The ISSN 0014-1690 Ethical Record

Vol. 96 No. 10 NOVEMBER 1991

CONTENTS Page Humanist Strategy - A sharpened perspective 3 Business and Accounting Ethics in Islam 8 Mysterious Cult misuses Humanist label 11 Does Humanism have a future? 17 Anarchism and Religion 20 Letters. Syllabus of 'Altruism' meetings 24 Is Pure Quantity a Straitjacket for Science? 25

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Lectures and forums are held in the library and are free (collection). NOVEMBER

Sunday, 17th I I am Lecture: "Discovering Ideology", GORGE WALFORD. editor of 'Ideological Commentry' and author of 'Beyond Politics , an outline of systematic ideology'. Ideology is not just false consciousness and it is not limited to politics. It explains why belief in religion continues and why humanists remain a-minority.

3 pm Forum:"The Philosophy of signs of C.S. Peirce",CFnusTINE WERTHEIM looks at the philosophy of the American CS. Peirce, Mathematician, scientist, philosopher, friend of William James and considered by many to be the greatest intellect of his day. In Peirce's view, philosophy tries to understand, therefore it takes as its principle assumption that the laws of reason and the laws of nature are one.

6.30 pm Concert: PETER CROPPER (Violin) and IAN LAKE (Piano) Beethoven

Friday, 22nd 7 pm Book Launch: An evening of songs, poetry, dissent and defiance to launch 'The Chatto Book of Dissent', edited by Mike Rosen and David Widgery. Wine will be served. Admission £1.50.

Sunday, 24th I I am Lecture: "Nietzche - Twilight of the Idols". MARK NEOCLEOUS takes a fresh look at this controversial philosopher.

3 pm Forum: "My World - outlook and philosophy of life". 4 members of S.P.E.S. expound and defend their own points of view.

6.30 pm The Cummings String Trio Schubert, Schnittki, Mozart.

Continues on back page

The views expressed in this journal arc,not necessarily those of the Society

l'ublished by the South Place Ethical Society, Connay Hall, Red Lion Square, London WCI SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

The Humanist Centre, Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 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 MacKillop, 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,

Special General Meetings of the South Place Ethical Society

A Two Special General Meetings, which were held on 25 September and 3 November 1991. had been called by the General Committee under Rule 25 following the Resolution passed by a decisive majority at the Annual General Meeting on 19 May 1991. calling for a Special General Meeting to consider a change in the Rules of the Society which would allow Members to remain on the General Committee for more than three years in succession, though they would still have to be re-elected after each period of three years. After short discussions, a Resolution to this effect was passed at both Meettngs with the necessary two-thirds majority. As a result the whole of Rule 11 (5) now reads as follows:

Six members of the Committee shall retire annually at the Annual General Meeting, being those members who were elected at the Annual General Meeting in the third year previous to the current year and those (if any) elected in accordance with Rule 11 (4). but all members so retiring shall be eligible for re-election. Officers of the Society who have not also been elected to membership of the Committee shallcease to be members of the Committee at the expiration of their period of office. This change will take effect from the Annual General Meeting in May 1992

B The other Special General Meeting, which was held on 25 September 1991, had been called under Rule 22 by more than twelve Members of the Society to consider the questions of responsibility for the acquisition and of payment for the purchase of an electronic typewriter during 1990. After a long discussion, a Motion and several Amendments were put to the vote, and in the end the f ollowing Motion as amended was passed by an overwhelming majority: This Special General Meeting: 1 Real firms confidence in the elected General Committee and elected Officials of the Society in administering.the affairs of the Society: 2 Requests the General Committee and Officials of the Society to begin to seek a speedy and satisfactory conclusion to this matter in accordance with both legaland ethical considerations: 3 Requires all Members of the Society to act within the Society in conformity with both the explicit and the implicit principles of the Society; and 4 Resolves that this should be the end of the matter.

Nicolas Walter Chan General Committee & Norman Bacrac — Honorary Representative

Membership of the Society includes subscription to The Ethical Record Non-members may subscribe to the journal for LB/year. Contributions should be sent to the Editor, at Conway Hall. Deadline for contributions for any month's issue is the first day of the preceeding month. Contributions should conform to one of the following standards:

On Disc - Word Star, Word Perfect, MS Word. Include print-out. Typewritten — A4 paper, double-spaced with wide margins. Handwritten — A4 paper, narrow lined with margin. Printed, with clear distinction between capitals and non-capitals. 2 Ethical Record, November, 7997 H UM ANIST STRATEGY — A Sharpened Perspective

Eric Stockton Keynote Address to SPES Annual Reunion. 29 September 1991

Mr Chairman, I thank the Society for the honour of inviting me to address this meeting. • It is some Rimy years since my one and only previous visit to a meeting of the society. The occasion was notable for an address by Archibald Roberston in which he made a critical compitlisOn .of Huxley's Bravc New World and, the then recently published, 1984 by George: Ohyell: Huxley. got .the best of it and I, as a then member of that ultimate middlercla's;-prOtestaht sect known as the British Communist Party, applauded that assessment. I _would noW, about (Oily years after my leaving that party, rate those two cautiqnaiy. tales as 'equal but different'.

A ve'rY "great deal ha's been b'rewing these forty years and it has come to a head in somewhat less than forty months of the immediate past. Many well-meaning people took years to absorb the significance of' the Kruschev Report to the 1956 congress of the Soviet Communist Party. We have not, I think, got year upon leisurely year to absorb what has now happened as historic sequel to that report — the withering away of homo sovieticus.

It is no part of our business to discuss general politics while wearing our secular humanist hats except in so far as 1) there are political threats to humanist values and 2) there are effective humanist contributions to be made to the easement of poiitical problems. I suggest that we have to draw those lines very firmly but also to recognise that we do not all draw them in precisely the same way, limiting precisely the same areas. The unsureness of our touch in these matters has been illustrated amply by the discussions of the Gulf War that have diverted us in recent months. The fact remains that the political world has changed enormously; 1988 is a long time ago and we have to make some political analysis as a preliminary to the discussion of our future humanist strategies.

The model upon which I base my political assessment for humanist consideration is that of the mythical monster which, freshly beheaded, instantly sprouted three equally horrible heads. The monster of terminal 'communism' has been beheaded and has sprouted the three monstrous heads of capitalism unrestrained, nationalism unthinking and religion unreformed. Those are the monstrous things at large in the former Soviet Empire and they all threaten humanist values directly. The complacent propaganda, to the effect that democratic enlightenment has now the chance of a clear run in the former communist sphere, is to be taken with a large grain of salt. We are not at 'the end of history'. We must not be misled by the cosy norms of our own little world. Our capitalism has been tempered by a long process of ameliorative reform — underwritten by a once flourishing imperialism whose slackening momentum we often mistake for a divine right of ours to be wealthier than most of the wider world. Capitalism in the former Soviet empire is likely to be the ruthless purveying of anything that the locals can be persuaded to welcome as 'western'. The lawless pushers of hard drugs and the lawful pushers of nicotine will see the Second World as, perhaps, even more attractive than the Third.

Nationalism, in our society, is mostly a matter of patronising the person who has the misfortune not to be native British, English or Scottish or whatever. Nationalism 'over there' is much more likely to take the form of burning down the next village.

Religion here is mostly a domesticated pet thing that Monday-to-Saturday Humanists

Ethical Record, November, /991 3 keep up for old times' sake. The Orthodox/Catholic divide is not like that at all; it is a killer and militant Islam, too, is on the loose again all over much of Asia and South-cast Europe.

Humanists, however defined, embody only one trend within society and before attempting any assessment of our humanist perspectives it is necessary to locate our 'class' in contemporary history. By 'our class' I mean that fragment of total humanity which is the semi-educated, semi-philistine middle class in countries such as Britain. This fragment is by no means wholly secular — certainly not consciously so; it includes religious traditionalists, militant revivalists and a number of beleaguered would-be sanitisers of piety. This diverse fragment of humanity consists of people who see themselves as responsible caring citizens; they are a minority embedded in a silent majority of 'default humanists' who half believe in a half-guilty way in a vestigial half-god.

It has fallen to that fragment, of which we humanist are a part, to be the beneficiaries, and part authors, of a mini-enlightenment. We have grown up in a post-war world of serene expectations that have almost, at times, seemed to be coming true. It has been possible for us to credit a high and rising standard of living accompanied by high and rising standards of civil liberty, social peace and shared conscience. The downfall of Hitler, the immediate post-mortem exposure of Stalin, the withering of Spanish fascism, the emergence of secular states in the third world — notably India and some of the Muslin countries of our near east — seemed, a decade or two ago, to be the signs of a new and better order of things. The liberal decencies were perceived to be on the move. Many of us took it for granted that tyrannies were wilting and that, in particular, religious fanaticism was in terminal decline. The people were in decreasing need of their traditional opium because their lives were brightening by the decade.

The falsity of this latter wishful thought began to be exposed and so the consciously secular movements — of which our several organisations are examples — have grown somewhat in prominence in recent years.

Their problem is that they have grown from the contrived decay of the mini- enlightenment but most of their members still take that (I think) transient phenomenon for granted. These organisations of ours are manifestations of 'senior common room atheism' and they mirror, in a distorted way, some of the non-humanist organisations of the twentieth century urban middle class.

Some humanist trends are 'all things to all men' rather reminiscent of the Anglican Church and the Scottish Kirk. Other strands of secUlarism are inclined to be 'unholier than thou' — weird analogues of some of the grimmer Protestant sects so familiar a blot on the Scottish scene. Others remind me of the Fabian Society and the Left Book Club of my youth. These rather cruel caricatures conceal a certain frustrated admiration that I feel for our secular organisations (I am a member of many of them). As for the senior common room ambience, I mean no offence; I value it and I would be the first to proclaim my admiration for the many academics in our secularist ranks.

l am wishing merely to draw attention to one of the most significant contradictions of our contemporary secular humanism; it is a tender growth sprouting spontaneously from a world that is getting tougher — too tough for us if we do not think hard who we are, where we are and where we must go if we are not to be marginalised and perhaps extinguished.

4 Ethical Record, November, 1991 The future cannot. I think, be described convincingly as a continuation, or revival, of the somewhat cosy mini-enlightenment of the middle decades of this century. It cannot be described convincingly as the belated emergence of New Right Triumph. It can be described best, in my opinion, in terms of 'green scepticism'. (This is a very different beast from its litter siblings, green romanticism and green mysticism — I would not be seen dead in a turquoise tracksuit).

There are, both globally and in such countries as ours in particular, too many people plundering and polluting the planet too much. We, humanity, are going to be poorer or fewer or both and we are not going to like it and our dislike of it will take forms that challenge, directly and brutally, the central humanist precepts.

Before going any further it is necessary to set out, not a ponderous 'belief system' (the world is over-stocked with pretentious belief-driven tyrannies) but, a brief, indeed minimal, formulation of what humanism seems to me to be about. We can then see something of the challenge that the erosion of the ephemeral mini-enlightenment and the three menacing monsters that I have suggested are at large in the Second World, might present to us.

As I see it, humanism is the notion that we humans can, to a useful extent and subject to the moral imperatives implicit in our being social animals intent upon social and individual survival at a tolerable level of well-being, identify and solve the problems we face SOLELY by recourse to experience and observation and WITHOUT recourse to Authority. This holds whether Authority is perceived to be divine (the supposedly revealed will of 'god') or surreptitiously deified slogans — progress, the state, the party, market forces, the destiny of the nation or any other items in the burdensome catalogue of received pretensions.

On this premise I see humanism primarily as an open, co-operative and constructive challenge to gratuitous Authority in all its many blatant and insidious forms; that remit is not narrow, not unworthy of the finest and most generous-spirited among us. That remit largely defines us and on it we should plan our strategy and set our agenda.

It follows that humanists should be concerned most with those matters in which Authority intrudes most, in which Authority is at its most stifling of human well-being. The crumbling mini-enlightenment is providing a field-day for Authority and, by the same token, a huge and varied challenge to humanists. What are we actually thinking and doing?

One disturbing feature of humanist discourse is the tendency to avoid the sharp points of humanism — the challenging of authority and the promotion of intelligent co-operation — and to lapse into general 'conversation and pontification on any matter that is of interest to any intelligent person. There seems to be an implied precept that `if human beings do it, or think about it, then humanist organisations, too, should talk about it and produce a line on it'. If we were living in a world in which pontification were all that is required of us then we would not need our own organisations — everybody would be doing it to their hearts' content. Some humanists seem to think they dwell already in a benign world shaped by discursive discourse and attentive listeners.

The practical outcome of this attitude is that we do not set our own agenda; our agenda is set by what the rest of middle class society is currently talking about; therefore we are often reactive rather than proactive.

Ethical Record, November. 1991 5 A good example of this easy reactive life-stance is afforded by the BHA Conference 1990. The programme was a series of hand-me-down sessions on green issues with no perceptible attempt to 'identify, in discussion, a humanist approach to them. The proceedings could have been those of any number of amorphous discussion groups. The proceedings were, in humanist terms, a non-event.

After the conference I spoke to a very distinguished and rightly respected member on this question of 'keeping to the humanist point'. With what was intended to be the gentlest irony I said 'Next year, let us discuss the efficacy of high interest rates as a means of countering inflation.' The reply I expected was along the lines of 'don't be silly; there is nothing that we can say on the subject that could not as well be said by any reader of the quality press.' To my dismay the actual reply, after a pause for thought, was 'What a good idea — so long as we discuss it fairly and impartially.' So humanist discourse equals the fair and impartial discussion of anything that serious persons happen to think is important. cHappen to think' is not meant pejoratively. I think that green issues are vitally important and I think that inflation is a serious matter but I do not think that organised humanists have much of value to say on these subjects that cannot be said by us, and many non-humanists, as individuals.

Another luxury we cannot afford is the practice of sneering at everything that religious people do and think — just because they are religious. This secular sectarianism overlooks the facts that liberal religion exists, is declining relative to its illiberal relatives and has more in common with us than it does with the fanaticism against which all liberal minded persons — secular or not — rebel instinctively. Some of today's liberal believers arc tomorrow's humanists and they should not be discouraged, by us of all people, from making that very natural leap. (Some of today's humanists are really liberal believers on the point of 'coming out'; good luck to them so long as they stay liberal). The mainstream churches have among their adherents not a few closet humanists — ask any evangelical enthusiast!

The accelerating reaction to the withering mini-enlightenment is taking many forms, most of them authoritarian and anti-humanist. One obvious form is the personal escapism offered by the religious revivalists (erroneously flattered by the use of the term `fundamentalists'). They are the main reactionary force in the ideological field. Revivalism not only diverts people from their real and urgent concerns, not only divides society and families into warring factions but also, by reason of the explicit authori- tarianism in (say) bible-worship or koran-thumping, makes for acceptance of authori- tarian politics and the mass hysteria that both bad politics and bad religion feed on. A major concern of humanists must be to challenge religious revivalism intellectually. In a post-Christian country this means relentless exposure of the supposed special authority of the bible and, in the international field especially, the organising of united opposition to the fascism of the nineties — militant Islam. Countering religious fanaticism is our first humanist concern.

Another authoritarian reaction to the vulnerable mini-enlightenment is even more explicitly political. Because of planet-wide plunder and pollution more and more people are going to get poorer and poorer; there will be a natural tendency for people to quarrel over sharing the cake that will be shrinking relative to the number of slice-hunters. The divine right to a high and rising standard of living, proclaimed by the rich and the organised, is pernicious enough in prosperous times; when it becomes the divine right to fight for what we can get and the devil take the hindmost in a floundering world economy — then there will be trouble the like of which we have not ourselves experienced.

6 Ethical Record, November, 1991 'Discipline' and 'law and order' will be alike both increasingly necessary features of human life and increasingly plausible excuses for gratuitous tyranny exercised by the powerful, the rich and the uncritically enthusiastic. In this last connection, the possibility of tyranny, ostensibly 'green', is a real one. Unfortunately it is not certain that the Green Party (of which I am a somewhat passive member) and its associated pressure groups appreciate fully the excuses for tyranny that the necessary green rethinking of our rights, expectations and lifestyles could generate. Some of us remember, when making a reasonable request, the grim delight exuded by those who would ask us 'don't you know there's a war on?' Are we to hear 'Don't you know there's a biosphere at risk?' Will there be posters — 'Gaia is watching YOU!' Some of us remember, dimly or vividly, black- shirted fascists with their clubs and castor oil bottles promoting a 'New Order'. The shirts being green, the clubs and castor oil being organically produced and the bottles being make of recycled glass, would be of little comfort to the victims.

The second specifically humanist concern is therefore the defence and protection of civil and individual liberties in a world in which these liberties will be under ever increasing threat.

A third area of humanist concern will be increasingly the need for us actually to help people practically as their problems worsen and multiply. In India — a country that seems to be slipping from the primitive sustainable way of life to the unsustainable environmen- tally destructive mock-western way without passing through a mini-enlightenment in between — the Positive Atheists of Vijayawada arc getting on with the job of helping people to help themselves. The Indian Atheists are not merely academically anti-god; they do not compromise with godly superstition as it affects people's lives. They cut straight through the pious cackle, take off their coats and get on with addressing people's needs. In our cosy world — being devalued and brutalised by the year — we will have to be Positive Atheists. We have a lot to learn from our friends in Vijayawada. They are showing people that there is something better than 'putting up with it' in the real here and now on a promissory note about the imaginary hereafter. Of course, we should not despise those religious groups who actually do good where there is a crying need for good to be done but we should never forget that the insidious poison of 'blame the victim' stems from doctrines such as 'original sin' and the 'abuse of free will'. Humanists, we who believe in human worth in this the only life we know, should theoretically be especially willing and uninhibited in helping people in trouble. Our practice does not always match up to this theoretical expectation.

To summarise, our strategy should be to contribute as humanists, not just as serious informed persons in general, to the defence and betterment of human life. We must stick to the humanist point; nobody else can be trusted to do so. In particular we have to combat belief-driven tyranny and help practically those who suffer at its hands.

If we humanists cannot define our goals and conduct our work in ways that are both specifically humanist and that relate to the real world then we shall become a marginal discussion group whose agenda is set by other middle class, middle aged, middle everything else people. The human race can do without us if that is all we are.

'hese three thrusts — against religious fanaticism, for civil liberties and for practical leadership to real people in real trouble — could perhaps be appropriate themes for a three-session Conference. How about that then?

Ethical Record, November, 1991 7 BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTING ETHICS IN ISLAM Trevor Gambling Summary of a talk given to SPES on 4th October 1991

When Rifaat Karim and I started writing our book (for Mansell Publishing), it was our intention to say something about problems with the theory and principles of accounting, from a Muslim point-of-view. We did not get very far before it became apparent that there weren't too many specifically Islamic problems with respect to accounting: rather, there were considerable problems for [slam over the way people set up businesses, and the sort of transactions they want to undertake through them.

Nor do these difficulties affect only Muslims. The well-publicised difficulties of the accounting profession do not proceed from anything inherent in the accounting process itself. The fact is, it is very difficult (impossible?) to give a satisfactory account of a deliberately ambiguous transaction, in a deliberately shadowy organisation. And that is what we have in modern business. Nests of holding companies, associated companies, and consortia, which make it very hard to say who truly owns what. Deals like capital leases, and convertible debentures, which make it difficult to say who's sold what to whom, or whether you've lent money, invested it, or whatever!

Pundits say the way to deal with these is to prefer the substance over the form. This is nonsense, of course: you can say that a capital lease is the same as if you had borrowed money to buy the asset outright, but you only have to read such a contract (let alone deal with one when a business goes broke) to know how different it really is. Our business lives are spent in a world of shadows, nowadays.

Do Muslims order things differently in this respect? Polly Peck and the BCCI affaire suggests that they don't, when it comes to the point. Hence the first thing I need to say is that what I am going to talk about is Utopian. A specifically Islamic capitalism has never developed; large scale business in the Muslim world is both secular and "Westernised". Their Utilitarian motto is the same as ours: 'Business is business'.

But here's an odd thing: can you say that Utilitarianism represents stark realism — as opposed to 'pie in the sky"? I think not. The first few paragraphs of every economics textbook lay down a number of axioms about the Universe and the Nature of Man, which are as unfalsifiable (in Popper's sense) as those of any religion. Goods are naturally in short supply; Man is naturally acquisitive, and so on. The axioms of the major world religions tend to be the opposite of these, but still covering much the same ground. Economic 'science' is a secular religion, which requires the same act of faith as any other.

A lot of people would say that economics must be true, because it 'works', but others might wonder whether it works (more-or-less) simply because it believers have developed an institutional infrastructure in which it must seem to work. The Spanish Inquisition no doubt made the truths of the Catholic faith extremely self-evident. What has been happening lately, is that many Muslims have come to the conclusion that Westernised business just hasn't worked for them, and that Islam has never had a chance to show what it can do in its place.

A cynic might observe that while Islam may never have had a chance, Christianity had all the chances in the world — and we still came up with a Utilitarian economic theory! In fact, this is the theme of the debate between Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. The basic axioms of Islam

8 Ethical Record, November, 1991 are not all that different from those of Christianity, in matters of usury and the like; what happened was that the growing wealth of capitalists in Europe set them continually nudging away at Canon Law — until it eventually broke! A basic question must be whether the Islamic shari'a is really made of sterner stuff....

So what does Islam have to say about business? At the outset, it is important that Islam recognises 'business' as a perfectly reasonable thing to do. The older religions of Christianity and Judaism see pastoralism and (maybe) agriculture as the natural pursuit of Man. The following Islamic principles seem particularly applicable to business:

I) God is one, and supreme (tawhid). He cherishes the Universe, and Man was made to obey God. This is in opposition to the basic tenets of economics: the Universe contains enough for everyone to do very nicely indeed, if only they would obey God.

Islam is much concerned with legitimacy (khilafa). What are our rights and duties in the world? Mankind are God's vice-regents of their own wealth and talents, and ought to use them all to the best possible effect. Thus, business is A Good Thing, as I have mentioned, and everybody must earn their own living, as far as possible. Both hoarding and waste are sinful.

An idea of justice is also central (adalah). Superiors must deal fairly with subordinates. Hence all wages and prices must be 'fair' and contracts must be clear and certain in their affects. Creditors must be merciful and patient with the ir debtors. Unfair dealing is riba, or usury. For Muslims, the paying and charging of interest is always riba, because money has no inherent time-value.

At the same time, loyalty (baf a) is equally important. Subordinates must obey their superiors, and really support them to the best of their ability, debtors must do their very best to pay up, however long it takes.

Above all, as far as human beings are concerned, everything tnust be the subject of proper consultation (Shura) between all concerned. In Islam, ordinary people have an absolute right of audience with those in authority, like princes, managing directors, generals, heads-of-department — and even vice-chancellors. They have to listen to complaints and suggestions, and explain what they are doing. One or two other things follow from these:

It is wrong to attempt to escape God's Will. Thus Islam is not very happy about Western ideas of insurance. Moreover, it is wrong to attempt to evade the liabilities associated with one's wealth. They don't like limited liability too much, or capital leasing agreements, convertible debentures and the like.

Islam's ideas of social security are distinctly Keynesian. There is a provision for a social security tax (zakah), in addition to an absolute liability for people to bail-out their kinsfolk who are in need. Insurance and occupational pension-funds are sometimes seen as undermining this system. Muslim inheritance laws require deceaseds' estates to be redistributed quite widely among their kin.

Finally, the same rules apply to business and government as to private life. The objective of Islamic business, government and family life is tazkityah, or growth-with- purity. This is always possible, in a Universe which God cherishes, if you really trust Allah, and do your personal best, all the time.

Ethical Record, November, 1991 9 It is worth pointing out that these ideas are well-recognised outside Islam. They underlie Scouting for Boys for a start! However, people who are by no means Boy Scouts appreciate that you cannot run businesses on the so-Called 'Mushroom Principle' ('Keep them in the dark, etc...;), at least in the long-term. Similarly, 'The Pursuit of Excellence' and Japanese/German ideas about 'World-Class Manufacturing' enshrine the principles of tazkiyah. Quality and design can actually reduce costs as well as sell products and services — so long as they are built-in, and not just bolted-on to a basic cheap-and-nasty...

The effects of these principles on business organisation would be to make our Western- style corporate business virtually impossible. As I have said, Islamic companies would have to be more like partnerships than joint-stock companies. The general principles might be:

All members of the company must take some part in its management, because they are personally responsible for what is going on. They also need to be available for consultation with employees, suppliers and customers....

Membership is not confined to the providers, or owners of the capital. It is not possible to conceive of a 'manager' who was not somehow responsible for what was going on; if he or she is not responsible, they are just employees.

It follows that a manager cannot receive a salary, but only a share of profits. Obviously, therefore, one's share of the profit in an Islamic business would need to reflect a fair reward for management services rendered, as well as a fair reward for risk-taking.

Quite logically, while profits are shared among all the members, losses are confined to those who have risked their capital.

Since Islam does not recognise the payment of interest, there can be no debt capital in an Islamic firm. Banks and others have to engage in a variety of joint ventures, involving specific investment in profit-earning activities.

As I said at the beginning, this could mean that the ideal Islamic business is the small family partnership. Many Muslims would agree. However, one needs to remember that M ac Donalds is a world-wide chain of individual franchises, while Price Waterhouse and Arthur Andersen and Company are massive world-wide sets of interlocking partnerships...

All good-hearted stuff. But where does that leave something like BCCI? This is a business founded by Muslims, largely staffed and run by Muslims and with a great many Muslim customers, so how can it possibly have developed into a particularly nasty scandal of unusbally large dimensions?

It shows that Muslims suffer from the same problems that the rest of us do. No doubt many of the people who were running this company were very good Muslims indeed — in the sense of attention to prayer, almsgiving, fasting and even going to Mecca. Also, perhaps, in getting quite agitated about Salman Rushdie, and the type of school-uniform which their daughters are supposed to wear for PT classes. I believe that much the same can be said, with appropriate changes of emphasis, for not-a-few Christian and Jewish business-people.

The trouble with those business-people who do take their religion seriously, is that they mostly lack a firm belief in the basic tenet of all those faiths. They cannot believe that God

10 Ethical Record, November, 1991 really does 'cherish the Universe', and hence that 'growth-with-purity s not only possible, but actually the best and quickest way to make their fortunes...

Maybe this is hard to believe: maybe it is even an illusion. However, in its absence, those who do believe, tend to be left with the negative side of what would otherwise be virtues. Adalah. Ray'a and tazkiyah become "I'm the boss, back me, and I'll look after you, so let's make a buck while we can". Shura looks more like a brigands' council-of-war.

Yoy might well ask what any subordinate manager or employee could have done to stand up against corruption at the top. As things stand, we may believe that the answer was 'not a lot'. And that is the heart of the matter, and why enthusiatic Muslims want to set up 'Islamic States'. That is to say, places where it is very easy to be good and quite hard to be bad.

The law ought to prohibit the setting-up of devious, ambiguous businesses in the first place. Why should any bank operate out of Luxemburg, or the Cayman Islands, when its customers are in the United Kingdom? Why should people be able to put out their money for investment, without being responsible, or even knowing, what was being done with their money? So long as you can set up such enterprises, truly virtuous behaviour within them is hardly possible.

MYSTERIOUS CULT MISUSES HUMANIST LABEL

BOB VON FIOLDT

Editor's Note: Except for the correction of obvious typographical errors, selections from the documents of the siloists are reprinted verbatim. For several years secular humanists and members of the growing international Green Movement have become increasingly alarmed by the activities of a previously obscure sect that since 1984 has gone from a 'stage of cadres' to a 'stage of masses' by creating 'humanist' and 'Green' political and nonpolitical organizations as fronts for recruiting members. In a 1985 report, International Humanist and Ethical Union co-president Rob Tielman writes: 'This "party" is an international sect which was set up in Argentina .... There is not a single philosophical relationship with the humanist tradition ... The organization has a hierarchical and authoritarian structure and recognizes no democratic decision-making ... Simple slogans, like "for peace" and "against unemployment," are used, which obviously speak to young people. If these young people show any interest, they are brainwashed by means of exhaustive indoctrination and social isolation; they have to sever all their connections with nonmembers of the sect. They try to turn these young people into so-called militants who, in their turn, have to recruit new youngsters.'

On June 9, 1989, Die Grunen, the West German Green Party, echoed Tielman's sentiments and issued a press release warning of an 'international sect running for European elections under the Green label.'

This sect, which rather grandiosely calls itself 'The Movement,' follows the teachings of a somewhat mysterious Argentine named Mario Rodriguez Cobo. Cobo is best known to his followers by the nickname 'Silo,' and his ideology is referred to as siloism. The Movement defines itself as 'the organization which interprets the needs of human beings and produces means to advance from the state of predetermination to that of freedom.' It is estimated that it

Ethical Record, November, 1991 11 has between 10,000 and 20,000 hard-core 'true believers' in about forty-two countries, though siloists tend to greatly inflate their figures. In the United States their activities appear to be primarily focused around San Francisco and New York city.

Siloists see themselves as an 'unstoppable growing human current humanizing the earth.' They believe that 'if we must participate in public affairs, it is not by vocation, but because it is necessary for life itself, of which we are the most conscious expression,' and also that 'to unleash whirlwinds of our point of view is primary and fundamental for the creating and generating of a new stage of mankind.' Siloists seem to genuinely believe that through their'internar and 'external' work they possess the one true key to transform both the individual and society, creating a new age for humanity. Furthermore, they believe they are morally bound to share this wondeful discovery with the rest of us and convert us to 'the correct siloist view of reality.'

This moral obligation apparently applies to other movements and schools of thought as well: 'The Movement may also be able to guide and transform existing organizations that have demonstrated the ability to contribute to human development.'

The siloists were at first so optimistic that they believed all they needed to do was disperse like seeds around the globe and start a chain reaction. One document, circa 1978, states: 'We are interested in divulging our ideas, in unloosing an expansive, contaminating, and contagious wave that will slowly spread to more and more sympathetic people, and not in concrete and decrepit power. It is a mental wave, a chain reaction that we are interested in producing.'

This initial optimism later dimmed and a different strategy was adopted. A document from 1989, early in the 'stage of Masses,' states: 'So we learn that spreading a message is not enough. We need to build strong and enduring structures that will surpass the crisis .... Some years ago we organized a political party in one country ... now we want to do that in every country on the five continents.' Silo, in guidelines issued around the same time, states: 'Our tactic is to have access to power by setting up a parallel organization to the system and emptying it. When everything is chaotic, the people will choose us.'

During the transitional period between the 'stage of cadres' and the 'stage of masses,' The Movement went through a variety of name-changes and still uses many of these names for its various fronts. From the late 1970s through the early 1980s, it called itself 'The Community for the Development and Equilibrium of the Human Being' or, more simply, 'The Community.' In 1984 it transformed itself into the Humanist Movement and launched the Humanist Party. In 1985, around the same time that it was launching a new nonpolitical front called Green Future as well as the siloist Green Party, 'humanist' was dropped from the name of the parent organization, which became simply The Movement.

In many places where The Movement operates it is not uncommon to find quite a variety of different siloist fronts in operation. In San Francisco we have neighbourhood Humanist Action Groups, the Humanist Party, neighbourhood 'Green' groups, Green Future, and the Community, all eagerly preaching the siloist gospel and seeking new converts.

Although the various siloist fronts ('organisms' in siloese) often portray themselves as champions of grassroots democracy, such a concept is not reflected in The Movement's own hierarchical structure. One enters The Movement at the lowest level as a 'group delegate,' that is basically anyone who shows any interest at all in The Movement. A group delegate who then recruits ten other new members becomes a 'team delegate,' and the ten recruits become his or her 'base council.' The next steps up the pyramid are general delegate, coordinator, and, finally,

12 Ethical Record, November, 1991 general coordinator. There are no elections. One rises only through recruitment and building one's own 'structure.' Information and major decisions flow downward from the top of the pyramid to the bases.

Movement members repeatedly claim that their 'organisms' are totally autonomous from The Movement. Their internal documents, however, paint a somewhat different picture: Summarized, the strategy that the siloists have followed since 1984 is to promote the appearance of autonomy while maintaining tight internal control.

Dissension, objections, and questioning of decisions are barely tolerated. Former Movement members both here and abroad have described how they were forced out for daring to ask too many questions. An internal document from 1984 shows this lack of tolerance quite clearly: 'If there are people who try to hold things back they could ruin[an]important process of historical proportions. There are those who after a dedicated period of clarification can surpass their resistances and move forward with decision. But for those people who present "mental reservations," present objections, etc., maybe they are not in a position to participate in the frontline, but rather in less important situations. It might even be the case of inviting some of these people to retire so as to prevent our process from being delayed.'

How does The Movement respond when legitimate secular humanists point out the philosophical chasm that separates the two groups? A recent publication of Humanist Action, a siloist front in San Francisco, states: 'Although there are many varieties of Humanism today, including the so-called "secular humanists" popularly known here in the United States, Humanist Action's Humanism traces its roots to the first Western Humanists in the Renaissance. For us, Humanism basically means that human beings come first. Not the State, not the Church, not the Corporations, not the great-god profit, but humans. This is.common with other forms of Humanism. In addition we want to bring these ideas into actual practice, into our political reality.'

Siloists also admit to having differences with the global Green Movement, which already had established its own identity and values prior to siloist attempts to claim the Green label as their own. Legitimate Greens adhere to four key values: nonviolence, ecological wisdom, grassroots democracy, and social justice. Unlike the siloists, legitimate Green groups do not send people to other countries on 'missions' to launch new organizations, they do not send funding to other countries, and they do not interfere in the internal politics of other countries. In their own version of their history disseminated earlier this year, the siloists state: '...since serious differences [with the Greens] arose with regard to general conceptions, implementation and organization, the creation of the Green Party was decided as a renovated and coherent variant.' But greens would like to know why, if the siloists had such serious differences with the Green Movement, they insist on using the same or a quite similar name? And why, in the face of rejection and denouncement, do they remain adamant in insisting on their right to the name, claiming that they are the true 'humanists'? I believe that the answer lies in the arrogance that always seems to accompany those who feel they are on the side of righteousness, and also in a deep-seated paranoia that stems from the conditions under which siloism first developed.

The Movement seems to have been indelibly marked by its early struggle under repressive conditions in South America, which infused it with a great deal of suspicion and defensiveness, causing it to see itself as locked in a bitter battle with 'The System'. This attitude was spelled out quite clearly in 1978:

Ethical Record, November, 1991 13 'We must think how to develop ourselves in difficult and repressive conditions ... This is the medium in which we have to develop and is the one we must compensate. in other words it is a war ....This is why we practice the mental martial arts, the mental belligerence by using principles, laws and knowledge to be able to develop to the utmost our ideas and our work .... We have to know that we will bc in an environment that will increase the aggressiveness and disillusionment with a lot of mental noise'.

A 1984 document that describes how the Humanist Party is to be set up says:

'We should use a combat style. We are not on the defensive side, on the contrary, we are in a sort of constructive and active attack. We have not done any wrong, our conscience and memory is clear, not like others who believe to have some strange authority. It is "them" who are in the bench of the accused.'

This belligerence expresses itself in a variety of ways. It has been noted by a number of investigators that members of The Movement, when questioned or challenged, typically launch personal smear attacks aimed at discrediting those who dare to question them, and show little interest in addressing the substantive issues that are raised. A further manifestation can be seen in a posture siloists commonly adopt of having some sort of identity with the principles they claim to expanse, You are either with them or against them.

This paranoia even extends to the halls of academia. A document entitled 'Study of The Movement' prepared for 1988 siloist 'Humanist International' in Italy, states: 'The Movement encourages the ideological debate with the behavioral sciences, which while failing to resolve their own problems claim to regulate social life. Due to their conceptual vagueness, these sciences are suspect of being in league with the dominant system of violence and oppression. The Movement extends this debate to the entire cultural field, and also of course to Art, Philosophy, and Religion, demanding from them a precise definition of their objectives, and procedures concerning the liberation of human beings.'

By declaring academia as suspect of being in league with the enemy (The system), they are able to rationalize not having to subject their ideology to academic scrutiny and debate, and are thus able to reject any criticism that comes from academic circles.

This attitude toward academia can be further illuminated by another passage from the document cited above: 'From a logical point of view, we affirm the method of existential analysis and we oppose it to any previous system of logic that —through inference — aims to arrive from the general to the particular... In this respect, we reinstate the interpretation of categorical propositions made by Brentano in 1874, according to which particular propositions have an existential character, while universal propositions are only their negation. We therefore disqualify Aristotelian logic and its derivation (including Hegel's dialectic and Lukasiewiez's contemporary logic) in this precise point, and we stress this subject with special relevance because of its enormous theoretical and practical consequences.' From this point of view they then promulgate a series of propositions, including: 'Proposition 1: Human existence takes place in the world. It begins, develops and concludes in the world. Therefore, we cannot assume a direction, a reason or purpose prior to existence, without contradicting the aforementioned. Proposition 1.1: Human existence begins at birth with the opening up of intentionality

14 Ethical Record, November, 1991 towards the world as the first step of liberation from natural conditioning. From this point of view, we cannot rigorously speak of "human existence" prior to birth. Proposition 2: By "world", we understand all that is different from one's body. However, we consider our bodies as part of the world. Body and the world are given, factual, natural. Proposition 2.1: Nature lacks intentions. Neither the body nor the world possess separate consciousness. To attribute an end to nature might be used as a device of understanding, but cannot be legitimately derived from this proposal.'

What bothers and appals many critics of the siloist ideology is this approach, which begins with the 'I', the human situated in neutral, valueless world, and leads them to define value only in relation to human beings. This then leads to valuing nature only to its importance to us, and assigning it no intrinsic value of its own. Legitimate Greens, who take a biocentric rather than an anthropocentric view, see this type of attitude as a major cause of our current ecological dilemma rather than part of the solution.

Two other key elements of the siloist ideology are the concepts of 'Synthetic Man' and 'Generational Dialectics'. Although these concepts are publicly stressed very little if at all, they are important in understanking the siloist world view.

The Synthetic Man concept states that as part of humanity's evolutionary step, all the races and cultures on earth will naturally intermix, creating a fusion of the best characteristics and forming a new race in which even 'The difference of the sexes ... will tend to reduce itself more and more, not only in the aspect of social relations or of mere clothing ...even in the secondary psychic and sexual characteristics' ... Siloists believe that by achieving this uniform sameness and eliminating diversity, evils such as racism, classism, and so forth will also be eliminated. Creation of this new race is thus a part of the siloist mission.

Generational dialectics is basically a siloist rewrite of history as a continuous series of struggles of the young versus the old: 'The struggle of the generations, the foundation of every historical process.' This is a major reason why siloist organizing puts such a heavy emphasis on recruiting youth. The Movement's first organizing manual was entitled Youth Power.

I have been studying The Movement and siloism for seven years, since a chance encounter with member of the Community at a fair in San Francisco in August 1982. 1 had for some time been curious about sects and cults and the mechanism by which they attract and hold people. Liying in the Bay Area, I was familiar with and had on occasion seen Flare Krishna devotees, Moonies, and fundamentalist zealots in action. Lurid press accounts of Jim Jones and Jonestown were still fresh in my mind, though I had no real firsthand experience with these groups.

Initially, I planned only to attend a few meetings, but, like Alice when she ventured down the rabbit hole, 1 grew curiouser and curiouser. I posed as a 'true believer' and spent the next three and one half years inside The Movement to see what I could learn. Every new piece of information, each new internal document would whet my appetite for more. Still, the psychological pressure and the pressure to recruit others (which I never did) was intense. Finally, the stress became more than I could handle, and I walked away from The Movement in January 1986. For the past several years I have continued to study the "activities of The Movement while at the same time becoming an activist in the growing United States Green Movement. I have been exchanging research both with other Greens and with secular humanists, the result being the formation of a very loosely knit global

Ethical Record, November, 1991 15 'Silowatch' network sharing information and trying to inform the public about the true nature of The Movement.

Readers who know of activity of The Movement in their area or who would like to receive more information may 'write to me do San Francisco Greens, 777 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA 94110,USA. [Bob von Holdt is a member of the U.S. Green Committee of Correspondents International Working Group.]

CHILEAN AMBASSADOR SPEAKS TO HUMANISTS

The November 1990 meeting of the Wellington Branch promised to be one of the highlights of the year and it certainly lived up to expectations, although the attendance was disappointing. Our guest speaker was His Excellency the Chilean Ambassador, Mr Tomas Borge, the founding president of the Humanist Party of Chile.

Tomas painted an inspiring picture of a grassroots movement — predominantly young people and with a high proportion of women — which dared to take on the military junta in Chile. Pinochet's regime had legalised political parties, but on condition that membership lists had to be lodged with the military regime. When others hesitated, the Humanists took the plunge and launched their new party. Encouraged by the example of the young Humanists, the other parties came out into the open and democracy was reestablished. Although now in a minority, the Humanist Party was rewarded with representation in the coalition government and with a share in government appointments, such as Tomas's posting to New. Zealand.

According to Tomas the policies of the Humanist Party on science, on education, on civil liberties, on democracy, the environment, etc., were very much in line with our own. He traced the history of their humanism from the philosophy of Classical Greece and Rome, through the Renaissance and Enlightenment, to the present day — all familiar stuff to his audience. However, much to our surprise, Tomas claimed that he had never heard of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Instead he told us that the Humanist Party of Chile was part of an international movement built around the writings of a man called Mario Rodriguez Cobo, known as 'Silo'. This 'Silo' seemed to a remarkable man — poet and philosopher, bui certainly not a guru, Tomas assured us. We left feeling inspired by what we had heard and determined to learn more about this Silo and the movement which he had founded. — Des Vize

THE MOVEMENT IN GODZONE

Three young university students on cushions on the floor in an empty office space, facing Tomas who was tie-less and similarly seated; before him on the floor, an open manual. This was my first experience of The Movement doing its 'work', which it does every Tuesday, in Wellington.

I was invited to join in the 'work' — some very amateurishly presented self-awareness activity — Write down your age and sex, what you feel about your health, your family ... and two or three topics as listed in the manual. Take 15 minutes, then you can talk about it.')

16 Ethical Record, Novemember, 1991 After conforming for a few minutes, I took the opportunity to ask Tomas about the broader work of The Movement. Apparently it first has to grow strong in a country before it will develop a political side which is a Humanist Party. This has happened in many countries but it seemed that Iceland was the only one mentioned with Humanists in Parliament —other than Chile presumably. He didn't foresee The Movement developing to that stage in New Zealand — iust as well perhaps, since it would not look good for an ambassador to be instigating a political party, of any kind, in a country to which he is accredited. While we talked the young people had slipped into general conversation, probably as part of the reason why they, as individuals, had come along. Tomas's wife is involved at University and had put up notices there.

The evening's 'work' moved on to simple goal setting — a sure-fire problem area with young students. Having done some personal development work myself, from both sides of the fence, I found it all hopelessly amateurish, completely unstructured, and even perhaps irresponsible. 1 heard that they had had 6 to 8 participants, but some had `gone off to Christchurch and Palmerston'. Not present was the member whose Access Radio programme had provided my information on the meeting place and time. That broadcast explains `that we won't be able to change society until we have changed ourselves, because we've absorbed too many of its values, unconsciously;' and also the special meaning that they have given to the word 'solidarity'. I can send a copy of this tape to anyone who would like to know more about this Movement which is humanist in some senses, but diverges from us in others, I feel.

Apparently, normally we could have stayed on after 7 pm for more theoretical talk, but this night the ambassador had a diplomatic function to attend. I hope other members of the Wellington branch will be curious to explore any links that there are between The Movement and our Humanist Society.

— Jeanne van Gorkom

DOES HUMANISM HAVE A FUTURE? Levi Fragell

The twentieth century is the first period in history when a significant number of people have called themselves "nonreligious." The World Christian Encyclopaedia states that in 1900 only 0.2 percent of the world's population was nonreligious, whereas by 1975 the percentage had risen to twenty.

This may be one of the most important cultural and social changes of our time (though the figure has climbed in part because entire nations now consider themselves "atheist"). No one can deny that only parts of the European and American populations today hold religious beliefs, or that the Western world a hudred years ago was almost completely Christian. Such extensive changes in values and attitudes during just a couple of generations have caused turbulence and confusion, affecting people's personal lives, family traditions, ethical attitudes, and existential emotions. In the search for a new basis many have turned to political dogmatism, paranormal escapism, and nihilistic hedonism.

Where does humanism stand in this picture? Humanism, which introduced itself as The Alternative more than fifty years ago, is at the close of this century almost nonexistent in the world arena. The only nation in the world where as much as I percent of the population are organized humanists is Norway, a very small country on the outskirts of civilization.

Ethical Record. November. 1991 17 Many people call themselves humanists without being active members of a humanist organization. But passive sympathy does not write books, change laws, create alternative ceremonies, or offer counseling. In 1965, when UNESCO published a book on the life- stances of the world, the editor included a chapter on modern humanism, written by the honorable British humanist Harold Blackham. Would this have been done today? I doubt it. Organized humanism at the end of the twentieth century is struggling for survival. This is an umpleasant truth, but we must face it — and we must do something about it.

In my younger days I owned a small public-relations agency, marketing products and services. Once I was asked to promote a new product in the Norwegian market, a combination vacuum cleaner-carpet beater. The problem was, it could not be called a vacuum cleaner — no one would buy a vacuum cleaner like that. And it could not be called a carpet beater with such inappropriate dimensions. the product was excellent — useful and time-saving — and was sold by a company of the best reputation. But because the producer was not able to tell us exactly what it was, it sold close to nothing in Norway and soon vanished from the market.

The international failure of humanism is due to more than one factor, but beyond doubt a major problem is that most national hmanist organizations have failed to give humanism a family name. It is not a religion and it is not a philosophy. It may be a little bit of both; but what is it?

Many humanists get the creeps when I mention that humanist organizations are limited by the same laws of communication as are the producers of household appliances. The idea of using commercial persuasive techniques to promote humanism is rather disgusting to me. But humanists don't use any techniques at all. They just speak to one another — a little bit louder then before, I must admit, but that is only because age has reduced their hearing abilities. A couple of years ago the International Humanist and Ethical Union appointed me the leader of their Committee for Development and Growth. I asked 'What are we to develop and grow — a religion, a philosophy, a world-view, a moral conviction?' Paul Kurtz has taken this challenge seriously and invented a new expression: eupraxophy. Time will tell whether this word will be accepted and used.

The British Humanist Association has also given this basic policy question thorough consideration, with Harry Stopes-Roe as the driving force. He has come up with the expression Life-stance, which is gaining increasing recognition in the United Kingdom. I believe that during the past couple of years this term has been adopted to some extent in humanist circles in the United States, as well as in other English-speaking countries. But even worse than the family-name confusion is that most humanists don't even use the first name properly.

A rather substantial number of members of the International Humanist and Ethical Union do not call themselves humanists at all, but freethinkers, rationalists, atheists, or Unitarians. And those who use the term humanist often add the flourish of an adjective such as secular, ethical, naturalistic, scientific, or religious. As a life-stance, humanism should be written with eight letters, and nothing more. A movement without an identity isn't really a movement, and is not at all a cohesive movement.

In 1979 I was asked by the board of IHEU to write a program for membership recruitment. At that time I was executive director of the Norwegian Humanist Association, which had raised its membership from 1,500 in 1976 — when we started our recruitment activities — to 5,000 in 1979. I was told that such a rapid growth had never been heard of in the IHEU.

18 Ethical Record, November, 1991 Since then, my program has been distributed all over the world; a lot of discussions have been taking place, working parties have been arranged, and local schemes have been worked out. But as far as I know, the Norwegian Humanist Association is the only humanist organization that has increased its membership remarkably since 1979. We thought that we might have reached the roof with our 5,000 members; but today the membership is 35,000, and we continue to grow steadily, gaining 3,000 new members each year.

The population of Norway is 4 million; the population of the United States is 250 million. Given the same growth rate, the United States by now would have had 2.5 million organized humanists — and 250,000 new members a year. I do not wish to discourage the American humanists, but, on the contrary, to point out the potential of humanist organizations. Of course there are enormous differences between our countries, but we are living in the same world, and this world is getting smaller and more homogeneous all the time.

Why is it that most humanist organizations have made little progress in the last few years, even though they have realized the need for growth and discussed strategies for achieving it? There are three reasons: First, there is something basically wrong with the international identity of humanism, including that it lacks a generally accepted, common name and has not made clear what it is — a religion, a philosophy, or a life-stance.

Second, the discussions about growth still circulate around the questinn: Is growth really that important? Isn't quality more important than quantity? Let me answer that question: Of course quality is more important than quantity. But there is nothing wrong with the- quality of humanism. There is something wrong with the quantity. We don't recruit new members by improving humanism. History gives no evidence to the assumption that the best life-stances automatically attract very many people, and it clearly proves that the most inhuman, suppressive, inconsistent, and unreasonable organizations can penetrate and dominate whole continents.

Third, even extensive studying of recruitment strategies has not led to actual growth because studies and discussions do not recruit a single person. Most humanist leaders complain that it is difficult — almost impossible — to get new people involved. The truth is that it is not very difficult at all. I don't know one humanist who wouldn't be able to provide one new member during one day's efforts. Most of us would do it within an hour, and quite a few would do it with a five-minute telephone call. The real problem is that humanists are not willing to give active recruitment their personal priority, not even for one hour of their lives, not to speak of a full day. They want to write articles, lecture, go to meetings,read books. Unlike members of other organizations — such as those for religion, politics, civil rights, nature preservation, feminism, and peace — humanists find it unsuitable to hand out leaflets on the street-corners. Arranging a demonstration at the neighborhood shopping center would be more disgraceful than being caught shoplifting in the same place.

The future of organized humanism is not a question of idelolgy. It is a question of strategy.

Ethical Record, November, 1991 19 ANARCHISM & RELIGION

Summary of a talk to SEES given by Nicolas Walter on 14 July 1991

For the present purpose, anarchism is defined as the political and social ideology that human groups can and should exist without instituted authority, and especially as the historical anarchist movement of the modern world, and religion is defined as the belief in the existence and signif icance of supernatural being(s), and especially as the Orevailing Judaeo-Christian system of the modern world. My subject is the question: Is there a necessary connection between the two and, if so, what is it? The possible answers are as follows: there may be no connection, if beliefs about human society and the nature of the universe are quite indepen- dent; there may be a connection, if such beliefs affect each other; and, if there is a connection, it may be either positive, if anarchism and religion reinforce each other, or negative, if anarch- ism and religion contradict each other.

The general assumption is that there is a negative connection -- logical, because divine and human authority reflect each other; and psychological, because the rejection of human and divine authority, of political and religious orthodoxy, reflect each other. Thus the French Encyclopedie Anarchiste (1932) says under Atheism: 'An anarchist, who wants no all-powerful master on earth, no authoritarian government, must necessarily reject the idea of an omnipo- tent power to whom everything must be subjected; if he is consistent, he must declare himself an atheist.' And the centenary issue of the British anarchist paper Freedom (October 1986) contained an article by Barbara Smoker (the only one by a woman!) entitled 'Anarchism implies Atheism'. As a matter of historical fact the negative connection has indeed been the norm -- anarchists are generally non-religious and are frequently anti-religious, and the standard anarchist slogan is the phrase coined by the (non-anarchist) socialist Auguste Blanqui in 1880: 'Mi d/eu ni metre!' (Neither God nor master!). But the full answer is not so simple.

Thus it is reasonable to argue that there is no necessary connection. Beliefs about the nature of the universe, of life on this planet, of this species, of purpose and values and morality, and so on, may be independent of beliefs about the desirability and possibility of liberty in human society. It is quite possible to believe at the same time that there is a God and that there should not be a State. But it is also reasonable to argue that there is a necessary connection, whether positive or negative.

The argument for a positive connection is that religion has libertarian effects, even if estab- lished Churches seldom do. Religion may check politics, the Church may balance the State, divine sanction may protect oppressed people. In Classical Greece, Antigone (the heroine of the tragedy named after her) appealed to divine law in her rebellion against the human law of Creon, Socrates (the greatest figure in Greek thought) appealed to the demon within him to inspire his individual judgment, Zeno (the founder of the Stoics) appealed to a higher author- ity than the State. Within Judaism, the Prophets of the Old Testament challenged Kings and proclaimed what is known as the 'Social Gospel'. One of the most eloquent texts in the Bible is Hannah's song when she conceives Samuel, which is echoed by Mary's song when she conceives Jesus — the Magnifica!: My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour. ... He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagina- tion of their hearts. lie hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted the humble and meek. He bath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away:

20 Ethical Record, November, 1991 Within Christianity, Jesus came for the poor and weak, and the early Christians resisted the Roman State. When Christianity became the established ideology in its turn, religious heretics challenged both Church and State. Medieval heresies helped to destroy the old system -- the Albigensians and the Waldensians, the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit and the Taborites in Bohemia, the Anabaptists in Germany and Switzerland.

This pattern may be seen in Britain. John Ball, the ideologist of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381,was a priest who proclaimed that 'Things shall not go right until there is neither master nor slave' in a sermon to the rebels. Later religious dissent led to political dissent, and the extreme Puritans in the English Revolution of 1649-1659 were the pioneers of the native tradition of anarchism. Gerrard Winstanley, the ideologist of the True Levellers or Diggers, who came nearer to anarchism than anyone before the French Revolution, moved within a few years from quoting the Bible to invoking 'the great Creator Reason'. The tradition was continued by the Ranters and Seekers, the Quakers and Shakers, and later the Universalists and Unitarians -- including the little congregation which later became the South Place Ethical Society.

The argument for a negative connection is that religion supports politics, the Church supports the State, opponents of political authority also oppose religious authority. In Classical Greece and Rome, the religious sceptics — Diogenes, Epicurus, Lucretius -- were the real liberators (and the same is true in ancient India and China). Within Judaism, God is the archetypical figure of (male) authority, the Jewish State was a theocracy ruled by priests, and the few good Prophets (and the good Rabbis who have followed them) should be seen as heretics. In Christ- ianity, the Church and the State stand together as 'the Two Swords' of the Gospel, and the.good Christians have been rebels against ecclesiastical as much as secular power -- the heretics and sceptics, esprits forts and libertins, the freethinkers and Philosophes, Meslier (who wanted to see 'the last king strangled in the guts of the last priest') and Voltaire (whose motto was 'Ecrasez l'infamer), Paine (the pioneer of freethought and also of free society, the opponent of Priestcraft as well as Kingcraft) and Carlile (who led the shift towards atheism and anarchism), and so on to the historical freethought movement.

Within the historical anarchist movement these two attitudes exist together. Revolutionary anarchism, like revolutionary socialism, has quasi-religious features -- expressed in utopianism, millennialism, fanaticism, sectarianism, and so on. But anarchism, like socialism and liberalism, also has anti-religious features -- all modern political ideologies tending to assume the rejection of orthodox belief and authority. Indeed all progressive thought, culminating in humanism, depends on the assumption that every single human being has the right to think for himself or herself. (Another point worth mentioning is the connection of anarchism, as of liberalism and socialism, with the alternative religion of FreemasonrY, to which several leading anarchists have belonged -- Proudhon, Bak unin, Louise Michel, Volin.)

There is no doubt that the prevailing strain within the anarchist tradition is opposition to religion. William Godwin, the author of the first systematic text of libertarian politics, began by rejecting Calvinism and passed through deism to atheism and then what was later called agnosticism. Max Stirner, the author of the most extreme text of libertarian politics, began as a let t-Hegelian, post-Feuerbachian atheist, rejecting the 'spooks' of religion as well as politics -- including the spook of 'Humanity'. Proudhon, the first person to call himself an anarchist, who was well known for saying that 'Property is theft', also said that 'God is evil' and that 'God is the eternal X'. Bakunin, the main founder of the anarchist movement, attacked the Church as much as the State, and wrote an essay which his followers later published as God and the State, in which he inverted Voltaire's famous saying and proclaimed that 'If God existed, he would have-to be abolished'. Kropotkin (who often spoke at South Place and who was the subject of

Ethical Record, November, 1991 21 my first talk here twenty years ago), the best-known anarchist writer, was a child of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, and assumed that religion would be replaced by science and that the Church as well as the State would be abolished. Sebastien Faure, the most active speaker and writer in the French movement for half a century, began by rejecting Catholicism and passing through anti-clericalism and socialism on the way to anarchism. Johann Most, the best-known German anarchist for a quarter of a century, who wrote ferocious pamphlets on the need for violence to destroy existing society, also wrote a ferocious pamphlet about religion called The God Plague. Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker), the great Dutch writer, was a leading atheist as well as anarchist. Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, the best- known Dutch anarchist, began by rejecting Calvinism and passing through socialism on the way to anarchism. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, the best-known Jewish anarchists, began by rejecting Judaism and passing through populism on the way to anarchism. Rudolf Rocker, the German leader of the Jewish anarchists in this country, was another child of the Enlightenment and spoke and wrote on secular as much as political subjects. In Spain, the largest anarchist movement in the world, which has often been falsely described as a quasi- religious phenomenon, was in fact profoundly naturalistic and secularist. Francisco Ferrer, the well-known Spanish anarchist who was judicially murdered in 1909, was best known for found- ing the Modern School which tried to give secular education in a Catholic country. In the United States, the two best-known anarchists today (both of Jewish origin) are Murray Book- chin, who calls himself an ecological humanist, and Noam Chomsky, who calls himself a scien- tific rationalist. And so on.

This pattern prevails in Britain. Not only William Godwin but nearly all anarchists and other libertarians have been opposed to orthodox religion as well as orthodox politics -- William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Charlotte Wilson, Joseph Lane, Henry Seymour (who was active in the National Secular Society before be helped to found the British anarchist movement), Alfred Marsh (the son of Holyoake's son-in-law), Guy Aldred (who rapidly moved from evangelical Christianity through secularism and socialism to anarcho-syndicalism), A. S. Neill (whose educational work was opposed to religious and ethical orthodoxy as much as to political and social orthodoxy), and so on. And of course Shelley is the poet laureate of atheists and anarch- ists alike. (Several of these figures have been subjects of talks I have given here, and there is no space to discuss them properly now.)

There have been few serious studies of anarchist psychology, but those that do exist all agree that the first step on the way to anarchism is frequently the rejection of religion. However, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule. In Britain, for example, Edward Carpenter was a mystic, Herbert Read saw anarchism as a religious philosophy, Alex Comfort moved from scientific to quasi-religious humanism, Colin Machines saw anarchism as a kind of religion; in the United States, Paul Goodman rejected Judaism but retained some kind of religion, and New Age nonsense has infected anarchists as well as so many other radicals. But the great exception to the negative rule is the phenomenon of Christian anarchism and religious anarcho-pacifism. Above all, Leo Tolstoy (the subject of a talk I gave here a year ago), who rejected anarchism, nevertheless exerted a powerful double pressure towards anarchism, pushing Christians into anarcho-pacifism and pushing anarchists and pacifists into Christianity. He influenced the Western peace movement (including European figures such as Bart de Ligt and Aldous Huxley, Danilo Dolei and Ronald Sampson), and also movements in the Third World (especially India, including figures such as Gandhi and Narayan). A similar development in the United States is the Catholic Worker movement (including such figures as Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy).

So the conclusion is that there is indeed a strong correlation between anarchism and atheism, but that it is not complete, and it is not necessary. Most anarchists are non-religious or anti-

22 Ethical Record, November, 1991 religious, but some anarchists are religious. There are therefore several valid libertarian views of religion; but perhaps the most persuasive and productive one was that expressed by Karl Marx before he became a Marxist, in the famous passage from his essay Towards the Critique of Ilegers Philosophy of Right (1844):

Religious distress is at the same time an expression of real distress and a protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of a soulless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about their condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears whose halo is religion.

The true anarchist view of religion is to attack not belief or the Church so much as what it is in so many people that needs belief and the Church, just as the truly anarch- ist view of politics is to attack not obedience or the State so much as what it is in most people that needs obedience and the State -- the will to believe and the will to obey. And the last anarchist hope about both religion and politics is that, just as the Church once seemed necessary to human existence but is now withering away, so the State still seems necessary to human existence but will also wither away. We may yet end with Neither God nor master!

THE SPES ANNUAL REUNION Sunday 29th September, 1991

Eric Stockton gave a thought-provoking keynote address at this year's Annual Reunion held in the library of Conway Hall. Entitled 'Humanist Strategy - A Sharpened perspective' it is printed on page 3 of this issue of the Record.

Greetings from all kindred societies and accounts of their activities were delivered by the following:- British Humanist Association Eugene Levine Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association Peter Danning Humanist Housing Association Peter Heales National Secular Society Terry Mullins Progressive League Dorothy Forsyth Rationalist Press Association Nicholas Walter Young Humanists Matt Cherry

We were entertained with poctry and prose from the 'Angels on Bicycles' theatre troupe. Terry Mullins (assisted by Alice Marshall) organised the refreshments and the Hon. Rep. Norman Bacrac chaired the event.

Ethical Record, November, 1991 23 LETTERS inevitable fact of history and part of the evolutionary pattern for this planet. We have P.E. Perry — London El 7 just started to be aware of the cost of How tiresome if the new Editor is going to use uncontrolled exploitation, but that is another spurious facts to make provocative editorials. matter. The main point is that though, in Contrary to his rubbishing of the Peace cosmic terms, it is up to us what we do in our Movement's predictions on the Gulf War —in own back yard, we should at least stop to think general, being near the mark, they were before we mess up someone else's back yard. tragically fulfilled. A death toll not in tens but Thinking out an ethical code for colonists on hundreds of thousands (mostly of the inno- an alien planet may sound a little far fetched, cents); killing fields more ghastly than was but surely Humanists should take the future forecast; humdreds of oil wells, still burning, seriously. Who could disagree with some sort causing vast pollution. The Cassandras of the of code that protects alien species from the CND, Peace News, et al., were reasonably black side of Human nature. correct. Perhaps the Editor lives on a different planet Levi Fragell (Chair, IHEU committee for to ordinary mortals but this hardly excuses growth and development) — Oslo, Norway his deplorable suggestion that the politics of I have with interest and pleasure read your those who counselled caution in the Gulf editorial in your October issue, since I for 'should be seriously considered'. This touch years have been occupied with the widespread of McCarthyism comes passing strange in a use of different and strange-sounding names humanist journal hitherto of great charm. of our Humanist organisations. I plan to propose that the International Humanist and Ed's Note: Ethical Union should delete the word 'Ethical' 'AleCarthyisne usually refers to the strategy of defending from its name, since humanism of course is a shaky and partly imaginary concensus by demonising ethical. I must confess, though, that I am dissent. This seems ta me ro hater describe the above, rather than my editorial even more against the expression 'secular' humanism, since the increased use of this John Nichok — Guildford, Surrey phrasing suggests a variety of humanisms — which there certainly is, but not when it comes George Walford's comments on the future scenario in my article 'Could Eugenics Save to the internationally organised life stance (life The World' make me wonder if he really philosophy, life-view, conviction) Humanism. understood my meaning. Far from regretting I know that a common and simple identity is the way man has exploited the natural important. I have read several textbooks for the British schools, where Humanism is used resources of this planet, I accept it as an in this distinct way.

Evening Class In The Library, Conway Hall. ALTRUISM. Are we capable of acting in truly 'other(s)— regarding' ways? Or do we merely like to think of ourselves as humane or benevolent, just and bir, or at least as reasonably unselfish quite a lot of the time? i.e., when we do act with what we take to be due regard m the interests of others, can our motives be purely altruistic or must there lurk, behind cach seemingly unselfish action, a real reason of self-interest? This course will look into and discuss views presented by Plato (Socrates), David flume. Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill, in the light of more recent thinking. Plato (The 'Sceptic's' yid%) (The Republic) Plato (Plato's 'answer) Hume (The positive empiricist's view)(Enguiry Concerning the Principles of Morals) Hume (Is Hume convincing?) Kant (The Imperatives of the 'Moral Law )(Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals—The Moral Law) Mill (The dictates of the G.H.P.) (Utilitarianism and On Liberty)

THURSDAY 7th NOVEMBER FOR SIX WEEKS. 6.30-8.30 om. Admission £1.00 per session (including refreshments) Tutor: Flisabetn Kondal, B.A. (Oxon.)

24 Ethical Record, November, 1991 "IS PURE QUANTITY A STRAITJACKET FOR SCIENCE?"

Based on a talk given by Muriel Sehman. to SPES on July 2Ist, 1991.

When I first considered this question, it took the following form: 'It is generally accepted that, from the seventeenth century onwards, science meaning physical science at this time was expressed through the vehicle of mathematics, in fact algebra. But how is it that there was a 'fit' between science and traditional algebraic notation?' This led me to consider the basis of traditional algebra, our own familiar numeral system, (called the Hindu-Arabic system after the Indians who invented it and the Arabs who transmitted it) and to compare it with the numerals in use by the Hellenistic Greeks. The purpose of this was to compare the concepts of number embodied in the respective notations.

For the benefit of those who might be put off by the mere thought of mathematics, I will skip a lot of detail and say that the main distinguishing features of modern everyday numbers and the algebraic signs based on them are their pure quantitativity, self- dependence and holistic nature. Quality has been 'left behind' in the living world in the process of abstraction which resulted in their formation. This contrasts with Greek numerals and algebra, in which quality was an important feature.

This was true from the start. The pre-Socratics, particularly the school of Pythagoras, saw numbers prinCipally as objects of contemplation on account of their qualities and relegated reckoning to an inferior status. Numbers could be classified according to their qualities/attributes as, for example, perfect, deficient, abundant, or as friendly or not.

A perfect number was one that equalled the sum of its so-called proper divisors, for example 6 = 1+2+3 28 = 1+2+4+7+14. The next is 496. "Friendly" numbers are two numbers, each of which is equal to the sum of the proper divisors of the other. 220 and 284 are "friendly" numbers.

In the abbreviations that were used for 'algebra', the situation was similar. The Hellenistic Greek Diophantos used a notation in which the qualities of 'squareness' and 'cubeness' were reflected in the notation itself, such qualities also being treated as worthy of contemplation, alongside the computations which also took place.

This is not the case with modern numerals. Unlike Greek numbers, which were based upon units which were not themselves numbers and which differed from each other qualitatively according to the numbers of which they were the basis, modern numbers are based upon the number 'I' which is a quantity and every number is a collection of Is. Modern numbers are calculable quantities. The algebraic 'x' of traditional algebra is similarly based and in an expression such as ')(2+x3' the 'x' appears throughout and you do not find a different way of referring to the cube of a number from the way you refer to its square. Such algebraic expressions are purely quantitative. Their earlier Greek counter- parts would have used abbreviations for the words 'cube' and 'square'.

Modern algebraic notation achieves its definitive form for the first time with Descartes in 1637 in his Geometry. Because he used ideas of motion instead of remaining with a purely static geometry. the 'x' he used was a variable (changing) quantity and not merely a sign for denoting an unknown number. The 'x' in an equation can, potentially, take on any value whatsoever and, simultaneously, can 'home in on' any particular value. So it is at the same time, a representative of all values and also stands for one (or some) particular values.

Ethical Record, November, 1991 25 The notation embodying this concept is thus admirably suited to be the vehicle for a science whose main characteristics are the expression or general laws and the utilisation of the results of experiment. In Boyle's Law, which suites that, when temperature is kept constant, pressure times volume is constant (p x v = c), we can use p and v exactly like x to express the (relatively) universal law and, at the same time, p and v take on discrete, particular values in experimental tests or attempted predictions. This variable. x, is paradoxical, or apparently so, in that it encompasses all possible values while, at the same time potentially representing one or more of these in particular. Not only this. Modern algebra is indifferent to the content of what it refers to. The 'x' in 3x =6 might be a sum or Money, or a number of people or units of weight or volume or area or what you will.

This is the pOsitive side of th'e absiraction of quantity. Such abstraction is the condition for the applicability of algebra to a wide variety of different situations. Because the notation represents quantity, it becomes possible to calculate with the signs themselves. ,But this is made possible by the pure quantitativity of the signs used.

And with calculability comes predictability. It is the combination of relatively general laws, experimental method and calculability that makes possible the predictive capacity of modern science.

A further, and perhaps unexpected, correspondence between the assumptions inherent in science and those inherent in the Hindu-Arabic system derives from the extension of the whole number signs to right, following on the insertion of a decimal point, in order to express fractions. As is well-known, the decimal point is moveable and this moveability reflects what might be called the relativity of the unit in numbers and their signs. We decide which is to be the unit column in any number according to the circumstances. After all, lOOmm.=l0cm.=ldm.=0.lm. More important, we change the 'whole' we are considering in scientific work according to our interest and the context. e.g. you may change from a whole human organism to a collection of cells to a number of molecules to a number of atoms at will. This relativity of the whole unit under consideration in science corresponds to the assumption of fragmentability has its obvious correlate in the relativity or conditionality of the unit.

So far, I have talked about numbers, algebra and science from the point of view of the world-outlook inherent in them. I shall now look at the matter from a different perspective by looking at the matter more historically. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries a most important philosophical idea was that known as the doc- trine of primary and secondary qualities. This doctrine was embraced by Galileo, Descartes and Newton in various forms. It boiled down to the idea that, in the world as we perceive it, there is an appearance which is temporary, uncertain and confused but that, underlying that, is a reality which is permanent. certain and clear. Appearance was associated with what they called secondary qualities (e.g. smoothness, redness) and the, underlying reality was associated with what they called primary qualities (e.g. extension, motion). What was it that was, at this time, associated with permanence, certainty and clarity? It was mathematics, principally embodied in Euclid's Elements. In this way, the world of appearance was non-mathematical and the real world was essentially that of mathematics, principally geometry at that time.

Furthermore, this was associated with a 'physical model', the idea that, underlying the vivid world of everyday life as we experience it, is an underlying world of particles (a kind of billiard-ball universe) to whose motions are due all the differing phenomena which we experience through the senses. This physical picture was known as the mechanistic world

26 Ethical Record, November, 1991 out look. What voti see is not real. The real underlies what you see and is essentially inathematical.

The residue of tIns remains wit h us to this day. The world, for most people, is one in which quantity predominates, counting and measuring are the most reputable and valid activities and in which in a wide variety of different fields valid knowledge consists in the results of counting or measuring. It is a world in which the most prestigious knowledge is very often that of smaller and smaller areas of investigation. In other words, you can divide reality up as ir it were a number and it is supposed to make no difference to its nature as a whole.

The expression (if science in algebraic form, i.e. as pure quantity, has occurred over four hundred years and. although it began with physical science, it seems that any other burgeoning body of knowledge wishing to achieve scientific credentials must express itself mathematically or, at least, appear to do so. Hence, in psychology, it has been possible to see a dnigram such ;is the following treated as if it 'proved' a certain theory:

Here.() stands for Organism. S stands for Stimulus and R for Response. but the diagram is simply descriptive of a certain hypothesis and adds nothing to the information embedded in words alone. although the visual iniage helps comprehension or memory. Over and above such spurious symbolisms is the permeation of the idea that number is everything. Truth is identified with counting and measurement.

The everyday examples of this arc endless. We are bombarded with vital statistics to which our bodies are supposed to conform in order to be beautiful. In the pursuit of the body beautiful we are .to eat a certain number of calories per day. Clothes are mass- produced in numerically standardised sizes. Sex has not escaped being quantified. Multiple orgasms signify successful sex for women. Politically, opinion polls are scanned ever more eagerly and appear very often to determine election results. The percentages involved are constantly before us on our TV screens and are discussed ad nauseam as if the results of questionnaires expressed people's true feelings, and therefore had real meaning. As tbr voting, everyone knows how inadequate a cross against a name is to express what an individual voter actually would like life to be, x as distinct from what the cross on the ballot paper seems to suggest.

Last, but not least and overriding everything else, is the domination of money — the purely quantitative measure of the value of everything!

It is not easy to present a brief and meaningful conclusion. The abstraction of quantity fmm the world and the expression of scientific laws in terms of pure quantity has been immensely positive, inevitable and indispensable. This has been accompanied by the treatment of the quantitative as the only important factor in all our lives, an error which has had a profoundly negative effect. This error undoubtedly is a by-product of the immense success of technology and the corresponding emergence of the consumer society. On the one hand, it would seem that the positive and negative must always co-exist. On the other hand, perhaps our hope must reside in the so-called 'New Science' which is emerging and in its attempts to restore what the seventeenth century called Secondary Qualities to their rightful place.

Ethical Record, November, 199/ 27 DECEMBER

Sunday, 1st I I am Lecture: Can there be a just action? PEFER HEALES. appointed lecturer, says political action and social change have their origins in a deep sense of injustice. The hope is for progress towards a just society, — can that ideal be sustained'?

3 pm Video: 'Humanism – The Great Human Detective Story'. Britain's first video about Humanism, with contributions from George Melly and Claire Rayner. produced by Meredith MacArdle of the BHA, will be shown and discussed.

6.30 pm Bingham String Quartet: Mozart, Maconchy, Beethoven.

Sunday, Rth I I am Lecture: Frederick Bastiat. TERESA GORMASI. M.P., maintains that Bastiat has made a unique contribution to the promotion of a simple understanding of the free market which has an enduring relevance to today's political debate.

3 pm An afternoon of music and poetry presented by EDA Collins.

6.30 pm Musicians of The Royal Exchange Debussy, Franck, Messiaen.

LONDON STUDENT SKEPTICS

November, 18th 8 pm Mike Howpate, 'Looking for a witness of the Flood'.

December, 2nd 8 pm Brian Austin, 'A Christian Freethinker T??) looks at the New Age'.

December, 16th 8 pm YULETIDE PARTE

Contact Mike Howgate 081-882 2606

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Registered Charity No. 251396 Founded in 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 and humane way of Life.

We invite to membership all those who reject supernatural creeds and find theinselves in sympathy vAth our views. At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds of cultural acthities, including discussions, lectures, concerts and socials. A comprehensive reference and lending library is available, and all members and associates receive the Society's journal, The Ethical Record ten times a year. The Sunday Evening Chamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 have achieved international renown. Memorial and Funeral Seivices are available to members. Minimum subscriptions are: Members £6 p.a.; Life Members £126 (Life Membership is available only to members of at least one year's standing). It is of help to the Society's officers if members pay their subscriptions by Bankers Order, and it is of further financial benefit to the Society if Deeds of Covenant are entered into.

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