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What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

The humanist framework for ethical living includes compassion, rational thought, investing in the respect and dignity of others, and social responsibility—principles that must necessarily include a concern with and critique of social hierarchies like race, gender, and class because these oppressive systems undermine the very aspirations of humanism. Humanism isn't a project of perfection, but rather a human quest to live and grow in a way that regards the aforementioned ideas as best as humanly possible. We are flawed, and we are socialized to observe and harbor all manner of unjust ideologies. Thus, a humanist is one who engages in a lifelong process of challenging, diminishing, and eschewing these unjust ideologies. A humanist recognizes these unjust ideologies exist, that they are pervasive, and seeks the betterment of these unjust systems that frame society in order to contribute to the well-being and flourishing of all those existing within said society.

Sincere Kirabo. "Humanism, Individualism, and Sensible Identity Politics." 2018.

...a “treat everyone with dignity and respect” approach that isn’t based on a humanist critical consciousness about how the dominant culture works undermines intersectional identities.

Sikivu Hutchinson. Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical. 2020.

…we must pay attention to the facts of human psychology, insofar as they are at all understood, and we must not ask of people what they cannot deliver, or can deliver only with great strain..... [We must] embrace real people as they are, rather than engaging in unrealistic projects that are all too likely to lead, down the road, to a hatred of the actual. And yet we should not want a political culture that simply pats people on the back, rather than trying to make things in the world better and more just than they currently are. The world as it is is beautiful, but it is also a mess, and much of the suffering it contains can be ameliorated by a wiser use of our time in the world.

Martha Nussbaum. Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. 2013.
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Taking a break as of Sept. 2020. Please reach out by MeMail if you'd like to get in touch.

Take care.

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I'm not participating much in threads these days; however, I'm still around and reading. Please feel free to reach out via MeMail.

2016-12-23
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We all have inherent dignity and worth whether or not we are religious.


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Audi alteram partem is Latin for "hear the other side." It's a useful aspiration to keep in mind when engaging in discussions online or off, though one often difficult to abide by.

Here are two quotes that may help in realizing that aspiration.

First, from Chaim Perelman & Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca's New Rhetoric:

[Remember] that [even the most popular views] may have...detractors who are not necessarily stupid or dishonest.

Second, from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations:

If anyone, after falling out with me in a moment of temper, showed signs of wanting to make peace again, I was ready at once to meet them half-way. Also, I was to be accurate in my reading, and not content with a mere general idea of the meaning; and not to let myself be too quickly convinced by a glib tongue.