Seeks to perfect humanity or sees the perfection of humanity as ‘the supreme good.’ Whilst rejecting the worship of human beings, humanism holds that all human beings deserve to be treated with dignity. Holds that everything is open to question and that to worship something puts it beyond enquiry and criticism. Rejects the worship of anything, including human beings (human beings should seek to take down the pedestal, not climb on top of it). Is a family of religions that ‘worship humanity, or more correctly, homo sapiens.’ Recognises that human beings have certain capacities and capabilities that are not shared in the same depth by other living creatures, but acknowledge that any differences between us and other animals is one of degree rather than of kind. Involves the belief that ‘Homo sapiens has a unique and sacred nature that is fundamentally different from the nature of all other beings and phenomena.’ What Yuval Noah Harari says about humanism We hope the below will help to clarify the distinction between Harari’s ‘humanism’ and the more mainstream use of the word. A number of teachers and other educators have contacted us to help with this issue. What they disagree with is that such a worldview is humanism by any conventional understanding of the word.Ĭlick here to learn more about the conventional understanding of humanism.īecause of the popularity of Harari’s books, misconceptions about humanism have increased. Many humanists would agree that the worldview which Harari describes has been responsible for many of humanity’s greatest errors. This argument can then be taken by critics of humanism and applied as a stick with which to attack it. Harari holds that what he calls ‘humanism’ has been responsible for many of humanity’s greatest catastrophes over the past hundred years: totalitarian regimes (Nazism and communism), the Second World War, and the destruction of the environment. Defining humanism in his own unique and unusual way, Harari seems unaware of the way the word ‘humanism’ is most commonly used today, which is in many ways the direct opposite of the meaning he gives it. He uses the word ‘humanism’ as a catch-all term to include a variety of worldviews and ideologies, many of which most humanists would see humanism as being opposed to. In these books, Harari uses a somewhat eccentric definition of humanism which many consider to be damaging to the humanist movement. Yuval Noah Harari has come into the spotlight over the past few years following the release of two books, Sapiens and Homo Deus, which have sold many copies.
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