Is there such a thing as ‘humanism’?
The fact that ‘humanist’ exists as an adjective would seem to imply that there is. The word actually already has a related noun: human. To be a ‘humanist’ in the arts is someone who focuses on the human world and human concerns as oppose to the religious and the divine worlds (during the renaissance in particular, these were art, music, grammar, rhetoric, oratory, history, poetry, moral philosophy and classical Greek and Roman texts).
Humanism as a broad term might be understood, then, as areas of study, or an attitude, that foucesses on intellectual endevours that are characterised by human concerns – science, philosophy, etc. If you’re not interested in the divine as having any importance within the world, you are by definition a humanist.
Humanism has, however, been more precisely articulated as a particular philosophical outlook with which to guide one’s life. The British Humanist Association (BHA) defines a humanists as people who “make sense of the world using reason, experience and shared human values.” These “values” also appear on the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s (IHEU) website, and elsewhere are included with “natural values”. Precisely what these “human” or “natural” values are is not specified. Equally, it’s not clear that using “reason” and “experience” are the exclusive preserve of the non-religious, and nor is it clear that ‘humanists’ are the only people who try to “live happy and fulfilled lives and help others to do so.”
The BHA essentially exists to provide secular alternatives to baptisms, marriages and funerals; it also has a longstanding schools’ religious education campaign to raise awareness of secular lifestyles within that context. This is important work for anyone who cares about alternatives to religious ceremonies and religious thinking.
The BHA, however, also appears to give reassurance to people that lives without a religious framework are equally ‘good’, even though, humanism, as defined by the BHA, does not offer any guidelines as to what a ‘good’ life is, other than one that is not reliant on beliefs that are “religious or superstitious“.
In short, the BHA attempts to define a wider philosophy of life behind the word ‘humanism’. But despite these attempts to give it a particular meaning, it remains more a general label to an approach to life.
Organised humanism offers no distinctive philosophy as such – it takes a rationalist approach moral problems; it extols the scientific method to gain knowledge about the world; and it emphasises human rights; it promotes secularism; but none of those things require the label ‘humanist’. Again, it is difficult to see what is exclusively humanist in the Amsterdam Declaration, as being rational, or ethical, or supporting human rights, the responsible use of technology and democracy is not – many religious people would argue the for the same.
Organised humanism is in danger of creating a secular religion (if that’s not a contradiction in terms). Rather than a god, humanity is at the centre of this ‘religion’. It is arguably too focussed on humanity, at the expense of the world and its environment, for example.
Humanist organisations also have a habit of retrospectively labelling as humanists people who would not have encountered the concept. Given the vagueness of the concept, this makes it easy to co-opt people from the past – in fact, anyone who did not find t necessary to talk about god in their work. An interesting figure is Albert Einstein – because of his work, he is seen as “essentially humanist” on the BHA website. Yet he is frequently cited by Christians as a theistic scientist (for example, the fundamentalist (‘evangelist’) Christian website – BibleQuery.org – lists Einstein, as a god-fearing scientist.
Einstein certainly was not a ‘humanist’ over above him being a scientist. (And, in actual fact, as Richard Dawkins shows in his provocatively titled The God Delusion, Einstein was not a theist at all, and was criticised by Christian fundamentalists for his remarks on his disbelief in any god as such). Suggesting that Einstein’s work was ‘humanist’ adds nothing that the word ’scientific’ doesn’t already say, and perhaps a good deal less.
Humanism aspires to equate itself as anything and everything that is not religious, yet it fails to offer a distinctive doctrine or intepretation of (say) “human values” of its own, and as long as that remains the case, any conception of humanism as a philosophy to guide one’s life will remain flawed.
