More Humanism!

Let’s try to avoid muddled thinking: we are not things, and things are not us.

The natural world around us is neither intelligent nor malicious. We have neither friends nor enemies there, just things that happen to benefit or harm us, and which we may benefit or harm, things that simply are.

Nature is not a lady, kindly or unkindly disposed towards us. Nature is not a moral agent on ground morally higher or lower than ours. Nature is simply the sum total of everything that is out there. You can admire it, but it makes no sense to put it on a pedestal or to throw stones at it.

Not everything out there is either useful or problematic to us, neither is every action that we take either our finest hour or a burden to ourselves and others. Sometimes, what we do is provide solutions.

Keep calm, and carry on getting solutions!