the photographer, Christopher Lee, with his fine photos strategically placed to highlight points being made in the column. Sensitive and evocative.
A lot of philosophers cited, a bunch of gallic paradoxes, some politically correct and trendy notions and a whiff of religion do not add up to an interesting idea or constructive thinking. Humans are thinking apes, and it would have been better (though harder work) to discuss recent exciting progress in physical anthropology.
5
A brilliant essay.
“To be human is to preserve, inside oneself, against all forms of social pressure, a place of intimacy and secrecy into which the greater whole cannot set foot. When this sanctuary collapses, machines, zombies and sleepwalkers are sure to follow.”
This is a clarion call for awareness of the dangers we face today, dangers that are far deeper than political. The “freedom” Levy talks about has little in common with the (childish) freedom many Americans tout and blather about. It is about how we forge our individual humanity in a society of interdependencies. The road he maps out is one where conventional notions and wisdoms are examined carefully, challenged, and discarded if necessary. Where on avoids the mobs one sees on social media and, to a lesser and more subtle extent, in the comments sections of NYT op-ed articles. The irony is that this is the most American of ideas, in the best possible sense, and one that most Americans can’t even grasp.
2
Thanks for a thoughtful post. Another article notes that we (humans) have genes from African, Neanderthal, and Denisovan ancestors. So we may have done what you mentioned, but we probably became something different, thanks to their influence.
This talk of negations to affirm our identity sounds vague for many posters here. Maybe restating it as “I am me because I am not X,” helps. As you suggest, with other hominids (or diverse people) about, we encounter what seems like us but is not the same, and a desire to answer, “If not that, what am I?”
The author made X God, a nature among natures, society, etc., without reckoning with the typical dialectical challenge we usually face in writing: present a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In other words, “I am Godlike, a nature among natures, and one among many in society, but I am also me.” (Not just a negation but also a synthesis).
And as he suggests and could have alluded to Aristotle in doing so, “I am not done, I am a work in progress.” In other words, we are shaped by where we start, where we go, what/who we meet, and how we change.
What I like most from your post is the ethical imperative to use our power to address how we undermine the ecosystems we evolved within. But un-sustainability only looks new or uniquely human. Humans and other species have over-consumed to the point of collapse, sometimes persevering. With billions of us over-consuming, negating “suicidal” means acting like we learn; praxis on a large scale.
4
Thank you Earnest Becker.
These are philosophies of the lost...
Why negate our pure, fearful, splendid natural being?
We are born what we are, another homo sapiens, a product of millions of years of evolutionary experiment.
We deny our animal self and separate ourselves from our brother creatures out of fear- a desperate fear of death, of our ultimate resignation to oblivion.
It is poetically tragic, as Yeats so fluently wrote, each human life, and every day more so, as we know more.
We carry our own urns, filled with the waters of life's experiences, only to feel them break apart at last.
There is nothing new in this awareness with which we compromise ourselves to deny every day.
"If no man, of aught that he leaves knows, what is it to leave betimes?"
Shakespeare knew it 500 years ago.
We are still digging in the wrong hole...
Headed in the wrong direction...
Humanity requires a reorientation, back to the acceptance of our animal selves and the profound resulting refocus.
1
Levy speaks of the soul that all humans have which he terms as "immaterial, without expanse or density" yet for it to exist at all it must have some form of energy like everything else in the Universe. Then Levy says "Death will have the final say", which is obvious to all but does that apply to the soul as well? Levy is silent on this point.
When it comes to energy, any and all forms of it, thermodynamics tells us that it can neither be created or destroyed but only changed in form. Does that apply to the energy of our soul as well? Why not? If so, then that argues that the essential part of each of us continues on in some form.
Now, that's not an unhappy thought is it?
3
1) "Ultimately, I am sure of nothing." Obviously.
2) "Philosophy is strictly concerned with the field of the possible, not the knowable...". Taking the easy way out.
2
@Total Socialist
If the first statement is "obvious," and one can know nothing for certain, the second would seem logical.
1
The author is brilliant but one quibble dear Lévi--a-theists are not anti-theists. The only time I think about religion is when someone tries to discuss religion. I wouldn't give two thoughts about if I was left to my own thoughts.
15
Sounds like a lot of superficial blather to me. I'm disappointed in Levy.
6
I’d have been disappointed if I expected anything else from BHL. As it stands, this is only one more in a long line of superficial ramblings.
1
"We are not born human" leads to separating the worthy humans from unworthy humans. Not something to promote or suggest. Leads to many premature deaths.
4
@Ineffable
That BHLs statement leads to yours is entirely your own construction - but does not have any inevitable logic.
I can agree with the author, but I found his essay more than a little bit dull.
Whenever I read translations of French philosophic works, I get uptight because too much is too vague, ambiguous and muddled. I am able to read and thrive with some stuff, but they are the rare gems. Perhaps I need to learn French.
Are translations of French philosophical works often graceless, awkward essays that leave you empty. I'd like to hear from other anglophones.
4
@David Gottfried
The problem is the shape of language shapes the shape of thought.
Having existed equally between two cultures and lived in multiple societies I realized this in myself. My English speaking self thinks different from my non-English speaking self.
5
@CitizenTM
I believe that my Hebrew speaking self thinks very differently from my English speaking self because the languages are so different (Semetic vs a combination of Romantic and Germanic with a toss salad of other words thrown in).
1
As I read this essay, I kept thinking of the warden’s staccato delivered words as he whips the prisoner Luke, played by Paul Newman, in the movie “Cool Hand Luke”...“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
Paradoxically, this theory-laden writing reads more like poetry than philosophy.
If you give a poem to a class of 30, you will get 30 different perspectives. If you ask a class of 30, “What does it mean to be human?”...you will get 30 different perspectives. And all would be equally meaningful. That is what it means to be human.
This is the kind of philosophical writing that turns people off to philosophy, that “dear delight” and “joyful wisdom.”
I’ve carefully read and studied philosophers for 40 years. Will Durant’s “The Story of Philosophy” is the # 1 book that explains in an easy read some of the major philosophers in a remarkably concise, clear and witty fashion. He humanizes the philosophers and ends each chapter with brilliant criticisms and questions, which is the true art of the philosophical spirit and thinking.
Durant introduces Schopenhauer’s philosophy with my major criticism of philosophers:
“Here is no Chinese puzzle of
Kantian terminology, no Hegelian obfuscation, no Spinozist geometry ; everything is clarity and order...
his predecessors are abstract to the point of
invisibility, with theories that give out few windows of illustration upon the actual world…
After Kant, humor in philosophy was a startling innovation.”
Full text online.
7
I don't know anyone reads or listens to this pompous, flowery character. By his definitions, I've known dogs and cats who were human- certainly primates fit. Dolphins, whales, elephants, chimps, etc. think. Most of them are also social animals. Whether they have secret places where no other being sets foot- I wouldn't know, they are secret (and we have limited access to their communications).
I guess I am not human because I never negated god. I never believed in it (don't remember if I ever believed in Santa and then negated him) nor gave it any thought, but I negated it as much as I negated unicorns.
Finally, Levy says "In the beginning there was God." Maybe, but how would he know. I think in the beginning there were the human beings who thought him up as a way of handled the unknown and the scary.
11
@Peter Wolf
Levy doesn't say he knows this. In fact he specifically says philosophy only concerns itself with the possible not the knowable. He says it as that all human societies and cultures had some kind of creation myth, beaning for humanity at the beginning there was God. It does not mean there was God before humans.
1
Humans are your basic animal but with an over-developed knot of neurons in our noggins. For some reason we think that makes us special relative to other life but there is no objective reason to support that assumption. The ancient Greeks always said that hubris will the downfall of man. We would be wise to remember that.
15
I used to think that man had no purpose or morality without God. In my search I found that man only has purpose and morality without God. All that is needed for purpose and morality is healthy relationships with others grounded in love. A relationship with God only gets in the way of our humanism.
9
If we become human then I would suggest that there are a lot of individuals who have been left behind - or - better did not know how to become.
This explains our past century of suffering, in-humanity and totalitarianist expericences
4
Sigh.
M. Lévy follows the well-worn path of modern-day French philosophes in writing obscurely about the ineffable--and that's not a very good invitation to the philosophic pursuit.
Contemporary cultures NEED members who are drawn to philo-soph-izing, but in my experience they don't respond very passionately to this kind of invitation.
Our global difficulty is that we have outgrown the polis, the village, the neighborhood--and while our individual selves are freer and less encumbered, we also lose the original birthing, the small-town upbringing, and the natural philosophizing that comes with life in smaller scale.
Back in the polis and our hick towns, we could bump into sophists and real philosophers, to explore what "justice" means and consider whether rhetorical skill has social or just personal value. When we're born again, and arrive in the big city with our hopes, a few bucks, and a single valise, it's of marginal value to be told that "determination is negation."
8
BHL produces yet another piece of self satisfying display of "I can't believe I am so good at juggling philosophical thoughts around". He belongs to this category of amuseurs mondains,social butterflies who live to dazzle their benevolent patrons with their bons mots in exchange for an invitation to dine.
Unfortunately he does not offer any new idea about our condition;quite to the contrary ,he regresses to the point of picking a fight with jean Jacques Rousseau,who probably felt delighted to be remembered at all.To be human seems well beyond his grasp and he is content to make a claim that we are not human at birth....when it is probably at birth that we are closer to being perfectly human ,embraced and elevated by the Love from parents and family,embodying Hope that we shall be there to meet the challenges of the Future.
11
As we consider ourselves we do so out of context. Yes, we are unique amongst the other animals living today, but for most of our existence on earth we lived and competed with a host of other hominins, most recently the Neanderthals. To know and behold those groups would undoubtedly affect our perspective of ourselves. And we ought not necessarily deny to those homonins their own spiritual yearnings, since we know nothing of them. Of course, we accelerated their demise through competition, warfare -- and probably by hunting and eating them.
And as for man's unknowable future, if it extends for the thousands or millions of years that it might (if we are lucky), that, too will alter our perspective -- and I am suspecting pessimistically that from that future we will see our current selves as a dangerous mess. Aspiring spirits are we? Or nature gone amok, our species a destructive cancer among the others.
Yes we must strive -- strive to limit our impact, strive to control our numbers, strive to respect the natural world, strive to realize that our hubris will destroy us unless we act rationally now. Remember that nature was doing just fine before the human animal came to be its destroyer -- not its savior.
2
@Mosttoothless, Thanks for your thoughtful post. Another article notes that we have genes from African, Neanderthal, and Denisovan ancestors. So our ancestors likely fought, also interbred, and here we are.
This talk of negations to affirm our identity sounds vague for many other posters. Maybe restating it as “I am me because I am not X,” helps. As you suggest, with other hominids (or diverse people) about, we encounter what seems like us but is not the same, and a desire to answer, “If not that, what am I?”
Lévy made X God, a nature among natures, society, etc., without reckoning with the typical dialectical challenge we usually face in writing: present a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In other words, “I am (somewhat) Godlike, a nature among natures, and one among many in society, but I am also me.” (Not just a negation but also a synthesis).
And as he suggests and could have alluded to Aristotle in doing so, “I am not done, I am a work in progress.” In other words, we are shaped by where we start, where we go, what/who we meet, and how we change.
What I like most about your post is the ethical imperative to use our power to address how we undermine the ecosystems we evolved within. But un-sustainability only looks new or uniquely human. Humans and other species have over-consumed to the point of collapse, sometimes persevering. With billions of us over-consuming, negating “suicidal” means acting like we learn; praxis on a large scale.
1
Spinoza, of course, was echoing the old Greek distinction between anyer and anthropon--our animal self and that of a thinking adult. His contribution was to bring the contrast into the discursive boundaries of his own age. This was the beginning of the Free Will vs Determinism debate that's still with us ...
Spinoza wrote that out potential (potens/potestas) as humans can carry us beyond our animal nature. This was given as our ability to reason.
What's therefore interesting is how he developed this concept within a determinist framework: given that humans are born strivers (conatus), philosophy as such is the striving for reason that negates our animal nature. It's determined in the sense that its within our capacity to do so.
Now this is probably over the head of our French playboy. Moreover, Spinoza would be aghast at his placing negation within any particular 'judeo-christian context. Rather, all h sapiens are born Desiring Machines; while the while few transcend ourselves with the negative properties of thought, the rest get tattoos and vote for Trump.
2
I dislike the term "Judeo-Christian", which implies those two traditions are basically the same. I believe the Christian tradition is substantially different and owes as much to the Greek as to the Hebraic tradition.
6
@Thomas King
Not only as much Greek roots as Jewish roots, but actually more.
I take the term Judeo-Christian to be the equivalent of psychobabble; the faiths and philosophies have little in common. Aside from Christianity borrowing the Jewish texts (and conveniently ignoring or overwriting them when it suited them), their underlying philosophies are very different. Christianity is fundamentally about belief and Judaism is fundamentally about actions taken.
1
@Thomas King
The term refers to nothing more than the shared textual referencing of the Old Testament.
The Greek portion of Christianity comes with the New Testament --exclusively Christian and written in Koine-Greek.
Christian doctrine has likewise been called, "Platonism for the philosophically unread"...
1
@Thomas King
While Judeo-Christian may inform some form of “recent” history, it doesn’t define the human condition, the history of “free will”, intellectual mankind or intelligent life on earth.
This is Nelson R. By the way. Also from New City.
Finally, a French philosopher!
As Albert Camus quite aptly noted, all 'logic' is essentially absurd. Consequently, it is Nietzschean Epistemology which is the closest to embodying the 'secular humanism' that so many people champion today.
All who have spent the time to see the truth inevitably recognize that no one truth exists.
4
Mr Levy misreads Spinoza and Hegel. “Determination is negation” means for them that to be fully human we must choose among many possibilities as we grow, and every time we choose one we are saying no to many others. As we grow and develop, the set of possibilities denied grows. That is the pathos of human life.
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@Eduardo OCHOA
Yes, it’s possible to say “yes” to all possibilities but you cannot take all the paths at once. All life’s possibilities must be answered by the path taken.
I still think Carl Sagan put it best. Humans are the universe contemplating itself.
11
Levy's mention of the "third birth" is most interesting to me. Humans are perhaps unique in living in complex societies, mediated by language and developing their own, learned cultures. However, while culture helps individuals to survive and find self-fulfillment, it is clear from many real-world examples that culture is often destructive of individual human beings and society as a whole. All the bullying on social media is a very mild example of this kind of weaponized cruelty.
The Confucian concept of humanity, which is still highly influential in East Asia, sees no contradiction between the good man and the cultured man. In other words, the more culture, the better. The Confucian vision with an intense nostalgia longs for past times in which there was no alienation between individual, society and nature, when society embodied "The Good, the True and the Beautiful," as Japanese propagandists in World War II described their emperor-centered state. The possibility of a toxic culture is not acknowledged.
It is the distinct genius of the West that in recognizing the importance of the individual, it makes possible the "third birth": a sphere of intimacy and personhood that is not (or not necessarily) corrupted by toxic culture. Thus, we must never surrender our Western values to some East Asian notion of harmony, technocracy or efficiency.
3
And what is the soul and the mind? Most religions 'we' attribute to Higher Authority(s) as Guidance and or invented/modified by humans. The former was not a consult to be true. There exist only one example of 'common' sense among all humans as a certainty throughout whether with from young children or into old age. Individually, we will fall asleep whether we want to or not--the common human condition. Waking up is but a belief as is this article's premise.
There's quite a bit for me to object to here (atheists are "Judeo-Christians"?, human beings are "endowed with a soul"?, Rene Descartes deserves to be considered a "lover of wisdom"? (:))) but it's more that I'd express the situation differently than that I vehemently disagree with Bernard-Henri.
Human beings are born ONLY human and things of nature - but it is our nature to be born much more as unformed potential and not only developed actuality, in comparison to other living things. To be human is to be fated to become MORE THAN human - perhaps much, much more - in short.
Certainly much, much more than a chimpanzee, which can become encultured with - or learn - the knowledge of how to use a twig to extract termites from a mound, or some similar acquired skill, is fated to become more than just a chimpanzee - for instance.
Bernard-Henri also rather overstates the necessity of significant self-overcoming or personal growth of individuals too - and the distance between those who have undergone significant growth and those who have not. Personally I'd hesitate to suggest that if one has not become a philosopher one is not human. Ahem.
Our common natural humanity is not all of us, but it remains ever a vital part of us. Even the likes of Socrates, Jesus, Siddhartha, Leonardo, Newton, Heidegger and Einstein were "one of us". Cheers.
4
https://twitter.com/jcohen570/status/1032378566351237139
Joshua Cohen @jcohen570
I will never get back the three minutes I wasted on reading this Bernard-Henri Lévy rumination.
2:26 PM - 22 Aug 2018
[ Agreed. ]
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@Nancy, me too. This kind of luscious word gush reminds me of the psuedo-intellectual conversations I had In my first year at university, when we were all fascinated by our own minds.
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@Nancy
We all know that twitter and Facebook are more interesting than Mr Levy’s essay. Who wants to spend time cinsidering their humanity when we all know we are human.
Yes! You have indeed lost your most precious time from twitter and Facebook. What a loss!
I find it is always worthwhile to reflect on what makes a human being human. And at this time in technological development, it is important to ask how we would know the difference between a human being and a machine that mimics human responses. Going one step further, how do I know, within my own self, that I am human and not a machine?
As I muddle along trying to work out an ever-improving personal philosophy, I find the experiential sense of my best understandings are conveyed in poetic feelings rather than logical understandings. For example, I tell people I live in two different worlds: one is the outer world, which is very disturbing, and one is the inner world, where I am the gardener. I take care to cultivate happiness where I can in that inner world. Or I say, count a blessing, get one free. Simple, but it seems to work. It took time to develope these ideas and incorporate them into a personal philosophy that gives me both comfort and structure as I navigate this crazy thing called life.
It is hard to imagine a machine that would have the existential basis, an authentic locus of perception similar to the one that I call me, to work out similar feelings and statements as a self-creative act based on the logic of a programming language. A mimic is not an independent reality. It depends on a model.
1
@Duane S.
You know you are human because you were born of woman not made by man. People make machines. People are born! Your humanity, however, is not as easily attained. You have to work to attain your humanity.
It would be better to talk of persons than humans because even human embryos are genetically human. Only persons are unambiguously what the author is talking about.
As for Descartes and machines, he said that only human persons had minds. Animals were like machines. animated beings without minds.
We know that animals are conscious; the issue in philosophy is whether they are self-conscious. Apes have shown self-conscious behaviour on the level of a two year-old human, but that's about it for non-humans.
Self-consciousness is the key to personhood.
2
@Ambrose
I believe that orcas are self conscious and wise. However, they are water creatures and don't have opposable thumbs to build entities so they have to rely on a sophisticated family structure and education of the young to maintain their cultures. And different groups of orcas have different cultures.
Too bad that climate change plus over-fishing is killing our local orca natives...
“For atheists (who, let’s not forget, are Judeo-Christians in their own way)...”.
I hate it when any writer — whether lauded philosopher or amateur hack — tosses off a nonsensical statement like that, with no explanation or defense.
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Indeed. In BHL’s view, all atheists are former (or never) believers in a Western god. What a load of nonsense.
"In the beginning there was God — the source of infinite action. In the Western tradition, man has no purpose without God."
Oh, excuse me, was I snoring?
You know, in Samuel Delany's 'Stars in my Pockets Like Grains of Sand', "Woman" is the honorific that all sentient beings aspire to.
5
"For Christians, man was created in God's image" (?)
But Prof. Levy, you must be aware that concept is from the Hebrew, i.e. Jewish, Scriptures.
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@LMBux
True, it's from Genesis but because Hebrew words have multiple meanings, Greek (the original language of Christian scripture) and English translation readers get stuck because they envision "image" as "appearance. "Image" has less to do with "look" than it does with "spirit."
1
Whether you believe in the Abrahamic creation story of Genesis or the evolutionary creation story, Mr. Levy puts his finger on how we become human. We all come into this world a blank slate. Through nurture we gain socialization. Socialization, however, is just the first step. To become human, each of us has to take our own life into our hands and make it into a life worth living. Otherwise, your life will become lost in the ever-changing opinions of society. You will become unknown to yourself and loose direction. Life will become a drag and you will be looking for outside excitement to keep you from thinking about your empty life.
To be human means transcending the quotidian.
6
The philosophic school that called itself the "Firesign Theater", and which arguably rivaled Plato's Academy, put it best long ago: something to the effect that "we are all bozos on this bus" we call human life. The question we must wrestle with throughout our individual existence is how big a fool we make making of ourselves before we get off that bus.
As for our collective selves, until yesterday I would have said we Americans were making a pretty damn big one.
5
@Jamie Nichols
Betty Jo Bialosky or Nancy Farber or Audrey Farber? How that question tickled our funny bodes so many years ago in candle lid rooms occupied by people who actually thought we didn't have to be so greedy and war loving to be real Americans.
People who actually thought we could make a difference by being different - less concerned with the small stuff - less concerned with winning - less serious about mores, more concerned with the the golden rule, fairness, brother/sisterhood, sharing, equality, righting wrongs, compassion, inner beauty, real art.
While it existed it was a beautiful moment in time - at least philosophically - conceptually.
But it lasted a brief moment - we soon became our parents - we had to - the war ended - jobs started - families started - the system forced it.
And we forgot who we were - forgot it way too much.
We became A 1000 Clowns heading to work - we had to - the establishment and our obligations stronger than our peace and love.
Our hopes and energy - now only ashes shattered into the vacuum by the winds of fearful selfishness and conformity.
Worse some of our votes that proudly went to McGovern go perhaps to an antithesis like a Trump.
Sad - really sad.
1
@Jamie Nichols
Nancy.
On my reading most of this is either pure nonsense or purely trite. "Determination is negation." Wow, when we change something is left behind. "Determination is also a negation of nature." Wow, humans understand nature and know that they are understanding nature. "Ultimately I am sure of nothing." Really? Philosophy is strictly concerned with the field of the possible, not the knowable..." I wonder, does B-H-L know that? But there's something here worth thinking about, not that it's original, it's worth the reminder. People should be conscious of the need to decide then remain who they are, not allowing others to define them, to avoid what Sartre called, "bad faith." I wish B-H-L hadn't buried this reminder under so much else.
11
Bernie, you apparently are a "philosopher."
Perhaps your horizons and understanding of the human condition and humanity could be expanded were your thinking not so entirely based on Judeo Christian and western principles.
Nothing wrong with that I suppose. But when I think of "philosophizing," I think of people intent on improving understanding. How you feel that occurs in an entirely western context, mystifies me. Any thoughts?
Surely there will be rancor from those arguing: "stop this business of endless 'political correctness.'" I would argue this has nothing to do with "political correctness," but everything to do with using the wisdom humans and civilizations already have and have accumulated over the millennia, to further improve their understanding. And that, dear Bernie, is my "'determination of negation'" with regard to you.
6
@AJ, I agree that this is a man writing solely from the perspective of his own experience, culture and faith. There is nothing wrong with that, per se. It’s when he expands his worldview to envelope and define all other humans (“man,” which is another thing that gets my hackles up) that I start to say, “Now wait a gol’ darned minute there...”.
Sorry, but this is pretend philosophy, pretend humanism. I love these columns, but this is only empty.
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No, Nancy, this isn’t pretend; it’s unfortunately the top tier of the pro version. It just looks like fluff. This is a gig where the Emperor’s New Clothes are subject to discussion.
I agree that we are not born human but have to become human, however this implies that we both choose and learn how to become human. And how much we learn how to be human depends on how human we choose to be. In other words, 'humanness' is found along a continuum. Given the range of behaviors we've seen throughout history by human beings, a continuum makes sense.
But I'd like to take a closer look at Mr. Levy's concept of a 'second birth' that comes out of the 'confidence that a piece of oneself can escape from the natural order of the world'. I think what he is talking about here is the power of the mind to imagine being outside of nature, however being outside nature is not the same thing as existing outside nature. That we cannot do; we are inextricably connected to nature and are bounded by its laws. Or, as Neil degrasse Tyson would say it, we're all space dust. I daresay that a belief that being human somehow means we can transcend nature is why we're in such a mess today, both with the world around us and each other.
Which brings me to the 'third birth', being part of a society. Human society has been ever-evolving, from simple hunter-gatherer groups to nations. We are on the cusp, I think, of evolving to a global society, which will require us to think forward, using our minds to imagine something new that can transcend the failures of the past. If we can do that, and do it within nature, then we have a good shot at finally being human.
3
@John D Free will is developed, like a skill. Nobody is born with it. Some never get it. And most must work long and hard to get a little.
I have been an atheist since childhood, which was a long long time ago. But, only last week I reread a dusty copy of this article, "Darwin's God," from the N.Y. Times of 2007, that gave me pause
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html
Whenever I talk about a very old person's good health, I must recite an imprecation such as "knock on wood" or "kenahora" which is addressed to someone or something that has the power to harm this person, unless I acknowledge reverence to him.
This brilliant article demonstrates how I don't really get to claim that I have transcended this supernatural belief, when I continue to show him respect.
Humans are defined by our culture and intellect, not our rationality- "which is only a weak force in the affairs of mankind (William James- 1898)
3
@Call Me Al, I disagree with the conclusion stated in your third paragraph — when applyied to anyone other than you. Saying “Knock wood” is akin to tossing spilled salt over your shoulder, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, or walking around a ladder rather than under it. They are all acts based in superstition — a persistent hope that we can affect the course of a random universe — but they are not necessarily rooted in a *belief* in a God or any Higher Power(s). Perhaps you do hold such a belief, deep down, and you were mistaken to think that you didn’t. But these habitual, ritual tributes to nothing in particular are not proof of belief in anything, for the greater population.
Does hope equal belief?
I am fascinated by charms, amulets and luck tokens, so I have a collection displayed around my home. I also have some religious icons. But I am no believer, even though I was raised in the Catholic Church. I like the concept of belief. I might even think, “Can’t hurt, might help,” when I put up an Evil Eye amulet. But I have no faith in anyone being in charge.
If we conclude that a human who devises behavioral rituals to guarantee good fortune, or deflect bad luck, is necessarily exhibiting belief in a higher being, then dogs must beleive in God. I’ve seen dogs who found an especially toy or food scrap in an odd place return to that spot again and again, day after day, hoping to replicate the experience. They don’t understand it, but they hope it might happen.
1
Thank you for publishing this thought provoking piece.
7
Dan Dennett said it more concisely in his book regarding free will: "Human freedom is younger than the species."
Our cumulative knowledge gradually led, over eons, to understand our own biases and weaknesses, thereby transcending our original state into an entirely new one as moral agents, achieving for the first time, free will.
@Gustav: we constantly invent new things to do.
"Nameless faceless mobs" … in other words us democratic majorities who may dare disagree with elites like Levy must be silenced or silence themselves in order to demonstrate our God like superiority to the common herd.
1
What the heck? As an atheist, part of my desire is to dethrone God? No! For me, there is no throne and there is no God. Nor is there any doubt about the absence of either.
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@Eric, atheists don't try to do anything to any God. If it really does exist, it can take care of itself.
Being human means you die when you can't laugh anymore.
9
Maybe with six decades behind me I’ve lost the taste for philosophy 101 discussions, but alli I could think of when reading this was forty years past discussions around a bong. Sorry.
25
Nancy, apt. Colorful images bubbling up in boo-addled minds do seem to be important at the time. Great truths about the human condition, the face of god, and the significance of twinkling Christmas tree lights. What we didn’t know was that, for a select few, a career could be made from publishing these things; and for a more select few, tenure and a pension.
1
Racking my head trying to figure out how atheists are Judeo-Christian.
29
@Suzanne
Because atheists appropriate for themselves the powers that were invested in the Judeo-Christian idea of a god. Modern atheists do not reference polytheistic or animist traditions.
1
@Barbara
Atheists (at least the ones I know) do not "appropriate for themselves the powers that were invested in the ... idea of a god." For them such a power does not exist. That's the point.
And why would atheists reference polytheism -- replacing monotheism with even more gods?
None of this makes sense.
@Barbara
I am not sure how saying that gods are non-existent is in any way appropriating their (non-existent) powers. I do not know any of them who would claim to turn water into wine - more's the pity. Even rather shrill anti-Christian atheists like Dawkins clearly reference polytheism and animism.
Sorry, Bernard-Henri, but I think you are wrong.
Humans are born human, and humanity is simply being aware that all life is precious, related, and necessary.
No gods or deities needed, unless that helps your own personal understanding or appreciation of your place in existence.
14
I think being born does not necessarily imbue you with a soul. The soul is gifted to most of us by nurture. Those who come into the world without nurture or without our spark being extinguished by ill treatment or total lack of stimulation, are often little more than organisms which fail to thrive and often cease to exist as a part of larger society.
1
@Jill Chambers - well, some belief systems say that there's a soul from birth that is experiencing the journey of being human. Whether they are aware of it or not every human is going through a process that the soul is meant to experience and learn from and carry into other realms.
@Jill Chambers, one is lucky to grow up in a context that nurtures emerging talents.
@RB, "is meant to" simply does not apply to natural selection. Survival is the only test that matters when mutations occur.
This is more poetry than philosophy.
3
@Den Barn
My conclusion exactly.
1
Good stuff! Thank you, Mr. Lévy.
1
Can you imagine two robots having a discussion about their creators believing in a bigger Creator. They could comprehend the logic of their creators, they can actually see them, but the creators' invisible Creator? Based on nothing but blind faith? That'd be a hard nut to crack. It'd have to be a deeper part of their firmware; forever unmodified and unchallengeable. Much like many people now, I guess.
4
@James Devlin, I think they might be most puzzled about the human interest in sex.
1
Actually I can. If a human brain is reducible to a set of neural states (it is computers just aren't big enough, yet) then you could in fact have a robot that contemplates the meaning of existence, like you OR has a preternatural love of peanut butter, like me. The only difference is that while you are made of proteins and flesh that took millions of years to evolve while said robot would be made of metals and silicone and took all of some decades to evolve. Me and my robot doppelgänger would both really enjoy cat videos and silly emojis even though one of us is organic neither of our thoughts or feelings is any more "real" than the other. ofcourse we're not there yet but we must start thinking about what'll happen WHEN we do.
@James Devlin
If you haven't already, read some of the imaginings of Isaac Asimov, especially "I Robot." He postulates some answers to your fundamental questions.
1
What does it mean to be human? ...this question can be boiled down to ...“Determination is negation.”
It's more like classification.
'Human' names a biological species--aka homo sapiens--and its characteristics--now defined by DNA--identifying the species, individual human beings (in-divisibles), organs, tissue, skeletons and genomes.
'Human being' is a classification word; including, fetuses, infants, teenagers, adults, the virtuous and vicious, ordered and disordered, wannabee rational and has-been rational.
Human beings are not the same a persons--beings with personalities--integrated systems of psychic functioning, cognition, motivation, emotion--maturing to include consciousness, self-consciousness, other-consciousness, self-criticism and self-control--summed up as autonomy.
Personality goes beyond humanness, applying to gods, ET's and Disney persons.
Killing applies to all life forms from bacteria to persons. Murder should be restricted to persons.
The history of the definition of 'human' was confused with the search for a difference in kind vs a matter of degree. Language, reasoning (inferring), choosing/preferring, consciousness, self-consciousness are not it. Self-criticism comes close. But the more intelligent animals know when they've been bad.
Politicality presumes it. But the social insects make that too a matter of degree.
Uniqueness is certainly not a matter of soul (on a par with divine right of kings)--nor intra-species killing.
1
@Michael Kubara
PS-- We ARE born human--unless there can be crossbreds like mules. But we are NOT born persons.
Some (genetically defective) humans will never be persons. Others (severe dementia) will lose personhood.
@Michael Kubara Question: Is a week-old fetus a human being by virtue of having dna resembling adult humans? Wouldn't that make a drop of blood that I leave on the sink after shaving a "human being". Do I murder a human being when I turn on the faucet?
After reading this piece, I have a new notion of what it means to be human. To be human is to ask a whole lot of irrelevant questions: Does God exist? Do I have a soul? How am I different from machines or other animals?
To be human means to assume: It is important and interesting to know if God exists. A soul is essential to have. It is important that I be different than machines or animals.
Our imaginations allow us to ask more questions than we can ever answer; to assume a question is important just because we can ask it; to assume we are, in some arguable way, special.
Meanwhile, our crowning intellectual achievement--the scientific method--continues to inform us that we are just one of nature's countless variations; unique, to be sure, but not special outside of our own egos.
I kinda like that.
14
@hammond: Our souls are not conferred by any deity. We develop them ourselves from our experience of living. They are our software operating systems.
Uncertainty is the grist for Marketing god and religion. A jackpot.
I cry for the death of trees that this essay has caused.
6
@justice
Having read it online, none suffered for my experience.
The linear and binary nature of the choice with which BHL condemns us is no choice at all. We always move "forward" with guidance--language, society, philosophy, history--from the past. The old ways help the new ways come. To absolutize the past is indeed terror and foolishness. But to absolutize the future, the unknown, the uncertain is also terror and foolishness. We move in many directions at once. We need balance--and a balance of powers. We need a middle world to live out human lives, of freedom and of constraint.
1
Bernard-Henry Lévy is right when he says that Hegel represents God as “infinite action” (infinite subjectivity). Since, in the person of this conception of God, the subject swallows up all Being, it is only natural that man assume the place of God as “infinite negation” (infinite subjectivity) since there can only be one subject, Descartes’ cogito, the autocrat and dictator of its perceptions. Nature is subjugated to man as infinite negation (Spinoza’s “natura naturans”) in the modern historical era of infinite subjectivity, but in the impoverished conception of being that results “man” himself—the erstwhile subject—becomes just one resource to be exploited in a global network of production and supply chains which is neither subjective or objective. Heidegger called it the “enframing.” According to Heidegger, only “ a god” can save us. This god, most real in its absence, is no object of nostalgia. It is our “ownmost possibility,” achievable only in our mortality.
1
So far, no programmer knows where to begin to confer a human-like emotion set to a machine to motivate it to think on its own.
Maybe the task is to remember who we really are before we are "humanized" by parents, friends, society and nature and worst of all the chains, by our name. The always present Self that is aware but not participatory. From this place, a being has the freedom to live beyond the label or self concept of "human" and be available for the present moment that flows out of the void and into love. We are definitely not responsible for our own creation and neither are we responsible for the moment in which we live but we do have an obligation to know who we are so we can be of service.
2
My mother, who loved, but not always liked, her own children, but especially didn't care for other people's children much, had this to say before my eldest was born: "Children are born, or given to you by God, as wild animals. Left to their own devices, they would remain wild animals. It is the parent's most important job to turn that cute, wild animal, as gently, but still firmly, as possible into a human being." We, her 4 children, are widely divergent individuals, but with manners and concern for others that would make royalty proud. Philosphers could do worse, Go Mom!
10
Defining consciousness as a human trait only maintains the idea of all creatures striving to evolve to be humans, who are at the top of the heap as they were thought to be made in the likeness of a god. Categories and hierarchies are useful only for some initial understanding. But when a philosophy is built on this definition of humanness, it will miss the lack of firm genetic boundaries anywhere, and the exciting implications of what being human could be.
I believe we're born human, with some factory installed cognitive "software", but I think what makes us uniquely human, is being raised in an environment that cultivates empathy, creativity, compassion and intelligence.
1
Teilhard deChardin:
"It is a curious thing. Man/humanity, the centre and creator of all science, is the only object which our science has not yet succeeded in including in a homogenous representation of the universe. We know the history of his bones: but no ordered place has yet been found for humanity's reflective intelligence. In the midst of a cosmos in which primacy is still accorded to mechanisms and chance, thought - the redoubtable phenomenon which has revolutionized the earth and is commensurate with the world - stills appears as an inexplicable anomaly. Humanity, in that part which is most human, is still, as an achievement, a monstrous stumbling-block...Humanity appears to be an exception, why not make it the key to the universe?" CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTION
With the existentialists in believing that we are a species in the act of becoming. Humanity as a "key to the universe" may be an indicator of the destiny of the whole cosmos - constantly in the act or phase of becoming, which becoming has a culmination, an "Omega," as Teilhard phrases it, the recognition of the Divine Indwelling of all creation.
1
The deepest essence of being human is the combination of the necessity of choice and the awareness of death. Since our lives are finite, our choices matter. We cannot, in other words, do everything. We can only live one out of a practically infinite number of possible lives. Most of what happens to us is governed by chance, but in the face of chance it is choice that actualizes our single chosen life path.
1
What is it to be human?
It's instructive to compare humanity to Darwin's finches. The finches have no consciousness, move by instinct, and are perpetually behind the curve when it comes to changes in the environment; they have survived the environment changes they have experienced so far simply because of having enough genetic variation to meet the changes. We can imagine an environment change so drastic that it surpasses their capacity to genetically be equal to it.
Now humans have consciousness (and of course powerful brains) which makes them both more alert to environment changes and able to recognize more accurately the most outstanding examples of their own species, those examples with outstanding abilities, health and reproductive fitness. We can easily imagine humans being much less behind the environment change curve than Darwin's finches, able to read changes and promote the best of their species to survive environment change.
Unfortunately this same consciousness of humans makes them aware of their own deaths and incredibly envious, jealous, indeed desperate for self-preservation. So much so that rather than expecting themselves to change to be ahead of environmental changes they decide to change the environment to suit themselves, dreaming of religious and political utopias where all are equal and happy in a world of no drastic environment change.
True progressivism is to genetically change ahead of environment change curve. Conservatism is all the rest.
3
What an absurd piece.
The fetus DNA is human, and is born with the DNA of a human, then it is a human.
What you might be alluding to is 'humanity', like values and such. Those are learned as you grow.
But bottom line, even you were born human.
7
@Shark, we are born mammalian. Our species is Homo sapiens — kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Primate, and so on. The common name for us for is “human.” But there is a difference between the human animal and what we consider Humanity.
2
@Passion for Peaches:
Unless I've misunderstood his or her, that is precisely Shark's point.
@Jamie Nichols, and it is Mr. Levy’s point, I believe. But even small-h “human” is a human concept. We are mammals, no more. We become human when we attain self awareness and can name ourselves. But I believe we aren’t the only mammals who can do that.
What is called here becoming human, Keats in a letter to his brother named the "vale of soul-making." The response to grief and to trouble, the choice of the higher over the lower. The self-creation of one's soul, so to speak. Or conversely, if we look at Milton's Lucifer, there is also the self-destruction of one's soul though choices that lead one lower and lower. "Myself am hell. Where ere I go is hell."
3
"I see nobody on the road," said Alice.
"I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see Real People, by this light!".
The Unicorn turns his eye on Alice and stands for some time looking at her - "What is this?" he says at long last. "This is a child!" replied the Messenger "We only found it to-today. It's as large as life and twice as natural!". The Unicorn looks dreamily at Alice, and said "Talk, child".
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: "Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too". I never saw one alive before!"
"Well, now that we have seen each other, if you believe in me, I'll believe in you", and the Unicorn sends the Messenger off to fetch plum cake.
Lewis Carroll was human; he was a fine mathematician who poked fun at the absurdities of his colleagues, but what he would have thought of humanity today, well, I would not be in a logical frame of mind to unravel this mystery of Big Ideas.
17
Yup, in the current looking-glass world, Carroll would make a great late-night star. So would HL Mencken, and especially George Carlin. Perhaps they might be emulated in software. We also ought to work on a scanner that can, at a modest distance, discriminate between human and Human, at least in the terms we care about.
Don’t forget, though, that society used to put the dividing line at race, gender, religion, and net worth. As the Great Non-Human puts it, sad.
2
A beautiful and profound essay. To be human is to have the ability to choose that animals don’t have. To be human is to act against the constraints of natural selection. To be human is to be able to say “no” even when self-interest prompts us to say ‘yes”. Humanity is defined by what Edgar Allen Poe called “the imp of the perverse”, which is challenging necessity by willful action. Art, science, and philosophy are not necessary for survival but they are what makes us human. We are human only insofar as we are free.
7
Bernard-Henri Lévy never got past God Derangement Syndrome, in spite of his intelligence.
We are born human, just as cows are born cows, and giraffes are born giraffes.
Bernard-Henri Lévy gets hung up on the old human conceit of manmade religion; like many others, he was hit over the head with a religious textbook when he was young and he just can't get over it; he can't see the forest from the trees because of this.
Like Mariane Pearl - wife of the murdered Daniel Pearl, said of Lévy, he's "a man whose intelligence is destroyed by his own ego."
Most commonly, to be human is really to be conceited....to think that one matters much more than one actually does...or that one matters more than a cow or a giraffe.....that's why organized religion and the 'God' delusion are so popular.....people generally just can't grasp their own meaninglessness with some healthy humility.
We are born human....with human conceit that generally poisons our ability for unbridled joie de vivre.
You would think a Frenchman would know better.
103
@Socrates
Mr. Levy makes atheists seems awfully grandiose. We're all judeo-christians in our own way (because there are no atheists in India as we all know) on a mission to dethrone and supplant God. Wow! Someone write a book about that, then get HBO to make it into a series with gratuitous nudity.
Joking aside, atheism is only the rejection of the proposition that a god exists. I am an atheist and I'm not on a mission to dethrone god because I don't think there is a throne.
17
@Socrates, the notion that order is created from top down runs counter to the direction of nature itself.
2
Very well said, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from Socrates. It’s wonderful the hemlock didn’t kill you.
1
I was. I was born a human. I didn't think myself into existence. For my remaing days here in this earthly realm I'd rather hang out with J. Ortega y Gasset: "I live, therefore I think ... I am myself and my circumstances ... my life is a task." (Vitalism/Vital Reason, his philosophy.) I'm vital, vital Nature surrounds me, surrounds all of us. We have tasks; we have imperative, positive work to do improving ourselves and Earth.
4
Too much convoluted academic musing for me. The way I have come to see it, no living thing, now or ever, made the choice to be born. We just are. Whatever comes after is the product of the circumstances and societal influences into which we happen.
"How will we be able to tell a real human from a synthetic one?" Simple. Real humans are capable of guilt, remorse, conflict, sympathy, responsibility, and love. In other words, a soul or the product of a synthetic interpretation of life's meaning imposed by organized religion. No machine would accept such fantasies without no verifiable basis in fact or spontaneously feel emotion.
15
@Randomonium
How can I be sure that a human is not feigning these emotions? How can I be sure that a machine has not been programmed to feign them equally effectively? The Turing test has not been invalidated, just raised to ever higher levels.
I admire BHL's tropes and concepts, and his useful cultural-intellectual references, but like so many humanists uninformed by practical matters/realpolitik/deep science/engineering, I am am taken by glibness without empiricism. Perhaps he could read Carl Sagan with benefit to avoid his deep-seated luddite nature. When I was an undergraduate reading Englist Lit, I read philosphophers as a form of prose poetry. That still works for me.
5
And what if negation were not rejection and exclusion, but affirmation and inclusion? What if being human were a withness among others that required overcoming selfishness, tribalism, and polarization? What if being human were being animal, in ways yet to be discovered? Were being social, in ethical and political ways yet to come? Where transcendence transcended violence and cruelty? In the name of goodness, beauty, and truth?
What kind of human would that be?
3
@Stephen the same kind of human that every totalitarian society has tried to cultivate: selfless, obedient and conformist, renouncing personal freedom and choice in the name of “common good”. All such utopian schemes have come to nought because we are not animals to be passively herded into goodness by some self-appointed shepherd. Lowry’s novel “The Giver” is a pretty good depiction of the society you have in mind; and it is horrifying. I would take freedom and personal autonomy over the slavish idyll of “affirmation and inclusion”. And if it comes with cruelty and strife, so be it.
@Stephen I think these things every single day. Glad to know there are others. Atheism isn't rejection of a Judeo-Christian God. It's the knowledge that God is man-made. Judeo-Christian? How very egocentric.
1
@Stephen, the religious ideal called "umma" or "zion" is a place of harmonious coexistence of diversity. We are said to be in a state of disharmony because we don't all share the same language.
most of the people on earth are not judeo-christian, so i stopped reading at the paragraph that said that atheists were another version of that.
31
@true patriot You shouldn't have. The point is important. To be an atheist is to reject theism as a falsehood. It would be strange to call a Confucian an "atheist." It would be strange to call most of the earth's non-theistic religions "atheist." Atheism is usually thought of as a-monotheism. It is a determinate negation that comes from specific cultures.
@Nathan
You don't really understand atheists in general if you think it is a matter of rejecting an established idea of a single god. I was told as a child starting school that I would meet other children, who believed in Santa Claus, or God, or the Easter Bunny, and that I shouldn't contradict them, because they have their own beliefs, but that we didn't believe in such things. It was never a rebellion against teachings, always an attempt at rationalism.
It has always been a source of happiness, pride and comfort to me.
@Nathan
Maybe you are confusing a-theist with anti-theist ?
To be human is to realize that you are a part of the entire cosmos and connected to everything and every life form you see and experience. The ego that make an 'I', the selfish self, is not the "I", the Self! The ignorance that makes you think so is the very thing one has to negate to realize the universal 'I'! The Ultimate Reality, whatever name you may call it, God, Brahman, YAHWEH, Allah, is an entity without gender, sensory perception, eternal, indivisible, but a witness principle which is Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent! By deferring to an entity somewhere up in the sky, which (or who) cannot be seen or heard, man will have the tendency to act in 'un-Godly' way and absolve himself, if caught, by just saying, "I am sorry", and repeat the same misdeeds over and over again! If one believes in God, the only difference between humans and the rest of the life forms is that thin sliver of our frontal cortex, which gives us the ability to discriminate between right and wrong, good and evil, truth or lies, etc., all of which are non-dual entities!
4
@Raghu Ballal We do not really know how other beings see (what we call) "cosmos"; whether they have and need a "God" or any other belief. In fact we really know very little about other beings at all, as we are slowly learning -- animals and plants that communicate, schools of fish that turn simultaneously, "on a dime" (a human "dime" that is ;-)) , generic material in one species (humans for instance) that are *not* from apes, but from other, until-now though unrelated, beings, and so on. About the only thing I agree with Rumsfeld about was his "we do not know what we do not know"...
@Raghu Ballal, it is a witness possibility, that occasionally evolves consciousness of itself.
1
@Raghu Ballal And actually, there is a lot of evidence indicating that non-human animals have their own moral code. https://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html
Shut up, Bernard, and atone for the blood of the thousands upon thousands of Libyans that died in the profoundly misguided intervention that you cheered on.
19
Okay.
As an atheist I was out of here at the first paragraph.
Spare me such dogmatic nonsense.
47
"Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them"
21
Self-serving and objectively untrue.
You are welcome to your thought processes; the French nation, if it so chooses, may even bestow the title of "philosopher" upon you.
Let's see if it's still there in 300 years.
A human child is human even if stillborn. A human child is human even if born with severe cerebral palsy, unable to articulate either a "Yes" or a "No."
A human child is human even if born mute, or with severe epilepsy.
A human child is human if the chromosomes in the living organism are human organisms -- exactly as the seed of a basil plant, or a hibiscus, or an oak tree, or a tomato, or a grape is already that variety of life, and not any other variety of life, before it feels the sun upon its stretching limbs.
The miracle of life is precisely in that familiar magic: so familiar, we don't even give it a second thought, until we grow wise enough to see our own life drawing to a close. We are what we are, we are who we are, long before we understand anything about ourselves or about other living forces.
And even when we understand none of it.
41
@Maria Ashot
An elephant is born an elephant, a blade of
grass a blade of grass. Our species is in the
ape family, evolved as we are. The word
"human" was invented to distinguish ourselves from, away from nature, and this
could be our downfall. "Human" is an imagined inflation we live by with gratitude
for this beautiful world beyond our machinations. I do understand you need for
distinction, but it is imagined.
5
@Poesy ...furthermore, the separation between the human animal and our descent from apes, new genetic (I think...not an expert) findings indicate that genes may travel between beings on different parts of the (until-now-believed) tree of the species. Shortly: under certain conditions, it seems genetic material can travel between for instance a plant and a fish, or between a human (ape) and for instance a tree.
So indeed, it seems we are all one after all ;-)
@Poesy
"Imagined" according to you -- not "imagined" according to me.
Nor am I alone. Read the late Tom Wolfe's last book, "The Kingdom of Speech."
Or read Rodney Merrill's verse translation of Homer's "Iliad" & "Odyssey". Feel the awe of understanding that nothing better than Homer has ever been written, or sung, and yet in every generation someone is born who can master not only Ancient Greek, and their own native language, but equally the art of poetry as well as the science of literary translation, in order to deliver new, precise, complete versions of Homer's original, authentic to the source, in a completely different language.
I am quite serious: read the Merrill translation, understanding that English has completely different cadences & syntax from classical Greek. Sink your teeth into that feat: it is a labor of Love. No one becomes a billionaire translating Homer!
People who use only a fraction of their own brain, who struggle to imagine that others are able to think differently from them, to see completely different capabilities in a human being than they recognize as possible: those people keep claiming there's nothing special about Homo sapiens sapiens: no soul; no craving to build libraries, museums, cathedrals; no yearning to track the path of comets.
Tell me, what do apes debate? How massive is the nomenclature they assign to what they see? What do apes translate?
What humans imagine humans very often generate as new creations. No one else does.
In logic, negation, also called the logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition to another proposition "not ", written, which is interpreted intuitively as being true when is false, and false when is true. Wikipedia
So we are human, but not born human?
How far can this line of thinking plausible go?
In todays collapsing modern world, one can see its dutiful end in the latest Mad Max Movie where one of the main characters, a 'noble savage of Rousseau's world,' recounts the world as it was told to him...with the line..."I live, I die, then I live again!" Then responsibly takes his 'war chariot car' on a suicide mission.
I think this sums up the limitations of Mr. Bernard-Henri Lévy
philosophy. But it is also symptomatic of what ails all modern philosophy in today's postmodern world - it no longer makes sense and offers little in the way of Enlightenment.
In our desire to grow into our humanity, our so-called intellectuals of modernity have become too clever by half - offering only cryptic truths, quixotic meanings and entertaining answers that have led us all down a path paved with our collective destruction.
Does that mean that philosophy in general no longer holds within it the ideas needed for our salvation? I would wager not.
It is not philosophy that is dead, it is our modern teachers who have turned into zombies.
6
@The Peasant Philosopher, we are born primed to absorb whatever culture we are born into.
Lévy says, "For atheists … man’s purpose is in part to topple God from his throne."
This statement, and others, reveals a fundamental error. Many atheists would disagree that this is humanity's "purpose". In fact, many (I, in particular) would deny that there is any purpose at all. Mr. Lévi is operating in an unnecessarily restricted philosophical realm. This narrow view of the possibilities is one reason I became disillusioned with this branch of philosophy as an undergraduate.
53
@Darth Vader yea that quote is non sequitur. Atheists can't be trying to do anything to God because they (we) have no reason to think a god or gods exist.
Atheists don't have a problem with gods because there aren't any. Atheists have a problem with people who assert without evidence that gods exist. There are plenty of those kinds of people.
4
@Darth Vader
The very notion that atheists want to topple
God would mean that atheists believe in
a god to topple.
Anybody love the contradiction?
7
@Darth Vader Many atheists don't find the question of God's existence to be particularly interesting because it's not falsifiable. We see God as a human construct that deserves no more attention than Maxwell's Demons: Imaginary creatures that would give us boundless, infinite energy were they really to exist.
Somehow immortality and infinite bounty are enough to make many people spend their entire lives arguing for the existence of an agent capable of such providence.
Refreshing and sweet little article. I thank God- no pun intended, each moment that I know this consciousness- this wakingness and the separation that is the 'me' apart from the we. Somehow this has been preserved in me- at least in my view. Perhaps the trauma that I have survived gave me this gift. Which is an unexpected, ironic gift. But what I have to watch out for is not that I have this separateness, but that I have too much of it. So, thank you for a little essay on philosophy, NYT's!
> For atheists (who, let’s not forget, are Judeo-Christians in their own way)
Citation? In what way are atheists Judeo-Christian, in which they are not also Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Jainist, &c.?
68
@Nic Wolff BHL annoys the heck out of me with his posturing and empty concepts, but he's right about this. Atheism arose from white men who received western Christian educations. Our humanist attitudes and our focus on justice and empathy derive from the teachings of Christ.
1
Recommended:
De l'inconvénient d'être né - The Trouble With Being Born
by Emil Cioran
As priest Matthew Fox once said, "Take care of this world and the next world will take care of itself." Since personal and social worlds are in constant dialog one might argue that freedom and humanity consist in expanding the possibilities for everyone, not simply fleeing social constraints because this is the best a beleaguered individual can do. In dialog with yourself, ask how your politics and your humanity intersect and what kind of philosophy you would vote for in the next election. Would you vote for "all the president's crooks" or someone else?
5
Bernie, what a mixed salad of ideological tidbits you’ve prepared for us! The Times, what big ideas you’re proposing to serve us! Nothing close to religious insight or philosophical rigor!
4
"We Are Not Born Human"
Err... yes, "we" (who are here, debating) are. Modern Biology has already proven that.
18
@VK
Does the word "human" mean the same thing as, say, "elephant." A form of animal? Or does it imply transcendence above all the animals of which we are one. "Human" is rhetoric. And adjective. "Elephant" is genus. Evolved "ape" is genus. To have made "human" into a noun is a perversion. Fun
though.
is genus.
Au contraire Monsieur Professeur. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
6
Humanity has to be more than just narcissistic projection of human nature onto the whole universe. We are born with senses and emotions because there is no motivation without them.
18
The eastern sages mystics had figured it all out - the cosmos, the universe, births and rebirths, Consciousness. Now western folks are trying hard to think about all those well discovered and well traveled paths, after thousands of years. Good luck, or better luck in your next life form!
3
@Petey Tonei and furthermore, on the separation between the human animal and other animals, new genetic (I think...not an expert) findings indicate that genetic material may under certain conditions travel between beings on different branches of the (until-now-believed-as-true) tree of the species. It seems genetic material can travel between for instance a plant and a fish, or between a human (ape) and a tree. It seems we are indeed One after all ;-)
@Petey Tonei, We only live once.
When we are born, we are not human as we think of human. An abused, neglected child may remain an animal if it is not fed, picked up and held, nurtured. We humans turn our animal babies into humans. Some of us do it better than others.
15
@Stephen Armiger, we start out both needy and wanting to be helpful.
@Stephen Armiger Say it a million times, but humans ARE animals. Pretending that we are not is ridiculous. There is absolutely nothing wrong with understanding and accepting your true nature as an animal.
2
Mr. Levy's western eurocentric thinking is limited in scope. His do-gooder perspective is limited to the masses while the philosophical descendants of Constantine spend $4 billion a "day" on weapons then create false narrative constructs that keep them in power.
Utopia
Greek
1. eutopos - the good place
2. utopos - the place that cannot be
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad!" ~Aldous Huxley
2
Nah, existence precedes essence.
5
Sorry, Mr. Levy, I am not a Jew, nor am I a Christian either. I may have retained some of that old stuff, just like I am a bit Cro-Magnon, and a bit Neanderthal, but that is about as far as it goes. Please do not try to impose upon us your religious memories, I am not interested.
48
As someone who has always had a high regard for every living thing and never, even as a young child, could solve the puzzles accepted as reality by the various fantasies of religions, the requirement demanded to separate one's self from nature only strikes me as a most peculiar delusion. The deep current and probably unsolvable problems that humanity has currently placed upon all living things on this insignificant crumb of matter we call this planet does not, in any way, compliment the human species. Human culture has a long track record of irascible conflict within humanity which has risen to suicidal levels currently so whatever transcendence that may be envisioned does not seem to me to be available, even as a distant goal.
19
I think that to become fully human one must look at the society one lives in and decide what to accept and what to reject. All of us get a "cultural download" during our childhood. Many, perhaps most, accept this without question and proceed to try to function within that society by the rules as they understand them.
Others, over time, begin to question this "cultural download", they begin to realize that what they are seeing is, to paraphrase Socrates, are "Shadows On A Wall", not actually reality. This to me is how our culture advances, by those who are attempting to become fully human, challenging the preconceived notions of what is acceptable in our society. Some of those challenges are positive and some are not. That too is part of the process, it is how we determine who we are as a society. We are going through such a period right now. Our choices about what is acceptable, what is allowed, will determine our direction for decades to come.
3
When you get right down to it, each person is a cloud of electrons moving through space and time. We have evolved to extract energy from the universe and create localized regions of order. DNA is the critical information molecule that allows our existence.
Our social order is derived from our genetically based proclivities and whatever social information we inherit or absorb from our forbears and fellow travelers. The rest of the meaning we give the universe are projections of our desires and wishes.
God fills a useful place and helps answer the unanswerable for many. For most of humanity's existence, our rituals were intended to promote cosmic maintenance, to explain and foster a more benevolent world with no known scientific underpinnings.
As knowledge and population densities increased, religion helped reinforce social order, and the environment became more our dominion than our responsibility. Then came philosophy and now no one understands any of it.
13
@Michael Tyndall You are absolutely correct. It amazes me that so many people are offended by the idea that they are somewhat random creations of circumstance. As if the beauty and awe of existence are any less wondrous when there isn't a separate commanding entity to watch it.
2
@Michael Tyndall
Probably the most brilliant response I've read! Bravo!
1
To me, "nostalgia" is not the problem. Rather, it's our inability to do what Mr. Levy urges us to do in the very next paragraph after he condemns reliance on nostalgia. That is, we should dive "into the unknown" and embrace "our humanity in all its uncertainty."
Our abhorrence of "uncertainty" and the "unknown", however, is well-evidenced by the way we tend to cling to fundamentalist religions which promise "answers" to the most profound and unanswerable questions, thereby eliminating uncertainty.
Sadly, for far too many, science itself has become one of those religions. And those scientists (see, e.g., Arch-bishop Hawkings) who promise a "Theory of Everything" if we just wait a little longer and spend a little more money on them and their (extremely expensive) machines should be ashamed for acting like priests-of-old. Like those priests, you can virtually smell how they love the crowds that come to genuflect before them and kiss their ring for the answers to ultimate questions which they claim to be on a path toward discovering.
There are plenty of perfectly materialistic/physical reasons to fund science without it's practitioners claiming that they will "explain" the meta-physical realm as well.
That, as Mr Levy rightly notes, will always remain unknown and in that very unknowingness is where we should take comfort and revel in the awe and wonder of it.
7
So profound.
Thank you for the big
thoughts and the inspiration
to add “humanity” to our
biological beings. To be
in a “humanistic” civilization
we need shared stories and
myths. Call it religion or
voodoo. We need to
create tales that aspire
to our potentially better selves.
1
@Karen "We need to
create tales that aspire
to our potentially better selves."
I think that could have been said by all the guys who wrote the bible. They gave us tales, and we have been paying the price ever since.
1
@Karen, not all “religion(s) or voodoo(s)...aspire to our potentially better selves (sic)”. That is a remarkably narrow view.
I suggest we use DNA sequence analysis to define H. saps. The trouble with definitions that are as vague as yours appears to be is that thede are not definitions at all. Because they define nothing, and have myriad interpretations. If everyone has a different "definition" of humanity, then there is no definition.
Feel free to indulge in "diving into the unknown and embracing our humanity in all its uncertainty". That's what philosophy is all about, apparently, and if you can make a living at it, my hat is off to you.
10
@Doc Who Like the article said, death will have the final say. "Making a living" or accumulation of things has never saved anyone, although it can make you more comfortable. However, it offers no real defense from the randomness of the universe. Without an embrace of uncertainty, we would all still be living in a cave, too frightened to venture outside. Everything else simply offers the illusion of safety.
1
"To be human is to preserve, inside oneself, against all forms of social pressure, a place of intimacy and secrecy into which the greater whole cannot set foot. When this sanctuary collapses, machines, zombies and sleepwalkers are sure to follow."
This reads to me like a very Western construct. The merging and subsuming of the "selfness" --- the ego for short --- and separateness into the oneness of all; the letting go of that "place of intimacy and secrecy" is, as I interpret it, the goal of some Eastern thinking. It's the very insistence on being separate, the fear of letting oneself into the oneness of all that holds back and traps and limits man.
I'm far from a philosopher and perhaps I misinterpret, but that struck me.
Perhaps all of those "zombies, sleepwalkers" et al to be assiduously shut out are just desperate, vulnerable humans like ourselves?
3
A nice exposition of the existentialist/phenomenological meme: Existence precedes essence. Existence happens, it's a given. Essence is created by choices.
3
From my perspective Individuality is in it's first stage in "confrontation" with nature and in "denial" of the natural, yet Individuality as Adults can only find it's true freedom and transcendence within nature in integration with nature, and the discovery of God has more to do with the discovery of it's presence within All nature...... Great article..
3
The history of this past century does teach us about bets on nostalgia, but it also teaches us about bets on a coming utopia. The machines to clean, purge, and wash us away work at least as well when we look forwards as when we look backwards.
5
I am fully aware of the excesses of social media. But let us pause and consider the deep human connections facilitated.
I'm no spring chicken and despise most of commercial culture. I also think technology, especially in education, is overrated and hyped for profit more than usefulness.
But just today: I exchanged brief, affection greetings with a young transgender man, just recovering from surgery, whom I knew as a student a decade ago; I offered birthday wishes to a shy young woman who had been in my class three years ago; I got a message from my granddaughter, who is headed to college next week; I joined a sharp debate in comments about the roles black women are expected to play in our racist society; I joined an outpouring of love and support for a mother sending her last child to college; I laughed (digitally) with a former student who woke up before noon for the first time all summer; I saw a picture of the baby of another student from two decades ago and remarked on how much the baby resembled the mom; I saw pictures of the progress on the residence for homeless youth being constructed by my son's organization . . .
That was in the five minutes before breakfast.
And, by the way, as an atheist, I object to the idea that my existence is defined by negation of God. My existence is defined by my not caring one whit about others' irrational beliefs.
66
@Barking Doggerel: Levi projects himself onto you because he projects himself onto the whole universe.
5
''when we place our bets on nostalgia — when we dedicate ourselves to the search for some lost native land, for something pure — we only pave the way for totalitarianism. We trigger the machines to clean, purge and wash us away.''
Society and individuality have always been 2 sides of a coin, the stability and the freedom that make each other possible. But these are strange times. The 'globalized' technological future is being served to us as an inevitability, not a freedom. Society is to no longer be the basis for freedom or negation, the dynamic conflict of institutions, histories and individuals, but an administered technological network monetizing the actions of isolated individuals. ''Freedom'' will express itself in observable means that serve quantifiable ends. The technological future is not an embrace of the unknown, but a mandating of total knowability. The future of data and surveillance and marketing and networks has no place for unpredictability or transcendence. The future now is no different from nostalgia, it's a con.
4
This would have captured my imagination when I was an impressionable college student thinking the world didn't exist except in the ways I was going to define it.
But I have come to believe that there are objective realities and truths that do not have to be negated to embrace humanity. First and foremost is God. I have tried dethroning Him and running my life according to philosophers who admit they don't know anything but insist on self-determination. I don't recommend it.
I still appreciate the musings of those who think and write about the transcendencies of life. But I am grateful that I don't have to live by their vague conjecture, and I can build my life on the rock of ages, whose existence and truth and wisdom cannot be negated or transcended. PS This is my comment and let's see how many can just agree to disagree without responding with hate for all things religious.
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@Louise Phillips, Your fantasy cannot be substantiated. That makes it a confidence racket.
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@Louise Phillips The probability that there is a "god" in the universe is so high as to be nearly a certainty. What is meant by that - other than it is some form of higher power or existence - is a complete mystery.
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@Louise Phillips
I wish I could come to either an agreement or disagreement with your wisdom; but to me your enlightenment doesn't come across any clearer.
If one day I should become fortunate enough to discover an all powerful deity, you can bet I'll let others know my findings. Until that time it's all jabbering to me.
With respect,
B.T.
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