October 18, 1994
You’ve seen, perhaps, recent articles announcing the failure of science to win the hearts and minds of the American public. This is easy for me to understand. My background is advertising. I know you don’t win hearts and minds with the logic of science. As a former Catholic and seminarian, I know that people base their belief in God on emotions. The emotions of hope and fear.
So when it's said that something is missing from secular humanism, it’s not so much a matter of too much science and too little art. If we’re going to offer the world an alternative to religion, it will have to be something as emotionally satisfying as religion. It will have to address the same hopes and fears religion addresses. It will have to offer emotional conviction.
People need to believe, and we will never satisfy anyone’s emotional need to believe with the logic of science. Science cannot answer the fundamental questions religion pretends to answer. One, science deals in fact. And two, the questions are irrational. There is no scientific answer to the meaning of life.
Every Sunday millions of Catholics bend their knees and mumble rote platitudes to a non-existent god. They adore a wafer of bread, surrounded by plaster icons of virgins and masochistic martyrs. Possibly worst of all, they drop their dollars into the collection basket. And that’s just the Catholics. What do believers want that science can’t give them? Answers?
They want more than answers. They want the answer. Science doesn’t even pretend to have the answer. And because so many humans want the answer, we humanists shouldn’t be satisfied with science.
Bertrand Russell is supposed to have said that, "it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it true." Bertrand Russell was wrong. It is desirable to believe the insupportable. That’s precisely why so many people do. It feels good. They desire the result.
We humanists are an intellectual, financial, and somewhat mature elite. Religion, on the other hand, is popularly appealing because it is irrational. More often than not, religion invokes art, music, pageantry. And it’s always a purveyor of mystery.
How can modern, otherwise sophisticated Catholics believe that a cup of wine is actually the blood of a first-century Jew? And then drink it? Because instead of trying to explain the mystery, the nuns who taught those Catholics in their most formative years, used charming stories, singable hymns, and melodramatic art. They called it a mystery and left it at that.
A recent best-seller is The Celestine Prophecy. A novel about a man who uncovers nine insights to the meaning of life. This book’s success tells us that people are searching. But why? Doesn’t science have the all the facts we’re ever going to have? Well, even if it did, people would still find it very difficult to tell the difference between the facts and what they want to hear. Crank science outsells honest science. Because people are curious, not disciplined.
Peter Smith, president of the Humanist Association of Canada, is quoted in the Toronto Star reflecting, "Our fault was in thinking that Christianity would fade after its errors and omissions were shown."
Of course, none of this would matter if Christians and Muslims weren’t so serious about establishing state religions and school curricula. And that wouldn’t be so bad if humans weren’t so inclined to be led. So susceptible to religious nonsense. So eager to be blinded by faith.
But they are and we ought to do something about it. Because at least in this country, we have to govern ourselves with the religious majority. And if they’re going to base their decisions on Revelation, we’re going to have to come to terms with that.
FIG Board Member Jim McGrory in his August FIG Leaves article, "Consciousness and the Citizen," directs us to learn the art of expression and persuasion as a civic duty. Humanists, he says, "must foster the virtues for an ethical society."
In his September article, "Three Ways of Knowing," Jim concludes that,
Modern science is unwilling or unable to treat the goals of human life (values) as subjects of scientific inquiry. It is time to re-assert the standards of Nature for humankind. It is appropriate that humanists be in the vanguard of those exhibiting and promoting the natural virtues.
Okay. But how?
Since we will be asking a lot of people to think in a different way about the fundamental questions of life, I think we need to understand how these people think.
When we look about how we think, we find that so much is a result of accident. Our Western way of thinking is a ramshackle, jury-rigged, chaotic collection of trial-and-error mistakes held together by biological bubble gum and baling wire.
A group of cognitive neuroscientists are studying one illustration of this cerebral chaos called Williams Syndrome—a genetic disorder which produces elf-like people with pixie faces and a remarkable verbal dexterity, rich vocabulary, unusual expressiveness, and musical ability. People with Williams Syndrome, as you might expect, have a propensity for animated story-telling. They also have very low IQs.
Assume that these elf-like individuals lived long before any kind of science as we know it could have identified a syndrome. Imagine someone with Williams Syndrome holding an illiterate Irish hamlet spellbound with wondrous stories. Might such a scene, repeated again and again, inspire belief in magical, other-worldly creatures called elves. Would you care to convince them otherwise?
Might the admiring tribe cultivate the art of storytelling and eventually the art of letters? A national treasure, the result of a mental aberration? Entirely possible, especially when we consider recent research in the Journal of Science which concludes that we consolidate our memories during sleep. This suggests we alter what we experience within the chaos of our dreams. We create prejudices in the night.
In his book, Der Fuehrer, Konrad Heiden suggested how a poor artist, who happened to be a great orator, played the dreams of his people.
(Hitler’s) speeches are daydreams of this mass soul; they are chaotic, full of contradictions, if their words are taken literally, often senseless, as dreams are, and yet charged with deeper meaning. Vulgar vilification, flat jokes alternate with ringing, sometimes exalted, phrases. The speeches begin always with deep pessimism and end in overjoyed redemption, a triumphant happy ending; often they can be refuted by reason, but they follow the far mightier logic of the subconscious, which no refutation can touch.
Against the art of persuasion, science doesn’t stand a chance.
Douglass North, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Economics asks the question, "what makes an economy work?" He observes that, "Economic choices are a function of how people perceive the world." And he questions the assumption that people make rational economic choices. Instead, he says, "People act on the basis of ideologies and religions views."
North claims that economics is too much math, not enough human behavior. What people believe is more important than what they buy, sell, or trade. According to him, "Economics cannot explain why most of the world is poor." And this is from a scientist who, by the way, puts his money where his mouth is. North gives 40% of his salary to his employer, Washington University, because he says, "education is more important that acquisition."
The most recent and wildly popular masculinity movement has thousands of men emulating the image of the "Godly Man." I can’t avoid images of Krystal Nacht and Nuremberg Rallies as a read about this new Christian Men’s Movement growing and filling stadiums with guys doing the wave as they chant, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!"
One of their fuehrers, University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, says, "We are the brotherhood. We’re connected. We’re going to look out for each other." Why aren’t we secular humanists filling stadiums with thinking people doing the wave to, "Eupraxophy! Eupraxophy! Eupraxophy!"
Number One. Thinking people don’t usually do the wave. At least not while they’re thinking. Number Two. Secular Humanism is dense and dull. Why do I call what I hold very dearly as true and intellectually satisfying dull? Secular Humanism satisfies me because I like to think. You’re here because you like to think. Most people do not like to think.
The overwhelming success of so many religions and other mindless movements throughout the ages demonstrates this beyond argument. Science has always struggled, winning ground in increments, against the mighty tides of superstition. Blind faith blinds millions, while science illuminates the minds of the minority. It has always been that way. And I propose to you that it will always be that way.
We can’t make the world more the way we want it without the masses. Their beliefs elect legislators, empower lobbyists, determine local politics, and move the economy. If we want to survive, we cannot depend on science alone. Science has its place as tool. A hammer, perhaps, to shape our body of knowledge. Sometimes a hammer against a chisel to chip away at ignorance.
But emotion, the playground of the arts, is dynamite.
Premise: God is dead.
Premise: Nietzsche is dead.
Therefore: Nietzsche is God.
If you’re tempted to argue with my premises or rhetorical form, you miss the point. As you get involved in picking apart my syllogism, you fade further and further from the real, nagging needs of humans in the real, earn-a-living, pay-your-taxes, give-me-a-break-from-my-troubles world. "I want easy answers, comforting promises, and some simple rules to follow," they say. Give them a big enough lie and they’ll bite.
Of course, as cool, rational scientists—we can’t be hoodwinked by pie-in-the-sky promises, right? I’m afraid we could quickly draw up a list scientific folly as silly as "Nietzsche is God." But let’s just remind ourselves of the most recent—cold fusion.
No, most of us did not fall for the comforting promise of fusion in a jar. But some of our best minds and most esteemed universities went ga-ga.
At our FIG Picnic this summer, I sat a table with a handful of physicists who just happened to converse off into the never-never land of quantum physics. I listened with rapt fascination. Here is science in its full glory, I thought. Science so fine, so pure that it no longer makes any sense whatsoever.
That’s because, at the foundation of it all is chaos. Nothing. Counter-intuitive conundrums. Nonsense. Richard Feynman said, "If you understand quantum physics, you don’t understand quantum physics."
Ultimately, science does not matter. In the end, it’s mystery. Science can point the way to the next forest of formulas. But art makes it matter. Science appeals to the intellect. It feeds on fact. But it takes its food through the senses which are undeniably deceived witnesses. Art sings to the heart. It moves the emotions. And emotion rules the world.
Who knew this better than the man who said, "Reason can treacherously deceive a man, emotion is sure and never leaves him"? Once again, the man was Adolf Hitler. And until he was defeated by an even more powerful wave of emotion, he moved masses. His match could only be and even more eloquent tongue—the writer Winston Churchill.
For years, Churchill threw his awesome weight of persuasion against Hitler in England’s parliament. But the men in charge squandered those strategically crucial years attempting in vain to reason with the Fuehrer. Over and over again, Churchill laid it all out for England and America—Germany’s secret re-armament, its burgeoning Luftwaffe, their unthinkable atrocities. But reason lost.
Meanwhile, Hitler berated, pleaded, lied. And marched. It wasn’t until the immediate proximity of death awakened the emotion of fear that Churchill could effectively paint for his county a vivid enough picture of the horrors ahead—"blood, toil, tears, and sweat." Only then could he rally them to a conviction greater than that inspired by the other orator.
No. People aren't logical. It's almost impossible to persuade them to do anything, much less give up their turf or worse, their superstitions, with something as feeble as logic. Any group or system based primarily on the insights of science will never affect the behavior of great numbers of human beings.
That’s fine for us if we merely intend to donate to the world a body of philosophy or a prescription for ethical behavior. If that’s the case, we should be satisfied with our movement. It’s cool, erudite, responsible, and making a very important contribution to the world. But if we want to persuade. If we want to do something to make the world better. To provide moral leadership, we must turn to our artists. The men and women who speak to our humanity.
Early philosophers said the mark of humanity is risibility—the ability to laugh. Laughing is an irrational, creative act. You can't "get" a joke unless you suspend logic. When you hear a joke, you don’t analyze it. You make a nonsensical leap. You "get" it. And you laugh.
Humor is a celebration of the illogical, delight in the unexpected, even pleasure in the absurd. And it has been shown that humor increases productivity in the workplace. Laughter can improve your health. Why? Because the creative state of mind is the healthiest state of mind. Being loose and free and creative is the most human we can be. So why would it surprise anyone that we would work best when we’re enjoying ourselves?
We enjoy jokes because we, at heart, are not logical at all. These soggy wads of neurons in our craniums aren’t computers. They’re so much more mysterious. We know our brains generate electrical activity. This energy can be detected and converted into electrical signals. But did you know that when properly wired, you can actually control events outside your head?
Scientists at the Wright-Patterson Alternative Control Technology Laboratory call this phenomenon, brain actuated control. They can wire subjects to run a flight simulator with their thoughts. It works. There’s no doubt about that. The question is, how does it work?
Physicist John Schnurer looked into this question. He had his subjects fill out questionnaires after taking part in brain activated control experiments. He says, "Their response makes it clear that the more successfully they control the simulator, the less able they are to explain how they do it."
David Tumey, the man with the most hours on the flight simulator, describes his success, "Once I let go and started to let it happen instead of trying to make it happen, I got better control. It was almost like a psychic experience."
I propose that we secular humanists can do more to make our world a good deal more human by taking a blind leap of faith similar to the "letting go" that flies the Wright-Patterson simulator. How can a group so heavily prejudiced in favor of science develop let go? One of the keys to creativity is the ability to escape context. Getting outside of the problem, throwing off comfortable assumptions, and taking the radical point of view—or any point of view other than the one that seems most logical.
To do this, artists and scientists constantly challenge authority. They rebel against accepted notions, and stay alert for revolutionary ideas from anywhere. The further out in left field, the better. Failure is another great way to get out of context. One way to ensure failure is to quit.
All three work. Examples of rebellious artists are plentiful. We can all think of artists who challenged authority, failed, or threw up their arms in utter defeat. What about scientists?
Challenging Authority John Poco, Lawrence Livermore Labs, invented frozen smoke, the world's lightest material, because his boss said it couldn't be done.
Failure Ann McMahon, aerospace engineer, was laid off from McDonnell Douglas. She invented and became the Science Lady. She travels from school to school instilling kids with a love of science and an appreciation for their own natural curiosity.
Giving Up Scott Anderson quit teaching because he was fed up with bone-headed bureaucracy. He got other teachers together for regular gripe sessions and formed the Dead Teacher's Association. It's now a worldwide organization that helps teachers teach better.
Our own self-imposed, readily accepted attitude that science is pre-eminent is all that keeps us in context. It’s all that holds us back. What would happen if we gave it up?
Jagdish Parikh, head of a printing company in India and an international management expert, says:
All knowledge is already present, and the most we can do is create conditions in which intuition will occur. It's like rain pouring down from the heavens—to have more of it, we need only to remove our umbrellas.
Václav Havel, playwright and president of the Czech Republic looked to the future in a recent address and predicted, "the transformation of science as the basis of the modern conception of the world." Havel says the same cool, objective view of the world that gave us our view of Earth from space has "exhausted its potential."
"Something is missing," Havel the artist says. Whatever it is, "It fails to connect with the most intrinsic nature of reality, and with natural human experience... Man the observer is becoming completely alienated from himself as a human being." According to Havel, science treats only one dimension of reality. No matter how much we know—and we know so much more every day—"something escapes us."
"We live in a world," he says, "where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain." But Havel sees something being born. And we secular humanists should take a good, hard look at this opportunity. Since man as the pinnacle of God’s creation is fading, Havel says, due in part to the hard work of scientists, we must now anchor the idea of human rights someplace else. In a "renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the...cosmos."
This imperative must come, says Havel, from, "a respect for the miracle of being." It "must be rooted in self-transcendence." Because, he concludes, "transcendence (is) the only real alternative to extinction."
What we humanists need is a god. Small g, but a god nonetheless. We need something powerful, magical. Something we don’t understand. Something we don’t understand that is safe to believe in. I think creativity fits the bill.
This is a call for Creative Humanism. Instead of putting so much emphasis on the logical and the rational, which has failed us and will continue to fail us, that which is simply deductive and inductive, we should take advantage the mysterious human power that is intuitive, that can make something out to nothing, that has all the power of a god, resting within us, waiting to be used.
Let Creativity, common to science and art, be the tool we use to make humanism appealing and emotionally satisfying to those people in the world, including you and me, who need an emotionally satisfying god to believe in.
With Creative Humanism, instead of a god based on the fears of people who lived four-thousand years ago, we can take the dreams of today’s artists, musicians, playwrights, and scientists... embrace them, celebrate them, and incorporate them in our own dreams, as part of the Creative Humanist creed.
Why a creed instead of a philosophy? Because a philosophy is logical, rational, and for those reasons unsatisfying to the majority, crying out for community and conviction. Because, proven again and again in human history, we crave and need an emotionally satisfying system of beliefs to embrace, without understanding.
As human beings we will always want to embrace what we don’t understand. It gives us a feeling of a connection with that which seems to be more powerful than ourselves. What does it matter if we don’t understand it? Who cares if it isn’t real?
Our own creativity is more powerful than we are. And I submit, it is the thing that makes us human. Therefore it should be the thing we worship as humanists. When we embrace it, even though we don’t understand it, we embrace "human-ism."
With Creativity we can leap the bounds of logic and fly on the wings of intuition to new worlds of understanding.