(December 30, 2013 at 9:38 pm)mralstoner Wrote: Does that mean we need religion for the West to survive? Hell no. But it does mean that humanism (being rather formless, normless, diverse, and open) has failed to retain a vital ingredient of group fitness: namely, unity or cohesiveness, and acting in our own interests.
Precisely. I think the norms are fairly well established if you check out any human rights group or the UN human rights charter, but as you say it is formless with no semblance of ritual. And the older religious and ethnic attachments continue to bubble beneath the surface.
But the advantage we have always had is all of us live on islands or quasi islands ( North America is effectively an island for the US and Canada. Mexico is too poor still to matter). I think China continues to be overpopulated so we have some time to figure it all out.
I think there is a possibility to form a strong and robust humanistic ideology to compete with even the most ancient and robust sub-identities of the new comers. Americaness is fairly robust -- but in its proudest form is too easily equated with being Christian -- and many of those who are secular tend towards nihilism even though the verifiable roots of America are Anglo tinted secular humanism.
It is a conundrum, but I'm optimistic.
