Talk:Antihumanism

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I am the author of the wikipedia antihumanism article that this was rewritten from. Of the authors mentioned here the only one that could be called anti-humanist without controversy is Heidegger. The term is more closely associated with 20th century French structuralist thinkers such as Althusser, Foucault, Derrida etc. Although these were indeed heavily influenced by Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, many scholars would stress that these three were strongly humanist in their thought. 86.44.219.169 (talk) 16:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, the morality section has very little to do with the views of thinkers labelled "antihumanist". It claims that anti-humanists eschew moral baggage when it comes to issues such as eugenics when Foucault's concept of biopower offers a powerful critique of the logic behind eugenics. In Foucault's case, what he was often concerned to demonstrate was that Enlightenment ideals of the power of reason did not have the emancipatory weight that they were believed to have.

The phrase "antihumanism" originated with Louis Althusser's writings in opposition to the Marxist Humanist movement of the 1950s and and 60s. The Marxist Humanists emphasised the writings of Karl Marx where he was most concerned with the dehumanising nature of work and competition in capitalist societies, and with a view of communism as a society that would restore dignity to work and to human life. Althusser believed this to be a remnant of bourgeois ideology in Marx's thought and opposed to this a "scientific" view of history as an impersonal process within which human individuals have little to no say. Outside of Althusser's writings, "antihumanism" became more widely associated with the structuralist movement of the 1960s, which countered the extreme subjectivism of existentialism with a deterministic view of humans constantly shaped by social structures (such as language) within which the have no agency. 86.44.219.169 (talk) 19:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Please, please help improve our entry if you can. Picon small.pngLiquid Blue 23:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I changed to the article. I'm aware it could be more clearly written but it doesn't go into eugenics and euthanasia which have a very tenuous connection to the French structuralism. This is not to say that the issue of morality and ethics is completely irrelevant here but I don't really have time to write an extensive section about it. 05:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)— Unsigned, by: Hanshans23 / talk / contribs

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