The Human Nature of Religion, Science and the Social Order:
A Humanist Perspective by Frederic March
Chapter 14: Utopian Visions: Searching for the Ideal Social Order
Oh the buzzin' of the bees in the cigarette trees near the soda water fountain at the
lemonade springs where the bluebird sings on the big rock candy mountain. In the Big Rock
Candy Mountain, it's a land that's fair and bright. The handouts grow on bushes and you
sleep out every night. The boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day. I'm bound
to go where there ain't no snow, where the sleet don't fall, and the winds don't blow in the
Big Rock Candy Mountain. In the Big Rock Candy Mountain the jails are made of tin. You
can slip right out again as soon as they put you in. There ain't no short-handled shovels, no
axes, saws nor picks. I'm bound to stay, where you sleep all day, where they hung the jerk
that invented work in the Big Rock Candy Mountain. 1 Burl Ives’ Version 1940s 2
This very popular folk song especially appealed to Americans who lived through the great
depression of 1929 compounded by the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. It was a time of massive
unemployment and desperate people on the move to wherever they might find work. These
events precipitated a great expansion of a hobo underclass that rode the rails and lived from hand
to mouth. The song is an ironic fantasy of a utopian hobo dream world
From Plato’s Republic to modern democracy there have been a number of “utopias” offered by
very serious social advocates. These “utopias” share a humanistic intent to create a fulfilled life
for all people, even by authoritarian means as Plato does. Utopian visions are always reactions to
their respective authors’ personal experience of political and social conditions. They typically
find these conditions unacceptable and would like to restructure society to produce better
outcomes. We will now consider a selection of visions from Plato to the rebels who declared an
independent United States in 1776.
Plato (429-347 BCE) The Republic 3
In his description of Plato’s ideal social order fantasy Bertrand Russell categorizes its attributes
as education, culture/economy, biological control, religion, and justice. In this state there are to
be three classes of citizens: Guardians (political rulers), Soldiers and Commoners (workers who
produce.) Plato’s Republic mainly focuses on how the Guardians are to rule.
Education: Education serves to ground society’s culture, which includes physical
education (meaning gymnastics and athletics), and “the Muses” which includes all other
aspects of culture. Since women and men are considered equally eligible to become
Guardians, they receive similar educations that emphasize character development by
cultivating “gravity, decorum and courage.“
The literature and other cultural expressions to which students are exposed are limited.
For example the bad behavior of gods may not be depicted. No story may depict the
wicked as happy or the just as unhappy. Since being captured and sold into slavery is
unacceptable, nothing should be taught that might inhibit a child’s willingness to die in
1
battle for his nation. Plays must be about morally perfect characters of good birth – so
most play writers would have to be banned. Music must convey happiness and not
sorrow. Students must be prevented from learning about ugliness or vice, or told stories
that would frighten them, or seduce them into bad habits.
Culture/Economy: The Guardians are to live apart in a socialistic community that
resembles an Israeli kibbutz. Women are equal to men, and children are raised
communally. They are to dwell in modest houses and eat simple foods together. All
property beyond some defined personal possessions are held in common. For nonGuardians, friendship groups are supposed to own property in common. Owning gold or
silver is prohibited. Neither wealth nor poverty can be tolerated. Monogamous families
are forbidden, and all women are the common wives of the men.
Biological Control The “Legislator” who oversees the Guardians asserts quality control
measures on the population. Reproduction is carefully controlled by eugenic concepts in
which mating pairs, who meet certain criteria including age and health, are selected on
special holidays. All children are raised communally and no parent can identify their
biological offspring. Sick and deformed infants are banished. Anyone can have sex,
pregnancies from unions outside the approved selection process must be aborted, or the
offspring are killed or left to die.
Religion The government is encouraged to actually promulgate myths it knows are
fabrications in to help the community strengthen its social order – in effect a “royal lie.”
In this myth God created three kinds of people labeled gold, silver and brass in order (i.e.
Guardians, Soldiers or Commoners.) Russell points out: what Plato fails to realize is that
compulsory acceptance of such myths is incompatible with philosophy, and involves a
kind of education that stunts intelligence. 4
Justice: Russell writes: The definition of justice, which is the nominal goal of the whole
discussion… consists in everybody doing his own work and not being a busybody. 5
Russell explains that the Greeks believed that each person had his or her own social
position and appointed purpose or function. This idea is connected to the concept of fate
or necessity, as against equality. Thus in Plato’s Republic the prescribed social
stratification is just, and its implementation is likewise just, as a matter of natural and
human law. It has nothing to do with a doctrine of equality. In Plato’s world the
inequalities of power and privilege necessarily underpin the very idea of justice.
Why would Plato’s model of an ideal state so resemble Spartan totalitarianism far more that it
resembles Athenian democracy? Gottlieb remarks that Plato’s own political philosophy leaned
towards democracy. But as Gottlieb explains Plato felt the end has to justify the means, and
Athens had failed the test because its democracy had degenerated into chaos.6 Russell informs
that since Plato’s family were aristocrats he was likely to be wary of Athenian-style democracy.
This view was probably reinforced in 404 BCE when Plato was a young man as Sparta defeated
Athens. 7 While Plato believed that democracy’s inherent instability was grounded on nature he
apparently understood that tyranny was also unstable because it was also human nature to rebel
against unfair and unjust social conditions. While favoring a Spartan system he also specified
measures to satisfy the lower classes as just, thereby eliminating motives for rebellion.
Cicero (106-43 BCE) De Re Publica (On the Republic)
2
Cicero’s treatise contains his concepts for evolving a fundamentally humanistic Roman social
order. Only parts of it have survived. Apparently inspired by Plato’s “The Republic” it discusses
the history, laws, and polity of the Roman republic: 8
Book one describes discussion, between political protagonists of their time.
Book two outlines Roman history and how its constitution evolved.
Book three expounds justice in government as expressed in different types of
constitutions
Book four is a discourse about education.
Book five contains conversations about the qualities of the ideal citizen in government.
Book Six Scipio’s Dream concludes the book.
Edward Clayton offers the following description of the work:
This dialogue is, unfortunately, in an extremely mutilated condition. It describes the ideal
commonwealth, such as might be brought about by the orator described in On the Orator.
In doing so it tries to provide philosophical underpinnings for existing Roman institutions
and to demonstrate that until recently (the dialogue is set in 129 BC) Roman history has
been essentially the increasing perfection of the Republic, which is now superior to any
other government because it is a mixed government. By this Cicero means that it
combines elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in the right balance; the
contemporary reader may well disagree. But even this government can be destroyed and
is being destroyed by the moral decay of the aristocracy. Thus Cicero describes the
importance of an active life of virtue, the foundations of community, including the
community of all human beings, the role of the statesman, and the concept of natural law.
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It would seem that Cicero was a humanist with a clear vision of the reality of a human nature that
included those who strive for justice and fairness, and those who abuse political authority to gain
personal power, wealth and prestige at the expense of the rest of society.
Saint Augustine (354-430) City of God 10
Citing specific sections of City of God, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers the
following synopsis of St. Augustine’s vision of the social order that God gifted to humanity.
Due to the universal contagion of original sin wherein all have sinned in Adam, humanity
has become a mass of the deservedly damned, who have turned away from God and
towards the rule of self.
By means of an utterly unmerited grace, God has chosen a small minority out of this
mass… those who by means of grace renounce the self and turn towards God, as opposed
to the vast majority who have renounced God and turned towards the self.
In this life, we can never be sure of which individuals belong to which city and thus they
are intermingled in a way that thwarts any moral complacency.
3
While the visible church bears a special relation to the city of God, membership in the
Church is no guarantee of salvation and the history that is visible to us is merely a vestige
of the moral drama that takes place behind the scenes, defying the scrutiny of our weak
and often presumptuous reason.
What is certain is that the linear movement of human history aims at the eventual
separation of the two cities in which the members of each city are united with their
resurrected bodies and given their respective just rewards: for the small minority saved
by unmerited grace, there is the vision of God, a joy we can only dimly discern at the
moment.
For the overwhelming mass of humanity, there is the second death wherein their
resurrected bodies will be subject to eternal torment by flames that will inflict pain
without consuming the body or the degree of torment.
This is hardly a utopian vision for any but the most committed believers in fundamentalist
Christian doctrine. For the rest of us it’s simply an aspect of the state of mind of many people
with whom we share the global Social Order. The best I can say about Saint Thomas’ views is
that his heart was in the right place. It was beyond his imagination that such a theological
grounding for human society was likely to degenerate into an earthly tyranny that breeds fear and
corruption. Church-State history since his time has provided more than ample evidence in
support of this view. 11
Thomas More (1478-1535) Utopia
While his views, like those of St. Thomas Aquinas in “City of God” are grounded on the same
religion, Thomas More is far more socially enlightened.
More was a Catholic Humanist who saw Humanism as a way to combine faith and
reason. In depicting Utopia, More's ultimate goal is to indicate areas of improvement for
Christian society. At the very least, Utopia exposes the absurdities and evils of More's
society by depicting an alternative… Sustaining the arguments of The Republic, Utopia
fashions a society whose rulers are scholars, Aristotle's ideas of aesthetics, justice and
harmony are present in the Utopian's philosophy. More's Utopia is a type of New
Jerusalem, a perfect place on earth. The Puritan experiments of the 1600s exemplify the
programming of Utopian New Jerusalem. More uses the New World theme to get his
philosophical points across
He is less interested in New World politics and more interested in offering Utopia as an
indirect critique of the Catholic European societies (England mainly, but also France, the
Italian city-states, and other areas to a lesser extent.) More opposed the vast land
enclosures of the wealthy English aristocracy, the monopolistic maneuvers of London's
guilds and merchants, and the burdensome oppression of the work through the imposition
of unjust laws. These reformatory practices, designed to quantify happiness, calculate
moral goodness and produce the optimal balance, echo the anti-privacy measures
inflicted upon the citizens of More's Utopia. 12
According to the article More’s religious humanism influenced Utopian community projects in
the 1800s in England, France and New England, which in turn influenced Karl Marx’s
4
Communist Manifesto, his secular ideal of a communist society. Unlike St. Augustine, More
was well aware of the Church’s corruption of his time, and wanted to reform it. He believed that
an enlightened understanding of divine authority would motivate a truly just society.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) & Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) The Communist Manifesto
Marx and Engels published “The Communist Manifesto” in 1848 as their vision for an ideal
secular society. In that year the cumulative grievances of the working class exploded into
revolution, As reported by Spark’s Notes13 the social order stresses that Marx and Engels wanted
their “utopia” to relieve, stemmed from a social pressure that had already reached the boiling
point and finally exploded into a series of rebellions:
Beginning shortly after the New Year in 1848, Europe exploded into revolution. From
Paris to Frankfurt to Budapest to Naples, liberal protesters rose up against the
conservative establishment. To those living through the cataclysmic year, it seemed
rather sudden; however, hindsight offers valuable warning signs. The year 1846
witnessed a severe famine--Europe's last serious food crisis. Lack of grain drove up food
and other prices while wages remained stagnant, thus reducing consumer demand. With
consumers buying less and less, profits plummeted, forcing thousands of industrial
workers out of their jobs. High unemployment combined with high prices sparked the
liberal revolt.
France Parisian citizens demonstrated against the repression. Skilled workers, factory
laborers, and middle class liberals poured into the streets. The National Guard, a citizen
militia of bourgeois Parisians, defected from King Louis-Philippe, and the army garrison
stationed in Paris joined the revolutionary protesters as well. Louis-Philippe attempted
reform, but the workers rejected the halfhearted changes. The king fled and the
demonstrators proclaimed the Second Republic on February 24th. The overthrow of the
monarchy set off a wave of protest throughout east and central Europe, led by radical
liberals and workers who demanded constitutional reform or complete government
change.
Germany In March 1848 protests in the German provinces brought swift reform from
local princes while Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia yielded to revolts in Berlin by
promising to create a Prussian assembly. The collapse of autocracy in Prussia encouraged
liberals in the divided Germany provinces to join together at the Frankfurt Assembly to
frame a constitution and unite the German nation. However, after drawing the boundaries
for a German state and offering the crown to Friedrich Wilhelm, the Kaiser refused in
March 1849, dooming hopes for a united, liberal Germany.
Italy New constitutions were declared in Tuscany and Piedmont, with the goal of
overthrowing their Austrian masters. Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian patriot favored a
democratic revolution to unify the country. In February 1849, Mazzini led a democratic
revolt against the Pope in Rome, becoming head of the Republic of Rome. By attacking
the Pope, the democrats went too far. The French, moved in and defeated Mazzini's
Roman legion. The Pope was restored and a democratic Italy collapsed, for now.
5
Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia: In Austria, students, workers, and middle class
liberals revolted in Vienna, setting up a constituent assembly. In Budapest, the Magyars
led a movement of national autonomy, led by patriot Lajos Kossuth. Similarly, in Prague,
the Czechs revolted in the name of self-government. From August 1848, the Austrian
army soundly defeated every revolt in its empire. In Vienna, in Budapest, in Prague, the
Austrians legions crushed the liberal and democratic movements, returning the empire to
the conservative establishment that ruled at the beginning of 1848. Nothing had come of
the revolutions of 1848.
This synopsis conveys the flavor of the times when the Communist Manifesto circulated in
European bookstalls and ultimately changed the course of world history. Revolt was already in
the air when the book hit the streets. The mood of rebellion continued into the 20th century when
the book spawned Communist parties in Germany and other countries. But its most profound
influence was achieved in Russia when the Communists overthrew the Czarist regime in a
murderous revolt in October 1917. Their success would inspire the Chinese revolution that began
in 1927, and after a long struggle, extended by World War II, culminated in the People’s
Republic of China in 1950. Both revolutions initiated years of extremely totalitarian governance,
contrary to the somewhat humanist and democratic intentions of Marx and Engels.
It is difficult for us to imagine the mood of the times and the social order conditions that
precipitated these rebellions. Authors like Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo portrayed fictional
persons who struggled to survive under the social and environmental conditions of 19th century
Europe. Of course it was precisely such conditions that triggered the flood of immigrants to the
United States from Italy, Germany, Russia and a whole host of other European countries from
about 1850 to 1920. Recent global population economic trends have skewed the wealth of many
nations to a narrow upper class, leaving an increasing proportion of the population to struggle
with low wages, unemployment, racism, government corruption and the horrors of poverty. This
trend continues today with violent eruptions driven by extremist Muslim utopian visions of a
society governed by Sharia law – an attitude akin to Saint Augustine’s “City of God.”
The American Dream (1776) 14
The authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution’s Bill of Rights (see
Appendix V) were children of an era when an educated elite espoused a whole host of humanist
values. The first five statements of their Declaration of Independence after We hold these truths
to be self evident are clear commitment to civil rights and the duty of citizens to challenge and
even change governments that violate them. They have since inspired the constitutions of many
nations, as well as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights – as well as Supreme Court
rulings, constitutional amendments and various federal programs designed strengthen civil
liberties and individual rights. The Bill of Rights is a masterpiece of brevity and clarity of
humanistic intent, designed to ensure justice in the courts
These documents are icons honored along with the American flag, the national anthem, and the
Pledge of Allegiance as emblems of patriotism. For humanists they symbolize the utopian dream
of a truly just, democratic and humanistic society. And indeed significant social order progress
towards an improved democracy has occurred since 1776. But as the following narrative reveals,
there have been serious bumps on the road to the American Dream of Utopia. Yet the dream
persists even as its icons are often used to frustrate the very dream that they symbolize.
Humanist Visions in Formal Governance Principles
6
There is of course no official humanist vision for a Global Social Order. However the founding
documents of today’s United Nations (Appendices II, III, IV), of the United States (Appendix V)
and President Roosevelt’s social commitments (Appendices VII, VIII) respectively commit
governance to clearly humanistic concepts, principles and policies. (Also see Chapter 17 Section
I State of Democracy and J. United Nations. )
I find that Presidents Obama’s Budget Speech on April 13, 2011 (Appendix IX) to be an
especially appealing vision given its strong humanistic spirit. It saddens me that it is rendered
“utopian” by the fierce and often unethical and corrupt practices of minority political fanatics,
who have stymied most attempts by the Obama administration to reverse the damage done to our
democracy during eight years of the George W. Bush presidency.
While their implementation is far from perfect, the working democracies have at least provided
humanistic policy goals that the world can aspire to. Chapter 15 American and Global Realities
reviews setbacks to the American dream as well as periodic efforts by certain Presidents to
revive it. The worldwide humanist movement includes a number of independent religious and
secular organizations, some of which are loosely connected, and that share a common set of
Social Order visions promulgated in their literature and on websites. In the Epilogue I present A
Humanist Vision for a Global Social Order that takes account of what I have learned from all of
these sources,
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EPILOGUE – THE ROAD AHEAD
The opposite of the human is not the animal.
The opposite of the human is the demonic.
Joshua Abraham Heschel (1907-1972)
Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion.
For Heschel, being human means living a life to benefit humanity – being demonic means living
a life to harm humanity. Most of us can name local, national and world leaders who do both. Our
last chapter ended with a litany of “demonic” threats to the American and Global democratic
social orders, followed by my views of a very high-level humanistic strategy for countering these
threats. The devil of course is in managing the details of sure-fire recipes for cooking up a better
world. The sad fact is that science, evolution and history reveal a human nature that enabled our
Neolithic ancestors to invent fire, but is now working against our survival.
A Humanist Vision for the Global Social Order
While I do not know how to design the vital details consider Table E-1 that offers A Humanist
Vision for a Global Social Order that embodies principles of the United Nations Declaration of
Human Rights and the constitutions of democratic nations for a better life quality of our
civilization.
TABLE E-1: A HUMANIST VISION FOR A GLOBAL SOCIAL ORDER
CORE CULTURAL VALUES
Personal Responsibility
Educated Citizenry
Morality & Ethics
Equal Opportunity
Dignity, Respect and Privacy
Fair Share of Wealth
Humanistic Religion
Environmental Protection & Enhancement
Racial, Ethnic and Lifestyle Tolerance
Freedom of Speech & Expression
Security of Persons and Property
Care of the sick, Lame and Indigent
FREEDOMS FROM
Want and Fear
War
Hunger, Hopelessness & Poverty
Oppression & Arbitrary Arrest
Ignorance & Illiteracy
Slavery
Polluted Air Water & Food
Violence & Cruelty
Corruption & Exploitation
Torture & Rape
GOVERNANCE & PUBLIC POLICY
Defend Core Cultural Values
Defend the Freedoms From
Assure Fair Justice System
Define Corporate Responsibilities
Maintain & Improve Public Infrastructure
Prosecute Corporate Corruption
Protect Environmental Commons
Prosecute Government Corruption
Separate Church from State
Pursue Diplomacy – Avoid War
Reduce the Wealth Gap
Defend the Constitution
Support the United Nations
Defend Democracy
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TABLE E-1: A HUMANIST VISION FOR A GLOBAL SOCIAL ORDER (continued)
Core Cultural Values are the foundation of the humanist Social Order to be shared by the global
human community. There are of course many barriers to fully achieving these ideals. Some of
these humanist visions inspired ancient scriptural traditions as well as authoritarian values.
Poverty, injustice, and educational deficits breed ignorance, false beliefs, poor character
formation, social tension and violence.
Freedom From principles pertain to the elimination of the conditions that threaten our freedom
to fulfill our lives as individuals in a global human community.
Governance and Public Policy includes humanistic goals that governance should focus on. In
fact, most of these are already embedded in United Nations governance (Appendix IV) and in the
charters of the democratic nations, but are often corrupted.
Core Cultural Values are the foundation of the humanist Social Order to be shared by the global
human community. There are of course many barriers to fully achieving these ideals. Some of
these humanist visions inspired ancient scriptural traditions as well as authoritarian values.
Poverty, injustice, and educational deficits breed ignorance, false beliefs, poor character
formation, social tension and violence.
How can we work towards such a comprehensive and “utopian” vision? Is it necessarily
“utopian?” There are no easy answers. An essential part of the strategy is to educate people of
all ages to the Core Cultural Values. This is not simply a matter of facts and figures. It means
cultivating attitudes that trigger our inborn instincts for cooperation, altruism and fairness.
The Political Dimension
The engine of all organized human activity is political. It permeates families, tribes and nations
as well as governmental and corporate power structures. It is politics that sorts out the
hierarchies of power and wealth, determines who controls and who complies, who are allies and
who are enemies, who shares in the wealth of a nation and who is left out. George Lakoff is a
cognitive scientist who studies our minds’ political behaviors in search of communication
strategies that can ethically influence people to become more humanistic. He expresses the
following humanistic ideal behind the title of his book The Political Mind: A Cognitive
Scientist’s Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics:
I analyze the unconscious values behind what I call “progressive” thought: empathy,
responsibility (for oneself and others), and an ethic of excellence (making oneself and the
world better.) 15
Lakoff also analyzes what is today called conservative thought, which I prefer to call neoconservative thought. The antics of today’s neoconservatives are not merely authoritarian, but
anti humanistic in their hostility to humanism’s core values. Lakoff calls humanist ethics a
nurturant parent model in contrast to an authoritarian strict father model. 16 These terms mirror
the “humanistic” and “authoritarian” social attitudes defined in Chapter 6. But Lakoff goes on to
advocate more convincing campaigns for humanistic policies at all levels, and to lobby for the
public good as against private greed. While the competing parties espouse values like
accountability, responsibility, equality, freedom and fairness, they understand them differently.
Nevertheless they can often negotiate and find common ground. But as recent political history
has amply demonstrated, neo-conservatives firmly reject this precedent. Table E-2 exhibits a
sample of Lakoff’s comparisons.17 (Let me reiterate that I would have used the term
neoconservative in titling table.)
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TABLE E-2: How the Attitudes of Political Conservatives and Progressives
Bias Their Understanding of Humanistic Principles
Responsibility
Conservative thinking stresses individual responsibility to be rigidly applied no matter what
the cultural, social and economic context may be.
Progressive thinking stresses interdependence and social responsibility to be flexibly applied
within a given cultural, social and economic context.
Equality
Conservative thinking requires competition for rewards and a hierarchy of merit. Equality in
general conservatism can only mean equality of opportunity, not outcome. The concentration
of wealth and the (political) power that goes with it is fine, no matter how great.
Progressives: Great concentrations of wealth are not just fine, because great wealth controls
access to limited resources (such as places to live, great universities) and access to political
leaders, which is far from equal and hence violates political equality.
Fairness
Conservatives: In the debate over California’s Proposition 209 (which amended the state
constitution to prohibit governmental institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity,
specifically in the areas of public employment, contracting or education) conservatives framed
their argument as one of fairness in competition for high grades and test scores. Fairness
should be based on these indicators of “merit” alone.
Progressives had the opposite view of fairness. Grades and test scores are not in themselves a
fair measure of a person’s talent…The mission of a university… includes a moral mission to
provide professionals for all the state’s communities… taking race and ethnicity into account
was seen as central to a state university’s moral mission.
Conservatives often overcome progressive sentiment in the voting process. Lakoff laments that
the progressive movement (by whatever labels (such as liberal, humanist, nurturant parent,
democrat) not only failed to defeat Proposition 209, but has also failed to effectively counter
neoconservative trends in American religion, politics and education. He maintains that superior
conservative framing of these ideals has defeated the political messages of progressives. For
example, conservatives rejoice and progressives lament that the Supreme Court ruling in the
Citizens United case may have doomed and has certainly seriously damaged fairness in the
American political system.
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APPENDIX I: TREMBLAY’S CODE OF GLOBAL ETHICS 18
1 DIGNITY: Proclaim the dignity and natural worth of all human beings.
2 RESPECT the life and property others.
3 TOLERANCE of others’ beliefs, choices and lifestyles.
4 SHARING with those less fortunate and who need help.
5 NO DOMINATION OR EXPLOITATION: Use no lies of secular or
spirit doctrine to deny freedom and equality to others.
6 NO SUPERSTITION: Rely on science, reason and logic to understand
the universe and to solve life’s problems.
7 CONSERVE and improve the Earth’s environment: Land, Soil, Water,
Air, Space and Living Systems.
8 NO WAR: Resolve conflicts cooperatively without war or violence.
9 DEMOCRACY: Organized public affairs through political and economic
democracy.
10 EDUCATE to develop the talents for personal fulfillment and for the
betterment of humanity and future generations.
Summarized from The Code for Global Ethics
By Rodrigue Tremblay
11
APPENDIX II
ARTICLES OF THE U.N. DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 19
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason
and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction
of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political,
jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be
independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all
their forms.
Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 6: Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the
law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against
any incitement to such discrimination,
Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts
violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial
tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Article 11: (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved
guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense; (2)
No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a
penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier
penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the
law against such interference or attacks.
Article 13: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each
state; (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 14: (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution;
(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or
from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 15: (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality: (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 16: (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have
the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and
at its dissolution: (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending
spouses; (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by
society and the State.
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APPENDIX II (continued)
Article 17: (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others;
(2) No one shall
be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to
change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest
his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers.
Article 20: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association; (2) No one may be compelled
to belong to an association.
Article 21: (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen
representatives; (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country; (3) The will of the people
shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which
shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Article 22: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through
national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the
economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Article 23: (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work
and to protection against unemployment; (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal
work; (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an
existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection; (4) Everyone
has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic
holidays with pay.
Article 25: (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of
his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in
the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances
beyond his control; (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born
in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26: (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and
fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made
generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit; (2) Education shall be
directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious
groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace; (3) Parents have a prior right
to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Article 27: (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and
to share in scientific advancement and its benefits; (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material
interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28: Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration can be fully realized.
Article 29: (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality
is possible;(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are
determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others
and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society: (3) These
rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to
engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
13
APPENDIX III: UNITED NATIONS MILLENIUM
DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND TARGETS
GOAL
End Poverty and
Hunger
TARGETS FOR 2015
1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income
is less than $1 a day
2: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all,
including women and young people
3: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer
from hunger
Achieve Universal
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be
Primary Education
able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
Promote Gender
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably
Equality and Empower by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015
Women
Reduce Child
Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality
Mortality
rate
Improve Maternal
1: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
Health
2: Achieve universal access to reproductive health
Combat HIV/AIDS,
1: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Malaria and Other
2:Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all
Diseases
those who need it
Target 3:Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of
malaria and other major diseases.
Ensure Environmental 1: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies
Sustainability
and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
2: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in
the rate of loss
3: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable
access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
4: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at
least 100 million slum dwellers
Develop a Global
1: Address the special needs of least developed countries, landlocked
Partnership for
countries and small island developing states
Development
2: Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory
trading and financial system
3: Deal comprehensively with developing
4: In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to
affordable essential drugs in developing countries
5: In cooperation with the private sector, make available benefits of new
technologies, especially information and communications.
14
APPENDIX IV: UNITED NATIONS PROGRAMS
The following programs and “thematic areas” contribute directly and indirectly to the goals
established by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
Human Rights 20
Campaign to End Violence Against Women
Genocide
Indigenous People
Children and Armed Conflict
The Holocaust & UN Outreach Programme
Lessons From Rwanda
Disability and the UN
Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights Issues
Humanitarian Affairs 22
Climate Change
Demining (i.e. Landmines)
Early Warning
Global Food Security
Humanitarian Reform
Humanitarian Response Coordination
Human Security
Human Settlements
Impact of Sanctions
Internally Displaced Persons
Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict
Question of Palestine
International Law 23
Development of International Law
Oceans & Law of the Sea
Human Settlements
Internal Justice System at the UN
Other Legal Areas
Peace and Security 21
Peacemaking and Preventive Action
Peacekeeping
Peace building
Disarmament
Countering Terrorism
Electoral Assistance
Decolonization
Children and Armed Conflict
Women, Peace and Security
Mine Action
Sports for Development and Peace
Protection from Sex Exploitation &Abuse
Development Programs
Advancement of Women
Countries in Special Situations
Governance and Institution-building
International Trade
Macroeconomics and Finance
Population
Social Development
Statistics
Sustainable Development
Energy
15
APPENDIX V: THE FOUNDING DOCUMENTS OF U.S. DEMOCRACY
1: EXCERPTS FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed.
that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is the right of the
people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness.
Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed
to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same
object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism it is their right it is their duty to
throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been
the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to
alter their former systems of government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations
all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: (16 of the 28 grievances are excerpted below)
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He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of
their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out
their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by
our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the
inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our
governments:
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation
and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous
ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to
become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our
frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages,
sexes and conditions.
16
APPENDIX V: THE FOUNDING DOCUMENTS OF U.S. DEMOCRACY
(continued)
UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION BILL OF RIGHTS –– SELECTED ARTICLES
Article III Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Article IV A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of
the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Article V No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the
Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Article VI The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Article VII No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless
on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval
forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any
person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be
compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without
just compensation.
Article VIII In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public
trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,
which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature
and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his
defense.
Article IX In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars,
the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Article X Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and
unusual punishments inflicted.
Article XI The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny
or disparage others retained by the people.
Article XII The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by
it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
17
APPENDIX VII: ROOSEVELT’S SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS 24
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot
exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free
men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships
are made. In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident.
We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of
security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or
creed. Among these are:
1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or
farms or mines of the Nation;
2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and
recreation;
3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which
will give him and his family a decent living;
4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an
atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by
monopolies at home or abroad;
5. The right of every family to a decent home;
6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and
enjoy good health;
7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age,
sickness, accident, and unemployment;
8. The right to a good education.
9. All of these rights spell security.
18
APPENDIX VIII: The "Four Freedoms"
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address to Congress January 6, 194125
On the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon
four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the
world.
The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic
understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide
reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a
position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in
our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order
of tyranny, which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is
able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the
beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful
revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions - without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch.
The world order, which we seek, is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a
friendly, civilized society. This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts
of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God.
Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who
struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high
concept there can be no end save victory.
19
APPENDIX IX
Excerpts from Obama’s Budget Speech - April 13, 2011
The Kind Country We Believe In
What we've been debating here in Washington over the last few weeks will affect the lives of the
students here and families all across America in potentially profound ways. It's about the kind of
future that we want. It's about the kind of country that we believe in.
There's always been another thread running through our history -– a belief that we're all
connected, and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation. And so we've
built a strong military to keep us secure, and public schools and universities to educate our
citizens. We've laid down railroads and highways to facilitate travel and commerce. We've
supported the work of scientists and researchers whose discoveries have saved lives, unleashed
repeated technological revolutions, and led to countless new jobs and entire new industries. Each
of us has benefitted from these investments, and we're a more prosperous country as a result.
Part of this American belief that we're all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each
one of us deserves some basic measure of security and dignity. We recognize that no matter how
responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff may strike
any one of us. "There but for the grace of God go I," we say to ourselves. And so we contribute
to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of
basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against
unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes,
poor children, those with disabilities. We're a better country because of these commitments. I'll
go further. We would not be a great country without those commitments.
The Republican Budget Vision
Now, to their credit, one vision has been presented and championed by Republicans in the House
of Representatives … to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, and one that
addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that. But the way this plan
achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've
known certainly in my lifetime... it would be fundamentally different than what we've known
throughout our history.
A 70 percent cut in clean energy. A 25 percent cut in education. A 30 percent cut in
transportation. Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That's the
proposal. These aren't the kind of cuts you make when you're trying to get rid of some waste or
find extra savings in the budget. These aren't the kinds of cuts that the Fiscal Commission
proposed. These are the kinds of cuts that tell us we can't afford the America that I believe in and
I think you believe in.
I believe it paints a vision of our future that is deeply pessimistic. It's a vision that says if our
roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can't afford to fix them. If there are bright young
Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can't afford to
send them.
It's a vision that says America can't afford to keep the promise we've made to care for our
seniors. It says that 10 years from now, if you're a 65-year-old who's eligible for Medicare, you
should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed
20
health care, you will get a voucher… if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy the insurance
that's available in the open marketplace, well, tough luck -– you're on your own. Put simply it
ends Medicare as we know it.
It's a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for
us to reduce the deficit… Many … who wouldn't be able to afford nursing home care without
Medicaid… poor children… middle-class families who have children with autism or Down's
syndrome; some disabilities are so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the
Americans we'd be telling to fend for them selves.
And worst of all, this is a vision that says even though Americans can't afford to invest in
education at current levels, or clean energy, even though we can't afford to maintain our
commitment on Medicare and Medicaid, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new
tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about that.
This vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social
compact in America. Ronald Reagan's own budget director (David Stockman) said, there's
nothing "serious" or "courageous" about this plan. There's nothing serious about a plan that
claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and
billionaires. And I don't think there's anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those
who can least afford it and don't have any clout on Capitol Hill. That's not a vision of the
America I know.
21
APPENDIX X: Examples of Programs of Education for Democracy
The Albert Shanker Institute lhttp://www.shankerinstitute.org/about/
The organization’s by-laws commit it to four fundamental principles—vibrant democracy,
quality public education, a voice for working people in decisions affecting their jobs and
their lives, and free and open debate about all of these issues.
The Freedom School Website http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/
The curriculum of the summer Freedom Schools was a series of documents that, taken
together, offer the best example of a progressive, experiential curriculum that emphasized
student-centered teaching and learning-by-doing. We believe this curriculum is of value to
anyone interested in alternative education, especially in the context of small school and
summer school programs with a focus on citizenship education and social activism. This
website offers teachers and students, as well as scholars and interested citizens, a chance to
peruse and use any of the original documents created for the Freedom Schools.
The Democracy & Media Educational Foundation http://www.dmefd.org/
the DMEF can assist journalists, academicians, and other researchers in better
understanding the political realm and in exposing it to the Public as well as providing a
higher degree of education about politics to citizens. The Center for Civic Education
http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=foundations_of_democracy_series
The Justice curriculum helps students understand and apply the basic principles of justice
set forth in fundamental documents of our political and legal systems, consider fair
distribution of the benefits and burdens of society, consider fair responses to remedy wrongs
and injuries, consider fair practices for gathering information and making decisions,
evaluate, take, and defend positions on issues of justice.
Association of American Colleges and Universities
American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy, and Liberal Learning
http://www.aacu.org/american_commitments/index.cfm
Higher education, we believe, can nurture Americans' commitment and capacity to create a
society in which democratic aspirations become democratic justice. Diversity proves a
means of forging a deeper civic unity.
The Forum for Education and Democracy
http://forumforeducation.org/our-issues/learning-teaching
The Conveners of The Forum are committed to promoting and protecting the democratic
mission of our public schools – providing a free, equitable education that prepares all
students to become wise and engaged members of their towns, states, country, and
world. To this end public schools should provide high-quality teaching and learning that
fosters the habits of mind and heart that make democracy possible.
Agenda for Education in a Democracy http://www.ieiseattle.org/AED.htm
The Institute works to advance the Agenda for Education in a Democracy. This Agenda
consists of a four-part mission, a set of strategies to achieve that mission, and conditions
that are necessary to carry out the strategies.
Teacher Resources: Democracy in America
http://www.learner.org/resources/series173.html/ The site offers a video course in
civics, covers topics of civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions recommended by The
Civics Framework for the National Assessment of Educational Progress developed by the
U.S. Department of Education.
22
Democracy Education Network: http://www.democracyeducation.net/resources.htm
Offers links to Lesson materials on democracy skills for teachers, students and any active
citizen, Government information websites, Corporate information websites and Democracy
Education Network Publications
Institute for Democracy and Education
https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/ An independent, nonpartisan
research and advocacy organization established in 2009 to promote debate on the important
issues of democracy, education and schools. Mission?: Using research and advocacy as
tools to empower individuals, build relationships, and create knowledge for civic
participation and social change. We seek to link our public university with committed
educators and supportive community alliances to challenge the pervasive racial and social
class inequalities in the Sacramento region and in California.
TED Ideas Worth Spreading http://www.ted.com/pages/about We believe passionately
in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building
here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most
inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each
other. http://www.ted.com/talks/tags/government Offers lectures on democracy and
ethical issue
Kahn Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/ The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit
with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education
to anyone anywhere. Too many people around the globe don’t have access to good
education materials, or they are forced to learn through a system that doesn't properly cater
to their individual needs. We think the technology exists to fundamentally change this, and
we're trying to build the tools and resources every student deserves.
23
Appendix XI: American Humanist Association’s Ten Commitments
: xxvi
Guiding Principles for Teaching Values in America's Public Schools
1 Altruism
Altruism is the unselfish concern for the welfare of others without expectation of reward,
recognition, or return. Opportunities for acts of altruism are everywhere in the family, the
classroom, the school, and the wider community. Think of examples of altruistic acts in your
experience. What person-to-person and group projects, classroom and school-wide activities, and
community service projects might you and your students undertake?
2 Caring for the World Around Us
Everyone can and ought to play a role in caring for the Earth and its inhabitants. We can directly
experience the living things in our homes and neighborhoods like trees, flowers, birds, insects,
and pets. Gradually we expand our neighborhood. We learn about deserts and oceans, rivers and
forests, the wild life around us and the wild life elsewhere. We learn that we are dependent on
each other, on the natural world, and all that lives in it for food and shelter, space and beauty.
3 Critical Thinking
We gain reliable knowledge because we are able to observe, report, experiment, and analyze
what goes on around us. We also learn to raise questions that are clear and precise, to gather
information, and to reason about the information we receive in a way that tests it for truthfulness,
accuracy, and utility. From our earliest years we learn how to think and to share and challenge
our ideas and the ideas of others, and consider their consequences. Practice asking “what next?”
and “why?” and “how do I/you/we know that?”
4 Empathy
We human beings are capable of empathy, the ability to understand and enter imaginatively into
another living being’s feelings, the sad ones and the happy ones as well. Many of the personal
relationships we have (in the family, among friends, between diverse individuals, and amid other
living things) are made positive through empathy. With discussion and role-playing, we can learn
how other people feel when they are sad or hurt or ignored, as well as when they experience great
joys. We can use stories, anecdotes, and classroom events to help us nurture sensitivity to how
our actions impact others.
5 Ethical Development
Questions of fairness, cooperation, and sharing are among the first moral issues we encounter in
our ethical development as human beings. Ethical education is ongoing implicitly and explicitly
in what is called the “hidden curriculum” that we experience through the media, the family, and
the community. Ethics can be taught through discussion, role-playing, story telling, and other
activities that improve analysis and decision-making regarding what's good and bad, right and
wrong.
6 Global Awareness
We live in a world that is rich in cultural, social, and individual diversity, a world where
interdependence is increasing rapidly so that events anywhere are more likely to have
consequences everywhere. Much can be done to prepare the next generation for accepting the
responsibility of global citizenship. Understanding can be gained regarding the many
communities in which we live through history, anthropology, and biology. A linguistic, ethnic,
and cultural diversity are present in the classroom and provide lessons of diversity and
commonality. We help others reach understanding about the interconnectedness of the welfare of
all humanity.
24
Appendix II: Ten American Humanist Association’s Commitments (Continued)
7 Human Rights
Human Rights is the idea that people should have rights just because they are human beings.
These rights are universal. That is, they are for everyone no matter what their race, religion,
ethnicity, nationality, age, sex, political beliefs, intelligence, disability, sexual orientation, or
gender identity. School projects can be undertaken to learn about human rights, such as
interviewing people who have once or are now participating in various rights movements.
Student courts can introduce the idea and practice of due process, a key component of human
rights.
8 Peace and Social Justice
A curriculum that values and fosters peace education would promote understanding,
tolerance, and friendship among nations as well as among cultural and religious or
philosophical groups. Education should include opportunities to learn about the United
Nations’ role in preventing conflict as well as efforts to achieve social justice here in the
United States. Students should learn about problems of injustice including what can be done
to prevent and respond to them with meaningful actions that promote peace and social justice
both at home and abroad.
9 Responsibility
Our behavior is morally responsible when we tell the truth, help someone in trouble, and live
up to promises we've made. Our behavior is legally responsible when we obey a just law and
meet the requirements of membership or citizenship. But we also have a larger responsibility
to be a caring member of our family, our community, and our world. Stories and roleplaying can help students understand responsibility and its absence or failure. We learn from
answering such questions as: What happens when we live in accordance with fair and just
rules? What happens when we don’t? What happens when the rules are unjust?
10 Service and Participation
Life’s fulfillment can emerge from an individual’s participation in the service of humane
ideals. School-based service learning combines community service objectives and learning
objectives with the intent that the activities change both the recipient and the provider. It
provides students with the ability to identify important issues in real-life situations. Through
these efforts we learn that each of us can help meet the needs of others and of ourselves.
Through our lifetime, we learn over and over again of our mutual dependence.
1
Original 1928 song by Harry McClintock about a hobo's idea of paradise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rock_Candy_Mountain
2
Burl Ives version – selective lyrics: http://artists.letssingit.com/burl-ives-lyrics-big-rock-candy-mountaindx26kzx#axzz2MLlgNhos
3
This section is loosely based on Russell’s Chapter XIV Plato’s Utopia.
4
Russell 113
5
Russell 113
6
Gottlieb 290-292
7
Russell 106-107
8
Excerpted and adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_publica
9
Edward Clayton in SEP: http://www.iep.utm.edu/cicero/#SH7c See Section 7.c
10
, Michael Mendelson in SEP: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/
11
, Michael Mendelson in SEP: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/
12
http://www.gradesaver.com/utopia/study-guide/about/
13
EAbridged ffrom http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1871/section1.html
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14
The major sources for the data in this section were as follows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Imperialism and http://www.buzzle.com/articles/timeline-andhistory-of-american-imperialism.html unless otherwise noted.
15
Lakoff xiii
16
Lakoff 77, 81
17
Lakoff 183-185 lightly edited to better fit the context of this book.
18
Rodrigue Tremblay, The Code for Global Ethics. Prometheus books, 2009
19
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ The Preamble to the Declaration is not included in this Appendix.
20
United Nations Human Rights Programs: http://www.un.org/en/rights/index.shtml
21
United National Peace and Security: http://www.un.org/en/peace/index.shtml
22
United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Programs: http://www.un.org/en/humanitarian/index.shtml
23
United Nations International Law Programs: http://www.un.org/en/law/index.shtml
24
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16518
25
Congressional Record, 1941, Vol. 87, Pt. I:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs36b.htm
xxvi
Source: Bob Bhaerman, Education Director, AHA’s Kochhar Humanist Education Center.
http://www.americanhumanist.org/What_We_Do/Education_Center/Commitments#
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