Humanism and Social Capital

For all the evils and atrocities caused by organized religion, it did provide one benefit to its adherents that is largely missing in secular societies. Organized religion has historically been the main source of social capital for communities, which it has in many ways monopolized.

Social capital can be best described as the relationships between members of a community that create social cohesion and a sense of belonging. While organized religion has been the source of social capital, Humanism can not only replace organized religion centered around a god or gods but create even greater social capital than organized religion ever could.

To organize a group of humans into a successful community, the people within the community need to be working towards shared objectives without a definite goal. For example, the people of a religion may be working towards glorifying a deity. They may fight wars, persecute nonbelievers and build monuments in the name of glorifying this deity. While this creates violence and harms humanity as a whole, the members of this religion are filled with a sense of purpose.

Humanism, the belief in the betterment and improved conditions of the entire human race, can create this sense of shared responsibility without the need of a deity. Just like glorying a god, the improvement of humanity also does not have a definite end goal. People who practice Humanism are making progress every time they perform a good deed, protect someone else’s rights or speak out against an unfair system. These actions are to Humanism what the wars and building of monuments were to historically religious communities.

Social Bonding vs. Social Bridging

In his book “Better Together,” Robert Putnam describes the differences between social bonding and social bridging. Social bonding refers to deep interpersonal bonding usually based on a shared characteristic. Social bonding focuses on smaller homogeneous groups and, while it is necessary to have some social bonding in a community, a society built strictly on social bonding will be weaker and likely to split into smaller groups. Therefore, a large community such as a state or global community cannot be built on social bonding alone and needs social bridging organizations.

Social bridging refers to an organization or belief that unites members of many different backgrounds such as various nationalities. Religion once played a major role in social bridging between smaller groups. For example, the Crusades required a large group of people from the many small kingdoms of medieval Europe to be willing to travel a long distance and fight a war in a foreign country. The social bridging organization at this time was the medieval Christian church.

While the Crusades is a negative example of the outcome of a social bridging organization, it does demonstrate the power behind a strong social bridging organization. If an organization or philosophy could create as strong social bridging relationships as the medieval Christian church and the shared responsibility was not glorifying some imaginary god but the betterment of humanity, the benefits such an organization could have on the global community would be incalculable.

Furthermore, while social bridging organizations like religion can be used to commit violence and oppression against people who do not belong to the group, a lack of social bridging infrastructure can lead people to equally dark places.

Many online extremist groups can be directly linked to the current lack of social bridging infrastructure. These online groups are usually young men who are lonely and blame someone for their loneliness — which creates anger. This anger then leads them to seek community with people who are angry for the same reasons. This anger is a source of social bonding that replaces the loss of social bridging.

Extremist views thrive in communities built on social bonding versus social bridging. Since social bridging draws members from larger and more diverse backgrounds than social bonding, members in groups built on social bridging form bonds with people of different backgrounds. The shared objectives of the group lead them to work together and form a broader range of opinions compared to the isolated groups built on social bonding. Humanism can be the source of positive social bridging.

Humanism as the Ultimate Social Bridging

To prevent communities built strictly on the social bonding of exclusive and sometimes radical beliefs and to prevent the oppression of organized religion, a new system of shared objectives must take the place of organized religion. Humanism can fulfill the need to have a social bridging organization and reduce communities built solely on social bonding and extremist beliefs.

To accomplish this, Humanist communities must continue to be built and expanded at the local level and the groups should meet regularly. When so many people are as isolated as they are now, face-to-face communication is the most valuable aspect of social relationships.

The focal point of these groups should be how to improve humanity in the same way an organized religion focuses on how to glorify an imaginary god. This should be applied not only to large efforts like the global community but also applied at the individual level between group members.

Dialogue between members should also be a central point of these groups. Humans have the inherent need to express themselves to other members of a community or group. Therefore, members speaking to each other in person is imperative to build these Humanistic community groups.

While actions such as creating awareness of a particular social problem or speaking out against an injustice are necessary objectives of Humanism, the unencumbered dialogue of face-to-face local Humanist groups will be the most important benefit of these groups.

To give people a platform to express themselves and their needs while also recognizing the similarities of those needs with others will bridge and amend many of the social problems caused by the lack of social capital once generated by organized religion. This can be done without the dogmatic beliefs of organized religion, using only the broad belief in the significance of human life and the need to improve human conditions.

The fact that this objective can only be incrementally improved upon and never actually achieved is what will create an enduring objective that unites people from every nationality and builds community at both the local and global levels. Therefore Humanism, not dogmatic beliefs, can replace organized religion’s monopoly on social capital.