Kurt Vonnegut's last speech

At the conclusion of my time in Wisconsin, Nan stayed on in Manitowoc to look after her ailing mother for another week, and Scout and I drove back home to Colorado. To pass the time, I listened to the audio book, Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut. It starts out with an excellent introduction written and read by his son Mark. Vonnegut died last May, and Mark's introduction is an eloquent eulogy of his father's life.

The second selection is Kurt Vonnegut's last speech, given just two weeks before his death. Understood from that perspective, it can be interpreted as a summation of all the thoughts and ideas that guided him through his life. Listening to it confirmed for me why his books were so influential to me as a young adult and why I think and feel about life the way I do today. Vonnegut was the master at presenting the human condition in its most stark light, separate from preconceptions but with humorous attention to the absurdity of it all. The speech demonstrates that, even at eighty-four, he had not lost his touch.

As best I could, I transcribed all twenty-two minutes of it:

Kurt Vonnegut at Clowes Hall, Indianapolis, April 27, 2007

Thank you. And I stand before you as a role model courtesy of Mayor Bart Peterson, and God bless him for this occasion. If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. And just think of this: In only three years time, during World War II, I went from private to corporal, a rank once held by both Napoleon and Adolph Hitler. I’m actually Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I mean, that’s what my kids, now in late middle age, like to still call me when talking about me behind my back. Junior this and Junior that. But whenever you look at the Ayers clock at the intersection of South Meridian and Washington streets, please think of my father, Kurt Vonnegut, Sr., who designed it. As far as that goes, he and his father, Bernard Vonnegut, designed the whole darn building. And he was the founder of the Arch’s school. And the Children’s Museum. His father, my grandfather, the architect Bernard Vonnegut, designed, among other things, the Atheneum, which before the First World War was called Das Deutsch Haus. I can’t imagine why they would have changed the name to the Atheneum, unless it was to kiss the ass of a bunch of Greek Americans.

I guess all of you know I’m suing the manufacturer of Pall Mall cigarettes because their product didn’t kill me and I’m now eighty-four. Listen, I studied Anthropology at the University of Chicago after the Second World War, the last one we ever won. And the physical anthropologists, who had studied human skulls going back thousands of years, said we were only supposed to live for thirty-five years or so because that’s how long our teeth lasted without modern dentistry. Weren’t those the good old days? Thirty-five years and we were out of here! Talk about intelligent design! Now all the Baby Boomers who can afford dentistry and health insurance—poor bastards—are going to live to be a hundred. Maybe we should outlaw dentistry. And maybe doctors should quit curing pneumonia, which used to be called “the old people’s friend.”

But the last thing I want to do tonight is to depress you, so I’ve thought of something we can all do tonight which will definitely be upbeat. I think we can come up with a statement on which all Americans—Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, straight or gay—can agree, despite our country’s being so tragically and ferociously divided. The first universal American sentiment I came up with was: “Sugar is sweet.”

And there is certainly nothing new about a tragically and ferociously divided United States of America. And especially here in my native state of Indiana. When I was a kid here, this state had within its borders the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan and the site of the last lynching of an African-American citizen north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Marion, I think. But it also had and still has in Terre Haute, which now boasts a state-of-the-art lethal injection facility, the birthplace and home of the labor leader Eugene Debs. He lived from 1855 to 1926 and led a nation-wide strike against the railroads. He went to prison for a while because he opposed our entry into World War I. And he ran for president several times on the Socialist Party ticket, saying things like this: “While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Debs pretty much stole that from Jesus Christ, but it is so hard to be original. Tell me about it.

But alright, what is a statement on which all Americans can agree? “Sugar is sweet,” certainly. But since we are on the property of a university, we can surely come up with something which has more cultural heft, and this is my suggestion: “The Mona Lisa, the picture by Leonardo da Vinci, hanging in the Louvre in Paris, France, is a perfect painting.” OK, a show of hands please. Can’t we all agree on that? OK, take down your hands. Let’s say the voters are unanimous, that the Mona Lisa is a perfect painting. The only trouble with that, which is the trouble with practically everything we believe: It isn’t true! Listen, her nose is tilted to the right, OK? That means the right side of her face is a receding plane going away from us, OK? But there is no foreshortening of her features on that side giving the effect of three dimensions, and Leonardo could so easily have done that foreshortening. He was simply too lazy to do it. And if he were Leonardo da Indianapolis, I’d be ashamed of him. No wonder she has such a cock-eyed smile.

And somebody might now want to ask me, “Can’t you ever be serious?” The answer is no. When I was born at Methodist Hospital on November 11, 1922, and this city back then was as racially segregated as professional basketball and football teams are today, the obstetrician spanked my little rear end to start my respiration, but did I cry? No. I said, “A funny thing happened on the way down the birth canal, Doc. A bum came up to me and said he hadn’t had a bite for three days, so I bit him.”

But seriously, my fellow Hoosiers, there’s good news and bad news tonight. This is the best of times and the worst of times. So what else is new? The bad news is that the Martians have landed in Manhattan and have checked in at the Waldorf Astoria. The good news is that they only eat homeless people of all colors, and they pee gasoline.

Am I religious? I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves Our Lady of Perpetual Consternation. We are as celibate as fifty percent of the heterosexual Roman Catholic clergy. Actually, and when I hold up my right hand like this, it means I’m not kidding, that I give my word of honor that what I’m about to say is true. So actually, I am Honorary President of the American Humanists Society, having succeeded the late great science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, in that utterly functionless capacity. We humanists behave as well as we can, without any expectations of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community. We don’t fear death, and neither should you. You know what Socrates said about death, in Greek of course? “Death is just one more night.”

As a humanist, I love science. I hate superstition, which could never have given us A-bombs. I love science, and not only because it has given us the means to trash the planet—and I don’t like it here—it has found the answers to two of our biggest questions: How did the universe begin? And how did we and all the other animals get the wonderful bodies we have, with eyes and brains and kidneys and so on? OK, so science sent the Hubble telescope out in space so it could capture light and the absence thereof from the very beginning of time. And the telescope really did that. So now we know that there was once absolutely nothing, such a perfect nothing that there wasn’t even nothing. For once, can you imagine that? You can’t, because there isn’t even nothing to imagine. But then there was this great big bang. That’s where all this crap came from. And how did we get our wonderful lungs and eyebrows and teeth and toenails and assholes and so on? By means of millions of years of natural selection. That’s when one animal dies and another one copulates. Survival of the fittest. But look, if you should kill somebody, whether accidentally or on purpose, improving our species, please don’t copulate afterwards. That’s what causes babies, in case your mother didn’t tell you.

And yes, my fellow Hoosiers, I’ve never denied being one of you. This is indeed the apocalypse, the end of everything as prophesized by St. John the Devine and St. Kurt the Vonnegut. Even as I speak, the very last polar bear may be dying of hunger on account of climate change, on account of us. And I will surely miss the polar bears. Their babies are so warm and cuddly and trusting, just like ours. Does this old poop have any advice for young people in times of such awful trouble? Well, I’m sure you know that our country is the only so-called advanced nation that still has a death penalty and torture chambers. I mean, why screw around? But listen, if anyone here should wind up on a gurney in a lethal injection facility, maybe the one in Terre Haute, here is what your last words should be: “This will certainly teach me a lesson.” If Jesus were alive today, we would kill him with lethal injection. I call that progress. We would have to kill him for the same reason he was killed the first time: His ideas are just too liberal.

My advice to writers just starting out? Don’t use semi-colons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college. So first the Mona Lisa. And now semi-colons. I might as well clinch my reputation as a world-class nut case by saying something good about Karl Marx, commonly believed in this country and surely in Indian-no-place to have been one of the most evil people who ever lived. He did invent Communism, which we have long been taught to hate because we are so in love with Capitalism, which is what we call the casinos on Wall Street. Communism is what Karl Marx hoped could be an economic scheme for making industrialized nations take as good care of people, and especially of children and the old and disabled, as tribes and extended families used to do before they were dispersed by the Industrial Revolution. And I think maybe we might be wise to stop bad-mouthing Communism so much. Not because we think it’s a bad idea but because our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are now in hock up to their eyeballs to the communist Chinese! And the Chinese communists also have a big and superbly equipped army, something we don’t have. We’re too cheap! We just want to nuke everybody. But there are still plenty of people who will tell you that the most evil thing about Karl Marx was what he said about religion. He said it was the opium of the lower classes, as though he thought religion was bad for people and he wanted to get rid of it. But when Marx said that, back in the 1840s, his use of the word “opium” wasn’t simply metaphorical. Back then, real opium was the only painkiller available for toothaches or cancer of the throat or whatever. He himself had used it. As a sincere friend of the downtrodden, he was saying he was glad they had something which could ease their pain, at least a little bit, which was religion. He liked religion for doing that and certainly didn’t want to abolish it. OK? He might have said today as I say tonight that religion can be Tylenol for a lot of unhappy people, and I’m so glad it works.

About the Chinese communists? They are obviously much better at business than we are and maybe a lot smarter, communist or not. I mean, look how much better they do in our schools over here. Face it! My son Mark, a pediatrician, was on the admissions committee of the Harvard Medical School a while back. And he said that if they had played the admissions game fairly, half of the entering class would be Asian women. But back to Karl Marx. How subservient to Jesus or to a humane god almighty were the leaders of this country, back in the 1840s, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves and weren’t going to let women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty years. I got a letter a while back from a man who had been a captive in the American penal system since he was sixteen years old. He is now forty-two and about to get out. He asked me what he should do. I told him what Karl Marx would have told him: “Join a church.”

And now please note, I have raised my right hand, and that means I’m not kidding, that whatever I say next I believe to be true, so here goes: The most spiritually splendid American phenomenon of my lifetime wasn’t our contribution to the defeat of the Nazis, in which I played such a large part, or Ronald Reagan’s overthrow of godless Communism, in Russia at least. The most spiritually splendid American phenomenon of my lifetime is how African-American citizens have maintained their dignity and self-respect despite their having been treated by white Americans, both in and out of government and simply because of their skin color, as though they were contemptible and loathsome and even diseased. Their churches have surely helped them do that. So there’s Karl Marx again. There’s Jesus again.

And what gift of America to the rest of the world is actually most appreciated by the rest of the world? It is African-American jazz and its offshoots. What is my definition of jazz? Safe sex, of the highest order. The two greatest Americans of my lifetime, so far as I know, were Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. I’ve heard it suggested that Roosevelt wouldn’t have had such empathy for the lower classes, would have been just another rich, conceited, ruling class, Ivy League horse’s ass if he himself hadn’t been humbled by polio myelitis infantile paralysis. All of a sudden, his legs didn’t work anymore.

What can we do about global warming? We could turn out the lights, I guess, but please don’t. I can’t think of any way to repair the atmosphere. It’s way too late. But there is one thing I can fix, and fix this very night, and right here in Indianapolis. It’s the name of another good university you’ve built since my time, but you’ve named it I.U.P.U.I.! I.U.P.U.I.? Have you lost your wits? “Oh, I went to Harvard. Where did you go?” “I went to I.U.P.U.I.” With the unlimited powers vested in me by Mayor Peterson for the whole year of 2007, I rename I.U.P.U.I. Tarkington University. “Hey, I went to Harvard. Where did you go?” “I went to Tarkington.” Ain’t that classy? Done. And done. With the passage of time, nobody will know or care who Tarkington was. I mean, who nowadays gives a rat’s ass who Butler was? This is Clowes Hall, and I actually knew some real Cloweses. Nice people. But let me tell you, I would not be standing before you tonight if it hadn’t been for the example of the life and works of Booth Tarkington, a native of this city. During his time, 1869 to 1946, which overlapped my own time for twenty-four years, Booth Tarkington became a beautifully successful and respected writer of plays, novels and short stories. His nickname in the literary world, one I would give anything to have, was “That Gentleman from Indiana.” When I was a kid, I wanted to be like him. We never met. I wouldn’t have known what to say. I would have been ga-ga with hero worship. Yes, and by the unlimited powers vested in me by Mayor Peterson for this entire year, I demand that somebody here mount a production in Indianapolis of Booth Tarkington’s play, “Alice Adams.”

By a sweet coincidence, Alice Adams was also the married name of my late sister, a six-foot tall blonde bombshell who is now in Crown Hill along with our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, and James Whitcomb Riley, the highest paid American writer of his time. You know what my sister Allie used to say? She used to say, “Your parents ruin the first half of your life, and your kids ruin the second half.” James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet, was the highest paid American writer of his time, 1849 to 1916, because he recited his poetry for money in theaters and lecture halls. That was how delighted by poetry ordinary Americans used to be. Can you imagine?

You want to know something the great French writer Jean-Paul Sartre said one time? He said it in French of course: “Hell is other people.” He refused to accept a Nobel Prize. I could never be that rude. I was raised right by our African-American cook, whose name was Ida Young. During the Great Depression, African-American citizens were heard to say this, along with a lot of other stuff of course: “Things are so bad, white folks got to raise their own kids.” But I wasn’t raised right by Ida Young alone, a great-grandchild of slaves who was intelligent, kind and honorable, proud and literate, articulate and thoughtful, and pleasing in appearance. Ida Young loved poetry and used to read poems to me. I was also raised right by teachers at School 43, the James Whitcomb Riley School. And at Shortridge High School. Back then, great public school teachers were local celebrities. Grateful former students, well into adult life, used to visit them and tell them how they were doing. And I myself used to be a sentimental adult like that. But long ago, all my favorite teachers went the way of most of the polar bears.

The very best thing in life you can be is a teacher, provided you are in love with what you teach and that your classes consist of eighteen students or fewer. Classes of eighteen students or fewer are a family, and feel and act like one. When my grade graduated from School 43 with the Great Depression going on, with almost no business or jobs, and with Hitler taking charge of Germany, each of us had to say in writing what we hoped to do when grownups to make this a better world. I said I would cure cancer with chemicals while working for Eli Lilly. I have the humorist Paul Krassner to thank for pointing out a big difference between George W. Bush and Hitler: Hitler was elected. I mentioned my only son, Mark Vonnegut, a while back, you know, about Chinese women and Harvard Medical School. Well, he is not only a pediatrician in the Boston area but a painter and a saxophonist and a writer. He wrote one heck of a good book called The Eden Express. It is about his mental crack-up—padded cell and straightjacket stuff. He had been on the wrestling team as an undergraduate in college. Some maniac! In his book, he tells how he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School. The Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut. But don’t borrow it, for God’s sakes! Buy it! I consider anybody who borrows a book instead of buying it, or lends one, a twerp. When I was a student at Shortridge High School a million years ago, a twerp was defined as a guy who put a set of false teeth up his rear end and bit the buttons off the backseats of taxi cabs. But I hasten to say, should some impressionable young person here today, at loose ends or from a dysfunctional family, resolve to take a shot at being a real twerp tomorrow, that there are no longer buttons on the backseats of taxi cabs. Times change.

I asked Mark a while back what life was all about since I didn’t have a clue. He said, “Dad, we’re here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” Whatever it is. Whatever it is! Not bad. That one could be a keeper. And how should we behave during this apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another certainly, but we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog if you don’t already have one. I myself just got a dog. It’s a new cross-breed. It’s half French poodle and half Chinese shitzu. It’s a “shit poo.” And I thank you for your attention. And I am out of here.

Smallmindedness

Somewhere along the way, we have lost our sense of community. This may be a natural product of our modern impersonal world, but I believe there's more to it than that.

This morning Nan and Charlie and I took what is becoming our traditional New Year's desert hike in the Tabeguache area near our home. As we were nearing the end of our loop, we passed three people and a dog in a narrow section going the other way. The woman in front was concerned about their dog interacting with our dog Charlie, so she leaned over to grab his collar and passed without acknowledgement. I gave the young teenage girl who was next a big "Happy New Year," but she didn't reply and didn't make eye contact, so I repeated myself to the man behind her, who mumbled "Happy New Year" in reply as he glanced our way in passing.

When I'm out walking Charlie, I make a habit of saying hello to everybody we pass who bothers to make eye contact. I figure we're all out enjoying the same activity, so we might as well be friendly--maybe not as friendly as our butt-sniffing dogs, but at least cordial. My observation is that many people, especially younger people, do not share this feeling at all. They don't return the greeting or they don't make eye contact in the first place. It seems they lack the self-confidence to address strangers, or they are emotionally indifferent to people they don't know. Either way, it results in treating strangers as objects or obstacles.

You see this everywhere these days. Walking in the mall, you need to swerve to avoid people who would otherwise walk right into you. Driving on the highway, you need to go faster than the speed limit just to avoid being rear-ended. Waiting in a line, you need to look out for people cutting in front of you. "Please" and "thank you" have been replaced by "gimme." "Excuse me" no longer exists. The thought of holding a door or letting someone else go first doesn't even enter the mind.

And that's where it starts. With the mind. If your mind is so small that you can't think beyond yourself and your own selfish needs, if you've totally lost touch with the reality that we are all in this life together, if you don't realize that the best any of us can hope for is a little common decency from one another, then you are on your own. You don't belong to the community because you don't even know it exists. Open your eyes. See those strangers. Open your mind. Think about your place in this world.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Reflections on Humanism

These days it is difficult to escape the constant barrage from the Christian right. From the fish symbols and "Real Men Love Jesus" bumper stickers to Bush advocating the teaching of "intelligent design" in our public schools, there is a radical retrenching of progressive thought going on in this country. Instead of living in the moment, taking our cues for what is right and what is wrong from how we are received by our fellow human beings, an increasing number have opted to put their faith in the Bible and its ancient teachings, which profess an otherworldly origin for life and mankind's place in it. Instead of looking outward for the answers to questions like, "What is our purpose?", I look inward. I look at who I am and what I have to offer others to make this world a better place, because I believe that what we see, you and I, is all there is. We don't answer to a higher God, we answer to each other. There is no heaven and there is no hell. There is only this life and what we make of it. And we are all in this life together, so the greatest good is to do the best we can for each other--Christ's message but without Christ in it--because the reward is not in heaven, it is here in this life.

To this end, the greatest virtue becomes personal freedom. This country declared its independence for the purposes of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." One of the most disturbing trends in government today is the legislation of morality, which runs counter to everything the founding fathers had in mind. If what I do does not affect you, then why should you be able to tell me whether or not I may do it? Whatever happened to "live and let live"? If issues such as drug use, abortion and gay marriage make people uncomfortable enough that they press their legislators to pass laws against them, then the problem is with these people, not with the behavior. They need to understand that the world is made up of different people with different values, and that it is not up to them to make everyone the same. What advantage does it serve? Does it ease the conscience to know our prisons are full of drug law offenders? It would be more advantageous to society if we understood that most people are doing the best they can and that if that requires behavior other people do not agree with, then so be it.

More than anything, this resurgence of Christian fundamentalism amounts to the dumbing down of modern society. It has become acceptable to display bumper stickers with slogans like "Let go! Let God do it!" and "God is my co-pilot!" To me, this is the same thing as saying, "The universe is a complicated place and I don't understand it, so I'm going to throw up my hands in frustration and give my destiny over to God and his mystical ways, even though I don't understand them, because I have faith." Wouldn't it be more productive to think that our concept of God is a stepping stone to free thought? In simpler times, before we understood that we're all riding a small rock around a small star at the edge of a galaxy full of mostly bigger stars--some of which probably have life similar to our own circling them--in a universe that has no bounds, we needed God to explain the unexplainable. And the God concepts of heaven and hell helped to keep the masses under control, in a state of servitude toward a reward in the afterlife. We are way past that now. We know our place in the universe, at least geographically, and we know more about the workings of this planet and its inhabitants than would have been thought possible just a hundred years ago. We have invented technology and medicine that have made our lives longer, healthier and more comfortable than they even need to be. But instead of looking ahead to what new discoveries we might make, many in society have chosen to look backward, almost in nostalgia, to the simpler times. If we believe the Bible, Christ lived and died as an example to us of how we should live. It is time for us to take his example and apply it to our modern situation: Don't live in fear of spiritual retribution for perceived sins. Rather live for each other, in trust and empathy, that we all may prosper in this life. Think for yourself!

Humanist Manifesto II (1973)

Humanist Manifesto II followed Humanist Manifesto I forty years later:

Humanist Manifesto II (1973)

It is forty years since Humanist Manifesto I (1933) appeared. Events since then make that earlier statement seem far too optimistic. Nazism has shown the depths of brutality of which humanity is capable. Other totalitarian regimes have suppressed human rights without ending poverty. Science has sometimes brought evil as well as good. Recent decades have shown that inhuman wars can be made in the name of peace. The beginnings of police states, even in democratic societies, widespread government espionage, and other abuses of power by military, political, and industrial elites, and the continuance of unyielding racism, all present a different and difficult social outlook. In various societies, the demands of women and minority groups for equal rights effectively challenge our generation.

As we approach the twenty-first century, however, an affirmative and hopeful vision is needed. Faith, commensurate with advancing knowledge, is also necessary. In the choice between despair and hope, humanists respond in this Humanist Manifesto II with a positive declaration for times of uncertainty.

As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith. Salvationism, based on mere affirmation still appears as harmful, diverting people with false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means for survival.

Those who signed Humanist Manifesto II disclaim that they are setting forth a binding credo; their individual views would be stated in widely varying ways. The statement is, however, reaching for vision in a time that needs direction. It is social analysis in an effort at consensus. New statements should be developed to supersede this, but for today it is our conviction that humanism offers an alternative that can serve present-day needs and guide humankind toward the future.

The next century can be and should be the humanistic century. Dramatic scientific, technological, and ever-accelerating social and political changes crowd our awareness. We have virtually conquered the planet, explored the moon, overcome the natural limits of travel and communication; we stand at the dawn of a new age, ready to move farther into space and perhaps inhabit other planets. Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.

The future is, however, filled with dangers. In learning to apply the scientific method to nature and human life, we have opened the door to ecological damage, overpopulation, dehumanizing institutions, totalitarian repression, and nuclear and biochemical disaster. Faced with apocalyptic prophesies and doomsday scenarios, many flee in despair from reason and embrace irrational cults and theologies of withdrawal and retreat.

Traditional moral codes and newer irrational cults both fail to meet the pressing needs of today and tomorrow. False "theologies of hope" and messianic ideologies, substituting new dogmas for old, cannot cope with existing world realities. They separate rather than unite peoples.

Humanity, to survive, requires bold and daring measures. We need to extend the uses of scientific method, not renounce them, to fuse reason with compassion in order to build constructive social and moral values. Confronted by many possible futures, we must decide which to pursue. The ultimate goal should be the fulfillment of the potential for growth in each human personality--not for the favored few, but for all of humankind. Only a shared world and global measures will suffice.

A humanist outlook will tap the creativity of each human being and provide the vision and courage for us to work together. This outlook emphasizes the role human beings can play in their own spheres of action. The decades ahead call for dedicated, clear-minded men and women able to marshal the will, intelligence, and cooperative skills for shaping a desirable future. Humanism can provide the purpose and inspiration that so many seek; it can give personal meaning and significance to human life.

Many kinds of humanism exist in the contemporary world. The varieties and emphases of naturalistic humanism include "scientific," "ethical," "democratic," "religious," and "Marxist" humanism. Free thought, theism, agnosticism, skepticism, deism, rationalism, ethical culture, and liberal religion all claim to be heir to the humanist tradition. Humanism traces its roots from ancient China, classical Greece and Rome, through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, to the scientific revolution of the modern world. But views that merely reject theism are not equivalent to humanism. They lack commitment to the positive belief in the possibilities of human progress and to the values central to it. Many within religious groups, believing in the future of humanism, now claim humanist credential. Humanism is an ethical process through which we all can move, above and beyond the divisive particulars, heroic personalities, dogmatic creeds, and ritual customs of past religions or their mere negation.

We affirm a set of common principles that can serve as a basis for united action--positive principles relevant to the present human condition. They are a design for a secular society on a planetary scale.

For these reasons, we submit this new Humanist Manifesto for the future of humankind; for us, it is a vision of hope, a direction for satisfying survival.

Religion

First: In the best sense, religion may inspire dedication to the highest ethical ideals. The cultivation of moral devotion and creative imagination is an expression of genuine "spiritual" experience and aspiration.

We believe, however, that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species. Any account of nature should pass the tests of scientific evidence; in our judgment, the dogmas and myths of traditional religions do not do so. Even at this late date in human history, certain elementary facts based upon the critical use of scientific reason have to be restated. We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity. Nature may indeed be broader and deeper than we now know; any new discoveries, however, will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural.

Some humanists believe we should reinterpret traditional religions and reinvest them with meanings appropriate to the current situation. Such redefinitions, however, often perpetuate old dependencies and escapism; they easily become obscurantist, impeding the free use of the intellect. We need instead, radically new human purposes and goals.

We appreciate the need to preserve the best ethical teachings in the religious traditions of humankind, many of which we share in common. But we reject those features of traditional religious morality that deny humans a full appreciation of their own potentialities and responsibilities. Traditional religions often offer solace to humans, but, as often they inhibit humans from helping themselves or experiencing their full potentialities. Such institutions, creeds, and rituals often impede the will to serve others. Too often traditional faiths encourage dependence rather than independence, obedience rather than affirmation, fear rather than courage. More recently they have generated concerned social action, with many signs of relevance appearing in the wake of the "God is Dead" theologies. But we can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.

Second: Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful. They distract humans from present concerns, from self-actualization, and from rectifying social injustices. Modern science discredits such historic concepts as the "ghost in the machine" and the "separable soul." Rather, science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces. As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context. There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body. We continue to exist in our progeny and in the way that our lives have influenced others in our culture.

Traditional religions are surely not the only obstacles to human progress. Other ideologies also impede human advance. Some forms of political doctrine, for instance, function religiously, reflecting the worst features of orthodoxy and authoritarianism, especially when they sacrifice individuals on the altar of Utopian promises. Purely economic and political viewpoints, whether capitalist or communist, often function as religious and ideological dogma. Although humans undoubtedly need economic and political goals, they also need creative values by which to live.

Ethics

Third: We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life here and now. The goal is to pursue life's enrichment despite debasing forces of vulgarization, commercialization, bureaucratization, and dehumanization.

Fourth: Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses. There is no substitute: neither faith nor passion suffices in itself. The controlled use of scientific methods, which have transformed the natural and social sciences since the Renaissance, must be extended further in the solution of human problems. But reason must be tempered by humility, since no group has a monopoly of wisdom or virtue. Nor is there any guarantee that all problems can be solved or all questions answered. Yet critical intelligence, infused by a sense of human caring, is the best method that humanity has for resolving problems. Reason should be balanced with compassion and empathy and the whole person fulfilled. Thus, we are not advocating the use of emotion, for we believe in the cultivation of feeling love. As science pushes back the boundary of the known, one's sense of wonder is continually renewed, and art, poetry, and music find their places, along with religion and ethics.

The Individual

Fifth: The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value. Individuals should be encouraged to realize their own creative talents and desires. We reject all religious, ideological, or moral codes that denigrate the individual, suppress freedom, dull intellect, dehumanize personality. We believe in maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility. Although science can account for the causes of behavior, the possibilities of individual freedom of choice exist in human life and should be increased.

Sixth: In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered "evil." Without countenancing mindless permissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire. We wish to cultivate the development of a responsible attitude toward sexuality, in which humans are not exploited as sexual objects, and in which intimacy, sensitivity, respect, and honesty in interpersonal relations are encouraged. Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and sexual maturity.

Democratic Society

Seventh: To enhance freedom and dignity the individual must experience a full range of civil liberties in all societies. This includes freedom of speech and the press, political democracy, the legal right of opposition to governmental policies, fair judicial process, religious liberty, freedom of association, and artistic, scientific, and cultural freedom. It also includes a recognition of an individual's right to die with dignity, euthanasia, and the right to suicide. We oppose the increasing invasion of privacy, by whatever means, in both totalitarian and democratic societies. We would safeguard, extend, and implement the principles of human freedom evolved from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, the Rights of Man, and Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Eighth: We are committed to an open and democratic society. We must extend participatory democracy in its true sense to the economy, the school, the family, the workplace, and the voluntary associations. Decision-making must be decentralized to include widespread involvement of people at all levels--social, political, and economic. All persons should have a voice in developing the values and goals that determine their lives. Institutions should be responsive to express desires and needs. The conditions of work, education, devotion and play should be humanized. Alienating forces should be modified or eradicated and bureaucratic structures should be held to a minimum. People are more important than decalogues, rules, proscriptions, or regulations.

Ninth: The separation of church and state and the separation of ideology and state are imperatives. The state should encourage maximum freedom for different moral, political, religious, and social values in society. It should not favor any particular religious bodies through the use of public monies, nor espouse a single ideology and function thereby as an instrument of propaganda or oppression, particularly against dissenters.

Tenth: 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.

Eleventh: The principle of moral equality must be furthered through elimination of all discrimination based upon race, religion, sex, age, or national origin. This means equality of opportunity and recognition of talent and merit. Individuals should be encouraged to contribute to their own betterment. If unable, then society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including wherever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income. We are concerned for the welfare of the aged, the infirm, the disadvantaged, and also for the outcasts--the mentally retarded, abandoned or abused children, the handicapped, prisoners, and addicts--for all who are neglected or ignored by society. Practicing humanists should make it their vocation to humanize personal relations.

We believe in the right to universal education. Everyone has a right to the cultural opportunity to fulfill his or her unique capacities and talents. The schools should foster satisfying productive living. They should be open at all levels to any and all; the achievement of excellence should be encouraged. Innovative and experimental forms of education are to be welcomed. The energy and idealism of the young deserve to be appreciated and channeled to constructive purposes.

We deplore racial, religious, ethnic, or class antagonisms. Although we believe in cultural diversity and encourage racial and ethnic pride, we reject separations which promote alienation and set people and groups against each other; we envision an integrated community where people have a maximum opportunity for free and voluntary association.

We are critical of sexism or sexual chauvinism--male or female. We believe in equal rights for both women and men to fulfill their unique careers and potentialities as they see fit, free of invidious discrimination.

World Community

Twelfth: We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government. This would appreciate cultural pluralism and diversity. It would no exclude pride in national origins and accomplishments nor the handling of regional problems on a regional basis. Human progress, however, can no longer be achieved by focusing on one section of the world, Western of Eastern, developed or underdeveloped. For the first time in human history, no part of humankind can be isolated from any other. Each person's future is in some way linked to all. We thus affirm a commitment to the building of world community, at the same time recognizing that this commits us to some hard choices.

Thirteenth: This world community must renounce the resort to violence and force as a method of solving international disputes. We believe in the peaceful adjudication of differences of negotiation and compromise. War is obsolete. So is the use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. It is a planetary imperative to reduce the level of military expenditures and turn these savings to peaceful and people-oriented uses.

Fourteenth: The world community must engage in cooperative planning concerning the use of rapidly depleting resources. The planet earth must be considered a single ecosystem. Ecological damage, resource depletion, and excessive population growth must be checked by international concord. The cultivation and conservation of nature is a moral value; we should perceive ourselves as integral to the sources of our being in nature. We must free our world from needless pollution and waste, responsibly guarding and creating wealth, both natural and human. Exploitation of natural resources, uncurbed by social conscience, must end.

Fifteenth: The problems of economic growth and development can no longer be resolved by one nation alone; they are worldwide in scope. It is the moral obligation of the developed nations to provide--through an international authority that safeguards human rights--massive technical, agricultural, medical, and economic assistance, including birth control techniques, to the developing portions of the globe. World poverty must cease. Hence extreme disproportions in wealth, income, and economic growth should be reduced on a worldwide basis.

Sixteenth: Technology is a vital key to human progress and development. We deplore any neo-romantic efforts to condemn indiscriminately all technology and science or to counsel retreat from its further extension and use for the good of humankind. We would resist any moves to censor basic scientific research on moral, political, or social grounds. Technology must, however, be carefully judged by the consequences of its use; harmful and destructive changes should be avoided. We are particularly disturbed when technology and bureaucracy control, manipulate, or modify human beings without their consent. Technological feasibility does not imply social or cultural desirability.

Seventeenth: We must expand communication and transportation across frontiers. Travel restrictions must cease. The world must be open to diverse political, ideological, and moral viewpoints and evolve a worldwide system of television and radio for information and education. We thus call for full international cooperation in culture, science, the arts, and technology across ideological borders. We must learn to live openly together or we shall perish together.

Humanity As A Whole

In closing: The world cannot wait for a reconciliation of competing political or economic systems to solve its problems. These are the times for men and women of good will to further the building of a peaceful and prosperous world. We urge that parochial loyalties and inflexible moral and religious ideologies be transcended. We urge recognition of the common humanity of all people. We further urge the use of reason and compassion to produce the kind of world we want--a world in which peace, prosperity, freedom, and happiness are widely shared. Let us not abandon that vision in despair or cowardice. We are responsible for what we are or will be. Let us work together for a humane world by means commensurate with humane ends. Destructive ideological differences among communism, capitalism, socialism, conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism should be overcome. Let us call for an end to terror and hatred. We will survive and prosper only in a world of shared humane values. We can initiate new directions for humankind; ancient rivalries can be superseded by broad-based cooperative efforts. The commitment to tolerance, understanding, and peaceful negotiation does not necessitate acquiescence to the status quo nor the damming up of dynamic and revolutionary forces. The true revolution is occurring and can continue in countless non-violent adjustments. But this entails the willingness to step forward onto new and expanding plateaus. At the present juncture of history, commitment to all humankind is the highest commitment of which we are capable; it transcends the narrow allegiances of church, state, party, class or race in moving toward a wider vision of human potentiality. What more daring a goal for humankind than for each person to become, in ideal as well as practice, a citizen of a world community. It is a classical vision; we can now give it new vitality. Humanism thus interpreted is a moral force that has time on its side. We believe that humankind has the potential intelligence, goodwill, and cooperative skill to implement this commitment in the decades ahead.

We, the undersigned, while not necessarily endorsing every detail of the above, pledge our general support to Humanist Manifesto II for the future of humankind. These affirmations are not a final credo or dogma but an expression of a living and growing faith. We invite others in all lands to join us in further developing and working for these goals.

(Those signing Humanist Manifesto II include Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer; Edd Doerr, Americans United for Separation of Church and State; Bette Chambers, President of American Humanist Association; Alan F. Guttmacher, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America; Paul Kurtz, Editor of The Humanist; Lester Mondale, former President, Fellowship of Religious Humanists and brother of Walter Mondale; B.F. Skinner, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; Norman Fleishman, Executive Vice President, Planned Parenthood World Population; and Betty Friedan, Founder, National Organization of Women.)

Humanist Manifesto I (1933)

When Christian fundamentalists refer to those who do not believe as they do as secular humanists, many people have no idea what they are talking about. Here is the document that is the basis for humanism: Humanist Manifesto I (1933)

The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience. In every field of human activity, the vital movement is now in the direction of a candid and explicit humanism. In order that religious humanism may be better understood we, the undersigned, desire to make certain affirmations which we believe the facts of our contemporary life demonstrate.

There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century. Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpretation of the total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of values resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult) established for realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results in alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the changefulness of religions through the centuries. But through all changes religion itself remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life.

Today man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and his deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such a vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social goals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete break with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to traditional religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm the following:

First: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
Second: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process.
Third: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.
Fourth: Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded to that culture.
Fifth: Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Obviously humanism does not deny the possibility of realities as yet undiscovered, but it does insist that the way to determine the existence and value of any and all realities is by means of intelligent inquiry and by the assessment of their relation to human needs. Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.
Sixth: We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of "new thought."
Seventh: Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation--all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.
Eighth: Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. This is the explanation of the humanist's social passion.
Ninth: In place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well being.
Tenth: It follows that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.
Eleventh: Man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom. We assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking.
Twelfth: Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life.
Thirteenth: Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view of the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world.
Fourteenth: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.
Fifteenth and last: We assert that humanism will: (a) affirm life rather than deny it; (b) seek to elicit the possibilities of life, not flee from it; and (c) endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few. By this positive morale and intention humanism will be guided, and from this perspective and alignment the techniques and efforts of humanism will flow.

So stand the theses of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious form and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.

(Those signing Humanist Manifesto I included John Dewey, the father of modern education.)