New Humanist Update

What's new in New Humanist?

Those of you who subscribe to our print magazine have had a couple of weeks to identify what we changed in the birthday issue of New Humanist, and none of you got it, even though you can see the change on every page...so I'll have to tell you: We changed out typeface - from one that was a bit spidery and unreadable to a crisp and clean one more suitable to magazines. The fact that no one noticed is, I think, a good sign - you only really notice a typeface when its horrible.
Not a subscriber yet? Why not change that here.

Remember it's not to late to give a gift subscrition to New Humanist. This mid-winter, festivus, Chrismakka who whatever you choose to call it, give the gift of rationalism. Call us on 0207 436 1151 and we'll sort it out for you.

Taking humanism into the 21st century

The Institute for Humanist Studies based in Albany, New York State, produces the excellent Humanist Network News, a digest of humanist news, views and humour.They have now started to produce a 'podcast' version - bascially a radio show you can listen to online or download to your ipod. Great idea. You can listen to the world's first humanist podcast here.

Credit where credit's due

While we're not exactly fans of Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood and their like, it must be said that the call by them, along with Hamas and Hezbollah, for the freeing of hostages in Iraq is laudable. Their statement goes on to condemn 'illegitimate acts of aggression' against civilians in Iraq, which 'only harm the just cause of the Iraqi people'. Read full statement and list of signatories here

Narnia? Nah!

As Disney's epic version of CS Lewis's Narnia Chronicles hits UK screens, prominent aethists line up to warn against its sinister religious (not very) sub-text. First it was author Phillip Pullman who was pretty unequivocal about the original book in the The Observer: "one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read". Then Polly Toynbee in the Guardian, who objects to the Christ-Lion, Aslan: "He is an emblem for everything an athiest objects to in religion. His divine presence is a way to avoid humans taking responsibility for everything here and now on earth...We need no holy guide books, only a very human moral compass." Read the rest here. And this morning Terry Sanderson, of the National Secular Society, was up against Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford (who has written a book on CS Lewis) on the Today Programme. Go here to listen

Gay activist murdered in Jamaica

Steve Harvey, one of Jamaica's few prominent gay rights campaigners, was shot dead yesterday in a raid on his home, after gunmen questioned him on his sexuality. "Steve wasn't afraid to stand up and did work with a lot of people who are hardest to reach," said one gay activist who did not wish to be named. "It's a loss to the gay community and the HIV/Aids effort. There are always shades of grey when it comes to the motives for these kind of murders. But it seems homophobia was an element." Read full story here

Which is the best kind of absurdity?

Novelist, semotician and journalist Umberto Eco makes some subtle points about the attractions of religion - "logical and coherent absurdity" - over the incoherent absurdity of consumer capitalism. Best line: "The "death of God"... has been accompanied by the birth of a plethora of new idols. They have multiplied like bacteria on the corpse of the Christian Church - from strange pagan cults and sects to the silly, sub-Christian superstitions of The Da Vinci Code." Full text here

Book review

HOW ARE THINGS? A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT
Roger-Pol Droit
Faber & Faber
Translated by Theo Cuffe
224pp
£12.99

Roger-Pol Droit's 'How Are Things?' begins as a reflection on the meaning of the common greeting 'How are things?', and turns into a series of exercises in the phenomenology of fifty-one artifacts and machines of everyday life. The point, we are told, is to find the meaning of the question 'How are things?' by performing the experiment of "draw[ing] nearer to [man-made] things, …spy[ing] on them", and recording observations of them.. In the end he professes to leave open the meaning of the question 'How are things?'. But he also suggests some answers of his own, especially the thought that "our attitude to things is an index of our relationship to ourselves".

What are we to make of this book? I suspect each reader's answer will depend on how he or she feels about the phenomenological tradition, great metaphysical earnestness toward mundane objects, the French tendency to combine literary and philosophical discourse, and Gallic wit. My own reaction is mixed. Let me begin by accentuating the positive.

Droit's questions and observations are often perceptive; for example, he brings out well what is puzzling and even bizarre about the title question, notes genuine unclarities in the concept of a thing, and offers a thoughtful conclusion about things on the last page of the book.

His reflections on particular mundane artifacts are sometimes stimulating - as in his discussions of the remote control, key , the drawer, and the bed.

Droit uses incisive, vivid metaphors, such as these: "for lovers, each is the other's key"; "[t]here is something of the small lighthouse about [the] deportment [of a streetlamp]". And he is often witty - as when he observes that "[t]he remote control succeeds where prayers failed"; develops an exam essay on the topic 'Are sandals shoes?'; and lays down the principles of "fork- ology". When I read such passages I can almost ignore the flaws I find in Droit's book.

Almost - but not quite; for the flaws are many, and sometimes egregious. Let me indicate two of the more serious ones.

Droit vacillates between broad and narrow conceptions of a 'thing' - the central concept of the book. Early on he give us a comparatively broad definition: "Let us take 'things' as referring to those objects made by man" (p. 7). Then he defines things as realities that "resist our desires" (p. 25). Later he claims without argument that "[t]hings as such are immobile", but then immediately and inconsistently allows for exceptions. Later still he characterizes things as by definition unknowable (p. 73), and as artifacts that are "usually inert, and whose purpose can usually be deduced" (p. 74). When faced with moving automobiles straddling the dividing lines between road lanes, we American motorists are wont to mutter, "Pick a lane, pal, any lane." Readers of How Are Things? may feel a similar impatience.

Droit also repeatedly conflates the nature of particular things he examines with the psychological reactions they cause in him - as when he tells us that the key is "enigmatic" and "indifferent to its own isolation". Perhaps this conflation is standard operating procedure for (some?) practitioners of the phenomenological method. But to others it may appear to involve the pathetic fallacy - clearly appropriate in much literature and art, but arguably not in philosophical truth-seeking. In fairness to Droit, he acknowledges the possibility that he is "merely projecting [his] impressions on to things"; but this does not deter him in the least.

I would not recommend How Are Things? to a philosophical novice seriously interested in learning about philosophy; despite its popularity in France, I fear that it would do more harm than good.

Stephen J. Sullivan