In this article Bronislaw Malinowski’s ideas on humanism are analysed with reference to unpublished texts and drafts, published texts such as A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term, his personal letters to his wife Elsie Masson and articles in which his ideals were reflected. An attempt will also be made to set Malinowski’s proposal for the New Humanism in its scientific and cultural context along with the work of other great thinkers and humanists of his day. Finally, it (...) is suggested that Malinowski’s ideas in this field, despite the passage of time, are still relevant to social anthropology and, at the very least, still inspire new thoughts. (shrink)

Matthias Knutzen was the first author we know of who self-identified as an atheist. Before this, the term had solely been used pejoratively to label others. While Knutzen is almost completely forgotten now, authors such as Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Sigmund Freud are better remembered and might even be considered classic writers in the history of the atheist criticism of religion. Whatever may be said about the influence of any one of these authors, there is no doubt (...) that Germany looks back on a notable history in this field. About a decade ago, Germany’s capital Berlin was even dubbed ‘the world capital of atheism’ by the American sociologist Peter L. Berger.Given this situation, I am bewildered by the expression ‘New Atheism’. Yet, undoubtedly, the term has become a catchphrase that is commonly used in the public discourse of several countries. The most prominent authors to be labelled ‘New Atheists’ are Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. These authors and their books – all of them international bestsellers – have been intensely discussed around the world, including in Germany. In this paper, I intend to illuminate some of the characteristics and remarkable traits of the German discourse on the ‘New Atheism’. Here we can distinguish between two phases. The German media initially characterised ‘New Atheism’ as a rather peculiarly American phenomenon. However, it soon came to be understood to be a part of German culture as well. (shrink)

The article traces the origination of the psychological concept of the ‘herd instinct’, popularized by British surgeon Wilfred Trotter, locating this in a distinctive moment of dialogue between the natural and human sciences. It challenges the incorrect association of Trotter’s model with the crowd theory of Gustave Le Bon and negative commentaries on mass culture. In contrast, it shows that Trotter’s model rests on imitation and suggestion not as the sign of a derogated culture but as the ground of associated (...) life, with altruism as its highest expression. His argument that individuals possessed an inherent capacity for association and a disposition to act in the interests of the social group was designed to challenge the hierarchical models of Social Darwinism. Instead, he highlighted the evolutionary importance of variability and innovation and proposed a horizontal model of cooperation as the basis of adaptation. Trotter’s narrative of human potential pre-dated and informed Freud’s own collective psychology, as well as providing an influential challenge to his theory of repression. The widespread take-up of Trotter’s model of the herd instinct in the context of futures thinking, forming the basis of an egalitarian approach to governance that proposed human fulfilment and social progress as complementary aims, supports the article’s argument that psychological approaches to collectivity were well established prior to the First World War rather than formed in response to it, and that these were embedded within social thinking across the political spectrum, rather than derived for instrumentally conservative purposes. (shrink)