Opinion: The EU is an invaluable venture in pooling sovereignty in a shrinking world

June 20, 2016 by David Pollock

This blog is part of a series of perspectives on the EU referendum from prominent humanists on either side of the debate. Each puts forward a humanist case for the United Kingdom either remaining a member of, or leaving, the European Union. All six perspectives are linked in the image below.

David Pollock: The EU is an invaluable venture in pooling sovereignty in a shrinking world

The referendum campaign is immensely depressing for many reasons. For one, the two sides are merely shouting at each other, not engaging. For another, when all the best qualified institutions and experts agree that leaving the EU would be economically damaging, the Brexiteers respond only by invoking a corrosive and irrational distrust of experts, emulating the worst ways of conspiracy theorists. Moreover, their ramshackle coalition of rackety discontents from across the political spectrum cannot agree on any alternative economic policy, flinging out as many unformulated ideas as they have ways of spending the cash putatively saved by quitting. On the other side the Remain campaign has so far failed to respond to people’s worries about immigration: indeed, they are now reaping the whirlwind many of them had previously sown in their distorted and one-sided presentation of immigrants as scroungers and health tourists.

Sadly the EU has for decades been subject to a campaign of systematic distortion and lies in the proprietor-owned press. Even the BBC, in the interest of balance, is now presenting a distorted picture, reporting equally the lies of the Brexiteers (‘£350 million a week for the NHS’) and the sober warnings of the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

The issues are far too important to be so demeaned. The EU is an invaluable venture in pooling sovereignty in a shrinking world. So far from representing a surrender, it offers Britain, with its mature democracy and pragmatic politics, a platform for wider international influence. It is undoubtedly imperfect (as in our own sphere the history of the European Humanist Federation’s engagement under Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty shows) but in its espoused principles and standards (and devices such as its Ombudsman who in that case found for the EHF over the Commission) it contains the mechanisms for self-correction.

Indeed, the EU offers great promise for the future: it deserves commitment, not sabotage. The hated Brussels bureaucrats are the servants of the Council of Ministers, doing the will of governments and subject to their control. Just as our own Parliament had to fight over centuries for its powers, so the European Parliament is demanding – and gaining – more influence and powers. Already EU regulations – collaboratively adopted by all EU members – are improving our own standards in (for example) workers’ rights and environmental protection, providing a collaborative bulwark against big business’s devotion to short-term profit that individual nations are increasingly powerless to resist. It is the EU that is standing up to US-based multinationals over taxation, privacy and monopoly power. The EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and the associated agency are valuable backing for the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights. Its freedom of movement may bring low-paid eastern European migrants here – largely to do jobs that no-one else will take – but it is a huge benefit for those who remember queues and delays at endless national frontiers and a necessary corollary of the freedom of trade that boosts business efficiency and the prosperity of us all.

The EU was a great promoter of human rights and rule of law in eastern Europe, setting standards that candidate member states had to meet and maintain. The narrow nationalism of the Brexiteers, however, lends comfort to their confrères in unsavoury populist parties such as are now in power in Poland and Hungary and their even more dubious allies in neo-fascist and similar parties in France, Austria, Germany and elsewhere. These also play on anti-EU nationalism and atavistic appeals to past greatness. The way to resist such dangerous trends – and they are genuinely dangerous – is not to pander to them by walking away and so weakening the democratic forces in the EU: it is to stand up to them and engage in the argument, advancing cooperative internationalism rather than putting up the shutters and ushering in another age of unconstrained nationalistic rivalries. As so often, it is hard work, not extravagant gestures, that are needed.

No human institution is without fault, and the EU is obviously no exception, but it is a strong force for good and well worth defending in this referendum campaign and then reforming from the inside rather than petulantly quitting and pouring scorn on it powerlessly from afar.

Opinion: Lead a more democratic Europe from outside the EU

June 20, 2016 by Kelvin Hopkins

Kelvin Hopkins: Lead a more democratic Europe from outside the EU

The European Union is anti-democratic, anti-socialist, and failing economically. With low and negative economic growth, 25% unemployment and 50% youth unemployment in some member states, living standards cut by a quarter in Greece, forced privatisations and restrictions on collective bargaining rights as conditions of bailouts, the true nature of the EU is now plain to see.

Free movement of labour is designed simply to reduce wages and reduce wage bargaining strength. The Laval and Viking Line cases where the European Court ruled in favour of employers and against trade unions made a nonsense of the supposed EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and were a clear indication of the direction of travel being steered by the EU’s masters. Raising up the market and market forces against elective democracy was evident from the start in its original name, the Common Market, and was opposed at the time by British socialists including Hugh Gaitskell, Clement Attlee and Nye Bevan.

In a Commons debate in 1989, Tony Benn MP said, ‘I was brought up to believe, and I still believe, that when people vote in an election they must be entitled to know that the party for which they vote, if it has a majority, will be able to enact laws under which they will be governed. That is no longer true. Any party elected, whether it is the Conservative party or the Labour party can no longer say to the electorate, “Vote for me and if I have a majority I shall pass that law,” because if that law is contrary to Common Market law, British judges will apply Community law.’

Labour’s policies of public ownership such as returning the railways to the public sector will not be possible if EU free-market rules are applied. The franchising of Britain’s railway operations as supposed ‘privatisation’ is especially bizarre when Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway owns much of Britain’s public transport services, with British passengers effectively subsidising Berlin commuters.

The recent EU Fourth Railway package will soon be forcing continental EU state railways into the same mould as that in Britain.

Some people of faith say that membership of the EU is primarily a matter of values not economics. I say that does not cut much ice if you have no home, if you have no job, or if the government is forced to close down or sell off public services at the behest of the European Central Bank. The reality is that the EU is an arm of neo-liberal capitalism which is and has failed across the world and which even the IMF has now concluded. By remaining in the EU the UK will find itself dragged down in a sinking vessel.

The European Union project moved slowly and by stealth at first, later accelerating following the 1980s Single European Act. It was clearly intended to promote the dismantling over time of the post-war social democratic structures which brought such massive benefits to millions of working people across Western Europe.

The current secretive negotiations to impose TTIP, the proposed EU/USA trade deal which would give massive power to the giant private corporations to be able to prosecute democratically elected member state governments is conclusive proof – if further proof were needed – about the true nature of the EU.

It is time for democratic member state governments once again to stand up for their peoples and to reject the EU. The United Kingdom has an opportunity to take the lead in that process by voting ‘Leave’ in the coming referendum.

That being said, I always emphasise that the European Union is not Europe. The European Union is simply a political construct covering many of the countries of Europe. Europe is a sub-continent of great peoples, beautiful countries and superb culture. Democracy, socialism and trade unionism were all created in Europe. We can have a great Europe without the EU, a Europe of international friendship and solidarity which will not sell out working people to the global corporations. Britain can lead the way to that different Europe as other countries in the EU see the advantages of independence and a renaissance of democracy.

Opinion: Reject Europe’s claims of a Christian identity, reject the EU

June 20, 2016 by Crispin Blunt

Crispin Blunt: Reject Europe’s claims of a Christian identity, reject the EU

Today we find ourselves locked in much deeper integration with Europe than was presented to the British people when they endorsed our membership in the 1975 referendum. European judges can overwrite British law and direct our legal regulations. Those many aspects of the acquis subject to QMV leave our own government and Parliament frequently and controversially overridden by the competing interests of our partners and even more frequently our government’s position quietly compromised to achieve unanimity.

The truth is the geo-politics of our island and its history means the British position on Europe is hopelessly compromised. The integration required to make this great idealistic project work is disguised from the British people, because they don’t really get it.

For British humanists, the debate over Turkish accession is instructive. It brings out, not least from our central European partners, talk of Europe’s Christian identity. That a large Muslim country would be an unacceptable departure from this. Just at the moment it seems polls indicate we are now formally a majority nation of non-believers we are being asked to check back in for a particular ethnic religious identity within the EU. The UK’s situation reflects our global internationalist outlook, where all religions, and now mostly none, all rub along relatively happily together. In the same way our multi-ethnic population reflects that global cultural and historic legacy. That’s what makes the European project so much more conflicted for the UK.

The central European response to the prospect of Turkish accession doesn’t sit easily with us. The UK is formally still a strong supporter of Turkish accession. That reflects our much more relaxed view of religion and identity and the strategic need to secure Turkey within the European sphere of influence. But the practical consequences today of our economically marginal citizens being competed out of work and the prospect of progress in their own country by professionally qualified east Europeans would be made dramatically worse by Turkish accession. Their plight is going to become even more marked when the living wage kicks in by the end of this Parliament, whether or not Turkey accedes.

Our own society’s cohesion and stability should be of interest to humanists. With formal control of immigration we may just about sustain the pressures of global migration patterns. The challenges that will inevitably bring, difficult outside the EU but much more so inside, would at least produce politicians who can be directly held to account if we are outside the EU. Britain has produced a society with a very global outlook, and perhaps as a consequence it’s no surprise organised religion is now a distinctly minority sport. I believe we are best able to protect this outside the EU, but with the rights of all our minorities and identities still sustained by the wholly different treaty base of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The UK is a problem for the EU. Our lack of commitment to the institutions is being paid by our partners and us on security. Outside the EU we can and would continue to cooperate on security issues much as we do now. Inside the EU we actively prevent our partners achieving the kind of integration required to make the EU a really effective security and defence player in the world. It is absolutely in our interest that the EU sharing our values, becomes a more effective partner.

26 of our partners are either Euro or pre-Euro countries. They must move towards some kind of United States of Europe or the Euro area will collapse. An accountable body will have to vote the common tax and benefits across Europe to support the common currency area. Unsurprisingly many of our partners also want a common defence capability, which makes complete sense if your interests are so closely aligned that it’s bizarre that you should not defend them together.

And it’s us, the UK that actively seeks to prevent this. It’s toxic to promote this in the British body politic because most of us Britons are simply not checked in for the European ideal and are not prepared to make the sovereignty sacrifices involved. It’s why this kind of narrative has been completely missing from the Remain campaign.

We have the luxury of the option of a perfectly sustainable global role outside the EU, rather more attuned to our people, economic strengths, history and culture. We should take it and help our partners resolve their need for further political and security integration rather than obstruct them.

Man’s inhumanity to man: a humanist perspective on the crucifixion story

March 24, 2016 by Emma C Williams

Hermann Vogel's Death of Spartacus, showing the Roman general's capture shortly before his crucifixion

Hermann Vogel’s Death of Spartacus, showing the Thracian gladiator’s capture, shortly before his crucifixion

Historical, mythical or legendary, the crucifixion of Christ represents the story of many. Whether or not the man called Jesus existed – and the modern scholarly view on this seems to range from ‘probably’ to ‘possibly’ – the gospel narrative reflects a wider human story, the story of thousands upon thousands of nameless and forgotten individuals who were crucified at the hands of the Roman state.

For anyone who assumes that crucifixion was an unusual or extraordinary event in Roman times, they should consider the case of the rebels led by Spartacus. This low-born Thracian gladiator-slave led a revolt so successful that it caused considerable embarrassment to the ruling Senate. When Crassus finally crushed the rebellion in 71 BCE, he ordered the crucifixion of an estimated 6,000 slave-rebels along the Appian Way, the main road leading out from the city of Rome; he also brought back the ruthless practice of decimation to punish and terrorise the cohort of soldiers that he deemed to have failed him the most in his earlier attempts to quash the rebellion.

Crucifixion was public and humiliating – deliberately so – and its use in the case of the slave-rebels illustrates several important points about this notorious and brutal method of execution. Its aim was to demean the victim and intimidate the observer – this was what happened to you when you challenged the Roman rule of law. Crucifixion was a servile supplicium – reserved for slaves and foreigners, non-Roman citizens, deserting soldiers, pirates and insurgents; wealthy Roman men were often removed from society due to political machinations or the whim of current authority, but never was crucifixion used to dispense with them.

In its broadest definition, crucifixion meant that the victim was impaled and/or tied to some form of frame, cross, stake or tree and left to hang for anything from several hours to several days. Causes of death included exhaustion and shock brought on by extreme pain and exsanguination (sometimes in part from a scourging prior to the crucifixion), heart failure and/or pulmonary collapse from the immense pressure put upon the victim’s heart and lungs; the victim’s demise could be hastened dramatically by increasing the intensity of this pressure, hence the common practice of breaking the legs to precipitate collapse. It was a sadistic and grotesque formula for murder, exploited in extremis by the Romans.

It is not clear whether the emperor Constantine outlawed crucifixion in the 4th Century CE, as is claimed by Christian triumphalist writers, but certainly it had been outlawed in the Roman empire by the mid 5^th century. However, the Classical world is not the only context in which this abhorrent method of slaughter has been practised. Japanese haritsuke started with the execution of 26 Christians in Nagasaki in 1597 and recurred intermittently up until the last century. Islam has also subsumed the practice, with verse 5:33 of the Qur’an calling for the crucifixion of those who wage war against Allah or the Prophet. Crucifixion is still practised in some Islamic countries and there have been recently documented cases in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Yemen; it is most commonly used to make a degrading and threatening showpiece of the victim’s body rather than as a method of execution, but this is not exclusively the case.

‘The Easter story means nothing to a humanist from a spiritual perspective… Yet each year the human side of the Easter story can serve as a sober reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.’

The Easter story means nothing to a humanist from a spiritual perspective; we do not believe that Christ was the son of God, nor do we believe that he died for our sins and was resurrected. Yet each year the human side of the Easter story can serve as a sober reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. In a modern context, we can and should take action by giving support to the work of organisations such as Amnesty International, who campaign tirelessly and effectively against the use of torture and capital punishment right across the globe.

But as a Classicist, I cannot help but see the story of Christ as a legend within its ancient milieu and recall the incalculable number of wasted human lives that resonate through its narrative. In the name of Roman civilisation, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people were tortured and crucified, forgotten souls with no afforded legacy of reverence or pious gratitude to preserve them in the conscious minds of the living.

At this time of year, I choose to remember them.

Why non-belief is gaining ground… even against Islam

November 23, 2015 by Matt Ridley

As scepticism and materialism replace blind faith, more people than ever worldwide are opting for atheism, argues Conservative Humanists patron Matt Ridley.

Fifty years ago, after the cracking of the genetic code, Francis Crick was so confident religion would fade that he offered a prize for the best future use for Cambridge’s college chapels. Swimming pools, said the winning entry. Today, when terrorists cry ‘God is great’ in both Paris and Bamako as they murder, the joke seems sour. But here’s a thought: that jihadism may be a last spasm — albeit a painful one — of a snake that is being scotched. The humanists are winning, even against Islam.

Quietly, non-belief is on the march. Those who use an extreme form of religion to poison the minds of disaffected young men are furious about the spread of materialist and secularist ideas, which they feel powerless to prevent. In 50 years’ time, we may look back on this period and wonder how we failed to notice that Islam was about to lose market share, not to other religions, but to Humanism.

The fastest growing belief system in the world is non-belief. No religion grew nearly as fast over the past century. Whereas virtually nobody identified as a non-believer in 1900, today roughly 15 per cent do, and that number does not include soft Anglicans in Britain, mild Taoists in China, lukewarm Hindus in India or token Buddhists in Japan. Even so, the non-religious category has overtaken paganism, will soon pass Hinduism, may one day equal Islam and is gaining on Christianity. (Of every ten people in the world, roughly three are Christian, two Muslim, two Hindu, 1.5 non-religious and 1.5 something else.)

This is all the more remarkable when you think that, with a few notable exceptions, atheists or humanists don’t preach, let alone pour money into evangelism. Their growth has come almost entirely from voluntary conversion, whereas Islam’s slower growth in market share has largely come from demography: the high birth rates in Muslim countries compared with Christian ones.

And this is about to change. The birth rate in Muslim countries is plummeting at unprecedented speed. A study by the demographer Nicholas Eberstadt three years ago found that: ‘Six of the ten largest absolute declines in fertility for a two-decade period recorded in the postwar era have occurred in Muslim-majority countries.’ Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Libya, Albania, Qatar and Kuwait have all seen birth-rate declines of more than 60 per cent in 30 years.

Meanwhile, secularism is on the rise within Muslim majority countries. It is not easy being a humanist in an Islamic society, even outside the Isis hell-holes, so it is hard to know how many there are. But a poll in 2012 found that 5 per cent of Saudis describe themselves as fully atheist and 19 per cent as non-believers — more than in Italy. In Lebanon the proportion is 37 per cent. Remember in many countries they are breaking the law by even thinking like this.

That Arab governments criminalise non-belief shows evidence not of confidence, but of alarm. Last week a court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a Palestinian poet, Ashraf Fayadh, to death for apostasy. In 2014 the Saudi government brought in a law defining atheism as a terrorist offence. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government in Egypt, though tough on Islamists, has also ordered two ministries to produce a national plan to ‘confront and eliminate’ atheism. They have shut down a café frequented by atheists and dismissed a college librarian who talked about Humanism in a TV programme.

Earlier this month there was yet another murder by Islamists — the fifth such incident — of a Bangladeshi publisher of secularist writing. I recently met one of the astonishingly brave humanist bloggers of Bangladesh, Arif Rahman, who has seen four colleagues hacked to death with machetes in daylight. He told me about Bangladesh’s 2013 blasphemy law, and the increasing indifference or even hostility of the Bangladeshi government towards the plight of non-religious bloggers. For many Muslim-dominated governments, the enemy is not ‘crusader’ Christianity, it is home-grown non-belief.

The jihadists of Isis are probably motivated less by a desire to convert Europe’s disaffected youth to fundamentalist Islam than by a wish to prevent the Muslim diaspora sliding into western secularism. In the Arab world, according to Brian Whitaker, author of Arabs Without God, what tempts people to leave the faith is not disgust at the antics of Islamist terrorists, but the same things that have drained church attendance here: materialism, rationalism and scepticism.

As the academics Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman wrote in an essay eight years ago: ‘Not a single advanced democracy that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic conditions retains a high level of popular religiosity. They all go material.’ America is no longer much of an exception. Non-believers there outnumber Mormons, Muslims and Jews combined, and are growing faster than southern Baptists.

Whitaker found that Arab atheists mostly lost their faith gradually, as the unfairness of divine justice, the irrationality of the teaching, or the prejudice against women, gay people or those of other faiths began to bother them. Whatever your origin and however well you have been brainwashed, there is just something about living in a society with restaurants and mobile phones, universities and social media, that makes it hard to go on thinking that morality derives exclusively from superstition.

Not that western humanists are immune from superstitions, of course: from Gaia to Gwyneth Paltrow diets to astrology, there’s plenty of room for cults in the western world, though they are mostly harmless. As is Christianity, these days, on the whole.

I do not mean to sound complacent about the Enlightenment. The adoption of Sharia or its nearest equivalent in no-go areas of European cities will need to be resisted, and vigorously. The jihadists will kill many more people before they are done, and will provoke reactions by governments that will erode civil liberties along the way. I am dismayed by the sheer lack of interest in defending free speech that many young westerners display these days, as more and more political groups play the blasphemy card in imitation of Islam, demanding ‘safety’ from ‘triggering’ instances of offence.

None the less, don’t lose sight of the big picture. If we hold our resolve, stop the killers, root out the hate preachers, encourage the reformers and stem the tide of militant Islamism, then secularism and milder forms of religion will win in the long run.

Matt Ridley is a journalist and Conservative Party peer who is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. This piece originally appeared in The Times newspaper.

Our obfuscation on Islamism misses the mark and stigmatises all Muslims

November 19, 2015 by Guest author

In the wake of the tragic events in Paris last week, Jacob Kishere appeals for an honest and plain-speaking language when describing the dangers posed by religious fundamentalists.

Jean Jullien’s Eiffel tower peace symbol, which went viral on the Internet as a show of solidarity to the victims of the atrocity in Paris.

Before the bloodshed had even ended in Paris on Friday night fingers were already pointed; it is the perpetual blame game and all too familiar to the one seen 10 months prior in the wake of Charlie Hebdo. Since the spirit of unity was channelled worldwide in the hashtag #jesuischarlie, there has been an inadequacy in our political discourse on both sides which continually fails to address the threats we face.

Given the context of rising anti-Muslim bigotry, many on the left – who anticipate further backlashes – have called for calm, repeating the mantra that the jihadist epidemic has ‘nothing to do with Islam’. Meanwhile, increasingly enraged by the left’s perceived obfuscation on matters relating to Islam, figures on the right have adopted the position that Muslim populations are complicit in these atrocities, and proclaims these terror attacks the bloody result of failed multiculturalism. The consequences of both mutually inflammatory positions have been an increasingly toxic atmosphere in civil society toward Muslims and abject failure to stem the rising tide of radicalisation.

But if we are to do any justice to the victims of these countless ideologically driven attacks, the very least we can do is recognise that there is an ideology at play. That ideology is Islamism. Both left and right must recognise this in order to move forward. Well-intentioned leftists must end their blind defence of all things Islam and recognise that the ideology of Islamism has something to do with Islam. While it may be instinctive to the traditions of academic left to attribute jihadist action to western foreign policy and prevailing conditions of social desperation, neither the data nor our experiences support such reasoning.

As early as the 9/11 attacks we saw the propensity for wealthy, educated individuals to commit atrocities in the name of ideology, with many of the conspirators holding graduate level degrees. Bin Laden himself was the heir to one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. Far more revealing in his case is that he was tutored by Muhammad Qutb, brother of Sayed Qutb the ‘grandfather of Islamism’. For decades, funded by Saudi oil money and facilitated by Western governments favouring the most reactionary voices within communities as ‘leaders’, Islamist ideology has been directly imported into European communities. At present, Western Europe is reaping the seeds it has allowed to be sown by Islamists for 20 years in its communities through universities and other institutions. If anyone doubted the degree of the crises they need only consider the militants fighting in Syria from France numbering 1,200, from Belgium numbering 440, from Germany numbering between 500–600, and from the UK numbering around 600 (See International centre for the study of radicalisation and political violence, KCL) with many considering these estimates to be conservative.

At the same time, pundits on the political right must recognise that it is not Islam – the faith of billions – which drives jihadism in the west so much Islamism: the fundamentalist desire to impose any form of Islam over society.

It is often stated, and yet not enough, that the first victims of this ideology in any act of jihad are Muslims themselves. This is self-evident throughout the Arab World, and was again demonstrated brutally in the bloody Islamic State attacks in Lebanon which claimed the lives of around 43, just hours before violence erupted in Paris. Reactionaries must recognise that what they are witnessing is not a battle between a vaguely defined ‘West’ and the religion of Islam but a battle within Islam between that religion’s progressive reformers and its militant hardliners. It is only through empowering and working with the progressive reformist voices within communities that they will effectively counter Islamism. In the coming weeks, the straw man of refugees as a causal factor will inevitably be thrown up; but this too is a fiction. Those arriving on the shores of Europe are fleeing the very threat we now face at home.

Growing up in a post-9/11 Britain, I heard many times the repugnant sentiments that ‘not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim’. But as much as the left reviles such casual bigotry, it is very much the unintended consequence of the left’s language of obfuscation. Whole generation of Britons lack the vocabulary – the conceptual tools required — to properly articulate the nature of this threat they so fear. And if we as a society are to come together and address this common threat, we would be far better served in remembering this: not every Islamist is a jihadist, but every jihadist is an Islamist.

Jacob Kishere is a humanist and a student of history. He blogs on Medium at @JacobKishere.

When it comes to tackling segregation, ending ‘faith’ schools is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet

July 23, 2015 by Jay Harman

2015 07 23 Davd Cameron 2 CREDIT The Prime Minister's Office

David Cameron is looking right at the problem, but choosing to ignore it. Photo credit: The Prime Minister’s Office/Creative Commons license.

The Prime Minister’s speech on extremism on Monday has received a mixed reaction; unsurprising given the sensitivity and complexity of the issue. However, as is so often the case, the mixed reaction was also at least in part a result of mixed messages. Specifically, the praise that should have been provoked by Cameron’s admirable emphasis on the need to tackle segregation in our education system was tempered by his contradictory reaffirmation of support for ‘faith’ schools.

The response of successive Governments to the increasing religious and ethnic diversity of the UK has been to provide more ‘faith’ schools, of more kinds, to cater for these different groups. In 1998 there were 24 state-funded Jewish schools, and no Muslim, Sikh or Hindu schools. In 2015, there are now 48 Jewish, 21 Muslim, 10 Sikh and 5 Hindu state schools, and growing. More children of all religions are being educated in ‘faith’ schools now than ever before.

There are many, the British Humanist Association among them, who are absolutely convinced that this approach to building a multicultural society will be remembered as one of the most ruinous and damaging to the fabric of our communities and our society that has ever been pursued. It is an approach which is impossible to fathom.

Presented with the challenge of integrating a complex mix of religions, beliefs, ethnicities, and social backgrounds into one cohesive society, we have two options. The first option is to continue with an education system which divides children in almost all imaginable ways. ‘Faith’ schools segregate along religious lines, along socio-economic lines, and along ethnic lines – the evidence for this is clear. This first option therefore involves accepting this sorry starting point and then working round the clock to think of ways to get these different groups to interact with and understand one another (Shared facilities and integrated teaching being the Government’s latest proposals).

The second option is simple. We make all schools inclusive, we bring all children together, we ensure that it is their similarities that are celebrated and which become ingrained in them, rather than their differences, and then we sit back and watch while all our work is done for us.

Regrettably, this is not the option that has been taken.

In his speech, the Prime Minister referred to the policy introduced under the Coalition Government of only allowing new ‘faith’ academies and free schools to allocate half their places on the basis of faith. That development was to be welcomed, but it didn’t go nearly far enough. More than a third of state-funded schools in England and Wales – over 7,000 schools – are religious schools and only a small proportion of these are free schools. Clearly no religious selection at all would be preferable, but it is equally important to remember that discussions about religious selection should not detract from the fact that whether religiously selective or not, ’faith’ schools are inherently exclusive.

That is why Cameron’s expression of hope that ‘our young people can be the key to bringing our country together’, immediately preceded by a promise that he will not seek to ‘dismantle faith schools’, was so disheartening.

One has to ask, how we can expect our children to create the inclusive, integrated and cohesive society that we have thus far been unable to achieve, if we continue to define them and divide them by the religions and beliefs of their parents?

When it comes to tackling segregation and promoting integration, there is clearly no silver bullet. The process is difficult and there’s a long way to go. You can be absolutely sure, though, that an end to ‘faith’ schools and an end to the division they foster, is the closest thing to that silver bullet we have. If only our Prime Minister wasn’t so gun shy.

Did Dolezal do wrong? Lies and social identities

July 15, 2015 by Guest author

Leila Gracie reflects on the high-profile case of Rachel Dolezal, an American civil rights advocate who lied about her life story in order to live as a black woman.

What makes an acceptable lie?

Rachel Dolezal in a recent TV appearance. Photo: Boston Herald.

In the light of genuine racial discrimination and injustice, it’s obvious why some have felt offended by Rachael Dolezal. As a rule, we don’t choose our race and have to simply deal with its consequences. Yet we should examine the nature of her lie. For instance, compare it with someone who has an affair, or someone who commits crime; such people would lie because they seek self-gratification at the expense of other. This is, surely, immorality in its most basic form. Was Dolezal truly “getting off” on living life as a mixed-race person? Was she having fun at the expense of others; was there some selfish reward? The argument that she deliberately and strategically built a career on the lie also seems tenuous, especially as she ‘lived’ the black identity in many other aspects of her life.

Furthermore, the lie was just plain odd. Though immoral, other lies, such as infidelity or stealing, still have a place within the spectrum of ‘normality’. Imitating another race does not. It is distinctly abnormal. She had to deal with the fact that no one would ever truly understand the truth. It was surely a source of shame for Dolezal and something that had to remain strictly private.

It appears that Dolezal wished so deeply that she could be someone else that she sought to make it real. Perhaps she hated her white self. Perhaps the thought of being a black person seemed like the only way to truly find happiness. There may have been moments when she was confronted with the ‘whiteness’ of her body and felt frustrated by its inadequacy. So she constructed a story for herself; the unique circumstances that made her, essentially, a black person in a white person’s body.

It would be interesting to discover exactly what Dolezal thinks being white, or being black means. What is it that she wants to escape and what is it she wants to become? She may carry guilt as a member of a racial group that has perpetrated racism. Indeed, we should all appreciate what we have; we should look to help those less well-off; we should be on the lookout for all forms of injustice and immorality and we should heed history’s lessons. But this can all be achieved without also feeling guilty. The cause could also be something more generic; simply the sense of disparity that arises whenever differing cultures meet.

Biologically derived social identifiers

There are certain aspects of our biology, such as race/gender/age, which carry social currency; they inform our social identity. Of course, they tell us something tangible as well. They tell us about our bloodline and its history, and about our place in the process of human procreation. However, the human race seems to universally attach meaning to these biological features.

While I would not agree that these meanings are pure social construction, there is certainly malleability and historical context in the meanings attributed. As individuals, we get no choice about what social identity we are ‘handed’ and must navigate our way through; make the best of our little lot. This means managing external interpretations of social identifiers as well as arriving at our own understandings of them.

Can we change/choose our social identifiers?

Ostensibly, it is possible to change a (biologically derived) social identifier. An obvious example of this is that one can undergo hormonal and surgical procedures to change one’s sex to match one’s gender identity. Of course, those who have changed their biological sex in order to reflect their gender identity should be accepted into society and be free to live with dignity and respect from others. However, empirically and semantically speaking, society does not seem able to cut ties completely with what it originally thought of as a biological certainty. A person who has transitioned to a different gender nevertheless retains the identity of a ‘transgender‘ person even after their sex and gender have been harmonised.

This word does a special job, not just for the trans individual (who may or may not celebrate a distinctively trans identity) but for wider society. It tells a story; it accounts for a history of gender. The fact that this is even necessary could tell us something about society’s views. Do people stumble when it comes to ‘accepting’ that transgender individuals have truly changed gender? If so, why might this be? One might venture that some members of society find this very concept threatening. After all, most people experience their gender identity and biological sex as one and the same. Unpicking this concept, or challenging its certainty, is often not just uncomfortable, but unfathomable.

On this basis, if, one day, it is acceptable to change one’s race, I would suggest that language will adapt, in its usual but imperfect way, so as to articulate that the new identity is real but also tell that another preceded it. The only way round this is secrecy and hoping to ‘pass’ as Dolezal seemingly did.

Who we are to ourselves: the spirit of common humanity

For better or worse, our social identity will always impact our social intercourse but it is down to us how we incorporate it into our personal sense of identity. In fact, I would suggest that to ourselves we can never truly be any of our social identifiers. Without society, to ourselves (i.e. when we have our own space and our own thoughts), it is difficult to ever fully attain the feeling of being a particular race/gender/age. Perhaps it’s terrifying to admit, but surely, ultimately, to ourselves, we are just a complex mix of ‘me’ and trying to make a success of things is the primary focus. The effects of dementia or brain damage reveal the fragility of the processes through which we know who we are.

I am not suggesting we face some kind of existential oblivion. We need something to anchor us in society and need to feel that such things are, to some degree, real. However, I would suggest that we remember our spirit of common humanity and let that be the predominant guide to understanding ourselves. Had we entered this world in different circumstances, we would be managing an entirely different set of connotations of our identity.

Dolezal’s desire to change race reveals our common tendency to try to live and be our social identifiers – to ourselves. It is immaterial that Dolezal interpreted ‘whiteness’ negatively and ‘blackness’ positively. What matters is that she felt utterly defined by her race. I would suggest that if we can, we should concede to the person that we know exists beneath this skin.

Leila Gracie works in the field of behaviour change in London. She also enjoys writing as a means to ponder life’s mysteries, exploring themes such as gender relations, body image or mental health.

Avoiding bad information

June 29, 2015 by Guest author

Mike Flood asks how much is the Information Age being tainted and diminished by disinformation.

The Internet is full of information, coming at you thick and fast. But how does one separate the wheat from the chaff? Photo: Nazly Ahmed

The Internet Society once observed that the Internet is ‘proving to be one of the most powerful amplifiers of speech ever invented. It offers a global megaphone for voices that might otherwise be heard only feebly, if at all. It invites and facilitates multiple points of view and dialogue in ways unimaginable by traditional, one way mass media.’ The Internet is this and much more besides.

But as we become increasingly dependent on this miracle of human ingenuity, we are also having to cope with the internet’s darker side – bad information, propaganda, cybercrime and pornography. Here are two less flattering descriptions: ‘an electronic asylum filled with babbling loonies’ (Mike Royko) and ‘the biggest lavatory wall in history’ (AC Grayling).

We might live in an ‘Information Age’, but how much is it being tainted and diminished by disinformation? We are accustomed to tyrants, dictators and jihadists putting out their warped propaganda and fabrications. But there are a host of other more subtle sources of bad information that we are exposed to 24-7 and this raises questions about the impact this may be having on personal wellbeing, social cohesion and international relations.

1 Amplifier of speech… or lavatory wall?

Online social networking services like Facebook, video sharing websites like YouTube, and open source blogging sites like WordPress enable anybody with a computer and a modicum of nous to disseminate information instantaneously to a global audience. And if people pass the information on, and it is sufficiently interesting or scurrilous, it may go viral and reach millions. But most of the information posted online has not been edited or peer reviewed and therein lies a problem because it can be partial or inaccurate, or just plain wrong. Whether this is by design (i.e. disinformation) or not (misinformation) is beside the point; in any case the distinction is often blurred by spin.

In 2010, Dow Jones carried out a survey of ‘Bad Info’ on the free web. This identified ‘opinion disguised as fact’ and ‘biased sources’ as the most frequently cited types of bad information. People use weasel words (‘many experts agree…’), selective omission, imply without saying, bury inconvenient facts, include misleading statistics or images, and so on… More than a third of respondents indicated that they encountered bad information ‘often’ or ‘constantly’. The most affected sectors were businesspeople, students, and inexperienced researchers.

There are websites that specialise in racist, xenophobic or indecent material, but bad information is also found on websites like Wikipedia, which were set up for the best of reasons and in the public good. Friends and rivals are constantly trying to manipulate content – be it the biography of controversial leaders or celebrities, information about a commercial product (pro or anti), anything about Israel, etc. The intention may be to manage reputation, promote some interest or other, affect page rank/link traffic, or simply to cause harm. It is difficult for any of us to know the extent of ‘Wikihacking’.

Another concern is how far search engines give a balanced view of what’s available on line. Who sets the algorithms? Things may change for the better as the programming gets even more sophisticated – or they may get worse, if commercial interests have their way. Google has already announced that websites that are not mobile-friendly will be pushed down the rankings, and there is talk of it launching an initiative to reduce bad information with a program which ranks websites according to veracity using a ‘knowledge-based trust’ scoring system that checks website data against verified facts in a ‘knowledge vault’. This should penalise web pages containing suspect or contradictory information.

The internet is censored to protect intellectual property and discourage defamation, harassment and obscene material, but this is but a drop in the ocean when it comes to removing bad information. So whilst the internet provides unrivalled access to information, those who surf its often murky waters have to be extremely careful. Things may not be all they seem.

2 Other sources of bad information

But bedroom bloggers, pranksters, and mischief-makers are not the only source of bad information. We also have the outpourings of religious zealots, New Age thinkers, unprincipled corporations, government spin doctors, and conspiracy theorists. This has always been the case but the issue is made more problematic and challenging by the Internet and the relative ease with which such material can now be accessed and used.

Mainstream religions and cults are major sources of ‘myth-information’ and promulgate misinformation by definition – they can’t all be right, although they can all be wrong, as atheists like to point out. How many religions put out disinformation is an interesting question: some tele-evangelists clearly do; and lying to non-believers (taqiyya) is permissible in Islam.
Proponents of woo, including New Age thinking, alternative therapies, and all manner of snake oil also propagate bad information and make claims that are unscientific, unproven, or unprovable. Whether astrology, biorhythms, esoteric healing, extrasensory perception, homeopathy, reflexology etc. work is debatable, but some may on occasion through the power of suggestion (the placebo or nocebo effect).
Big businesses do too. Big corporations are regularly accused of spreading disinformation. The criticism is most intense with high profile industries that promote controversial technologies – GMOs, nuclear power, waste incineration, fracking and the like. But naysayers are also prone to use propaganda and selectively interpret facts, and this just adds to the confusion.
The media is also culpable. Tabloid newspapers and news corporations are regularly accused of distorting or sensationalising issues – the former by making up stories; the latter when, for fear of being scooped, they broadcast without adequate scrutiny. (Cf. The new phenomenon of fact- and rumour-checking websites, and the extension of the idea to the media are good developments.)
Governments and state agencies regularly disseminate questionable material, often with a good dose of ‘spin’, and they are not averse to using negative advertising to attack opponents’ record, policies or personalities. This muddies the water. Some governments go further and suppress historical facts, even making it illegal to challenge the official line. Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is but one of many examples.
Conspiracy theories can be set in train by any of the above; they flourish on the internet and in some parts of the media. Sadly, they are widely believed in many parts of the world so have political currency. This is especially so where governments are economical with the truth and suppress bad or inconvenient news.

3 Costs and consequences

So what impact does exposure to bad information have on public attitudes, behaviour and wellbeing? And do we ourselves actively make the situation worse by ‘confirmation bias’, our tendency to search for, interpret or recall information in a way that confirms our beliefs or prejudices? We surround ourselves with people who share our views and reject ideas or concepts that don’t fit comfortably into our view of the world. Here are six consequences that should concern us all:

Misinformed citizens can influence elections and hence the political colour and policies of those in office. Being misinformed is in many ways worse than being uninformed, especially when misguided individuals state their beliefs and opinions with such confidence. They can become intolerant, even violent, and this – and the publicity it generates – can represent a serious threat to social cohesion.
Misapplied resources: Secularists consider support for ‘faith’ schools and other religious enterprises a gross misuse of taxpayers’ money, and they condemn the state funding of pseudoscientific ‘alternative’ ‘medicines’ through the NHS. But in my mind, perhaps the most extreme example of bad information having resource costs was the infamous ‘dodgy dossier’, which was used in 2003 to justify the invasion of Iraq. The Iraq War cost tens of thousands of lives and billions of pounds – and cost Britain influence across the Middle East and beyond.
Risk to health and life: Alternative therapies are potentially dangerous as they are magnets for charlatans and conmen, and this poses risks to public health – as do pious believers who reject medical advice and rely on prayer to treat life-threatening conditions like cancer, or who refuse blood transfusion or vaccination.

‘Like a disease, pseudoscience runs through broad gutters of sophisticated misinformation, contaminating the groundwater of common knowledge and leeching into the minds of the media-fed masses. Undetected and uncorrected, furtively avoiding verifiable fact, bad information propagates disastrous errors and mistakes.’ Kelton Rhoades

Damaged minds: Young children cannot tell fact from fiction and are easily indoctrinated into faith. In later life their minds will be closed to science – what Stephen Law calls ‘intellectual black holes’ – and any idea or thought that threatens to undermine their cherished faith and practices. It is tragic but hardly surprising that idealistic youngsters become vulnerable to firebrand preachers or to grooming over social media, and that some are enticed into jihad, even martyrdom.
Intolerance and division: Strict madrasas and ‘faith’ schools create an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality that does little to promote community understanding and social cohesion; some ban music and other cultural pursuits, and or teach corrupt forms of science in which evolution, if it is taught at all, is dismissed as ‘just a theory’, with ‘intelligent design’ promoted as true. Groups that rigidly follow the scriptures, like the Scientologists, Plymouth Brethren, Jehovah Witnesses, creationists, and Salafists, tend to be intolerant of the views of others and characteristically ostracise apostates, including close family members. Victims can be mentally scarred, and some fall victim to ‘honour’ killings – all as a result of social conditioning and bad information.
Weakened social cohesion: False rumours and conspiracy theories are spawned by ignorance, misunderstanding, or malice. They are invariably toxic and can lead to offensive, uncompromising attitudes, and aggressive behaviour towards people of other races, faiths, or customs, especially where repeated by multiple, seemingly independent agents. The speed of spread can be impressive (‘digital wildfire’) and the damage they can do to public attitudes, community cohesion and international relations is not easy to repair. And there may be more subtle effects: studies suggest that people who are exposed to anti-government conspiracy theories are less likely to vote than those who have read information refuting the conspiracy; similarly with climate change conspiracies (less intention to take action to reduce their carbon footprint), and anti-vaccine conspiracies (reduced intentions to get vaccinated). In each case, conspiracy theories decrease social engagement because they leave people feeling powerless.
Self-censorship: Bad information is difficult to counter: once released it can be referenced over and over, even after the original posting has been refuted or withdrawn. Mud sticks. Indeed, confirmation bias can maintain or even strengthen people’s beliefs in the face of criticism or contrary evidence. Moreover, it has become difficult to speak one’s mind or voice genuine criticism of anything related to religion, particularly concerning Islam. Many freethinkers feel restrained and increasingly self-censor for fear of being accused of being prejudiced, intolerant, racist, anti-Semitic, or Islamophobic.

‘The problem with free speech is that it’s hard, and self-censorship is the path of least resistance. But, once you learn to keep yourself from voicing unwelcome thoughts, you forget how to think them – how to think freely at all – and ideas perish at conception.’ George Packer

Apathy: The omnipresence of bad or suspect information on the internet and in the outpourings of hard-line believers, special-interest lobbies, news corporations and government spin doctors raises serious concerns about anyone’s ability to make informed decisions in today’s Information Age: it may well be a major contributory factor to so much present day apathy.

4 What can be done about bad information?

Bad information can and should be challenged – or ridiculed and derided. Period. But there is a lot of it around and one needs to choose one’s battles carefully. One also needs to employ considerable emotional intelligence, especially when people’s cherished cultural practices or beliefs are in the cross-hairs. We live today in a global village, and we should be looking to make friends rather than alienate and antagonise people: as Benjamin Corey argues: ‘we must learn to recognize that all social groups – regardless of religious belief or lack thereof – bring something to the table that is worthy. Coming together to pursue peace, justice, equality, and all the other values we hold in-kind, we find that if we failed to partner together we would be dismissing friends and allies on a wide array of issues.’

Many of the following points should be self-evident, but there’s no harm in reciting them here.

Don’t add to the problem

Be vigilant – make sure that ‘a little red light’ comes on in our head whenever you get near to an ‘intellectual black hole’ so that you don’t get sucked in / fall victim.
Keep an open mind – be aware of your own bias and the tendency to interpret ambiguous evidence as supportive of your own position or prejudices.
Be careful – use reputable sources and cross-check information before passing it on; make sure you are not yourself contributing to the problem of bad information. Fact- and rumour-checking websites may be helpful.
Be constructive – there’s enough negative comment around.

Challenge harmful attitudes and practices

Challenge suspect facts and dangerous opinions, especially where those involved have political aspirations and seek to curtail or prevent freedom of thought and expression.
Be persistent – refuting errors, pointing out bias needs to be done with vigour, and repeated often if it is to stand any chance of having an effect. But above all:
Be respectful and aware of cultural and religious sensitivities – questioning people’s faith or beliefs causes distress and offence, and only serves to increase division. What is the point in arguing with people who have ‘passed the event horizon’? Moreover, challenging vulnerable individuals who draw comfort from their faith – or from complementary medicine or some other lifestyle choice – could have serious consequences if it leaves a gaping vacuum in their lives. Be very careful!

Look for allies

Get more involved – support local humanist groups; talk to schools; attend local SACREs; challenge local sources of bad information, including elected representatives who support ‘faith’ schools, public services run by evangelical groups, or alternative therapies on the state; and subscribe to national organisations that promote human rights and freedom of thought and expression.
Collaborate – we need to be looking for allies and areas of common ground not making enemies and promoting The Accord Coalition sets a good example: it includes religious groups, humanists, teachers, trade unionists, educationalists and civil rights activists, working together for inclusive education, upholding civil rights, and promoting mutual understanding.

Steve Neumann sums it up nicely: ‘forget about disabusing believers of their core convictions with the ‘universal acid’ of rationality – the best way to fight for social justice and pluralism is to ally ourselves with those who share the same values, regardless of their metaphysical beliefs.’ Yes.

Critical thinking

Last but not least, we have to be more assiduous in promoting critical thinking at all levels of the education system, from pre-school to the university of the Third Age: with so much information now available on the internet, teaching ‘facts’ is much less important than it once was. The essential need today is to develop a good ‘nose’ to smell out bad information, and to acquire the skills and confidence to distinguish facts from opinion, and reliable sources from those that are questionable. These should be priority areas in all educational establishments.

Education is the only real weapon that we have in the fight against bad information – and it goes without saying, giving people the ability to think for themselves changes lives and makes the world a more interesting and more wondrous place to be.

Mike Flood is Chair of Milton Keynes Humanists. He works for Powerful Information, a charity involved with grassroots international development. This is a shortened version of Mike’s article. The full article with quotes and references can be found on the Milton Keynes Humanists website.

The state of cyberbullying in 2015

May 27, 2015 by Guest author

At HumanistLife, our guest authors explore contemporary issues from a humanist perspective. In this piece, writer Daniel Faris asks: what can be done about the epidemic of cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is impacting more and more young people. Photo: Fixers via Flickr

Earlier this year, Monica Lewinsky – yes; that Monica Lewinsky – gave a TED talk in Vancouver in which she explored cyberbullying – that is, bullying that takes place on the Internet.

When the news of her affair with US President Bill Clinton broke in 1998 – right when the Internet was growing into what it has become today – Lewinsky became the first person, she says, to become a victim of cyberbullying. She went to bed one night completely unknown, and then there she was the next day, the subject of headlines and tabloid fodder all around the globe for the next few months.

As time passed, Lewinsky faded from the national spotlight. But she still had a life to live and now, at 41, she’s reclaiming her narrative by speaking about how cyberbullying is a serious problem in the developed world. During her TED talk, Lewinsky said she decided to get involved in the movement to end cyberbullying after hearing about the death of Tyler Climenti, a student at Rutgers University, who killed himself after being cyberbullied about his homosexuality.

‘Public humiliation as bloodsport has got to stop,’ Lewinsky said. ‘Just imagine walking a mile in someone else’s headline.’

Why cyberbullies do it

If we agree with Lewinsky, cyberbullying has been around for about 17 years. Bullying, however, has almost certainly been around as long as human beings. Still, there’s a difference between cyberbullying and the more ‘traditional’ methods.

When a kid says something mean to another kid’s face, the bully gets to see the victim’s reaction with his or her own eyes. Assuming the child isn’t sociopathic, he or she is bound to feel at least a morsel of regret about hurting someone’s feelings.

Now migrate that bullying over to the digital world, and aggressors no longer have to deal with witnessing the negative consequences of their behaviors. With nothing discouraging them from cyberbullying, many bullies’ digital tactics can be even more ferocious.

How prevalent is cyberbullying?

Some groups purport that more than 40 percent of teenagers in the United States have been victims of cyberbullying. But slice that cross-section even further and you’ll find a particularly grotesque statistic: Eight out of every 10 students in the LGBT community are victims of cyberbullying.

On the other hand, those who employ more traditional research methods have concluded that roughly 25 percent of US students have been the victim of cyberbullying, with 16 percent of them admitting that they have been the aggressors.

It doesn’t matter which numbers you choose to agree with; they’re both higher than we’d like them to be. And make no mistake: this issue is hardly exclusive to the United States; a poll of 10,000 youths, conducted by nobullying.com, indicated that 7 in 10 young people worldwide have experienced cyberbullying. They went on to discover that Facebook is home to more online bullying than any other social network; 54% of poll respondents indicated that they had experienced cyberbullying on the site.

Managing the problem

While it’s certainly awful to hear any story that involves a young kid taking his or her own life because of bullying, rather than going on the offensive and trying to eliminate what is a very innate characteristic in children, it’s important for parents to educate their kids and remind them that they’re loved and that words are just words. Yes, people say mean things online. But isn’t that just the nature of the world?

Instead of trying to prevent our children from experiencing life – the ups and the downs, the sadness and the happiness – there’s an emerging tendency to go overboard when it comes to ensuring their safety and well-being. While these parents are certainly well-intentioned, it’s more important to be able to deal with criticisms, failure, and meanness than to act as though such things simply do not exist in the world.

Since we will never completely stop bullying, no matter how hard we try, it doesn’t really make much sense to brand cyberbullying as an ‘epidemic’ simply because the Internet wasn’t ubiquitous 20 years ago. It’s a problem, yes; but the solutions aren’t as simple as we’d like to pretend.

Lessons learned

While many in the media might want everyone to believe that today’s kids can’t walk five feet without getting cyberbullied, kidnapped, or assaulted, the truth of the matter is that kids have learned to deal with the adverse realities of life for millennia. It’s unfortunate that some kids have to be made fun of and picked on, but so long as kids are kids, there are going to be some bad apples in the bunch who are going to push their luck.

But here’s an underreported factoid: young people are increasingly coming to their parents when they’re cyberbullied. Word has gotten out, and people are talking. Bullies have fewer and fewer opportunities to hide behind their devices as they poke fun at their peers, and some who are caught are even facing serious legal troubles.

Cyberbullying is a problem, but so is virtually everything else. Kids watch too much TV. They don’t eat the right foods. They stay up too late. They are too busy. They don’t have enough to do. They have too much homework. The curriculum is not challenging enough. And so it goes.

The remedies for cyberbullying reveal that this is a human issue – not a partisan, religious, or sectarian one. Religion, for example, while purporting to teach us to ‘treat others as we would be treated,’ continues to fail us in real-world issue pertaining to social justice. Humanism, in existing solely in the material world, and concerning itself with objective values, can better speak to the ‘value and agency‘ of human beings – that is, the founding tenets of the humanist movement. In other words: a Christian may tell us that cyberbullying is wrong because God would frown on it. A humanist, meanwhile, will maintain that cyberbullying is wrong because it’s wrong. Objective truths.

Only one of these worldviews is capable of instilling the value of personal responsibility. The other defers to the supernatural as a deterrent.

But here’s another truth: As long as kids are allowed to communicate amongst themselves, they are going to pick on each other. To make sure their children don’t become victims of cyberbullying, parents need to maintain an ongoing and open dialogue with their kids, consistently reminding them to not take things said on the Internet too seriously. Parents should also let them know the kinds of trouble they’ll find themselves in should they decide to harass one of their peers. The more active parents are in their kids’ lives, the less likely we are to hear stories about cyberbullying. It’s as simple as that.