Frances Day has something like forty-two reasons why Douglas Adams is her humanist hero.

Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams is the only person, so far as I know, who has provided us with the definitive answer to Life, The Universe and Everything. I remember the moment at which I heard that it is, indeed, ‘42’ more clearly than that stuff about where I was when Kennedy was shot – mostly because I remember laughing until I was helpless. Thank you for that,
“DNA”.

However, he had hit on more than just a simple and eternal joke. The theme of cosmic purposes recurs through The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with such  inspired concepts as the Total Perspective Vortex: the knowledge that a true realisation of the size of the Universe, together with a small sign saying ‘You are Here’ would be enough to drive any normal person completely crazy. His characters struggled against this potentially bleak background to live their lives; to drink their tea; to take endless baths. Despite the inane universe, Adams’ protagonists persist with their Humanity, or their Vogonity (or in being super-intelligent shades of the colour blue).

The more I read Douglas Adams’s books, and the more I read about the man behind them, the more I miss him. It’s certain that were he alive today, he would be at the forefront of bringing sense to the world he loved whilst ridiculing its excesses to devastating effect. We get a glimpse of this from his book Last Chance to See on the endangerment of many species around the world, sadly becoming more relevant with each passing year.

I never met a Douglas Adams fan who wasn’t secretly convinced that they have a unique insight into his books, and that somehow he was talking personally to them. I think this is because he placed ordinary human foibles centre-stage, and then constructed alternative ideas around them, forcing us to consider ourselves in relationship to the Universe and all it can throw at us.

Ahead of his time, he saw clearly the potential of the internet to form communities who could be creative together, and many of those online communities are still active: a quick search with Google shows the incredible diversity of interests that are brought together by a love of Douglas Adams and his work.

An important indication of his legacy is the number of free-thinking people who continue to be attracted by his ideas and imagination. The annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lectures are given by the likes of Marcus de Sautoy, Benedict Allen, Steven Pinker, Richard Leakey. Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry were close friends and admirers. He has inspired people to endeavour to save gorillas and the rhino. The range of topics discussed on the forums associated with his website is enormous, reflecting the extraordinary breadth of Douglas’s own interests, from conservation to music, computing, physics and literature.

Douglas Adams was a happy human, albeit with some remarkable idiosyncrasies, and a positive influence in an illogical world. He has been my hero since 1978. I  wish he were still here to enjoy the fruits of his vision for the future of the internet and to continue to fight for humanist values and pursue the search for the Ultimate Question.

This post is part of a series written by members, friends and Distinguished Supporters of the British Humanist Association about their own “humanist heroes”.

You can find out more at www.humanism.org.uk/humanism/humanist-tradition/heroes

Frances Day is a book publisher, a textile artist and an amateur astronomer. Her favourite book is Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. She lives in the Cotswolds with three alpacas, five hens and two cats (and a husband).