WHAT IS HUMANISM and WHY WE NEED IT NOW.

We live in times when the fundamental humanity of us all is assaulted by the forces of hate, small-mindedness, and flagrant self-interest. We need to reclaim what is most precious in us.

The times we are in

I have never witnessed in my lifetime an atmosphere of nastiness that pervades the American social environment as it does in these times. A foul wind is blowing across the landscape and it poisons hearts and minds.

America is divided into angry political camps pouring forth vitriol, contempt, and hatred. Minority and marginal groups are targeted – immigrants, gays, transgendered people, Jews, Blacks. Misogyny has intensified with the consequent dehumanization of women, and long fought for rights are being taken away. From the right, the liberals and Democrats are cast as treasonous enemies, devoid of any redeeming values. Abolishing laws prohibiting child labor, thus oppressing children en masse, brings us back to the nineteenth century. It feels like institutionalized cruelty. The pervasiveness of hyper-individualism, most blatantly expressed in the power-mongering of politicians seeking office with no consideration for interests beyond their egos, exemplifies the worst in us and aggravates the culture of nastiness.

Some of this emanates from the left as well. “Cancel culture” is a real phenomenon wherein careers and reputations are destroyed owing to a single mistake, real or alleged. Ideologies of correctness drown out dialogue. The list goes on and on. Minor social issues are magnified and weaponized, fueling finger-pointing, blame, and contempt, while those launching tirades can reinforce their putative virtue and solidify their bonds with those espousing similar views. Self-righteous absolutism reigns.

Ideologies of white, male, superiority abound in major camps, gussied up with the potent garb of religion. Christian nationalism, animated by a yen for imposing fundamentalist doctrine as the law of the land, is on the march. Domination replaces freedom and autonomy.

Political spokespersons are prime purveyors of this malice that is sundering the American fabric. But the vitriol seeps down to inform attitudes and relations on the ground. Escalating gun violence, wherein mistakenly ringing a stranger's doorbell can lead to one's death, no doubt intensifies social anxiety. One recoils with edginess. There are fewer smiles from strangers on the street. One infers that suspicion of others, unspoken, lies under the surface. When I was a child growing up in the 1950s, I was socialized with the belief that the world around me was essentially a friendly place. I doubt whether children today, or their parents, feel this way. Better to self-protectively keep to oneself. Circles are tightened and grow more insular.

No doubt Donald Trump as president has instigated and given permission for this outpouring of the worst in emotional capacities. As a most powerful exemplar, his appeal is in his transgression: in the permission he gives to transgress all social norms – moral, behavioral, sexual, and legal - that reinforce decency, compromise, and cooperation. This destructive behavior is carried forward by his craven political acolytes, who are happy to trade away all integrity for the sake of retaining his support and augmenting their petty political power. Let democracy, the Constitution, truth, public welfare, and decency be damned.

Clearly, these dour realities do not exhaust the human experience, but they are so pronounced, so much in the news and social media that they can't help but inform our moods and dispositions.

The Need for Humanism 

What society needs is a strong dose of kindness. We need to rediscover the better angels of our nature. We would do well in fostering a humanistic sensibility, which segues into the topic I wish to develop. In humanism, we find alternatives to the rawness so much in evidence.

What is humanism? It is a term frequently invoked, often in passing, but not generally understood. It is a concept that is subject to broad understandings.

Humanism, I contend, has diverged into two related streams comprising different arenas of human expression. There is contemporary humanism, which finds expression in articulated principles and has coalesced, especially in recent decades, into a proliferating array of organizations promoting a humanist agenda. But the term has an ancient application and has been imputed to the Greeks, Hebrews, and Eastern civilizations. Humanism's identification with the European Renaissance is its best-known usage.

Let's call them “humanism 1” and “humanism 2;” the modern and the other. I start with the modern.

Humanism 1

Contemporary humanism grew out of the critique of religion which gestated in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. The era of the French Revolution was its high-water mark, and the rebellion was both violently political and undergirded with revolutionary modes of thinking carried forward by a retinue of brilliant philosophers. They attacked not only the oppression and hypocrisy of church authority but replaced supernaturalism and biblical doctrine, often derided as superstition, with the authority of reason. Truth was assessed by the touchstone of reason. Immanuel Kant was arguably the greatest Enlightenment thinker. His epistemology asserted that via our senses we can only know the surface of things. Their interiority, how things are unto themselves, transcends the surface and is unknowable. Since God is a transcendental being, Kant was, from reason's standpoint, an agnostic, and his philosophy became a basis for the agnosticism which took root among intellectuals in the late nineteenth century.

Kant's thought was far-reaching. In America it was modified and found popular renditions in the hands of the Transcendental Movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson was its most influential figure. Out of his critique of religion, Emerson quit the Unitarian ministry and became a wandering sage and essayist. He eschewed a supernatural God, and posited the transcendent “oversoul.” The oversoul was pure spirit that pervaded all nature, us included. It was Emerson's version of divinity. The oversoul was assuredly real but incorporeal and austerely impersonal. The Transcendentalists reverenced Nature and imbued morality with an aura of the divine. Emerson imputed divinity to human beings when acting in concert with transcendent moral ideals. It was an utterance of unqualified religious heresy. The groundwork for humanism was laid.

Doctrinally more germane was Emerson's fellow Transcendentalist, Theodore Parker. A Unitarian minister, Parker was the most left-wing religious thinker in America before the Civil War, a prodigious scholar as well as a firebrand of abolition. As with Emerson, he rejected the divinity of Jesus and a supernatural God. As his thinking evolved, Parker proclaimed what he referred to as “The Absolute Religion.” It was a religion of pure ideals – truth, beauty, and justice foremost among them. Again, not supernaturalism, unadorned impersonal ideals to uplift and inspire the lives of persons and society.

Humanism received a huge boost in the post-Civil War era. It was a period when science achieved its greatest authority as it squared off against religion in supplying compelling explanations as to how nature and reality are constituted. Science provided the frame of mind which enabled the emergence of the “religion of humanity” in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the words of historian Ralph Gabriel in his The Course of American Democratic Thought,

“The appearance of an aggressive humanism, a new religion of humanity, immediately after the Civil War is one of the more significant events in the history of American democratic thought. The objective of the religion of humanity was to secure and protect a larger human freedom and to make men understand that liberty implies responsibility.”

“The new humanism was not the result of the teachings of any particular individual. It was not limited to a locality in the sense that transcendentalism centered in Concord. The post-Appomattox religion of humanity sprang up independently in different places on the Atlantic seaboard and in the Upper Mississippi Valley. It never became a sect. Its prophets were as individualistic as those of ancient Israel.” It was, again, grounded in the prestige of science (Darwin's The Origin of Species had been published in 1859) and was fueled by a commitment to the free mind and belief that Christianity had become the chief enemy of freedom. No doubt the tectonic transformations brought by industrialization and the wizardry of electrification played significant roles in the possibilities of progress.

The humanism of the time did not become a sect, but it did find organizational expression. On May 30, 1867, hundreds gathered in an auditorium in Boston to participate in the founding of the Free Religious Association. It was a radical initiative to inaugurate a new religious movement grounded in science and dedicated to freedom, most directly aimed at freeing the mind from the shackles of Christianity. The aging Emerson was present, as well as eminent liberal thinkers of the day. Its president was Octavius Brooks Frothingham, who started his career as a Unitarian minister, passed through Transcendentalism, and arrived as a free thinker with a large following in New York, preaching the gospel of the religion of humanity.

Frothingham preached a message of progressive humanity devoted to universal ends. “...human nature,” proclaimed Frothingham, “denotes the capacities of man, what he ought to be and shall be, not what he is.” A statement of exuberant humanism, to be sure. Parker's Absolute Religion was a major inspiration.

There were other voices as well. In 1876, Felix Adler, the son of a reform rabbi, founded the Society for Ethical Culture. Adler created a new religio-philosophical movement that, in a Kantian mode, was dedicated to the intrinsic dignity of all and to mutual support devoid of theological foundations. As a philosophical idealist and non-naturalist, Adler eschewed “humanism” to describe his movement in that he found the term too self-referencing. However, Ethical Culture's non-theism and its tireless commitment to social justice made it humanist in all but name.

More independent and irreverent, but less scholarly than Adler, was the “great agnostic,” Robert Ingersoll. Ingersoll was a gifted orator, a preacher of skepticism, and a rebel against all that would confine the human spirit. In the words of Gabriel, “The rebellion of his boyhood became the crusade of his lifetime.” Ingersoll poked fun at miracles, ridiculed the absurdities of religion, and provoked numerous enemies as huge crowds gathered to hear him deride sacred pieties. Ingersoll preached freedom and succeeded in divorcing for himself and other American democratic faith from Christianity. He reframed democracy as a completely humanistic philosophy founded on naturalistic principles.

The emergence of humanism was a creature of its time. It was an era of great scientific progress, but also of horrendous racial violence that emerged as Reconstruction came to an end. Out of the matrix of the Industrial Revolution, its advances and oppressions, the “religion of humanity” was a precursor to the Progressive Era that eventuated in the New Deal.

In the religious sphere, Parker's Absolute Religion, nurtured in the Free Religious Association, was folded back into mid-Western Unitarianism.The initial use of the term humanism was employed by Unitarian ministers in the early twentieth century, John Dietrich of Minneapolis, whose Unitarian Society remains a bastion of religious humanism, and Curtis Reese in Chicago, foremost among them.

The evolution of humanistic values began to coalesce around identifiable principles which sought consensual validation. Several Unitarian ministers, assisted by academic luminaries who were philosophical naturalists, among them John Dewey, came together in 1933 to draft a Humanist Manifesto. In 15 terse articles, the Manifesto laid out a platform that they hoped would serve as the inspiration for a growing popular movement. Characteristically, the Manifesto began by counterposing itself to religion, which it declared had lost its significance and needed to be radically transformed in order to meet the demands of modern science and economic conditions.

The Humanist Manifesto asserts that the universe is “self-existing and not created.” It affirms evolution and the human being's organic relation to nature. It affirms human flourishing, and the common good, and asserts a thinly veiled affirmation of socialism. It validates the salience of reason and democracy, and the employment of collective intelligence to resolve human problems, absent divine assistance.

There is little that a modern, liberal-minded individual would find objectionable in the Humanist Manifesto, though a contemporary would notice that, owing to the limitations of the times, all its original signers were white males.

A puzzling reality

In decades since the creation of the Humanist Manifesto a proliferating number of humanist organizations have arisen to embody its principles and assert the collective influence of those attracted to it. Yet, a puzzling reality pertains. We live in an era when people are abandoning the churches in droves. Younger generations are ostensibly more tolerant and progressive than their predecessors. It is often noted that the unaffiliated comprise a larger percentage of the population than Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and many other minorities, opening up the space for joining humanist groups or organizing politically into their own interest group advocating a humanist agenda. Yet these realities fail to materialize, and the inquiring mind asks why?

Despite the fact that we live in a time when people across the board refrain from joining organizations of any type, thus validating political scientist Robert Putnam's thesis in Bowling Alone (2000) that people bowl as much as ever, but no longer in leagues, and all concerned are swimming against the tide, there are reasons I believe as to why humanism does not organizationally catch on in significant numbers.

In the first instance, humanist organizations tend to appeal to people who are individualists and for whom immersion in groups runs against the personal grain. Second, a strong commitment to reason and critique undercuts communal solidarity. People often unite for causes that are emotional and visceral. A disposition in which rational critique is prominent weakens feelings of connectedness with others. Think of the power of group singing in which reason and cognitive reflection are put aside and human bonds are immediately experienced. Moreover, the religions appeal to and persist through allegiance to commonly held myths and narratives. The life and martyrdom of Jesus and the Exodus from Egypt are powerful stories that join people together across distance and generations. We are mythopoeic beings who greatly identify ourselves through narratives and stories. Humanism, grounded in a congeries of principles, is starkly depleted of narrative. Lastly, contemporary humanist organizations are mostly indistinguishable from generic liberalism. From the standpoint of values, attendance at humanist meetings is not noticeably distinguishable from a gathering of members of the left wing of the Democratic Party.

Humanism 2

I affirm that our times require a militant assertion of the humanistic principles that are being upended by large swaths of the political culture – reason, science, the test of evidence, universalism, and democracy - values that comprise the Enlightenment legacy. This is a sine qua non.

As I grow older, my understanding of humanism has moved beyond an affirmation of its principles, however foundational, necessary and even urgent they are. I affirm a wider, deeper, and more personal humanism. I now understand humanism primarily as an orientation in life, a disposition, that partakes of a penetrating intuition and appreciation for the essential and distinctive human dimension that resides in us all. It is what is essentially human that lies behind our manifest persona and is revealed, often implicitly, through our gestures, aspirations and dreams, our creativity, and our words and deeds.

This humanist sensibility has been especially prominent in specific historical epochs and can be found in all cultures, Eastern and Western. In the West we find it in aspects of the Bible, in Greek thought, in the Renaissance, in the Enlightenment, in figures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in the current day. The humanist dimension is expressed in the humanities: in art, music, literature, and myriad expressions of human creativity. Its focal intuition, as cited, is the centrality of the human. In a beautiful book, The Humanist Tradition in the West, the historian, Alan Bullock, observes the following:

“As a rough generalization, Western thought has treated man and the cosmos in three distinct modes. The first, the supernatural or the transcendental, has focused on God, treating man as part of the Divine Creation. The second, the natural or scientific, has focused on Nature and treats man as part of the natural order. The third, the humanistic has focused on Man, and human experience, as the starting point for man's knowledge of himself, of God, and of Nature.”

Though I would not make as stark a differentiation between Bullock's second and third employments, I find something very favorable in Bullock interpretation of humanism. As noted, contemporary humanism often posits religion as its foil, whereas Bullock's view allows for an appreciation of religion, liberally interpreted. If humanism asserts that religion is a human creation, as are all manifestations of culture, “and it does,” then for the humanist religion ought to serve as a source of curiosity and interest. Assuredly, much of religion has been benighted, illiberal, authoritarian, and has justified xenophobia and unspeakable atrocities. Yet there is much in the religions that is sublime and speaks to the farther reaches of meaning and virtue from which the humanist can gain much. In this sense, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist humanism is not a contradiction in terms.

But, as implied, I go beyond Bullock's explicit interests. In my view, the depths of humanism can be most significantly found in the matrix of human relations and in the ethical in the widest sense. It is in the other and in myself that humanity can be found. Humanism points to this indwelling humanity.

Humanism can be understood as a disposition and life orientation that moves beyond principles to evoke what I see as our softer values. Central among them is the capacity for empathy, to take the standpoint of others and, as much as possible, sense their experiences as one's own, especially those that touch upon the pathos of life. It is through the process of projective imagination to intuit that if I do not wish to be an object of pain, others do not wish it for themselves. From this basic empathetic insight other dispositions and appreciations emerge: kindness, compassion, and a sense of solidarity with others who suffer as we do. It is to recognize the finitude of the human condition and be moved by the struggles of others. It is to understand human frailty and be open to understanding and forgiveness. It is, again, to appreciate an infinitely precious attribute of humanity resident in all of us that is ultimately ineffable.

In these fraught and searingly anti-humanistic times, such concerns might be dismissed as mere sentimentalism. But such rejection is an index of how far we have fallen, and how inured we have become from what ultimately makes the human experience most meaningful.

Humanism as a response to our times

Emotions can be cultivated and expanded. We can grow in these basic human sensitivities through engagement with art, music, and literature, and by reading big, substantive, books. Maureen Dowd in her opinion piece in today's New York Times (5/28), bemoans the fading of the liberal arts and the humanities as taught in colleges, and so do I. Her foil is the commanding power of technology and the pull of AI. Dowd's concerns are similar to my own. She concludes, “It is not only the humanities that are passe'. It's humanity itself...It is not only the humanities and humanity that are an endangered species. Our humaneness has shriveled.” But it's not only the allure and grip of technology. Power-seeking political autocrats have greatly eroded and transformed our norms. She notes, “Republicans have consecrated themselves to a war against qualities once cherished by many Americans. Higher principles – dignity, civility, patience, respect, tolerance, goodness, sympathy and empathy – are eclipsed.”

Humanism, I contend, is an outlook that speaks to the ugliness of the moment. We need to rededicate ourselves to those Enlightened principles I have identified with humanism 1. But we also need to cultivate those far-reaching values that reflect an appreciation for the cherished humanity resident in all people, both known and unknown to us. We need to cultivate the sensitivities that are expressive of a broader humanism, not confined to specific organizations, but will be suffused through all human relations and endeavors.

We should not be fearful of speaking the language of kindness, compassion, caring, and decency. Parents need to teach it to their children. Leaders in all dimensions of public life need to express respect and love for humanity that infuse all that they do. And we need ethical exemplars, courageous public leaders whose abilities to call forth what is best in us will ultimately triumph over the forces of violence, cruelty and hate.