Humanist Café – a new way of doing humanism?

By David Warden

David reports on the launch of Humanist Café in Bournemouth. Humanist Café is a deliberate attempt to move beyond traditional 50-minute lectures – which now have niche appeal – to something more engaging and communal. The response so far has been very encouraging.

In her main article for this issue of Humanistically Speaking, Maggie Hall has honestly expressed a widespread concern about the future of organised humanism at the local level:

‘What I do have doubts about, however, is the future of organised humanism. Most humanist groups that I know of are struggling to attract members. The members they do have seem to be largely in the older age group. Some groups have folded altogether and even if new ones are formed, they don’t seem to be around for very long... the whole issue boils down to whether those of us currently involved in organised humanism at the local level have the will, the energy and the vision to keep going, or whether the most sensible thing would be to acknowledge that perhaps local humanist groups have had their day.’

Anthony Lewis expresses a similar concern in his piece:

‘My journey to becoming a humanist illustrates both the promise and the fragility of organised humanism today. At its best, humanism can provide friendship, intellectual stimulation, and civic engagement grounded in reason, compassion, and shared humanity. My experience with Windsor Humanists demonstrates that this can be deeply enriching. Yet it also exposes the limits of our current model: despite the rapid growth of the non-religious, humanism remains small, uneven, and poorly understood.’

I have offered a diagnosis of the problem in my longer essay in this issue entitled Brave New Humanism: the next 100 years. In brief, my thesis is that humanism has so far failed to provide a community-based alternative to religion, with very few exceptions. It has, instead, seen its mission in terms of emancipation of the individual and social activism. This is OK as far as it goes, but it fails to meet the full range of human existential needs for meaning and belonging. And crucially, humanism understood in this limited way will struggle to maintain sustain vibrant local humanist communities, if they manage to exist at all.

I'm acutely aware of the cultural and demographic challenge here in Bournemouth. Although our paid-up membership has recently passed the 200 mark, we still struggle sometimes to get bums on seats. But this is not always the case. Two of our recent events have attracted lively groups of 50 and 37 people respectively, and a recent eight-week evening course about humanist virtues attracted an average of 20 participants per night. So what's the magic formula?

The magic formula

A big draw appears to be food. No surprise there perhaps! At our festive event in December, we served home-made mulled wine, mince pies, savoury nibbles, and scrumptious home-made cakes. We also had a jazz duo play some distinctly non-seasonal but upbeat numbers on piano and sax (we have our own Yamaha portable piano bought from a generous legacy.) Members and guests were seated around tables café-style rather than in rows. This configuration obliges people to talk to each other rather than looking at the backs of people's heads. The talk on humour by Barry Newman (reprinted in this issue) was written to be fun and interactive. The whole event was a great success and we raised over £200 for our charity appeal for a local food bank and Humanist Schools in Uganda.

Setting up for our first Humanist Café event. Softening the atmosphere of an old school hall is challenging but bright tablecloths and daffodils can make a big difference on a limited budget. Photo by Aaron.

The official launch of our Humanist Café took place on Saturday 10th January at 2pm. I purchased cheap and cheerful red and white check table cloths adorned with vases of cheap daffodils to brighten up the space. We served home-made carrot cake, home-made nut cake, and a purchased pavlova. Members and guests were invited to grab a tea or a coffee on arrival and to sit around tables. Everyone was invited to stick a name label on themselves – a natural ice breaker. I facilitated a conversation on ‘The Meaning of Love’ drawing on myths and memes from a century of popular songs about love, as well as perspectives from humanistic psychology. The discussion was interspersed with songs about love played on the piano by yours truly, including What the World Needs Now and Endless Love. The design of this event, and the number of people who showed up, meant that there was energy in the room from the start and it surpassed my expectations for our first Humanist Café experiment.

The cultural shift

The cultural shift underpinning this change of format is simple yet profound. We are deliberately trying to move from a consumer model to a community model of humanism. Now at first sight this may not be obvious. The people who came along consumed cake and they enjoyed our musical offerings. But the really important shift is from the standard 50-minute lecture, staring at the backs of people's heads, to a café-style format in which people can get to know each other. Our talks will be broken up into segments so that conversation can happen on each table. This gives everyone a greater chance of contributing to the conversation.

Eating cake and practising the virtues of good dialogue at Humanist Café

Importantly, we are also insisting that members and guests practise the virtues of good conversation. Culture wars must be left at the door. In a humanist space, we will be practising the virtues of dialogue. One of my first slides indicated what these look like:

• Listening attentively

• Giving way to others

• Noticing and acknowledging

• Encouraging

• Contributing your view

• Being prepared to change your mental map of reality in the light of alternative viewpoints and evidence

In this way, a humanist space can be countercultural. In today's world, we desperately need spaces where people with radically different views can engage in discussion and dialogue, instead of breaking off into their respective echo chambers and condemning people in opposing ‘tribes’.

The Humanist Café curriculum

I'm not going to be too prescriptive about the curriculum of Humanist Café but I do want it to focus as much as possible on the real existential needs of people in our local community and how the humanist frame of reference can help people with the whole messy and difficult business of being human. We'll be drawing on the resources of the humanist tradition, going back to ancient wisdom such as that found in Aristotle and Stoicism, and brought up to date with the best resources from humanistic and positive psychology. A humanist space ought to be one in which people are learning about and putting into practise the virtues of being good and living well – not in a didactic or dogmatic fashion but by exploring and learning together.

How difficult is this?

Creating and running a Humanist Café does require effort, imagination and commitment. It can be done fairly cheaply if you scour charity shops for things like vases and ask members and volunteers to make cakes. If you're going to have table decorations it's important to have real flowers or plants and home-make cakes. What we're aiming for is authenticity – not expensive mass-produced rubbish. Facilitating dialogue requires some skill in facilitation but Humanists UK does provide dialogue training. In many respects it's easier than writing and delivering an entire 50-minute talk, or finding good speakers. And so far, it's a whole lot more fun than the traditional format.

Has there been any negative feedback so far?

Yes. One member said she does not like sitting round tables. Another asked whether it was going to become ‘the David Warden show’ (no – I want others to volunteer). Several people have said they like the traditional lecture format. Well, we're not banning the traditional talks entirely but to be honest we have done that for 30 years and people are no longer showing up in sufficient numbers. We will have a traditional talk for our Darwin Day event in February. But Humanist Café is about experimentation, shifting the culture, and seeing what works. It's early days, but our first Humanist Café was very encouraging.