When recently I posted on this blog a plea for plain speaking I did not mention misleading authors. One such close to home is Mark Vernon, who describes himself as an agnostic.
In a series of Teach Yourself books Hodder Headline has published his book called Teach Yourself Humanism.
It is not really about the Humanist ethical tradition but about humanitarianism in a whole ragbag of ideas. As such it may well confuse any enquirer because it claims that “Humanism in the history of ideas is almost impossible to pin down”. This is not the case, of course, as Humanism is a set of ideas based on the assumption of a natural universe without any supernatural elements acting upon it and is the result of chance, necessity and choice.
Religions and philosophies that teach otherwise may include elements of humanitarianism but that does not amount to Humanism.
The title of the book is so misleading that it seems to me to be a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We welcome lively and challenging comments. However, please try to stay on topic, be polite and do not use abusive, racist or sexist language, and do not incite your readers to violence or other antisocial behaviour, or your comment will be deleted. This isn't censorship: it's a case of staying within the bounds of decency and having an eye to the law, although we realise the law will be different in different countries.
We do not bar anonymous comments at the moment, but we would prefer that those commenting play fair and use their name or at least a regular nom de plume. It does show a confidence in your convictions. We know, too, that it's easy to use a false name and be effectively anonymous, but, again, we appeal to your sense of good practice. Even a wacky nom de plume is better, since at least readers will come to know that contributor and maybe remember her or his previous comments.
Blatant commercial advertising will be removed.
Comments should not be construed as necessarily the policy or opinion of the Pink Triangle Trust.
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.