Humanism and Politics

Oh yes – I am going there!

The United States Presidential Election is just a couple of weeks away. I am sure that all my readers are probably pretty opinionated about it. I am not planning to use this space to tell you who I think you should vote for. I respect you too much for that. Instead, I wanted to visit the idea of what political humanism might look like and why.

One of my friends, who is Portuguese living in America, shared this with me. http://www.humanists.net/pdhutcheon/humanist%20articles/Beyond%20Left%20and%20Right.htm  It is an article titled “Beyond Right and Left: A Humanist Approach to Politics.” It was published in 1995 in the Humanists in Canada winter edition. The gist of the essay is this: “It is time we buried both libertarianism and socialism as world views, and sought an approach to politics more compatible with the premises of modern scientific humanism. Let us show the rest of society that we can do better!”

This resonates with me because I dislike both libertarianism and socialism even though I agree with the principles underlying each approach.  I am apparently not alone in feeling this way. As Pat Duffy Hutcheon, the author of the essay, points out, Socialism and libertarianism are both flawed because their underlying assumptions about what and who humans are – isn’t scientifically correct.

He argues that Humanists should push us beyond these fundamentally flawed approaches to politics and instead encourage a better understanding of humans as socially embedded autonomous individuals.
Which brings me to the next thing I want to link you too - https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-comment/2010/08/rsa-animate---21st-century-enlightenment-/

The RSA is the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. They are a Humanist organization (founded in 1754) pushing for a 21st century enlightenment grounded on the concept of humans as socially embedded autonomous individuals.  

How does this concept of the human as a socially embedded autonomous individual change how we think about social policy?  Yes – autonomy is good. But social connection and responsibility is good too. What we come up with is that it’s not either/or that works, but both together are necessary for human flourishing.

But enough about what I think. What do you think?

Humanism and Economics

What is a Humanist approach to business and why is everyone talking about it?

Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life, that without super-naturalism affirms our ability to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.  It is impossible to separate the philosophy from our economic lives or in how we want to organize our economies.

The problem is that we Humanists don’t agree on much. In fact, famous economists Karl Marx and Friedrich Hayek were both Humanists. Both advocated for economic systems they thought would best maximize the freedom and welfare of their fellow humans. And yet, what they advocated for is pretty much the exact opposite of one another.

If Humanists can’t agree, then why even have this conversation?  Whether we like it or not, we have this conversation all the time. The question is – how are we going to judge whether one system or method is better than other if we have no philosophic basis on which to judge what is good and what isn’t.

And, it’s pretty clear that the assumptions people have been making about how to best run an economy haven’t yielded very good results. In fact even if you ignore the gross income disparities that have arisen in the last few decades, we still have to reckon with the fact that what we have now, is an entirely unstable economic system that needs to be fixed. Greedy self-interest, it turns out, is not a very good organizing principle.

Humanism really can help provide us with a way of viewing human economic activity that is at once supportive of individual development AND supportive of the community in which all this economic activity is embedded. This is WHY everyone is talking about it.

As a starting guide, I want to quote Humanist Manifesto II (written in 1973).

“Humane societies should evaluate economic systems not by rhetoric or ideology, but by whether or not they increase economic well-being for all individuals and groups, minimize poverty and hardship, increase the sum of human satisfaction, and enhance the quality of life. Hence the door is open to alternative economic systems. We need to democratize the economy and judge it by its responsiveness to human needs, testing results in terms of the common good.”

I may be biased, but I do think this statement provides us with a good starting place. What we want is a system that helps increase wellbeing for individuals, minimizes poverty and privation, and enhances the quality of life for everyone.

What a call for Humanistic business management means is that instead of judging good based on profits we judge good based on how business impacts people. Instead of promoting growth for growth’s sake, we should instead be considering how that growth will impact our communities and our customers and our employees.

This isn’t a way to reject the idea of profits as important. It’s not about either or. It’s about doing both. It’s about balancing more than just the bottom line. A Humanistic approach to business is about balancing profits WITH human welfare. One doesn’t come at the expense of the other. But when it doubt, human welfare comes first!

Yes, individual autonomy and freedom is important, but a Humanist understands that ours is a socially embedded autonomy. To understand how a socially embedded autonomy impacts economic activity – view this fabulous video from RSA.

See
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And if you want to learn more about the history of Humanism and economic ideas – visit Steve Alquists blog post Unmaking the Manifesto - http://www.steveahlquist.com/2014/10/unmaking-manifesto-humanism-and.html

Who We Are vs. Who We Should Be

How accepting our flaws can help us to become better people. What can a better understanding of human nature teach us about enlightenment?

There is a wonderful website – RSA – The Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce, which at first blush seems like a weird combination of things to be encouraging. They recently changed their motto to Encouraging a 21^st Century Enlightenment.

To support this change, they created a wonderfully philosophic video about the need to reassert the ethical dimension of Humanism.  In other words, we need to not just ask about how to progress, but whether any given advance is moral or not. How do we determine what is right and what is wrong?

To do this we need to have a better understanding of who we are as humans, who we need to be, and more importantly, who we should aspire to be. To even begin that exploration, we need to have a better understanding of human nature. It is only when we understand and accept our instincts that we are able to transcend them instead of being controlled by them.

Most enlightened individuals realize that while individualism is on the whole a good thing, when taken to an extreme, it is bad not just for the individual, but to the society in which they live, meaning the rest of us.  What we should be striving for is a more enlightened self-aware socially embedded model of autonomy. We aren’t individuals going it alone. We are individuals who are mutually dependent on each other and so we ought to act in such a way that benefits not only ourselves, but the communities in which we live, because that benefits us as well.

The difficulty is that this requires us to balance our needs as individuals with the needs of our communities and the needs of the global society in which we now live. We humans are notoriously bad at finding a good balance. For me, Humanism is a reminder that I have a moral obligation to find that balance. Being a good person means not being selfish, but not subjugating myself to others either.

So, what do you think of this video? Anything you would like to add or comment on?