“I believe in humanism as an orientation and guideline for a morally acceptable way of life. Kant’s deontology, for example, provides some answers to ethical questions”, Marc shared.

“After the Enlightenment, new answers to ethical questions were needed, since moral values ​​could no longer be derived from divine authority, but from rationality and human experience. I find it interesting how humanism challenges religiosity or spirituality. Religions bring moral and ethical guidelines to people. But in our society [referring to living in Berlin in 2023], religion is not a commonly shared and lived experience anymore. Kant's Humanism, to give one example, offers some guidelines to live by in our everyday life."

The continuation of our conversation linked up nicely with this belief – a story from that very day, a couple of hours earlier…

Marc spent the afternoon at a lake where he witnessed a man calling his son by whistling loudly, ten times. This strident whistle some people are able to produce sticking two fingers in their mouth. Marc said it would have been more efficient for the father to simply walk towards his son. "It seemed to me that the man wanted to make a point about how loud he was able to whistle rather than wanting to make his son come back. This man’s behaviour really triggered me. How can he put his need to make a mark, to distinguish himself, before everyone else's who just came to enjoy a peaceful and relaxing day at the lake?"

Marc added: “This example is interesting because the man is acting in a 21st century environment that is no longer dominated by religious authority, but is still influenced by societal norms, independent of which ethical principles underly those norms. The man's behaviour is neither compatible with the categorical imperative (the principle that every action should be considered a general law for all) nor utilitarian, since the man's utility is too small to justify the possible inconvenience to others!”

Marc's smallest is a reference to a painting he made. This painting hangs in his living room where he sees it every day, it is present all the time, every day, just like humanism. That painting is of abstract nature, just like ethical principles and norms are of abstract nature, and features two colours: white and yellow arranged in a graphical structure created by taping certain areas of the canvas. I applied the same technique to Marc’s smallest. 

So, how does it relate to humanism? 

The white area, representing the absence of the tape, symbolises the absence of religiosity. The warm yellow symbolises humanism, the world without religiosity.

And because I like puns, the edge between white and yellow symbolises Kant’s guidelines of humanism, edges giving us a structure and orientation. “Edge” in German is “Kante”. When I told Marc about this, he said I could not possibly mix up things like this, “you are going from ‘Kante’ to ‘Kant’…” – “But this is NEUEREALITAET”, I smiled. “In NEUEREALITAET, everything has to do with everything!"

The white of the smallest is perceived as violet when you stare at it for a long time (due to successive contrast). Random and fitting fact: Violet represents the program of the Protestant Church.

I did add a halo to the smallest. The halo is made of an aluminium neck loop of a beer bottle we emptied during this conversation.