Editing Humanism

Humanism as its name indicates it, is the philosophical view that puts primacy over humanity and its role in the order of things, their first steps were taken with the coming of the earlier Greek philosophers who wanted to look for a meaning to life and the universe other than the will of the gods and eventually crystallized with the renewal of interest in classic culture during the early modern age, with different branches developing through the centuries and influencing every aspect of our culture and hence our game worldbuilding for kicks and joy.

In general terms humanism can be organized in three groups:

*Liberal or classic humanism, which is more or less the equivalent to capitalism, democracy and freedom of speech based on the value of human life, this may develop in the most extreme aspects of capitalism, libertarianism and corporativism.
*Left wing humanism, with it's most extreme view in the form of communism, the supreme value of the good of the mass of mankind over the individual and the chance for everyone to have their share.
*Right wing humanism, better known in its most extreme as nazism or biological humanism, which insists in the inherent biological value of some human races over others reflected in the achievements of the particular ethnic, national or social human group.

While the previous division is generalizing many philosophical, cultural and historical aspects while leaving others out it stills puts in evidence that all of these branches base their ideals in the inherent supreme value of human life and the human capability to give sense and purpose to existence, with the divergence coming from how best to implement those ideals.

So far it appears that classic humanism has become the ruling philosophical force of the current epoch, with aspects of both the left and right implemented through the last century in the form of limited government intervention, state control of certain aspects of society, widespread social care and other tweaks to make up for the setbacks and mistakes committed in its earlier iterations, it reminds to be seen how long it will last given the extensive changes and technological achievements which have put into question again what defines what is human.

But how does this impacts your hobby?

Well, for starters take both Warhammer 40,000's Imperium of Man and Fantasy's the Empire of Man, do you notice the keyword there? Right, these empires were founded not by the will of the gods, but [[Emperor|by human]] [[Sigmar|visionaries]] who promoted the idea of societies where humankind was an end to themselves, while the execution was different from what they expected the essence of humanism and man as judge and measure of everything, be it in the name of the God Emperor or Holy Sigmar (both of them humans turned divine).

What is more, if you take the red team you may notice they too in their own way reflect the previous line, the Chaos Gods exist as manifestations of the human psyche in its most extreme forms, they are the dark mirror to humanity's nightmares and shortfalls, their instincts and emotions multiplied a hundredfold in the raw stuff of the warp, what is more, the events that occur in both settings, and then in Age of Sigmar as an extension of Fantasy, are dependent on human desires, choices and wishes, the Chaos Gods are impotent by themselves to take over the material plane, they need human intervention to enter into reality, even a mortal champion to guide their extensions in the form of the daemonic legions, be it Archaon, Horus or Abaddon, all three of them are necessarily required by the gods to make effect upon reality and none of the three can be completely controlled by the ruinous powers.

Interestingly you can also play with the word humanism and change "human" with any other species and still have a similar result, for instance see at the Skaven, their nazi-esque society, now replace skaven with human and you will find again humanism taken in its most extreme darwinian application, it's the humans, and the individual in particular, what matters, other sentient species are just things to be exploited and consumed by the superior master race whose manifest destiny is to achieve ascendancy over all of creation, does it ring to you?

The Kharadron Overlords are another intake of the most classic brand of humanism, or in this case duardinism in the form of a corporate meritocracy where the achievement of the individual indicates the true value of a duardin over the will of the gods or aristocratic ancestry, the kharadron don't ask why their gods made things as they are, they were impotent or uncaring to save them in their direst hour, it's one's capabilities reflected through economic power and technological achievement what defines their place in the order of things, they have been pushed forth with this new mentality during half a millennia and, like with our own modern society if you check historical development statistics, it has pay off with dividends in the form of raw power over the world and increased socioeconomic mobility, all while becoming dependent upon a scarce resource who justify armed expeditions, again, this whole thing may sound familiar to you, see where we are going?

The influence of humanism is also seen through most fantasy media with the modern tendency to chain the power of the gods to the amount of faith people put in them, as some have put it, gods need prayer badly, before humanism this would have been seen as unthinkable as in ancient religions the gods, or the natural order if you have an eastern liking, and hence the universe, weren't dependent on human faith, with the value humanism puts in the groups of individuals it's now the other way around, gods are dependent upon their followers [[Discworld]]-style, while at first this may sounds like non-sense, it has become a recurrent and very liked literary device, what value has a game setting where everything is fore-fated? Instead through this struggle between different groups of believers and their patron gods is that extensive and unpredictable narrative is written.

Now, obviously it's not like your average game developer will sit and say "hmmm, I need to put humanism in my game setting", instead it's the fact most developers, for all we know, have been risen in humanistic societies, with these ideas permeating everything, including their perception of gaming world-building.