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Scum of the Earth: Alain Finkielkraut on the Political Risks of a Humanism without Transcendence

I. The Seduction of Immanence

The vocabulary of humanism—in which concepts such as "man," "humane," and "humanity" figure prominently—has always been contentious. The sarcasm of the nineteenth-century Catholic conservative thinker Joseph de Maistre with regard to the abstraction-tainted works of revolutionary thinkers, has become famous: "In my life I have met Frenchmen, Italians, and Russians, but Man, I solemnly declare, I have never met before; perhaps he exists, but not to my personal knowledge."¹

These concepts acquire a practical, political, and even polemical meaning when acted upon in the name of man, human rights, and finally humanity against "inhuman" practices...