Humanism

It has been suggested that this page should be merged with Humanity Fuck Yeah, let's discuss at discussion page.

"Mankind is greater than any lowly god-creature! We are the GREATEST species in existence! And the Emperor is the greatest being of our species!"

– Ecclesiarch Decius XXIII

"Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet you act, like there was some sort of rightness in the universe by which it may be judged."

– Death, Hog-father

"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other."

– Eric Hoffer

Humanism as its name indicates, 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 human rights based on the value of individual human life, this may develop in the most extreme aspects of capitalism, libertarianism and corporatism.
• Left wing humanism, which in its more moderate forms seeks to prevent or address gross disparities of outcomes via wealth distribution in the form of social welfare programs, with its most extreme view in the form of Marxism, the supreme value of the equality of mankind over the rights of the individual human.
• Right wing humanism, expressed in its moderate form as national populism where the value of a nation's citizens (and especially the common citizens) are placed in higher concern than those of the nation's elite interests or the citizens of other nations, best known in its most extreme form as Nazism, which insists on 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 still 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 remains to be seen how long it will last given the extensive socioeconomic changes and technological achievements which have put into question again what defines being human and people revisiting the questions of whether religion is something humanity can or should get rid of and the existence of actual gods, although it must be clarified here humanism isn't necessarily anti-religious and doesn't automatically mean atheism, in fact we may argue its success comes from being extremely tolerant of quite a wide range of possible ideological outputs.

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 by human visionaries who promoted the idea of societies where humankind was an end to themselves. Though Sigmar and his Empire weren't exactly humanist; as a human Sigmar worshipped a god (Ulric), several gods and their religions are a major part of the Empire Sigmar founded and Sigmar himself ascended to godhood with a religion centered on him becoming dominant in the Empire, still, human prosperity was always one of the main drives of Sigmar. Meanwhile the Emperor was a true humanist plus a staunch anti-religious atheist who tried to purge religion from humanity because he thought humans needed to be rid of it - among other things - to be perfect.

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 (ironically one of their creator-gods Grungni wanted them to have a degree of self-reliance), 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 popular literary device. The appeal is the effort of winning an uncertain victory, with a struggle between different groups of believers and their patron gods creating an extensive and unpredictable narrative (in theory; in practice the story is still subject to the author's ideas).

Finally humanism makes for a sort of fail-safe mechanism against a particular villain speech, "your gods have failed you/don't exist, your emotions are just chemical reactions, there is nothing beyond this bleak universe, your life has as much value as that of cattle, the entirety of existence is pointless!" to this you can expect the hero's following answer "sure, but I still find worth in existence, which is the reason why I am going to kick your sorry ass", yeap, that is humanism.

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 speculate on human nature when making their setting and ideas from humanism permeate their worldbuilding.

Needless to say, Humanity Fuck Yeah is to humanism what the Imperium of Man is to the Roman Empire.