Hope
A YOUNG WOMAN in a self-management and recovery training (SMART) meeting I coordinate asked me how anything could go right for her when she had so many debts, destroyed relationships, little hope for employment, little... Read More
Who Comes First, People or the Planet?
HUMANISM HAS BEEN labeled by some as anthropocentric and given to speciesism, the belief that human beings are set apart and should be valued above the rest of the biosphere. If all we’re interested in... Read More
Believe Racial Justice is Possible
JUST ABOUT EVERYONE working on antiracism today is frustrated. The country as a whole—black, white, liberal, and conservative—has descended a staircase of despair, apathetic or exhausted from trying to motivate positive change. Professional antiracism has... Read More
When Humanism Is Attacked, Have Courage
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” —Voltaire FEAR, THE MOST powerful emotion, is an acid that dissolves trust, eats at human relations, and compromises even... Read More
Think Denmark
“The good life is one guided by reason and motivated by love.” —Bertrand Russell We all know that discourse in the United States today is ugly, as civility has been replaced by bitter reactive battles.... Read More
Not so Fast Cultural Evolution in the Twenty-First Century
Evolution can be brutal. Our ancestors who survived for millions of years on the African veldt endowed us with tools for survival and reproduction. Some of these ancient drives serve us well today in our... Read More
Our Pragmatist Tradition
A college student recently asked me, “How do you humanists know what’s true?” It’s an honest question, not given to simple answers. While individual humanists hold many theories of what’s true, the humanist tradition has... Read More
