The ' ISSN 0014-1690 Ethical Record Vol 92 No. 5 MAY 1987

GUEST EDITORIAL we were a charity (June 11, 1980) Judge Dillon declared (see the "Awe", "Sacred"— statements of objectives on the What Definitions? back page) (page numbers refer to (This month we offered the editorial the pages of the judgement): column to the Honorary Treasurer, "Ethical principles mean . . . the Victor Rose. But it is not about belief in the excellence of truth, finance that he writes . . .) love and beauty, but not belief in anything supernatural" (p.2G). WE HAVE BECOME ACQUAINTED BI "Religion . . . is concerned with the world of abstract art with man's relation with god and ethics "black on black" and "white on are concerned with man's relation white"—but it is a new departure with man" (p.7G). in literature to stretch the English "Dissemination . . . includes the language to prove that black is fruits of study, and I have no doubt white and white is black! This that part of the objects satisfies the seems to be what PETER CADOGAN criterion of charity as being the (Ethical advancement of education" (p.I6G). is doing in his letter "It seems to me that the objects Record, April '87, page 14). are objects which the court could The Oxford dictionary defines control" (p.1711). the word "awe" as "reverential "I propose therefore to declare that fear or wonder". Since Humanists the objects of the society are charit- do not believe in a "god", we can able . . . but not for the advance- dispense with "reverential fear", ment of religion" (p.18B). and define the word "awe" as the "The history has been set out in detail in the evidence . . . and it reaction of our minds when we shows the gradual change, particu- look upon the creations of nature, larly in the early and middle part covering the face of the earth. of the last century" (p.2II-1). "Sacred—consecrated"—made holy "Protestant dissenters, which was by religious association—is the referred to in the trust deed has opposite to the word "secular", effectively been totally dissolved and which means concern with the ceased to exist" (p.23). affairs of this world; not sacred, I felt it useful to remind readers not monastic. and members of these definitions. In the legal case to establish that VICTOR ROSE

CONTENTS Page Coming to Conway Hall: Rosalind Bain, Benny Green, Eric McGraw, Peter Hunot, Barbara Smoker, Nicolas Walter....• 2 3 Futures — The Ethical Range: Nicholas Hyman ... 5 Swinburne — Poetry, Religion and Freedom: T. F. Evans• Frank and Fenner: Reports of Meetings.... 9 Viewpoints: Barbara Smoker, Colin Mills, Adrian Williams 14

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society.

PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, WC1R 4RL SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

Appointed Lecturers: H. J. Blackham, , Richard Clements, OBE, T. F. Evans, Peter Heales, Richard Scorer, • Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter Trustees: Harold Blackham, Christine Bondi, Louise Booker, John Brown, Anthony Chapman, Frank Hawkins, Peter Heales, George Hutchinson, Ray Lovecy, Ian MacKillop, Victor Rose, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe Honorary Representative: Sam Beer Chairman General Committee: Barbara Smoker Deputy Chairman: Norman Bacrac Honorary Registrar: Bill Horsley Honorary Treasurer: Victor Rose Temporary Acting Secretary: Peter Hunot Hall Manager: Geoffrey Austin Temporary Honorary Librarian: Edwina Palmer Editor, The Ethical Record: Peter Hunot COMING TO CONWAY HALL Sunday Morning LECTURES at 11.00 am in the Library May 10. BARBARA SMOKER.Bio-Ethics: From Fertilised Egg to the Terminally Comatose. May 17. NICOLAS WALTER.Guy Aldred—The Guy All Dread. June 7. ERIC MCGRAW.Multiplying Millions: (The video The Human Race will be shown). Sunday Forums at 3.00 pm in the Library May 10. ROSALIND BAIN.Nicaragua—Threat of a Good Example. Sunday Social at 3.00 pm in the Library May 17. PETER HUNOT showsSlides and Pictures of People and Places. Alfred Adler Remembered The Adlerian Society of Great Britain is holding a commemorative evening in honour of ALFRED ADLER, the founder of Individual Psychology, to mark the 50th anniversary of his sudden death, in Aberdeen, on May 28 1937, towards the end of an intensive lecture tour in Europe and UK. JAMES HEMMING, PhD, who is well-known to the Society, will speak on The Insights of Alfred Adler: his place in psychology 50 years on at 7.30 pm on Thursday, May 28 1987, at The Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2 ( Street Underground). Wine and cheese, and other light refreshments will be served. All will be welcome. (Admission: ASGB Members, OAP's, etc, £1: Non-members £2). Sixty third Admission Free CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURE Benny Green on Writers Who Voiced My Scepticism 6.30 pm, Thursday May 21 in the Large Hall Leaflets available—we want to fill the hall

Don't .miss the Annual General Meeting 2.30, Sunday May 31 in the Library All members* welcome—Share in the Society's Decisions *Paid-up—send your subscription NOW if it is due 2 Ethical Record, May 1987 Futures-an Ethical Range The Lecture delivered Sunday, March 8, 1987 to the South Place Ethical Society NICHOLAS HYMAN

THOMAS CARLYLE, SAGE OF ECCLEFICHAN INTO CHELSEA, knew that prophets need a good memory. In appraising futures present on our resilient yet already envenomed planet, 1 cannot deny my own memory and evolving ideology. I would love to imagine that "my" ideology is a worldview univer- salisable and reaching for pure objectivity. In fact, it was stocked well after Sarajevo and Munich, each favourite more or less bogus analogies for politicos from the decade of the Suez war and Hola camp to that of Iran- gate and renewed mass unemployment in late capitalist societies. That nose for straws of hope, as well as for the narcissistic decay locked into such myths as "stability" and "maturity", may delight in mass reverence for a banally imagined and vampiric living museum of uniformed waxwork- still sentries hailing Ruritanian dukes' weddings. Mythic cushions keep a dreamworld from the difficult and occasionally rewarding realities recog- nsed in Stockholm, Canberra, Accra and Gorbachov's Moscow. The courts as well as the mass media celebrate Britain's very own victories, over a century after Waterloo station—triumphalism in the Gilberto- Wagnerian Falklands war (with nuclear knobs on), and the obverse side to the national family of the sacrificed outcast, personified by imprisoned trade unionist and "peace women" dissidents. Even in television advertisements for butter, Heine's "Frankenstein's island" cultivates fictitious traditions of healthy deference in unpolluted rural dreamtime. A realtime deindustrialising society is attracted to a technical fix, as the videoshops outnumber the book- shops and "defence" technology and its twin nuclear power compensate for the irrevocable loss of an industrial and socially responsible scientific base.

Ethical Lag More Tangible Than Technical Backwardness

The ethical lag is more tangible, for now, than the technical backward- ness. Cut the accents with a butterknife, count the family breakdowns and even suicides of the statistically unemployed. To illustrate a range of futures, remember what has happened and is occluded. There is rejected knowledge of lost futures: the memory of nuclear war, crowning a shared victory over racist by governments and peoples of Britain, the and the , self-perceived as the United Nations. Revived and personally devaluing caste pretensions are sealed by the rein- troduction of hereditary peerages, the mooting of a poll-tax and obsessive secretiveness of the Zirconian sort. In the lost future of 1945, a radical consensus was steeled for collective short-term sacrifice for accountable ends. A climate of planning by consent for a measure of redistributive social justice as well as prosperity was indicated. Towards the xxist century, peace and prosperity is more than a new year tag. Given planetary and human loyalties, rather than parochially class- and gender-bound as well as vulgarly "Mafficking" nationalist badges of identity, there is a countervailing ethos. An attractive and accessible •world without fixed heirarchies, and with equal appreciation of Gaelic or Samoan litera- ture, takes for granted a sense of global solidarity. The "one self" shares liberating values tangibly expressed in some of our century's art and archi- tecture, music, philosophy and fiction (including science fiction). Less improbable than peace and prosperity as the next stage, perhaps, is a reworked fascism. As a subtext, political parties enter a coalition of per- Ethical Record, May 1987 3 manence. Instead .of the promise, of. full employment, which in the Macmillan epoch made Robert Morley's bloated property developer in Cliff Richards' The Young Ones a benevolent achiever, the oil prices fall and the rainbow eoalition of scapegoats is named without euphemism. A land fit for spivs and bouncers and' camp guards, unhealthy, miseducated to suspect such independent transnational institutions as trade unions and established churches, comes about through constitutional channels. A future Without further transitions is the nuclear winter. No living thing, not as the depiction of hell in medieval parish churches, but humanity's last technical word. The twilight of a class is generally confused with the end of all things. But this projection is accurate, unlike much cinema and specu- lative fiction centred on the nuclear fate, with its comforting ghost of a chance of survival. Nevil Shute's On The Beach had it right, though the scientists took a generation to catch up with the insights of novel and film. Games, Survival and the Apocalypse Television, in The War Game and Threads, spread understanding of a likely expectation, yet perpetuated the notion that a few can survive. Men and women who religiously do football pools internalise as lucky and plucky this illusory chance of coming through the apocalypse. The end is really nigh, its timing in the sonnambulistic hands of ally and adversary bonded. And everyone has a ticket, even mistaken critics of a bunker mentality in days of Aldermaston marches, when it was envisioned "Now from their concrete suites below Statesmen demurely go To see the people lie in state". Lurching towards a collective finish by accident or perhaps malign Belgrano-sinking type intention, the "responsibles" die in the same time- frame as their constituences of ordinary bystanders cum victims. A time- slip marks the spot where all this could have been avoided. Survival before the end is a personal achievement, preach most politicos. The concrete pro- mise of ploughsharing, planned growth and fairer shares is decried as inter- fering and vulnerable. If I had a future, it would be tentative yet interventionist, blueprinted yet with built-in vulnerability as a synonym for that adaptable nature H. G. Wells saW as key to human survival during glaciation. To start with rejected knowledge and hidden memories, above all of the continuities between the Nuremberg laws and the Reichtag fire—when the new Nazi government used the previous democratic government's namelist of sub- versives for its roundup of detainees—and the year of Hiroshima, might carry us to other necessary myths. The neutral republic of Britain, where Cromwell and Lenin jostle Macdiarmid and avoid the exultation of the will which takes us into the clerico-military ambience of contemporary fascism, is 'one such anchoring myth. Timelessness is a dangerous image, however. There are not so many futures to be investigated, the past knocks on every door. El

Women; Write! The Radio Times of April 4-10 asked readers to write if they had com- plaints abOut the way women are represented on BBC or ITV: Address:- Clare BrigstOcke, BBC Villiers House, Ealing Broadway, W52 PA.

Fenner Brockway Fenner has been invited to.Blackpool by the National Union of Journalists so that the union can make him- a Member of Honour. Now 99, Fenner joined the NUJ in 1911. 4 Ethical•Record, May 1987 Swinburne Poetry, Religion and Freedom

T. F. EVANS

Summary of a lecture given on April 5, 1987 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE WAS BORN ON 5 APRIL 1837. He is not very widely read today but the 150th anniverssary of his birth gives us an oppor- tunity to look briefly at the work of a poet who was original and striking and who, for a period of about. 20 years in the middle of the last century, enjoyed a truly extraordinary popularity. Some of the great interest aroused by Swinburne may certainly be attributed to non-literary causes but, in his way, he was a remarkable writer and.it is sad that he should be largely forgotten. Swinburne was the son of a naval captain who later became an admiral and his mother was a daughter of a peer. These two .parents, perhaps sur- prisingly, united to produce a poet, whose work was marked by extrava- gance in style and what were thought by many to be wholly outrageous revolutionary sentiments in the content. He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, but left both institutions in circumstances that have never been fully explained, but before his courses of study were finished. At Eton, he was subjected to beatings, for what offences is not known and the effect of this treatment was to inculcate in him an association of physical pain with pleasure, chiefly sexual pleasure; it is this feature of his life that has attracted much interest on the part of students of the • xixth century, who are not drawn by literary matters. When he left the university, Swinburne threw himself into the world of writing. He had had a good grounding, at home and also at school and college, in French and Italian literature as well as English and he gradually became a most pro- lific author of poetry, plays, novels and literary criticism. From the first, his command of language and his great dexterity in rhyme and rhythm caught the fancy of younger readers in particular and such a piece of writing as the chorus from Atalanta in Calydon, beginning with the words, "When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces" made a great appeal to those who were, in effect, looking for the approach of spring in a metaphorical sense, in life as a whole. Very early in life, Swinburne put aside many of the ideas that he had been brought up to accept and among these was the christian religion. He rejected what he thought the christian unnatural insistence on death; "ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods. Many poems were thus marked by a non-religious, if not frankly atheistic approach, in which the absence of what was known by some as the "Christian hope" was more than offset by the appealing colour and cadences of the verse. One well- known stanza from "The Garden of Proserpine" may serve as an example: From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Ethical Record, May 1987 5 In another. poem, "Hymn to Proserpine" Swinburne wrote two of the more famous, or notorious, lines for which his name became widely known: Thou has conquered, 0 pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fulness of death. When, in addition to these lines, he was capable of referring to "the supreme evil, God" and of declaring that "Man is the master of things" —not God, it can be readily understood with what horror his writings were received by the conventional members of society. At the same time, however, his appeal to the less hidebound and to the young was very great indeed. It is recorded that, at one of the great universities, undergraduates marched up and down the High Street at night chanting Swinburne's verses.

Censorship and Respectability But Jingoistic Supporter of Boer War In his later years, although he continued to write, Swinburne did not move in the direction that might have been expected. Whatever his other excesses, and there is still controversy about these, it is beyond doubt that he drank far too much. He was saved from total alcoholic decline by a friend THEODORE WATTS-DENTON, with whom he lived a quiet life in Putney until his death in 1909. The poet who had been the objects of attempts at censorship became almost respectable. In politics, whereas he had espoused in general and in particular causes, the ideal of freedom, he became some- thing of a reactionary. The great protagonist of Italian liberty and the sworn enemy of such autocrats as the Czar and the French Emperor, Napoleon III became a most jingoistic supporter of the Boer War. Still, there were the occasional flashes that reminded readers of his declaration that "the Liberty we believe in is one and indivisible; without free thought there can be no free life". In an age in which language is rarely marked by enthusiasm, colour and intoxicating rhythms, it is a most satisfying experience to sample Swinburne's poetry again, even if a continued diet might prove too rich for our xxth century tastes. There is however more to Swinburne than that. To think today of a poet who flourished for a time as he did leads us to reflect on • poetry and the place that it has occupied in the past and the comparative lack of importance that it assumes today. Shelley (whom Swinburne greatly admired) declared that the poets were the trumpets singing to battle and, in a well-known phrase, that they were "the unacknowledged legislators of the world". The questions which we may feel forced to ask ourselves are serious ones but the answers may not be very rewarding. Thus, it is a principle of educa- tion that bringing children, and adults as well, into contact with the best that has been done in the arts should increase not simply aesthetic apprecia- tion as an addition to the pleasure of life, but should also have a cleaner effect, on character and even on conduct. It is disturbing to wonder whether this view would be widely held today. How many children brought up on Shakespeare, the Golden Treasury, and other books of verse would think that they have become "better" people as a result? If few think this, are we forced to conclude that contact with the best thoughts in the best language (one definition of poetry) has no real effect. Certainly, a study of history does not always lead to the conclgsion that the matchless langauge of the 1611 Bible has had the effect of making people better—or has it? They might have been worse without. In view of Swinburne's attitude to religion, the link between poetry and religion may deserve closer examination. Certainly much so-called religious poetry may be good religion but it is all too rarely very good poetry. The.effort to write 6 Ethical Record, May 1987 in support of an orthodox, traditional and frequently authoritarian creed has defeated many noble and well-intentioned spirits. Yet, perhaps, we may say that we do not need to be entirely pessimistic. It is hard to imagine the undergraduates of today chanting the work of a modern poet. (A more likely counterpart to the young of Swinburne's day could be the mindless and indiscriminate screaming of the "Top of the Pops" audience, which is however, a tribute to little more than the effective pub- licity and sometimes the financial pressures and faking of the "pop" world.) The pessimists might say that, in a time of unprecedented communication with the press, radio and television conspiring to see that we are all better informed than ever before, the essential medium of communication, the language, is being debased as never before. Indeed, some critics of our society say that with the advent and development of electronic means of communication, language itself is not the force that it was. About a quarter of a century ago, the eminent scholar and critic, George Steiner in his book Language and Silence put forward a theory of "the retreat from the word". He wondered whether the word itself, that is, language, was being supplanted by non-verbal means of communication. He found that the language of politics, for example, had been infected by cruelty and distortion so that it was being rejected by many. Yet, language is the main means by which human beings, as distinct from other animals, make the deepest and most effective contact with each other. To envisage the death of language is to envisage a change in our life beyond the most eccentric and alarming nightmares of any of us. To give way to• despair would be to ensure the triumph of all that we fear. It would be better to cling to those values that are to be found in language and litera- ture, to the best that has been thought and said. It is still in words alone that we can express our belief in freedom most forcefully and this may be the chief lesson that we may derive from a brief backward glance at such a writer as Swinburne. 0

INSTEAD OF GOD The Book by James Hemming This eminently readable book reveals the amiable, positive, and balanced nature of the writer. The title indicates the problems to which Dr Hemming had addressed himself. These problems are those alluded to by Bertrand Russell, as the major preoccupations of philosophers, namely mysticism and science. As "Nature abhors a vacuum", what, for the secular humanist, will take the place of God? Initial chapters give a broad treatment of the scientific revolution of the last 150 years. It is in the treatment of the "Mind-brain" problem, that the author reveals that he has his finger firmly on the pulse of modern science. In chapter eight, "Facets of the Beyond", the assertion is made that the schism between the two thoughts of exploration—religious and scientific— has narrowed. FRITIOF CAPRA is quoted (in The Turning Point, in 1982). "The beginnings of this change, of the shift from mechanistic to the holistic conception of reality, are already visible in all fields, and are likely to dominate the present decade". Then Professor ROGER SPERRYS (Nobel Laureate) assertion is given "that my long trusted materialistic logic was first shaken in preparing a non- technical lecture on brain evolution, I found myself concluding with the then awkward position that emergent mental powers must logically exert downward causal control over electro-physiological events in brain activity. Mental forces were inferred to be equally or more potent in brain dynamics, than are forces operating at the cellular, molecular, and atomic levels". Ethical Record, May 1987 7 And again. 'I hold that subjective mental phenonema to be primary, causally potent realities, as they are experienced subjectively, different from, more than, and not reducible to their physico-chemical elments". In his final chapter, "The Life Focus", the author very perceptively says that "Out there" are neutral forces, electro-magnetic waves, sound waves, temperatures and surfaces. All the colours, sounds, flowers, sensations and shapes that make nature beautiful and significant, are not "Out there", they are created within our heads. Not surprisingly, being a psychologist, the author refers to the pessimism of Freud. Disappointingly, however, no reference is made to Freud's firm conviction of the reality of telepathy con- tained in his book Modern Materialism and Emergent Evolution (1929). The more optimistic views of Jung and Adler are cited, the extreme views of Freud causing healthy rebellion in both men. Inevitably, due to the book's wide range, other world faiths, other than , are investigated. An intelligent awareness is displayed towards the christian gospel, with reference to the vexed questions of interpolation and editing. Buddhism, "atheistic", and yet transcendent and non-materia- listic, is sympathetically reviewed. The author is, however, somewhat out of his depth, when discussing the concept of "no-thing ness". All limited "things" are prone to birth, decay, and death, and the suffering involved in these processes. It would have been interesting to hear from a psychologist from the West, his view of the doctrine of "Anatta" (No-Ego), which arose from the Buddha's brilliant analysis of the constituents of a human being, or should it be the human flux? This book is to be highly recommended to members of the Society, as it may be effective in jolting many out of the rut of mid-Victorian materia- lism, into the age of Einstein. It is a lucid exposition of an intermediate agnostic position, not too painful to digest. It does, however, point to that open ended debate, which is the true nature of both science and religion. In one sense, the book does not go far enough, because in certain areas it occasionally appears that Dr Hemming is still entertaining concepts which are now discredited. The book could be improved by greater reference to the views of leading physicists of the xxth century, regarding the "Mind- Brain" problem. Dr Hemming is nevertheless, a delightful, liberally minded companion, who is well aware of this problem. RILL HORSLEY

Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881 In 1837 THOMAS CARLYLE published his history of the French Revolution. He had had to rewrite it because JOHNSTUART MILL'S maid had thrown it on the fire thinking it was wastepaper. This work is famous for the des- cription of ROBESPIERREas "The sea-green incorruptible" and of xvillth- century France as "a despotism tempered by epigrams". When asked what was the population of England in his time Carlyle replied "30 millions, mostly fools". He called Political Economy the Dismal Science and believed in Heroes and Hero-worship. He favoured the opening of the National Portrait Gallery to inspire hero-worship amohg the working class: which may explain why THOMASPAINE is not represented. But he also said: "Lives there the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked ?"

Michelson-MorleyExperiment 1887 It is now 100 years since this experiment on the speed of light which led to Einstein. 8 Ethkal Record, May 1987

Frank and Fenner Active in their Nineties The Leftwing, Secular Historian Honoured The two great nonagenarians Fenner Brockway, 98, and F. A. Ridley, 90, have been conspicuous at a series of meetings at Conway Hall over the last few months. Despite their advanced ages, their contribu- tion to the world of freethought continues unabated. The following four short reports give some indication of the events with which they have been linked during that immediate period.

Fenner Brockway, Frank Ridley and Leslie Jones Talk About Winstonley and the Diggers • (Meeting on October 26, 1986) Catching up with Frank Ridley in the corridor leading to the small hall, Fenner Brockway embraced him—returning the embrace, the latter said "I heard you speak in 1929. Two ninety-year-olds together". The meeting was one held in appreciation of the TALKING OF THE DEVILDiggen and Gerard Winst aanley nd was chaired by Ellis Hillman who, Satan: ADiatoolical Dialogue introducing Fenner Brockway, said by of him that he was the best known F.A. RIDLEY luminary on the British Left but was Licentiate of Theology. Univertity of Durham also recognised as a great interna- tionalist the world over. Foreword: MARTIN PAGE Paying tribute to Frank Ridley, Fenner Brockway said that the most 477-. compelling reason for his coming to the meeting had been because of cm/ Frank's presence there. Ridley was a proletarian historian, writing as the historian of the common people, who were never represented in the official histories. Thomas More had written a Utopia which was a nonsense. It had nothing to do or in common with the common people. The Fall of Man had taken place, not when Adam and Eve "fell" in the Garden of Eden, but when Cain and Abel had quarrelled over property. Brockway said he was increasingly convinced of the importance of "direct action" for the cause of by peace. He instanced the women of Greenhorn Common protesting over FA. RIDLEY the presence of Cruise Missiles. Peace, he said, and the struggle for F A. RIDLEY PUBLISHING COMMIT1EE LONDON peace, were not about a "theory" but

un ascodation Letccater Secular Suucty) something we must participate in in our daily lives. Frank Ridley described the Diggers as the first true socialists. They were among the first to understand that the question of the ownership of the land was the key to the different attitudes of classes. Even in those far off days this was the basis to an understanding of the roots of . In Britain the power base rested in the House of Lords with Established religion. A series of peasant revolutions which failed opened the door for a bourgeois class to arise, a revolution which developed a left wing during the Civil War around the Levellers and the Diggers. Although an obscure group at Ethical Record, May 1987 9 the time, their influence grew. Even with their agrarian, utopian and some- times backward looking views, they were the first group to take history seriously. For them the land was the common property of the people—they tried to put their ideas into practice, challenging the whole basis of the land- lord system in the country. Gerard Winstanley, their leader, was a great revolutionary, with advanced theories and well ahead of his time. Leslie Jones stated that the way history was taught in schools was all wrong. For example, pupils were taught that Gerard Winstanley was a crook and very little was said about the Levellers and Diggers. It was the Diggers who first proposed that girls as well as boys should be taught, and that women should have the right to propose as well as men! Referring to the issue of the common lands and common ownership, he stated that Greenham Common was a perfect example of where the Govern- ment had "borrowed land" and never returned it to the people who owned it as of right. He suggested that the first-class housing accommodation for American airmen on the base could easiiy be transferred to the thousands of families in the area around Greenham Common.

Launch of the Pamphlet "Talking of the Devil" (Meeting on November 5, 1986) To promote Frank Ridley's latest pamphlet, which describes the changing role of Satan in the history of Christian thought and its relevance to the future, the F. A. Ridley Publishing. 1999? Committee convened this meeting, under the chairmanship of Martin Page. At the meeting it was said that, in spite of the brevity of the pam- phlet, the author had addressed him- self to many topical issues, stimulat- ing the reader to fresh insights into old questions. fied to do so since he was a Licen- tiate of Theology and had spent a greater part of his life expounding ‘ 1\ 1 theThe cause author of was freethought. eminently quali- Though 90, Frank Ridley's mind ,e- t,),–Ar` remains as alert as ever. He pioneered the concept of the Fourth • \ International before Trotsky. He had "tsti- been a President of the National ,44 .. Secular Society and editor of the POST-NUCLEAR WAR DEVIL? Freethinker. As well as Fenner Brockway he numbered James Maxton, George Padmore and _Tomo Kenyatta among his friends. Speaking briefly, Frank Ridley himself touched on the theme of the pamphlet and went on to express his concern for the decline of the radical spirit in modern Britain. He commented upon G. K. Chesterton's remark that when people foresake their religious beliefs they tend, not to become more rational, but to open their minds to new superstitions. Britain, Ridley said, was no longer a Christian country. The orthodox religious are no longer the enemy. had successfully revived the old Toryism which should have been extinct 50 years ago. Hope was not lost 10 Ethical Record, May 1987 though: there were signs of a revival. In the last 30 years he had never seen so many veteran radicals as on the present occasion under one roof. Paying tribute to Leslie Jones for his work in selling the pamphlets, Ellis Hillman, a Barnet Councillor, described the work of the F. A. Ridley Publishing Committee. Profits from the sales of the pamphlets sold would be re-invested to produce others including an updated edition of Socialism and Religion and The Revolutionary Tradition in England as well as The Christian Odyssey and The Assassins. Albert Meltzer said that it had been his privilege and pleasure to have known Frank Ridley for 50 years and he looked forward to reading his autobiography. Another member of the audience commended Frank Ridley for the work he had done for the ILP. Others contributing to the discussion included Bob Leelc (who drew the illustrations for the pamphlet), Al Richardson (co-author of War and the International), and Eva Ebury, the veteran Hyde Park secularist. Frank Ridley expressed his thanks, winding up the proceedings with a suggestion that, having heard all the various expressions of concern for the future of humanity, he could begin to sympathise with God's problems. MAGNUS NIELSEN BEWICK

About Francis Ambrose Ridley and His Books F. A. Ridley was born in I897—the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee! He was unsuccessful in the entrance examination to Oxford Univer- sity, thus joining Gibbon, Shelley and other illustrious people as refugees • from that institution. However he studied at Durham University and became a Licentiate Theology (Durham), though rarely using his honour. Gaining an encyclopaedic knowledge of theology and church history, he also later became an advanced student of history and political science. On first coming to London he was cheated out of money and, on taking the matter to court, obtained little (if any) satisfaction from "British Justice". This led him to spend some 30 years as a tub thumping speaker and as a Hyde Park orator of distinction. Following Marx and Lenin, among others, he was an avid reader in the British Museum Library for over 50 years. He has debated with Marcus Garvey and Harold Macmillan, among others, and corresponded and crossed swords with . He.was on Adolph Hitler's 1940 death list. At one time F. A. Ridley was a member of the National Administrative Council of the . He became President of the National Secular Society, fourth in succession to Charles Bradlaugh. He contributed to the Adelphi and the Freethinker, War Commentary, Left, Socialist Leader and other journals and magazines. Frank Ridley's first book, The Green Machine, a science fiction novel, was followed by many others including: Mussolini Over Africa, At the Cross Roads of History, Next Year's War (published in 1936), Julian the Apostate, The Papacy and Fascism, The Jesuits, Fascism—What Is lt, Sparticus, The Assassins, The Revolutionary Tradition in England, James Marton and British Socialism, The Cato Street Conspiracy, The Future of the British Monarchy and many others. His unpublished works include The Christian Odyssey (from Jerusalem to Rome), and Mohammed and Lenin, A Study of the Dialectics of Universal History, The Rise and Fall of the English Empire (his magnum opus, on which he had. worked for 40 years). There is also The Planet Beyond Pluto, a contemporary version of The War of the Worlds. Frank Ridley has earned an international reputation as a writer and his works have been translated into many languages: some 40 publications are credited to him in the National Library. Thanks to Hyde Park Publications come of these are now available in the other copyright libraries. He has delivered many remarkable lectures over the years—recently, the most important, those given in London and Oxford on "Gerard Ethical Record, May 1987 . 11 Winstanley and the Digger Movement". It is interesting to note that Gerard Winstanley was also swindled in his early years, was ruined in business and suffered at the hands of the English legal system. Both spent a lifetime advocating radical ideas in religion and politics, leading them to become exponents of the scientific exposition of history and socialist thought. LESLIE S. A. JONES

Frank Ridley—This Is Your Life On February 22, 1987 Frank Ridley celebrated his 90th birthday in grand style at Conway Hall, thanks to the support of the South Place Ethical Society, the National Secular Society, the Committee for Socialist Renewal and the F. A. Ridley publishing Committee. An audience of at least 300 packed the large hall to hear a galaxy of distinguished speakers describe the life and times of Frank Ridley. The meeting was chaired by Councillor Ellis Hillman, Labour representative from Colindale. Among the speakers were : Fenner Brockway, Stan Newens (MEP for Central London), Walter Kendall (historian from Ruskin College), Robert Baltrop (author of a much acclaimed biography of Jack London), Arthur Bennett (distinguished optician from City University), who spoke of Frank swimming in the sea of learning like a whale in a shark-infested ocean. Al Richardson, who referred to Frank's important book on the Jesuits, was followed by Mildred Gordon (Labour Parliamentary candidate for Bow and Poplar) who mentioned his contribution to science fiction, Vidya Anand who spoke of Frank's link with S. Ramgoolam—the founder of modern Mauritius. Other speakers included the doyen of British Anarchism, Albert Meltzer, Jack Gaster, well- known solicitor and Communist Party member, who produced a leaflet circulated by the St. Marylebone ILP in 1927 advertising a talk by Frank Ridley; the Leicester Secular Society, and the National Secular Society (Peter Miller and Barbara Smoker) also adding their tributes, as did the Mayor of Camden, Councillor Mary Caine and her deputy. Messages were read from Lord Soper, Michael Fool, Bob Edwards, Sid Bidwell, Eric Heffer, Don Bateman, Reginald Groves and Ernest Mandel, General Secretary of the Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International, and Michael Raptis, the post-World War II General Secretary of the Fourth International. Last but not least, Frank Ridley's great great niece, born December 29 last year, Lucy Clements, was present also. The proceedings were concluded with a few brief remarks by Frank Ridley, in which he thanked the Mayor and the assembled company, proudly remarking that one of his greatest achievements had been meeting the varied audience who had gathered to celebrate his 90th birthday. He won- dered afterwards whether he should have said: if this temporary and unitecl front of the Left had become permanent, capitalism, along with Thatcher, would have sunk into oblivion!

Review How to be and Modern Democratic Techniques by Richard Benjamin, M.Sc. (Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform,' 1987, 12pp.), available from Conway Hall or from LCER, PO Box I I, GUILDFORD, GUI 3QN, .for 25p plus large s.a.e. Any frequent attender at Conway Hall in the past three decades must have heard Richard Benjamin advocate preferential voting with some form of eliminative counting (eg "square root representation") whenever a multiple vote has been required. But less democratic methods of voting have gener- ally prevailed, simply because meetings comprise people in a hurry, people concerned mainly with getting their own way, people too conservative to 12 Ethical Record, May 1987 consider a new idea, and people too impatient to listen to a complicated explanation—especially one delivered in a foreign accent. In writing, however, Richard has no foreign accent. In fact, very few people whose first language is English can match his English vocabulary and mastery of English syntax. And in this pamphlet he has made every word earn its place on grounds of clarity and conciseness. In fact, he has distilled whole books on voting procedures into nine pages of text—and that means that it needs to be read slowly. But not necessarily all at once: in fact, by the ingenious use of three sizes of type, plug italics, bold type, and underlining, the author (who did the printing himself) indicates relative importance; and in a cover note he actually invites the first-time reader to skip everything that is not in large print. Another typographical oddity with a lot to recommend it is his provision of "side-notes" instead of footnotes. And the six-sheet pamphlet even has a titled spine for the bookshelf. The recommendations cover every size of election, from that of a small committee to the United Nations. Some of the side notes are•bibliographical, with sources and further reading material, indicating that most of the pro- cedures outlined have been proposed elsewhere—in the European Parliament, in the "Brit.J.Pol.", and so on—but there are also some original refine- ments. And (possibly with a little self-mockery?) a section headed "Notes for Perfectionists". Richard is always concerned that time and effort should be directed to targets of maximum effect—for instance, teaching the trainers of trainers. In this instance, rather than preach to the converted by choosing a recep- tive Liberal or SDP outlet, he has chosen to sacrifice sales in order to infiltrate the Labour Party. But democratic techniques are important wherever, and whenever, a vote is taken. This month, for instance, local elections take place on the 7th—not to mention our own AGM on the 31st. And in a few more months there will be a General Election—in which the signs are that, more than ever before, many of the electorate will resort to unsatisfactory "tactical voting" for want of a truly democratic system. As this pamphlet points out, in the 1951 Election the Labour Party received the largest vote of any party ever in British history, the perverse result being a Tory majority in the House and a Tory government; and the fall in the Tory vote from 44 per cent to 42 per cent between 1979 and 1983 added 58 seats to their already overwhelming majority. Since I have Shavian reservations about democracy, I myself am more concerned abotit the way the electorate are bamboozled—initially by the geographical "first-past-the-post- voting system and then by the high-handed actions of successive governments—than about the desirablity of the most popular party actually coming out on top. After all, the most popular party could be the worst; and, especially, in the TV age, a candidate's main asset for electoral success is his acting talent. But Richard admits this, and he includes one section on the need fpr an independent assessment of candi- dates' more relevant qualities and for voters to be given adequate informa- tion in order to be able to choose wisely. In this, however, I feel he is a bit of an idealist, a bit sanguine about human nature. But I do urge SPES members to read this important and fascinating survey of voting procedures—and at this price, yOu can afford a few extra copies for your friends. ' . BARBARA SMOKER

Fauna & Flora Preservation Society ORCHIDS. • •May 15. Cambridge Zoology Department :" •I May 27. London Zoo: BATS. . June 11-12: London ZOO : ORYXES.

Ethical Record, May 1987 13 Viewpoints

A Dualist Duel I really cannot allow Peter Cadogan's letter (Ethical Record, April '87, page 14.) to go unanswered. Like most regular attenders at our Sunday lectures, I have probably retained no more than one-thousandth part of what I have heard at them over the years, and I could well be mistaken on thinking that Peter had described himself as a dualist. However, included in that one-thousandth part of incontrovertible memory is hearing him say—not once, but several times in the years when he used to chair the Sunday morning meetings— that Bertrand Russell (of all people) wak a dualist. And I must have assumed that Peter was claiming Russell as an ally. I remember it clearly, because each time Peter said it I jumped up to defend Russell against the charge of dualism. After all, one of the most penetrating attacks on mind-body dualism ever written was by Bertrand Russell. Indeed, I almost superstitiously felt that unless someone in the audience were to spring up immediately in Russell's defence, our portrait of him might jump off the wall in protest! And now that Peter is nominat- ing Jeremy Bentham also a dualist, I find myself wondering, in fantasy, whether the latter's famous remains at University College are having a struggle to remain quiet in their display cabinet. Except, of course, that if we are correct in asserting that mind is a function of the living brain, and not a different principle (as dualists, in the usual definition of the term, assert), consciousness cannot possibly exist once the brain is dead, so these philosophers can no longer know or care what is said of them. But, because I would (at present) wish my own memory to be defended against such misunderstandings after my death, I feel it is up to people like me to defend, while we can, the memories of monist philosophers. Male chauvinism, militarism, automation, and monetarism—all of which Peter drags into the argument as being symptomatic of dualism—have nothing to do with it; if Peter wants to attack them, it would be far less confusing if he were to use a relevant term such as "machismo", rather than use "dualism" in this Humpty-Dumptyish way. What is actually symto- matic of dualism is a belief in life after death. As for the arts, I find it difficult to understand the notion of any art existing in the absence of living brains, which are necessary both to create and to appreciate artistic objects or effects. Unless created by a living person with a functioning brain, no object or sound could, surely, be regarded as a work of art; it would be a work of nature. And unless contemplated by living brains, neither art nor nature can be evaluated. BARBARA SMOKER (22.3.87)London, 5E6

About Fundamental Ideologies • I read Colin Mills's review of George Walford's pamphlet (Ethical Record, March, 1987, page 16) with great interest because I have read the pamphlet before. One of his statements is misleading. Walford does not think most writing on ideology in the 60's and 70's is based on Mannheim's work as he is aware of the equivalent amount of writing based on Marx and Engels but this is not a point which makes much difference to Mill's argument. I would like to pursue a point based on the work of one of Milles references, namely Martin Seliger's Ideology and Politics. Walford makes a passing reference to Seliger as a good recent summary of the work following

14 Ethical Record, May 1987 Mannheim. Seliger uses the first- half of his book to demolish the Marxist idea that everyone other than a Marxist has an ideology. It applies to all other groups also. I concur with Seliger and Walford in saying that every- one has an ideology. Seliger Continues by elaborating, from his experience as a Professor of Politics,- on the need to separate the concepts of funda- mental and operative ideologies to be able to understand people's arguments and social behaviour. Fundamental ideologies are the sets of deepest ideas and moral beliefs people have (consistent with Trilling, as referred to by Mills) whereas opera- tive ideologies are the sets of policies and arguments people present for dealing with everyday political problems. There is no doubt in my mind that Walford's set of six ideologies corres- ponds to Seliger's fundamental ideologies and can be arranged in one spectrum, whereas Mills's summarized political programmes correspond to Seliger's operative ideologies and show the inconsistencies noted by Mills which stop them being arranged neatly. The failure to separate fundamental and operative ideologies shows a lack of depth in Mills's review which makes it an inadequate critique of Walford's pamphlet. ADRIANWILLIAMS (9.3.87)London, N5 Reply to Walford and Murray My review of George Walford's pamphlet is, as he correctly points out, critical. I presume that he proposes to deal with my criticisms, as the Editor suggests, in Ideological Commentary. He certainly has not done so in the Ethical Record. David Murray attempts to conflate my views with those of George Watford. If he had bothered to familiarise himself with my views and with Walford's, he would know that our two viewpoints are unlike. I do not accept bourgeois ideology. I do not accept that language has "real", "natural" meanings, or that language is politically or ideologically neutral. I thought that the bourgeois sense of the word ideology was "a set of ideas subscribed to by extremeists or revolutionaries, at variance with common sense". Perhaps the bourgeoisie also use words with more than one meaning. To portray the editorials as individualistic or bourgeois is also absurd. Again, Murray has conflated Peter Hunot's views with those of other quoted in the editorial cited. Likewise, I do not accept that "language is power". Gender oppression and racialism have their roots in the maldistribution of power and in chauvinist attitudes, not in language. These problems will be solved by dealing with power and attitudes, and by developing the necessary ideas, rather than by tinkering with language. This would be treating the symptoms rather than the disease. The language adapts itself to prevalent ideas and ideologies. My objection to the proposed "anti-genderist", "anti-racist" changes in our language, is that they are Newspeak—that they are designed to inhibit freethought—and that they are ideological in the sense that they aid mani- pulation and oppression. I should point out that the "bourgeois press" generally does not, or does not wish to understand what Orwell actually had to say. Both they and the Leninist press share a common interest in falsely portraying Orwell as anti- socialist. In fact he exposed the oppressive and reactionary ideas and atti- tudes of many self-proclaimed socialists. My objection to the Alternative Moral Majority is that it is steeped in gender chauvinism and racial chauvinism, and is therefore reactionary. In short, I endorse oppression neither covertly nor overtly. Coos. MILLS(17.4.87) Amersham, Bucks Ethical Record, May 1987 15 South Place Ethical Society FOUNDEDin 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aim is the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, and the cultivation of a rational way of life. We invite to membership all those who reject supernatural creeds and, find themselves in sympathy with our views. At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds of cultural activities, including discussions, lectures, concerts, dances, rambles and socials. A comprehensive reference and lending library is available, and all Members and Associates receive the Society's journal, The Ethical Record, free. The Sunday Evening Chamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 have achieved international renown. Memorial and Funeral Services are available to members. Membership is by LI enrolment fee and an annual Subscription. 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MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM To THE HONORARY REGISTRAR, SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY CONWAY HALL HUMANIST CENTRE RED LION SQUARE, LONDON WC1R 4RL The Society's objects (as interpreted by its General Committee in the light of a 1980 Court ruling) are the study and dissemination of ethical principles; and the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of education in fields relevant to these objectst Being in sympathy with the above, I desire to become a Member. I will accept the rules of the Society and will pay the annual subscription of . . . (minimum £4 plus f I enrolment). NAME (BLOCK LETTERS PLEASE) ADDRESS

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