I have recently found this very lively and active blog which keeps its eye on the law against same sex relations across the world. This site is really worth a look. Click here Erasing 76 Crimes: http://76crimes.com/ It documents the ongoing horrors of discrimination, oppression and inhumanity around the world toward, suggesting what needs to be…
Tag: Imagining Better Worlds
Candide: From Voltaire to Bernstein and Sondheim
I first encountered Voltaire’s witty and scatty satire Candide when I was at school ( it was a set text for A level); and it has stayed with me. Not least because of the glorious musical by Lenny Bernstein ( with lyrics by Sondheim) that he wrote in the 1950’s. Initially a flop, it has…
Inspirations- Great Humanists: Nelson Mandela
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world“
“Tread softly, Breathe Peacefully, Laugh hysterically”
“It is music and dancing that make me at peace with the world”
As Nelson Mandela dies, and a new film also appear based on his memorable book, Long Walk to Freedom, it is time to celebrate his role as a leading world humanist by remininding ourselves of some of the things he said:
“I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. There was no particular day on which I said, Henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise.”
“A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it’s lowest ones”
“Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”
“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.”
“I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A person does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards.”
“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”
The Scottboro Boys

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Pride-Flyin’ Flag
I have often wondered how the Rainbow Flag has become a world, wide symbol of gay pride and life. The other day I cam across this piece by the originator and I thought some might be interested to see it: Rainbow-flag founder marks 30th anniversary by Gilbert Baker published in Metro week October 18th 2007…
Charting Gay Rights Around The World
I am working at present on constructing a resource of web sites for a book I am working on. Prompted by an article in the Guardian on world gay rights, I checked out these web sites which are really very useful. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/30/gay-rights-world-best-worst-countries So here are a few web sites International Lesbian and Gay Association http://ilga.org/…
No Other Way
There’s no other way.
That’s what they say.
Economics must put money before people,
And medicine must put profit before health.
Education must put management before wisdom,
And religion must put war before love.
Technology must put machines before environments,
And politicians must put power before care.
We must follow the way things are done.
There’s no other way.
That’s what they say.
But what if economics valued feelings,
And medicine always pursued dignity.
If education aimed for the flourishing of humanity,
And religion wanted better worlds for all.
If technology looked out for justice,
And politicians put people first.
If we all just tried to be kind to each other?
There surely is a much better way
Than the one that they preach to us everyday.
A MANIFESTO FOR A CRITICAL HUMANISM
IN
SOCIOLOGY
ON QUESTIONING THE HUMAN SOCIAL WORLD
Ken Plummer
(Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Essex, U.K.)
This was First Presented at the VI Congreso Andaluz de Sociologiá, University of Cadiz, November 2012
In June it was published in
Daniel Nehring: Sociology: A Text and Reader ( Pearson, 2013).
This is the first edition; it is now under revision for a 2nd version. Comments are welcome
Contact Ken Plummer at plumk@essex.ac.uk
_________________________________________________
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires
Or quizzes upon World-Affairs,
Nor with compliance
Take any test. Thou shalt not sit
With statisticians nor commit
A social science
– W.H. Auden ‘Under Which Lyre’. 1946
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. Leo Tolstoy War and Peace, 1869
These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. William James: The Will to Believe. 1896
SUMMARY
- Prologue: A very human animal in an all too human world
- On the Human Search for Meaning
- On Sociology
- The Challenge of Humanism
- Righting the Troubles with Humanism
- On Critical Humanism
- The Human Condition: Obdurate Features of the Human World
- On Human Potentials, Capabilities and Rights
- The Challenge of Plural Worlds, Ethnocentrism and Cosmopolitanism
- On Becoming Human: The Process of Humanization
- A Sociology of the People: Being Practical and Pursuing the Wise Society
- We are the Story Telling Animals
- The Politics and ethics of Humanism: Living a Better Life and Making a Better World
- Dark Hope and Dreaming Ahead in Perpetually Troubled Timers: Key Directions For a Future Humanistic Agenda
- Further Reading
A MANIFESTO FOR SOCIAL STORIES PUBLISHED
In 2011 Liz Stanley organised a conference to discuss developments in life story work since the publication of Documents of Life. This was a book I first published in 1983 when I was busy using personal documents in research; and was re-written in 2001 as Documents of Life-2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism. The…