This is like reading everything that’s been going on in my head over the past few years, but in a much more intelligent way. 😂 I starting noticing language shifts a while back, then noticing how every policy is now shaped from the premise that humans are objects to be categorized. Every policy aims to reduce unique humans to a thing. You’re not a PERSON who objects to something; you’re an “antivaxxer”. A fill-in-the blank “denier.” Whatever or whomever is driving this thing is not human, maybe just metaphorically- but at this point who knows.
This is an important project, thank you for giving it wider exposure, Dr Kheriaty. But I believe it contains the same "invisible worm" (from "Oh rose, thou art sick" by William Blake) that animates the bio-technologists: the repudiation of God as creator and the assumption that our fine tuned biological systems are the product of chance or an impersonal force over billions of years. This is taught unthinkingly as fact in all our universities; resilient is the student or scientist who mentally and spiritually resists this novel theory.
Christians hold that people's dignity and worth are not innate, but have their origin in having been created by God, in his image (uniquely among all living things) and with a soul. Transhumanists may ultimately conquer the whole world, but as Jesus asked, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36). So as a Christian, though I despise their pretensions to power and the destruction that will follow if not stopped (foreshadowed by decades of abortion and now euthanasia), I am not afraid.
C S Lewis saw this coming clearly and warned about it in "The Abolition of Man." He gave imaginative expression to it in his extraordinarily prophetic novel, "That Hideous Strength." In it, a small band of Christian believers takes on techno-scientistic totalitarianism and prevails!
Good start. Readers who like this should check out the writings of the French philosopher Chantal Delsol from the 90s and early 00s. Icarus Fallen and The Unlearned Lessons of the 20th Century are both musts, and both directly address the issue of getting the anthropology right which is raised in this essay.
This is like reading everything that’s been going on in my head over the past few years, but in a much more intelligent way. 😂 I starting noticing language shifts a while back, then noticing how every policy is now shaped from the premise that humans are objects to be categorized. Every policy aims to reduce unique humans to a thing. You’re not a PERSON who objects to something; you’re an “antivaxxer”. A fill-in-the blank “denier.” Whatever or whomever is driving this thing is not human, maybe just metaphorically- but at this point who knows.
This is an important project, thank you for giving it wider exposure, Dr Kheriaty. But I believe it contains the same "invisible worm" (from "Oh rose, thou art sick" by William Blake) that animates the bio-technologists: the repudiation of God as creator and the assumption that our fine tuned biological systems are the product of chance or an impersonal force over billions of years. This is taught unthinkingly as fact in all our universities; resilient is the student or scientist who mentally and spiritually resists this novel theory.
Christians hold that people's dignity and worth are not innate, but have their origin in having been created by God, in his image (uniquely among all living things) and with a soul. Transhumanists may ultimately conquer the whole world, but as Jesus asked, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36). So as a Christian, though I despise their pretensions to power and the destruction that will follow if not stopped (foreshadowed by decades of abortion and now euthanasia), I am not afraid.
C S Lewis saw this coming clearly and warned about it in "The Abolition of Man." He gave imaginative expression to it in his extraordinarily prophetic novel, "That Hideous Strength." In it, a small band of Christian believers takes on techno-scientistic totalitarianism and prevails!
Thank you for this excellent and urgent essay by Prof. Zimmerman. I too am eager to read the second part tomorrow.
Good start. Readers who like this should check out the writings of the French philosopher Chantal Delsol from the 90s and early 00s. Icarus Fallen and The Unlearned Lessons of the 20th Century are both musts, and both directly address the issue of getting the anthropology right which is raised in this essay.
Looking forward to part two tomorrow.