Cosmopolitan Humanism and the Cosmos?

As I alluded to in my last post and others the “Stone Gods” is a perfect example of my posit; and in fact the antithesis of Universalism/Cosmopolitan theory. Cosmopolitan and Universalism denies or is in denial of the human nature or nature of humans and presupposes a time when all cultures, classes, ideologies, and religions will altruistically and simultaneously arrive at a moral platitude of one-ness! The United Nations, One World View, and or Synchronicity? Our own President in the last month on Putin “This is the 21st Century; you cannot just invade Sovereign Nations” I.E. That’s not cosmopolitan! Our new Secretary of State just this past week threw up his arms in frustration on talks with the Jewish and Palestinian issue that was supposedly addressed by the “League of Nations” after WWII, the Middle East, the African continent, the Korea`s, the South American continent, the EU, all in stages of unrest, civil war, and conflict. India, Pakistan, China, Cuba, Iran and many others still keeping people in despotism, slavery, starvation and persecution and not a single thought about the repercussions of industry or pollution on the environment?

Where O where has the enlightenment gone? What happened to the evolved thinkers and Humanism? I know they have access to all of the same text, technology, historical examples that we all do, the Babylonians, the Philistines, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Ottomans, the Spanish, the French, the British, up and until now are we not learnered? Is there Hope? Should we aspire to? Yeah of course but a little behaviorism 101 stimulus = response and punishment and reward = behavior and free will = freedom to choose and choices made are subjective and relevant to the chooser and then we cannot force morality or our own interpretation of morality on the free to choose.

“I was thinking about the Pilgrim Fathers, setting sail in the Mayflower in 1620. They were going to found an alternative community, and who is to say that the Bibles, axes, ropes, flour and salt pork are a better basis for a new way of life than the white leather, champagne and sardines?” / “As things have turned out, what with America’s precipitation of World War Three, the Pilgrim Fathers` route may have a lot to answer for.” (P.174) Winterson, J The Stone Gods (2007)

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) sec viii Of Liberty and Necessity Part I, “It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among all the actions of men in all nations and ages and that human nature remains still the same in its principles and operations. The same motives always produce the same actions. The same events always follow the same causes. Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit-these passions mixed in various degrees and distributed through society, have been, from the beginning of the world, and still are the source of all the actions and enterprises which have ever been observed among mankind.” (P. 566)(on human action) currently the topic of lecture in Philos class!

Certain bottlenose dolphins in Laguna, southern Brazil, have apparently taught themselves to work as a team with artisanal fishermen, creating a win-win for both the marine mammals and humans.
A study on the dolphins, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, has found that the most helpful ones also turn out to be particularly cooperative and social with each other, perhaps explaining why some wild dolphins decide of their own free will to work with humans, while others do not. (past post)

Immanuel Kant on Perpetual Peace (1793) & Universal History and a Cosmopolitan Plan (1784)
From; Kramnick,I. THE PORTABLE ENLIGHTENMENT READER (1995)
The Flaw in Kantonian one world utopian thought is that ideology, politics, religion, and culture are all inherently non pluralistic further many of these are unyielding and create opposite reactions like two magnets.
“A perfect constitution” (P.552) as stated many of the ideals and expressions of Kant were laudable, reasoned, and rational. However this realist wonders was he lamenting world peace, as the time he was in both real and the immediate past were tumultuous at best; King William`s war 1689-97, Queen Anne`s 1702-13, King George 1739-48, French and Indian 1756-63, The American Revolution 1776, The French revolution 1793 and many other skirmishes layered throughout. Kant, “The same antisocial impulses, which first drove men to such a creation, is again the cause, that every commonwealth in its external relations…” (P.552) and he continues on to discuss evil in individuals that creep into the collective, the nature and spirit of man. Mr. Kant’s rationale that the exhaustion of or from warring and the consequences of should be enough to lead “Rational’ men to avoid the painful stimulus or to act with reason is flawed. “or whether in the second place we should rather assume that nature is in this instance pursuing her regular course of raising our species gradually from the lower steps of animal existence to the very highest of human existence.” (P.553) I chose to see this as a reality oriented thought process and not delusional however; he also speaks to human tendencies and the want of civilization or the inherent evil within people. Mr. Kant speaks of sovereign nations as one nation and or a federation of nations with constitutions and laws governing one for all?

‘A federal League of Nations” (K 552), one cannot discuss the former “a system of international relations adjusted to law” (K552) without the latter. “Now several nations, united into one state, would no longer form but one; which contradicts the supposition, the question here being of reciprocal rights of nations, inasmuch as they compose a multitude of different states, which ought not be incorporated into one and the same state.”(P.552) here he is answering his own objection to members of the league establishing laws sovereign onto them while discounting the other members because he recognizes the dichotomy. Both in his descriptive of Nations as states and his previous statements referenced earlier e.g. one has to presuppose that his posit that humans will be raised to the highest and most moral, “and thus incessantly check the slow motion of by which the species is unfolding and forming itself, to say nothing of shrinking from all positive aid to those motions. But all good that is not engrafted upon moral good, is mere show and hollow speciousness—the dust and ashes of morality” (P.552) I begin to ask here in the collective, who is the collector, who is to distribute, who is the accountant, and who is the policeman of human activity, and finally who is the director in this symphony of harmonic morality?

“A cosmopolitical condition of security (or police)—corresponding to that security which arises out of international police” (P.554) again he follows this premise with doubt and hope all at once reiterating that the nature of humans have not evolved as much as he hoped as of yet but supposes that they will eventually. ”At how a great distance from this perfection are the civilized nations, and especially the commercial nations of Europe.”(P.558) This Ideal/proposition is noble but predicated on his supposition about the nature of men; that given the opportunity and tools will act according to a moral compass that is not fixed rather; it is not a compass at all it is a reference point that humanity has the freedom to use. (Excerpts from my thoughts on Kantian thoughts on universality and eventual morale aptitude for all. by Todd Burnett)

Soc. “Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and than I shall have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions, whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious.” (past post)

stanza (5) verses 19-29 I hear the dreamers of the past, present, and future. I hear all that have not yet realized their “America”. I hear all that are still stuck in the condition whatever form that represents. I hear the “Man”, I hear the poor, I hear all the segregated of society who still suffer and yet still dream of an end to it. (past post)

“ But we know these things about the future only by learning about the past; without it we`d have no sense of these fundamental truths, to say nothing of the words of which to express them, or even know who or where or what we are.”(P.3)(past post)

“Education does not take place only in school. Most of the traits that are my focus need to be nurtured in the family as well, both in the early years and as children mature. Part of comprehensive public policy approach to the question this manifesto raises must include the discussion of how families can be supported in the task of developing children`s capabilities. The surrounding peer culture and the larger culture of social norms and political institutions also play an important role, either supporting or subverting the work done by schools and families.” (8-9), NOT FOR PROFIT why democracy needs the Humanities.

It`s about Ying and Yang, Give and take, moderation and tolerance, there is no utopia. We need deep thinkers and plumbers named Joe, we need pain to experience pleasure, we need evil to aspire to good, to be human is to be irrational and rational all at once. We need conservatives and liberals, we need differences and similarities, if it were not for discourse and disparity we would have social entropy…meaning without disorder there is no order! If everything and everyone is sublimated to the greater good than the good is greater than the sublimated and is this not self-defeating. Tolerance of diversity means tolerating differences, deviant is only deviant when it is not the norm, normative is a construct not an absolute, and democracy means freedom to choose not to be chosen for or mandated. Even when the ideal is noble it loses nobility when it is forced no matter the reasoned thought behind it. All these thinkers are right and righteous it is just a matter of degrees of rightness, yes?

This guy says what I try to say much more eloquently. He has a great take on social psychology and positive psychology and speaks in a way that invites and inspires…..I hope you check it out as I think it is what I was trying to impart in my writings. Best to you Todd

http://www.ted.com/speakers/jonathan_haidt