Humanism in the Modern World

In an age of digital spectacle, algorithmic control, and declining literacy, humanist values are under siege. While the Renaissance, revolutionary salons, and university debates once fostered intellectual resistance, today’s world prioritizes spectacle over depth, fragments attention, and flattens history. Though the digital age has democratized information, it has also fueled social comparison, eroded reading culture, and commercialized higher education–creating an environment where critical thinking is devalued and intellectual engagement grows increasingly passive. Yet humanism has always adapted. Humanism in the Modern World explores how intellectual resilience has endured past upheavals–and what must be done to reclaim it now. From the erosion of truth to the weaponization of information, today’s crises of thought mirror the past. This book examines how humanism can remain a force for intellectual and cultural renewal in a fractured world. More than a critique, it offers a roadmap forward. How can digital spaces foster meaningful discourse? Can universities reclaim their role as centers of inquiry? What does it mean to resist intellectual passivity in an era of algorithmic control? Blending history, philosophy, and cultural analysis, Humanism in the Modern World is a call to strengthen reason, creativity, and self-worth–to reclaim knowledge as a public good and defend the essential humanist belief that value is not found in the metrics of a visually driven society, but in thought, inquiry, and the lifelong pursuit of meaning.