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Humanism and Culture

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by Mike Flood

MKHumanist LogoIn May, Milton Keynes Humanists held a meeting on ‘Cultural Diversity,’ at which we explored various ways in which social scientists had attempted to describe and classify different cultures. We were particularly interested in the work of Geert Hofstede, and we thought it would be fun to see how our group scored on the different dimensions of culture that he has identified. For a small fee (€20), the Hofstede Centre will analyse your preferences and predilections and tell you how much (or how little) you diverge from the norm. And you can choose another country and the Centre will give you advice on how to avoid potential intercultural pitfalls if you were to venture there.

We were curious to see how our collective response — albeit from a small, self-selected group — would compare with the UK as a whole. It also led us to speculate on whether specific cultural traits make some countries more or less likely to embrace Humanism (or organised religion for that matter).

In terms of the proportion of the population that say they are humanists, I understand that Norway is top of the world table, followed by the Netherlands and the UK; in terms of sheer numbers, it is India. However, counting humanists is fraught with danger as there is no consensus on how to define a humanist: should one include only self-professed humanists (as in India, where humanists are closely linked with the pro-democracy and pro-human rights movements), or only paid-up members of humanist groups; or should we also include people who hold broadly humanist views but who do not think of themselves as humanist? And if this last category, how do you count them? Polls suggest that 47% of Chinese think of themselves as ‘convinced atheists’ and 31% of Japanese,[1] but we don’t think of China and Japan as being particularly ‘humanist’ despite the strong influence of Confucious.

What is Culture?

Culture is an intriguing phenomenon and not something anyone can satisfactorily measure. It is specific to a particular racial, religious, professional or social group, or to society at large. It is something that is learned not something we are born with, and in this respect it is unlike human nature (which is universal and inherited) and personality (which is specific to the individual and both inherited and learned). In essence culture is “shared knowledge used by people to inform, influence or govern their behaviour and determine how they see and experience the world”. It is transmitted through social and institutional traditions and accepted norms to succeeding generations; and paradoxically, it is changing constantly whilst many of its characteristics remain the same.[2] One can however compare cultures in respect of defined characteristics, like individualism or assertiveness, or whether people have a tendency to express their feelings in public. And this is the approach that Hofstede pioneered back in the 1960s.

Humanism & Cultural DiversityHofstede’s Dimensions of National Culture

Professor Hofstede started on this line of work when he was asked by IBM to try to find out why company HQ was getting such divergent feedback from staff in its regional offices. The company wanted to better understand how culture was influencing workplace values and performance. Hofstede analysed data from more than 70 countries and proposed that the values that distinguished cultures could be understood in terms of four basic dimensions — ‘Power Distance’ (PDI), ‘Individualism’ (IDV), ‘Masculinity’ (MAS) and ‘Uncertainty Avoidance’ (UAI). These are briefly described in the box below. Some years later Hofstede added two more, ‘Pragmatism’ (PRA) and ‘Indulgence’ (IND), following research by other social scientists.[3]

Hofstede scores each country on a scale of 1 to 100 for each of these six dimensions. He has found, perhaps surprisingly, that the relative scores turn out to be quite stable over time despite the many uncertainties. The forces that cause cultures to shift tend to be global or continent-wide so if countries’ cultures shift, they shift together and their relative positions remain the same. Moreover, individual country scores do seem to correlate with other data, for example, Power Distance with income inequality; Individualism, with national wealth; Masculinity, related negatively with the percentage of national income spent on social security; Uncertainty Avoidance, associated (in developed countries) with the legal obligation for citizens to carry identity cards; and Pragmatism, connected to school mathematics results in international comparisons!

British Culture

If you look at British culture through the lens of the Hofstede 6-D Model you find that we have high scores on INV, MAS and IND — indeed, at 89 the UK is amongst the highest of the individualistic scores. The figure for Masculinity (66) is lower, but Britain is still ‘highly success oriented and driven’; and the figure for INV (69) suggests that we ‘exhibit a willingness to realise our impulses and desires with regard to enjoying life and having fun.’

By contrast, Britain sits in the lower rankings of PDI (35); and we also have a low score on UAI (35), which means that as a nation we are ‘quite happy to wake up not knowing what the day brings’ and ‘make things up as we go along’; we are also ‘comfortable in ambiguous situations — the term “muddling through” is a very British way of expressing this’. With the sixth dimension, PRA, the UK has an intermediate score (51), which suggests no dominant preference, neither a strong desire to explain as much as possible (normative), nor people believing that “the challenge is not to know the truth but to live a virtuous life’ (pragmatic).[4] Interestingly, the profile for the UK is remarkably similar to that of Norway and the Netherlands with the one major exception of Masculinity (UK, 66; Norway, 8; Netherlands, 14).

Milton Keynes Humanists

Milton Keynes Humanists is a typical BHA group: we have a mailing list of around 70 and an average turnout at monthly meetings of between 20 and 25; and we are gender-balanced, with significantly more older than younger people. We also have a (younger) virtual community on Facebook which can reach over 150 — 55% of the 110 individuals who have so far ‘liked’ our site and under 45.

We invited 30 of our regulars to fill out the Hofstede Centre’s questionnaire and 15 obliged. The survey measures personal preferences against 42 pairs of statements which one is asked to score on a scale of 1 to 5. It is a little disconcerting to find that the two opinions sometimes refer to rather different issues, for example, ‘Most people can be trusted’ (1) is paired with ‘When people have failed in life it is often their own fault’ (5); and ‘People who live a totally different life than me are interesting’ (1), with ‘Strangers have to earn trust before they will be accepted’ (5). However, the organisers advise you to “listen to your heart rather than your head” when making a selection.
We registered as a ‘long term visitor’ in respect of our ‘other country’ (rather than ‘student’ or ‘negotiator’) and completed the form on line. The Centre then compared our preferences with the UK as a whole (our ‘home country’) and the country we selected, Romania (as explained below). And by return we received a report with a histogram (note ‘You’ = MKH) and a set of specific, cultural pitfall-avoiding recommendations based on the answers we submitted. In our case, ‘you may wonder why people (from Romania) either try to structure their life as much as possible or are fatalistic’ and ‘you may be confronted by people who first behave very kindly and who then suddenly behave as if a curtain has been closed or a glass wall has been erected between them and you’, and many more observations, words of advice…

MKH, Romania & UKTo prepare our group’s profile we averaged the scores and chose the closest integers; and where the average was X.4, X.5 or X.6 we made an assessment based on the score chosen by the majority. We are not making any great claims for this exercise, only that our results are interesting and deeply thought-provoking. For example, it turns out that our members are close to the UK norm in three of the Hofstede dimensions (PDI, PRA & IND) but 45% lower in Masculinity, 19% lower in Individualism, and 34% higher in Uncertainty Avoidance. Whether the gender make-up of our small sample (60% men; 40% women) significantly influenced the results is not clear. And we should also repeat the Centre’s caveat that one’s scores are ‘only an approximation on Hofstede’s dimensions and not scientifically valid, because culture does not exist at an individual level’.

Humanist Friendly Cultures?

And what about Romania? We chose it because, according to Gallop’s ‘Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism’, it is the most religious country in Europe, with 89% of the population thinking of themselves as religious. The next two European countries for which data is available turn out to be Poland and Serbia, and their scores on the Index are 81% and 77% respectively. What was fascinating was then to discover that the national profiles of these three countries were also remarkably similar:[5] they all scored much higher on Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance than the UK, Norway and the Netherlands, and very much lower on Individualism and Indulgence. So might this spread of characteristics be somehow linked to a propensity to religiosity; and what might this tell us about the prospects for humanism and humanist organisations in such countries?

Romania, Serbia & PolandAnyone carrying out a more rigorous analysis of the factors that make for strong humanist cultures might want to take a closer look at countries with the least institutionalised religious privilege, greatest religious tolerance, liberal legislature, etc. And in this respect we can recommend the International Humanist & Ethical Union’s recent Freedom of Thought Report[6] as a good starting point — the report actually accuses the UK of ‘systematic discrimination against humanists, atheists and the non-religious’ noting that there is an established church; systematic religious privilege; discriminatory prominence given to religious bodies, traditions and leaders; discriminatory tax exemptions; state-funding of religious institutions, including faith schools which have powers to discriminate in admissions or employment, etc. Indeed, the UK is much lower ranked than countries like Jamaica, Niger and Sierra Leone, which are described as ‘free and equal’ — at least in respect of legal discrimination. To be fair, the IHEU does point out that some countries may do better because there is less information about them, or their legislation has not been put to the test.

So Britain has a growing humanist community despite — or is it because of? — ‘systematic discrimination’. Apparently IHEU is looking to include an assessment of cultural discrimination in future versions of the report. We await this with great interest!

Alternative Models of Culture

We have focused in this paper on Hofstede’s 3D Model, but readers might like to explore an alternative (and equally illuminating) model of culture by Richard D Lewis. This one assembles countries into a triangular matrix based on whether people are data-, dialogue- or listener-oriented. According to Lewis we Brits are very definitely ‘data-orientated’, whereas say Southern Europeans and Hispanics are ‘dialogue-oriented’, and people from Asian cultures, ‘listener-oriented’.[7] Quite how MK Humanists would perform on this analysis is hard to know but from the experience of our meetings we would probably turn out to be ‘linear-active’ — we ‘talk half the time’, are ‘polite but direct’, ‘confront with logic’, put ‘truth before diplomacy’ and make ‘limited use of body language’!

 

Notes

[1]      Global Index of Religiosity & Atheism, Win Gallup International Poll, July 2012, http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf.

[2]      National Center for Cultural Competence, Georgetown University, http://nccc.georgetown.edu/

[3]      Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov (2010): ‘Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind’, McGraw-Hill

[4]      For a more detailed analysis of the Centre’s ‘Culture Compass Survey’ for the UK to http://geert-hofstede.com/united-kingdom.html

[5]      The Hofstede Centre allows you (for free) to compare up to three countries (http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html)

[6]      International Humanist & Ethical Union, Dec 2013.

[7]      Richard D Lewis (2005): ‘When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures’, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

 

Mike Flood is Chair of Milton Keynes Humanists. He works on grassroots development in low-income countries.

Humanism in Europe

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The European Parliament in Brussels

The European Parliament in Strasbourg

The year’s Easter period has been an important time for humanists of all varieties. A national debate on the nature of secularism and religion in politics has dominated the political landscape. David Cameron’s article calling for Christians to be ‘evangelical’ in their faith, and describing the UK as a ‘Christian country’ began a conversation that was escalated exponentially by the BHA-organised open letter to the Telegraph. Signed by 55 writers, scientists, broadcasters and academics, the letter challenged the Prime Ministers assertion, and expressed some concern at the exclusionary consequences of such a statement. The debate has a variety of offshoots, has featured a range of senior figures from both politics and religion, and is far from over yet. These voices of course come from a wide array of sources, and represent a multitude of different opinions, experiences and worldviews. That said, when taken as a whole, these voices unite to underpin one vitally important point: the role of religion in politics is fundamentally contested.

Given this national platform, humanists, atheists, and freethinkers from all walks of life have come forward and contributed powerful messages to this debate, seizing the opportunity to argue for what they believe in. This has been a fantastic response proving an inspiration to many who share humanist values without explicit knowledge of the BHA. It has also illustrated the importance of religion and politics on a national scale, as well as the symbiotic relationship between the two. We must combine this enthusiasm and quality of voice with a proper desire, passion and commitment to fight for these values at all available opportunities; and it is crucial that we do not limit this argument to national boundaries. This is an argument to be exercised internationally. Across the globe, atheists are being persecuted and discriminated against in huge numbers. Freedom of thought, religion, and belief is an inalienable human right, and one that many take for granted in a pluralist society.

One platform in which these issues really matter is on the European stage. The need for a strong humanist stance in Europe is paramount. Trends of radical populism and reactionary conservatism are rising in many member states. The financial crises’ impact has had a huge role exacerbating these illiberal social tensions. The rise of homophobia, xenophobia, and political violence threatens to undermine the values of Humanism in Europe. European politics is also home to powerful religious lobbies, working to advance their cause in great numbers. We need a coherent, active humanist voice in Europe to challenge this rising tide.

The power of the religious lobby in Europe was brought into sharp focus at the end of last year. A report calling for universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, and decent Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) for all young people, was blocked in the European parliament. The Estrela Report (named after its author, Portuguese MEP Edite Estrela) covered issues such as: access to safe and legal abortion services, education on negative LGBTI stereotypes, and teaching on the prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections – among other important measures. In the build up to the 10 December vote, MEPs received up to 80,000 communications from minority religious groups to vote against the measure, some including threats. The bill was eventually defeated by 7 votes in the European parliament; a defeat the fell on Human Rights day, adding insult to injury.

Another example of the organisation of the religious right is the ‘One of Us’ campaign. This is a European Citizen’s Initiative movement which intends to prohibit any actions that involve the destruction of human embryos. This would not only have a momentous impact on women’s rights and the power over their own bodies, it would have devastating consequences for women’s health. If this campaign succeeds, some estimates suggest that up to 800 women would die a day, as the European Commission would cut all funding for organisations which provide abortions or abortion-related services. In addition to these grave consequences, it would also scrap funding for all research on human embryonic stem cells. There needs to be a concerted campaign to oppose this well-funded, highly active religious lobby. A direct way that humanists can challenge these lobbies is through the election of politicians with humanist values.

These are just two examples of the challenges facing the humanist cause in Europe today, but they serves to illustrate the need for a united humanist response to the excessive religious influence undermining the European democratic process. These pockets of intolerance are intent on holding back the advances in human rights and personal freedoms that have been hard fought for in Europe in recent decades, and humanists must remain organised and active to oppose them. It is only a European wide opposition in defence of secular and humanist values that can counter these lobbies, and showing candidates for the upcoming elections the importance of this movement to constituents will serve to contribute to this aim.

We must not let the passion and enthusiasm evidenced this week be lost on the broader debate. We must not insulate our humanist views into a theological or a cultural sphere – this week has proved that the views we share are deeply political opinions, with deeply political consequences. The religious lobbies functioning against secularist values are as well funded as they are vocal. There is a danger of complacency among secularists to think that the important battles have been won. It is now more than ever those secularists must speak with the loudest voice, of reason, rationale and human rights.

The last few years have shown that some freedoms we take for granted are far from sacrosanct. Use the passion, energy and momentum from the debate on ‘Christian Britain’, and bring it to bear on the European stage. It is for this reason that we have set up a hustings specifically related to humanism; for the opportunity to here European election candidates debate these issues. The European elections are on 22 May and our humanist hustings on 6 May represent the best opportunity for humanists to have their views listened to by MEP candidates from six major parties.

humanist hustings ebulliten 2 (updated)

The event details and a link to register your attendance can be found here: www.humanism.org.uk/humanisthustings.

Thomas Smith is a recent graduate working in policy and public affairs. He is currently a volunteer for the British Humanist Association, UCATT, and the Labour Party.

Disestablishment: ‘Legitimate power stems from the people’

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Toby Keynes, chair of Humanist & Secularist Liberal Democrats, gives his view as a Lib Dem on Nick Clegg’s recent calls for disestablishment…

Nick Clegg recently helped reignite debate on the need for disestablishment in the UK

Nick Clegg recently helped reignite debate on the need for disestablishment in the UK

Nick Clegg’s rather mild expression of his personal opinion that church and state should, over time, ‘stand on their own two feet’ won’t come as a great surprise to Liberal Democrats: it’s been party policy for nearly 25 years, since our 1990 Autumn Conference voted for the disestablishment of the Church of England.

It’s a magnificently straightforward and simple policy: ‘This conference calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England.’

That policy has stood unchanged ever since, although we’ve also regularly called for the Bishops to lose their reserved seats in parliament.

In fact, only last month, our Spring Conference again affirmed that ‘Legitimate power stems from the people, not from patronage, heredity or position in the established church.’

Disestablishment is embedded in our party’s core beliefs, and is enshrined in the Lib Dem constitution:

‘…we reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.’

I’m sure Christ wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Toby Keynes is chair of Humanist & Secularist Liberal Democrats

‘Only connect’? Forsterian ideology in an age of hyperconnectivity

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Emily Buchanan explores the pitfalls of modern hyperconnectivity with a look back at two great stories by beloved humanist writer E. M. Forster, as well as film and commentary from the period.

E. M. Forster wrote Howards End and The Machine Stops, and was a key figure in the Humanism movement in Britain

E. M. Forster wrote Howards End and The Machine Stops, and was a key figure in the humanist movement in Britain

Writing at the turn of the twentieth century, E. M. Forster was uncannily aware of our future dependence on technology. In his short story The Machine Stops and in parts of Howards End, Forster explores the notion that technological advance is at the expense of authentic human connection. In a little over 100 years, technology has made our world unrecognisable. But has it, as Forster foresaw, made us isolated and individual, rather than interconnected?

Only connect! That was her whole sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

– E. M. Forster, Howards End, 1910

The turn of the century was a time of frenzied advance and rapid rural development. Queen Victoria had just died, kick-starting our modern propensity for progress, and machines had begun to dominate industry and culture. As Forster’s writes in Howards End, ‘month by month the roads smelt more strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw less of the sky.’

A state of ‘continual flux’ gripped a society straddling the old and new, and this tension is captured with startling clarity in the social reportage films of Forster’s contemporaries, Mitchell and Kenyon. In particular, a film of Bradford in 1902 shows electric trams sharing streets with horses and carts. If you look closely, ads for familiar brands display the first rumblings of 21st century capitalism and yet the people are timid and formal, every bit the Victorian. This is most clearly exhibited in their overt, often comical reactions to the camera. At the time, a hand-cranked camera would have been an impossibly advanced sight and this is why hoards of delighted children chase the filmmakers up the street and adults gawp at them with a frightened, almost ludditian curiosity. Their mesmerised discomfort is, in itself, mesmerising.

Turn of the century Bradford. Credit: BFI

Turn of the century Bradford. Credit: BFI

After all, in the modern day most of us carry a smartphone as if it was an extension of our hand. Technology has been absorbed into every aspect of our lives, affecting our personal relationships, our identities, even our memories. In many ways, our dependence on it means that we have become man and machine, and our access to a world wide web of infinite connectivity has changed our understanding of human connection all together.

Until his death in 1970, E. M. Forster was President of the Cambridge Humanists and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association. His humanist principles are at the heart of his writing, so while Mitchell and Kenyon’s footage exposes the condition of Industrial Britain, Forster’s work continues to strive to reconcile that condition with what it means to be human.

In Howards End, this is personified by two London-based families: the Wilcoxes and the Schlegels. The Wilcoxes represent colonialism, social mobility, reason. They are cold, calculated, perfunctory. The Schlegels are literary, sensitive, earthy. They feel that ‘one is certain of nothing but the truth of one’s own emotions,’ and the increasingly fragmented, anonymous nature of London threatens their emotional wellbeing daily.

At the time, Forster felt that Edwardian society was suffering an ‘imaginative poverty.’ Consumerism was thriving and a great monster of a railway had sunk its claws into the British countryside. But rather than connecting humanity, the rail was just another Wilcoxian commodity, taking people from one mechanical city to another – not allowing them to take root in the earth or in each other.

‘Man is an odd, sad creature as yet, intent on pilfering the earth, and heedless of the growths within himself. He cannot be bored about psychology. He leaves it to the specialist, which is as if he should leave his dinner to be eaten by a steam-engine. He cannot be bothered to digest his own soul.’

– E. M. Forster, Howards End, 1910

This ideology comes into its own in The Machine Stops, a dystopian science fiction story about technological dependence. In this world, the toxic smog he vilifies in Howards End has long since suffocated the earth and it is now an uninhabitable wasteland. Each human lives underground inside a single hexagonal cell held within a beehive-like colony. Each cell is controlled by an autonomous computer known as ‘the Machine.’ The people are withered shells of their ancestors and live in total isolation – although the omnipotent Machine connects them to the rest of the world through instant messaging and video calls. It also delivers music, information and all amenities at the touch of a button. Subservience to the Machine is considered an advanced human quality, as is physical weakness, and eventually it is worshipped as god.

 

A new century, and a brave new world. Credit: BFI

A new century, and a brave new world. Credit: BFI

Written in 1909, Forster’s cautionary tale is staggeringly apt in a modern context. He predicts a number of modern technologies, in particular the internet, and in doing so exposes our increasingly problematic relationships with the environment and technology.

‘But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.’

– E. M. Forster, The Machine Stops, 1909

Whilst Vashti, the main protagonist, is in complete isolation, she is never alone. The Machine connects her to the world and although she can select ‘the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to her,’ the hum of the Machine is eternal. In fact, when the Machine inevitably stops, the silence kills ‘many thousands of people outright,’ for they have never known ‘the silence which is the voice of the earth and of the generations who have gone.’ Connection is infinite, and Vashti knows ‘several thousand people.’

However, just as Margaret Schlegel remarks in Howards End, ‘The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them.’ Too many connections devalues each one in a kind of emotional hyperinflation. For the Schlegels, this is the constant danger of London; for Vashti it is the inevitable by-product of remote communication technology, and something that she has been indoctrinated to approve of.

There are a number of prominent modern parallels here. Today, people tout the benefits of disconnection as if it were an antidote to a social problem. Many of us need to remind ourselves to ‘unplug,’ to select the isolation knob, so that we might be present in the moment, or simply alone, and this is no easy task. For some, disconnection induces anxiety, a fear of missing out, a sense of isolation. So whilst hyperconnectivity is isolating in the way that it denies direct, personal experience, we have to isolate ourselves even further just to get away from it. It’s an absurd paradox.

From the isolation of our smartphone bubble, our hexagonal cell, we can discuss, arrange, meet, read, watch, remember, create, destroy, repair, buy. We needn’t interact on a human level to achieve any of this. As technology becomes more autonomous and the boundaries between reality and technology become blurred, we will lose more direct experience – that fragment of connection that is fundamental to our humanity. In The Machine Stops, Vashti is crippled by ‘the terrors of direct experience.’ She has spent so long connected to the machine that personal interaction has become obsolete.

Autonomous technology only intensifies this risk. It takes away a fundamental aspect of our humanity – the need to think and act for ourselves. In the story, the Machine uses its ubiquity for surveillance and mind control, systematically devaluing every aspect of humanity by rendering it useless through advance. Our ubiquitous technology is already being used for surveillance. Before long, it too could be used to deny us basic human rights.

This degradation of humanity comes to a head in The Machine Stops when Vashti admits that ‘she would sometimes ask for Euthanasia herself. But the death-rate was not permitted to exceed the birth-rate, and the Machine had hitherto refused it to her.’ Although this might seem like an extreme depiction, we are reminded of Anne, the retired art teacher who chose euthanasia just last week because she had ‘grown weary of the pace of modern life’ and of how technology had changed society. Anne, who did not want to give her last name, believed that people were becoming robots attached to their gadgets. ‘They say adapt or die,’ she said, ‘At my age, I feel I can’t adapt, because the new age is not an age that I grew up to understand.’

It is difficult to digest, but the truth is that our society has become a dystopian science fiction of sorts. We are disregarding the plight of our environment in order to advance. We are disregarding our humanity in order to connect. Our devotion to technology is borderline theological and our desensitisation impacts our ability to relate to the natural. We are all well aware of the dangers of that by now. Indeed, the repercussions of the industrial-technological age can already be felt the world over and the more we surround ourselves with a virtual reality controlled by machines that are infinitely smarter than ourselves, the more out of touch we become with the reality of our situation.

Forster felt this stronger than most. His whole ideology rests on ‘the building of a rainbow bridge’ that would reconcile our societal need to progress with our propensity for unconditional love. That latter aspect, although such a primordial compulsion, anchors our humanity and our ability to connect in a way that progresses both man and machine.

‘I am dying – but we touch, we talk, not through the Machine.’

Emily Buchanan is a writer and digital editor living in Norwich. An interest in history and literature lends itself to an affection for long-form content, and specialisms include environmental policy, international affairs and sociology. Emily is a blogger for the Huffington Post, an employability speaker and an aspiring fiction writer. You can follow her on Twitter.

Appendix:

If you enjoyed the above, here is a video of The Machine Stops from Out of the Unknown in 1966. Enjoy!

Galha’s journey to success

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Derek Lennard of Galha LGBT Humanists reflects on just how far LGBT rights have come in this country in the time since Galha was founded.

Humanists Peter McGraith and David Cabreza were two of the first couples in the UK to get married under the new laws

Humanists Peter McGraith and David Cabreza were two of the first couples in the UK to get married under the new laws

Galha LGBT Humanists was formed in 1979 in the wake of the Gay News blasphemy trial. Its formation was a result of growing concerns about the effect of religious bigotry on the lives of LGBT people, at a time when the legalisation of gay sex between consenting men over 21 in private was barely 10 years old. Many people joined Galha for deeply personal reasons – almost all had experienced prejudice at school, work, and in their communities and families. Many more told of being shunned by the religious communities that they had grown up in. In order to make sense of the world they lived in and the persecution they had experienced, many of them eagerly sought an alternative ethical and social framework for their lives, given the negative stance of so many religious groups. Humanist organisations offered such a stance. Over the years our belief in humanist values and equality for LGBT people became married together.

Galha members have played an important part in LGBT rights over the years. It has not always been easy and we have certainly in the early years particularly faced hostility from religious groups. Central to our battles has been the fight for LGBT rights at home and abroad. Galha members have taken part in humanist affirmation/partnership ceremonies for more than thirty years. Of course these had no legal backing for these ceremonies. When Ken Livingstone, the then Mayor of London set up the London Partnership Register in 2001, Galha members were quick to take part in humanist ceremonies to support this effort, partly to inspire Parliament to consider supportive legislation. Well before the civil partnership laws came into place, Galha was arguing and organising with a handful of other groups, for equal marriage.

Galha members have come on a long journey for gay equality. In our collective memory are the dark days of the 1950s when aversion therapy was legally sanctioned and many of us were imprisoned for being homosexual. In the struggle for equal rights, we have been there every step of the way. We (and many like us) have earned the right to come out loud and proud as gay and as humanists, and we call for the full backing of the law to re-affirm our commitment to both! We will never forget the marriage of our supporters Peter and David at Islington Town Hall at midnight on Saturday 29th March. In all their interviews they stressed that the battle for LGBT rights was not finished and that they hoped that one day LGBT people in countries where today they are persecuted for their sexual orientation or gender identity, may one day be able to marry their partners too. Galha’s international work is more important than ever.

Derek Lennard is a committee member of Galha LGBT Humanists, a section of the British Humanist Association which campaigns for equality and diversity, particularly relating to sexual orientation and identity.

This article was originally published on Ritelines: The Journal of Applied Humanism, which is produced by Humanist Ceremonies.

An atheist Scout leader on the recent promise changes by the Scouts and Guides

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Atheist Scout leader Ralph Parlour presents his own personal view on the recent reforms made by the Scout Association and Girlguiding UK.

Scouts take the promise at Brownsea Island, Dorset

Scouts take the promise at Brownsea Island, Dorset. Photo: Tim Ellis.

On the 1st of September 2013 and the 1st January 2014, the British Guide and Scout Associations respectively changed their promises, opening both movements to atheists and humanists.

The promise is a central and important aspect of both movements, and all who wish to become members have to make it. The changes made are quite radical given the religious origins of both movements. Before these changes, all guides, irrespective of their own beliefs (or lack thereof) had to promise to ‘love God,’ and scouts had to promise to ‘do my duty to God.’ Even more importantly, the Scout Association has lifted a formal ban on atheists becoming full leaders. Although the ban was not strictly enforced and many atheists like me were already leaders, it is a relief to no longer have to hide my (non-)belief, or to have to ‘cross my fingers’ when making the promise.

Now instead of saying to ‘love God,’ all Guides now promise ‘to be true to myself and develop my beliefs.’ The Scouts however have taken an alternative approach and instead of completely throwing out the old religious oath, they have introduced a new promise that atheists can choose to say instead. ‘To do my duty to God,’ in the revised promise, has been replaced with ‘To uphold our Scout values.’ It is however the case that the religious oath will continue to be the default, so most new members will continue to take the religious oath, while atheists can request the secular alternative.

The Scout Association’s reforms have been widely supported, even by religious figures. Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said that ‘In enabling people of all faiths and none to affirm their beliefs through an additional alternative promise the Scout Movement has demonstrated that it is both possible, and I would argue preferable, to affirm the importance of spiritual life and not to restrict meaning to arbitrary self-definition.’

There has however been some resistance to the changes made by the Guides. The main contention is that, unlike the Scouts there is no option to choose a religious oath. There are several Guide groups that have refused to adopt the new promise and continue using the old, religious one. While I have found no article from any major newspaper or website critical of the changes made by the Scouts, the reforms in the guides have come under considerable criticism, especially from the conservative Right. The Church of England General Synod, on 12th February 2014, passed a resolution saying that ‘girls and women of all ages in the Girlguiding Movement should be able to continue to promise to love God when enrolled,’ and Alsion Ruoff, a member of the Synod, claimed that the change is ‘rank discrimination,’ and that it is part of  the ‘further marginalisation of Christianity in this country.’

Girlguiding UK has offered a concession, saying that Guide troops could, if they choose, have their own religious pre-amble to any swearing in ceremony, and say something like ‘In the presence of God I make my Guide Promise.’ But it is still too early to know whether this concession will be acceptable to critics.

These changes should rightly be seen as a victory for secularism and an advance against superstition. These changes will strengthen both youth movements, the Scouts especially, making them more appropriate to an increasingly secular nation. But while claims of discrimination are obviously spurious (given the favourable treatment of religious institutions, especially the Church of England), the Girl Guides do seem to have been heavy handed in response to groups refusing to adopt the new promise. The First Jesmond Guides for example have been threatened with expulsion from Girlguiding UK if they do not conform.

In an ideal world, not only would the secular promise be the default but there would be no religious promise at all. Despite this, I think it is important to not force people, atheist or theist, to make a promise they are not comfortable with.

Additionally, the relationship between these uniformed youth groups and organised religion is deep, so to sharply turn these groups secular could cause significant harm. Many groups, my own included, meet in a church hall and are not charged for the privilege. Without such an available, and low-cost meeting place, it would be much more difficult to keep the troop afloat financially and I have no doubt that many troops would close without the aid of churches. Both organisations do considerable good, and benefit not only their members but society in general. So an overzealous approach that harms the organisations, even if born of good motives, would be like cutting off the nose to spite the face.

The heavy handed approach taken by Girlguiding UK has damaged the organisation and has alienated some lifelong members. As a lifelong Scouter, I feel that it would be preferable to accommodate some heterodoxy, in order to keep the organisation unified, strong and better able to continue the valuable work they carry out.  All this controversy within the Guides is, ultimately, over one sentence, albeit a very important sentence, so I wouldn’t have thought it too difficult, or too offensive to the sensibilities of secularists, to allow Guides the same choice in promise as the Scouts.

Ralph Parlour is an Atheist Scout leader.

Convincing others of reality

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by John Watts

Photo by BWJones

Science lets us know what’s real. But letting others know, and advocating why this is important, isn’t always easy.

How do we best convince mankind that any belief can only be deduced from proven reality, not vice versa, reality from unproven belief? Since religion is thus irrationally entrenched, this in essence is the problem for humanists.

As man’s knowledge of the world grows at an accelerating rate, we have overwhelming humanist arguments to present; so, without necessarily adding anything new, let us be clear on the following. Even the best of believers cannot produce any real objective evidence for their beliefs, but when pressed they usually eventually admit that the existence of God is objectively unprovable. They then insist their subjective, imagined or mental experience is equally valid. This is refuted of course by the continual retreat of faith in the light of new knowledge. Galileo and Darwin and a host of rational seekers forced the faithful to discard certain subjective beliefs. The faith of each age therefore must reflect truth from the real world or die.

Ask them to define what they actually believe and you will be lucky to get an unequivocal reply, since that gives to easy a target; but you can usually tie them down, often to the survival of the soul after death. Here we are on strong ground from both traditional and new views. Firstly and obviously, Hell (exquisite torture for eternity) is not just unjust; it is infinitely unjust to sinners who exist for only a speck of eternity. How can they accept that? So if there is no Hell, can there be a Heaven? Only a little intellect shows that one requires the other. Secondly, every construct in our universe is born or evolves, lives a span, then dies: from the very small to the most complex. This is even the universe itself, we are now told. Mortality is assured for everything without exception; except man! How likely is that? Well, at least it should make them think.

Of course as man has created, lost and created again innumerable gods, to assist him to escape them is difficult. We are not playing on a level pitch. The slope against us is man’s very desire for simple answers, for guidance, for meaning. It is his fear of the unknown. All these are claimed to be simply supplied by a magic doctrine, derived from primitive times, but given enough credence by annexation of man’s best attributes, Morality and Beauty, to counter justified scepticism. Who cannot experience the emotional charge of Faure’s Requiem in one of our wondrous cathedrals? Few indoctrinated from the cradle will seek to leave this for rational truth that is implied to be a godless, and therefore wicked, cult.

Well, of course Morality and Beauty were created by, and so belong to, humanity and not God. There is no comparable art or beauty in the Bible or elsewhere in the Church which has not derived from man’s intellect. So let us make sure we proclaim this.

We need to consider everything to be effective advocates of rational enlightenment, so it is important to share and exchange views. We need also to bear in mind that success here is best achieved by a clear and positive presentation of our belief rather than negative criticism of the Church, however obvious the target. I think this ought to be the British Humanist Association’s prime objective.

I believe we can show how humanists have answers to all the fears that beset mankind, which religion claims only they provide. Does anyone feel there are any areas that Humanism cannot address successfully?

John Watts is a long retired financial adviser living in Somerset, an enthusiastic humanist, and a writer and poet keen to support humanist ideas.

Assisted Dying: Who Makes the Final Decision?

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by Lesley Close

Assisted Dying: Who Makes the Final Decision, by Lesley Close, published 12 February 2014.

Assisted Dying: Who Makes the Final Decision, by Lesley Close, published 12 February 2014.

Eleven years ago this month I was helping my brother, John Close, to prepare for his death. He was 55 and coming to the end of his life because he had motor neurone disease, diagnosed two years earlier.

John had seen the story of Reg Crew, the first Briton whose journey to Dignitas was publicised. He told me, by typing with one finger at a time on his computer, ‘That’s how I’d like to go when my time comes.’

My response was to confirm that his life was his to deal with as he saw fit. I told him that I would do everything I could to help him achieve his goal of a peaceful and dignified death at the time of his choosing.

That’s how I came to arrive in a tiny flat in central Zurich at three o’clock in the afternoon on Monday 26th May 2003. John was only the seventh British person to have Dignitas’ help to die, so we had no idea what to expect from the experience as the last day of John’s life unfolded.

It was hard to accept that John was dying of MND, but it was comforting that he could be in control at the end of his life. With Dignitas’ help, my dear brother obtained the peaceful and dignified death he sought, but it did not happen at the time of his choosing. As well as fitting in with Dignitas’ plans, John had to travel to Switzerland while he still had sufficient bodily strength to undertake the journey. There was no question about his mental strength – like everyone who has made that journey to have help to die, John was a strong determined individual.

That’s an important characteristic – nobody is being compelled to go to Switzerland against their will. People who are suffering intolerably as their lives come to an end because of terminal illnesses are looking for – and finding – the information they need to contact Dignitas and are making their own plans to undertake that final journey.

The statistics from Oregon, where assisted dying has been legal since 1997, confirm that the option of an assisted death appeals to individuals for whom being in control is very important, predominantly college-educated people.

I thought I knew a great deal about the subject of assisted dying when, a year ago, I started writing the personal stories which form half of the book published by Peter Owen on 12th February, Assisted dying – who makes the final decision? but I learned a huge amount by editing the chapters which appear between my own. I was previously ready to debate the subject with anyone but now I feel armed to refute almost every objection which is raised to changing the law.

I have learned the importance of challenging people who say things like ‘In the Netherlands people no longer trust their doctors’ and similar things intended to make an audience doubt the wisdom of changing the law here. I now ask for statistics to back up those assertions. There aren’t any!

Unless and until someone shows me a different way to solve the UK’s problem of intolerable suffering at the end of life, I will campaign to change the law to something like the Oregon ‘model’. Assisted dying works there and Lord Falconer’s Bill contains even more safeguards than Oregon’s legislation. Doctors in that state are not regarded as murdering monsters and the rest of the medical and social care system works perfectly well. And Oregon has not been consumed by hellfire… which brings me on to my final point.

I have never yet heard an argument against assisted dying that I have not been able to refute, other than those which are based purely on the dictates of a person’s religious belief. Everyone who, like me, has no such belief – as well as those people with faith who can reconcile their faith with assisted dying – should assert the need for individual choice in decisions about their death. I do not want to dictate how anyone should see out the end of their life and I believe we should all be shown the same respect.

Lesley Close is the author of Assisted Dying: Who Makes the Final Decision?, released 12 February 2014. She works as a design company administrator, and is the sister of the late John Close.

Alternatives to Religion: A collaborative project

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by Nicky Hilton

Irreplaceable humanist archives, are being rediscovered as part the Alternatives to Religion Project. The material, described by the National Archives as having the potential to ‘transform research and understanding of alternatives to religion’ includes items created by the British Humanist Association (BHA), Conway Hall Ethical Society (CHES) and the National Secular Society (NSS). The current phase of the project is funded by the National Cataloguing Grant Programme and will see historic material from all three organisations catalogued, preserved and made publicly available.

As the professional Archivist implementing this phase of the project, I’ve come across a huge array of items since I started work on the collections in April. The archives consist of official records, such as minutes, deeds and annual reports, as well as campaign material, plans, correspondence and photographs.

My favourite items from the archives are those which convey the changes to thinking of those pioneering agnostics and Unitarians who established the Ethical Movement and laid the foundations of Humanism.

Tracing the origins of Conway Hall Ethical Society through the archives, the researcher will soon encounter minutes and ledgers of Parliament Court Chapel, Artillery Lane. The records evoke a time when this progressive East London congregation (led by William Johnson Fox from 1817), were still navigating the boundaries between dissenting religion, agnosticism and humanism. The congregation met from approximately 1807 until 1824 and although Christian, the congregation were non-conformists, and described in some reports as Universalist. A natural leader, Fox gradually led his congregation away from Christianity to rationalism and presided over the move in 1824 from Parliament Court Chapel to the purpose built South Place Chapel (near Moorgate Station). The official minutes from this time convey a simple shift away from describing the attendees as ‘the congregation’ to the word ‘members’. From this point, the members of South Place Chapel continued to move away from established religion, but it was the arrival of another charismatic leader, Dr Stanton Coit in 1888 which finally saw a complete break from Christianity. The archives record that Coit was appointed Lecturer (no longer Minister) and presided over the change of the organisation’s name from Chapel, to Religious Society, and finally to Ethical Society.

In the British Humanist Association Archive there is further evidence of this gradual, but confident break from religion. As well as leading South Place Ethical Society, Dr Coit was a member of the Ethical Union (forerunner of the BHA) and his vision for the Ethical Movement created some of the most interesting items in the archives. For example, Coit’s scrapbook reveals his unwavering commitment to relieving the plight of the Victorian working classes, not through salvation, but by education and self improvement. His Neighbourhood Guilds, a type of trade union based on locality rather than employment, attracted international attention because of the socialist undertones and atheism. This desire to support people within an ethical framework also led Coit to establish the unique Ethical Church at Bayswater. Occupying a former Methodist Chapel, Coit saw his non-religious church as a template for an inclusive, secular, Church of England. Photographs of the interior of the building show the lectern from where Coit gave his Sunday lectures. Behind him stood an engraving which could easily be taken from a modern work of Humanism: “Thanks to the human heart by which we live”.

The material mentioned here is just a tiny fragment of the total collection. These archives are a treasure trove of humanist, secular and ethical activities, with more untold stories waiting to be uncovered by researchers. Cataloguing of CHES and BHA archives is continuing, and the records of the NSS are due to be started in the new year. Highlights of the Alternatives to Religion project so far are displayed on the project blog at: http://alt2religion.tumblr.com/   which is updated weekly. You can also search the partial BHA catalogue at: http://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/Library/Library-Catalogue ; and the partial SPES catalogue at: http://www.conwayhall.org.uk/catalogue

Nicky Hilton is the Archivist for the Alternatives to Religion Project.

A humanist perspective on the “Common Ground” conference

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“Common Ground: A Conversation Between Religious Believers and Humanists on Values and Ethics” was a conference in Glasgow in November co-sponsored by the UK and US Provinces of the (Catholic) Xaverian Missionaries. Speakers included Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist – How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious and Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University. Jeremy Rodell is Chair of South West London Humanists and was one of seven delegates from the BHA and the Humanist Society of Scotland. They also included Rory Fenton, AHS President and the BHA’s Dialogue Officer.

Here’s Jeremy’s input to the “Common Ground” conference blog.

The “Common Ground” conference: a humanist perspective

As a humanist living in London, it was a bit of a surprise to get an email from the British Humanist Association asking if I would like to attend a conference in Scotland organised by Catholic missionaries. I’m glad I said “yes”.

This was a bold initiative by the Xavierian Missionaries to find “Common Ground” across one of the most important fault-lines of western society, especially here in the UK. I did not need convincing of the value interfaith dialogue involving humanists – I was already involved in it. But I left the conference convinced both that more could be done and that what we’re doing today could be done better.

The conference itself was, of course, an example of dialogue in action. I had never met a missionary before and, if I’d thought about it at all, would probably have come up with the caricature of a Bible-bashing neo-colonialist. What I found were thoughtful people who had made major practical contributions to the lives of people in the countries where they’d lived – in one case helping to end a devastating civil war. That doesn’t make me more comfortable about Christian proselytization, but it certainly provides a more nuanced perspective. Equally, I don’t think many of the religious people present had met a humanist before. There were a lot of fascinating and enlightening conversations.

My main “takeaway” was that, at its core, this is all about human relationships. If people from different backgrounds know each other and have listened carefully enough to understand where the other person is coming from – and perhaps have worked together for a common cause – then it becomes almost impossible to demonise “The Other”. That doesn’t mean they will agree on everything. What Chris Stedman referred to as “Kumbaya” interfaith, where everyone loves one another and genuine differences are suppressed, has limited potential. But we were able to demonstrate at the end of the conference that, once trust has been established, it is possible to articulate conflicting views on controversial issues while maintaining mutual respect.

Chris Stedman, author of Fatheist, who spoke along with Jeremy Rodell

Chris Stedman, author of Faitheist, who spoke at the event.

 

However, we shouldn’t be naïve. There are people within almost all religion and belief communities who have no interest in dialogue – they know they’re right and at best want either to isolate themselves, or to argue, and at worst to impose their views by force. They’re just not interested in listening and understanding people they consider to be “the enemy”. On the other hand, there are people in these same communities who understand that we live in a plural world in which mutual understanding is essential for peace, and where it is often possible to find common ground with those with whom we disagree. We learned from Chris Stedman that Eboo Patel, the US-based founder of the Inter Faith Youth Corps, refers to the divide between these two types of people as the “Faith Line”.

Those who organise and turn up to a conference on dialogue between believers and the non-religious are, by definition, on the liberal side of the Faith Line. But the fact that we don’t directly reach the hard liners doesn’t invalidate the exercise. They can only be reached, or perhaps faced down, by more open-minded people from their own belief backgrounds – people on “our side” of the line. It is by dialogue that we can all become better informed and feel better supported in advocating the interfaith approach within our own communities.

So what does that mean in practice?

Firstly, we need to get past some of the issues of language. Humanists don’t really like the term “interfaith”, or “interfaith dialogue”, which sound excluding, as Humanism isn’t a faith. But we need a term for dialogue between people with differing religious and non-religious beliefs, and “interfaith” is very widely used. Humanists should not be afraid to use it too. But we need the help of religious people to ensure that it’s understood to cover “faith and belief” not just religion.

More significantly, the conference demonstrated a misunderstanding over the meaning of “secularism”. I understand it to mean a level playing field, in which people are free to follow their religious and non-religious beliefs and practices – provided they do not erode the freedom and rights of others – with no particular group or organisation having privileges over others. In a secular society, freedom of religion and belief is protected. Like most humanists, I think that’s a good idea. Unfortunately, too often the term has been used to mean “anti-religious”, not helped by the fact that there are some atheists who, as well as advocating secularism, would also like to see the end of religion. The result was that many of our religious colleagues at the conference thought that, when humanists say we want a secular society, we mean one in which there is no religion. It was something of an “ah-ha” moment when everyone realised that was not the case.

Secondly, “doing interfaith” needs to be more than sitting on a committee, useful though that may be. It needs to involve more people from different backgrounds getting to know each other, maybe in informal settings, through social media or – ideally – through shared community activity. That doesn’t necessarily mean creating a new organisation or activity, but rather finding something that is fun, stimulating and has a doable objective.

At the risk of gender stereotyping, it’s useful to be aware that men and women may come at interfaith, and especially the involvement of the non-religious, from different angles. Callum Brown’s academic analysis suggests that changes in women’s lives have been the main driver of the significant move away from religion in the UK since the 1960s. But he says that arguments about science and rationality have not played the key role here – “community” factors have been much more important. The implication for interfaith work is that the more cerebral type of interfaith dialogue about ideas may, on average, be more appealing to men than women, who may be more attracted by practical community activity. Both have a role to play.

Coming from the south of England, it was interesting to find that Scotland – which is probably less religiously diverse than London – seems to be way ahead in terms of official recognition of the importance of interfaith dialogue and inclusion of the non-religious, as well as providing practical help on how to make it work. “Belief in Dialogue” is an official publication by The Scottish Government providing a “good practice guide to religion and belief relations in Scotland”. Its introduction is written by Sister Isabel Smyth, Chair of the Scottish Working Group on Religion and Belief Relations, who was among the conference attendees. In it she links the need for dialogue back to the values of wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion which we saw inscribed on the Scottish Mace when the conference visited the Parliament in Edinburgh. These are shared human values – no humanist would disagree with them.

“Belief in Dialogue” is clear about the involvement of the non-religious: “The need to recognise the equal legitimacy of every community to exist in Scotland is enshrined as a human right, and by this we need to think about community in the broadest sense of the word. While most religious communities have established formal structures, non-religious communities and groups have considerably fewer formal structures but still need to be seen as communities in the sense that those who advocate such beliefs are bound by the beliefs they share.” It goes on to provide practical ways of building interfaith relationships which anyone can use. You can download it free from The Scottish Government website.

The rest of us would do well to steal its thinking.

 

Jeremy Rodell is Chair of South West London Humanists, the humanist representative on two local interfaith forums, and a humanist speaker for 3FF, an interfaith charity which provides panels of speakers from different religion and belief backgrounds to schools in London and elsewhere. He’s currently co-chairing a local dialogue between humanists and Catholics in Twickenham, following a major dispute about a new Catholic ‘faith’ school with exclusive admissions. If you want to know more, email chair@swlhumanists.org.uk.