IN CELEBRATION OF HUMANISM

“What interests me is being a man.” Albert Camus, The Plague

Modern America pays little attention to humanists' contributions to Western culture and the advancement of world civilization. Throughout history, humanism has explored the potential value and goodness of human beings and sought rational ways of solving human problems.  In today’s society, sports stars and popular music/movie icons get more formal recognition than important humanists do.

Imagine that someone had the foresight to formally organize a humanist hall of fame. For the sake of this discussion, presume that notable humanists like Petrarch, Seneca, Epicurious, Lorenzo Medici, Leonardo Di Vinci, Nietzsche, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Darwin were previously enshrined.

What follows are my three nominees for the class of 2023. Please feel free to come up with your own slate of candidates to celebrate humanism.

Lorenzo Valla

Few have heard of Lorenzo Valla (c. 1406–1457) an important philosopher and humanist of the Renaissance. Trained as a priest and equipped with a sharp mind and pen he made enemies of church leaders. Valla used his knowledge of Latin and the classical world to attack a wide range of established theological theories and practices.  He was the first to compare St. Jerome’s translation of the Bible with the Greek text of the New Testament, thereby laying the foundations of critical biblical study.  Many scholars would follow his path to spread the spirit of the Enlightenment.

This important resume alone, would not have been enough to support Valla’s induction into the Hall of Fame. His crowning achievement was debunking the most notorious forged document of the Middle Ages, the “Donation of Constantine.” Without his efforts, under the threat of heresy and death, the history of Western Europe may have taken a very different turn.

The “Donation of Constantine” was claimed by the Vatican to record the written wishes of Constantine the Great after he adopted Christianity for the Roman Empire. The church alleged that this document bestowed dominion over Western Europe on Pope Sylvester I (314-335) and his papal successors. If this document were genuine, it would provide the church with vast territory and unlimited spiritual and temporal power. The document conveyed the notion that the pope had the right to appoint secular rulers in the West.

Valla pointed out that despite the document’s obvious value to the papacy no mention was made of it until Leo IX (1049–54) cited it as an authority. Moreover, Valla carefully demonstrated that the Latin wording used in the document was not that of the fourth century. Historians consider his refutation of the instrument the most important exposure of a literary fraud in history.

Denis Diderot

The second candidate is an appropriate choice as we enter the new

information age of artificial intelligence. Diderot (1713-1784) was a French humanist who spent decades bringing an earlier accumulation of knowledge into the world, the first comprehensive Encyclopedia. He believed that the false truths of his day, perpetuated by authoritarians and religion, had to be challenged and corrected for society to advance. Diderot’s project advocated for secularizing learning and expanding knowledge beyond the Jesuits who performed this task for a thousand years.

At the heart of his Encyclopedia are tens of thousands of articles on emerging fields of inquiry such as anatomy, architecture, astronomy, clock making, medicine, music, painting, physics, and surgery.  The twenty-eight volumes took more than twenty years to complete. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire contributed articles on political theory, literature, history, and philosophy.

Similar to the cultural wars of today, Diderot attacked the oppression of monarchy, the justification for the slave trade, and the accepted norms of human sexuality. He was thrown into prison for his beliefs but always emerged eager to continue his battle for truth.

One of history's most interesting face-to-face debates took place between Diderot and Catherine the Great of Russia. While the free thinker and the enlightened despot admired each other, Diderot was unable to convince Catherine to bring needed reforms to her vast empire.

TONY JUDT

The last candidate is a modern humanist who influenced my intellectual development, the historian and advocate for democratic socialism, Tony Judt. I was first introduced to Judt’s essays in the New York Review of Books in the 1980s. I went on to read many of his books and essays. His analysis of the aftermath of WWII, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 was a runner-up for the Pulitzer. Many of his later writings examined the ideological forces that shaped the twentieth century.

Judt’s own intellectual journey through the deadliest century in history moved from communism to Zionism to democratic socialism, all the while exposing the dark side of fascism. His writing made it clear to me how a few ideologues' thoughts controlled many lives. The result was unrelenting violence and the death of millions.  

Judt was diagnosed in his early 60s with ALS. Notwithstanding his paralysis from the neck down, he continued to give long talks to rapt audiences. After Judt's death, Time Magazine called him "a historian of the very first order, a public intellectual of an old-fashioned kind and—in more ways than one—a very brave man."

My hope is that we can all take the time to celebrate humanism and those who inspire us to make choices on principles of freethinking, intellectual inquiry, and optimism.