During the last twenty years or so a highly contagious virus has been infecting the brains of academics in UK and US universities. According to one victim, 'VB', it causes her to develop strange fantasies such as rejecting all concepts of the real and the true and no longer believing herself to be an actual reasoning individual agent. 'I no longer believe that I have a coherent unified self', she writes, 'I am in constant flux, constantly changing, depending on the person I am with. My present experience is one of the multiplicity and fragmentation of the self. I no longer believe that I exist as a separate, complete individual, that I have a stable personality, that my feelings, emotions and thoughts originate in me, that they are personal, spontaneous expressions of an inner self'. (For 'I' read 'we' in the original text).

Virus X has other unusual characteristics, such as an ability to delude victims into believing that everybody else is similarly infected. Another is that, unlike other viruses which invade organisms seemingly at random, this one is selective. While many academics in the humanities succumb rapidly, their scientific colleagues seem to have a natural immunity to it: it has the ability to appear to the latter as harmless, not to be taken seriously.

Virus X has no physical properties that could enable it to be investigated directly; it becomes active only when its victims are writing and teaching, lying dormant when they are engaged in everyday activities outside the campus. Here their behaviour appears normal and their characters as stable and dependable as those of healthy people. Paradoxically, despite their belief that their own condition is one of chaotic fragmentation, victims are able to present a coherent account of their affliction. This, it seems, has something to do with language. Whereas normal people use words to describe and communicate their concepts, sufferers believe that their concepts are being manipulated by (unspecified) 'powerful groups' through the medium of the words they rnistakenly believe they are 'using'. However, while this virus cannot be observed directly, its presence can be identified in situations where it is active, notably in the works of French philosophers such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault who deny the existence of a real world outside themselves and of real persons able to reason about human nature, human values and the world around them.

Infection by the virus has severe consequences for the beliefs of its victims, reducing them to a state of impotent irrationality, since, in denying the possibility of human reasoning, they deprive themselves of any grounds on which they can construct reasoned arguments about anything. As a consequence, instead of devoting all their energies to the subject they are contracted to teach, academic 'victims' spend much of their and their students' time writing books and promoting complex theories about 'nothing', the black hole in which all meaning is annihilated.

TAKING THE JOKE SERIOUSLY
How seriously might people who have remained virus-free be expected to react to all this theorising about an epistemological void? While most other academics treat it with bemused incomprehension some, familiar with the literature, take it more seriously; concerned that at any one time instead of helping students to broaden their knowledge of their chosen subject, hundreds of teachers in dozens of universities are trying to persuade thousands of students that they like themselves are, in VB's own words, 'mistaken in believing themselves to be unified, coherent and rational agents who are the authors of their own experience and its meaning, that there is an essence at the core of an individual which is unique, coherent and unchanging'. (Note: that this view of the individual is sometimes referred to as 'humanism' enables us to refer to those who have fallen victim to Virus X as 'anti-humanists').

The scale of this anti-humanist project is enormous; a typical course which ran from 1982 to 1987 was studied by nearly 5000 students. Over fifty lecturers were involved in setting it up and a hundred people taught it up and down the country. Since the cost to taxpayers and students of all the hundreds of courses incorporating anti-humanism running at anyone time must run into millions of pounds a year, should those responsible for setting them up not be called to account for this expenditure? Should they not be required to set out their (true) aims and objectives and to explain what positive contributions they believe their work makes to the wellbeing of society? Since the peoples of the world are currently faced with global warming, Aids, poverty, famine, disease and so on, many academics no doubt feel that were anti-humanism deleted from the syllabus, the millions of pounds released could be put to better use by colleagues who teach real science, technology and other useful subjects.

INDIFFERENCE AND SCEPTICISM
There are two main reasons for this seeming inaction on the part of fellow academics as well as of members of the general public. Firstly, as anti-humanism is an ontological theory derived from anti-foundationist premises (that there is no reality outside language) it might be expected to have an obvious place in philosophy departments where it originated and where it could be subject to close attention by academics skilled at distinguishing valid from invalid arguments. Consequently, in order to evade this potential hazard anti-humanism attracted the attention of social scientists and, later, of teachers in a wide range of humanities subjects. There it was able to flourish, funded by the very human socio/economic institutions, the existence of which anti-humanists are committed to denying, and where their dense jargon preserves it from the universal acid of commonsense.

Sceptical enquirers are thrown off the scent when they encounter a bewildering variety of terms such as structuralism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, perspectivism, eliminativism, semantic nihilism, relativism, constructivism, constructionism and social constructionism. But however assiduously the enquirer peels off the layers, there is nothing in the centre representing 'real', actual, anti-humanism because anti-humanists are committed to denying the existence of reality. For them there is no world 'out there' and there is no agency 'in here'.

The other main reason why anti-humanism flourishes largely unchallenged is accounted for by the way in which it is taught. University students might be expected to have a crucial role in the transmission of anti-humanism - the 'masses' would not understand what it is all about - but since the former are often resistant to ideological coercion, steps have to be taken to limit their access to potentially damaging counter-arguments. This is achieved partly by overloading them with anti-humanist texts and partly by conducting seminars and constructing essay and examination rubrics in such a way as to 'extend their knowledge' of a privileged theory rather than to allow them to compare and contrast it with arguments and counter-arguments supporting the other side. Free debate does not feature in anti-humanist teaching.

CONTRADICTIONS
What might a student with some skill in the philosophical analysis of texts and encouraged to identify the weaknesses of anti-humanist arguments discover? Self-contradiction is the central element of both the original theories of the post-structuralist progenitors of anti-humanism and of the works of their academic interpreters. In the first category there is an obvious contradiction where reasoning individuals try to argue that reasoning individuals do not exist. Examples include 'The goal of the human sciences is not to constitute but to dissolve Man', 'The author is dead', 'There is only text' and 'Man is a face drawn in the sand and erased by the next wave' (Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Derrida and Foucault respectively). Then there are more immediate contradictions when university teachers intrude anti-humanism into the study of literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, culture, art, discourse analysis, cultural studies, and psychology, all of which rest on the notion of pre-existing, reasoning, intentional human agency.

Psychology is perhaps the branch of the human sciences where the presence of agency is most immediate. This is where human behaviour is observed and recorded, hypotheses formed, experimental testing undertaken, deductions made, conclusions deduced, published and submitted to peer review. (How many anti-foundationist anti-humanists consult their science colleagues before promoting anti-realist theories?)

It is, however, in psychology teaching where we encounter one of the most audacious attempts to smuggle anti-humanism into an anti-humanist discipline as a disguised 'form of psychology'. We have only to refer to the self-description which I quoted earlier of VB's experience to recognise the impossibility of a psychologist whose whole being is in a 'permanent state of incoherence' being able to study scientifically the behaviour of another individual in a 'permanent state of flux, multiplicity and fragmentation'. That the victim VB and the psychologist Dr Vivian Burr are the same person is sufficient testimony to the incoherence into which any attempt to conflate two incommensurable universes of discourse must collapse.

A critique of Burr's book, 'An Introduction to Social Constructionism'  (Routledge, 1995, Second Edition 2003), by the writer is available¹.

Derek Hill

¹ If you wish to obtain one contact Derek Hill or any EHA committee member at a meeting in Ealing or send an e-mail to EHA (see 'E-MAIL & LINKS' page).

PERPETUAL PROGRESS
Extropy means seeking more intelligence, wisdom, and effectiveness, an open-ended lifespan, and the removal of political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to continuing development; perpetually overcoming constraints on our progress and possibilities as individuals, as organizations, and as a species; growing in healthy directions without bound.

SELF-TRANSFORMATION
Extropy means affirming continual ethical, intellectual, and physical self-improvement, through critical and creative thinking, perpetual learning, personal responsibility, proactivity, and experimentation; using technology - in the widest sense to seek physiological and neurological augmentation along with emotional and psychological refinement.

PRACTICAL OPTIMISM
Extropy means fueling action with positive expectations - individuals and organizations being tirelessly proactive; adopting a rational, action-based optimism or "proaction" in place of both blind faith and stagnant pessimism.

INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY
Extropy means designing and managing technologies not as ends in themselves but as effective means for improving life; applying science and technology creatively and courageously to transcend "natural", but harmful, confining qualities derived from our biological heritage, culture, and environment.

OPEN SOCIETY
Extropy means supporting social orders that foster freedom of communication, freedom of action, experimentation, innovation, questioning, and learning; opposing authoritarian social control and unnecessary hierarchy and favouring the rule of law and decentralization of power and responsibility; preferring bargaining over battling, exchange over extortion, and communication over compulsion; openness to improvement rather than a static utopia; extropia ("ever-receding stretch goals for society") over utopia ("no place").

SELF-DIRECTION
Extropy means valuing independent thinking, individual freedom, personal responsibility, self-direction, self- respect, and a parallel respect for others.

RATIONAL THINKING
Extropy means favouring reason over blind faith and questioning over dogma; it means understanding, experimenting, learning, challenging, and innovating rather than clinging to beliefs.

Peter Braham

I read with considerable interest “Why religion is not irrelevant to the humanist” by Anthony Constable in your issue for March. It was a talk to a Thursday meeting that I am sorry now to have missed.

E.H.Leaton

I read with interest Keith Turner's letter to the editor (Bulletin, Feb 2005), in which he expresses his boredom with the bulletin's "concentration on religion".

Humanism is, it seems to me, defined by its relation to religion. If there had never been religion, I doubt that there would ever have been Humanism, or at least, not as we know it today.

Religion in the modern world is, I believe, probably more of a threat to sanity and survival than it has ever been - and that is saying something. Consequently, I think that EHA do well to concentrate on religion. I welcome any small voice of sanity in a world of irrational beliefs. I hope you continue to expose religion for what it is and I hope that if you keep chipping away, eventually more and more people will be released from its virus-like grip.

On a different tack, I would like to see the Bulletin tackle the subject of Extropian principles, the so-called post-humanism.

Peter Braham

Further letters on the subject of religion and humanism will be welcome prior to the concluding comment. On the last point of the second letter, the reader is referred to the article above the letters to the editor.      Ed.

Arthur Atkinson, in his book The Cosmic Fairy, has it death can never be experienced. We cannot "be" dead.² I confess that that this statement was misinterpreted³ in my book just out and would require correction in any future edition. The Buddha has I think already expressed much the same thing as Arth, but of course this Buddhist attitude to death had been altogether lost on us of the West owing to the influence of Christianity. It certainly seems to help us put things into better perspective when we see our objective world as part of our subjective world rather than the opposite way round.

² Atkinson A. The Cosmic Fairy. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1996. p15.
³ Carlisle R. Combined Humanism in Ealing. Norwich: Norwich Print Shop, 2005.

There was a change from our original plan to have lunch at the V and A restaurant. On arriving at South Kensington station, Alex suggested we lunch at a nearby Polish Restaurant. This was an excellent suggestion as it turned out - our group of six enjoyed a good lunch taken at leisurely pace with much interesting conversation.

We eventually found the new Architecture Gallery, which is situated on the fourth floor at the V and A; it was more compact than we expected but well laid out and beautifully presented. The models ranged from relatively modern buildings such as the structures put up for the Festival of Britain in 1951, works by Van der Rohe and Norman Foster, to those by Palladio and Vanburgh from earlier periods. There was one impressive model of the Dome for Florence Cathedral by Brunelleschi. This was a copy of the original made just before construction commenced in 1446. Brunelleschi did not live to see work start on his masterpiece, the execution was entrusted to his friend and follower Michelozzo and the existing building follows Brunelleschi's design in every respect.

One of the most impressive aspects of the collection is the number of original drawings for many of the buildings on show. One could spend a full day looking at these alone, and must be a priceless archive for architectural students (and architects) and anybody else with a feeling for history.

There was also a side gallery showing drawings and paintings of buildings, gardens and other spaces; some demolished, some never built, but all fascinating in their depiction of grand plans, whether fulfilled or not.

This is the type of exhibition which makes you think, to delve more into the history of these buildings, to understand the impact that these structures had on the culture of the people who made use of them, to appreciate the brilliance of these architects and designers, adding to our knowledge of the history of art and achitecture and all that goes with it.

After our visit, three of our group had afternoon tea in one of the South Kensington establishments before finishing off the afternoon in a nearby bookshop.

John Bennett

1. We are what we think.
This is an objective statement based on the, now scientific, facts of conscious thought – or, better, on concepts – which build for us a coherent world. This subjective world (or 'awareness') will be distinctive for each individual.

Speak or act with an impure mind and trouble will follow you.
If we regard 'impure' as representing what we would nowadays call 'full of inconsistencies', then the meaning here serves as a useful warning.

Only love dispels hate.
The persistence of emotions that may be either positive or negative – and distort our judgements accordingly – is now a well-appreciated psychological fact.

A frail tree … indulge in food and sleep, and you too will be uprooted.
The metaphor holds for the connection between diet and a shortened expectation of life but indulgence in sleep has as yet no confirmed connection, if indeed it forms any general problem at all. See below.

An unreflecting mind is a poor roof. Passion, like the rain, floods the house.
This sentence perhaps best paraphrases into metaphor-free language as 'Crises are best dealt with by prior consideration of the issues involved.'

2. How wonderful it is to watch. How foolish to sleep.
There is difficulty here in choosing between possible interpretations. Does watch mean 'undirected observation' or 'hesitation'? Does sleep mean physiological sleep or pathological, such as hypersomnia or narcolepsy? Comment too is thus difficult though any useful present-day parallel seems remote.

3. An untroubled mind, no longer seeking to consider what is right and what is wrong, A mind beyond judgements, watches and understands.
The statement certainly seems counter-intuitive. An objective, valid comparison of this with the making of judgements as a step in understanding could be worthwhile but is it possible?

4. Understand that the body is merely the foam of a wave … And then … escape the king of death.
Death belongs to a different world than the self (though not if it is called 'body').

Death overtakes the man who gathers flowers … The bee gathers nectar from the flower without marring its beauty or perfume.
It is an attachment to possessing rather than to just experiencing that is frustrated by death.

To be continued.

Raymond Carlisle

⁴ Byrom T.(transl.) The Dhammapada. The Sayings of the Buddha. London: Random House, 2002.