"THE HUMANIST" STATUE
" 'The
Humanist' in Sculpture,"
my original 1956 article
in The Humanist, describes in
detail
sculptor Anita Weschler and
how she devised the life-size work, why she titled it, and how she got
the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to exhibit it.
In 1995 I donated my friend, Anita
Weschler's "The Humanist," to Paul
Kurtz's CSH organization.
But, finding ethicist Paul Kurtz unethical (he wrote an unsigned
hatchet job when he reviewed Who's
Who in Hell), I rescued my ethical friend from Buffalo's
unhealthy vibrations. The rescue
was effected by Dr. Tim Madigan,
one of many others to flee from Kurtz's side, and St. John Fisher
College's Dr. David White, an
eminent professor of religion and philosophy as well as a wit and
adventurous scholar. Both Madigan and White and I are active in
the Bertrand Russell Society.
"The Humanist," which was moved temporarily to Albany, gracing the
office of Larry Jones and his Institute of
Humanist Studies, will not be displayed at the American Humanist
Association's headquarters in our nation's
capital - The Humanist editor
chose not to review my Who's Who in
Hell, a sign of how vastly the group's leadership has changed
since its Golden Age under humanities humanists Ed Wilson and Priscilla Robertson.
From Albany, the statue traveled to Rochester and enrolled at St. John
Fisher College. Dr. David White willingly served as his
advisor. If you've never seen an extroverted statue, watch him
matriculate. In 2004, he partook in the UNESCO International Philosophy Day event
attended by faculty and students throughout the Rochester area.
The sculpture's final home? In February 2005, it moved to Albany
where it graces the new headquarters of the Institute
of Humanist Studies.