Harold Buschman

From Philosopedia

Buschman, Harold (1898 - 1974)

Buschman, who taught at the University of Kansas City, became editor of The New Humanist in 1929, having been with the journal from its start.

A student of A. Eustace Haydon, he determined to publish young writers of promise, and he chose such writers as Edwin E. Aubrey, Theodore Brameld, Hadley S. Dimock, A. E. Haydon, Walter Horton, Frank H. Knight, Douglas Clyde MacIntosh, Wilhelm Pauk, Werner Petersman, Roy Wood Sellars, Matthew Spinka, and Henry Nelson Wieman, some of whom were theists.

As one who did not sign A Humanist Manifesto, Buschman was described as one of the "Unitarian Humanists Who Feared A Creed".

Harold Buschman, who played an important role in the development of humanism as the editor of The New Humanist, also abstained from signing the manifesto because of his fear of creeds. By 1933, Buschman had moved to New York City, where he was associated with the Ethical Culture movement with a view toward becoming an ethical leader (the equivalent of a minister).

Certainly Buschman did not impede the publishing of the manifesto, but he was highly dubious of it. Much of his apprehension was based upon his fear that the document would become a creed. Buschman, Bragg, and I were all graduates of the Meadville Theological School. However, Buschman was never ordained a minister, nor did he become an ethical leader. He was a scholar but not an orator.

The New Humanist reprinted most of Buschman's letter of April 17, 1933:

Any creed excludes and this is no exception. I find myself so essentially akin to individual humanists with regard to much that is regarded as important by "Humanism" that I deplore the effect of the manifestos. It serves to accentuate differences. I personally do not mind that. I can only say then, "If this is Humanism, I am not a humanist," because this creed does not approximate my individual construction of my experience. I simply do not recognize myself in this manifesto. What I deplore is the differences, the exclusions so occasioned will surely be no more profitable than previous ones. There will be "heresies" and misunderstandings instead of a free checking of experiences, one with another, without this business of sectarianism getting into our way. It may be that liberalism is doomed on every front including this one. Very well—if this is so, then I shall set out to find a sect, political rather than religious, where I shall be able to adhere to a program and a doctrine which is really pointed and not amorphous, and which is more dynamic and more related to the affairs of the day than the present document. I am not yet convinced that the doom of liberalism is sealed. Until I am, let me refrain from signing the manifesto.

In the 1950s, Buschman wrote book reviews for The Humanist:

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