Benjamin Cain
2 min readJan 29, 2023

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I agree with the criticism of totalitarian "wokeness," and I've written about that (links below). I disagree with some of your history of humanism. The rest seems to me mainly a difference in analysis. We're using different categories to carve up the political terrain.

I've written dozens of articles on liberalism and conservatism, so it's not so easy to summarize in a comment. So-called conservatism reduces to social Darwinism, which effectively denies the dichotomy between people and animals. Contrary to the conservative's religious blather and smokescreens, she ends up as a naturalist, given the thrust of her policies.

By contrast, classic liberals were quintessential modernists in secularizing and in taking more seriously the conservative's religious talk of human sacredness. Conservatives say we're special because of our God-given "spirits," but they mean to cash that out only in the afterlife, leaving our earthly life to the preservation of dominance hierarchies (as in monarchies, plutocracies, dictatorships, feudalism, and laissez-faire capitalism). Liberals are anthropocentric and thus humanistic not just in word but in deed, in advocating for material human progress in this life, with no religious illusions and with the powers of human reasoning and creativity.

Your third point exposes no real inconsistency. What's sacred is our existential potential for full personhood (secular enlightenment), but most humans don't fulfill it, and conservative, regressive demagogues aim to obscure it. Conservatives are animalists in that their policies entail that people are just animals, whereas my existential philosophy explains the difference between people and animals. So yes, even conservatives who apologize for regressive social schemes have inherent dignity as potential persons (even if they would have us act more like lower, unknowing primates). See the fourth link below.

Far from being partisan, I criticize both liberalism and conservatism, both religion and secularism, both theistic faith and hyperrationality.

I'm familiar with that argument about Christianity and humanism, but I think it amounts to cherry-picking. I'm happy to concede, though, that Christianity inadvertently contributed to full-blown modern humanism. It's just that once we admit that mere contribution, we no longer have a reason not to see how lots of other cultures and ancient worldviews added their two cents, including Gnosticism which fed the Renaissance via the Troubadours' poetry and via the emphasis on secret knowledge. Christianity obscured as much as it clarified, with its original sin and election doctrines. Christianity also doesn't condemn slavery. So Christianity, too, is compatible with modern humanism only in part, just like Greco-Roman philosophy, Confucianism, Gnosticism, and so on. The history of syncretism is messy.

https://medium.com/@benjamincain8/woke-lameness-and-toxic-femininity-a38f7e3cb3f3?source=friends_link&sk=be4703623bcd2fdf17441070d18b8f32

https://medium.com/discourse/foucault-and-the-weak-war-for-social-justice-2b6cefde7f92?sk=fb2aff59ccbc42bd1d4cf2597f24a665

https://medium.com/discourse/the-twin-cults-of-trumpism-and-wokeness-6f34874aa600?sk=f9adc689d2943b36e0f0483844fb172e

https://medium.com/grim-tidings/telling-the-brutal-truth-about-conservatism-89984745f17?sk=174085419fe90365a3544149dc494c58

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Benjamin Cain
Benjamin Cain

Written by Benjamin Cain

Ph.D. in philosophy / Knowledge condemns. Art redeems. / https://benjamincain.substack.com / https://ko-fi.com/benjamincain / benjamincain8@gmailDOTcom

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