{"id":12356,"date":"2022-12-05T01:52:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T08:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=12356"},"modified":"2022-12-05T11:27:45","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T18:27:45","slug":"goodbye-cruel-worldism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2022\/12\/05\/goodbye-cruel-worldism\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Cruel Worldism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

from The Atlantic<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE PEOPLE CHEERING FOR HUMANITY\u2019S END<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

A disparate group of thinkers says we should welcome our demise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Adam Kirsch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"painting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Painting by Reynier Llanes. Home, 2022 (mixed media on paper, 70 x 59 inches).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMan is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this declaration in The Order of Things<\/em> <\/a>(1966), the French philosopher Michel Foucault heralded a new way of thinking that would transform the humanities and social sciences. Foucault\u2019s central idea was that the ways we understand ourselves as human beings aren\u2019t timeless or natural, no matter how much we take them for granted. Rather, the modern concept of \u201cman\u201d was invented in the 18th century, with the emergence of new modes of thinking about biology, society, and language, and eventually it will be replaced in turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Foucault writes in the book\u2019s famous last sentence, one day \u201cman would be erased, like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea.\u201d The image is eerie, but he claimed to find it \u201ca source of profound relief,\u201d because it implies that human ideas and institutions aren\u2019t fixed. They can be endlessly reconfigured, maybe even for the better. This was the liberating promise of postmodernism: The face in the sand is swept away, but someone will always come along to draw a new picture in a different style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the image of humanity can be redrawn only if there are human beings to do it. Even the most radical 20th-century thinkers stop short at the prospect of the actual extinction of Homo sapiens<\/em><\/a>, which would mean the end of all our projects, values, and meanings. Humanity may be destined to disappear someday, but almost everyone would agree that the day should be postponed as long as possible, just as most individuals generally try to delay the inevitable end of their own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, however, a disparate group of thinkers has begun to challenge this core assumption. From Silicon Valley boardrooms to rural communes to academic philosophy departments, a seemingly inconceivable idea is being seriously discussed: that the end of humanity\u2019s reign on Earth is imminent, and that we should welcome it. The revolt against humanity is still new enough to appear outlandish, but it has already spread beyond the fringes of the intellectual world, and in the coming years and decades it has the potential to transform politics and society in profound ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ click to continue reading at The Atlantic<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The Atlantic THE PEOPLE CHEERING FOR HUMANITY\u2019S END A disparate group of thinkers says we should welcome our demise. By Adam Kirsch Painting by Reynier Llanes. Home, 2022 (mixed media on paper, 70 x 59 inches). \u201cMan is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.\u201d With this declaration in The Order of Things (1966), the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weirdness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}