Against Misanthropy and Defeatism: Frank Furedi

How we view humanity really matters. If we insist on seeing humans as morally degraded parasites, then every significant technical problem from the millennium bug to the avian flu will be feared as a potential catastrophe beyond our control. Today’s intellectual pessimism and cultural disorientation distracts the human imagination from confronting challenges that lie ahead. All the talk about human survival expresses a crisis of belief in humanity - and that is why the real question today is not whether humanity will survive the twenty-first century, but whether our belief in humanity can survive it.

Despite Western culture’s profound sense of estrangement from its human sensibilities, individuals possess an unprecedented potential for influencing the way they live their lives. It is only now that significant sections of the public have real, meaningful choice and control. We must reinvigorate the belief in autonomy and self-determination, and recognise that we have moved from the Stone Age to a time when people’s transformative potential is a remarkable force.

Frank Furedi is on to something, I think. He does tend to ignore the unavoidable fact that the "ecological footprint" associated with homo sapiens actually is causing both human suffering and the extinction of other species, and actually does bode very ill for the near future. But at least he's not being an auld miseryguts about everything. He's not giving up. He's not writing us off.

Furedi's making an argument that's quite similar to (but much more developed than) the case I've been trying to make about the affairs of the world, so I'm starting to get interested in the guy. Plus, Furedi is one of those humanists over at The Manifesto Club.

No, not that one.

This one.