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Imagine all the People:
The Humanist View on War, Peace and Human Nature
“... the life of man (is) solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. ... The condition of man
... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone. … (The) natural proclivity of men (is) to hurt each other.”
Thomas Hobbes "Throughout history, warfare … has been endemic to every
form of society, from hunter-gatherer bands to industrial states…” – E.O. Wilson "Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and
unselfishly toward a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature...Let us try to teach generosity and altruism,
because we are born selfish...It often turns out on closer inspection that acts of apparent alturism are really selfishness
in disguise...From a rational choice point of view, or from a Darwinian point of view, human super niceness is just plain
dumb...It is a misfiring, even a perversion of the Darwinian take on niceness." - Richard Dawkins (Quoting John Lennon, ‘Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger,
a brotherhood of man’) - "Incredible as it may seem, many of us used to believe this treacle … If people
are innately saddled with certain sins and flaws, like selfishness, prejudice, sort-sightedness, and self-deception, then
political reform would seem to be a waste of time.” – Stephen Pinker And
so, as the 21st Century begins very much like the last ended - in a perpetual state of war - the words of Hobbes, Wilson and
Pinker seem to ring true indeed. The nature of Homo Sapien Sapiens therefore, idealists like John Lennon and Dennis Kucinich
aside, is such that the violence in Dafur, Palestine, Iraq and other forsaken lands does not speak to the failure of peace,
but instead represents the inevitability of human violence. And with the general acceptance, if at times believed reluctantly,
of all of us regarding this practical truth, the antiwar Left has dwindled in political prowess and ambition, while at the
same time Christian, Islamic and secular Dominionists among us hurry along the “end of days.” But does all of this really best describe the actual truth of the human condition? Are we trapped,
genetically or otherwise, by our circumstances in this downward spiral to oblivion, or have people like Hobbes, Wilson and
Pinker gotten humanity wrong? Humanism means different things to different people. Some focus on metaphysics and note that
humanism is free of the dogma and supernaturalism of theism. Others point to methodology, advocating for scientific naturalism
and skepticism. And still others emphasize the social justice elements of the humanist tradition. But what if we hold so dearly
to one of these ideals that we forfeit the others to the supernaturalists or authoritarians? If we cling to atheism as the
bases for our behavior in society, then we may become what I call, “atheist avengers,” putting our energies in
debunking God while leaving social justice issues behind. If we only focus on science and skepticism we risk the twin evils
of elitism and arrogance, finding more strength in attacking religionists or debunking the masses, than in making the world
a better place to live. And if we focus only on social justice issues and ignore the problems of supernaturalism and the tool
of science, we can find ourselves trapped in the labyrinth of postmodernism and luditism, and wind up building our societies
on the fallacy that humans have free will. So, finding all of these above as necessary
parts of any meaningful and culturally relevant definition, it can be argued that humanism is a sociopolitical philosophy,
both democratic and non-hierarchal, which is informed by scientific naturalism and promotes individual freedom, economic and
social equality, human cooperation and planetary peace. With this definition at our fingertips, we can articulate then what
may be considered to be a good working hypothesis, by which all aspects of human society can be understood and addressed.
So what then about human nature, war and peace? As with many such questions concerning
the human condition this is a hard one, and not such that it will be answered in full here. Still, it is important for humanists
to fortify their arguments on issues of war and peace not only with the armament of the most popular or highly regarded crafters
of social scientific opinion, but also with lesser known and equally scientific and thoughtful opinions. After all, humanism
is perhaps the only “ism” free of dogma because of the very self-correctiveness of science from which it is partly
based, and so we ought to use just such a unique tool to its fullest.
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“Many people
fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion.
The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything, and so popular that it will
include everybody.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. In various magazines and websites dedicated to philosophical humanism, there has been an important,
if outdated debate on the core nature of humanism. I say outdated because, although humanism has been (and should always
be) a philosophy in flux—being that it is an “ism” which depends on our ever evolving understanding of the
human experience—a clear understanding of the core of humanism ought not be up for debate so late in the game. Modern humanism, though reconceived many times
over, can be said to have been crystallized in 1933 with the Humanist Manifesto I. When we talk today about humanism—at
least in the United States—we are more than likely referring to that which has resulted from that radical document drafted
over 70 years ago. We can also refer back to the work of Corliss Lamont, Paul Kurtz, and perhaps, to a lesser extent,
Felix Adler, as well as the organizations which they helped bring into existence. Though it is clear to me that all participants in this debate all have
legitimately argued their concerns regarding the state humanism finds itself in today – internally fractured and ineffective
in changing minds - I feel that before we can talk about how to make humanism more appealing to “moderate” religious
folks (the majority of our fellow citizens), we must first decide what the heck humanism means to those of us who claim the
word as our own. The
word is out… Atheistic humanism has failed. This is most evident in the United States as we witness via organized
humanism’s ineffectual response to the religious Right’s worldview, and via the general attitude of Americans
toward religion, superstition and science. Why has this happened to humanism when other “movements,” such
as those championing African-Americans or Jews or Gays, have made significant progress, and have done so despite the secular
and religious Right’s thirty-year affront to progressive ideals? Could humanism’s failure as a worldview, to some extent, be because so many humanists
see their worldview as an alternative to religion rather than a self-contained one of its own? How many times do we
humanists find ourselves describing our beliefs by calling out a litany of ideas and faiths we don’t subscribe to?
It is at times as if humanism would not exist if it were not for religion. It is no wonder that organized humanism,
cautious about becoming a religious alternative (or worse, an atheist club), tend to follow a big tent model, wrapping as
much as they can into their message – secularism, science advocacy, atheism, skepticism, and somewhere in the mess,
humanism – while boosting their revenues even if that means diluting their original message. Still, individual humanists, or even big tent
humanist organizations, struggle to describe what there is unique to their message. Science advocacy, skepticism and
secularism are not unique to humanism, that much is clear. And without a concrete understanding of what humanism actually
means to our lives, atheism begins to take on that roll of unique difference. This is not very surprising in a country
such as America where religion is so much a part of the fabric of what it means to be American. But atheism is not a
worldview. That deserves
repeating. Atheism is not a worldview. When we decide to focus on atheism to express what it is about our worldview
which we feel has the best chance of creating a better society, we are missing the point (of humanism). Even in times such as these, where religious fundamentalists
are waging war on each other, we mustn’t take the easy route and merely bash religion. But this is what today’s
spokespersons for atheism, from Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins to Christopher Hitchens and Ibn Warraq are doing. The
problem with this is not that there are people willing to do battle with the irrationality of supernaturalism; there should
always be such warriors on “our” side willing to take on what is the most dangerous aspect of religion.
The problem instead is that these same people often either self-identify as humanists, or are identified as such by organized
humanism. Once humanism
is tainted with the “us vs. them” mentality, which characterizes the battle between theism and atheism, it has
forfeited its ability to bring naturalism into the marketplace of ideas… Where all folks, religious or not, can partake
in the human endeavor toward better means and ends. So therefore, as I want to argue, humanism needs a re-boot. Its not that a key element
of humanism isn’t atheism (or agnosticism), it’s just that the negative and combative stance of humanism-as-atheism
(or secularism) wins us no friends, and even more enemies. And as for the perhaps arrogant notion that all humanists
need to do is educate the masses and they will leave their silly beliefs behind, science has shown us that religion is an
evolutionary part of who we are, and much of what it offers folks will not go away even if people become experts in the arguments
against God or in science. And even if education can be seen as important toward teaching our young how to critically
think, which is indeed very important, we simply can not count on Education, because the problems with such in America is
systemic, and will take decades to repair. Of course, as humanists should know by now, such repair is not likely to
happen in a country where the power-elite are always finding ways to keep Education about controlling the masses, rather than
about teaching them anything. This is, by the way, the sort of thing humanists need to become political about, if there
was any doubt in your mind. Humanism needs to rediscover its ethical and naturalistic foundations, and allow the metaphysics to become part of
the overall movement, and not its core and face. By ethical, I am referring to the egalitarianism of humanism which
has been one of its defining characteristics long before the scientific revolution replaced religion as the best way to understand
reality. Where there are atheists or other “freethinkers” who defend the politics or economics of oppression
and regression - from war to capitalism to neo-liberalism to neo-conservatism - there must be humanists to point out that
atheism is not the same thing as humanism. Humanism is wholly and unabashedly progressive in its understanding of the
human condition and what sort of society bests allows our species to be mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy.
Most religions, and certainly any which at the core promote or defend supernaturalism, have failed in this respect. Perhaps the most important reason for this failure
is that many religions promote authoritarian, Hobbesian, cynical, and highly hierarchal societal systems. To the extent
that liberal religionists interpret religions like Christianity or Islam as otherwise, is the extent that they wish to unify
their natural progressive ideals with their particular mythistory. Why should it be that atheists, having broken free
from the need to believe in supernatural entities or realms, should otherwise subscribe to the same authoritarian, Hobbesian,
cynical and hierarchal societal systems? By naturalistic, I do not mean the mere defense of the hard sciences or the methodology of science, but a fully
integrated naturalism obtained by us from all the sciences (natural and social), a naturalistic understanding of the origins
and evolutionary reasons for religion (which needs to be understood if we wish to address supernaturalism and how to separate
spirituality from supernaturalism), and from an understanding of philosophical determinism which would allow us to exorcise
the most dangerous element of religion, the belief in counter-causal free will. In short, a re-booted humanism would recognize ethics and naturalism
as its core. It would then be best defined as a sociopolitical philosophy, both democratic and non-hierarchal, which
is informed by scientific naturalism, and promotes individual freedom, economic and social equality, human cooperation and
planetary peace. It is time for humanists to, as Dr. King said more than forty years ago, take a position which stands
out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion (opinions from within as well as from without humanist circles).
Humanism is a positive, politically progressive, socially cooperative, scientifically sound worldview. It’s time
to define humanism as such, and not by what we aren’t.
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Imagine all the People:
The Humanist View on War, Peace and Human Nature (Cont)
Here is a list of names, some of which you may be familiar with. Niles Eldredge,
Stephen J. Gould, D.S. Wilson, Harold Barclay, Judith Hand, and Douglas Fry. All have, in one way or another, argued against
the current, neo-Darwinian arguments which seem to dominate the university and the work place in these times, yet they all
do so from a scientific, and indeed Darwinian perspective. The work of Eldredge ("Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the
Selfish Gene"), Gould ("The Mismeasure of Man") and D.S. Wilson ("Unto Others: The Evolutionary Biology
of Unselfish Behavior") may be somewhat familiar at this point to the reader, so I want to focus here on the work of
the latter three. Douglas Fry is a docent in the Development chology Program at
Abo Akademi University in Finland and a research scientist in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University
of Arizona. He is the author of The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions about War and Violence
(Oxford, 2006). Judith Hand, with a doctorate in biology, is a research associate
and lecturer at University of California at Los Angeles, and has written widely on both anthropology and biology. She is the
author of Women, Power and the Biology of Peace (Questpath, 2003). Harold Barclay
was a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta in Canada until he retired in 1988. He is the author of People
without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy (Kahn & Averill, 1990). In
brief, Fry’s work has involved studying the still existing hunter-gatherer societies of which he has noted no less than
80, all of which exhibit very low levels of aggression and no warfare. Fry (and Hand) point to the prejudices of western researchers
and scientists by noting not only that they have insisted that humans and chimps, rather than humans and bonobos, share more
in common, but also by omitting certain things from their research – such as studying human males regarding violence
almost exclusively - when trying to ascertain human behavior among our own species. Hand
points to several reasons bonobos are more like humans. One is that female bonobos can restrict male aggression because bonobos
eat foods that allow them to travel in larger groups than chimps, giving females a better chance to form alliances and partnerships.
Other biological reasons include the bonobo and human traits of hidden ovulation, engagement in frontal sexual intercourse,
and continuous female receptivity, none of which are shared with chimps. Fry also
addresses the Margaret Mead “controversy” explaining that those who critiqued her alleged writings of peaceful
Samoans, did a hatched job on a mere strawman. Two critics, Demonic Males author’s Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson
- whom themselves borrowed heavily from Derek Freeman's devastating critique of Mead's work in 1983 - ignored the bulk of
the data which would contrast their attempt to make peaceful societies disappear. This included ignoring the work of anthropologists
and sociologists Bonta, Montagu, Howell, Willis, Sponsel and Gregor. In their chapter, “Paradise Imagined,” Wrangham
and Peterson argued that Mead saw Samoans as unagressive, but that she was absolutely wrong. However, Fry's rereading of Mead's
book in question, “Coming of Age in Samoa,” found no statements about the Samoans being peaceful or unagressive,
but he found instead that Mead acknowledged that they made war in the past, but not 'nowadays.' Freeman, Wrangham and Peterson
left out the 'nowadays' and argued that Mead said the Samoans were always peaceful. This allowed readers to ignore the fact
that Mead never said what was claimed she did, and that the Samoans had somehow found a way to indeed live peacefully in the
long run. Here are the key elements of Fry and Hand’s work. • Nomadic hunter-gatherer societies are not ‘primitive’ in that they successfully
meet the needs of their individuals. This fact does not support the “noble savage” stereotype Pinker blames liberals
for holding because not only are these people not “savages” – a purely Eurocentric bias – but because
they are not somehow nobler than other people, if indeed more peaceful. •
Aggression, Fry and Hand admit, is a part of human nature … perhaps even genetically or neurologically so …
but how aggression is played out is based more on culture than on “nature.” Nomadic hunter-gatherers (in the past
or today), are egalitarian societies which are not completely absent of all aggression or limited violence, but its members
do not engage in wide scale or extreme violence, or in warfare. Instead, they have many methods of conflict management and
reconciliation techniques which keep aggression/violence to a minimal. Therefore, what should be noted is that there are more
examples in human nature of peace and cooperation in the bulk of human history (99% of which humans lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers),
than of violence and war. • Other “primitive” societies which
are often pointed out as violent or warlike – certain native American or African tribes – may range from static
hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies, but are not included in the over 80 nomadic societies Fry has researched. • Females in societies (past and present), which share partnership roles with males, tend to
leave such societies more balanced in terms of aggression. Females, while willing to defend their family or society with equal
aggression as males, do not begin conflicts. They are not the aggressors. Hand believes that the natural, aggressive male
bonding technique when unchecked – particularly among young males – is what leads to greater violence. Hand argues
therefore for true “political” equality of males and females in society as that seems to keep humans naturally
cooperative and egalitarian. The females are often the ones who keep the young males in check. • Hand also discusses the ancient Keftian society, one that was not nomadic and indeed more hierarchal
than such, and points out that the balance between men and women kept their culture peaceful... until a neighboring male-lead,
highly hierarchal society made war on them. • Hand argues that there are
six necessary conditions toward a cooperative and peaceful society. They include the need for protection from aggressors,
resources that enable self-sufficiency, a legitimate central authority, an ethos of non-violence, a strong female influence,
and a watch on population density so that it doesn’t exceed resource availability. In
the end Fry and Hand agree, as do many others, that human nature is not as Hobbes, E.O. Wilson, Pinker and others would argue.
A world view built on such a definition that Fry and Hand suggest would be vital to our planetary culture. For instance, political
philosophers explain that by large, neo-liberals, capitalists and Right-Libertarians all seem to hold to the Hobbesian definition
of human nature… selfish, violent, uber-competitive, lazy and greedy. This notion is false. In contrast, Socialists and Social-Democrats seem to hold to the Marxist idea that humans are infinitely malleable
and good, but this notion clearly does not work either. Nature does play a role in human behavior after all. Pinker is correct
in the idea that we do not come into the world as ‘blank slates.’ Anarchists,
Left-Libertarians and other progressives who argue for things like inclusive democracy, tend to understand that humans are
neither inherently good or bad, that we are a combination of nature and nurture, and that under certain conditions, certain
human traits (or adaptations) will emerge penultimate. It can be argued then,
after reading Fry and Hand, that there is something different in nomadic hunter-gatherers than in chiefdoms or states which
lead us toward ever-increasing violence and warfare. Harold Barclay, an anthropologist with anarchist leanings, has a different
take on some of the same issues Fry and Hand discuss. While having had similar experiences which led him to construct similar
conclusions about aggression and violence among nomadic hunter-gatherers as well as the differences between human males and
females, Barclay takes the step Fry and Hand seem reluctant to. Though Fry and
Hand both seem to be saying in their work that when human hierarchies and centralized authorities arise, the greater the chance,
and resources, for large scale violence and war becomes… neither challenge hierarchies or the way chiefdoms and states
garner power for the elite few. Fry seems to think that hierarchy is not the problem so much as is the lack of will of many
governments to live peacefully among others, and apply conflict management techniques. After all, Fry argues for Norway as
an example of a modern state-society which has found ways to keep the peace, mainly by “deciding” not to try to
rule the world. Hand also argues that hierarchies are natural, and that centralized authority is a good thing… if only
women would have more equal power in politics, economics and the like. Both support a world government. While Fry and Hand offer sound liberal ideas of the good society, they do seem to miss a major point.
Barclay argues that it’s no accident that centralized authority, whether we’re talking about chiefdoms, states
(including representative democracies), or a world government, creates the problems in humanity which lead to violence and
war. To this, he would add capitalism as well. Hierarchies, Barclay says, are indeed natural in human nature, but when hierarchies
become more about domination and submission rather than about a division of labor and responsibility, we begin to have a problem.
Fry and Hand argue that aggression need not lead to wide scale violence or warfare; likewise, Barclay argues that natural
human hierarchies need not lead to domination, which leads to violence and warfare on the personal and state level. Indeed
it may be the advent of dominance-based hierarchies of chiefdoms or states, both being rather recent developments in human
history, which puts humans into circumstances unnatural, or at least unhealthy for them, therefore creating stress and tension
on many levels. As for a solution, while Barclay would not prefer to return the
entire species to nomadic hunter–gatherer lifestyles, even if that were possible, he would argue that adopting anarchist
principles, or at least a more genuine practice of democratic principles, would certainly help us out of the mess we now find
ourselves in. Along this line, one project which stands out is Takis Fotopoulos'
Inclusive Democracy project which combines various Leftist ideologies along with a rational viewpoint toward implementing
a true, inclusive democracy which would replace statist and/or libertarian capitalist societies, statist socialist societies,
social democracies, and hierarchal representative democracies. So, at last, humanism. It
seems to me that the principles of humanism, from scientific naturalism to the want for social justice, can be found in a
clear, objective manor via biology, anthropology and a proper understanding of human nature as it is played out in the bulk
of human history. Fry, Hand and Barclay, more than Hobbes, Richard Dawkins, EO Wilson (though he seems to be changing his
tune of late, now that he's an advocate of "group selection"), or Pinker, seem to move in such a direction. This
then speaks more to where we can go in this new millennium as we begin to actually examine our species’ actual behaviors,
without western bias based on supernatural myth or Hobbesian cynicism. "Imagine
there’s no countries … imagine all the people living life in peace..." We
humanists here in America, like all western thinkers, have come to our philosophy by having the world of ideas first filtered
through the particulars of our culture… Perhaps to the point that even scientists have at times become colored by what
they already believe to be true about reality. But the self correctiveness of science is such that we can step out of the
culture box, if just long enough to put our favorite theories to the test. When we do so, we may just find that the principles
of humanism we all carry with us as part of who we are, can indeed be legitimized by an objective application of science,
minus the political biases of our time. If we humanists find that we can not do at least that, then the only thing that separates
us from the unwarranted presumptions of supernaturalism is our atheism.
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