Lecture on Humanity

In Issac Asimov’s “Lecture on Humanity”, given in 1973, he makes many predictions about the 21st century. He says, among other things, we’ll need population control, a shift in our view of education, a change in food production, and we’ll have to realize “we’re a world without war” (10).

As a young, intelligent member of the 21st century, what do you think of Asimov’s predictions? Have any of them come true? If they haven’t, should we work toward making any of them a reality? Why or why not?

What other elements of Asimov’s lecture appeal to you? What do you make of his humor? Of his anecdotes? Explain what we can learn from his pointed sarcasm and from some of the stories he shares with us.

And, finally, how does this lecture reflect qualities of synoptic philosophy and critical analysis? Give a specific example.

I absolutely love Issac Assimov and his humanistic approach to humanity. He's the only humanist that I find myself agreeing with due to his very fatalistic ideas. He believes that as humans we are failing in society and that our huge spiral will lead us nowhere in life. I could not agree more.

He makes predictions based off literal subjects. Like the rise in global warming and the increase of war and others that are undeniable facts about our world right now. We as a society cannot deny that our pollution and constant killing of each other over subjects as ridiculous as belief is only hurting our cause in the long run. He has predicted nothing but a long downhill spiral on humanity and I can completely agree with what he says.

The way he speaks and his comical tone makes him much more listenable and this makes for a much better connection to his reader/audience. I felt a much closer tie to him due to his informal attitude and I appreciated what he said much more rather than to someone if they just came up and said "We're all going to die." He pretty much said we are all going to die IF we don't change this, this, and this.

He shows fatalism and a lack of hope. But at least he proposes a solution and he proposes them to the youth of this world in the small hopes that his speech may make a difference and THAT is the significance in what he does an says. His ability to connect to the right people makes what he does incredibly important.

Meaning-making Machines

"If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded--or even suspects--that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe."

--Irving Kristol

It seems that the key idea here is what Kristol meant by a meaningless life or a meaningless universe. As Xinlin said, one could look at this from a literal standpoint and say that he meant a purpose in life or a point in life but I think he means more than just that. Humans love to believe that the world isn't so random and that their lives aren't so chaotic. We spend our time finding excuses as to what our meanings are or what our purposes are. We spend years trying to find out who we are (metaphorically speaking of course) and we forget much of the big picture. This dissolution leads us to believe and see strange things and we may think that our society is working. We can see this in all forms of government as well. Before every government fails (as they are all destined to do) it's people fall in love with it, become concerned about it, hate it, and then BOOM revolution and everyone's waving their flags for a "new order" or some other ideal that will be just as easily washed away as its predecessor. This proves Kristol's point because as history shows, people like to see their society working in some way and once it becomes impossible to further lie to themselves about it they burn it down and create a new one.

The one thing that I do not agree with in Kristol's point that even a suspicion will lead to a community's destruction for people will lie to themselves for years in order to rekindle that feeling of fake hope that they once had. Our suspicions exist but we repress them in order to not cause a commotion in our community. We are instilled with fear and the powers that surround us keep us from speaking up so we quell our suspicions and allow these communities that seem to be leading meaningless lives to continue to spiral downward until there is nothing more of it but a distant memory of what people thought they had.