Compassion

The greatest test of humanist compassion comes when we are confronted with our own narcissism. Sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia stem from an inability or unwillingness to place aside ego in favor of understanding and vulnerability. Fear of surrendering ego displays itself in many ways. Sometimes it is subtle. Sometimes it is violent. It is always thoughtless.

Last evening I sat in a church with 900 others and listened to the inspiring words of a humanist icon, Stephen Fry, who happens to be a gay man. The speaker was quite frank about his development into a humanist as a gay man. He also specifically referred to his view that humanism, unlike religion, does not seek to own or control people. The organizers of the event had arranged for a female, heterosexual songwriter to sing a song to Mr. Fry about bearing him a child. Her motivation, according to the lyrics, was to preserve Mr. Fry's genetics, which she sees as a benefit to the species. It was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and Mr. Fry bore up rather well. He is a professional actor, after all, and he was being honored by a prestigious university, and paid.

As young women all around me hooted and cheered, I looked around me at several gay men in the audience, who, like me, were less than amused. One young gay man near me looked like he was on the verge of tears, wooden in self-control. I knew immediately what his posture meant. He was bracing defensively against this brash public display of egocentric heterosexuality in dominance over the gay icon on stage. Perhaps this was a subconscious attempt by the organization to wash away the stain of Mr. Fry's overt homosexuality from the stage. Perhaps it is just too hard for people in the majority to understand what this could mean to gay men in the audience. Perhaps these humanists do not really care about the implications of this behavior, presented as a joke, a joke about a sexual majority and a sexual minority. If the song had been about swaying a humanist into Christianity, I believe it would not have gone over so well.

Humanism, as I see it, is not show business. Compassion is seldom found on the stage or screen. Mr. Fry is the rare example of a public performer who has opened the pain and joy of his specific life to his public. I see this as his humanist practice. I respect him for this. Last evening, he was on the job, performing for his living, as well as presenting himself as a fit example of a practicing humanist. Unfortunately, the organizers of the event, in my opinion, were unable to raise themselves to the bar of Mr. Fry's excellence. They chose instead to assert the heterosexual norm under the guise of a joke. It certainly was a big hit among the loudest and most reassured heterosexual women in the audience. The reactions of the gay men I observed went unobserved by most, I am sure.

As Mr. Fry asserted last evening, being part of the minority without any personal choice opens the eyes early in life. Sharing the vision of someone in a minority is painful for those of us in a majority, because it shines harsh light on the egocentric carelessness that comes with domination. The underside of this "anything goes" age is a certain amount of callousness. If something like the song about having Mr. Fry's baby is successful on  Youtube, it is deemed to be acceptable to everyone. When the song comes from the consciousness of the dominating majority, it is somewhat inevitable that it will achieve some popularity, but it may well offend or hurt a sizable minority, who will be ignored, it seems, even in the halls of Humanism.

Compassion is not about being politically correct. However, compassion does entail mindfulness. What may be a private joke between one heterosexual woman and one gay man ceases to be that on a public stage. It becomes a statement of the organization that presents it. It becomes part of the organizational culture. In other words, it states: "This is an OK thing to do here." A slippery slope, and one which seldom encourages a culture of inclusive compassion for all members of an organization.