Customer Reviews

The Arrogance of Humanism (Galaxy Books)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a humanist, I realize the impact we have on the world. Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel in 2007. The Kyoto Protocol was initially adopted in 1997. David Erhenfeld published this book in 1981. David Ehrenfeld's visionary text, The Arrogance of Humanism, is a seminal book in the history of a environmental and socioeconomic movement that is finally being realized by the global population. Read it now, so you may understand what we face in the near future.

I found myself agreeing with the author's aim, but not his target...

The author's supposed target: "...the core of the religion of humanism: a supreme faith in human reason -- its ability to confront and solve the many problems that humans face, its ability to rearrange both the world of Nature and the affairs of men and women so that human life will prosper." My experience has been that most of the "faithful" -- of all stripes -- believe that man has dominion over nature and behaves accordingly. By focusing on this non-existent dividing line between camps -- traditionalists, modernists, and post-modernists -- who all love their consuming ways equally, the author spends a great deal of time fleshing out something that gets us no closer to understanding why we don't wake up to reality. (For a better understanding of these three camps, I would recommend Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. Those who prefer fiction might find some value in: The Institution.

I found the final chapter ("Beyond Humanism") to be more constructive in it's tone than the rest of book and can recommend reading the book for that chapter alone. If anything, the contents of the book demonstrate just how little progress society has made in the "limits to growth" discussion over the last thirty years.

The value of this book lies in its thorough portrayal of the views of an antihumanist. Beyond this, the book is little more than a long, monotonous harangue. The social, economic, and environmental evils addressed have little or nothing to do with either secular or liberal humanism. The direct criticisms of humanism are pale imitations of older, more scholarly works, for example "The Dialectic of Enlightenment" by Horkheimer and Adorno.

The book I received was defective. Imagine my surprise to open the cover and find the back side of the index page. Obviously the cover had been attached backward. I still want this book, but I am wondering if all the copies were assembled wrong? Will I just get another defective book? Don't you check the books you send out?

"The arrogance of humanism" by David Ehrenfeld isn't a stringent philosophical book (which I assumed), but rather a personal statement by the author himself - and perhaps his wife Joan. The book feels meandering and disjointed.

Ehrenfeld writes from an ostensibly Jewish-Christian perspective, and frequently quotes rather unusual sources, such as "Lord of the Rings" or "The Silmarillion". He also has a crush on George Orwell, whom he regards as one of the few humanists who understood the problems of his own philosophy. To the author, "humanism" is essentially a religion, which replaces the belief in God, Nature or the supernatural with belief in Man, or rather the ability of humans to become more or less omnipotent (and, by implication, god-like).

Ehrenfeld believes that *control* is at the basis of the humanist project: control over nature, society and ultimately over humans themselves. In the opinion of the author, such control is impossible. The very complexity of the technological-administrative apparatus exercising the control will make the system break down. The main chapters deal with environmental destruction, which the author (a biology professor) believes is connected to humanism. He is especially critical of the modern conservation movement, which attempts to save animals, plants or wilderness areas with the argument that they are somehow economically valuable. The author believes that nature should be left alone, since it exists for its own sake, rather than for human benefit.

Ehrenfeld is extremely negative even to "clean energy" and other forms of environmental-friendly high tech. The author believes that clean energy will be put to the usual, destructive uses and simply speed up the process of environmental destruction and high-tech madness. Nor is he very optimistic about space colonies: surely such complex systems will sooner or later suffer a break down, killing everybody onboard? And why do we want to move out to outer space, anyway? Because Earth have turned uninhabitable, perhaps...?

Needless to say, Ehrenfeld is pessimistic, bordering on misanthropic, and believes that the best we can hope for (short of a supernatural intervention) is a great depression which destroys most of the global financial and technological systems, throwing humanity back to a time of local self-reliance. Humanism isn't going to mend its ways voluntarily. Ehrenfeld makes a comparison to Frodo in "Lord of the Rings", who couldn't destroy the ring of power. It was inadvertently destroyed by Gollum, who was really under its spell. In the same way, humanism will be broken only by one of its products.

"The arrogance of humanism" isn't the most graceful book around, and you probably heard most of it before, if you are versed in deep ecological literature. The most disturbing aspect of the book is its explicit misanthropy. The supernatural intervention (sic) or world depression craved by the author would lead to a *massive* die-off. Small wonder Ehrenfeld isn't a humanist!

By why is he a biology professor, rather than living in a hut with the Unabomber? This, alas, is never explained...

In a sense, this book is really about the arrogance of David Ehrenfeld.

Dr. Ehrenfeld counsels a balance of emotion and reason, and models exactly what he advises, in a moving and intelligent analysis of much of what we face on a broad variety of fronts, in the environment, education and child-rearing, biotechnology and politics. His courageous review of all facets underlying our modern "unease" and his attempt to achieve wisdom, even beyond knowledge, is noteworthy and closely adheres to reality. The writing is eloquent and incisive, and evokes the highest capacities in the reader and thinker to join the dialogue with heart and mind open and awake. Thank you for a brave, powerful and important consideration of how to where we are proceeding.

I myself am a humanist. Though I am immediately inclined to judge this book without reading it, I won't because of my humanist principles. I'll give it an average three star rating for now and try to find an e-book. the Arrogance of a $32.00 book!