Humanism in the Twenty-first Century

Humanist, Nov, 2000 by Babu Gogineni

I believe when we refer to humanism we are thinking of that modern lifestance which is rooted in rational thinking and provides a way of understanding our universe and our place in it in naturalistic rather than supernatural or theistic terms. By humanism we mean a philosophy of life that offers all of us--both as individuals and as members of society--a secular ethic grounded in human values.

Our humanism is a living philosophy of freedom and democracy and, as humanists, we are deeply conscious of our common humanity. We are impelled by a sense of the moral worth of all human beings and are guided in our actions by compassionate reason and the realization of humankind's common destiny. As humanists we reject absolute authority and revealed wisdom; we promote free inquiry, which is the basis of the scientific spirit; and we defend intellectual integrity, refusing to let custom replace conscience. Responsible freedom of thought and action, as well as civilized law, are of paramount importance to us.

Usually this broad understanding lets me get on with my life. In social living the understanding of human dignity causes opposition to any trend that makes the human being an instrument to serve a "higher" purpose: God, nation, community, class, or creed. Reason and reasonableness serve as guides to tackling human problems--hence our attachment to them. Our skepticism (we are skeptics but not cynics) helps us look critically at our world and try to improve it for ourselves and others. As advocates of secularism we want secular societies--not merely the separation of religion and state but the more complex weaning away of people from religion, so that humanity can come into its own. Committed to ever expanding the frontiers of human freedom, we are vigilant that this enterprise doesn't encounter any hindrance. There's enough work for each of us for several generations.

But a few of us, as Marie Alena Castle of the Atheist Alliance has said, are victims of "paralysis by analysis." We go about discussing whether humanism is religious, secular, ethical, spiritual, transcendental, and so on. Other humanists come up with objections, saying that humanism is too anthropocentric--that we don't pay enough attention to other forms of life. There is also the claim that humanism, with its emphasis on reason and science, doesn't value the arts and has no appreciation of beauty. Still others object to humanism as being too harshly critical and unaccommodating of other lifestances and insensitive to alternative viewpoints. And some others exhort us to concentrate on the positive aspects of our work rather than fight religion.

Of course, as the philosophy of the human being, humanism tries to help us answer, as best we can, the great questions of life: Who are we? What are we? How did the universe come about? What is the good life? And so on. But are these questions religious? Are we religious when we try to answer them? Is humanism a religion because it tries to answer these questions?

There is no doubt that we are trying to answer some of the same questions that religion traditionally has attempted to answer, but philosophy is not theology and humanism is not religion. We should be clear in our mind about the essential difference: while we might be engaged by those same questions that religion was and is busy with, our interest is not in religion's eternal answers; for us what is permanent are these questions. It is the pursuit of truth that is most important to us, not its possession. Humanism is nothing if it is not a continuous interrogation about our universe and our place in it. It is true that we try to find out what this world is about, what we are doing here, and how best to lead a life that is both personally satisfying and socially useful. It is also true that we try to give meaning to our own lives because we see no set purpose other than that which we give to it.

Not long ago while dining with Parveen Darabi, an ex-Muslim and a humanist colleague from Iran, I choked when she told me that in Islam the reparation for the murder of a man is that the culprit pays the victim's family a compensation of either 100 camels or 200 cows; if a woman were killed, then the victim's family would receive either fifty camels or 100 cows. I gasped at this medieval practice as I am sure you do now: how can we accept in today's modern world the gross injustice of equating one camel with two cows? You may think I'm joking, but how would a cow feel knowing that it may take 100 of her kind to equal a single human woman?

Humor aside, I believe that, despite what is being suggested by our critics, as humanists we should be concerned less by the camel-cow equation and more by the man-woman equation. Of course we need to respect other forms of life and live in harmony with the rest of nature, but it is pointless to object that humanism--the philosophy of the human being--is anthropocentric.

Then there is the criticism that humanists have no appreciation of beauty, no aesthetic sense, and can't appreciate the arts. Is this really true? Science is a quest for knowledge. And if truth is but the content of knowledge, as M. N. Roy put it, and if with Thomas Hardy we can say that the beauty of truth is as eternal as the truth of beauty, I think we have given an adequate response to this criticism. Those who can't tune into the rhythm of the cosmos through a knowledge of its laws, those who can't appreciate the passion in inquiry and the ecstasy in discovery, those whose spirituality isn't awakened to this wonderful and unique aspect of human life, those who can see beauty and aesthetics only in elegant line and beautiful form have lost the plot somewhere.