Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "extremism"

You know what humanity is best at! It is best at distorting stuff - distorting thoughts, ideas, and more specifically words. Among these distorted words lie terms like religion, philosophy, science, faith, and others. But the one term that we are interested in, in this piece, is the term "humanism". Humanism is next in the line of distorted words, right after the word "religion". To be very articulate in brief - the terms "humanism" and "religion" are essentially one and the same thing, yet a whole so-called human lifetime is not enough for most humans to actually fathom this simple mortal revelation. Most humans neurotically perceive religion to be the system of following doctrines and humanism to be a pompous philosophy of the intellectuals.

In reality, religion is not a system of following doctrines at all. If anything, it is about not following any doctrine and finding out things for yourself. And, humanism is no more a philosophy than love is. Love is not a philosophy, neither is humanism. In fact, if we go underneath the layers of words and labels, we would see that love is essentially plain, ordinary, everyday humanism - it is as simple as that - there is nothing more for me to tell you about humanism. I don't really intend to tell you anything about humanism in this piece. Rather, let's find out together, what humanism is not.

For starters, it's not a pompous philosophy or an ideology for a bunch of people to discuss over a cup of coffee. As I have said in "Principia Humanitas":

“Humanism is not a pompous philosophy to be talked and debated about by a handful of intellectuals - it is the purest form of moral compass, which defines the civilized heart of thinking humanity.”

Humanism simply means to be human. Now you may wonder, what does "to be human" even mean! Does it mean you need to wear a specific sophisticated label that makes you appear as a smart and over-glorified intellectual! Does it mean, you need to talk sense all the time! Does it mean, you stop believing in anything that does not fit your ship-shape limited logical perception! Does it mean, that you have to be the smartest person in the group and make more sense somehow than all others around you! Does it mean, you have to be a so-called non-believer or atheist, and have to defend that atheism, at all costs, like the religious fundamentalists do with their own beliefs and delusions, above all humane fundamentals!

Let me go straight ahead and say it - No. You don't need to do any of it - as in, none of it - you don't even have to call yourself a so-called humanist - because most of the so-called humanists are not actually advocating actual qualities of being human, rather they are advocating radical rationalism - radical logicality. One recent incident comes to my mind in this context - it is their support for corporations that forbid their muslim employees to wear a hijab at work-place. Full-body burqa with niqab that covers the whole face of a woman, may surely be a sign of uncivilized cultural barbarianism, because it basically exudes a clear implication of segregation against all humans, but not a simple hijab, which is basically a scarf that one wears around the head. So, advocacy of banning basic cultural elements, is not a sign of progress or being human. This kind of radical attitude may not look as immediately dangerous as radical fundamentalism does, but, it is nevertheless, as harmful as that. In fact, radical rationalism is nothing but atheistic fundamentalism or logical fundamentalism. As I have said in "Principia Humanitas":

"Fundamentalism of any kind, be it religious, atheistic, political or educational, is the greatest threat to human excellence – it is a threat to progress – it is a threat to greatness."

The whole business of fundamentalism, which is basically an extreme sense of either romanticism or logicality, is unavoidably destructive and needs a bit of scolding from the real humans - by real humans I don't mean intellectually superior humans, for intellect has very little to do with this real human thing - it has to do with acceptance of weakness and rejection of hatred and extremism. This extremism as we see more and more today, does not always rise from the obvious so-called religious sides. It can rise from any side - and it will keep on rising, as long as sides appear to be more important to humans, than human life itself.

We have this remarkable thing called "life", yet somehow, quite disgracefully, it has become less glorious and significant, in front of the fake glory of labels and ideologies. This is what advancement without conscience does to a species. We have advanced externally, before we actually truly evolved internally. Biological evolution is a fact, and that very biological evolution led to our so-called psychological evolution - I am saying so-called not because it is false. We have evolved psychologically indeed and through this evolution we have gained extraordinary psychological capacities, that basically are not possessed by any other species on earth, yet those capacities are not utilized at their fullest and most productive potential. It's like having money and yet wasting it on unhealthy non-sense like alcohol and expensive cigars, while your neighbor is starving in front of your eyes.

Correct application of the mental faculties cannot be taught to a whole species - it automatically starts when the species gets an actual grip over its true necessities. Earth is necessity, not Mars. Food and water are necessities, not alcohol and cigarettes. To be human is necessity, not being a believer or non-believer. Now comes the real question - what are you?

Recommended Reading
Principia Humanitas

Let's break the walls my friend,
There ain't no place for segregation no more.
Let's break the distance my friend,
There ain't no place for pettiness no more.
Let's sing the song of victory,
There ain't no place for savagery no more.
Let's loosen the knots of tradition,
There ain't no time for rigidity no more.
Don't you hear the siren my friend,
Can't you feel the rising sun!
Don't you hear the footsteps of dawn,
It's time to let go of all things barbarian.
Fear not the unknown and unexplored o friend of mine.
Let's walk together opening doors to one humankind.

Wanna study a superpower, study America.
Wanna study dysfunctional power, still study America.
Wanna study spirituality, study India.
Wanna study rotten spirituality, still study India.
Wanna study rise of secularism, study Turkish Republic.
Wanna study fall of secularism, still study Turkish Republic.
Wanna study standards of beauty, study the Korean Republic.
Wanna study doctored beauty, still study the Korean Republic.
Wanna study pride and loyalty, study good old Britannia.
Wanna study primeval pride and loyalty, still study Britannia.
Wanna study statehood, study People's Republic of China.
Wanna study the horrors of statehood, still study China.
Every nation on earth suffers from a distinct ailment.
The first step towards recovery is acknowledgement.

Don’t worship your past,
At the expense of your present.
Don’t glorify the future,
At the expense of the present.
Don’t worship the dead,
At the expense of the living.
Don’t admire the unborn,
While overlooking the living.
It’s only by lifting the living that,
We build a better world for all progeny.
It’s only by being kind to the living,
That we truly honor our ancestry.
Honor is earned not begged for.
Honor the living, ‘n all time will be grateful.

Enough with, patria o muerte*!
Enough with, god save the queen!
Enough with, heil hitler!
Enough with, o say can you see!
Bronze age beings yell about national glory,
Stone age beings yell about religious glory.
Electric beings got no time for such make-believe,
On their shoulders walks the present of humanity.
There is no earth till all roots combine,
Till we crave for each other all roots are chains.
Museums add perspective on the direction of life,
But to spend a life in museum is life lost in vain.
Enough with vande mataram**,
it’s time for vasudhaiva kutumbakam***.
To hell with nation, culture and tradition,
civilization awaits outside the museum.

(*homeland or death, *hail the motherland, ***world is family)

You know, what terms like woke,
feminist, anti-racist, anti-fascist,
anti-colonialist, anti-monarchist,
anti-nationalist, pro-choice, really mean!

They imply a willful involvement to
free ourselves from primitive practices,
as opposed to wishful thinking of tradition
forcing the living to adapt to the dead.

They are a step in the right direction,
humankind’s first step to correct itself.
By no means they imply a flawless world,
rather they reflect a world where bigotries
and atrocities aren’t considered proud heritage.

No one on earth should suffer to
satisfy someone’s puritanical beliefs.
Human I stand, from the river to the sea,
I won’t let no wildlife normalize inhumanity.

Vegetables must be washed and cooked, to eliminate harmful bacteria ‘n parasites, and bring out their true nutrition – mind must be washed in compassion, and cooked in the fire of reason, to eliminate harmful biases and prejudice, and achieve our true capacity for life.

Planet earth is a planet of vegetables,
don’t let looks and suits fool you.
Only sentient beings are heathen rebels,
alive enough to question vegetable truth.

The other day I was having a chat with God,
she was telling me about the prayers flooding
in from America, all claiming extreme religiousness:

let our wall stand bold and tall,
fighting off all indigenous impurities,
let us paint it pitch black,
so it’s too hot to be climbed by the savages;

now let us deport every last trace of sense,
let us deport all who defy our holy faith –
let us ban all blacks, whites, muslims alike,
whoever talks the nonsense of tolerance.

Then the Holy Mother sighed in despair, and said,
“and to think they are doing all that in my name!”
So I paused for a moment, then I grinned –
why not grant their wishes, then flood the entire Eden!