Ethical Record
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The ISSN 0014- 1690 Ethical Record Vol. 96 No. 9 OCTOBER 1991 CONTENTS Page Saint Mugg 3 Relation between Brain vc Consciousness 7 Book Review 12 Letters 14 London Student Skeptics 15 Forthcoming Events 16 Editorial This issue of The Ethical Record is unusually Perhaps the strongest reason for retaining short due to an absence of suitable material. the present title is that of tradition. But this is Due to the economics and technology of no reason at all. It is simply to say that things printing the journal must be in increments of have always been thus, so they must remain 8 pages. so. Even if it were the case that a particular usage had always been so this would not of Three years ago Nicolas Walter suggested itself be a good enough reason for retaining it. that it was time to consider changing the But such appeals to tradition usually arbitrarily name of the South Place Ethical Society ('A stop in historical reference at the moment Century of the Ethical Movement', ER, when that particular usage itself became September '88). This suggestion seemed to current. This is so in the case of the present elicit little response. I will repeat this proposal name for the Society. It was not always called and invite readers to reply: by its present name and need not continue to The premises of the Society are no longer be so. -at South Place, so 'South Place' is no longer an accurate qualification of 'Ethical Society'. But then again: surely the 'it' itself has changed. It is anyway pointless to specify the anything Of course there has been a continuity and 'Ethical Society' as there are no longer any overlap in members, property, constitution other so-named groups for it to need differen- etc. But is it the case that the present South tiating from. Furthermore, the pointfulness Place Ethical Society is essentially the same of 'Ethical Society' has long evaporated as entity as when it acquired its name? One may there is no longer a need to claim that a perhaps say that though the wheels and humanist society can be as 'ethical' as a brakes and saddle have changed one has had religious one. the same bicycle for twenty years — but if the Dropping the 'Ethical' would have the frame is changed?! advantage of removing the temptation, which we are all prone to, of claiming for the side in To raise this is to raise the question of what the a controversy that one is on that 'afterall, this Society is and of what its name could be is supposed to be an "ethical society" '. The appropriately changed to. Is it what its assumption that if there are antagonistic members say it is, or what is actually done? Is positions then only one can be an ethical this in accord with the statement of aims on position is a peculiarly religious delusion that the back page? Does it help to say that .it is we would all be better to be free of. 'based on humanism' when this category itself — on the evidence of recent discussions — is problematical? continues on page 2 _ -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, London WO 4RL SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Humanist Centre, Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square, London WC IR 4RL. Telephone: 071-831 7723 Hall Lettings: 071-242 8032. Lobby: 071-405 4125 Trustees Louise Booker, John Brown, Anthony Chapman, Peter Heales, Don Liversedge, Ray Lovecy, Ian MocKillop, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe. Appointed Lecturers Harold Blackham, T.F. Evans, Peter Heales, Richard Scorer, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter. Officers • Honorary Representative: Norman Bacrac. Chair General Committee: Nicolas Walter. Deputy Chair: Louise Booker. Honorary Registrar Anne Wood. Honorary Treasurer: David Williams. Hall Manager Stephen Norley. Honorary Librarian: Edwina Palmer. Editor, The Ethical Record: David Murray. Secretary: Nina Khare. Editorial continued from page I The most obvious candidates for a new name Whatever are the reasons internal to the would contain the word 'humanist'. But then Society for keeping or changing the present there.would be the need to avoid confusion name, there can surely be no question but with the British Humanist Association. that in terms of the external perception of the Nicolas Walter suggested the 'London Society its present name is useless. It is a Humanist Society' or 'British Humanist clumsy mouthful to utter and it evokes no Centre'. recognition or comprehension in most people who hear it. I invite readers' comments. Membership of the Society includes sub- The Ethical Record Non-members HUMANIST HOLIDAYS scription to may subscribe to the journal for i6/year. Yule 1991 at CAMBRIDGE Contributions should be sent to the Editor, at Tuesday 24th December to Saturday Conway Hall. 28th December Shared room £165 per person, Deadline for contributions for any month's Single £185. issue is the first day of the preceeding month. Booking (before 10th Nov to secure Contributions should conform to one of the- exclusive use of hotel). following standards: Enquiries to: On Disc - Word Star, Word Perfect, MS Gillian Bailey, Word. Include print-out. 18 Priors Road, Cheltenham, Typewritten — A4 paper, double-spaced Gloucestershire, GL52 5AA. with wide margins. Phone 0242-239175. Handwritten — A4 paper, narrow lined with margin. Printed, with clear distinction be- tween capitals and non-capitals. Appeal for PhOtograPhs As part of the Bicentary celebrations Michael hear from anyone with relevant photographs. Newman (convenor of the Bicentary Sub- Please send them to him at Conway Hall. They committee) will be organising an exhibition on will be speedily returned. Those to be used will the history of the Society. He would like to be copied. 2 Ethical Record, September, 1991 SAINT MUGG T F EVANS Summary of a lecture, 16 June 1991 Kingsmill: Who would you most like to have been? Muggeridge: Chaucer as poet, Johnson as a human being, Cromwell as a man of action, and Augustine as a saint. K ingsruill: Augustine's not my idea of a saint. Muggeridge: Dont't forget we're discussing who we want to be, not who we ought to be. I hope to become a saint, and Augustine wasn't in any hurry either. Richard Ingrams, God's Apology 1977 ....who would not rather be wrong with St Francis of Assissi, St Augustine of Hippo, all the saints and mystics for two thousand years, not to mention Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Milton, Pascal, than right with Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, the Huxleys, Bertrand Russell and such like? Malcolm Muggeridge Conversion 1988 When Malcolm Muggeridge died on 13 November last, the Daily Telegraph gave a surprising amount of space to an obituary notice and an appreciation. This was perhaps understandable to some extent, as he had been an assistant editor of the paper. Nevertheless, it was hard to resist the question how much space would the paper have been able to allow to a deceased person who had done something important or perhaps written something of lasting value. This struck some of Muggeridge's admirers as cruel but it would not have worried him, as one who spent the greater part of his life putting everyone else in the lowly places that, according to him, were well deserved. Muggeridge was born in 1903 in Croydon. He appears, by his own reports, not to have had a particularly distinguished educational career and to have been fortunate to be admitted to Selwyn College, Cambridge after the local grammar school. (We have been asssured, recently, that lack of scholastic ability is no bar to high office). His father was a Fabian Socialist, a prominent local politician and later a Labour member of Parliament. Muggeridge conceived a contempt for his father's political activities although a friend, the historian, A J P Taylor, was to say that the father 'did more good in the world than Malcolm has ever done'. He married Kitty Dobbs a niece of the redoubtable Beatrice Webb and he developed a contempt for the Webbs and their work. He had a varied career in his early adult life. Teaching in India and Egypt was followed by journalism on the then Manchester Guardian and, as a gossip !Hub-, on the Evening Standard He fell out with the Manchester Guardian because he wrote a noVel which was clearly libellous and the paper and its proprietor, C P Scott, threatened to sue Wit was not withdrawn. Muggeridge lost faith in the liberal tradition and, going to Russia as the Manchester Guardian correspondent, he was disillusioned with the Soviet experiment also. He spent the war and some of the years immediately following in various intelligence or similar posts and then returned to journalism. He became prominent in 1952 when he was invited to become editor of Punch and to revitalise the so-called humorous magazine. He made quite an Ethical Record, October, 1991 3 impact in Punch and also in witty, very amusing, articles in the New Statesman, showing himself a sharp critic of such great British institutions as the Royal Family and Winston Churchill. His friend, the novelist, Anthony Powell, has left a vivid snapshot of Muggeridge at Punch: Muggeridge's anarcho-anti-Left-anti-Churchill-anti-intellectual-nihilistic-sex is fun/sex is sinful-diatribes against everything and everybody, expressed in a copious flow of political paradox, and four-letter-word imagery, naturally caused some astonishment, even dismay at first onset. Muggeridge soon tired of Punch as, indeed, he always tired of regular employment.