Renewed Humanism

Politics of the Heart, Part 5 of 5

In light of our reflections thus far, ‘humanism’ takes on a new significance. Previously, humanism indicated viewing the world from the perspective of human needs, human values, and human nature. It still does, but the very existence of the human reality is in question. Further, the concept was rather watered down over the past century in popular usage.

Hence, a renewed humanism, as defense of the ‘human,’ is a vital and urgent project. Further, the humanism of the present needs to be robust. It needs to encompass our spiritual nature, our idealism, our moral grounding, and our aspirational nature.

Across the precipice

In Lewis’ view, when read carefully, we have already gone off the precipice into the post-human condition when human beings were subjected to human instrumental control via modern science. Though we could no doubt go quite a bit further. It is for this reason, I believe, that he somewhat cryptically says “repentance may be required…” (Lewis 1974, 78). Literally, ‘repentance’ means to turn around. We have already crossed the threshold, the order of the soul has already been overturned. The only good way forward is backward. He realizes this will be difficult, and he says, “Perhaps I am asking impossibilities” (Lewis 1974, 80).

Here we return to Lewis’ self-description as being a ‘dinosaur’ in that Cambridge lecture we looked at. As we saw in the last essay, Lewis felt it was possible to lose the wisdom of the Tao and hence the knowledge of our nature. In this essay we have seen how he thinks we have largely, though perhaps not irreversibly, crossed that line. The people he was addressing in that lecture are on the far side of humanity; post-human. As a dinosaur, Lewis was, I think, presenting himself as a living fossil of a human, someone schooled in the Tao, Natural Law, the wisdom of the species.

As he warned, there would not be many more. Within this frame of reference, I like to think of myself as not a dinosaur, there may not be any more, but at least a close reptilian descendent of them. If those ‘genes’ have been passed to me at all, it is due to two teachers I have had. One was my father, who I may talk about another time. The other was my primary teacher in grad school. He was, seemingly, a thoroughly modern, secularized Jewish guy, who was first a scholar of Marx, then Locke, then Hume. God help him. I say ‘seemingly’ because when I once house sat for him, I discovered books by Carl Jung – perhaps God did help him. He definitely didn’t pass along any Jungian wisdom to me though.

What he did have was immense knowledge and intellectual integrity. He was a Harvard graduate and a ‘great books’ guy. Because of him, though they seem to have fallen far indeed, I have been hesitant to criticize the Ivy League schools. I did, in more plebian fashion, also derive the lesson that no matter how second rate my own education, I could still investigate the same texts he did and have just as much integrity. Further, my own ‘egalitarianism’ is rooted in the conviction that every human, as human, is capable of a great human life. At a very economically priced public university I used to teach at I would tell my students: what I’m about to teach you was taught me by a guy from Harvard; you can learn it, and if you do, you got the bargain of the century – don’t think because you aren’t paying much you have to limit yourself to third-rate thinking!

Though he thought what he thought, he taught us to study ‘the greats’ seriously. Also, always go to the texts. When I had questions about fascism this Jewish dude set me to reading Mussolini, Hitler, and the racial theories of De Gobineau. When I had questions about communitarianism, he made me write a paper on the concept of Sittlichkeit in Hegel. Most importantly, he taught me how to read Plato.

So, I am, no doubt, a second- or third-rate thinker. But I was given enough to be nostalgic (literally, ‘homesick’). Hopefully, in these essays I write at Winter Oak and Philosopher’s Holler, I can help kindle some of that in my fellow exiles. The ‘holler’ is, after all, one image of our homeland.

And, if we can remember what we are (Plato again), we can work on reviving our hearts and restoring the order of the soul.

Education

This humanist vision must become the center of our educational endeavors. The anti-humanists and post-humanists have learned that lesson well: education, and culture more broadly, shapes the next generation. They have done quite a nice job of taking control of those institutions.

This leads us back to Plato with whom we began these reflections. As I never tire of saying, Plato teaches us that the polis shapes the psyche: the community in which we grow up and receive our education and its culture which we imbibe with our mother’s milk shapes our souls.

Plato always gives the utmost attention and concern to matters of education. The Greeks called education paideia: so, it’s the three P’s- polis, paideia, and psyche. On the Greek model, those were all informed, at least ideally, by a profound conception of the human and human excellence. Practically speaking, that should be our trinity. Ideology, propaganda, and conditioning are not substitutes. That’s why C.S. Lewis cared so much about what was being taught in primary school English textbooks.

Life together

That is also why we should not give up on politics. That doesn’t mean we need to be naïve or hold unrealistic hopes for what might be achieved in the short term via ‘politics as usual.’ However, at bottom, we are social or political animals (as Aristotle put it). We don’t conceive, birth, or nurture ourselves. We don’t create our own unique language. We don’t generate an ethics out of thin air.

Politics is ultimately the art of our lives together. That deserves concern, care, and cultivation (can I have an ‘Amen’ for the three Cs?). Against the Promethean aspirations of the ‘Conditioners’ we need to remember what it is to be human and we need to carefully, very carefully, pass that primordial knowledge along to our descendants. They need to live in human communities so that they can receive human educations so that, in turn, they may develop human souls. The human heart must first be understood, then valued, then made the center of our lives together.

As Lewis taught us, that will require repentance, a turning around, as we have already crossed the threshold. Then we must remember the human and we must renew our communities, education, and culture (I couldn’t resist three Rs).

We simply must have men and women with ‘heart.’

Reference

Lewis, C.S., The Abolition of Man, HarperOne, 1974.

This essay was first published on Winter Oak.