Brock Chisholm
From Philosopedia
Chisholm, Brock (18 May 1896 - 4 February 1971)
Chisholm was born in Oakville, Ontario, a place founded by his great-grandfather. When 18, he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, serving in the 15th Battalion as a cook, sniper, machine gunner, and scout. He rose to the rank of captain and, upon being injured, was returned to Canada in 1917.
After World War I, he earned his M.D. from the University of Toronto. At Yale University in Connecticut, he specialized in the mental health of children. During World War II, he became Director General of the Medical Services and became Canada's first Deputy Minister of Health.
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On Becoming Director-General of the WHO
In 1946, he became Executive Secretary of the Interim Commission of the World Health Organization (WHO) and in 1948 by a vote of 46 to 2, he became the first Director-General of the WHO, retaining the post until 1953. The WHO's constitution has been hailed as revolutionary because it defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"; because it declares such a state of health to be one of the fundamental rights of every human being; and because it recognizes that "the heath of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security."
"We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties," Brock Chisholm has written, "fed us by our parents, our Sunday- and day-school teachers, our politicians, our priests, our newspapers and others with a vested interest in controlling us." "You can only cure retail, but you can prevent wholesale," he decided. "Instead of bringing our children up according to our own preconceived rules of 'good' and 'bad' (despite which we have stumbled into two world wars in one generation) we must teach them to question everything, he says. Tell your child you believe in God, point out that some people don't."
Give your children unquestioning love until they are four years old, Chisholm advises, tell them the simple truth about everything, encourage them to think things out for themselves, and you will set them upon the path to maturity. And not until we have enough mature persons to represent us in the United Nations - and enough more at home to back them up - can we hope to avoid self-annihilation.
On Santa Claus
In the mid-1940s, he was criticized for being "Canada's most famously articulate angry man" because of his being so opinionated on so many subjects, including his advice that Santa Claus should be taught as a myth to youngsters rather than as a real individual who, they will come to learn, does not really exist. Jove, for example, is taught as a myth, and other gods one day need to be also, he reasoned.
The only real enemy man has left on Earth, he reasoned, is man himself.
On Humanism
In 1956, Dr. Chisholm was asked by Warren Allen Smith his views on philosophy and responded,
- While I have never considered the matter of a label for my particular set of attitudes, it appears that I might be listed as a naturalistic humanist, if such listing is desirable. Basically, my attitudes are founded on the fact, as I see it, that man is only just at the beginning of the development of his intellectual powers. For many centuries man has been presuming to provide answers for questions totally beyond his capacity. For instance, I believe that everything encompassed in the field known as "theology" might advantageously be left for study by generations in the far distant future. At this state of human development our reliable knowledge is confined entirely to the field of nature.
In the field of nature, there is still enough investigation, research, and understanding to do to occupy fully all the best brains of the human race for many generations into the future. I see no limit to the potential understanding of the human as long as he can resist the temptation to introduce magic and the “supernatural” into his system of beliefs.
Tentative belief, based on acceptable evidence, and changeable with the introduction of new or more convincing evidence, is a very valuable instrument. “Faith,” meaning a rigidly held certainty, if unchangeable with the introduction of new evidence, or only changeable at the expense of a feeling of guilt, I believe to be a serious barrier to man’s continuing evolution. Any systematized faith, protected by ritual and dogma, and developing vested interests in real estate, salaries, prestige, and power, will tend to slow man’s development of his highest powers.
In 1959 the American Humanist Association named Dr. Chisholm their Humanist of the Year. He addressed the Third International Humanist and Ethical Union World Congress held in Oslo in 1962. From its formation in 1968 until his death in 1971, Dr. Chisholm was the first honorary president of the Humanist Association of Canada.
Correspondence
See Dr. Chisholm's 1950s correspondence with Warren Allen Smith.
Final Years
Chisholm was an honorary president of the World Federalists of Canada, was president of the World Federation of Mental Health (1957 to 1958), and an honorary fellow of many medical associations. In 1967 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
He and his wife, Grace McLean Ryrie, whom he had married 21 June 1924, had two children, Catherine Anne and Brock Ryrie.
In a 1971 plane crash, he died in Veterans' Hospital, Victoria, Ontario.
{CL; HNS; HNS2; TRI; WAS, 24 June 1956}
