Meaning

I piled onto an author’s Twitter post, he blocked me, I bought his book, and I am not sorry he blocked me. In a sense, Roy Scranton is a humanist. Humanism can be good when it manifests as anti-fascism, for example, but when it manifests as anti-life, it is bad. Intellectually, humanism can be lazy. Scranton’s first essay used the word “meaning”, I’m estimating, twenty times. Using a word so many times robs it of meaning. Mathematicians adapt to the need for frequent references by defining things. Scranton would be hard pressed to define his use of the word “meaning”. Humanists also overuse words like “purpose”, and “belonging”. Personally, I’m nothing's tool or belonging. The Twitter debate was about whether we can or can’t solve global warming. I believe we can, because oil companies are ephemeral, and hurricanes are concrete. I find it presumptuous when people claim that human systems are set in stone. It is possible that some emergent properties of society are inevitable, but to assume they are inevitable because they presently exist is unscientific at best. In my opinion, assuming society cannot change is manipulative and reactionary. Thus, a putative humanist can in fact be conservative. For example, when a humanist uses the word “life” to refer to day to day activities of humans, he is dismissing the importance of ecological systems. Even the word “social” is often misused as a euphemism for popular. Some people have excuses for not thinking for themselves, but I loose patience with highly educated conservatives.