The Outdated Question of Our Survival

Well, statistically we are. I’m sure many of you have raised a wagging finger, “But what about the millions of poor–starving and dying of malaria–or the constant wars broadcast 24 hours on cable news?” I’m certainly not ignoring this. I’ve seen starvation with my own eyes in Uganda where a boiled egg was a treat for the students of our school when the school chickens produced enough eggs. I saw it with my own eyes in Guatemala where people dig through the city dump looking for items to recycle and leftovers to eat. I’ve seen it in the US where soup kitchens have lines around the corner.

But there can be no doubt we are making progress on these fronts. Even in the poorest areas of the world, life expectancy has increased dramatically in the last century. Countries with the worst life expectancy now, have higher life expectancy than countries with the highest did decades ago. Since we have solved the problem of producing enough food for everyone, the question we face now is how to distribute that food justly. The fact of the matter is violence has declined. Don’t believe me? Ask Steven Pinker. The situation is improving, but we are, unquestionably, still dealing with violence and hunger and disease.

The problem is that species survival does not require survival of every individual. A certain amount of individual selfishness by the strong regarding resources benefits the species as a whole because it ensures that at least some will survive. This tendency, even if unconscious, makes sense in an age where humanity’s survival was not certain. But we no longer live in that age. Yet we act as if we do. That is why a too many of the resources are being squandered by the powerful, when they could easily be shared.

Species Survival to Individual Happiness

From a species perspective, we’ve come to a point in history when it is no longer necessary to struggle to survive. But at an individual level, so many do struggle. Too many don’t survive.

How do we address this discrepancy? If species survival is no longer our main objective, how do we refocus our survival energy? Shouldn’t that energy now go to the survival and happiness of all members of our species–to addressing systematic violence, hunger, and preventable disease. None of these problems are going to be solved if we remain in individual survival mode. We can and should reorientate ourselves from survival of the species to survival and happiness of the individual.

Human Rights: A Cornerstone of Humanism

This is fundamental to humanism. When people ask me what humanism is, and I get asked a lot, I tell them that fundamentally humanism is about happiness. Humanism tells us that we, every one of us, has the right to be happy and to pursue what makes us happy, assuming of course, that that pursuit does not impede the happiness of others. Beyond our own happiness, it is our responsibility to aid others in pursuing their happiness.

Currently, there is catch. The catch is, it’s hard to pursue happiness when you are too busy pursuing clean water, nutritious food, and adequate shelter. Securing basic survival needs is fundamental to fostering happiness. So our first step as humanists is to secure basic human rights for every member of our species. Then we have the foundation for happiness for every member.

This a call to reorient ourselves–from pursuing survival to pursing happiness, for every single human on this planet. This is by no means a call to requiring people take up the label “humanist”. I am not proselytizing. The idea to reorient to survival of all comes to me from my humanist foundations, but it is not exclusively humanist. Nor should it be. But I do want people to switch off survival of the species mode.

Survival is outdated. We have survived. It is time to thrive.

The more people who reorient to survival of all the easier it will become. The obstacles that hinder global clean water initiatives and systems to get food to the people that need it will become less steep.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not think this is an easy utopia. It will be difficult. It might be impossible. But there no chance unless a few of the brave embrace the switch in the beginning. Then others will not be so afraid in the future.

This piece was originally published with Applied Sentience. You can read it here.

A Humanist School in a Fundamentalist Country

“Praise Jesus Shop”

Before I relate the position I took, I should explain the nature of the situation in Uganda. I was volunteering with KHPS as part of Pathfinders Project, an international humanist service year. KHPS is a humanist school in a coercively religious nation. On national exams students must answer questions like “Who created you?”. The US Christian right has been instrumental in the passing of the so-called “Kill the Gays” bill. Businesses have names like “God’s Mercy Dairy.” And Joseph Kony’s LRA, of Kony 2012, fame stands for “The Lord’s Resistance Army” which, at least officially, fights to make Uganda a theocracy. In this climate, KHPS must balance teaching humanist ideals which challenge this foundation and not alienating the community that relies on them.

How does humanism manifest at KHPS? For one thing, they hold weekly humanism seminars. I can’t comment on what goes on normally during these seminars, but the Pathfinders lead several while we were there and we had sessions about cooperation, empathy, the platinum rule, critical thinking, and the scientific method. More generally, the school emphasizes science classes. There are signs all over campus with sayings like “educate your children through science for a better future,” “do not believe in superstition”, and “science is the best way to live.” Their motto is “With Science We Can Progress.”

“God Provides Boutique” and “God’s Mercy Dairy”

Many of the students, but certainly not all or even a majority, call themselves humanists. I don’t know what their regular religion classes previously focused on, but while I taught them we emphasized studying comparative religions. The students had never heard of any traditions other than Christianity and Islam. While I made it clear thatthe purpose of studying different religions was to understand and empathize with others, a humanist tenet, the students made comments questioning the scientific validity of polytheism, meditation, or prophecy.

Cultural Perceptions of “Science”

It was clear that humanism, and its associate science, had been presented as an alternative to Christianity and Islam. Which of course it often is, though not necessarily. At another humanist school we volunteered at in Uganda (there are three), the teachers who called themselves humanists also identified as Muslim or Christian. Their humanism was not instead of religion, but in addition to it.

In the KHPS climate,

“With Science Everything is Possible”

I fully expected the identified humanist, and most vocal, teachers to be strong advocates for science in the debate. But before I unveil some of their positions I should mention one other thing. While these were formal debates, the students were not encouraged to argue a side for the sake of argument. Students and teachers alike argued from their conscience only. For my part, I decided to play devil’s advocate and argue for why science and technology has done harm in Uganda. Being the second person to make a case following another Pathfinder, I did not know that I was actually adding to the chorus of agreement with the proposition.

What I had not yet realized was how science was tied to colonialism in the Ugandan’s minds. Science and technology was brought by colonial powers. I need to make clear that I am using the word “science” because they did, but really they were talking more about technology than the scientific method or a particular theory.

“Do Not Believe in Superstition”

And a narrow definition of technology that includes modern machines and western medicine but excludes traditional tools.

The fruits of scientific labor in Uganda largely remain the domain of outsiders. Many of the technologies that have come to Uganda function to better strip the land of its natural resources to be exported to the West. Not only is this striping the land of its beauty, but Ugandans are seeing little profit from it. Can it really be surprising that these so-called advances are viewed unfavorably by the Ugandans?

Humanism and Colonialism

In and of itself, this rejection of modern technology is not surprising, expected even. But coupled with the school’s intensive promotion of science as a tenet of humanism the rejection not only surprised me, it seemed hypocritical. Following the debate I began to think about humanism not just in relation to Christianity and Islam, but in relation to colonial Christianity and Islam. Then it started to make sense.

In my experience encountering humanism, mostly in the US, it is framed as a moral structure for nonbelievers. Good without god.

“Your Brain is Your Blessing”

This is not an automatic dichotomy, but it is often presented as such. When I arrived in Uganda I brought this assumption that humanism would also be set up as opposition to theistic religions. From talking to the teachers at the humanist school my assumptions were confirmed, mostly.

There were a few things that confused me as our time marched forward at KHPS. One of the teachers was evangelically humanist and very vocally anti-religion. Yet at lunch he prayed and told us he was talking to “the one who knows.” He told me a story about the mountain god – the god of his tribe (the word he himself used). When the god was angry his tribe suffered from droughts. When the god was happy it rained. How was this behavior coming from a man who is an avowed humanist scientist? How are these beliefs coming from a man who is constantly asking his students, “Where does God live? Have you ever seen him?”

Following the debate I realized I’d forgotten the colonial history of the area. I cannot be sure how this teacher would describe his beliefs about his tribe’s mountain god, but I don’t think he’d call it religion. Just as he embraces science at the same time that he rejects western medicine (during the debate he explained how western medicine takes your money and only kills you while herbal medicines are natural and work), this teacher also embraces his mountain god at the same time that he rejects religion.

“A Humanist is a Happy Person”

He embraces science when it rejects colonial religion and rejects science when it rejects African independence or indigenous power. It’s not about science at all. Nor about religion. It’s about colonialism and reestablishing autonomy.

For these teachers, science is part of the problem as it continues to perpetuate the legacy of colonialism. But at the same time they are able to embrace science as a way of rejecting colonial-imposed religion.

There is no reason to argue that their rationale for embracing humanism is any less valid than anyone else’s. KHPS very existence is a rebellion against forced religious belonging. They are teaching their students to meet the world with a critical eye. Their humanism might not encompass the same beliefs about science and technology as mine does, but their humanism manifests with the same desire to instill critical thinking and generate justice. I can only hope our influence led them to more emphasize compassion and empathy for others in their humanism studies.

This piece was originally published with Applied Sentience. You can read this week’s post here. Do check it out for more photos.

Last month in Haiti I joined a rural community coming together to build twenty latrines for twenty individual families.  All members of the community contributed to the completion of each and every latrine.

Not one latrine would have been completed without the involvement of all of us in community.  Community is essential to surviving in such remote, underdeveloped circumstances—but it didn’t feel like mere survival.  It felt like real unity.

In December I witnessed a community in northern Ghana that welcomes strangers banished from their home communities because of witchcraft accusations.  This community invites alleged witches to become part of the community even though giving refuge will be a burden.  The struggle of these individual outsiders becomes the struggle of the community as a whole.  And the solutions for the refugees become solutions for the community.

Before that I worked at a school in Uganda struggling for recognition and legitimate placement in the larger community.  Kasese Humanist Primary School is one of three humanists schools in a nation that requires students to answer questions like, “Who is your Lord and savior?” in order to graduate from school.  Yet, at our going away party, a member of the board of education told us and the gathered crowd of faculty, students, and parents that he welcomed the school and its contribution to the welfare of the community.  The chief of the village similarly thanked us for coming and supporting a school that has done so much for the children of his community.

Communities such as these are novel in my life. I have never experienced such community in the States.  That’s not to say they don’t exist in the States.  I know they exist, just not in my experience.

To me, community means something more than a group of people with common interests or goals.  Community is more even than a support system.  A healthy community supports and uplifts every member.  A sick community leaves individual members to fend for themselves.  Yes, some of the fittest individuals will survive, but no individual can thrive as an island.

Living in an authentic, healthy community means every member is equal in the community.  It means meeting each person and saying, “It’s not just your problem.  It’s our problem—my problem.  We will work on it together.”  It means asking of every person, “What do you need to be happy?”  That’s what authentic faith communities do.  In my opinion, faith communities have traditionally been the primary communities serving in this function.

So, in that sense, it is unfortunate that institutionalized religions are losing numbers. Raised in a nonreligious household—one of the growing numbers of families dropping out of institutionalized religious communities—I’m sure has contributed to why I lacked the sense of an authentic community as a child.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe my experience is an anomaly.  I would like to think so.  But I don’t think so.  I think we in the States are largely losing authentic community.  And the communities we do have are often created from the inside out by a process of exclusion.  The lines of who is in are defined by who is out.  In terms of community, how authentic is that?

What we need today are not fundamentally exclusive communities, but authentic communities that participate in forging authentic community with others.  Christians with Hindus.  Jews with Muslims.  Religious with atheist. Inclusive not exclusive. I’m not suggesting that we erase the lines that makes individual communities unique.  I’m not arguing for one homogeneous community.  That is impractical and disrespectful to individual dignity.  I’m not even recommending that communities stop their private activities.  I’m suggesting that disparate communities meet each other as they meet themselves—as equals struggling in the same fight for happiness.

My point is not that we need to boost institutionalized religious numbers.  That is not my place nor prerogative.  Healthy faith communities create and grow authentic community.  But they are not the only healthy communities—and there are certainly faith communities that are anything but healthy.  Regardless of faith, healthy, authentic communities heal a violent world—especially communities that unite disparate people.  The extinction of healthy communities would entail the extinction of humanity.  Humanity might survive and thrive by expanding the scope of authentic community—from supporting and uplifting just us to supporting and uplifting all of us.

This post was originally posted on State of Formation.