Book Review-Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope By Sarah Bakewell

Sarah Bakewell amply demonstrated her scholarship in historical research and her storytelling skills in her previous two books: How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer and At the Existentialist Café. Those two books made her one of my must-read authors, no matter the subject. Which is how I came to procure a copy of Humanly Possible. I would have gladly added this book to my To-Be-Read pile even without having experienced her writing, as I have been curious about the Humanists, or Freethinkers throughout my spiritual life. The topic had been covered previously in  Susan Jacoby’s Freethinker’s: A History of American Secularism. Bakewell’s tome is broader in scope as she delves into 700 years of humanist thoughts and philosophy starting from the earliest western thought rather than just covering the American version of Humanism.

Bakewell structured her book chronologically, carefully tracking the evolution of Humanist thoughts from the first stirrings of the human centered belief as a reaction against reliance on the supernatural. She lays out a step-by-step evolutionary history of Humanism, tracing the many threads of Humanist thought throughout western human history. Her exceptional story telling prowess is the glue that holds the narrative together, as the development and evolution of the Humanist oeuvre is not only heterogeneous, broad in scope, but also complicated. This approach could have resulted in overwhelming pedantry, putting the reader into a rut of repetitious time keeping and list making; but Bakewell’s way with a narrative saved the book.

Her ease with the convoluted philosophical developments of Humanism throughout history and most importantly, her analysis of the developments within their specific context and in a broader historical sense told a clear story and her expository rigor made the ideas become as alive as the narrative.

She started her story with Petrarch and Boccacio and ended with her statement of her own thoughts regarding the future of Humanism. The last chapter is where she most clearly expressed her own Humanist beliefs and her struggles with the realities of Humanism.

In between the first and last chapters, Bakewell laid out the salient histories and personalities of the historical figures which kept the ideas of Humanism alive. She also adds a nice touch in giving the readers a short list and description of all the historical figures that she will be introducing at the beginning of each chapter, which gives us a hint of what to expect.

The stories get more fully fleshed out as the chronology gets closer to the present time, as expected, but Bakewell clearly lays out the reasons why the historical figures are considered important to the story, and why they believed in what they believed in, giving the readers an understanding of  the motivation for each historical figure.

Such historically significant figures as Erasmus, Montaigne, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Paine, Bentham, Wilde, Frederick Douglas, E. F. Forster, Wilhelm Von Humboldt, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert G Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, and Thomas Mann were all mentioned, their contributions to Humanism analyzed and expounded upon to give depth and breadth to the Humanist story.

Bakewell employed a chronological structure to tell the story, which initially felt constraining and as if the narrative of the early history of Humanism was rushed; to be fair, there are scant historical records for Bakewell to dig into. It wasn’t until later in the chronology of the history that the pace of the book settled into a steady and more attractive pace.

The chapters on Wilhelm Von Humboldt, John Stuart Mills, and Forster were the most riveting for me. Although the chapters that dealt with the roles that Erasmus, Montaigne, Hume, Wilde and Bentham played earlier in the narrative also readily captured the reader’s attention. The introduction of Darwin and Huxley historically shook up Humanism much as it did literarily to  this book, giving a welcomed dose of scientific inquiries into what had been a purely philosophical analysis. Robert Ingersoll was a figure that I had known about but had not read much about, I was glad that Bakewell gave me a dip into his thoughts.

Bertrand Russell, as always, played the intellectual elephant in the room as his long-lasting intellectual legacy dominated the latter conversations about Humanism, as his long and productive life coupled with his robust intellectual expositions dominated the conversations about Humanism during the 20^th century, as with many other philosophical discussions.

It was a bravura work of historical investigation about a complicated and convoluted subject. My own dips into the Humanism beliefs filled me with hope for humankind but also left me struggling with contradictions, as any worthy system of belief should. Bakewell stated that she is dedicated to the Humanist combination of Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope as her guiding principles, and I feel the same way; after all, who in their right minds can argue with those three principles.

As with all broad- and broad-minded beliefs, there are enough variations in beliefs and thought in addition to the copious amount of interpretations to dampen any hopes of unifying and standardizing the beliefs. As with all beliefs, even though Humanism has at this time distanced itself from the overtly supernatural frame of reference; yet humans have always desired a set of written and definitive principles around which any movement or system of belief can pivot, which is where the monotheistic religions are advantaged: it is easier to attribute all the belief to a single supernatural entity than unifying disparate principles.

Much as Christians had employed the group sourced King James Bible and the earlier Council of Nicea, there has been attempts at unifying Humanist principles, first to counter the blasphemy laws around the world; as having a set of human based ethics and scruples is seen as a challenge to the churches and religions as they exist today; and second to integrate all the beliefs that the Humanist claim to be central to defining Humanism. Bakewell included the Declaration of Modern Humanism as written by consensus in 2022 by the Humanists International in the appendix. In and of itself, the declaration is a fine document, it does indeed encompass much of what most believe Humanism holds to be important. Although the wordsmithing and qualifying compositions reflect the amount and characteristics of the compromising that went on behind the scenes when the declaration was written. While I understand that wordsmithing is necessary and even critical to the process of gaining acceptance from all the Humanists; it reflects the nature of the negotiations. Compromising negatively impacts the power of the system of belief, which then ameliorates the passions of the potential believers.

This is what I find to be frustrating with Humanism. A belief system that is as admirable in its intentions and motivation as Humanism deserves serious consideration as a belief system, yet the main reason that it so attractive: the humanity focused belief as opposed to the supernatural belief, handicaps the clarity and unity of the Humanist philosophy. Being able to focus on the supernatural and having a centralized power and bureaucratic structure based on the belief of a monolithic idol creates a unity that is very powerful, even though the truth of the existence of the idol is dubious.

What Bakewell accomplished with this book, which is what she excels at, is to give those curious about Humanist belief a perspective centering history of Humanism. She also traces the many disparate ideas which form Humanism to those who originated the thoughts. It is an intellectually pleasing read, an entertaining tale of how Humanism came to be Humanism.

Much to Bakewell’s credit, she refused to dictate to the readers, she presented the historical facts and organized the history cogently so that those who are curious can read the history of development and evolution of Humanism and then she allows the reader to decide for themselves. Which is what a great author should do.