Basic Principles of Humanism:
(1) Values upheld by a people affect history- When a people’s values are of the highest quality, good fallows, while decay and destruction are checked. Human nature does not change, and the problems of history are not unique to particular persons or individual cultures. It is up to modern man to use history’s lessons, if he is to overcome the conflicts of his own time.
(2) Man reaps the reward of his moral decisions or barbaric behavior- The humanist emphasis on literature. Great literature focuses on values, and it concretely focuses on them. That is, the great literature of the world portrays man in his historical circumstances. A man reaps the fruit of his moral decisions and of his humanistic or barbaric behavior in this context, literary masterpieces are fundamental philosophies of history, for example, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Divine Comedy, and others. They indicate great humanistic concerns and reflect values related to human causation. The emphasis on literature provides a clue to a particular mode of Humanism, that the values themselves are inexpressible in the usual sense. The values are absolute and external; they are prevalent in history and wholly reasonable. They are in accordance with nature but can’t be stated in simple verbal propositions. The only way these values can be presented is in the styles of literary episodes.
(3) Respect for language, ancient cultures, and literary scholarships- Humanism as a philosophy is social in origin and development. Education must preserve civilization through a concern for absolute values, and for the intellectual basis on which civilization stands. This respect must be inculacted in the young through respect for language, respect for ancient culture, and respect for intellectual and literary scholarships.
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