Thread by @Humanists_UK

A wonderful moment caught in a #HumanistHeritage photo! Architect of modern humanism and our first Executive Director, Harold Blackham, appearing to crack wise at his retirement party: (pictured, right, @ConwayHall in 1968). Best of Blackham. 🧵👇

'Nothing is exempt from human question...no immemorial tradition, no revelation, no authority, no privileged knowledge.' – Harold Blackham, the architect of modern humanism & our first Executive Director, on the importance of questioning everything and everyone.

'Humanism is the ordinary way of taking hold of the world...Contrary to what many suspect or complain of, humanism not only has no mumbo-jumbo, it has no experts. Intellectuals and the man in the street speak the same language.'

'Human life is in human hands...Personal life is choice, not obligation, a work of art, not a set task, an offering not a requirement, a creation, not a prize...Humanism is a concept of the human, focused on a programme of humanity.'

'Humanism is about the world, not about humanism... Humanism is an idealisation of the world, a striving for the attainment of what is fully possible, both on the scale of civilisation itself and in the venture and relations of personal life.'

Blackham's humanist view of life:

'Life is not presented by humanism as something for our judgement, something finished, take it or leave it. It is presented as raw material for our creative use, a task for our responsible undertaking.'

Blackham, like humanist philosophers both ancient and modern, argued that our morality is not gifted to us by god, but formed throughout our lives – conditioned by society and humanity itself. To Blackham our 'excellence is delayed, uncertain, individual, painfully acquired.'

Humanists are free to question everything, including humanism itself. This is a vital aspect of humanism. And in reference to this, Blackham called freedom of thought 'the first essential... under the humanist charter, each cultivates their own garden.'