Humanism

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You may be a person who associates "religion" and "morality" together. It may therefore seem a little odd that an essentially non-religious person like John Peters Humphrey would end up being the principle drafter for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Why would an atheist, which is effectively someone without identification with any religious doctrine or spirituality, have a preoccupation with such a topic as human rights?

John Peters Humphrey was what we call a "humanist," and this is what distinguished him from someone who is merely non-religious. Like Taoism, it is more of a philosophical stance than a religious one...and it has a long and well-documented history, going back at least as far as the Cārvāka movement in India during the 6th Century BCE, most likely farther.

Like Epicureanism, the Cārvāka movement has been treated poorly by historical discourse, and it has been equated with unrestrained hedonism. However, although Cārvāka is a "hedonistic" philosophy, the concept of pleasure espoused by the Cārvāka movement was, similarly to Epicureanism, one that took moderation and foresight into account. Although technically hedonistic, a person who really pursues a pleasurable life cannot both do so and lack foresight or an understanding of consequences. As Democritus later put it, "Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man."

However, these were really just the ideas of the early materialistic thinkers. Although their ideas are valuable, they are primitive. The sense in which they were revolutionary was that they called into question the idea that people ought to tolerate being treated as the miserable subjects of god-kings or a corrupted priesthood. They called into question the legitimacy of sacrificial offerings and their like, and they were therefore never especially popular.

Later thinkers further elaborated on the concept the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia, which just means "the state of having good feelings and impulses." To understand eudaimonia, you have to understand that the Greeks had a belief that human behavior, besides one's conscious mind, could be driven by the impulses of a type of spirit called a daimon, related to the term "demon," which might or might not be anthropomorphized. Essentially, if the Greeks had been given modern tools and knowledge, they would have been talking about things such as serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters.

Anyway, the concept of eudaimonia was not just relegated to mere pleasure, but it was extended to the feeling that one is acting in good conscience or the feeling that one is on amicable terms with society or, for that matter, the sense that one is honoring truth. Where pure hedonism is limited to personal feelings of pleasure, eudaimonia extends into peace-of-mind.

The Stoics, therefore, tended to be very socially proactive. One notable Stoic was Seneca the Younger, who protested against the ill treatment of slaves during the rule of Nero, even going so far as to proclaim that slaves were really no different, as people, from any member of the nobility. The Stoics were, in general, not far removed from modern human rights activists, such as John Peters Humphrey.

In any case, humanism is a system of thought that has a very long and very deep history of scholarship behind it, going back to Antiquity, so rather than being a "lack of a religion," I would speak to the contrary. It is, if anything, a highly sophisticated and in-depth philosophical movement that has extremely deep and ancient roots, and the writings that are associated with it go at least as far back as "Biblical times."

The essence of humanistic philosophy was articulated by Diogenes of Sinope, titular founder of Cynicism (which was really just a rejection of superficiality, hypocrisy and moral pretentiousness, actually closely related to Stoicism): "I am a citizen of the world." However, it is perhaps even more eloquently articulated by the Indian concept, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which effectively means, "The world is truly one family."

In the end, what is humanism? It is human empowerment. It is the concept that all human beings are the same and of one kind. It is the concept that there is no difference, which really materially matters, between your brother and a person of a different color on a different continent, and if you are right to put your loyalty toward your brother before that of a stranger, so is the stranger right to put his loyalty toward his brother before that toward your own person or your kinfolk.

However, it also means showing an appreciation toward all human achievement and appreciating the culture, history and emotions behind the formation of all of its religions. The mother of Barack Obama, the president of the US between 2008 and presumably 2016, was a secular humanist, and she insisted on educating her son, who became our president, on many different religions. She did not just shelter him from the concept of religion, and she did not begrudge him becoming affiliated with a Christian religious organization during his adulthood. To her, whether he was a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jainist or Wiccan meant little. Whether he was a good and educated person meant quite a lot.

It means having an appreciation toward the artistic achievements of human culture, great or small. It means looking into the eyes of the Mona Lisa and wondering what kind of person she was and what kind of life she might have lived...or perhaps even looking at he banister on which her hand rests and wondering what it must have been like to run your hand across it...what did it smell like? What kind of life was truly lived by the people in this house? Can you look at the scene and envision the entire residence? To be a humanist is to look into the eyes of the Mona Lisa and have her personality, her lifestyle and her history unfold before you like an epic poem, and you can hear the noise and bustle of her household. You can smell the fire burning in the hearth, which is surely the most modern in its construction at the insistence of the subject of the painting, and you can smell the cooking of good Florentine food. You can hear the chatter of visiting company. Because you affirm the personhood and complexity of everyone you see, you can look at a single painting of someone from another time, and the full warmth and piquant beauty of what human beings are assails you like a storm. That is the reward of being a humanist.



Humanism is, to me, more than just an opinion on the nature and origin of the human consciousness or the nature and origin of the Cosmos. It is an attitude that you take toward both. Thales of Miletus was so fascinated with the stars that, according to Plato, there was a story of how "Theodorus, a witty and attractive Thracian servant-girl is said to have mocked Thales for falling into a well while he was observing the stars and gazing upwards; declaring that he was eager to know the things in the sky, but that what was behind him and just by his feet escaped his notice." That is what being a humanist is all about. The world just does not stop being fascinating.

This is, from my point-of-view, how humanism is distinguished.

Last edited by Persimmonpudding on 29 Nov 2014, 4:40 pm, edited 3 times in total.

tl;dr

Could you sum up your views in 20 words or less?

That IS the short version. The longer version would fill several volumes.

Then give us the "micrometre long" version

I tried reading through the OP, and it comes across as just so much word salad. Maybe someone with more intelligence could post the "Cliff's Notes" version? I hate being stumped by verbosity.

Well, the Cārvāka movement...erm, philosophy, I should say...was founded by a contemporary of Buddha, named Ajita Kesakambali. They deny the existence of the gods, and they state that people ought to instead devote themselves to making the most of their present existence. The distortions by their detractors might suggest that they were advocating pure hedonism and "living like there is no tomorrow," but I added a hyperlink to a portion of a book that defends them, suggesting that they advocated a concept of pleasure that is based on foresight and moderation.

I then started discussing how eudaimonia differs from the mere pursuit of pleasure and extends to moral drives such as peace-of-mind. The importance of this concept is that it goes beyond asking "what makes life good?" and it goes into the question of "what makes for good living?" That is what the Stoics started going into. They had a much more socially proactive stance, and they defended the equality of man. Some of them even made some of the earliest serious protests against slavery, and they even promoted the concept of gender equality.

Is that clear? That's sort of hoping to explain a couple of pieces of what I was driving at.

That is not what atheist means. It is about disbelief in deities, not non-adherence to religion or spirituality.

I was providing a definition of it for the purpose of the above discussion, since Hinduism, in the time of Ajita Kesakambali, included many spiritualist movements that were non-reliant on gods, but they were far removed from the modern concept of "atheism." I was hoping for establishing clarity, rather than trying to redefine terms.

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What I lack in intelligence I have made up for with beer and hubris. Here is my micrometer version:


“Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
and also many people preceding Kurt Vonnegut. Plus, the Humanities department of (insert college here) rocks! Because people making timeless stuff rocks!

Kindness and humanism is in particularly short supply on WP. Sadly, society views kindness as being weak.

I don't understand what it means to say that any sort of spirituality is "far-removed" from atheism, since atheism and spirituality don't necessarily have anything to do with one another in the first place.

I finally read the whole article, and the confusing part is that you discuss a bunch of different ideas without connecting them to the main topic (humanism). I can't tell what Stoicism, Epicuranism, Hinduism, (I'm probably mis-spelling them all)etc. have to do with humanism from what you posted.

And there's me thinking I lost the thread of it all.
I knew many that called themselves humanist back in my childhood. Never clicked with it. To me they always seemed to place themselves above the laws of nature and valued humanity over other life forms.
I always found that pompous. And still do

Hmm, close enough. It does overlook the basis of "being a good person" in a concept of a fulfilling and pleasurable existence that is beyond that of purely hedonistic evaluations of pleasure. As Epicurus himself said, "It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the man is not able to live wisely, though he lives honorably and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life."

Ehh, I guess for people who can't handle anything that wouldn't fit in the mouth of an LOL cat, your version works, but I like talking about ancient heterodox Indian philosophy. Why? I just like to.

Well, the Indian philosophical movement I was discussing espoused an essentially hedonistic outlook on good living, although, to their credit, they appear to have upheld several ideas related to moderation and foresight in that respect. They also tended to hold free thought in high esteem, and their movement was really a reaction, more than anything else, to the demands, by priesthoods, that people give lavish sacrifices on behalf of investing in a putative afterlife. They were really sort of a logical reaction, at the time.

Stoicism sort of connects it with modern humanism by going into more advanced concepts of what constitutes "the good life," such as the "equality of man" and all that sort of thing. The Stoics were really pretty advanced even for today.

The reason that I start talking about artistic achievement and things like that is this: where modern humanism really takes a step forward is that we talk not only about human beings living well, but we talk about the possibility of the human race really being able to achieve something noble, such as artistic achievement. That is what really came about during the Renaissance.

And what really makes it possible is affirming the personhood of all people, beyond yourself, and comprehending the fact that distant strangers or people from different times had minds and ambitions not unlike your own. An expression of being a humanist is to look at a medieval or early modern portrait and make an emotional connection to the person portrayed in it and realizing that these people had lives that were as worthwhile, involved and complex as your own. The realization that someone from the Middle Ages has the same kind of heart as yours is a humanistic sentiment.

Ultimately, I think that this kind of thinking can lead you to a fulfilling life. You realize that, when you are gone, maybe someone will pass by your tombstone and wonder, just like you do when you stroll through the local cemetery, what kind of life you might have lived. Life goes on. Minds like yours still flourish in your absence, and they have ambitions and dreams not unlike yours.

Last edited by Persimmonpudding on 29 Nov 2014, 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@ the OP,

I don't think you should be mashing up the Epicureans and the Stoics quite so much...

At a practical level, the two philosophies look alike... BUT, the Epicureans believed that a good life came from maximizing pleasure while minimizing suffering, and the Stoics believed that a good life came from living in accord with virtue and reason.

For the Stoic, pleasure isn't relevant or real for that matter.

Well, both of them had a concept of eudaimonia, but they just differed on what that actually was. To the Epicureans, it meant simply not bothering other people and living a quiet, tranquil life for the sake of your own well-being. It's a little bit like the libertarian outlook: "I don't step on your rights, and you don't step on mine. I respect your rights because it is rational for me to promote a social contract in which we have to respect each other's rights." The Stoics believed that the "good life" involved standing up for social justice, and they were sort of like your modern liberal.

They disagreed with each other, but they ultimately had similar aims: they wanted to see how they could figure out a way of life in which we come out feeling happy, tranquil and fulfilled. The Stoics just could not rest knowing their fellow man was being treated unjustly, and they were more proactive in promoting social equality.

In the end, they were really so like-minded that there is a portion of the Christian Bible in the Book of Acts, chapter 17, where Paul encounters the Epicureans and the Stoics mingling together in Athens. Although I understand your view that there are limits to how alike they really are, I argue that they really had a lot in common. They agreed on the idea of equality and reciprocity, for instance. They agreed on women being treated as equals. They disagreed with conventional moral standards of their time.

Last edited by Persimmonpudding on 29 Nov 2014, 6:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.