If morality is a concept of what is right and good, responsibility is a serious effort to do what is right and good. In other words, it's not enough to care about a problem or sympathize with a cause; rather, one must participate in an effort to solve the problem or further the cause. And, of course, we are not talking here about our personal problems, because the term responsibility is meaningful only when it is applied to social relations. "... when we say that man is responsible for himself," writes Jean-Paul Sartre in Existentialism and Humanism (p. 37), "we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men," because, Sartre goes on to say, "... nothing can be better for us unless it is better for all."
A strong sense of responsibility is a precious human quality that is largely undervalued in contemporary society. (I'm talking about the public at large, who'd rather worship a movie, TV, or sports "superstar" than a philosopher, scientist, or dedicated social worker.) As Fromm pointed out ( The Sane Society , p. 126), "... we decline responsibility, intentionally and enthusiastically..."
3.12 Love, Consideration, Respect
The word love has so many meanings nowadays that it has become practically meaningless, has virtually lost its power. It stands for anything from sexual lust to worship of God. We abuse and trivialize it at every turn. When one says, "I love people," most likely one "loves," i.e., needs, to be amongst people, belong with the crowd, in order to give oneself a feeling of security or of self-worth, of being "somebody," and to enjoy the attention and admiration of others. This is common in artistic people, TV-show hosts, glib-tongued salespeople and politicians, media people, and religious fanatics and other manipulators, many of whom basically love themselves more than anyone else. When they say, "I love people," do they mean they love all kinds of people, including their enemies, rivals, thieves, murderers, etc.? So, as a rule, this is but a meaningless cliché employed by demagogues and naive people. Australian philosopher John Passmore warns us against that kind of love when he says ("The Perfectibility of Man," p. 174): "... often enough... men have sought to demonstrate their love for God by loving nothing at all and their love for humanity by loving nobody whatsoever. These are the men to be feared above all othersthe Robespierres who `love humanity,' the Inquisitors who `love God'." Of course, as in anything, there are exceptions, such as Jesus Christ, Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer, and other, lesser-known heroes. But how many of them are there?
One of the concoctions of modern psychology is that to love others, we must love ourselves first, which is very popular with the crowd who mechanically repeat this prepackaged idea as if it were God's truth or an axiom. "Loving ourselves first" means absolving ourselves of all our "sins" and accepting all the animal and barbaric characteristics of our current nature, such as greed, envy, aggressiveness, dishonesty, vindictiveness, cruelty, etc., instead of trying to strengthen our human qualities, such as reason, awareness, spirituality, and unselfishness.
Another mistake we make about love is thinking that it can be enforced. Children are told by adults that they should love their parents; adults are exhorted by politicians to love and be ready to die for their country and by priests to love and give generously in the name of Jesus. But we cannot love unless love is inside us. And it cannot be inside us unless, from our very childhood, we are taught to understand the importance of unselfish love. It should be cultivated through humanism, through reason, through understanding that for the human race to survive we must change in a very drastic way and learn to love each other. Spiritual love is probably the highest ideal developed by humans. Fromm devoted a whole book to this subject. He wrote in The Art of Loving (p. 111): "Those who are seriously concerned with love as the only rational answer to the problem of human existence must, then, arrive at the conclusion that important and radical changes in our social structure are necessary, if love is to become a social and not a highly individualistic, marginal phenomenon." Huxley summed it up this way in his essay "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" ( Collected Essays , p. 399): "Of all the worn, smudged, dog's-eared words in our vocabulary, "love" is surely the grubbiest, smelliest, slimiest. Bawled from a million pulpits, lasciviously crooned through hundreds of millions of loud-speakers, it has become an outrage to good taste and decent feeling, an obscenity which one hesitates to pronounce. And yet it has to be pronounced, for, after all, Love is the last word."
But in the meantime, while we are still a long way from being capable of sincerely loving each other as human beings, why don't we stop abusing this word and use instead a more accurate, more practical word, consideration ? Passmore again (ibid., p. 174): "The appropriate attitude to a neighbourto another human being merely as suchis not love, but... consideration. It consists in treating a neighbour as another human being, taking his interests into account, coming to his aid if he is in difficulties..." Consideration means being aware of how our behaviour affects people around us; does it cause them much inconvenience at little or no cost to ourselves? Once I saw a report on TV from a small town in England where an artistic soul had stuck a huge black plywood shark in the roof of his home, claiming it to be a work of art. Naturally, the entire neighbourhood got terribly upset by this preposterous creation, which looked outrageously out of its element. However, in an interview with the reporter, the unrecognized genius staunchly insisted on his right to freedom of expression and wouldn't knuckle under to the overwhelming majority. The whole situation could have been dismissed as comical, if it were not for one important point completely missed by the reporter. So far as the town's inhabitants were concerned, the issue was not freedom of expression, but the ill-mannered clown's complete lack of consideration for anyone else.
Another word frequently misused is respect . People often expect or demand respect without realising that, like love, respect cannot be brought out in us unless it is already there. Respect is not a duty, but a response to another person's attitude and behaviour that reflect our own values. The barbarian doesn't really care if others don't feel respect for him. All he cares about is a show of respect, which normally is based on necessity or fear. As for those who complain that they are not respected, they should realise that it's their own fault, because true respect can only be deserved.
3.13 Cooperation We Use It When We Choose It
Cooperation is by far a better method of managing human affairs than competition. The latter always involves an element of fighting. One party always tries to get the better of others to come first or on top, leaving others behind or at the bottom. In competition, there is always a loser as well as a winner. The purpose of cooperation is to benefit everyone involved. As a wise saying goes, "two heads are better than one." It means that when parties cooperate, the result is the best of what was offered or accomplished by not just one party, but by and in the interests of all the participants. Cooperation is inclusive, while competition is exclusive.
Let's take corporations as an example. They all compete with each other. But it is very unlikely for the directors of a corporation to encourage or even allow competition inside their own organisation. They would expect and demand cooperation, or teamwork, from their employees as well as from each other, and would try to avoid disagreement, rivalry, and infighting for power. Occasionally, corporations may even cooperate with one another, e.g., to fix prices.
Competition is the barbarian's way of achieving personal short-term goals without regard to the interests of society as a whole and, therefore, is ineffective in solving mankind's political and economic problems. The only way to solve national and global problems is through cooperation.
3.14 Happiness Is It Moral to Be Happy?
What does being happy really mean? To most people, it means being satisfied or content with their personal lives, experiencing physical and/or spiritual pleasures, or, at least, being free from physical and mental discomfort. One cannot be happy unless one has peace of mind, unless one's conscience is at rest. But who in today's world can have peace of mind and untroubled conscience? Only those who are totally ignorant or don't give a damn about millions and millions of people barely surviving in subhuman conditions, about the destruction of their own habitat, about the fate of their own children and grandchildren. Happiness in today's world is a manifestation of irresponsibility. "...what most people experience as happiness today," wrote Fromm in The Revolution of Hope (p. 126), "is really a state of full satisfaction of their desires regardless of their quality... The sensitive person, not only in an irrational society but also in the best of all societies, cannot help being deeply saddened by the inevitable tragedies of life."
Long ago Aristotle believed that "happiness... does not consist in amusement,... but in the exercise of virtue." I would say that in contemporary society, where "having fun" is held to be the purpose of life, the notion of happiness has lost its virginity and become an egoistical and, therefore, immoral concept. What then should we strive for, if not for happiness? I would suggest that we strive to become Homo sapiens , i.e., fully human beings, develop reason and awareness, and diminish the degree of human misery. In other words, what we should aim for is not happiness, but the absence of unhappiness ( homo happiness , if you wish). So, those who are concerned with our future should realise that happiness comes from ignorance or indifference to the fate of the human race, and the more we focus on our personal happiness, the deeper we get into trouble as a society.
3.15 Spirituality and Religiosity
I would define spirituality as man's desire to understand the world around him and the reason for his existence and find some meaning and some purpose in life. This could be attempted through a combination of reason (wisdom), science, contemplation, and art.
Religiosity might be defined as a belief in divinity or some Absolute, a belief that, unlike religion (which, normally, is based on blind faith in hearsay and assertions of other nondivine humans), is the result of a long spiritual and scientific search, enlightenment, and awareness. Religiosity may provide some meaning to our existence. I, personally, at this stage, believe in reason and conscience as the supreme, absolute virtue (not power) that exists in the universe as a form of energy, quantum fields, genes, or something else. This virtue has taken root in the human brain, where it struggles for survival against enormous odds, against evil and stupidity. I believe it will continue to exist elsewhere in the universe even if fails to win the battle and find home on Earth, which, of course, is small consolation to humanity faced with the prospect of prolonged agony of moral decay, intellectual degradation, destruction of the habitat, and suffering. As Fromm wrote in To Have or to Be? (p. 186), "... for those who are not authentically rooted in theistic religion, the crucial question is that of conversion to a humanistic `religiosity' without religion, without dogmas and institutions, a `religiosity' long prepared by the movement of nontheistic religiosity, from Buddha to Marx."
3.16 Dignity, Integrity Selling to the Highest Bidder
Dignity is a sense of one's worth as a human being. It has nothing to do with one's status in society, fame, wealth, or talent. It is associated with man's ideas, spiritual freedom, morality, wisdom, the ability to understand man's role and moral duty in shaping the destiny of this planet.
As for integrity, I would define it as adherence to one's principles, even though they may not be perfect. Integrity has to do with honesty, dignity, and a sense of responsibility. This lofty notion, like many others, has been distorted and trivialized by society and used indiscriminately by politicians, entertainers, and profiteers. Some of the hosts of popular TV talk shows, who practice so-called trash journalism, must have lost all sense of decency and reality, because occasionally they talk about their own integrity while actively participating in the corruption and impoverishment of the public's intellect and morality. "In the realm of ends," wrote German philosopher Immanuel Kant two centuries ago, "everything has either a price or a dignity.... morality and humanity, so far as it is capable of morality, alone have dignity. Skill and diligence in work have a market value; wit, lively imagination, and humour have an affective price..." This remains true today. "Man," wrote Fromm ( Escape from Freedom , p. 140), "does not only sell commodities, he sells himself and feels himself to be a commodity.... If he is sought after, he is somebody; if he is not popular, he is simply nobody."
In a televised discussion on the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour dealing with the problem of managerial cadre drain from U.S. government agencies into private business, one government official insisted that to prevent this from happening it was necessary to raise substantially the salary of the top management personnel (up to around one hundred thousand dollars). That is why, he lamented, NASA was not able to find a suitable candidate for a top managerial position to supervise its programs. That made me wonder: where were all those American patriots who loved and took pride in their country? America needed just one such person for that prestigious job. When another panellist suggested that "rather than raise the bridge, why not bring the water level down," meaning why not stabilize the salary at a lower level for all categories, especially as a lot of Americans made about thirteen thousand dollars a year, the government representative got extremely indignant and declared that such a suggestion was an insult to his integrity. This is what integrity means to some people.
A good example of "dignity and integrity" is the former speaker of the House Tip O'Neal. After retiring from Congress, he reemerged from a suitcase in a hotel room in a TV commercial. In a interview with reporter Sam Donaldson, who unsuccessfully tried to draw O'Neal's attention to the fact that coming out of a suitcase for a prominent public figure was somewhat undignified, ridiculous, and silly, the latter unabashedly stated that he had thoroughly enjoyed it and saw no reason why he should not make an "extra buck." Tip O'Neal is not alone in giving away his dignity for a price. Another example is Geraldine Ferraro, who ran for the office of vice-president and ended up selling Pepsi-Cola in TV commercials. When the definition of dignity and integrity is repeatedly distorted by clowns and hypocrites, society loses one of its fundamental ideals that make it truly human, and degenerates into a society of savages and barbarians.
3.17 Moderation, Control of Animal Instincts and Irrational Passions
Moderation is a humanist characteristic. To become fully human we must learn to control our animality and temper our impulses, desires, and cravings. "Moderation in emotions and passions, self- control, and calm deliberation," said Kant, "not only are good in many respects, but even seem to constitute a part of the inner worth of the person." And it's not just a question of our inner worth. We simply cannot go on wasting nature's resources to satisfy our artificially created needs. If we let ourselves be controlled by our desires rather than by reason, we are going to destroy our environment and let our children suffer for that. If that is not stupidity or insanity, I don't know what is.
Of course, many of us who live in industrially developed countries and, in Aristotle's words, "accept the life of enjoyment as their ideal" are addicted to comfort, pleasure, and fun, and it would be very difficult for us to give up our habits and change our attitudes quickly. But we must understand that there is no other solution. Besides, how many of us are truly content or happy because of our abundant material possessions? Don't we always want more: new things, new pleasures, new sensations, which industry readily creates and sells to us? We have become slaves to our desires, and most of us have to work hard, like robots, to satisfy them. And will it ever end? We all know it won't. Huxley thought ("Do What You Will," Collected Essays , p. 74) that "... too much enjoyment `blunts the fine point of seldom pleasure.' Unrestrained indulgence kills not merely passion, but, in the end, even amusement." We are caught in a vicious circle, which spins faster and faster until it all ends in disaster, when economies have run out of resources and our habitat has been irretrievably destroyed.
This, however, does not mean that we must give up pleasure altogether, because what would then be the point in going on living? After all, the purpose of life is not to experience pain and suffering. As Aristotle said, "... the man who takes his fill of any kind of pleasure and abstains from none, is a profligate, but the man who shuns all... is devoid of sensibility." So it's not a question of whether pleasure is a vice or a virtue, but rather it's a question of what kind of pleasure we are talking about.
"What's wrong with pleasure?" I've been asked. Well, let's suppose that someone enjoys torturing people or animals. To the torturer, that is pleasure. If there is nothing wrong with pleasure in general, why should we object to and deprive the torturer of this kind of pleasure? "But the torturer does harm to others!" one might object indignantly. Of course, that's an extreme example. Then what about the fact that many of us derive pleasure in driving big, gas-guzzling cars, which, as we all know, are bad for our environment and, therefore, harmful to everybody's health. Other examples are private planes or big, fancy, noisy speedboats. They pollute the air, their gas and oil emissions disturb aquatic life, and on a nice, sunny afternoon, when you want to enjoy the simple pleasures of a quiet afternoon in nature on a lakeshore, all you get is a big disturbance by some nuts racing up and down the waterway.
The entertainment and advertisement media produce an enormous amount of thick, glossy, colourful magazines to lure us into buying things and services we don't really need or gambling our savings in risky, shady financial operations in the hope of striking it rich. These magazines are, figuratively speaking, garbage, because the information they contain is more misleading and corruptive than useful. But many of us don't mind having them as part of our junk mail and even buying them, just because the thick, glossy paper and colourful pictures are nice to touch and look at. And soon these magazines become, literally, garbage, which is too expensive to recycle even using modern technology. Can't we "sacrifice" this kind of pleasure for the sake of a cleaner and healthier environment!? So, it is necessary to distinguish between pleasure that is harmful to the environment and humanity and pleasure that contributes to a better world or, at least, is harmless to man and nature. That should be the criterion if we want to survive as a human species.
Another area where we've lost a sense of temperance is food and clothing, whose primary purpose is to keep our bodies functioning, protected, and healthy. Instead, those of us who are privileged enough not to worry about lack of food have turned the function of eating into a habit, a sport, a sophisticated pleasure, an art, or even a harmful addiction. We consume an excessive amount of calories through intemperate eating, wasting food that two-thirds of the world can only dream of, and then we spend more time, energy, and money to burn those calories by exercising on costly, fancy, high-tech equipment. As for clothes, we buy them out of boredom, to kill time, or to gratify our perverted tastes and fantasies, oblivious of the amount of resources that goes into producing them. The ultimate degradation and perversion of the function of clothing have found their expression in fashion, which I'll deal with later in the book.
To be human, we also need to control our animal instincts, especially the sex drive. Today the importance of sex has been blown out of proportion by the irresponsible entertainment media and profiteers who have turned it into a fast-selling commodity by glamourizing and advertising it, and thus created a new popular culture. They have set new, exaggerated standards of "sex performance" that make fickle-minded individuals think they are missing out on the modern lifestyle and, worse still, feel inferior, or abnormal, or as if they're not keeping up with the times. Many so-called sex therapists, themselves prisoners of their barbarian mentality, instead of helping people to become more human, teach them all the kinky tricks of copulation that the human race has perfected in the course of its evolution.
Some modern psychologists also try hard to keep abreast of the times by inventing new methods and techniques supposed to make our life happier. "Love yourself; care about yourself first," they insist. "Don't hold back your emotions; scream at someone or break something to let the steam out when you feel anger, hate, or frustration."
But how can we learn to control our negative emotions and irrational passions? First of all, we must try to understand what makes us behave in a certain way, what the nature and origin of these emotions are, what their short- and long-term effects on ourselves, society, and the environment are. One must learn to think more critically and objectively, to analyse one's own behaviour, to distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong. All this will help us to behave in a more rational way and develop our sense of self-worth, and our huge spiritual and creative potential.
Freedom is another term that is subject to constant misuse and abuse. To most of us, it means, essentially, the possibility to do or get what we want. For that reason alone we tend to hold this notion sacred, to believe in it without reservation, to avoid searching for a clear definition. It is also a very convenient idea to subscribe to when we need to justify our selfish or unethical attitudes and actions. A hunter, for instance, will insist on his freedom to kill animals for pleasure; a pervert will claim the freedom to indulge in sexual deviations and use obscene language in public; the entertainment media need their freedom to feed to the public the intellectual and cultural garbage they produce to make money and revel in fame; a politician needs his or her freedom to make, knowingly and with impunity, false promises to people in order to rise to a position of power; etc., etc.
To the majority of people the concept of freedom is too vague and too abstract to be of practical use. For the same reason, it is a very effective tool in the hands of politicians, some intellectuals, and other manipulators. To arrive at a practicable, objective definition of freedom, we must first realise that we cannot think only of our own interests, which vary greatly from individual to individual and from group to group. The only possible compromise is that kind of freedom which is in the interests of humanity as a whole, a freedom that would protect human society and individuals from moral and spiritual degeneration and self-destruction and, instead, would contribute to our maturing as fully human beings. According to Fromm, "... freedom is a quality of being fully humane" ( The Revolution of Hope , p. 89). "... only the fully developed mature personality can make fruitful use of freedom..." ( The Sane Society , p. 71). The main attribute of true freedom is responsibility . Freedom without responsibility is anarchy. The more we lose our sense of responsibility, the closer we move to anarchy and chaos.
Another aspect of freedom that we should recognize is that it must have limits. No one ever, in any society, can be completely free. "Too much liberty is as life-destroying as too much restraint," remarked Huxley ("Do What You Will," Collected Essays , p. 74). This is a fact that only an idiot or a hypocrite could deny. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," said Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This catchy aphorism needs to be looked at critically. The first part of it is flowery nonsense. It could make sense only if it were written down in a nation's law or constitution, or if it were decreed by God. If such law and constitutions exist at all, they are grossly violated all the time. Man is born into a strange and frightening world, bound by the chains of dependence on other humans, unaware even of the existence of the idea of freedom. From the very beginning, the majority of humans are doomed to a life of unfreedom and suffering.
Thus the question is: what should be the limits of our individual freedom? Should one, for instance, be allowed to murder or torture or rape or beat up or hit or threaten or insult or deceive another person? Where are the limits? Almost anyone would say no to the first four or five examples of physical violence, although fighting and injuries are part of some of the most popular sports. However, such forms of aggressive behaviour as threats, insults, humiliation, and deception are looked upon by many of us with a certain amount of benevolence and forgiveness (until we ourselves may become the victim). But these "milder" forms of violence are no less harmful to society than physical violence, because they prevent many of us from becoming truly thinking beings, i.e., Homo sapiens . The savage and the barbarian do not deserve much freedom, because they abuse and would eventually destroy it, are the cause of other people's suffering, and restrict the freedom of the human beings.
Another erroneous notion entertained by many intellectuals is that freedom should be freely dispensed to and even imposed on those who do not understand it, are not ready for it, do not need it, or even may fear it. "Man has to be forced to be free," said John Stuart Mill, with good intentions, no doubt. Freedom is not an absolute virtue in itself. It is a man-made concept and should not be a fetish. It is also a social concept and can be an asset when it is used in the long-range interests of entire human society, rather than an individual. People should not be slaves to freedom but should be able to use it to their collective advantage.
3.19 Democracy the Most Utopian of All Utopias
Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1976 unabridged edition) lists seven major definitions of democracy, which fact alone results in a broad interpretation of this concept by different social systems, interest groups, or individuals. Let us look at the first, presumably basic, definition, which itself is subdivided as follows: " 1 a: government by the people: rule of the majority b (1) : a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly... ; (2) : a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them indirectly through a system of representation and delegated authority in which the people choose their officials and representatives at periodically held free elections."
"Government by the people," which is still popular with demagogues, is a definition of what has never existed; besides, it is nonsensical: by the people as opposed to what? Gods? Animals? It has to be politicians, but aren't they people, too? "Rule of the majority" is the closest to reality. Definitions b (1) and (2), though the most elegant, are the furthest from reality. In "Modern Democracy" (p. 384), Carl Becker noted
"... the profound discord between democracy as an ideal and as a reality. In terms of the ideal there should have emerged from the liberal-democratic revolution a relatively simple society of free, equal, and prosperous citizens, fraternally cooperating to effect, by rational discussion and mutual concession, the common good. In fact there emerged an extremely complex society in which highly intricate and impersonal economic forces, stronger than good will or deliberate intention or rational direction, brought about an increasing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the fortunate few, and thereby nullified, for the majority of the people, many of those essential liberties which provide both the theoretical justification and the necessary conditions for the practical success of democratic institutions."In other words, the dream of true democracy has never come true. What we have instead in some "civilized" countries is a surrogate, a quasi-democracy that, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, has revealed more visibly its own disabilities, such as intellectual, spiritual, and moral degradation, shaky economy, social insecurity, environmental pollution, lack of visionin short, a tendency to self- destruction.
By the way, under the same article 1, definitions a and b express totally different notions. "Government by the people" answers only the question "Who governs?"; "rule of the majority" is self- explanatory and sometimes referred to as "tyranny of the majority"; and definitions b (1) and (2) leave out of account the majority-minorities conflict. Thus one can choose the meaning that best suits one's purpose, which, of course, only adds to the confusion.
Becker's quotation suggested to me another interesting point. It is naive to believe that a liberal- democratic revolution (or any revolution, for that matter) can result in a just and rational society. Revolutions will not change the barbarian into Homo sapiens . The only hope of achieving that goal is through a continuous effort to spread enlightenment.
Now we come to the fundamental question of whether democracy in contemporary society is a workable idea. Most people believe, or pretend to believe, that democracy works. But what do they mean when they say it "works"? Do they mean that democracy has always worked and will always work or, at least, for a long, long time? Can we say that it works just because ancient Greeks played the game of democracy for a while, or because Western quasi-democracy has been in existence for a couple of centuries? After all, two centuries are just a fleeting moment in the ten-thousand-year-old human civilisation. The distorted idea of democracy has survived up to now only because the economic machine of free enterprise in the industrially developed countries has been pumping out nature's and human resources to the maximum to create material wealth. Part of this wealth has been distributed amongst lower classes of society, thus creating the illusion of long-term prosperity. Now this period of prosperity has ended, never to return, because the resources are being depleted rapidly and the environment destroyed just as rapidly.
So I would argue that democracy is not working, nor can it work, because it is full of contradictions. The most important contradiction is this. Democracy rests on the idea that the people (the masses, the public) choose their leaders, who are supposed to lead them somewhere, presumably towards a better future. Better , in most people's minds, is associated with more material goods, more pleasures, more fun. People continue to clutch at this dream, shutting their eyes to reality, despite the fact that society is besieged with ever-growing problems that none of the political leaders is able or willing to fix, because the only way to solve society's problems is not just to give up the Big Dream, but also to give up some of the material values now. How many people are ready to do this? Very few. The leaders, although very smart, talented, and hardworking, are, at the same time, just as much preoccupied with their personal material success as the masses from which they emergedthe same mentality, the same attitude to life, the same hedonistic philosophy; only their dreams are more ambitious and their chances are better, because, as we all know, being a leader entitles you to a lot of privileges. To achieve that status, an aspiring politician must get elected. To get elected, he or she must please the public. How can one please the masses? Certainly not by telling them the truth and asking them to make sacrifices. This is exactly how politicians get elected: they tell the public what it wants to hear and make promises they know themselves they cannot fulfil. The masses, unlike individuals and small groups, cannot think and, therefore, cannot understand things clearly and, therefore, cannot make decisions. They want their leaders to make decisions for them. Thus the masses depend on their leaders for their future, while the leaders depend on the masses for their present. So, the paradox of democracy boils down to this: the least able and educated, let alone enlightened, masses hold hostage their more able leaders and demand to be led along a path that does not exist towards a goal that neither of them have any idea about.
Let us now look at the question of majority versus minorities in a democracy. It is true that the majority does not always or necessarilyand some may say "hardly ever"understand what is good and what is bad for society and, consequently, for themselves (e.g., Germany under Hitler). At this point I must offer my definition of good. I would define good as principles, conditions, ideas, and acts that are necessary for or contributing to the survival and evolution of the human race. This is basically an objective conclusion that one can arrive at through reason and logic. Those who are convinced that they understand what good is, however they define it, should try to spread their ideas amongst the public. But ultimately, it is the majority that should have the last word in deciding which morality and laws to choose. This is the only way to preserve the fundamental principle of democracy and keep violence under control. Minorities and individuals should have the right to disagree and, within certain limits, oppose the will of the majority, without resorting to violence. Protecting the interests of minorities and individuals in contemporary democracy may sound like a nice idea in theory but creates unsolvable contradictions in real life, because it will never be possible to reconcile the interests and claims of different social groups whose behaviour is easily influenced by tribal, religious, and cultural factors, as well as passions rather than reason. There are about 5.5 billion people living on this planet today. All have different physical and mental abilities, tastes, perceptions, traditions, education, etc. In simple language, it is impossible to please everyone. That is why democracy, which is essentially the will of the majority, had to be invented.
Democracy could work only in a humanistic society whose members are enlightened enough to understand the dilemma and accept the necessary restrictions on their freedoms, rights, and interests. To make decisions consciously, people must be able to think critically, logically, and objectively and understand the reality of the world around them. Unfortunately, today most people are not capable of making the right choices. They choose their leaders according to looks and manners rather than the validity of their ideas. And the leaders, who are motivated by power and wealth rather than by humanist principles and the vision of a better world, curry favour with the ignorant masses in order to stay in that position of power and material privileges. In fact, this sham of democracy creates a vicious circle of corruption and moral and intellectual degradation. Stupidity, immorality, dishonesty, aggressiveness, and violence are gradually becoming acceptable. This kind of democracy is not based on responsibility. It licences people to do whatever they want and frees them of responsibility for the consequences. Its philosophy is individual freedom bordering on anarchy and pursuit of pleasure. As Neal Postman remarked in Amusing Ourselves to Death (p. 56), "... the great figures of American jurisprudenceJohn Marshall, Joseph Story, James Kent, David Hoffman, William Wirt and Daniel Websterwere models of intellectual elegance and devotion to rationality and scholarship. They believed that democracy, for all of its obvious virtues, posed the danger of releasing an undisciplined individualism."
3.20 Humanism Not Yet a Science
Humanism can be broadly defined as a philosophy dealing with human interests and values. But since human interests and values have a different meaning for different people, so does the term humanism . Today, humanists are split into two major camps: religious humanists and secular humanists. The former claim that one can be a true humanist only if one believes in God. The latter reject all religious beliefs and insist on the preeminent importance of "free thought" and science in shaping humanity's future. While religious humanists rely on God to solve people's problems in afterlife, secular humanists (American in particular), many of whom are still unwilling to give up their barbaric habits, promote the idea of "enjoying life here and now." That is a very irresponsible attitude. It beats me how we can afford that kind of attitude under current conditions, unless, of course, they talk about individuals rather than humanity as a whole. Some of these "humanists," having secured a comfortable standard of living for themselves, do enjoy their lives, meeting at leisure for superficial chats about politics or local problems, writing letters to government officials and local newspapers, participating in silly demonstrations, or drafting useless resolutions. To many of them, humanism is a hobby, a pastime, an intellectual exercise. They are against organising it into a serious social movement because that would necessitate changing the entire current system with all the privileges they themselves enjoy. In particular, they are scared of the word ideology (associating it with communism), although it is just a word that denotes any system of ideas and views. But if serious changes can be made at all in this world, they can only be made based on a system of ideas.
I have met some strange "humanists." One of them, for instance, ridiculed and vilified morality; another bragged that his only principle was to have no principles; one lady, during a discussion of gay rights, mentioned with pride the fact that president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, who is a homosexual, had the great honour of being received by the queen of England; I have also been reproached for raising disquieting issues.
Secular humanist organisations, such as the American Humanist Association and Humanist Association of Canada, publish from time to time their "statements of principles," most of which, in my opinion, are quite correct. At the same time, there are statements that make little sense to a critical eye ("We believe in... beauty instead of ugliness..."); smack of irresponsible libertarianism when they talk about the right of people "to express their sexual preferences"; fallacious ("We need to recognize that human feelings are the source of all moral values; they are the criteria used to choose between goals"); or are divisive ("We...encourage racial or ethnic pride... we stress the importance of the positive aspects of nationalism..."by the way, no definition of "positive nationalism" is given in these pamphlets). Besides, not all of these lofty, humane, nice-sounding statements necessarily agree with each other. Some of them are mutually exclusive.
After a couple of years of being a member of a humanist association, I found myself disappointed with official secular humanism, which seems to be quite satisfied with the status quo and is not moving in any direction. It has focussed its efforts on fighting the church, leaving in the background more important problems such as decline in morality, cultural and intellectual degeneration, increasing violence and anarchy, ethnic conflicts, pollution, overpopulation, etc. Humanism needs to be clearly defined and developed into what Fromm called "a science of humanism." It should develop a global theory and program of action radically different from those which have existed up to now. It should deal with every aspect of human life and habitat, actively spreading enlightenment and adopting a comprehensive approach to the solution of man's problems.
Humanist associations should become centres of serious philosophical thought rather than idle social gatherings. For a group of people to discuss even a single serious issue, a couple of hours once a month is nowhere near enough. A productive discussion could be possible only if the participants:
A true humanist, in my view, is a person who adheres to high moral principles,
cares for other people and society as a whole, and is working to promote
the cause of humanism and find solutions to human problems.