Recovering Humanity: Can Philanthropy Help?

After the global conflagration of World War II, a period of light and hope allowed the work of long-standing civic and philanthropic movements to place alternatives to war, violence, and oppression atop the global agenda. Whatever moral and symbolic force these inspiring principles exercised to limit the use of organized force and barbarity, they are now depleted. Witness the open dehumanization that characterizes discourse around many kinds of conflict, including wars that rage between countries and polarization that afflicts public life within them.

Perhaps it was no coincidence that humanity took center stage, however briefly and symbolically, when women led the way.  Perhaps we would not again be in a period in which humanity is being eclipsed if more women were in charge. I’d be willing to take such a wager.

How proximate humanity seemed to all observing the longest serving first lady in American history, who  became America’s inaugural delegate to the United Nations.  Eleanor Roosevelt worked to forge the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaiming a new, absolute commitment to universal human dignity, and it seemed to have a chance, at least for a while.

Humanity’s primacy was enshrined in the UN and in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 that addressed many of the destructive “innovations” of the recently concluded Second World War. A language of presumed rights and dignities was established that became the dominant moral imagination of how the people of the world could and should relate to each other. Leading to this momentary triumph were non-state actors and voluntary initiatives like the one that led to the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of humanitarian law.

Dehumanizing ideologies were not eliminated when the UN General Assembly voted with no opposition to adopt the Universal Declaration. They still had currency, including in the United States, which was a geopolitical embarrassment as its own constitutional principles served as a model for the UN’s vision. Black Americans were still being denied full rights of citizenship. But a morally compelling voice kept humanity front and center.

Speaking at the acceptance of his Nobel Peace Prize, Martin Luther King, Jr. affirmed the need to actively address the three evils of racial injustice, poverty, and war that stood in the way of humanity dignity for all of us:

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.

Jonathan Eig’s recent biography of King vividly captures his underlying commitment to humanity as the guide to his passion for justice. Unfortunately, King’s diagnosis in his 1964 speech still resonates today: 

The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

Though still vital in its commitment to universal dignity, we see in King’s speech the foreboding that humanity is receding from the scene. Today it seems that a divisive dynamic dominates in our country and others. In the U.S., Republicans and Democrats are loath to have their children marry someone of the other side as cultural, residential, and purchasing choices sort according to partisan allegiance. Fellow feeling and comity across difference dissipate, while we see ever more degrading characterizations of the other side.

The words of demagogues have found popular support among those who are frustrated by not being seen or recognized. They have fallen in thrall to the delusion that it is possible to acquire dignity by taking it from someone else. The story is now all too familiar. Disgust with difference is expressed without constraint, and the authoritarians who inflame such hate stomp around the world stage laughing at their impunity from the paper pronouncements that heralded humanity’s triumph.

So where is our sliver of hope? It was delivered to me in a message from an astute scholar of philanthropy and former president of Connecticut College, Claire Gaudiani. She reminded me that humanity is incubated in face-to-face interactions. Imaginary strangers are more frightful than people we meet over a meal and with whom we have a sustained and civil engagement. She calls for “Citizen Conversations on Democracy” and encourages us to look to the 250^th Anniversary of America’s founding on July 4, 2026 as a motivating milestone.