5 - Humanism and posthumanism

Summary

In my opening comments, I indicated that I did not intend this book as either an endorsement of humanism or an anti or posthumanism. What do I mean by this claim? Peter Sloterdijk says of humanism that ‘as a word and as a movement [it] always has a goal, a purpose, a rationale: it is the commitment to save men from barbarism’. His description nicely captures the association between humanism and the humanities, linking it back to the ‘civilising’ scholarship of the Renaissance and its Greek and Roman forebears. It also captures some of humanism's political naivety: its belief that good men and good books can save us from the abyss. That naivety remains one of the charges against humanism, though many of today's critics read this in a more sinister light, variously identifying humanism's hypocrisy, anthropocentrism, Westerncentrism, exaggerated confidence in scientific progress, and misguided belief that humans can (eventually) control their world. My own preoccupation is that, in steering us away from the particularities that shape and define us – and through which we shape and define ourselves – humanism renders these of lesser significance, and thereby makes it harder to address the power relations invested in them. My objection then reflects a longstanding commitment to conceptualising equality through rather than despite difference. As applied to humanism, this becomes a concern that diverting attention from difference to what, as humans, we have in common can encourage an empty sentimentalism that wishes away the realities of power. This is a harsh depiction, and no self-defined humanist would recognise herself in the description, but it is hard to see how humanism can entirely avoid the charge. The force of the tradition lies precisely in that movement away from what is seen as an excessive and destructive focus on the differences that divide us, and towards our common humanity: this movement is the very basis of its ethical appeal.