The Humanist Movement

Extract of a talk by Silo given on the 4th of January 1998 in the Obras Sanitarias stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

... "What is the humanist movement today? Is it perhaps a refuge in the face of the general crisis of the system in which we live? Is it a sustained critique of a world that is becoming more dehumanized day by day? Is it a new language and a new paradigm, a new interpretation of the world and a new landscape? Does it represent an ideological or political current, a new aesthetic, a new scale of values? Is it a new spirituality, destined to redeem subjectivity and diversity through concrete action? Is the Movement perhaps the expression of the struggle in support of the dispossessed, the abandoned, and the persecuted? Or is it a manifestation of those who feel the monstrosity inherent in human beings not having the same rights and the same opportunities?

The Movement is all that and much more. It is the practical expression of the ideal of humanizing the Earth and the aspiration of moving towards a Universal Human Nation. It is the seed of a new culture in this civilization that is becoming planetary, and which will have to change its course, accepting and valuing diversity and giving equal rights and identical opportunities to all human beings, because of the dignity that they deserve by the simple fact of their having been born.

The Humanist Movement is the external manifestation of the profound changes that are taking place in the interior of the human being and that are history itself: tragic, disconcerting, but always growing. It is a small voice, which foretells what is to come beyond the human being we have known. It is a poem and a rainbow of diverse colors. It is a David facing an insolent Goliath. It is the softness of water against the hardness of rock. It is the strength of the weak: a paradox and a Destiny.

My friends, even when we do not immediately achieve the results that we have hoped for, this seed exists already, and awaits the arrival of the times that are to come.

For all, from heart to heart, the fervent desire for this coming social change and the hope for this silent transformation which, beyond all compulsion, beyond all impatience, beyond all violent aspiration, beyond all guilt and all feelings of failure, is already nesting in the intimate depths of many humanists."

The Humanist Movement is a collection of people who participate in the proposals of New Humanism, also known as Universalist Humanism. These proposals, in their broadest sense, can be found shaped in the Document of the Humanist Movement.

This current of thought that is presented in the works of Silo and in those of the diverse authors who are inspired by it also implies a sentiment and a way of living, taking shape in multiple fields of human endeavor, giving rise to diverse organisms and action fronts; all of them applied to their specific fields of activity with the common aim: to Humanize the Earth. In themselves they have in common the methodology of Active Nonviolence and the proposal for personal change as a function of social transformation.

The HM appeared on the 4 th of May, 1969 with a public presentation by its founder, Silo, known as the "Healing of Suffering", in a mountainous outpost in the Andes called Punta de Vacas, close to the border of Argentina and Chile .

The HM is not an institution even though it gives rise to numerous groups and organizations.

The organisms that have emerged from the HM until now are the Humanist Party, the Community for Human Development, Convergence of Cultures, World without Wars and without Violence and the World Center for Humanist Studies.

Even if these organisms have specific organizational forms that allow them to carry out their activities, the HM itself has no type of organization and constitutes an ambit of convergence and interchange for members of the different organisms.

The activities that are developed by those who participate in the HM will depend on their free initiative.

Among the materials the HM counts on are:

  • Document of the Humanist Movement
  • Manual of Personal Development for members of the Humanist Movement.Center of Studies, Punta de Vacas Park, 2009
  • Collected Works, Silo, Volume I and II.
  • Psychology Notes
  • Humanism (extract of the audiovisual production "Silo´s Commentaries" - 2008)