What is humanism?

Humanism is a philosophy that celebrates human life. Its goal is steadily build a world where everyone can pursue their own happiness.

Humanism is the most recent common ancestor of all modern western ideologies. Because of a "fish in the water" effect, it is easy to not notice it. Our civilisation is great because it is built on upon humanism, and we take it for granted.

Core Principles

Let's go through its core principles to get a feeling for what it actually is.

Humanism is universalist. The first principle of humanism is that everyone deserves respect and happiness. From this, we can derive the fight against discriminations and for treating everyone equally. This conception of equality is the core of humanism, and it is the original conception of equality. It is the equality that can be heard in "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" or "Les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et égaux en droits." (All men are born free and equal in rights.)
It is opposed to both racism and identity politics.

Humanism is liberal. Its goal is not to make everyone happy, but to give everyone the means to pursue their happiness. Ultimately, people should be the ones to decide what makes them happy, and they should be the main actors in their own lives.
This is how humanism conceive of economic liberalism. Everyone must be free to start their own economic activity and provide for their family.

Humanism is republican. The government is for the citizens, elected by the citizens, and built by the citizens. All three are necessary for the government to be representative of the citizens. People must participate in politics, must vote and must keep their government accountable. This is the difference between humanism and democracy.
Conversely, only such a legitimate government has the authority to constrain the freedom of the people and enact violence in ways that are just and justified by the general good.
Finally, to prevent abuses, the power of the government must be broken down into pieces, such that no single person wields too much of it.

Humanism is secular. The state must not interfere with the freedom of religion, and religion must not interfere with the state. More generally, religion is a private matter, must be out of the public sphere and must not be enforced on others or used to justify any political action.

Humanism believes in the supremacy of science and reason. Science and the application of reason is the best way to understand the world and to improve it. This in stark contrast to religious faith, personal revelation, intimidation or deference to authority (including academic authorities!).

Humanism believes in personal progress through education and cultivation. People have a duty to themselves and others to learn and grow. To be truly free, one must make choices in "toute âme et conscience" (with moral clarity and sincerity). This can only be achieved through a strong education and by carefully cultivating one's own mind.

Humanism believes in collective progress through personal progress, technology and institutions. Civilisation as a whole advances through a greater people, scientific discoveries, and the development of great institutions. Creating and maintaining such institutions that serve the general good takes deliberate effort, from universities and social security to courts of law and a strong military.

Humanism embraces humanity as it is, in all of its glory, its flaws and its complexity.
It rejects all extreme ideologies that would lead to the destruction of civilisation and violent revolutions and accidents as the engine of progress. It rejects all extreme simplifications and dogmatisms that would necessarily lead to the loss of core human values.

Humanism is thus de-facto anti-extremist.

Embracing universalist human values naturally leads to a moderate approach. Being reasonable and willing to compromise is the key to reconciling many different values, ensuring that many people can be useful and happy, all the while building a civilisation in which many groups can coexist.
Similarly, embracing science and reason naturally leads to an incremental approach.

The humanist project seeks to continuously improve human civilisation through personal progress and the rational design of both our technical tools and our social structures, with each generation building upon the achievements of those which came before.

Political Tradition

The Western political tradition is directly downstream of humanism.
Laid down, it will be quite recognisable.

Republican Democracy. The process by which people join political parties, participate in public debates and elect political elites. This is the core of the tradition, and it is what imbues the state with legitimacy.

Rule of law. The idea that the the law must apply equally to everyone.

Liberalism. The set of freedoms which guarantees that we can live our lives how we want to.

Economic Liberalism. The set of freedoms that let humble citizens ideate, fund and enact economic endeavours without any guild, lord or union restraining them.

Socialism. The basic safety net to ensure that we can recover from a wide array of sad life circumstances.

Separation of power. The main way to avoid too much concentration of power in political elites, by splitting it along an executive branch, a legislative branch and a judiciary branch.

Secularism. Not state enforced atheism, but instead, letting people practice whatever they want as long as they are not trying to enforce their spiritualities onto others.

Freedom of conscience. The absolute right to think and believe whatever you want, and to not be forced to believe anything.

Freedom of speech. The right to express one's thoughts and ideas without being endangered for it.

Public Education. The main way to teach the basic mental tools and build common knowledge needed for a child to become a great citizen of the country.

Academia. The institution supported by the state to bolster the scientific progress of the country.

Moderate Pacificism. Privileging mutually positive relationships with other countries, rather than obliterating them and starting territorial wars.

The Successes of Humanism

The West is the civilisation that is built on humanism, more than any specific geographic location.
In the West, "moral progress" is synonymous with "humanist victories".

The humanist project has historically been a resounding success.
Nowadays, countries primarily solve their problems with diplomacy, not with war.
All successful countries have moved towards this political tradition, compared to where they were a few centuries ago.
With a careful balance of social and economic policies, countries following this tradition have been able to keep their citizens happy, well-educated and entrepreneurial, leading to massive scientific progress and a higher quality of life for everyone.

Through blood and sweat, we have built this civilisation.

We are not done, we have even regressed in some areas and we face new challenges.

But fuck yes did we win a lot these last centuries.

Unabashedly Pro-Human and Moderate

I strongly recommend reading the Declaration of Human and Civic Rights of 1789, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. They are beautiful short documents, truly crystallising the ideals of humanism.

It is a tad sad that I can hardly imagine one of these being written nowadays.
(This is partly why I am writing this.)

After the traumatism of the 20th century's totalitarian regimes, too many became afraid of any strong philosophy with clear moral principles. The outcome is the ascent of nihilism and extremism.

We reached the point where people are afraid of proclaiming love for humanity. They must instead proclaim love for the planet, the environment, technology or economic grwoth.

But before being pro-nature, humanists are pro-human. From a humanist standpoint, "Humans should die so that nature can thrive and stop being polluted" is deeply confused at best, and plain evil at worst.

Before being pro-tech, humanists are pro-human. Technology only has worth in so far as it lets people become stronger and happier. From a humanist standpoint, "Technology in itself is Good, and thus we should unleash it even if people are to become miserable for it" is deeply wrong and evil.

Before being pro-economy, humanists are pro-human. Money and markets only have worth insofar as they help us coordinate more. From a humanist standpoint, pursuing 2% GDP growth at the cost of human lives and happiness is deeply Evil. When a country sucks up to Big Tobacco or Big Social Media solely because they have a lot of money, they are not only being weak and meak, they are being wrong and evil.

Before being pro-institutions, humanists are pro-human. Every citizen has a duty to improve their institutions, but sometimes, those institutions get so fucked that they are literally starting to round-up citizens to massacre them.
We had the displeasure to encounter this in Westernia in the middle of the 20th century.
In that case, before the duty to their state, the citizens now have a duty to protect themselves by getting the fuck out of the country or revolting.
Protecting these institutions in the name of order is deeply wrong and evil.

By being moderate and embracing the plurality of human values, the mere existence of humanist morals is a powerful statement. This statement can be seen as a threat both by nihilists and extremists.

Nihilists complain about the hubris behind the project. How can one be so arrogant to proclaim the inherent meaning of life and aim for the good of all?
"Haven't you read Seeing Like a State? It is literally impossible to do Good by design. Just let things happen."
"You can not fight against the forces of history and capitalism. Just accelerate bro."
"Mere humans can not prove moral statements. Ergo, morals can not be justified without faith, but humanism is faithless. Checkmate!!"
"Humans are naturally bad, selfish and evil. It's not worth helping them.Why bother? Do you think you are any better?"
"There's nothing special about liking good things, stop being cringe."
"Only corrupt people do politics, we can't win and so we should not try. Anyone deciding to participate in politics is actually suspicious."

Conversely, extremists complain that being reasonable is not enough. The only way to voice this complain in a way that does not sound utterly stupid is to completely redefine all words.

Consider...
"Taxation is Theft", "Making a profit is Theft", "Immigration is a cultural Genocide", "Denying anyone healthcare (or in strictly equivalent terms, not provding it to everyone) is Murder", "Wage Slavery", "Excluding someone is Violence", "Wanting your children to be smart is Eugenics", "Not using some shibboleth means you hate [X]s", "Any type of social program is Communism", "Vaccines mandates are Tyranny", "Donating money to Notre-Dame's restoration means you are Killing 5 towns worth of children" and so on.

At that point, Theft, Genocide, Murder, Slavery, Violence, Eugenics, Hate, Tyranny, Communism, do not mean anything anymore. Extremists are just like saying whatever.

Just being normal is a threat to extremists, thus the need for such extreme redefinitions.

Murphy's Sweet Spot

Humanism resides in a "Murphy's Sweet Spot", kind-of the opposite of a Goldilocks zone.

There's a confluence of dynamics that make humanism anti-memetic and fights against the spread of its values.

"It's just the correct values"

When I described humanism to people, I would often get the response "Oh, it's just the correct values." Sometimes, it is an elated reaction, where the person is happy to finally find a philosophy that matches their own values. That's great!

But the more common reaction is a disappointed one, where the person is disappointed that I did not say anything new. And that's a shame. Instead of being proud of their values, just because it's not hardcore, new, intense or anything, they find it boring and uninteresting.

Extremism is the rule of the game

Our modern culture and media infrastructure revolves around extremism.

We optimise for short messages which by construction can not deal with the complexity of the world and our values. Shorts rather than video essays, memes rather than full arguments, tweets rather than long posts, and so on.

Social media have mastered the art of maximising engagement by appealing to the lowest common denominators. Outrage, dunks, mundanity, and so on.

Extreme political parties have risen to power in many countries.

In an environment this aggressive, it is very hard for moderate ideas to gain traction, regardless of their merits.

The humanist project is hard

When one faces reality as it is, not admitting any extremist shortcut and embracing the full breadth of human values, only one conclusion remains.

Shit be hard.

At all times, humanists must contemplate the height of the mountain they decided to climb out of their own free will.

Their motivation may only come from the knowledge that they are pursuing Good. Not from the self-delusion of heaven, or the joy of smiting their fellow humans when they disagree.

Those strict demands go counter to the recent trends.

Ideologies promise simple solutions.
Learning and training platforms strive to integrate "gamification" and "engagement".
Information sources are dumbed down to single headlines or shorts.
AI is now promising effortless art and craftmanship.

Compared to this, the premise of "Let's all do the boring systematic work needed to improve things" is not very... appealing.

Fellow humanists, be proud.

If you are humanist, own it and be proud.
We continue a long tradition that led civilisation to its heights.
We are on the right side of history.

Simplistic ideologies will at best fail, and at worst lead to the destruction of civilisation and human values.
We have already suffered from totalitarian regimes, institutional decay and inhumane deployment of technology. We must stop and do better.

Let's organise, write, speak, teach, join a political party, embody our values and do whatever we can to continue the humanist project.
Shutting ourself away from the world is a mistake. Too many smart humanists are scared of acting and ashamed of their mundane values.

Just by acting upon our ideals, we make the world better for everyone.
There lies our strength.