anti-humanism

Back in 2010, a mentally disturbed anti-human terrorist was shot to death by snipers after he took hostages at the Discovery Channel, demanding that the television service stop “encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants,” and instead air “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility.”

Now, a similar disturbing scenario befell Palm Springs, Calif., where a young man named Guy Edward Bartkus killed himself, injured four people, and caused widespread property destruction when he detonated a huge car bomb in front of an in vitro fertilization clinic. The motive? According to Newsweek’s reporting, Barkus was a “‘pro-mortalist’ (believing death is preferable to living) or an ‘anti-natalist’ (believing no more human beings should be born).”

Anti-natalism is a form of anti-humanism, which isn’t just believed by mentally disturbed people capable of violence. Indeed, various forms of anti-humanism have been promoted in professional journals, the media, and popular culture, as a consequence of which, nihilism has been slowly seeping through the culture like a stain.

What are the primary pretexts for such species self-loathing? A neurotic fear of suffering, misguided forms of feminism, and radical environmentalism. Consider the following non-comprehensive examples:

• Last year, the Cambridge Quarterly of HealthCare Ethics published an article by a philosopher urging that people stop having children because “all lives are occasionally miserable, some lives are predominantly miserable, and individuals may think, justifiably, that their lives have no meaning. My reason suggests that it would be unwise and unkind to bring new people into existence and thereby expose them to these risks.”

The nature-rights movement continues to advance, and that’s bad for human thriving. Now, a “tribunal” will be held in New York — coinciding with Climate Week NYC 2024 — to promote the rights of nature and undermine public support for fossil fuels. The tribunal’s website is typical of the anti-humanism that permeates the nature-rights movement. For example, the fundamental philosophy of nature rights — as elucidated at the website, is “that the interests of nonhuman beings are of equal importance to human interests.” So, pond scum, mosquitoes, trees, squirrels, grass, and scallops are equal to us. That’s self-loathing any way you look at it. Worse, adopting such a misanthropic approach to environmentalism would have serious consequences to human thriving. For example, forget about heating Read More ›