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Venture Humanism: Beyond the Looking Glass
Emma Blackthorne & Henry Blackthorne, 2015
Introduction
Venture humanism, a spectacle of modern romanticism, introduces spirit into a world that has
become increasingly inanimate and focused on self-gratification and meaningless media
flummery, turning our existential screws until they can do nothing but fail. The weight of all of
this hyper-individual hokum is auto-strangulating our postmodern world, and like a clock
winding down, we are left with silence, a void. And we know what nature does with a void: it
replaces it.
But what will replace postmodernism?
Postmodernism: Before the Looking Glass
Though the history of human thought is not linear, most agree upon a general progression. From
the late 17th century, for nearly a hundred years, humans cultivated an undeviating focus on
reason, throwing off the yoke of authority in order to energize rational thought; this was the
Enlightenment, the Age of Reason (Russell, 2013). Though the Enlightenment was superseded
centuries ago by the magnificence of Romanticism, and moved from there through the
industriousness of Realism and the transformation of Modernism, the gravity of the
Enlightenment’s rationality keeps human thought and behavior in a restricted orbit.
Where we stand today, depends on what lens you are looking through – political, economic,
cultural, social, or philosophical. Some would say that, for example, we are in a period of
advanced capitalism, economically speaking (Habermas, 2014). Philosophically or culturally
speaking, we appear to be playing out the endgame of postmodernism, during which humanity is
questioning (or at the very least, suggesting the irrelevance of) universal structures (Russell,
2013). Postmodernism gave rise to a free-for-all of individualism, which – in concert with a
fantastic rise in technology - produced the rise of plutocracy, and the outrage and censorship of
our current “gasp and squeal” world (Kakutani, 1997).
Like a bodybuilder who has only developed one side of the body, we are in a state of imbalance.
Since the beginning of the Age of Reason, rational thought has dominated most human activity.
Our current paradigm is Postmodernism, a reaction to “scientific positivism, the inevitability of
human progress, and the potential of human reason to address any essential truth of physical and
social conditions” (Boyne & Rattansi in Boukouras & Tassopoulou, 2014). Postmodernism
concentrates on literary analysis, critique, and argument about our metanarratives, institutions,
and power relations leading us to the apex of intertextuality, the proliferation of text and
language, sampling over originality, and in the end, irony, and cynicism (Kuznar in Boukouras &
Tassopoulou, 2014). But the imbalance created by the extended overemphasis of reason and

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progress has pushed us to the brink of societal collapse, forcing us to take steps in a new
direction.
Thinkers have been working to identify the next cultural movement, attempting to push through
the bubble of the outer reaches of Postmodernism (Watson, 2014). Though most of these
movements are intellectually overlapping, each has a name: Post-postmodernism, Re-
Modernism, Post-Millennialism, Metamodernism, Altermodernism, and even such diverting
monikers as New Sincerity, or Stuckism. All are pushing to breathe fresh air into a new
paradigm of thought and action, but most remain integrally connected to and rooted in
postmodernism.
One critical notion is missing from these new paradigms: the celebration of the unadulterated
trusting human. In opposition to the postmodern approach to trust, which is based on separation,
difference and insecurity, the new paradigm centers instead on a new form of trust: the triumph
of the person in connection with other persons (Sidorkin, 1995). This is the basis of venture
humanism.
Postmodernism meets Venture Humanism: Inside the Looking Glass
Venture humanism is a movement that sweetens the fabric of humanity, crisscrossing
interhumanity with intertextuality like the warp and woof of a tapestry. Interhumanity, the
notion that all humans are morally equal, holds new meaning after rattling around in the
postmodern world with its emphasis on the individual. We have moved from the age-old notion
of class and its paternalistic top-down view of moral equality, into a period where moral equality
is seen from many viewpoints. But this is not enough, as evidenced by the shortcomings of
multiculturalism and tolerance. Moving past these views would signify the shift away from our
short-sighted instrumental and transactional relations, with all of their consequent moral
inequalities. In other words, where moral equality has to-date been based on difference and is
thus exclusive in nature, we now have the opportunity to choose a version of moral equality based
on connectedness, and is thus inclusive in nature.
But how do we accomplish this? What is the basis of our connectedness? Humans differ in so
many ways, from physical appearance to beliefs, to language, to nationality and culture. For
millennia we have been busy creating and labeling our differences, culminating in countless well-
honed rational scientific (reductionist) classifications.
The culmination of our reasoning abilities and activities is truth, a truth which relies primarily
upon certainty – something that can only occur in the world of numerical relations. We create
and support arguments through scientific and mathematical means. In other words, truth and
validity are determined in relation to certainty, or more likely, the illusion of certainty.
Unfortunately, our current insistence on scientific measurement has focused mainly on the low-
hanging fruit, and a partial view of truth. For centuries we have been emphatically studying and
measuring the “easy problems” of the objective world, those which can be observed with our

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limited measurement tools, but we have been nearly completely unsuccessful in attempting to
answer The Hard Problem of qualia – subjective experience.
How do we measure qualia, phenomena such as emotion, thought, or relationship? Until now,
we have taken a dim view of most experience that is not quantifiable. With the exception of
relatively recent phenomenological studies, these experiences are invalidated as being un-
scientific, a euphemism for untrue, false, or invalid. Just because it is difficult (or currently
impossible) to measure something, does not mean it is invalid and non-existent. Without a
doubt, most people would argue for the existence of hate, love, pain, anger, longing, belief, and
the laundry list of human experiences that have nothing but literature and anecdote for their
evidence.
Finding connections between our differences has proven a monumental undertaking, and one
that has not provided us with the results we are looking for: happiness and peace. Instead we
have fear and conflict. Maybe we are looking in the wrong place, or at least with the wrong tool.
Einstein famously said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them.” Using Einstein’s thinking, if this problem started with the notion of
differences (between), then perhaps the answers will only come from a new way of thinking; the
notion of similarities (among). How are we similar? Perhaps the underwhelming dearth of
scientific certainty has blinded us to one possible answer that sits right in front of us: ourselves,
our humanity.
But what is humanity? The dictionary would say things like “humaneness, benevolence,
kindness, brotherly love, consideration, understanding, sympathy, compassion” (Humanity, n.d.).
This fits with the traditional views of humanism, that humans are inherently good. But that
definition falls short in this discourse. Why? Because the words in that definition are exclusive
and judgmental, and imply righteousness. That is not the kind of humanity being discussed here.
In venture humanism, the word humanity refers to the quality of being human. Every person is
composed of innumerable qualities, not just good qualities. Horror, grief, pain, error and regret
are also part of this definition of humanity.
In other words, humans encounter a variety of experiences, emotions, and thoughts, and all of
these are included in our humanity – not just the ones that are perceived as positive. Once we
have established that humanity is about being human – not about being good – then we can
move on to discuss increasing the level of humanity in our world. How? By moving beyond the
preeminence of truth.
Since truth is individually validated in the postmodern world, by definition, there can never be
agreement. Humanity currently experiences 7 billion versions of truth. Thus we are in a cycle of
perpetual disagreement. Reason, the driving force and underpinning of current human thought,
is primarily concerned with using scientific techniques to measure and label our world. This
measurement is based on the ability to determine differences. As a result, postmodernism, albeit
unintentionally, emphasizes human differences. Due to this emphasis on differences, all domains
of experience (social, economic, political, philosophical, etc.) in this paradigm are infused with
one thing: conflict.

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What becomes clear is that the human search for truth is implicitly divisive. Conflict implies
right and wrong positions, winners and losers. Losing can impact a person’s ability to survive,
creating a paradigm where fear becomes the operative norm. Though the implications of being
wrong may not be as grave as losing the ability to survive, all conflicts produce fear and anxiety.
The fear and anxiety paradigm is self-perpetuating. Like George Jetson and his treadmill, it
appears impossible to escape this cycle. Instead we learn to cope. The coping strategy for this
stress is to hoard resources, commonly known as greed. Since the greed creates power inequities
and obstructs access to resources, resource hoarding only further perpetuates fear and anxiety
within the larger public; hence the vicious cycle.
One of our most deep-seated fears is the fear of being different from others. This relates directly
to symbolic interactionism, the theory that people develop meaning based on social interaction.
Symbolic interactionism is based on the typically postmodern I and me, where social relations
create limitations and rules to inhibit the self, causing conventionality. Convention also produces
anxiety, a precursor to conflict, when those who do not fit within convention suffer at the hands
of the predominant discourse community – what some might call the tyranny of the majority.
The question then becomes how do we move beyond symbolic interactionism’s I and me. One
possible response is the I and thou of Buber and Husserl’s intersubjectivity, a kind of shared
meaning that fosters not only understanding of others, but cooperative participation in each
other’s worlds (Duranti, 2010). In the I and thou world of intersubjectivity, the focus is on the
fluid, ever-changing connections among people – our social connectedness – instead of a static
relationship to a fixed institution.
What do institutions have to do with moving beyond postmodernism? Most often, our
institutions, including governments, exist because we don’t trust each other. Our current
institutions expect poor behavior, abuse and malfeasance. Therefore we attempt to control for all
potentialities, reducing every possibility into the language of law. Law then becomes commonly
interpreted as rights. And once we make laws to define rights, we reduce the need for the
individual to take responsibility for those rights. Instead, people let the institution take control,
absolving themselves of responsibility.
We have focused on rights over responsibilities for so long, that we seem to have forgotten what
it means to live in a world where people take responsibility. The rampage of (individual) rights
escalates the need for laws and institutional structures in order to continue to absolve people of
responsibility. Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. understood that rights
have no power in and of themselves, but rather that power derives from the responsibility. When
rights are completely severed from responsibility, people lose their power to connect and create.
When did we collectively forget this?
The beauty of a system where people take responsibility, in opposition to one where the
institutions determine value, is that the people and their communities then become the creators
and repositories of meaning. This leads to our ability to contribute meaningfully to our

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community on an individual basis, with a broader range of possible inputs. When people own
responsibility and share them with the community, actions become visible, public, and pernicious
behavior cannot hide or be secreted away, decreasing anti-social behavior. Simply put, secrecy
kills connectedness and transparency (a recent corporate and political buzzword) supports a
connected humanity.
In this paradigm, confidence is derived from the social relationship based on trust of oneself among
others, as opposed to one against others. Trust and social connection becomes the antidote to the
conflict resulting from the overemphasis on truth of Postmodernism.
Recent scientific research reinforces this point, that social connection is essential to our
experience. Professor Matthew Lieberman’s research at UCLA’s Semel Institute for
Neuroscience and Human Behavior affirms that "being socially connected is our brain's lifelong
passion….It's been baked into our operating system for tens of millions of years"
(Wolpert, 2013). The body of scientific and popular cultural discourse related to the disruption
of human connectedness is beginning to generate traction. Within this growing corpus of
knowledge, scientists are asking us to consider this: that social problems cannot be solved by
simply creating more and more elaborate and individualized institutional responses.
Our institutional mechanisms, designed to prevent people from abusing the system, garner the
lion’s share of the resources. Empowered by the exoneration of our responsibility, these
institutions have grown unchecked, to the point where they have become nothing more than
gatekeepers and generators of inefficiency. Take for example the nonprofit sector. Many granting
institutions require the nonprofit applicant to allot funds toward compliance and reporting,
activities that drain resources away from resolving the actual problem. Ironically, nonprofits are
often scolded for allocating money to overhead instead of the resolution of the problem, yet it is
the institutionalized distrust that forces nonprofits to maintain this overhead. As Sidorkin says,
“We have kept ourselves busy with the distraction of developing strategies, but ultimately
ignored the actual problem” (1995). Once again, the emphasis on truth subverts the effectiveness
of the response, and the avoidance of trust furthers the inefficiency of the systems.
Imagine what organizations could accomplish if such inefficiencies were removed. If this
problem were approached from the attitude of trust instead of distrust, the process becomes
streamlined and resources are maximized where they are needed. By increasing our ability to
connect and build trusting relationships, we are better situated to take on the creative processes
required to solve cultural, educational, and social problems faced by our communities.
This chart outlines the basic differences between postmodernism and venture humanism.
Postmodernism Venture Humanism
Highest value Truth Trust
Result of highest value Conflict Connectedness
Primary mode Thought Action
Guiding principle Utility Vitality
Underlying condition Insecurity Security

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Goal Pride Joy
Motivation Acquisition Contribution
Basis of action Greed Abundance
Basis of resource use Wants Needs
Means of protection Rights Responsibility
Cause for action Inadequacy Integrity
Acceptance through Difference Similarity
Primary strategy Separation Collaboration
Societal infrastructure Institutions Humans
Societal action Fragmentation Participation
Discourse Between (exclusive) Among (inclusive)
Text Pastiche Storytelling
Pedagogical attitude Multicultural Person-Centered
Venture Humanism: Beyond the Looking Glass
Venture humanism strives to provide a foundation for action and transformation in a post-
postmodernist world. Whereas most post-postmodernist theories arise from the current
paradigm of conflict about truth in order to determine utility, venture humanism completely
departs from postmodernism by giving primacy to the idea of human connectedness in order to
increase vitality. Below are some of the basic tenets:
Basic tenets of Venture Humanism
1. Humans desire social connection
2. Trust is the basis of action
3. Risk is required to create trust
4. Trust creates efficiency in all domains
5. Responsibility, not rights, give people what we need
6. Humans thrive when their needs are being met
7. Vitality is more beneficial than utility
8. Venture humanism can be applied within any system
The power and elegance of venture humanism rests in the fact that it can thrive within any
system or institution, economic, political or otherwise, due to its simplicity. No restructuring or
revolution is necessary, because people are the structure, and people can choose to create as many
varied discourse communities as needed, entirely within our current models.
This simplicity is what generates efficiency, efficiency that cannot be matched by large
organizations, systems, or institutions. When efficiency is highly valued and the full thrust of our
resources are thrown at the problem, abundance rather than austerity becomes the driving force.
In situations of abundance, the likelihood of conflict is greatly reduced, and when resources are
readily accessible, people are free to act.

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But this level of abundance cannot be generated from nothing. In order to bring about the
transformation of our communities, we must prioritize our humanity and base our actions on
connectedness, not difference. That connectedness is borne from trust, not truth, and creates a
unified picture, despite our individual variations – like the image from The Truman Show (see
Figure 1). Instead of attempting to further refine our notions of truth, which ends in fear, anxiety
and conflict, venture humanists act to create trust, an act that requires risk. Through this risk-
taking venture, individuals build personal integrity, the basis of the responsibility required for
community endeavors. And there the cycle begins, a cycle that ends with joy and connectedness
instead of pride and conflict.
We have arrived at a striking juncture in our history. We have two very clear paths. We can
continue to excuse ourselves from our responsibility and allow our institutions to make our
choices for us, choices that have been leading to societal institutionalization and individual
mechanization. Or, we can embrace the qualities that make us so distinct from all other
biological organisms and discover that choosing humanity is the only choice that will pull us out
of this endless cycle of fear and conflict.
Are we going to continue to choose outdated ideas and models, beating each other up in a
sandbox conflict over resources and truth? Or will we make a conscious choice to prioritize
humanity over selfish gain – something humanity has never freely chosen to do on the scale of
the world stage?
Venture humanism is about daring humans daring humans to dare to be human.
Do you dare?

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References
Boukouras, E., & Tassopoulou, M. (2014, July). Proceedings from ISME 8th
Annual
Conference: Tradition, Modernity, and Beyond. Towards a New Paradigm: Deconstructing
Modernism and Postmodernism through Thomas Kuhn. Athens.
Bourriaud, N. (Ed.). (2009). Altermodern: Tate Triennial. Tate Publications.
Duranti, A. (2010, March). Husserl, intersubjectivity and anthropology. Anthropological Theory.
10, 1-2, 16-35. doi: 10.1177/1463499610370517
Habermas, J. (2014). The divided west. John Wiley & Sons.
Humanity. (n.d.). In Google. Retrieved from https://www.google.com
/search?q=humanity+merriam+webster&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=humanity+definition+
Kakutani, M. (1997, February 4). Musings and digressions on life’s absurdities. [Review of the
book E Unibus Pluram]. The New York Times.
Kirby, A. (2006). The death of postmodernism and beyond. Philosophy Now, 58, 34-37.
Russell, B. (2013). History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition. Routledge.
Sidorkin, A. M. (1995). The pedagogy of the interhuman. Philosophy of Education Society.
Watson, P. J. (2014). Transition beyond postmodernism: Pluralistic culture, incommensurable
rationalities, and future objectivity. Review & Expositor,111(1), 33-40.
Wolpert, S. (2013, October 10). UCLA neuroscientists book explains why social connection is as
important as food and shelter. UCLS Newsroom. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
Figure 1: The Truman Show poster. Notice how each image maintains individual integrity, yet
contributes to the overall image. (You may need to magnify the image to see the individual
photos.)