Sunday Morning - No Alarm, Humanism, Religion

 Up at 5:45, no alarm set. I find unemployment somewhat restful and allowing for some healing of joint pain.

About humanism, readings from The Guardian:

Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell review – the meaning of humanism

 What actually is a “human”? In the 14th century, Humanitas (being human) implicitly involved refinement, civility, erudition and being articulate. And certainly, says Bakewell, we “occupy a field of reality that is neither entirely physical nor entirely spiritual”, which includes talking, drawing, telling jokes, passing on memories, trying to do the right thing, worshipping in temples, building pyramids, art, literature, culture. People often, and sententiously, quote the line from an old Roman play: “Nothing human is alien to me.” Bakewell makes it a running motif, but it is surely an ambivalent one. Those who quote it are usually vaunting their urbanity and open-mindedness, but aren’t they being smug and overoptimistic? After all, shouldn’t much that is human be ostracised? Pico della Mirandola, in the 15th century, like the existentialists in the 20th, celebrated our “indeterminate nature”. He called us chameleons – able, as “maker and moulder” of ourselves, to become “whatever shape [we prefer]”. But, he admitted, we are therefore free to “become brutish”.

And haven't those opposing secular humanism unleashed brutishness while promoting their religiosity? I heard yesterday that deaths of pregnant women has increased since the United States Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Ah, righteous kills. Humanism should do what Christianity is supposed to do: instill humility.

Radical politics has its own sort of righteousness, of a certainty of its own means and ends, and Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns review – a blazing debut made me think of this.

Late-night visits to the Doo Wop club – the “only taste of functioning utopia” – provide ephemeral escapes. Something changes, though, when Jolene (5 stars) enters her car. A social worker, she has read the right books by the right people, and fights against baddies and for good causes. It’s a whirlwind romance, but Damani is wary: Jolene is, after all, a wealthy white woman, albeit a “well meaning” one. Then Jolene meets Damani’s friends for the first time; discussions escalate and dangerous assumptions are made about their activist plans. When Jolene asks if “violence is the answer”, Damani’s friend Steph spits back: “Oppression is violence in itself.” By the end of a dramatic night – involving a raid on Doo Wop, and a car crash – Damani is left questioning everything. The reader remembers her early doubts: were she and Jolene ever really “seeing the world the same”?

Your Driver Is Waiting houses the radical politics found in the work of Yara Rodrigues Fowler and Meena Kandasamy, yet the brazenness and forthrightness of her prose puts Guns in a space of her own. How far will you go for love, or to survive? What happens when you reach a tipping point? And “how do you know how to live when you’ve never been given the freedom to?” With a full tank, and rage in her revolutionary heart, Damani drives towards a better world.

Whenever we put an ideal over people, people die. Facts make up reality, and reality has a malicious way of upending idealism. We cannot create our own reality. All we can do is surf the chaos of the universe, make little pockets of serenity. Bending the universe to our will has a nasty habit of snapping back upon us.

One writer, a writer I have difficulty with nowadays, is Charles Dickens, who does capture all the vagaries of the human, and should be a poster child for humanism. The Guardian's Adapt and survive: why Dickens still endures on page, stage and screen has interesting things to say about why we keep adapting Dickens for the screen without touching on his humanism.

I doubt if democracy can survive without humanism; any other form of government limits human freedom. Which is why reading Defeating the Dictators review: prescriptions for democratic health is important, for there is an allure to giving up the responsibilities of self-government to a leader dictating our lives:

By spending more on things that actually matter, countries that oppress their citizens in other ways can engender remarkable levels of confidence in government.

“In 2019,” Dunst writes, “nearly 90% of Chinese reported trust in their government … as did almost 70% of Singaporeans.”

Practically the only good news for democracies in this story is the fact that almost every major economy faces similar declining birth rates. Most dramatically, China has gone from 2.25 children per woman in 1990 to just 1.3 today. No major economy is producing enough children to maintain its current population.

At the same time, since 2017, China’s net migration rate – the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants – “has worsened every year”.
China lost about 335,000 people in 2022 alone.

Democracies like the US, Germany and the UK all posted positive net migration rates of at least 2.7%. These numbers support one of Dunst’s more optimistic notions. While “China and others may promise economic stability”, democracies remain attractive because they offer “more freedom, equality and opportunities to pursue happiness”.

Against the high points of humanism, there is going wacko in Waco: Trump describes 2024 election as ‘the final battle’ from podium in Waco

Yet at Saturday’s rally at Waco airport, there was little sign of Trump heeding the warnings and cooling off. Behind him supporters held signs that said, “Witch hunt”, “I stand with Trump” and “Trump 2024”.

The 45th president repeated his false claim that the the 2020 presidential election was “rigged”, praised the rioters of January 6 and raged against the “weaponization of law enforcement”, branding the prosecutors overseeing multiple investigations into his conduct as “absolute human scum”.

As for religion, I caught up on my Lenten Sundays

• Orthodox Scholars Preach | Feast of the Annunciation - Dr. Irina Paert
• The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas with V. Rev. Dr. Andrei Kordochkin 
• Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz preaches for the Sunday of Orthodoxy 

The last two videos also proclaim a form of humanism. Christians are to love others  - not to be racial bigots.

Time to dress and make a journey to McClure's.

sch 9:44 am