PACIFISM. (from pacific: Fr. pacifique; L. pacificus, from pacificare, to make peace; from pac-, pax, peace, and facere, to make). Moral and political principle that recognizes human life as the supreme social and ethical value and sees its supreme ideal in the maintaining of peace among ethnic, religious, and social groups and among nations and blocs of states. Includes respect for the dignity of the human person, groups, and peoples, and for human rights in general. P. contributes to mutual understanding between peoples of different cultures and generations. It rejects mistrust, hatred, and violence.

P. is an attitude of rejection of war and the arms race. Since the First World War, many courts in different parts of the world have recognized the right of conscientious objection to exempt from military service pacifists and members of religious sects who are opposed to weapons and instruments of war. In addition, conscientious objectors have undertaken campaigns proposing that some percentage of the taxes allocated for defense be reallocated to education and public health. The ideas of disarmament and demilitarization have inspired numerous antiwar groups and movements, which, however, have frequently failed to reach agreements due to their different concepts of social reality and, at times, because of specific tactical differences as well. Pacifist groups have now reached the point where they can organize autonomous fronts at the grassroots level in alliance with others advocating social change (*action front).

PATERNALISM. (from paternal: ML. paternalis; L. paternus, from pater, father). Doctrine that regards employer and employees as partners in the company, and recommends a whole series of administrative, social, economic, technical, cultural, and psychological measures to guarantee the "social peace" presenting the employer as the only guarantor of that peace.

Chief among these measures is profit-sharing for company employees through the distribution of minority shares to them based on the fulfillment of certain conditions. Another important measure is a system of free training and retraining of personnel to raise worker productivity and product quality, thus increasing the company’s competitiveness in the marketplace.

From the point of view of solidarity (*) and the view that all social actors are human beings with equal rights and corresponding duties, N.H. criticizes the unilateral approach of this doctrine and its class "egoism". (*worker ownership).

In addition to sharing in the profits, employees have the right to effective participation in the management of their company and to direct their own activities within the limits of their competence. Just as employers do, employees also have the right to organize themselves freely and to defend their interests. For this reason, N.H. rejects the doctrine and practice of p. as being a form of social discrimination, although it does accept some concrete procedures that can facilitate the fulfillment of the social pact between employers, employees, and the State, and always with the observance of international norms.

PATRIARCHY. (from patriarch: L. patriarcha, from Gr. patriarches; patria, lineage, descent, family, from pater, father, and archein, to rule). Primitive social organization in which authority is exercised by a male head of family, whose power at times extends even to distant relatives of the same lineage. P. also refers to the period in which this system has prevailed. As distinct from the practice under matriarchy, kinship under this system is determined by the paternal line.

This system was reinforced when women were displaced from the sphere of production of goods and their efforts centered on domestic tasks. The change coincided with the passage from adaptive technology to transformative technology, the use of copper, the division between agriculture and animal husbandry, and specialization in various crafts. In all these tasks the main physical burden has fallen on men, which has led to changes in family forms. Later, p. was replaced by more complex civilization as the bronze age gave way to the iron age and the rise of writing and the State. Nevertheless, the structure of domination by men continued, with discrimination against women in managing and decision-making in work and government. In this sense, present-day society still displays patriarchal features characteristic of pre-civilized times.

PATRIOTISM. (from patriot: Fr. patriote; LL. patriota, fellow countryman; Gr. patriotes, from patris, fatherland). Feeling of affection for one’s homeland, and the disposition to defend it from external attacks.

Underlying this sentiment is the biological tendency to mark the territory inhabited and to defend it against outside incursion. During the period of formation of the national states of Western Europe in the nineteenth century, this feeling, humanized by the movements of national and social liberation, contributed to the consolidation of the nation states. However, on numerous occasions it has degenerated into a chauvinism manifested, for example, in the Napoleonic wars, some of the Balkan wars, the war of the Triple Alliance that pitted Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay, the war of the Pacific between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, etc. Subsequently, this mass patriotic feeling was exploited by imperialists in the first and second world wars. This speculation in the lowest and basest of ends was most evident in the imperialist conquests and other crimes of the regimes of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. Today, patriotic sentiment often cloaks horrendous crimes which are committed in "local conflicts" such as those that have taken place in the territories of India, Ethiopia, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and the former USSR.

Humanists love their countries, but they condemn the speculation in, misuse and manipulation (*) of patriotic feelings, which leads to xenophobia, nationalism, and racism, fomenting bloody conflicts.

PEOPLE. (ME. peple, puple; from L. populus, people; der. L. plebs, common people, and Gr. polys, many). 1) The entire population of a country. 2) Various forms of historical communities (tribe, nation, etc.).

Since ancient times, efforts have been made to limit the concept of p., giving it an ethnocentrist or classist interpretation. For example, in the Greek polis, slaves, sailors, skilled craftspersons, and immigrants from other Greek cities were excluded from the category of the p. The same occurred with the lower castes in India, and in ancient and medieval Japan even as late as the Second World War. During the Middle Ages in Europe serfs were excluded from the designation p. In the Russian Empire, a person without parents of Russian origin was labeled "inoródetsy" (a person of foreign descent) and, along with those who did not profess the official religion even when they practiced some form of the traditional Eastern Christian rite, was deprived of civil rights and not officially considered part of the Russian p.

Since the English revolution, the aristocracy has been excluded from the concept of the p. In this sense, the bourgeoisie has been included as part of the aristocracy in European revolutionary literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Soviet literature, intellectuals and dissidents were not considered part of the p., even when they came from the worker and peasant classes.

PERCEPTION. (L. perceptio, perceptionis, from percipere, to take possession, grasp, receive). Action and effect of apprehending a phenomenon through the senses, whether through the external senses or senses of the intra-body. The external senses comprise the senses of sight, hearing, taste, olfaction, and the external tactile sense; the internal senses are comprised of coenesthesia, kinesthesia, and the internal tactile sense. Atomistic psychology has sought to decompose perceptions into sensations and to view the consciousness as nothing more than the passive recipient of stimuli originating in the external world. Humanist psychology (*) considers p. to be a dynamic structure of sensations in which the consciousness actively organizes the data received through the pathways of the senses.

Humanist psychology distinguishes between p. of landscapes (*landscape) and simple perceptions. In every p. the phenomena of attitude, evaluation, and preferences concerning a given stimulus are always present. This lets us view p. of landscapes as interactive, moving beyond exclusive attention to the cognitive and the experimental.

In the social psychology of N.H. the concept of landscape allows the development and application of a method yielding a rich knowledge of different cultures and their modes of perceiving the world.

PERSONAL PLACEMENT. Encompasses all those factors that provide personal reference points in regard to both action and psychological placement for facing this changing world. What has been termed the crisis of "life-models" alludes to this problem. In one of the letters in Letters to My Friends, Silo presents a summary of previous observations on this point. Even at the risk of being insufficiently extensive, it seems pertinent to include that summary in this entry. He writes as follows:

1. Driven by the technological revolution, the world is undergoing rapid change, which is colliding with established structures and the formative experience and habits of life of both individuals and societies.

2. As change makes more factors in society become "out of phase," this generates growing crises in every field, and there is no reason to suppose this will diminish; on the contrary it will tend to intensify.

3. The unexpectedness of today’s events clouds our ability to foresee the direction that these events, the people around us, and ultimately our own lives will take.

4. Many of the things we used to think and to believe in no longer work. Nor do we see adequate solutions forthcoming from any society, any institution, or any individual – all of whom suffer the same ills.

5. If one decides to stand up to these problems, one must give direction to one’s life, striving for coherence among one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. And because we do not live in isolation, we must extend this coherence to our relationships with others, treating them as we want to be treated. While it is not possible to fulfill these two proposals rigorously, nonetheless they constitute the direction in which we need to advance, which we will be able to accomplish above all if we make these proposals permanent references, reflecting on them deeply.

6. We live in immediate relationship with others, and it is in this environment that we must act to give a favorable direction to our lives. This is not a psychological question, a matter that can be resolved solely in the head of an isolated individual, it is related to the concrete situation in which each of us lives.

7. Being consistent with the proposals we are attempting to carry forward leads us to the conclusion that it would be useful to extend to society as a whole those elements that are positive for ourselves and our immediate environment. Together with others who are moving in this direction, we will put into practice the most appropriate means to allow a new form of solidarity to find expression. Thus, even when we act very specifically in our own immediate environment we will not lose sight of the global situation that affects all human beings and that requires our help, just as we need the help of others.

8. The precipitous changes in today’s world lead us to seriously propose the need for a new direction in life.

9. Coherence does not begin and end in oneself, rather it is related to one’s social environment, to other people. Solidarity is an aspect of personal coherence.

10. Proportion in one’s activities consists of establishing one’s priorities in life, of not letting them grow out of balance, and basing one’s actions on these priorities.

11. Well-timed actions involve retreating when faced with a great force, and advancing with resolution when it weakens. When one is subject to contradiction, this idea is important in making a change of direction in one’s life.

12. It is unwise to be unadapted to our environment, which leaves us without the capacity to change anything. It is equally unwise to follow a course of decreasing adaptation to an environment in which we limit ourselves to accepting the established conditions. Growing adaptation consists of increasing the influence we have in our environment as we advance in the direction of coherence.

PERSONALISM. (from person: L. persona, lit., a mask used by actors on the stage, hence, a character, a person, from personare, to sound through; per, through, and sonare, to sound). A philosophical theory that regards the human being and human freedom as the highest spiritual values. The notion of p. itself is much broader than some of its particular manifestations, or than the mode of behavior of one person. In reality, the personalist aspect is an integral part of all social, religious, and psychological sciences, as well as the ideological or political sciences, and predominates in culture and art as well.

The key to the philosophy of p. lies in the following problems: the problem of the individual becoming a personality; the problem of the individual and the collective; and the problem of the individual, society, and human liberty, and responsibility toward other human beings. In the religious current of p., greatest emphasis is placed on the problem of the individual and God, as reflected in the variants of religious existentialism (*existentialism).

According to many personalists, the individual is a natural-biological category, while the personality is a social and historical category. An individual is an integral part of society, group, class, clan, and nation. The personality constitutes a whole; it is not an organic category. The personality is made up of certain intellectual and spiritual qualities, their stable combination, as well as a structure of firm supra-individual, valid orientations. The strength and character of those qualities is what distinguishes one person from another. Every human being is an individual, but not every individual develops into a personality. Many people live mechanically, either passively adapting themselves to the environment or opposing society.

According to p., the human being is free and occupies a place above the State, the nation, and the family. But the spiritual and moral life of a person is intertwined with the life of society, and so the personality runs the risk of becoming alienated by the society and its demands (*alienation).

That the human being may lose its independence, or be subjected to the will and interests of others – whether Party, Church, or State – is the foremost concern of personalists. A depersonalized being is the greatest sin of all in society or any human organization, and so the objective of p. consists in defending the self-sufficiency and independence of the personality, its full freedom to live out its own course. Today more than ever, however, while there exists a supposed "freedom of thought," in reality people typically follow and obey values that are produced by manipulation (*), as if these were their own opinions. While p. cultivates ideals close to those of N.H., it differs from the latter by discounting the importance of collective solidarity and by letting itself be drawn into an isolated individualism, eschewing active processes and instead preferring digressions that are purely abstract and philosophical.

N.H. goes beyond p., contributing to the self-development of each person in a process in which individuals create their own lives, in union and accord with other human beings, until they produce a free society with solidarity, in which it will be possible to realize the ideal of p.

PHILANTHROPY. (LL. philanthropia; Gr. philanthropia, from philein, to love, and anthropos, man). In its root, love for humankind. In practice, various philanthropic associations began to emerge as early as the seventeenth century. These philanthropic societies developed in an effort to ameliorate specific cases of poverty, and later took on a progressive character of solidarity (*), sometimes international in nature. At the present time, many humanitarian (*) organizations acknowledge p. as the primary personal attitude uniting their members.

PHILOSOPHICAL ANTI-HUMANISM. (See etymologies at philosophical humanism and human being). On the basis of the description developed by nineteenth-century scholars, existentialist thinkers accepted the view that humanism (*) was a philosophy, thus clearing the way for their opponents to lay the foundations of p.a. These detractors came principally from the ranks of structuralism (*) and conservative Marxism. Of course, Nietzsche had already developed certain premises that were later used by Levi-Strauss and Foucault. Heidegger’s critique of humanism is also a manifestation of p.a.

Within Marxism, Althusser promoted the theory that there was not one Marx but two: the young, still "ideological" Marx, and the mature, truly "scientific" Marx. The conclusions that the French philosopher drew from this dichotomy include:

Any thought that appeals to Marx for any kind of restoration of a theoretical anthropology or humanism is no more than ashes, theoretically. But in practice, it could pile up a monument of pre-Marxist ideology that would weigh down on real history and threaten to lead it into blind alleys.

When (eventually) a Marxist policy of humanist ideology, that is, a political attitude to humanism, is achieved – a policy that may be either a rejection or a critique, or a use, or a support, or a development, or a humanist renewal of contemporary forms of ideology in the ethico-political domain – this policy will only have been possible on the absolute condition that it is based on Marxist philosophy, and a precondition for this is theoretical anti-humanism.

P.A. customarily formulates its critique of Humanism on the basis of a rigid scientism. N.H. agrees with many of the criticisms often brought against traditional Humanism, and favors, moreover, revising not only the idea of the human being (*) that prevailed in the nineteenth century but also the conception of science (*) corresponding to that epoch.

PHILOSOPHICAL HUMANISM. (From philosopher: L. philosophus; Gr. philosophos, from philos, love, and sophos, wise; humanism, see etymology at human being). Position held by numerous exponents of existentialism (*) and by representatives of various historicist currents. It has also given rise to several somewhat confused ideologies based on a supposed "human nature." These naturalists, in general, accept the definition of the human being as a "rational animal," and thus place it alongside some evolved "animalitas," without making any structural distinction between human being and animal, but rather framing things simply as differences in complexity that have developed within a single structure. In this sense, it is difficult to understand how those naturalists or neo-naturalists can regard themselves as "humanists."

PLANETARIZATION. Radically distinguished from the concept of globalization. The latter corresponds to the trend toward imposing a worldwide homogeneity, driven by imperialism, the financial interests, and international banking interests. Globalization is advancing at the expense of diversity and the autonomy of nation states, and at the expense of the identity of cultures and subcultures. Those who preach globalization seek to establish a worldwide system (*New Order) based on an ostensibly "free" market economy. N.H., in contrast, gives its backing to p., the process in which the different cultures move toward convergence, without, however, losing their own ways of life or identities. The process of p. can pass through stages that include national federations and federative regionalization, ultimately approaching a model that is a multiethnic, multicultural, and multireligious confederation – a universal human nation.

PLAY. (ME. pleien; AS. plegan, to pledge for, stake, risk; plegian, to exercise oneself, play; der. LL. plevium, pledge, guarantee). Recreational activities from childhood onward, without utilitarian purpose, providing physiological satisfaction and developing capacities for modeling behavior in new and unknown situations. In animal species as well as human beings p. permits the transmission of experience from adults of the species to the young and the realization of individual and group learning. Human beings establish rules and conventions that regulate these recreational activities. P. contributes to the development of the personality and to the formation of habits, skills, and abilities, making it one method of teaching. P. has immeasurable heuristic importance.

In industrial society the type of p. called gaming or gambling constitutes a leisure-time industry for profit, and can lead to financial ruin for large numbers of workers and small business people, destroying their personalities. This recreational activity thus becomes a social vice.

POLITICAL CULTURE. (From politic: L. politicus; Gr. politikos, relating to a citizen, polites, from polis, city). and Fr. culture, from L. cultura, cultivation, care, from cultus, colere, to till). That integrative and cohesive part of civic culture (community spirit) regulating political relationships among citizens, political groups, and national, supranational, and international institutions.

In differentiated societies, while each social stratum possesses certain characteristics of p.c. of its own, at the same time there are norms and institutions shared by all that ensure a relative sociopolitical cohesion and stability and impede social disintegration. The p.c. of the State is fixed in the juridical norms and institutions of the political sphere, including the constitution, political and electoral laws, and other documents. The p.c. also includes traditions and customs that are transmitted in and through various groups and even at the family level.

POLITICAL PARTY. (from politic: L. politicus; Gr. politikos, relating to a citizen, polites, from polis, city. Party: ME. and OFr. parti, partie, from partir, to divide; L. partiri, from pars, partis, a part). A permanent form of association or coalition among those who hold the same interests or views. A form of political organization that strives to attain positions or offices in the excerise of state power. The conditions under which political parties operate depend on the political regime in place in a given country.

The system of political parties is determined by the electoral system of the State. The modern party system arose in the states of Western Europe and the Americas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and is now present in some form in almost all states in the world.

In totalitarian states the one-party system is used as the principal instrument of social mobilization and repression. In some authoritarian states political parties are prohibited, while in others they have an uncertain and fragile existence.

The democratization of political and social life is accompanied by a broadening of the functions of political parties, and the democratization of their internal organization and operation. The existence of a multi-party system alone, however, cannot be regarded as a decisive criterion in the democratization of the political regime, although it is a necessary characteristic.

In democratic states, as a general rule political parties contain no more than five percent of the citizens as members. The majority of voters neither belong to nor work for any party, and their political sympathies often shift from one election to the next.

The crisis of democracy in today’s world is also affecting political parties, and is accompanied by apathy and low rates of participation in elections by citizens.

In the information society, the functions of the political party are being gradually reduced and replaced by activities of associations or clubs and other forms of organization characterized by an absence of permanent affiliation and rigid party discipline.

The specific features of a political party are: political activities, doctrine, principles and standards of organization, style and methods of operation. All of this is reflected in the program, platform, and statutes of the party. Parties make use of specific symbols, including songs and anthems. As a rule, they have their own organs for publicity.

POPULISM. (From L. populus, the people). Social movement or current of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that targets its appeal to the masses. It is characterized by a belief in the possibility of simple, quick, and easy solutions to social problems; social egalitarianism; anti-intellectualism; ethnocentrism (nationalism); xenophobia, and demagoguery.

P. advocates the establishment of "direct democracy," manipulated by the Party or leader, in place of representative democracy; it promotes the concentration of power in the hands of a charismatic leader, attacking the corruption and bureaucratization of official institutions. Thus, p. is a highly heterogeneous current that can serve a variety of political forces with distinct objectives.

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY. Designation for a society that is advanced from a technological point of view, which has surpassed or is in the process of surpassing the traditional stage of extensive and intensive development of industry, communications, and large cities. Such a society unfolds its technical-economic activity on a broad and effective base of information systems, especially systems of electronic communication involving computers, which are used in financial operations and the development of the productive process. Previous forms of social life and the economy are not eliminated, but are substantially modernized as they incorporate new kinds of scientific-technical knowledge.

The advance of computer and information systems marks an important change in the role and power of the human intellect. Thus, since the 1950s there has been a general change in the development of civilization, in the human mentality and system of values, in technology and work, in social relations, management, and government, in international cooperation, and in the creative capacities of the human being. This tendency has a universal character, but advances at a different pace and intensity in different regions and countries, which only increases the disproportions between them. The growing use of computers and information technologies does not in itself contradict the humanization of life, on the contrary, it contributes to this process when society and the people themselves, concrete personalities, adopt this objective and consciously act in this direction.

POWER. (Fr. pouvoir, from old infinitive podir, from LL. potere, to be able; L. posse, to be able, from potis, able, and esse, to be). To have the capability, time, or opportunity to carry something out. The faculty and jurisdiction to order or to do something; authorization to carry something out; the armed forces of a state; the supreme governing and coercive authority of a state.

In political life, the designation for the group of economic, social, and political leaders who make up the ruling class of a state. In antiquity the term p. was used as a synonym for influence, authority, control, force, rule; in the early twentieth century, as the capacity of a person to impose his or her will on others. Today, p. is defined in terms of the relationships of dependence of certain social unities upon others.

The powers of the State, based on the theory of the separation of powers, are: constitutional p., which relates to the organization of the State, the writing and amending of its constitution through a representative constituent assembly or referendum; legislative p. which resides in the authority to make and amend the laws, and which belongs to an elected representative body or parliament; executive p., which is responsible for the governing of the State and the enforcing of the laws, and belongs to the government formed by the monarch or president and/or legislative body of a State; and finally judicial p., which carries out the administration of justice and corresponds to the justice system.

There is also a moderating p. such as that exercised by the head of State.

P. and fear provide the basis for the irrational form of authority that is used to prohibit all criticism – an authority built on inequality. In Oriental despotisms and modern totalitarian regimes alike, the p. of the state has been notorious and absolute.

The most profound thinkers have always dreamed of ending all p. imposed by some human beings upon others, reserving for the human being p. only over things. Today, the exercise of p. is not reserved for the State alone, which increasingly appears simply as an intermediary or executor of the intentions of the great concentrations of economic p. (the Para-state). On the other hand, the theory explaining the emergence, development, transfer, and disarticulation of p. is no longer limited to a traditional sociopolitical vision, but considers the various "niches" of p. such as technology, communications, population distribution in urban or rural areas, population concentrations in or distant from centers of decision-making, and the manipulation of "culture" in general (language, social customs, religion, science, art, and entertainment), etc.

PRE-RENAISSANCE HUMANISM. (See etymologies at Renaissance and human being). Some authors have used this term to describe the Western historical or Renaissance humanism that began to develop in the mid-eleventh century. Among the exponents of this humanism can be included the Goliard poets and the French cathedral schools of the twelfth century. Numerous specialists have observed that in this pre-Renaissance humanism there can already be seen a new image of the human being and of the human personality. This image is constructed and expressed through action, and it is in this sense that the will is given greater importance than speculative intelligence. Additionally, a new attitude toward nature appears, and it is no longer regarded as a simple creation of God and a vale of tears for mortals, but as the domain of the human being and, in some cases, the seat and body of God. Lastly, this new attitude toward the physical universe reinforces the study of the many aspects of the material world, tending to explain it as comprised of immanent forces requiring no theological concepts for their understanding. This demonstrates early on a clear orientation toward experimentation and a tendency toward mastering natural laws. The world now becomes the kingdom of humankind, which is to dominate it through a knowledge of the sciences.

PROBLEM of hunger. One of the most acute contemporary global problems, affecting more than one and a half billion human beings throughout the world, especially in developing countries (*) and, most critically, in the twenty-six least developed countries of Africa, as well as in Haiti, Nicaragua, Albania, India, China, and North Korea. Annually more than fifty million people die of hunger.

At times the principal factor in the problem of hunger can be seen in the imbalance between limited food resources and unchecked population growth, especially in developing countries. However, during the 1970s and 1980s the average annual increase in food production was 2.8% while annual population growth was 1.8%. Thus, in overall terms the principal factors in hunger are rooted in the defects and vices of our civilization, are determined by deficiencies of social organization at the national and international levels, are the fruit of unjust distribution of social wealth and the indigence of hundreds of millions of human beings – the poverty, mass unemployment, illiteracy, and low productivity in underdeveloped countries, products of the colonialist legacy and ill-conceived social experiments.

The p. of h. is an integral part of underdevelopment, and cannot be solved without a restructuring of the productive system, the modernization of social life, the elimination of areas of poverty, and a reorganization of the system of international economic relations. Hunger can only be overcome through a worldwide distribution of social, scientific, environmental, and spiritual progress, in short, through the humanization of our Earth.

PROPERTY. (OFr. properte; L. proprietas, from proprius, one’s own). Essential attribute or quality of a person or thing; ownership; dominion, right, or power over the things that belong to one to use and dispose of freely.

The forms of p. vary in different cultures and in different historical epochs. Some theorists of anarchism (*) call for doing away with all forms of p. Marxism-Leninism (*) sees in private p. the root of all exploitation of one human being by another, and calls for replacing it with collective p. With the goal of humanizing p., N.H. takes into account historical experience in establishing various forms of social regulation of p. at different levels, working from the base up. But the principal focus of the humanist proposal lies in the questioning and debating of p. in general (*company-society) and establishing a system of worker ownership (*).

PUBLIC OPINION. (public: L. publicus, from populus, people. Opinion: ME. opinioun; OFr.; L. opinio, from opinari, to think). A position or emotional attitude concerning particular issues or questions, on which people generally agree. P.O. expresses public interest (or interests) and exerts influence on individual conduct, on the position of social groups, and on national and international policy.

P.O. plays an important role in the formation of collective organization. In many cases this leads to manipulation of the collective consciousness by means of governmental control of the news media, bureaucratic procedures, the falsification of polling results, etc.

The general study of p.o. emphasizes the quantitative measurement of opinions; the investigation of the relationship between individual and collective opinions regarding a specific issue; the description of the political role of p.o.; and the study of the influence of the mass media and other factors on the formation of p.o.

The formation of the information society creates technological conditions that can lead to an elimination of traditional manipulation and falsification of p.o., but for this to come about will require the conscious civic participation of all citizens of good will.

N.H. protests against the manipulation of p.o. and the monopoly of the news media, it struggles against these shameful policies and denounces them in concrete cases where they appear, working to ensure freedom of consciousness.

Interpersonal contact, neighborhood newspapers, periodicals, electronic communications such as Web pages and electronic magazines, and other publications of humanist orientation are an important contribution to the formation of free and democratic p.o.

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