Eighty to ninety years after its founding, Ethical Culture saw the rise of Humanism as a new organizing set of ideas in which. to describe the aspirations of the Ethical Movement. It can be argued that this was very different from Adler’s original philosophical orientation and revealed the triumph of “Deweyism” over “Adleriansim.” Some Ethical Culture congregations went even further afield, stating that Ethical Culture and Unitarianism were more aligned in thought. Sixty years later, we have to ask wether Humanism has served our ideology well.
For the past 20 years, Curt Collier, the newly installed Leader of the Bergen Ethical Society and presenter for this upcoming salon, challenged the notion that congregations need to be aligned with Humanism, and has called for a return to some of Adler’s original thought. He argues that Ethical Biocentrism is more consistent with Adler’s Ethical Culture than Ethical Humanism, and therefore, is a better model going forward. This salon will cover these topics, including a discussion of what is Ethical Biocentrism and what an Ethical Culture congregation who adopts this philosophy would do differently.
An Ethical Culture Leader for over 25 years, Curt Collier has served five Ethical Societies, and is a co-founder of the Ethical Society of Austin. He is currently the Leader of the Bergen Ethical Culture Society and a Consulting Leader for the Silicon Valley Society. For the past 15 years, Collier was the National Youth Programs Director for Groundwork USA, an environmental organization created by the National Park Service and the EPA, and has developed youth programs and corps in 20 US cities and 25 national parks. Collier has worked closely with the National Park Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and NASA to create career training pipelines for young adults, and has presented research on youth engagement before the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and Sigma Xi, the National Science Research Society. He is a single father and travels frequently between his work in New Jersey and his home in Virginia.
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