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

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "Greg Burch" <gregburch at gregburch.net>

> 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.

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Olga