The secret humanist

Why "The secret humanist"

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." - George Orwell

This blog aims to provide an occasional commentary on current affairs of the kind that would have been typical of reputable media organizations, think the BBC, before they succumbed to bothsidesism, when not outright capitulation.1 2

Paul Krugman, with typical wit, nails it:

'If a presidential candidate were to declare that the earth is flat, you would be sure to see a news analysis under the headline ā€Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.ā€ After all, the earth isn’t perfectly spherical.'

That downward spiral, which for reputable print news sources started with the diffusion of the internet and the advent of pay-per-click online advertising, had its inflection point in the "war on terror" which followed the September 11 attacks.

Until that moment, the democratic world seemed to share a belief in a ruled-based order both in domestic and international matters. That ruled-based order traces its origin to what I call, with some abuse of the term, a shared "humanist" tradition and principles.

This tradition is famously captured in the character of Lodovico Settembrini in Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain about, among many themes, Europe's moral and intellectual crisis on the eve of World War I. The humanist Settembrini ("My God, I am a humanist, a homo humanus...") is one of the two pedagogical teachers of Hans Castorp, the novel's young protagonist. His antagonist, Leo Naphta, represents radicalism while Settembrini personifies the principles of the Enlightenment, rationality, education. In a famous quote, he utters:

"For without education you cannot prevail before humanity, and there is only one kind of education—you call it bourgeois, but in fact it is human.ā€

Without education there is no rationality nor access to past intellectual achievements, what Brad Delong calls humanity's Mind, or natural anthology super-intelligence, to which the Enlightenment principles belong. It is not an accident that all authoritarians---e.g Orban, Erdogan, Trump---attack education.

Without rationality, we are driven by fast, unconscious, emotive System-1 thinking. This is what marketing and disinformation exploit. The history of humanity, since its origin in the West African plains, can be seen as a process of breaking free from irrationality, superstitions, myths and other such beliefs. Such a process reached escape velocity with the Enlightenment which, among many achievements, laid the foundations of democracy and our rule-based international order.

Here I want to lay out those foundational principles and the works and ideas behind them.

  1. Montesquieu's The Spirit of Law (De l'esprit des loix, 1748).

    • Separation of powers: the legislative, executive and judicial functions of government should be exercised by different bodies in order to provide checks and balances on attempts of one branch of government to infringe on personal security. ("political liberty").

    Since "constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it ... it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power"

    • Fairness, clarity and non-intrusiveness of the laws and due process as fundamental requirements of a legal system which ensures personal security.
  2. Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments (Dei delitti e delle pene, 1764).

    • Proportionality between crime and punishment
    • Arguments against capital punishment (abridged from the excellent discussion by Wolfgang Rother)

    "Crimes of every kind should be less frequent, in proportion to the evil they produce to society ... If an equal punishment be ordained for two crimes that injure society in different degrees, there is nothing to deter men from committing the greater as often as it is attended with greater advantage"

    (1) ... (2) ... (3) The endorsement of capital punishment contradicts the concept of deterrence. In order that capital punishment can be inflicted, capital crimes have to be committed. Thus, capital punishment requires what it wants to prevent. (4) If homicide is considered the most detestable crime, the state cannot decree a public murder and thus commit the same capital crime in the name of justice. (5) The death penalty is irreparable. A judicial error in the execution of an innocent cannot be corrected.

  3. Pietro Verri's Observations on Torture (Osservazioni sulla tortura, 1777).

    • Arguments against torture (abridged from the excellent discussion by Wolfgang Rother)

    (1) ... the principle of presumption of innocence forbids tormenting a person whose guilt is not established. (2) Torture is not a good means for the investigation of truth. The strong delinquent will endure all torments, whereas the sensitive innocent will confess falsely. (3) Under the influence of pain, the tortured has no interest in truth, but only that the pain stops immediately... (5) Interrogational torture violates the inalienable natural law of self-defense, and it appeals to self-accusation, which is absurd and inconsistent, for one and the same person cannot be at once accuser and accused.

  4. United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen (Declarations des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen, 1789).

    • Equality and freedom of individuals

      "We hold these truths to be self-evident, thatĀ all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these areĀ Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (USDI, Preamble)

      "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights..." (DRMC, Article I)

      "Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others..." (DMRC, Article IV)

  5. Hugo Grotius's On the Law of War and Peace (De Iure Belli ac Pacis, 1625). The foundational text of modern public international law, interpreting war as an instrument of justice and therefore subject to the law.3

    • Just cause for war: self-defence, reparation of injury, punishment
    • Just conduct during war: proportionality, protection of wounded combatants and civilian from harm
    • Criminal responsibility for states

These are the ideas that underpin modern democracy and the rule-based international order which culminated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva conventions. They are the very basis of our civilization. Their theoretical foundations are humanity's fundamental cultural heritage and provide an intellectual, as well as moral, compass to expose the gaslighting which started with the war on terror; from Guantanamo, John Yoo's Torture Memos, the invasion of Iraq on false pretenses, all the way to Israel's current targeting and mass starvation of civilians in Gaza.

Drowning these ideas in noise or relativism is a way (the way?) to establish "...control [of] the present."


  1. David Folkenflik, "Bezos' changes at 'Washington Post' lead to mass subscription cancellations — again", NPR. 29 February, 2025. Retrieved 19 July, 2025.

  2. "Stephen Colbert on Paramount’s $16m settlement with Trump: ā€˜Big fat bribe'", The Guardian. 15 July, 2025. Retrieved 19 July, 2025.

  3. For an influential discussion of the precursors to Grotius's contribution seeĀ Holland, Thomas ErskineĀ (1898).Ā "Alberico Gentili".Ā Studies in International Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp.Ā 1–39. RetrievedĀ 8 FebruaryĀ 2019 – via Internet Archive.