The Irrational and the Nature of Basic Anxiety

what do we understand by Humanism? Humanism is a very complex term. If it refers to man in his entirety, with all his biological and mental capacities, one has to include not only the good qualities but also the bad ones. Under such auspices war, aggression and even murder would be a part of humanism. If we look into history we find that as long as humanity existed there was aggression, murder and war. This insight seems to bother the humanists, especially if they try to look at the record of pretended human philosophies such as Christianity. In Christianity the application of humanism is especially trying because the history of the popes reveals all the human qualities that a priori should not be included in the concept of humanism. The popes were less Christian than politically minded, at least in the Middle Ages. They did not hesitate to initiate war and cruelties if they were, as they said, for the good cause of Christianity. For example, one of the Crusades consisted of a crusade of children who were supposed to reconquer the city of Jerusalem and the holy grave of Christ. The fallacies and the moral impossibilities of our diplomacy stem from the shrewdness of the popes in the Middle Ages, their pretentions to fight for a moral cause while they drove people to a barbarous death.

Humanism, as we know, stems from the German romantic movement. One can find it not only in Schiller's poetry and his dramatic works but also in Kant and Hegel, where the term humanism is defined philosophically. The term, humanism, then, does not mean the entirety of the expression of human emotions but a moral part of it, that which is called the good aspects. The romantic poets have the slogan “Edel sei der Mensch, hilfreich und gut.” (“Noble be man, helpful and good.”) This is certainly a vague definition. What does it mean to be noble? What does it mean to be helpful and good?

Through our modern psychological knowledge we know that man can be both a criminal and good at the same time.