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Steve Allen (1921–2000)

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Steve Allen (1921–2000) 5,6,12,55,60,67-New Pages-ap 11/20/00 4:46 PM Page 5 Renaissance Humanist Steve Allen (1921–2000) EDITORIAL Paul Kurtz had planned to comment on the outcome of the 2000 presidential campaign, but at press time the winner PAUL KURTZ had not yet been determined. —Eds. ith the death of Steve Allen, American culture has lost an exceptional man of thought and action—and the humanist and skeptical move- W ments have suffered the grievous loss of an heroic supporter. Steve Allen’s talents were many-dimensional. He has been heralded by the entertainment industry as a gifted raconteur, comedian, television pioneer, and author of songs, plays, short stories, and novels, among other achievements. But Steve Allen had a serious side that has been largely overlooked in the many commentaries and obituaries following his death. He was a man deeply interested in ideas, and he stands out as one of the few intellectuals in show business. Those who knew him appreciated the encyclo- pedic range of his interests. He was possessed of a keen inquiring mind and deep humanitarian impulses. He was willing to defend unpopular causes—he was a consistent liberal in politics, a humanist and skeptic in religion, an exponent of rationality, and a severe critic of raunch in tele- vision and radio. My own acquaintance with Steve Allen goes back 30 years, when I first met him at a human- ist awards ceremony at the Los Angeles Sheraton Hotel. I was chair of the event and he was Master of Ceremonies. We were tendering an arts award to Norman Lear in recognition of his contributions to television. (My cousin Louise Lasser later was the star of Lear’s series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.) Steve was witty and eloquent. Sitting next to me on the dais, he con- fided that, since he had spent an inordinate amount of time in hotel rooms as he traveled about lecturing and entertaining, he had taken up reading the Bible and was surprised, indeed appalled, by many of its passages. And so he began to write critical commentaries. I urged him to consider publication, and he replied, “No, not now. Perhaps posthumously!” Every time I ran into Steve I asked him how the Bible manuscript was doing, and he invariably smiled and said, “It is growing.” Finally, in the late 1980s, at a time when fundamentalists of the Moral Majority were speaking out strongly, I persisted in asking him to send me what he had writ- ten. This he finally did—some 1,200 pages of commentaries on various aspects of the Bible, reli- gion, and morality. I immediately tried to persuade him to publish these reflections, since I found them both important and provocative. And he agreed. In the preface to the volume that was published in 1990 by Prometheus Books as Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality, he says that, although it had been his original intention to have his studies published after death, he decided to permit the publication “because an element of emergency has entered the public dialogue.” He requested that the manuscript be carefully edited by biblical scholars before publication. They were impressed by what they read and made only minor suggestions, observing that Steve’s scholarship was sound. Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, and Morality is a unique study that, I submit, will survive, as perhaps the only one of its kind—a popular commentary on the Bible by a leading media celebrity who did not simply praise Jesus, but provided thoughtful criticisms, pointing out its many factual errors, inconsis- tencies, and moral limitations. Martin Gardner, in the preface to that book, said, “No other work by an American can be likened more favorably to Tom Paine’s classic, The Age of Reason, than Steve Allen’s book”—a compliment of the highest order coming from one of America’s leading critical essayists. Indeed, Steve’s volume could also be likened to the writings of Robert Ingersoll, America’s leading ora- tor and agnostic of the nineteenth century. Martin Gardner further stated that he had no doubt Paul Kurtz is editor-in-chief of FREE INQUIRY and president of Prometheus Books. 5 http://www.secularhumanism.org fi winter 2000/01 5,6,12,55,60,67-New Pages-ap 11/20/00 4:46 PM Page 6 that resentment against Allen’s book enthusiastically. I remember a press erations of Americans to the cultural would arise. “It will not surprise me to conference in Chicago at which we despoilers, to the media moguls who are hear,” he said, “that some congrega- launched one of Steve’s serious books. I more intent on ratings and profits than tions plan to burn it, as they once introduced him by saying that I consid- on the quality of what is presented. burned Paine’s Age of Reason.” But Some civil libertarians have worried Gardner dared to hope “that people will about some of Steve Allen’s allies in this have the courage to study all of this battle. Steve made it clear, however, that book’s well-reasoned arguments with at he was opposed to censorship of any least half an open mind.” form. But, he said, if those who produce Allen made it clear that he was not these shows have the right of freedom of an atheist, but a freethinker in the best expression, then surely those who dis- sense of the word; for he attacked agree—conservatives and liberals alike, throughout his book fanatic and dog- have a right to criticize and to try to per- matic religion at a time when he felt that suade them to program more uplifting this kind of criticism was necessary. and less degrading fare. There were, of course, many critics. On Steve took his concern about the one occasion he has been invited to decline of cognitive and moral values to address a national convention of evan- other arenas. When the Committee for gelicals; but after the organizers read the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the book they retracted the invitation. the Paranormal (CSICOP) established a After the book was published, Steve told Council for Media Integrity in order to me that he had additional material left persuade television producers and writ- over from the early manuscript. We ers to include more scientific content in decided to release a second volume their programs and to avoid confusing called More Steve Allen on the Bible, pseudoscience with genuine science, Steve Allen 1921–2000 Religion, and Morality, which contin- Steve Allen, along with Nobel Prize-win- ued his sharply pointed commentaries. ered Steve Allen to be “one of the lead- ner Glenn Seaborg became co-chairmen. All told, Steve published 14 other ing intellectuals in the media.” He Last but not least, Steve Allen identi- books with Prometheus. It was exhila- approached the podium and replied, fied himself as a humanist, in the finest rating to work with him on them. Not all “Thanks Paul. It’s like introducing me sense of that term. He gladly participat- of the books we published were serious. as one of the leading automobile ed in dozens of humanist conferences For example, we reissued How to Be mechanics among brain surgeons!” and meetings—including the Tenth Funny and Make ’Em Laugh. But it The book that Steve Allen most cher- World Humanist Congress held at the was Steve Allen’s book Dumbth: And 81 ished was his last one, which unfortu- State University of New York at Buffalo Ways to Make Americans Smarter, nately he did not live to see published, in 1988, the dedication of the Center for published in 1990, that made the biggest and which will appear in the spring of Inquiry in Amherst in 1995, the opening impact. In this book he coined a new 2001. Apparently, Steve was working on of the Center for Inquiry West in 1997, word, dumbth, and he decried the level the final galleys the day before his and most recently, at the twentieth of intelligence that prevailed in the death. It is called Vulgarians at the anniversary conference of the Council United States, a “dumbing down,” as he Gate—Trash TV and Raunch Radio: for Secular Humanism held in Los characterized it. This book became a Raising the Standards of Popular Angeles in May of 2000. Prometheus best-seller and was widely Culture. Steve had been deeply con- Steve Allen was elected unanimously to acclaimed, so much so that we decided cerned about the coarsening of common the International Academy of Humanism to reissue in 1998 a new edition of culture and about the level of tasteless- as a Humanist Laureate. This Academy Dumbth, revised, with a new subtitle, ness, in particular the vulgarities and includes 80 of the leading men and women The Lost Art of Thinking, which Steve obscenities that seem to be increasing of the arts and sciences throughout the described as “101 ways to reason better every year and also the levels of vio- world, and includes several Nobel Prize- and improve your mind.” Here the great lence and bloodshed. He deplored the winners. His election was in recognition of master of comedy and entertainment need for comedians to resort to four-let- his commitment to science, reason, the was saying strong and clear that the ter words to get a laugh, and he resolved cultivation of free inquiry, and humanist best therapy for nonsense is the cultiva- as “Mr. Television” to do what he could values. Steve Allen was a secular human- tion of critical thinking.
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