I am against giving power to any single individual – be it a monarch, a president, or prime minister. I prefer the government of Switzerland, where power is diffused among seven members of a Federal Council.
The history of wars is predominantly a history of single leaders.
The current war against Ukraine is the decision of one man: Putin.
And the current genocide of Gaza is also the decision of a single leader: Benjamin Netanjahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.
But he has recently tried to deflect world attention from his genocide of Gaza by destroying the Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1, 2024. This was a deliberate attempt to get Iran to respond, which it did.
For many years now, Netanjahu has tried to get the US to attack Iran for harboring a nuclear weapons program – akin to the charge against Iraq for harboring a program for weapons of mass destruction.
If this lunatic is not removed, he may plunge the world into World War III.
In my opinion, of all the scholars of the Palestinian-Israeli relations that I know, Norman Finkelstein is the best informed and the most reasonable in his recommendations — which are to follow the international law, the United Nations resolutions. and to pay attention to human rights watchdogs — like Amnesty International.
I agree with him, and I also agree with the International Court of Justice that a plausible case can be made that a genocide is taking place in Gaza.
With the ICJ finding in mind, I have watched various debates on this issue on Youtube, taking note on who affirms and who denies that a genocide is taking place in Gaza.
The most scholarly debate on Youtube is the following:
The participants were Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani, on one side, and Benny Morris and Steven Bonnell (aka Destiny), on the other.
Commentary: Since the debate was set-up by Lex Fridman, he must be held responsible for including Destiny, who was obviously in a company beyond his competency, and who Finkelstein, during the debate, called a moron and an imbecile.
The concept of bullshit covers many kinds of worthless things: falsehoods, fallacies, lies, irrelevancies, nonsense. To these kinds I would add silence in those cases when a truth should be revealed or a stand taken.
The demand for revealing that which one wants concealed is illustrated by a judicial court demand that a witness shall (1) tell the truth, (2) the whole truth, and (3) nothing but the truth. It is this second demand which is not fulfilled by the strategy of silence.
The reasons why such archtypal bullshitters as politicians, salespersons, and lawyers resort to silence is to convince you of something and to keep their jobs.
I am now talking about silence because of the genocide which is taking place in Gaza by the Israelis.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has judged that a plausible case can be made that a genocide is taking place. It, therefore, behooves all governments to acknowledge this fact as one means of stopping the continuation of this genocide; yet, other than South Africa, which brought the charge of genocide to the ICJ and Ireland, all the European countries and the U.S. are silent, and are, therfore, complicit in the genocide of Gaza. I found the following video insightful and to the point:
The current genocidal bombardment and starvation of Gaza prompted me to look into the views of ordinary Israelis, and I stumbled on the above video in which young adult Israelis are asked if they knew any of the anti-zionist Jews mentioned. Only two of the responends knew something about Chomsky.
What does this ignorance by ordinary Israelis show?
It shows that so-called “public intellectuals” are not widely read by ordinary people. They are read mostly by other “intellectuals.”
Harari writes that Humanistic Ethics consists of the principle: if it feels good — do it.
Contrast this with the following passage from C. D. Broad:
“The Factors on which the Rightness or Wrongness of an Action Depends. On my view the Net Value of an act depends jointly on three different factors. These are
(i) its Intrinsic Value or Disvalue. i.e. the value or disvalue which it has in virtue of its own intrinsic qualities, as distinct from its relations to other things and from its effects;
(ii) its Immediate Fittingness or Unfittingness to the situation in which it is performed; and
(iii) its Utility or Disutility, i.e. its tendency to produce good or bad consequences.” (C. D. Broad, “War Thoughts in Peace Time,”Religion, Philosophy and Psychical Research (1953). pp. 249.)
Harari’s principle is factor (i) in Broad’s list. It thus ignores (ii) such as the keeping of a promise despite how one feels about keeping it. And it ignores (iii) such as getting into a homosexual relation in Iran where the punishment is death.
In his book: Homo Deus (Chapter 7: The Humanist Revolution), Harari views Humanism as replacing the religious mythologies of the past with a humanist religion. I think that his view of humanism is both unscholarly and naive. It is unscholarly for ignoring the Humanist Manifesto of 1933, and it is naive by offering his own idiosyncretic version of a manifesto.
In order to better understand the Humanist Manifesto I (1933), the reader can read its history in The Genesis of a Humanist Manisfesto (1995) by Edwin H. Wilson. Briefly, it was the brainchild of Unitarian ministers who recruited the philosopher Roy Wood Sellars to compose the first draft. And to understand Sellars’ mind-set in characterizing humanism with the words “religious” and advocating “socialism”, it is advisable to consult his two earlier books: ”The Next Step in Democracy” (1916) and “The Next Step in Religion” (1918) [Both words were omitted in Humanist Manfesto II (1973) and III (2003)]
The word “religion” is ambiguous. Normally, it is used to refer to religions basesd on a belief in the supernatural. But given that Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism are included in studies of religions, the concept of a religion may be expanded to cover also what are called ideologies and world views, as is done , for example, when Communism is described as a religion. In this expanded sense of “religion”, both Sellars and Harari characterize “secular (i.e., non-supernatural) “humanism” as a religion.
As to the word “socialism,” it too is ambiguous. In contemporary usage, it means State control of industry and more. But what Sellars means by “socialism” is the ideal of amelioration of the living conditions of all human beings through liberty and justice. And he advocate doing this through an unspecified “democratic” process.
In dropping the words “religion” and “socialism”, Humanist Manifestoes II and III mean to be more generic is advocating a common good.
Harari, by contrast, is very specific in what he means by “humanism.” He means to contrast the pre-humanistic appeal to God and authority with the “humanistic” appeal to the umbrella term — “feeling.” And his characterization of humanism is in fact a characterization of capitalism and liberal democracy through the following misleading and inappropriate slogans.
Humanistic Politics: The voter knows best.
Humanistic Economics: The customer is always right.
Humanistic Aesthetics: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Humanistic Ethics: If it feels good – do it.
Humanistic Education: Think for yourself.
If the reader thinks I am presenting a caricature, below is a reproduction of pp. 234-5.
The most egregious naive view of Harari is his view of ethics as a prescription to do whatever feels good. But I will put off a criticism of this for later. Here I want to say something about the title of his book: Homo Deus.
I realize that he is using this title for its – let us say – shock value. But though his intent is to argue for the possibility or even probability of enhancing human characteristics, such as physical and mental powers, and even the creation of human-like machines, the title is literally a contradiction in terms. Why? Because of our conception of God and gods. [See C. D. Broad,
“The Validity of Belief in a Personal God”]
Simply put, the ancient Greeks imagined the gods to be immortal, while humans are not. [See Robert Graves,The Greek Myths]
So, the title of Harari’s book conveys the view that a mortal can become an immortal, which is impossible for the following reason. Anything with parts can be destroyed. God, as conceived in the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions has no parts, while humans do. Only two things can be said to be indestructible: ultimate parts – if there are such – as studied by quantum mechanics. And the universe, if the conservation of energy is true. And this is why for Spinoza the universe is identified with God. Consequently, neither man nor any artificial intelligence can be a Deus.
