the brights (NY times op-ed)

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Sat, 12 Jul 2003 09:25:56, LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
(pseud. for Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>)
writes (inter alia):

> dale coye asks, about the "brights" discussed by dan dennett in
> his nyt piece today:
> >are they a renaming of the old secular humanists

Interestingly, the main sourcebook of the Kaballah is the "Sefer Ha-Zohar"
(usually referred to simply as "the Zohar"), a title which translates into
English as "the Book of Brightness".

> has the history of the phrase "secular humanism" been charted?  who
> first used the expression, in what context, and how has its use
> changed over the years?
>
> i'm familiar with its "outsider" use by christian fundamentalists who
> want to convey that non-believers actually suscribe to a *religion*,
> with its own set of beliefs, alternative to theirs.  i believe that,
> at least partly in reaction to this naming practice (in a sort of
> name-reclaiming action), a society for secular humanism was organized.
> but i suspect that there's quite a complicated history.

I am a little surprised to find [C]hristian [F]undamentalists, generally
stereotyped as narrow-minded, should be apologists for "non-believers".  These
Fundamentalists are to a large extent correct.  The rubric "atheist/atheism", as
the saying goes, "covers a multitude of sins", or more exactly, a significant
subset of those lumped together as "atheists" are subscribers to belief
systems that under any reasonable definition qualify as religions, and even in some
cases supernatural religions.

I am unable to think of a context in which "Christian" can properly be
written with a small "c", anymore than one could write "jewish" or "buddhist".  Yes,
I'm being prescriptivist, but members of any organized, or at least
well-defined, belief group are to be referred to by a title that begins with a capital
letter:  Democrat-Republican, Socialist, Ethical Culturalist, Catholic,
Parsee, etc.  As another example, "catholic parochial school" is an oxymoron but
"Catholic parochial school" is not.  In fact, when referring to Protestants in
the US who insist on literal interpretation of the Bible, one generally writes
"Fundamentalist"  rather than "fundamentalist", whether one approves or
disapproves of them.  (However, "Moslem fundamentalist").

Sometimes the presence or absence of a capital letter distinguishes meanings,
e.g. Eugene Debs was both a Socialist (member of the Socialist Party) and a
socialist (a believer in state/people's ownership).  Similarly kibbutzniks are
by definotion communists but relatively few are Communists.


> as far as i know, no one has tried to reclaim the label "godless",
> though there have been supporters of "atheist" and "agnostic" as
> self-descriptions.

In my experience, quite a few people proudly claim "atheist" or "agnostic" as
a self-description.

all of these, and "non-believer" too, suffer from>
> the problem that people tend to interpret them as encoding a reactive
> or oppositional stance,

I don't have any references handy, but I seem to recall that the term
"Atheist" was popularized by French philosophical activists of the 18th Century.

> (a friend once suggested, only half in jest, that if we wanted a
> concerned stranger to talk to, we should say we're jewish; at least
> the rabbi would probably have the same take on the afterlife as we
> did.  our friend drew an analogy to ordering kosher meals on
> airplanes.)

This opens a can of, not worms, they're not Kosher, perhaps spaghetti.
First, while Judaism pays epsilon attention to the afterlife, it places
considerable attention on what the living are to do when there is a death.  Would Jacques
appreciate it if you were to spend eleven months attending minyans twice a
day to say the Kaddish for him?  Second, one obligation on Jews is to visit the
sick.  (Granted, most Jews "hire a substitute", i.e. let the Rabbi do it for
them. )  How many Jewish friends do you have, and do you want all of them
pestering you while you're in the hospital?


> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), who also sternly resisted
>  (non-sectarian, or so they claimed) grief counseling,
>  preferring instead to depend on the kindness of friends