The assumption was that spreading knowledge meant spreading ethical awareness. The reality is that theocracy tended to be replaced by technocracy. Democracy is more than spreading information freely. It demands the concrete training of the capacity to give meaning and shape to life by respecting freedom of conscience. In the battle between theocracy and technocracy, humanists defend democracy.
Education is essential to create a society respecting pluralism.
One could argue that pre-modernist theocracy tends to be replaced by modernist technocracy. One could question whether humanism is basically modernism. Humanists do believe in potential scientific and economic progress, but are not technocrats. In modern humanism, the ideals of the French and American Revolutions play an important role. Freedom is not considered to be the absence of rules but rather the presence of self- determination.