Academic Conference
8-9 July 2002, the Netherlands

Empowering Humanity- Work in Progress

  Keynote address by Ann Phoenix

 

This conference that launched the book 'Empowering Humanity' at the Universiteit voor Humanistiek (see for full details below text), highlighted how uniquely positioned are the academics who have contributed to this text. A Dutch University for Humanistics has to negotiate its position in relation to the International Humanist and Ethical Union and other humanist organisations as an integral part of the Dutch university system. At the same time, it has to show itself to be intellectually innovative to warrant its status as an international institution. In order to maintain its credibility, it therefore cannot be a mouthpiece or a driver of international humanism. Nor can it eschew humanism in the face of widespread academic critique of liberal humanism. Instead, it has to maintain a critical engagement with the theory and practice of humanism while pointing the way forward to the progressive use of humanism. This is the exactly the challenge grasped in this book.

The editors (Halsema and van Houten) explain that the establishment of the University for Humanistics led to the development of a new, multidisciplinary, human science, 'humanistics', which they define 'as humanities that are oriented towards everyday practices with specific attention to processes diving meaning to life' (p.10). This new discipline has inspired a research programme whose four themes (humanism, meanings of life, care and citizenship) are represented in the 15 chapters included in the volume. The volume thus shows the diversity of the research that constitutes humanistics and provides a showcase for the university itself.

The notion of 'empowerment' became enormously popular in the last century as a way to give power to people who are relatively powerless. However, it has also been subjected to critique on the grounds that it is only possible if those doing the empowering are relatively more powerful than those to be empowered and so can decide which groups should be empowered and in which ways. Groups and communities themselves rarely decide these issues for themselves and are sometimes disempowered by being treated as if they have no agency or competence. In such cases, unequal power relations are reinforced. However, the editors make it clear that this is not how the contributors to this volume understand empowerment. Instead, they re-theorise it as a process of supporting people to use the power and skills they already have and so to gain self-esteem and self-respect.

The editors do not problematize or define the second word of the title, 'humanity' - explaining that 'humanization can be considered as a condition for giving meaning to life' (p.8). Yet, the core of the critique of humanism over the last three decades has centred on debates about who is the human at the heart of humanism. Many have argued that humanism has attempted to universalize the values and experiences of white, western, heterosexual, middle-class males, and thereby negated the experiences of anyone who does not fit into this category. It has been accused of treating people as too individualistic, self-aware, rational and autonomous. A major criticism of humanism is thus that it empowers some people at the expense of others.

This volume successfully helps its readers better to understand, and believe in the possibility of, the empowering of humanity. It does so because it imagines what it is to be human and what it means in theory and practice to empower humans in ways that are both theoretically convincing and appear practically applicable. Ken Plummer (2001, Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism. London: Sage) argues passionately that humanism is still an important, viable, philosophical backdrop 'but in a carefully modified, cautious and critical way' (p. x). For Plummer critical humanism has five central criteria. These include: paying tribute to human subjectivity and creativity; dealing with human experience in the context of social and economic organization; showing a naturalistic familiarity with human experiences; being a self-aware researcher; and taking a radical, pragmatic empiricist approach to the creation of knowledge. While the contributors to this text have produced their own version of humanism, taken as a whole, they also do well on Plummer's criteria.From the very first chapter, Harry Kunneman's line of reasoning fits with Plummer's call for a critical, modified humanism. For Kunneman argues that we need to transform the human sciences if we are to achieve 'meaning in the present and hope for the future.' He further argues for the importance of continuing critically to interrogate humanism without losing sight of its central tenets. Equally important, he makes his argument through a critical engagement with the work of key social theorists such as Bauman, Beck; Castells; Giddens, Habermas and Luhmann. While many postmodern thinkers have been vehement in their rejection of humanism, Kunneman is not dismissive of postmoernism in response. Instead, he suggests that the University for Humanistics has 'to face the realities and formidable problems of the postmodern situation without losing the ideas of learning and critiques and the possibility of further humanization' (p.35). The human at the heart of his call to broaden the scope of humanistics is cognitive as well as moral and existential while being neither rationalist nor patriarchal.

The recognition of the need for change and proposal for how best to initiate change requires a good grasp of how the current situation arose. Three chapters address the history of humanism, including specifically in the Dutch context (Derkx, Kluveld and Elders). They therefore highlight the importance of the historical and geographical location of knowledge -an issue that feminist and postmodern work makes central. On the basis of his understanding of historical currents, Fons Elders calls for the transformation of humanism to reconnect what he views as two separate currents that have influenced humanism, the 'Enlightenment syndrome' and the 'Romantic syndrome'. In their chapter, van Houten and Mooren locate humanist counselling in its historical roots in Dutch society before considering its prospects as it becomes increasingly professionalised. Their engagement with history and geographical specificity as well as a commitment to critical humanism informs their call for a 'normative professionality' where values are central to counselling.

Arguably all the chapters in this volume do what Plummer advocates and takes seriously human subjectivity and creativity. However, the final chapter by Gaby Jacobs is centrally concerned with personal identities and the creation of meaning. Far from making this an individual focus, however, Jacobs connects existential and political dimensions. She recognises that humanist work has a tendency to focus on the existential at the expense of the political and uses the examples of migration and sexual violence to propose a new model linking the existential and the political. Jacob's chapter thus demonstrates Plummer's point that it is important to deal with human experience in the context of social and economic organization. This is not unusual in the volume since several chapters make central issues of values and ethics and hence politics (e.g. van Houten and Mooren; Buitenweg; Dohmen; Manschot).

The chapter by van Dijk focuses on the place of religion in people's subjective experience and hence its place as part of humanistics. This chapter, perhaps more than any other highlights the independence of the University for Humanistics from the International Humanist movement in that, contrary to most definitions of humanism (although not that of the Dutch Humanist Association), it uses religion within humanist counselling. Arguably, the volume is less good at dealing with human creativity than with focussing on human meaning. However, the chapter by Hugo Letiche engages both with meaning and the creative processes through which organizational change occurs. He argues that 'empowerment is liminal. It defines a "space" near the threshold of change, a zone where exploration and emergence are possible' (p.223). According to Letiche, meaning is lived experience and is not owned by the organization and is a creative and potentially subversive process.

Plummer's ction that a critical humanism should show a naturalistic familiarity with human experiences is perhaps best illustrated in the chapters by Tom Jorna and Joachim Duyndam. These chapters are each innovative in giving readers new ways to think of emotion. Using literature and his own experience, Jorna engages with the meaning of loneliness in a naturalistic and reflexive way. He argues that loneliness can be seen as 'the crisis of inwardness' and so is amenable to spiritual counselling. Jorna demonstrates that he is a self-aware researcher. Unusually, he suggests that loneliness and the self-reflection it can allow presents an opportunity to open out to others. Duyndam uses his own experience to make concrete the fact that empathy can be 'gruesome' and 'sham' as well as 'good', with the potential for empowerment. He argues that good empathy requires humanist counsellors to know their own emotions if they are to support their clients, rather than vicariously enjoying the experience of their clients' emotions. The chapter by Halsema discusses the importance of self-reflection for understanding one's own identity. As with Jacobs' chapter, Halsema connects the political (issues such as power) with identity and existential issues, including embodiment. She argues for the importance of viewing identity as intersectional, contextualised and situated.

Plummer's final point is that critical humanism should take a radical, pragmatic empiricist approach to the creation of knowledge. The chapter by Smaling and Maso demonstrate how qualitative research methodology is well suited to studying existential questions and brings the researcher and participant together in a dialogical relationship. They argue that some qualitative research methods can potentially enhance inner growth and that qualitative research can contribute to the humanization of social relationships and the search for meaning. Various chapters (implicitly) apply the postmodern method of deconstruction - for example, of 'empowerment' by Halsema and van Houten, of 'humanism' by many contributors and of empathy by Duyndam. This latter chapter, by Duyndam, also advocates the use of narrative - a methodology fast gaining popularity because it illuminates meaning- to understand empathy as a process of reconstruction.

Overall then, this text manages to deal with complex social processes that humanism has been derided for failing to address. It recognises that people's social positions intersect. It deals with micro and macro issues at both social and individual levels and is concerned with cognitive, moral and existential issues. I particularly liked the recognition in a number of chapters that humanisms are polyvocal - they have different historical and geographical roots and current existence. More admirably, the contributors to this volume appear able to tolerate the uncertainties that arise from a diversity of humanisms and are open, for example, to taking seriously religion within humanism. Alongside this, there also appears to be a commitment to dealing with continually changing circumstances and doing the work of re-conceptualising that this requires. Throughout, there is well-informed theorisation and much of the text is clear and well written.

With a text of such broad scope that does such interesting and consequential work, it seems a pity to pick out shortcomings. Nonetheless, there are clearly some challenges that require to be addressed for 21st century humanistics as represented in this volume. In particular, the converse of acceptance of diversity within humanism is the difficulty of maintaining a coherent notion of humanistic values while preserving interdisciplinarity. Similarly, the deconstruction of terms such as 'empowerment' was refreshing and useful, but other concepts that were taken for granted also require interrogation. For example, self-esteem was assumed in various chapters self-evidently to help in the process of empowerment. Yet, a recent review concludes that there is no evidence that self-esteem is necessarily associated with good outcome (Emler, 2001, Self-esteem: The costs and causes of low self-worth, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation). In addition, there appeared to be a stronger emphasis on theory than research or application. What, for example, does it mean in practice to understand individuals as always being part of a network of social relations? This issue may have been better addressed if the theme of 'care' had been more evidently included in the volume. It seemed to me a notable absence. A related point is that there could have been more discussion about the nature and function of humanist counselling. Will attention to the meanings of circumstances for people together with recognition of the inextricable linking of the sociopolitical and the individual result in counselling that pays as much attention to making changes in circumstances in order to accommodate people as to fitting people to their circumstances? Finally, while a few contributors were reflexive, there was relatively little self-reflection, which is perhaps surprising for a discipline that is predominantly qualitative in its methodology and practical in its application.

Despite these shortcomings, I very much enjoyed reading this text and gained understanding of why the University for Humanistics developed this new discipline of humanistics. I would highly recommend it to students, academics and interested lay people.

Ann Phoenix

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Full details book: Annemie Halsema and Douwe van Houten (eds), 'Empowering Humanity; State of the Art in Humanistics', Utrecht: de Tijdstroom, 2002, 295pp., (paper).

For more information about the conference and the book: i.abbenhuis@uvh.nl