OUR UNDERSTANDING OF HUMANISM

1. The human nature is dual, man belongs both to the animal world and to the world of culture
2. A child becomes a personality mastering the culture of his (her) society on the basis of human biological nature
3. Our body develops in accordance with a certain genetic programme, human mind develops only in social environment by learning a certain language, a personality develops in proportion to his (her) efforts and under the influence of society and its culture
4. Human needs and abilities are formed from their genetically determined potentialities and under the influence of culture
5. The number of normal (natural) human needs and abilities is comparatively not large but new needs and abilities can be formed including abnormal ones (such as the need for alcohol or drugs). But what really makes man a Man is developing his spiritual potentialities
6. Society can influence its culture and thus change itself for better or worse. Ideology including moral values, systems of education and upbringing as well as television present important elements of such influence
7. Modern civilization is a consumer civilization (or as it is sometimes called "technocratic" or "industrial society") because its culture creates a man as a commodity or as a labor force with a number of qualities put forward by industry and system of consumption
8. Humanist culture should create a harmonically developed personality, which has been the aim for an enlightened part of the ancient Greek society, the reality to some extent for humanists of Italian Renaissance, a declaration in communist ideology
9. Being the moving force of modern civilization the economic competition brought the appearance of a powerful system of a consumer demand management. Nowadays this system is more based on changing the existing needs and on forming new ones than on advertising. Mass culture has become an important, and a highly destructive, element of that system
10. The number of normal human needs and abilities and a range of their possible changing being limited, the further widening of consumer demand will inevitably be realized through forming abnormal needs, at the expense of human health, that's why the major direction of development in economic competition is maiming and corruption of total consumer. That means self-destruction of modern civilization but also the possibility of its humanist transformation