The frame of this Gathering was based on the following Contemporaneous Humanism’s theses.

Human existence develops within social and personal contradictions that are established by historical conditions. (Understanding by “historical conditions” the social environment in which we are born) 

The contradiction has a correlation in the personal register of suffering. As a consequence, when facing contradictory social conditions, human beings identify their suffering with the suffering of those social groups that are submitted to the same conditions.  

Social contradiction is the product of violence. The appropriation of the social whole by a few is violence and that violence is at the base of contradiction and suffering. Depriving the intentionality of others (and indeed their freedom) it is a manifestation of violence; it is the action that submerges the human being into the natural world.

The different forms of violence (physical, racial, religious and economic) are expressions that negate what is human in others.   

The personal and social suffering must be overcome by changing the factors that permit the illegal and violent appropriation and instated contradiction in the world. The struggle to overcome suffering provides continuity to the historical process and meaning to human beings, because it affirms their intentionality that is denied by others.

The reflection on this thesis carries us to the comprehension that the majority of “personal problems” do not exist. What indeed exists is a field of social and interpersonal relationship, a social contradictory situation, a series of unresolved tensions and problems in society. Authoritarianism, hunger and misery, unemployment, exploitation, persecution, discrimination, ideologies, repressive moral believes and values, in short, different forms of violence that are acting as a permanent background demanding and pressuring each of us. Some people – due to their living situation, are more exposed to a precise range of social problems, we may say that they are “victims” of that problem. 

What generally confuses things is the fact that the living experience, the social register is personal – above all within the area one feels more affected by – we feel it in our own bodies. Then, by trying to exit that situation of personal suffering and searching to resolve that problem one experiences as personal and typical, each of us launch individual responses hoping to modify the situation. (If I’m laid off from my job I’ll get another.  If a particular group does not accept me I’ll try to “improve myself socially” or search for another group. If my social status is low and limits me, I’ll try to climb through a study or profession. If I don’t have enough money I’ll work more time, etc.) If we achieve all of that, then everything seems to be in order once again… until the next social problem knocks at our door and so on and so forth.

Life, from this perspective, seems to be only a continuous suffering and resolving of “personal problems.” 
Nevertheless, if we understand we have certain kind of problems because the society we live in is organized in a determined way, and that only if the basic conditions are modified – that is to say, the social problems – then the individual life will obtain greater freedom of option. If this is understood, then the perspective for overcoming the individual suffering will be different.

Let’ us remember that if the unjust distribution of wealth would cease to exist, many people would stop having personal financial problems. If a divided social or class stratum society would cease to exist, many people would stop suffering due to social or prestigious placement. If we were not subdued to a determined moral, many personal conflicts related to sex – that come from it -would disappear. If the situation of a country or a society would cease to be so contradictory and its future so uncertain, many people would stop suffering due to the lack of future and meaning in their lives, etc.

Then, from this perspective, the overcoming of personal and social suffering is seen and understood as a work for personal development in terms of social transformation.  It is a concomitant work.