Welcome to the Spring 2026 Edition of Humanistically

Speaking.​​​ 

 

Humanity’s return to the Moon last month, aboard the Orion spacecraft, provided us with a breathtaking new opportunity to look back at our precious blue globe from space – while down on the surface, the all-too-familiar sound of bombs and missiles presaged chaos and disorder. Humanism has long hoped for a better world guided by reason, empathy, and liberal values. In his essay this month, Chris Highland reminds us of the revolutionary idealism of Tom Paine who wrote, in Common Sense, ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again’. Yet some of today’s conflicts appear to be driven by the absence or even rejection of such humanistic values.​

 

Being human remains a challenge and a promise: to live in the turbulent world as it is, at the same time as aiming to be calm and clear in our thinking and basic values. Modern humanism belongs to a long tradition of thinking about how to hold these two aspects of our sublunary existence in balance. Some of the ancient Greeks called it ataraxia, which literally means the absence of turbulence – a kind of inner steadiness that allows us to remain engaged without being thrown into cynicism or despair. Two of our writers – Henri Ruff and David Falls – have written about this humanist ideal in their contributions while Anthony Lewis has explored the meaning of ‘emotional resilience’.

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Mike Flood reminds us of the scale of the challenges we face, and David Mayston offers a systems perspective, showing how many of our problems are interconnected and resistant to simple solutions. In response, George Locke explores ‘radical optimism’ – a way of acting responsibly and constructively without relying on reassurance or certainty – while Leo Russell offers a critique of ‘doomerism’.

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Leo Igwe makes a compelling case for a global humanist training institute while Miuizerkia Dive, a bright and determined sixth-form student at the Isaac Newton humanist school in Uganda, shows how transformative a humanistic education can be. Humanist celebrant Kate Domaille finds humanity in dark and difficult stories, and Jeremy Rodell suggests how humanists might use the language of spirituality to express the full range of human experience.

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Sophy Robinson reflects on the problem of truth in today’s media landscape, proposing that ‘sense-making’ may be a more realistic and constructive aim. Maggie Hall writes about the everyday challenges of living ethically while Owen Morten uncovers a surprising humanist voice in a transatlantic letter. I offer some reflections of my own on ‘moderate progressivism beyond tribes’ and the way in which Donald Trump seems to satisfy a psychological need for archetypal villains.​

 

Humanistically Speaking exists to offer something that feels increasingly rare: a space for thoughtful reflection in a noisy and antagonistic world. Public conversation today is often driven by speed, outrage, and a kind of performative certainty. We try to do something different – to slow things down, to hold open more than one perspective, and to approach difficult questions with care rather than heat. Not to avoid them, but to resist the pull of easy answers.

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I hope you will share our articles on social media. You’re free to republish them in your own humanist newsletters and elsewhere, as long as you credit the author and provide a link to Humanistically Speaking. For more details, refer to our Creative Commons licence by following the links at the bottom of every page.

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Thank you, as ever, for your encouragement and support. If you’d like to contribute an article or news report to our summer issue to be published on 1st August 2026, do let me know.

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David Warden

Editor