[extropy-chat] Re: The Force of Human Freedom

[Greg Burch]

I'm really sorry I dipped into this thread and I intend to take Eugen's gentle nudge to heart.  No one on one side of this divide is going to change the minds of anyone on the other side here in this forum through the medium of email.  But I'll say in a nutshell what I think needs to happen to combat what I see as essentially a cultural war of gargarntuan proportions: Enlightenment Modernism (of which I see transhumanism as the current cutting edge) is fighting a two-front war against Pre-modernism (militant religiosity, most especially militant Islam) and Post-modernism (e.g. cultural and moral relativism, anti-scientism).  This is a conflict that will ultimately determine whether we can realize our post-human destiny or, alternatively, see a world ground down through a lack of progress and suffocation in its own waste products.  There is only a VERY small core of Enlightenment Modernist advocates; the Enlightenment struggle is crippled by our very humanism that translates into a kind of civility that won't condemn Islam for the misogynistic warrior-cult that it is and has allowed much of our own cultural machinery  to fall into the hands of crippling relativism.  My prescription: recognize that whether we like it or not we ARE in a cultural war and act accordingly.

GB

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Samantha
> Atkins
> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 4:53 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: The Force of Human Freedom
> 
> 
> OK.   So what is your suggestion for how to deal with the level of 
> threat that you perceive?
> 
> 
> On Jan 30, 2005, at 7:16 PM, Greg Burch wrote:
> 
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Damien Broderick
> >
> >> At 05:24 PM 1/30/2005 -0600, Greg Burch wrote:
> >
> >>>
> >>> A kind-hearted person of good will, circa 1933: "Won't those people 
> >>> just
> >>> shut up with their negativity about Hitler and Hirohito?  How can 
> >>> they
> >>> sleep at night or get out of bed in the morning with all that
> >>> fear-mongering?!?!"
> >>
> >> Hang on, this is a rather different kind of story isn't it?
> >> Muslims hither
> >> and yon =/= a mad dictator with plans for world conquest. The
> >> threat might
> >> well be real, but as Steve Davies and others have argued it derives 
> >> from
> >> different drivers. What worries me is that the analogy looks closer 
> >> to:
> >>
> >> < circa 1933: "Won't those people just shut up with their
> >> negativity about
> >> Jews and gypsies all around the place?  How can they sleep at
> >> night or get
> >> out of bed in the morning with all that fear-mongering?!?!" >
> >>
> >> That would not have been the most helpful response, either, but it 
> >> places
> >> the burden of proof where it belongs, and foreshadows something 
> >> terrible
> >> for the stigmatized groups.
> >>
> >> Damien Broderick
> >
> > I'll certainly acknowledge there are significant differences between 
> > the threat of old-style secular fascism in the 1930s and islamofascism 
> > in the 1970s-20??, but I have concluded that we stand in an analogous 
> > situation in terms of the world's willingness to wake up to and deal 
> > with the threat.
> >
> > As for "stigamatized people" -- go tell it to Theo van Gogh.
> >
> > GB
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