Basic Humanism

Somewhere in the list of articles in the “Hypotheses” section of this site is an article entitled “Scientism 2.0,” where I define my faith in Science as my closest estimation of a religion. My reasons for creating my own religion was that I had failed to find a School of Thought that mirrored what was going on inside my head beyond the Scientific Process. Apparently I wasn’t looking hard enough.

Secular Humanism, like most philosophies that inspire me, appeals to me precisely because it compliments the theories I have already made about the world rather than revolutionizes them. There was nothing new for me in humanist writings, only my own thoughts mirrored from the different perspectives and insights of others who had reached the same conclusions.

Humanists believe in human improvability, bettering the state of our neighbors and ourselves. There are many branches of humanism that include Cultural, Philosophical, Christian, Renaissance, Modern, Religious, Spiritual, and Secular, just to name a few. All of these hold the common goal of promoting the welfare of all human beings in the present moment and the future.

This school of thought began in Europe with Renaissance Humanism in the 15th century, and its focus on human autonomy and naturally derived law, became part of the larger Enlightenment movement in the 17th century, which heavily influenced the emergence of American Democracy. Albert Einstein, Gloria Steinem, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Sagan, Plato, Voltaire, and Gene Roddenberry are all well-known humanists.

Humanists value knowledge. This belief in the primacy of education was highly influential in establishing the American Public Educational system. Knowledge is viewed as a great equalizing force and many educated individuals generate strong societies. Humanism’s inquisitiveness and diverse origins make its knowledge extremely eclectic.

Humanists value charity. The simple truth here is that by raising the living standards of our neighbors, we raise the living standard for all people. The inherently communal nature of civilization is a cause far greater than we individuals and we have a responsibility to serve it. The Red Cross, FINCA, the United Way, and all other charities working to make this a better world are Humanist endeavors.

Education and charity are both means to the value Humanists hold most dear, equality. Effective and productive disputation only occurs when all those involved have a voice in the debate. It was this Humanist belief that most heavily influenced the Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Secular Humanism

“A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.”

– Carl Sagan

Secular Humanism emphasizes rational thought, inquiry, exploration, and the scientific method as means to achieving Humanist goals. Secular Humanism does not reject religion, but does reject dogmatism in favor of ethical principles derived solely from observable human needs. Do not kill, steal, lie, or otherwise cheat the system because these acts are detrimental to all human beings. Do love your neighbor, engage in charitable acts, and otherwise strive to coexist peacefully with others because these acts are beneficial to all human beings.

Using the Scientific Method as a model, the Secular Humanist sees the importance of equality and freedom. Science requires an equality of ideas, a free flow of inquiry and exploration to work effectively. Secrecy of knowledge, therefore, is anathema to the Secular Humanist. Information must be free and available to all people for Civilization to grow and advance optimally. All voices must be heard and all established paradigms challenged.

Secular Humanists look toward the future and reject the deleterious nostalgia for the past that plagues so many today. The past was qualitatively worse than the present in innumerable ways. There was more murder, war, disease, crime, suffering, inequality, poverty, starvation, and hundreds of other miseries a mere half-century ago that the Human Race has effectively reduced in the modern day. For people today to suggest we go back to such a state offends rationality.

Equality, human progress, and free inquiry are all characteristics that contribute to the Secular Humanist’s acceptance of an evolving truth. No one person, organization, or book can claim a monopoly on the truth and Secular Humanists are often engaged in tearing down society’s false preconceptions and challenging the “common sense” so many people accept without question or critical thought.

Most often, this puts the Secular Humanist in dispute with the traditional religions.

Secular Humanism Versus Dogmatic Theology

The majority of Secular Humanists believe that we are all part of the Cosmos, unlike most dogmatic religions, which stress human separateness and superiority to the rest of existence. While religion emphasizes the separation of mind and body as evidence of a soul, Secular Humanists reject the mind/body dualism as a perceptual illusion. The justifiable concern most Secular Humanists have about religion is that focusing on the next world’s possibilities causes people to neglect the responsibilities they have to this one.

Science is often accused of prideful knowing. That it makes assumptions about the Universe that it cannot know, that it seeks to rival God. Yet Science has proven exactly the opposite, that we cannot possibly obtain a God’s-Eye view of existence. The Heissenburg Uncertainty Principle, Chaos Theory, Science emphasizes the fallibility of our perceptions, the ultimately unknowable of everything.

It is Religion that claims the most certainty. Religious Zealots will commit murders, suicides, self-flagellation, and wage war, all in the cause of their Deity’s dictates. Only Religions dare to claim knowledge of the mind of God. Only Fundamentalists, these most vociferous and extreme Religions, claim a monopoly on the truth.

Secular Humanists do not reject the possibility of things beyond our perceptions, but they do reject the supernatural and believe in focusing on the here and now. This makes sense if we give it some thought: Once something supposedly “supernatural” is observed and tested, no matter how fantastic, it is now in the realm of the real. Quantum Physics, Reincarnation Case Studies, a Cosmos filled to the brim with endless wonders are all fantastic enough to inspire humanity to continue.

What about an afterlife? Without a belief that we continue beyond death, doesn’t life become futile? Here I am reminded of Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan’s thoughts as they each neared death. Neither was concerned whether there was an afterlife or not, for both were content at having the good fortune to have a brief glimpse at this wonderful realm of existence.

Worrying about what comes after, the inevitability we all share only sours our enjoyment of the now.

Secular Humanist Quotes

“Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion…” -American Humanist Association

“Do you say that religion is still needed? Then I answer that Work, Study, Health and Love constitute religion.” – Elbert Hubbard

“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.” – Thomas Paine

“A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.” – David Hume

“Man is the measure of all things.” – Protagoras

“And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable – and we believe they can do it again.” – John F. Kennedy

“We might as well require a man to wear the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.” – Leo Tolstoy

“When I became convinced that the universe is natural – that all ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain . . . the joy of freedom. . . . I was free – free to think, to express my thoughts . . . free to live for myself and those I loved . . . free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope . . . free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the ‘inspired’ books that savages have produced . . . free from popes and priests . . . free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies . . . free from the fear of eternal pain . . . free from devils, ghosts and gods. . . . There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought . . . no following another’s steps . . . no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.” – Robert Ingersoll

“Since Humanism as a functioning credo is so closely bound up with the methods of reason and science, plainly free speech and democracy are its very lifeblood. For reason and scientific method can flourish only in an atmosphere of civil liberties.” – Corliss Lamont

“The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. Science and democracy began – in their civilized incarnations – in the same time and place, Greece in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. . . . Science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage points or privileged positions. Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty.” – Carl Sagan

“The world is my country, and to do good my religion.” – Thomas Paine

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” – Albert Schweitzer

“Many persons have no idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” – Robert F. Kennedy

“A final victory is an accumulation of many short-term encounters. To lightly dismiss a success because it does not usher in a complete order of justice is to fail to comprehend the process of achieving full victory.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“Humanism is optimistic regarding human nature and confident in human reason and science as the best means of reaching the goal of human fulfillment in this world. Humanists affirm that humans are a product of the same evolutionary process that produced all other living organisms and that all ideas, knowledge, values, and social systems are based upon human experience. Humanists conclude that creative ability and personal responsibility are strongest when the mind is free from supernatural belief and operates in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy.” – published in Free Mind, American Humanist Association.

“I am a Humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishment after I am dead.” – Kurt Vonnegut

“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere…. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.” – Albert Einstein

“Humanism, in all its simplicity, is the only genuine spirituality.” – Albert Schweitzer

“Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests.” – Isaac Asimov

Modifications to our genetic expressions are commonplace and extend back to ancient times. Men shave their facial hair; women use makeup. Primitive peoples paint their bodies, tattoo and scar their skins into complex, meaningful designs. Lip-plates, nose-bones, piercings, all of these are attempts to modify, decorate, or otherwise enhance our genetic foundation.

Practices not used within our own culture seem alien to us, and the repulsion they evoke have to do with how extreme we perceive them. A lip plate seems extreme to the average westerner, who thinks little of removing subcutaneous fat, excess skin, and male circumcision. Exercising, dieting, and clothing are also cognitively made modifications to our physical expressions as well. These are more acceptable, because they have practical applications in addition to their aesthetic enhancements.

We now have the potential to radically and permanently change our designs willfully. In a surgical process that puts patients in a wheelchair for up to a year, a person’s height may be increased 18 centimeters. Plastic implants can give people the appearance of muscle mass. Tattooing creates permanent makeup for eyeliner, eyebrows, and nipples. Women and men are removing more and more hair from all over their bodies. We are free to transcend our species’ natural expressions.

If I may abuse the cliche: The book may now modify its cover.

What are the social implications of human beings having the freedom to redefine their appearance absolutely? One could argue that in such a system, racial discrimination would be rendered inoperative, but a new form of discrimination could arise. If everyone has equal freedom and means to design how they look, then couldn’t prejudice on the basis of appearance gain some validity?

At first glance the incredible degree of Surgical Modifications pop-star Michael Jackson has undergone could prompt us to declare something psychologically abnormal about him, but there is a dangerous, slippery slope to such assumptions. No matter how drastic the change, body modifications are purely cosmetic. Judging Michael Jackson’s mental state on the basis of his fashion taste is prejudice.

Yet one’s appearance can express aspects the mind below. Cher’s age-defying medical maintenance reveals a an effective expression of classical beauty. What does Cher’s judicious use of plastic surgery tell us about her? That she has a good surgeon and an understanding of what’s attractive.

Judging someone for their piercings, tattoos, plastic surgery, or other body modifications is like judging the content of this website on the color scheme and graphics I decorate it with. Yes, these things tell you something about me, but reading my articles tells you more. We might judge an individual’s aesthetic tastes, but only against our own, because, opinions, if I may use another cliche, are like a certain orifice. We all have one, and they all stink.

A Tale of Two Surgeries

A funny coincidence made me ponder this realm of the Medical Science. I was at my parent’s house, sitting on the couch and indulging in Cable Television, something prohibited at my own house as a rabid time-waster. I don’t miss Television, but I do miss the documentary channels like Discovery, TLC, The History Channel, etc. The coincidence involved one of these and an unlikely channel, MTV.

The show was “Extreme Surgery,” on the Discovery channel, and the focus was on Cosmetic Surgery techniques being used to reconstruct facial features of burn and cancer victims. The most dramatic example was a police officer whose car was rear-ended and exploded into flames. His eyelids, ears, and nose were burned off, leaving him horribly disfigured. A combination of plastic surgery and professional prosthetic design were helping him regain some of his normal appearance. A pair of ears and a nose were adhered to his face, creating a less shocking appearance.

Immediately following this show I stumbled across MTV’s “I Want a Famous Face,” where a beautiful model was seeking to drastically increase her breasts and lips in order to look more like model Pamela Anderson. For her, cosmetic surgery was a means to help her career, possibly getting her into Playboy magazine.

So began the inevitable comparisons:

In both cases, the patient is looking to Medical Science to give them control over something they would otherwise have little control over. For the Police Officer, a victim of fate, lacking ears, nose, and hair were disconcerting features for those around him. Even his wife, in an admirable bit of honesty explains that he looks “horrible.” For the model, her genetically predetermined features were a potential hindrance to her career. She must look buxom, voluptuous in order to appeal to Playboy’s consumers.

In both cases Biological Carpenters reworked bone and tissue into new, aesthetically pleasing forms. What makes it hard to think of it this way is the pain factor, and it is severe. After her combination of surgeries to enhance her lips, breasts, and spot-liposuction fat, the model is writhing in agony and crying on the car ride home. In the three months recovering from his accident, the Police Officer is kept in a medically induced coma to make him unaware of his agony while scar tissue and grafts are performed.

The two patients differed on their motivations for obtaining these body-mods. For the model, body modifications were a career investment, like buying business wear for an interview. Her enlarged breasts and lips were attributes needed to land the job. For the Police Officer, while there was some functional use to having ears and a nose, the prosthetics were mostly for the benefit of others, to prevent his appearance from evoking repulsion.

The most important factor has to do with self-perception. While the model finds the beginnings of success in her career and apparent joy in her appearance, I couldn’t help but wish we could visit her in the future, when the aging process begins to set in and things begin to wrinkle and sag. Will she have a sort of wisdom about life’s priorities, or will she continue to struggle against forces she cannot hope overcome?

More amazing was the Police Officer, who discovered that, soon after returning to work, he did not feel the need to wear his prosthetic nose and ears as often. His identity was focused outward, away from himself and on the world. While I empathized with the model, I admired the Police Officer.

The Ascent of Man

Dr. J.Bronowski begins this story, our story, five million years ago with the emergence of Australopithecus africanus, ancestors to the human race, and continues through our modern adventures into the Quantum World. The Human Race’s social, architectural, agricultural, metallurgical, and scientific accomplishments are all catalogued with rich and wonderful detail. Although slightly over 400 pages, the book is a fairly quick read, as each chapter is packed with photographs and illustrations. All concepts are kept simple for the layman, and no former knowledge of any of these things is required, because Dr. Bronowski will explain their significance from his enlightened perspective and help us to see their importance in our common history as a whole.

From lemurs to apes to foraging humans, Bronowski then follows a current-day nomadic tribe for a year, illustrating how the demands of their lifestyle are prohibitive to advanced culture. He then follows our early agricultural societies, and the cities that formed at their epicenters. These social constructs then fell prey to nomadic bandits, seeking to pillage what the farmers had amassed, and war was born.

Bronowski conveys historical events with scientific insights that were absent to those that lived through them. Civilization’s movement from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age is explained through the molecular composition of these materials and why one was superior to the others. People living in these ages had no atomic theory, they simply found mixing two weak metals, copper and tin, produced a strong metal, bronze.

The monotheistic religions are treated evenhandedly, with all of the contributions and obstacles they have presented to civilization’s rise. Christianity’s adoption of Ptolemy and Aristotle’s heathen ideas is later contrasted with its persecution of scientific minds such as Galileo. Islam’s contributions to architecture and navigation are viewed as a direct result of its religious requirements.

Every advance is explained in the context of what has come before it. Great Minds and shifting paradigms create the environment for the next generation of accomplishments. Lifestyles, architecture, metallurgy, and scientific discovery are all explained as evolving entities, levels of improvement are laid on the stack of all that has come before them. The Greek Column becomes the Roman Arch becomes the Arab Dome becomes the Gothic Arch, each structure an enhancement on its predecessor, reaching ever higher into the air.

Through Dr. Bronowski’s eyes we see the constant improvement of the human condition. Individual civilizations fall victim to recidivism from time to time, but overall the human race as a whole is constantly moving on to greater things. These are not randomly emergent phenomenon, but explained through the qualities and virtues homo sapiens’ possess that brought us to this point. The reader cannot help but come away from this book with a sense of awe and admiration for our Civilization and a sense of positivism for the species Homo Sapiens.

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Note: Some readers will immediately and justifiably be put off by the antiquated and patriarchal term, “Man,” used in the book’s title. This is not indicative of any sexism on Dr. Bronowski’s part, in fact, readers will find the author makes some of the most compelling arguments for equality between the sexes ever published. The terminology is considered sexist today because we use the more accurate descriptive “Human Race” vice “Mankind,” but it is important to remember that Dr. Bronowski’s lexicon was standard for his time, before society became more politically sensitive.

Also Note: This book has been out of print for some time, but this is a good thing as you can now obtain a used copy from Amazon for under $2.

See Also: I highly recommend reading this book and then playing Sid Meyer’s “Civilization III.” It’s like reading theory and putting it into practice.

La Grande Illusion Poster

Illusion takes place during a time of epic cultural change, the first World War. The French Revolution has produced a burgeoning middle-class and the advent of modern warfare meant a new definition of honor in battle. Noblemen and commoners were forced into fraternization.

The opening scene seems almost satirical. The German fighter pilot, Captain von Rauffenstein, has just shot down his twelfth opponent. After a celebratory shot of liquor, his first priority is to have someone retrieve the officers in the enemy plane and bring them to dinner.

One of these French officers is Captain de Boeldieu, and Rauffenstein recognizes his noble name. The respect these two combatants exhibit to one another harkens back to an etiquette of warfare we do not associate with WWI. Marechal, Boeldieu’s pilot, is much more rough, not a nobleman, but a grunt, and his approach to life as a prisoner of war will more closely resemble our modern paradigms.

Life at the prison camp also holds many surprises to modern audiences. Boeldieu complains to a guard about the rude manner in which body searches are conducted, and warns that if the guards are not more polite, their superiors will hear about it. Not only is this warning is taken quite seriously, but we also find that the Germans allow the prisoner’s families to send care packages, stuffed with delicacies, while the guards eat cabbage every night.

In the prison camp, noblemen like Boeldieu and grunts like Marechal are thrown together, adapting to one another’s cultures. One grunt marvels at the fine dinning the upperclassmen insist upon. Similarly, Boeldieu joins in the camaraderie of helping the grunts in their efforts to dig a tunnel out of their prison. The consequence of getting caught outside the prison walls is to be shot on sight.

Captain De Boeldieu and Captain von Rauffenstein

Boldieu and Rauffenstein meet again. Rauffenstein bares the scars of a hardened veteran, Boldieu’s scar’s are more subtle, expressed through his character and his stiffness in relation to Rauffenstein. Rauffenstein sees them as equals, but Boldieu’s perspective is more modern. Their dialogues are thoughtful, reflective of the changing times.

Jean Renoir’s masterpiece is prophetic, filmed as it was before WWII. The Nazi’s considered the film subversive due to its message of racial, class, and social equality and its portrayal of war as futile. Goebbels condemned it as “Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1.” Ironically, by confiscating the negatives of the film, the Nazi’s ensured its survival as an Allied raid destroyed one of the leading Paris laboratories, where the negative was thought to be stored.

Lucky for the world, as there are so many great moments throughout the film. The reaction of the prisoners to one of their own dressed as a woman. An enlightening conversation between the prisoners of differing social statuses about various diseases spreading across classes, where Boldieu comments that he believes cancer will not stay confined to Aristocratic Society. Boldieu’s and Rauffenstein’s final dialogue, which seems almost farcical, if we did not know their characters so well.

Beyond the story elements there is Renoir’s subtle and not-so-subtle use of symbolism. There is the flower in the prison representing Boldieu, the lone thing of beauty among the castle’s “ivy and nettles,” and the too big table at the farm. The humanity of the story emphasized through Renoir’s camera work, which dances intimately between the characters, drawing the audience into their discussions.

Many film critics consider Illusion the greatest war film ever made, other consider it the greatest film ever made. Perhaps it is the simplicity of its message that makes it so profound. The Great Illusion is war, and by observing the individuals caught up in it, the futility of its endeavors cut through its false promises.

See Also: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

I consider myself a victim of tracking. My sixth-grade elementary school teacher, completely on her own perceptions of my aptitude, placed me in remedial mathematics and average English for my first year of Junior High School (that’s “Middle School” for most of you out there). I don’t bare that woman any ill-will for passing such judgment on me some 20-years ago, but I do still hate the system that gave this person of spurious qualifications so much power over my destiny.

So I ploughed through remedial Algebra I. Through pure chance, a friend of mine was taking summer school and mentioned to me that I could work my way up to advanced-level mathematics by taking the next year’s class that summer. So I did, and within two years of summer schooling, I was able to earn my way into Advanced Calculus.

No such system existed for English however. The only way to “earn” your way into advanced English was for your average English teacher to notice your aptitude and promote you to the next level. I was lucky in that respect, as my 10th grade English teacher noticed I was reasonably intelligent and advised me into an advanced-level English class.

By my senior year of High School, I was “AP”-Everything. That is to say I was taking college-level math, English, science, German, and government classes–not bad for a class-clown tracked into average English and remedial math.

Many people would characterize my experiences in the system as an example of its success, but I would call “shenanigans” on them.

There are different cultures in the different tracks. My friends who were tracked in the remedial levels described their classrooms as holding-pens, where delinquents reigned and inept teachers merely rode out the years awaiting each payday. I don’t have any way to describe my averagely tracked classes, except to say that they left me with no impressions at all — I suppose that’s apropos.

I do remember the advanced and AP classes, where I could easily fall prey to applying the bigoted term “Cultural Elitism” to the students I met there. While I had spent five years smoking in the boy’s room with the future-dropouts-of-America clan, these students had spent that same time trading big words, politically aware humor, and other big-brained kitsch with wide-eyed enthusiasm. I became the square peg in the round hole, responding to their attempts at friendship, which were completely alien and incomprehensible to me, like a deer caught in the headlights. It was an awful, alienated time in my life.

Luckily (and I hope your listening all of you out there in public school), when I got to college, there was no tracking. Everyone in College has to take the same classes with everyone else. Everyone’s equal in the eyes of the institution!

And you know what else? Everything you were in High School doesn’t mean squat when you get to College. Just like everything you were in College doesn’t mean squat when you get into the real world. It’s never too late to reinvent yourself. It’s too bad public school tries to make itself the end-all-be-all of our lives. A little perspective could really help some student’s out.

On one level, tracking students into classes customized to their proficiency seems pretty ideal. Advanced students get more challenging work and remedial students get simplified tasks. Young minds must be challenged if we are to spark that glimmer of understanding in them. How are remedial students to obtain that spark surrounded by other remedials while being taught by teachers with lowered expectations?

The artificially imposed categorization of students according to their subjectively defined intelligences creates a cultural divide deleterious to students of all aptitude levels. Advanced students, insulated from Average and Remedial students, are never challenged to express their ideas in a manner accessible to the other 95% of the student body. Studies have found that a room full of elitists will make more mistakes than a room with a mixture of aptitudes. This is because Elitist will not challenge one another, but one remedial will challenge them all and make them falsify their hypotheses.

Remedial students, prevented access to Advanced students, are unable to learn from those who are their peers. Advanced students do not serve as shining examples to others when they are sequestered into rooms with other big-brains. This system socially-handicaps both ends of the spectrum, segregating them in a world where they are all equals. I know, because I experienced these problems first-hand, straddling the social circles of the geeks and the dropouts and never fitting into either.

These are all people who are going to have to get along in the real world, why not emulate the real world in the school system? Put them all in the classroom together and let them work things out.