Looking

Opening the inner eye starts with opening the outer eyes. Watching TV or iPhone screen provides information which has been processed for you by others. Look up and out at the world for yourself. 

I grew up in a small city across the river from Boston. That city is as much a part of what Boston is about as is Back Bay or Beacon Hill. However, many people who say they know Boston have no idea what lies beyond its privileged conclaves. East Boston, Mattapan and Roxbury could be on the other side of the moon to many self-declared experts on Boston.

Life does not work by remote control. Changing real lives is not like pushing a button to get a new channel. Raising money for non-profits is not the same as getting on a bus or subway train to help people in a poor neighborhood. Armchair Liberals and anti-government Republicans share ignorance of real poverty, real prejudice, real human suffering. This is a root cause of the dysfunction of our government. Expounding in politically correct terms about social problems in comfortable classrooms, city halls or lecture venues is useless hot air. 

If a humanist wants to put his/her values into action, he/she must go out and look at what needs to be helped by those values in action. If a humanist organization wants to develop a humanist community where it can promote the most good, then that community must be effective where the need resides, where it can be seen and addressed. Humanism, as it now exists organizationally, is a pursuit of the wealthy for self-validation. If Humanism is to be a values-based social movement, it must leap the barriers of class. It must go to where the work must be done to promote humanism for the greater good.