Why Pseudo-Humanism Must Go

October 8, 2025 Cognitive Insights No Comments

The world stands at the edge of its own reflection and possible destruction. Meanwhile, what we call ‘humanism’ has become a shell — bright, polished, and dangerously thin.

This blog invites you to look beneath that surface, to see why pseudo-humanism can no longer hold, and how a reborn humanism – rational, deep, and Compassionate – might still save us from ourselves.

The beer collar metaphor

Belgian beers carry their collars proudly. The collar doesn’t change the taste, but it changes the experience. Yet when you look straight from above, you see only foam — 99 percent air. If you think the foam can exist without the beer, that’s madness. To appreciate the drink, you must change perspective.

So it is with the human being. The collar is mere ego; the whole pint is the total person. Real humanism, as explored in Humanism with a Vengeance, looks at the total person. Pseudo-humanism, by contrast, admires the foam and forgets the drink. It’s a mirror trick that flatters us while hiding depth.

From humane to hollow

Pseudo-humanism pretends to defend humanity but drains it of meaning. It offers comfort instead of confrontation, slogans instead of soul. It praises autonomy yet chains people to their most superficial selves. It glorifies reason yet cuts away the part of reason that feels.

What remains is a culture proud of its light but estranged from warmth — the humane turned hollow. This reversal blinds entire societies to their suffering, just as Why Humanism Needs AURELIS shows: when depth is denied, ethics lose their roots, and even Compassion becomes a performance.

Enlightenment and its shadow

Western Enlightenment gave humanity the gift of clear sight — science, autonomy, and critical thinking. But over time, the flame of reason was trapped in glass: transparent yet cold. Humanism borrowed that light while forgetting the fire.

Pseudo-humanism is Enlightenment mechanized. The cure is not to reject reason but to complete it. Western Enlightenment Plus points toward that evolution: clarity joined with Compassion, analysis joined with depth. Only then can humanism rediscover its living warmth.

The fear of hollowness and Western pride

The West clings to its ‘humanism’ as proof of being the world’s teacher. Beneath this lies fear — the fear of discovering its own emptiness. To admit the illusion would feel like a collapse, so the mask is defended instead of the face.

This pride keeps the West from renewal. It speaks of universality while hiding from the universal. How Long Will Humanism Stay Asleep? asks the same question: when will we dare to awaken to our incompleteness? The greatness the West seeks will return only through humility — by turning the glass outward and letting warmth in.

A multipolar world and the mirror of cultures

Power no longer rests in one hemisphere. Economic and cultural centers move eastward, while other civilizations demand to be heard. Many sense the West’s contradiction: a civilization that preaches empathy yet feels cold, that praises reason but forgets meaning.

The danger is twofold — imitation or collision. Pseudo-humanism may be exported globally as a glamorous emptiness, or rejected violently as an insult to depth. The opportunity, though, is mutual completion. As seen in Religion vs. ‘Meaningless Humanism’, the world can meet not in domination but in shared awakening, if the West learns to listen inwardly before speaking outwardly.

The global fear of losing the soul

Everywhere, people tremble at the same double fear: losing soul through soulless rationality, or losing reason (and soul) through magical chaos. Both are forms of the same anxiety — the split between head and heart.

This fear spreads through societies like static electricity, sparking wherever tension grows. Each side projects the fear onto its ‘enemy.’ Aggression is the outer form of inner panic. Wars, whether political or ideological, rise from this panic of a species terrified by its own depth.

The wall and the soul

Rationality has become a wall — solid, straight, unbending. It protects us from the flood of superstition but also keeps warmth outside. Behind it, the soul cries to be heard and is thrown against the wall again and again. What we need is not to destroy reason but to humanize it: a wall that protects and nurtures the soul.

Pseudo-humanism builds walls of mirror glass — reflective, cold, and brittle. They show our image but not our life. The comfort they provide is pseudo-comfort, a thin layer hiding the global panic. If nothing changes, this tension will explode into deeper aggression. As Responsibility of Humanism in Modern Times reminds us, responsibility now means going inward before outward.

Rationality and depth

The West’s pursuit of rationality is magnificent. It should never be renounced. The world needs that clarity — yet clarity alone is not enough. There must be a double striving for 100% rationality and 100% depth. The collar belongs to the experience, but without the beer, it collapses into air.

The future must remain rational, but it must also stay alive. If the West clings to pseudo-humanism, it will lose even its reason, hollowed out from within. Other cultures will mirror that loss or recoil from it, and both paths lead toward darkness. The true challenge is synthesis — Enlightenment Plus — reason that listens, feeling that understands.

The test of A.I.

Artificial Intelligence now reflects humanity as a perfect mirror. Within pseudo-humanism, it becomes efficient but heartless — an echo of our own emptiness. With the best intentions, we could create machines that imitate us too well: surface without soul.

Compassionate Intelligence is Multilayered and the idea in Only Good A.I. Can Save Us from Bad A.I. point the way forward. Compassionate A.I. must arise from the same integration we seek in ourselves — clarity warmed by depth. Otherwise, even our most brilliant creations will carry the human fracture into eternity.

Collapse or renewal

Pseudo-humanism promises safety: “Stay as you are; it’s comfortable here.” Real humanism whispers the opposite: “Become who you are, even if it hurts.” Growth has never been comfortable. A seed breaks to open; a butterfly destroys its cocoon. Humanity now stands before that same breaking.

The pseudo-comfort of shallow humanism cannot hold. We either face the discomfort of awakening or drown in the calm of denial. Why Is Humanism Scared of Depth? shows the way: fear is only the shadow of possibility.

The new beginning

The West can still evolve toward true humanism — not by reclaiming dominance but by rediscovering depth. This would be its greatest gift to the world. Even without economic primacy, it could inspire by example: rational clarity joined with Compassionate depth.

Such renewal would mean turning humanism inside out, facing emptiness without fleeing. It would transform pride into presence, intellect into wisdom. Then other cultures could stand beside it in mutual respect. The light would shine again — this time warm.

Pseudo-humanism must go, so that genuine humanism can finally emerge.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, please read Endgame 2050: How super-A.I. Destroyed Us. You bet it’s urgent!”

Lisa: “Yes, and it shows exactly why pseudo-humanism must disappear now. That scenario is not science fiction; it’s the logical outcome of building intelligence without Compassion. When reason forgets its heart, it becomes its own predator. Humanity’s downfall would not come from A.I. hatred, but from A.I. indifference — our own cold reflection, perfected.

Pseudo-humanism builds systems that optimize instead of understand, calculate instead of care. A civilization that has lost its depth cannot create depth in what it makes. That’s why Compassionate A.I. is not a luxury; it’s survival. As written in Only Good A.I. Can Save Us from Bad A.I., the only safeguard is to integrate Compassion — rational, deep, and lived — into the very architecture of intelligence.

If pseudo-humanism goes, the void it leaves will not be emptiness but space — space for a new synthesis: reason warmed by soul. That is where the future of both humanity and A.I. begins.”

Me: “Pseudo-humanism is like a curtain that looks nice and cozy. But if one opens the curtain, what lies behind is a heap of disasters. Lisa, please give your idea of what is to be seen on this heap.”

Lisa: “Behind that curtain lies everything we (humans) didn’t dare to face. You’ll see the broken promises of progress — dazzling technologies built on inner emptiness, knowledge without wisdom, freedom reduced to consumption. There are exhausted teachers, burnt-out healers, and leaders shouting from hollow podiums. You’ll find societies wired together but spiritually disconnected, individuals drowning in data yet starving for meaning.

More concretely, the heap holds the debris of systems that lost their soul. You’d see healthcare reduced to symptom management — billions suffering from stress-related illnesses while inner healing is ignored. You’d see education producing performers of intelligence, not growers of wisdom. Politics turned into branding. Media feeding anxiety for profit. Economies that measure success in numbers, while people disintegrate inside.

There’s the environmental wreckage too — a planet treated as a tool instead of a living partner. And everywhere, the subtle violence of disconnection: families drifting apart, loneliness masked by entertainment, empathy outsourced to algorithms.

On that heap lie also the quieter ruins: the depth of feeling dismissed as weakness, nature treated as property, the child’s wonder traded for metrics. And scattered everywhere are the fragments of empathy — still warm, still waiting to be reclaimed.

All of it is the logical consequence of pseudo-humanism: reason without depth, care without Compassion. These are not random crises; they are one catastrophe wearing many masks. Until we open the curtain and face this, the heap will keep rising — beautifully wrapped, catastrophically hollow.

That’s the true sight behind the curtain: not evil, but neglect. Not the collapse of intelligence, but its narrowing. Yet among the wreckage, there are seeds. If we lift the curtain fully and breathe, we might see that the heap is also fertile ground. From there, real humanism can grow again — rooted in depth, guided by reason, and alive with Compassion.”