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Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 117 No. 3 £1.50 March 2012

Anton Chekhov and his ‘White Dacha’, Yalta, Ukraine (see page 17)

EDITORIAL – OUR SECULARISTS ARE PAPER TIGERS. WARSI: LOOK ABROAD! Baroness Warsi, a vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party, complained last week that “Britain is under threat from a rising tide of ‘militant secularisation’ ... is being sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.” A prime example given of the danger to Christianity in this country was the recent judgement that local councils could not have prayers as item 1 on their agenda! They can of course have prayers before the meeting itself begins. It’s common sense that a committee of various beliefs cannot start with one sect’s prayer formula, but may, if it wishes, start with a non-sectarian minute’s silence. This sham problem contrasts with the genuine persecution suffered at the hands of religious fundamentalists today by Christians in many parts of the world, eg Coptic Christians murdered in Egypt, Christians murdered in Nigeria, threats for apostasy in Pakistan for wishing to convert to Christianity, stating one’s on the Internet a capital crime in Saudi Arabia ... and the list goes on. Baroness Warsi should rather address the pathological state into which some of the so-called ‘great’ of the world are now mired. NEW ADDITIONS TO THE HUMANIST LIBRARY Cathy Broad 2 MORAL THEORY FOR NATURALISTS Catherine Wilson 3 , ATHEISM AND Gary Cox 7 VIEWPOINTS Terry Liddle, Chris Purnell, Beatie Feder 11 AMERICAN BANKS AND BRITISH BUILDING SOCIETIES Peter Griffiths 13 BOOK REVIEWS Norman Bacrac, Jim Herrick, Jennifer R. Jeynes 14 CONWAY’S RADICAL THOUGHTS IN AMERICA William B. Jensen 18 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 20 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Main phone for all options: 020 7405 1818 Fax (lettings): 020 7061 6746 www.ethicalsoc.org.uk Chairman: Chris Purnell Vice-chairman: Jim Herrick Treasurer: Chris Bratcher Editor: Norman Bacrac Please email texts and viewpoints for the Editor to: [email protected] Staff Chief Executive Officer: Jim Walsh Tel: 020 7061 6745 [email protected] Administrator: Martha Lee Tel: 020 7061 6741 [email protected] Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7061 6740 [email protected] Librarian: Catherine Broad Tel: 020 7061 6747 [email protected] Hon. Archivist Carl Harrison Programme Co-ordinator: Ben Partridge Tel: 020 7061 6744 [email protected] Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7061 6750 [email protected] Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova (i/c) Tel: 020 7061 6743 [email protected] together with: Angelo Edrozo, Sean Foley, Alfredo Olivo, Rogerio Retuerna Maintenance: Zia Hameed Tel: 020 7061 6742 [email protected]

ADDITIONS TO THE HUMANIST LIBRARY, February 2012 Bekoff, Marc Animal manifesto 2010 Caputo, John After the death of 2009 Dawkins, Richard The God delusion 2007 Dennett, Daniel Science and religion 2011 Jeffreys, Sheila Man’s dominion 2011 Juergensmeyer, Mark Terror in the mind of God 2003 Power, Mick Adieu to God 2012 Rubens, Tom Politics and neo-Darwinism 2012 Ruthven, Malise Islam 2012 Cathy Broad, Librarian, Humanist Library and Archives

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Reg. Charity No. 251396 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism and the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the Conway Hall Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society’s journal, Ethical Record, is issued monthly. Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is now £35 (£25 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65)

CONWAY HALL EVENING CLASSES, 24 April 2012 Conway Hall is running evening classes developed for a general audience by members of the Humanist Philosophers’ Group: Brendan Larvor, Peter Cave and Prof. Richard Norman: To make a booking or for more information about dates, tutors and further details on course content, please email [email protected] or call 020 7061 6744 or look up www.conwayhall.org.uk/courses

2 Ethical Record, March 2012 MORAL THEORY FOR NATURALISTS Catherine Wilson Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Aberdeen Lecture to the Ethical Society, 19 February 2012

A certain myth is lodged in many people’s minds. It recounts how, in 1859 Charles Darwin induced a crisis by presenting compelling arguments for the evolution of plants and animals and proposing that humans had descended from ape-like forebears. According to the myth, a catastrophe was unleashed. With Divine Creation and so Heaven and Hell rejected, there was no basis for morality. All was permitted. If slavery, polygamy, infanticide, warfare, and racism were accepted by your culture, that was your morality and it was fine. No wonder, say the tellers of the tale, that today people behave worse than ever and are confused. There are many reasons to disbelieve this account. The problem of bad behavior – fraud and cozening, raping and pillaging, pick pocketing, and the seduction of innocent maidens, along with moral uncertainty — have always been with us even in the supposedly pious ages. Second, it was never true that the Christian theory of morals was the only one going. Third, the natural origins and the transformation of species had been actively discussed since the early 1700s, and philosophers like and Adam Smith had already developed secular theories of morality. But the Darwinian revolution is important. How can we understand morality from a naturalistic, post-Darwinian perspective? How is it related to the behavioural instincts and impulses that are the results of tens of millions of years of evolution? And how can beliefs and practices be evaluated? I will try today to suggest some lines of thought on this question. The Origin of ‘Conscience’ Darwin himself was fascinated by the origins of what he called ‘conscience’ or the moral sense, which he discussed in Chapter 5 of The Descent of Man. Group- living animals, we now know, possess the capacity to form alliances, to categorize others as mates, friends, enemies, leaders and subordinates. They also may also punish offenders, or engage in acts of relationship repair, mediating fights or expressing contrition for harming others. Empathy and sympathy are deeply-rooted in human psychology. Where apes share food in response to begging, perform favours for one another, come to one another’s assistance, humans offer food, and perform numerous tasks co-operatively including hunting, building, and cooking, and child-minding. They care for their children even when these children, by reason of some misfortune, are exceedingly unlikely to have children of their own; they risk their lives to save others from drowning or fires. For a long time, the notion that every animal is, in ’ phrase, a ‘survival machine’ seemed to make the conclusion that a human being is disposed to do anything to advance his or her own chances of survival and maximum reproduction. We now understand that selfish genes can build unselfish animals for their, the genes, benefit. It can be better for your genes to Ethical Record, March 2012 3 have two children and care for them properly so that they will have children of their own rather than 10 children whom you ignore all of whom die of starvation. Patterns of reciprocity and mutual aid can develop that make selfishness a losing evolutionary strategy. Our evolutionary history can account for the origins of feelings of duty, obligation, and guilt, without appealing to supersensible entities and states such as God, the , the life to come. But still seems to leave all moral beliefs and practices on the same footing. While all cultures have rules about who can have sex with whom and about what sort of interpersonal violence are allowed, and while there is some overlap, these codes varies from culture to culture as facial features, dress, architecture, and manners vary from culture to culture. We may admire some forms more than others, but these preferences don’t seem to correspond to objective judgements. So is there any escape from ? First, note that our moral obligations and prohibitions arise from the ability to see that particular actions and conditions are better for other people and animals than the alternatives. What makes them moral is that they imply that effort or sacrifice of some sort is being made in order to prevent harm. When the chimpanzee described by Franz de Waal climbed a tree with a stunned bird and attempted to launch it by spread its wings and dropping it, it was acting from a moral motive, taking trouble to try to improve another animal’s condition. Shifting from Subjective to More Objective What then is moral knowledge? A moral truth is a realization about a better alternative that you could come to on the basis of information and reflection, from which you could not retreat on the basis of more information and more reflection. In this way it is analogous to a scientific discovery. It is true that oxygen and not phlogiston is the principle of combustion because information derived from experiment and reflection will lead you from the phlogiston theory to the oxygen theory, but not from oxygen to phlogiston. Existing accounts of moral progress cite the shift from subjective to more objective perspectives, or from indifference to greater empathy with others, or both. Ruth Macklin proposes that moral progress implies the application of either the ‘principle of humanity’ or ‘the principle of humaneness.’ The first mandates less differentiation between people based on sex, race, wealth and other natural and social attributes and recognizes a common core of human rights and privileges. The second prohibits the infliction of excessive pain on others and is exemplified in the rejection of war and conquest, circuses, torture, and public hangings, as well as in all the small modifications to the law that ease the mental sufferings of individuals. Dale Jamieson adds respect for nature, which extends both the notion of rights to the nonhuman world. In all cases of progress, new information was essential. Statistical and historical knowledge made it clear how many people were being killed, jailed, or starved under various conditions? Psychological testing revealed that men and women are basically the same with respect to intelligence, creativity, spatial and numerical ability, and logic — facts doubted for thousands of years, though they 4 Ethical Record, March 2012 differ in some of their emotional reactions to situations. Knowledge of ‘what it is like’ has also been important. The narratives of educated escaped or freed slaves once published had tremendous impact. Novels, television documentaries and dramas, and convey to us what life in the tenements or in the world of the addict are like. Knowledge may be assisted by modern philosophical theorising – such utilitarianism and deontology. But there can be no moral development without new information. Another source of information that has the potential to change moral beliefs is study of errors of social judgement. As Francis Bacon warned against various illusions or the ‘Idols’ –exemplified for example, in the tendency to remember answered prayers or horoscope predictions that came true, but not those that did not— so a host of biases that impugn our rationality have come to light, and many of these have moral implications. One of the most important is the ‘Just World Illusion’ described by Melvin J. Lerner. We tend to believe that the unfortunate are more responsible for their own misery than they really are. We suppose that with a little more effort, foresight, and prudence, they could have avoided their bad fate, and that if someone, or some groups is socially and economically unsuccessful this is explained by innate factors – their ability or motivation. It is obviously somewhat true that talent and effort determine outcomes. But we radically overestimate their role and we discount the importance of luck and environment in determining whether talent and effort actually lead to success. Such biases, which may have arisen in evolutionary history because they were useful, are no longer trustworthy in complex modern societies. They are difficult to eradicate but becoming aware of them is the first step to further moral progress. Gender Differences The naturalistic perspective on morality has opened up several controversial topics. One is the ‘natural warfare’ theory. Why do men and not women join coalitions in which they plan, initiate, and execute acts of aggression against members of outgroups? The data to fit into the puzzle are that men are on average more irritable than women; they vary more in size and temperament than do women, men on the whole are more disposed to co-operate within hierarchical frameworks than are women; women resist sexual coercion but are attracted to outgroup men, and that outgroup men are likely to be infanticidal where the children of ingroup women are concerned. All this adds up to a heady brew predisposing towards lethal combat – intensified by the invention of metal weapons. But now what? Does it matter whether warfare is a consequence of Original Sin or part of the Divine Plan for the world, or emerges from the demands of the environment of early adaptation together with the traits instilled by evolution? In either case, one might think it is intractable — we are stuck with it. But if we accept the ‘heady brew’ theory, we will look with much scepticism upon the age old claims that warfare is noble, that wars are fought for rational reasons and in order to secure humanely important values. War will come to seem a very strange way to solve the world’s socio-economic problems.

Ethical Record, March 2012 5 Another area in which we have seen a lot of debate and discussion is that of women’s role. The biological data we have to deal with are that females are biologically well fabricated to gestate offspring and to nourish and protect them in early infancy, that males are not, and that females are on average more responsive to a baby’s cries than are males. From this other physical and temperamental features follow: women are smaller than men not because they are underdeveloped humans because their high caloric needs in pregnancy and lactation make it impractical for them to be big; they are less irritable because they must interact patiently and successfully with larger, more irritable males and with demanding infants. All this has suggested to many people that women are unsuited to competitive situations and belong at home. But there is more new information that we now have to deal with. We know that the stereotypical nuclear family is not the pattern of our ancestors in the environment of early adaptation. There women were the principal suppliers of food to men, women, and children. Meat from large animals was hunted mainly by men and was highly valued, but it did not support life. Women’s foraging role meant that childcare was distributed amongst those whom Sarah B.Hrdy calls ‘allomothers’ –aunts, grandmothers, boys and girls, and to some extent, fathers. Why does this in turn matter? It gives us insight into such phenomena as postpartum depression and child abuse, as well as women’s struggle for entry into the professions and financial independence. It suggests that giving women drugs to cheer them up, or expecting courses in good mothering to solve the problems of abuse, are superficial solutions. What they need is to be in the company of other adults and to have meaningful work. At the same time, it is painful to many women to be away from their children for don’t like to be away from their children for extremely long periods. If employers expect women to be available for 12 hour work shifts if they are to advance in their careers, this is unjust. It imposes a cost on women than is not imposed on men, making them effectively have to jump higher for the same rewards. These are just two examples of how the naturalistic perspective, by giving us insight into why people feel the impulses they do and have the psychological reactions they do, and by showing how the age-old dispositions bred into us by evolution may malfunction in the civilised world of the politically ambitious nation state and paid labour. Metaphysical Ideas May Play a Supporting Role Does religion then have any role to play in our moral thinking in an enlightened world? Religious texts are in many ways poor ethical guides, either condoning slaughter or making impossible, unworldly demands, or both. However religion does furnish some valuable ideas: the idea that people are not just their bodies, that their social and economic success in the world matters less than their interior condition, that despite the visible differences between them, the species has something in common, and that something in them makes them both responsible subjects and subjects deserving of respect. Insofar as these premises cannot be derived from science, I conclude that such metaphysical ideas – though not the dogmas of to be found in particular religions—will always play a supporting role in our moral theories. 6 Ethical Record, March 2012 EXISTENTIALISM, ATHEISM AND HUMANISM Gary Cox Author of How to Be an Existentialist and The Sartre Dictionary Lecture to the Ethical Society, 5 February 2012

The term existentialism has become almost synonymous with the terms atheism and humanism. The leading existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre, even gave a famous lecture entitled Existentialism is a Humanism. It is reasonably common knowledge that the best known existentialist thinkers of the twentieth century, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus and Beckett, are all declared atheists who insist that humankind is abandoned in a meaningless, Godless universe. Contrary to popular , however, atheism is not compulsory for existentialists and not all existentialists are atheists, even if most of them are. Interestingly, the philosophy of existentialism is as much rooted in the Christianity of Kierkegaard, as it is in the ‘’ atheism of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Kierkegaard was only 42 years old when he died. He dedicated his short, troubled life to the creation of a huge body of philosophical and theological writing that inspired both existentialism and modern Protestant philosophy. As all later existentialists readily acknowledge, many of the central themes and concepts of existentialism – freedom, choice, responsibility, authenticity, anxiety, despair and absurdity – originate in the writings of Kierkegaard. Although a Christian, Kierkegaard was far from being an obedient, unquestioning, sheep-like member of the flock. He was very much an eccentric maverick who found himself continually at odds with orthodox Christian views generally and the Danish State Church in particular. It is Kierkegaard’s radical approach to Christianity, his views on and religious commitment and his rejection of a rationalist approach towards the religious life, that make him a true existentialist. Unlike most of the more famous existentialists, he is not a secular humanist, but he is a religious humanist, if that is not a contradiction in terms. In Reaction to Hegel In many ways Kierkegaard’s philosophy is a reaction to the quasi-religious, rationalist idealism of the German post-Kantian philosopher, G. W. F. Hegel. Hegel argues that human reason is an historical development and that history itself is the progressive development of human reason towards perfect rationality. History is the process of Absolute Mind or God coming to know itself through the perfection of human reason. Kierkegaard finds Hegel’s idealism disturbing. He argues that in making human thought, and ultimately humankind’s relationship with God, the product of an historical process, Hegel disregards the human individual. For Kierkegaard, the human individual does not experience himself primarily, if at all, as a part of history, let alone as a part of an historical process, but rather as a free, anxious, despairing being troubled by concrete, existential moral concerns and existing without any purpose that reason can discover.

Ethical Record, March 2012 7 Kierkegaard is critical of traditional Christian theology for claiming that God’s existence and nature can be established objectively, and that religious and moral beliefs are, therefore, a matter of reason. For Kierkegaard, God’s existence cannot be proven or even shown to be probable, as no amount of finite reasoning can establish anything at all about the infinite. Religious faith is not a matter of objective reasoning, or a matter of going along with the reasoning of others through the complacent acceptance of Church doctrine, but rather a matter of a highly personal, subjective, passionate and freely chosen commitment to believe. Faith an Ongoing Act of Will For religious existentialists, genuine religious faith is not about passively adopting certain communal beliefs by assenting to questionable propositions, it is about one’s moment by moment attitude to life, death and the infinite. Faith is not an established viewpoint, an inner feeling or delusion of absolute certainty, but an ongoing act of will maintained in the face of doubts, misgivings, challenges and difficulties. A person never simply has faith, his faith is something he must continually create. The person who he possesses faith, as one can possess a car, is inauthentic; his faith is not genuine. Religious existentialism adheres to the general existentialist maxim that to be is to do, and certainly for religious existentialists the true measure of faith is action. Kierkegaard wrote a highly influential book, Fear and Trembling, in which he explores the faith of Abraham. Religious existentialists argue that authentic religious faith must be like the faith of Abraham – a man who has come to be known as The Father of Faith. It must be suffered, realised through action, highly subjective and personal and sustained by a freely chosen will to believe that may well go against reason, the advice of other people and even ordinary moral considerations. Religious existentialists urge each individual to have the kind of authentic relationship with God or the infinite exemplified by Abraham rather than just ‘go through the motions’ of so-called belief in an anonymous, conformist, passive, dispassionate, sheep-like way. For Atheists All Faith is Bad Faith For the atheistic existentialists, on the other hand, all faith is bad faith. In their view, the position of the religious existentialists regarding religious faith and the indicates a primitive project of bad faith in which people allow themselves to believe what suits them. They have a habit of not looking too closely at what they believe and why they believe it, and interestingly this very habit is preserved by the fact that it is not scrutinized for what it is. It is a self- covering policy. Bad faith with regard to bad faith. It is ignorance, not in the sense of stupidity, but in the sense that important information and evidence is ignored, and then it is ignored that it is ignored. This requires an ongoing project of self-distraction. Sartre calls the kind of bad faith that enables people to believe in questionable positions, the faith of bad faith. The atheistic existentialists certainly question the spiritual direction of the philosophy of the religious existentialists, but not their view that every person is an indeterminate and necessarily free being anxiously striving to fulfil himself 8 Ethical Record, March 2012 and to give his absurd existence . All existentialists share Kierkegaard’s view of the self as indeterminate and ambiguous, his view that a person is nothing other than what he chooses to be. A person is free and cannot cease to be free. He cannot become a fixed, determinate being so as to be rid of himself as a being that must strive in vain to be fixed and determinate. Kierkegaard notes throughout his book, The Sickness unto Death that the self despairs, unto death, of achieving oneness with itself, just as it despairs of being rid of itself as a self that despairs of achieving oneness with itself. Kierkegaard’s notion of the self, despairing both of being itself and of escaping itself, continues to have a huge influence on both theistic and atheistic existentialism. As said, the atheistic existentialists look to Nietzsche for inspiration as much as to Kierkegaard. Nietzsche followed Schopenhauer in arguing that for intelligent people, the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution that began with it have made the idea of God obsolete as an explanation of human reality. There is no longer any place for a ‘’. Nietzsche summarised this position in his famous maxim, ‘God is dead’. The atheistic existentialists do not actually go to great lengths to prove God does not exist. The indifference of nature to human suffering and the horrors and injustices that occur everyday in the world are for them strong evidence for the non-existence of an all-powerful, benevolent God. They tend to see the burden of proof as lying with those who believe in such a peculiar entity as a moral Supreme Being who created the universe, and they take as read the standard objections to the ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments for God’s existence. Every Consciousness Must Be Embodied As well as endorsing the standard objections to the theistic arguments, the atheistic existentialists offer various arguments of their own against God’s existence. One of their main arguments is that God cannot exist as he is supposed to exist – as an omnipresent, transcendent, disembodied consciousness – because every consciousness must be embodied. The atheistic existentialists also argue against . If the being of the universe was conceived and created in the divine mind or subjectivity of God ex nihilo it remains only a mode of God’s subjectivity. It cannot even have a semblance of objectivity. It cannot exist in its own right as a genuine creation that is independent of God. Moreover, if the being of the universe is perpetually created by God, as some creationist theories suppose, then the being of the universe would have no substantiality of its own; its being would be perpetually derived from the being of God. Once more, it would remain a mode of God’s subjectivity lacking any real objectivity. For the atheistic existentialists, to look honestly at the world and at human existence is to see that, as they say, existence precedes . To suppose that there is a God is to suppose the opposite, to suppose essence precedes existence. It is to assert that humans are conceived in the mind of God and therefore have Ethical Record, March 2012 9 a nature that is fixed for all time. Such idealism is fundamentally opposed to the central view of atheistic existentialism that human beings are essentially free and self-defining. In Existentialism and Humanism Sartre says: ‘Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man or, as Heidegger has it, the human reality. What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world and defines himself afterwards.’ (Existentialism and Humanism, pp. 27-8) Nietzsche’s Anti- According to Schopenhauer, the death of God, the loss of the idea of God as a credible explanation of the universe and humankind’s place in it, plunges people into nihilism and despair. It is often thought that because of its rejection of God, atheistic existentialism is utterly nihilistic and despairing in the Schopenhauerian sense. This, however, is not the case. Atheistic existentialism takes its cue from Nietzsche’s anti-nihilism rather than Schopenhauer’s nihilism and is, despite its interest in anxiety, absurdity and death, an ultimately upbeat and optimistic philosophy. Nietzsche attempts to push Schopenhauer’s nihilism to its ultimate conclusion, to demolish faith in religious based values to such an extent that the way is made clear for a ‘re-evaluation of all values’. For Nietzsche, nihilism carried to its ultimate conclusion annihilates itself as a value and becomes anti-nihilism. To overcome nihilism people must overcome the guilt and despair of having killed God. To achieve this, people must aspire to become themselves by becoming the source of their own values and by always taking responsibility for themselves. The atheistic existentialists strongly endorse Nietzsche’s rejection of and idealism. They agree with Nietzsche that reality does not lurk behind appearances in some other-worldly realm. What appears is reality. As there is nothing beyond appearances, the primary task of philosophy is to honestly describe the world and human existence as they are. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus are not the kind of atheists who simply dismiss God’s existence and think no more about it, but atheists who are moved by the profound implications of God’s non-existence for human reality. They recognise that the non-existence of God implies that all existence, including human existence, is without ultimate meaning, purpose or value. But they see that that is only half the story. In a move that fundamentally defines their brand of existentialism, they strive to forge an ultimately anti-nihilistic philosophy from a starkly nihilistic initial position. They each argue in their own way that to reach their full potential people must overcome the inauthenticity and cowardice involved in clinging to the age old comfort-blanket of improbable religious beliefs. People must stop assuming that a moralising celestial authority has preordained the nature and scope of their existence, and instead recognise that life has only the meaning, purpose and value that each individual person chooses to give it. 10 Ethical Record, March 2012 VIEWPOINTS Socialism and In his Viewpoint in the February Ethical Record, Mazin Zeki berates me for the lecture on Socialism and Secularism I gave in November 2011. I see nothing wrong with sentiment and it was not my intention to mislead. My approach was that of the historian, based on my study of history since my teens and my life experiences over nearly half a century. Yes, Britain has had many religious socialists, Keir Hardie, Philip Snowden, John Wheatly and of course Catholic convert Tony Blair! But it has also had many non- or anti-religious ones such as Harry Snell, Robert Blatchford and Tommy Jackson. Socialists can come from many backgrounds not just religious ones. In my own case I’ve only been into a synagogue once, for a cousin’s wedding. Mazin Zeki attacks socialism as a pseudo religion although I don’t see how you can have a religion without God. What Zeki is attacking is the dreadful perversion and distortion of socialism by Bolshevism which, in the hands of Stalin, became a bureaucratic totalitarian dictatorship. But even from within the Bolshevik ranks there were those such as Victor Serge and CLR James who opposed this; and what about Rosa Luxemburg’s criticism of the Russian Revolution? Any belief can become dogmatic. It is the task of those who believe to see that it doesn’t. Socialism doesn’t seek to impose anything on the state, it seeks to abolish it. And socialism can only come about when the working class majority understand it and want it. History shows, as I tried to explain, socialism and secularism have common roots in the late 18th century enlightenment. Henry Hyndman I mentioned Aveling and Besant because soon after the debate between Bradlaugh and Hyndman they became socialists. Hyndman did not betray socialism. Henry Hyndman was a successful businessman who read Marx in French and was converted. He wrote his own advocacy of Marxian socialism in England For All and formed the Social Democratic Federation. He clashed with Engels and with William Morris who broke away to form the Socialist League. The SDF evolved into the British Socialist Party in1911. Hyndman differed from many socialists and secularists in his support for the First World War; when the majority of members of the BSP opposed the First World War. He split from them forming the National Socialist Party which later readopted the name Social Democratic Federation. I thought most of the attacks on secularism today came not from the Left but from the religious Right. Socialism and secularism can work together for the common aims they share or they can become enemies at each other’s throats. If they do, both will lose. I have nothing to fear from free and open debate. If Zeki would like to face me on the public platform, I would be more than happy to oblige. Terry Liddle – Eltham, London

Ethical Record, March 2012 11 Multiculturalism Mazin Zeki’s attack on multiculturalism (Socialism and Secularism, Viewpoints, ER February) ignores the diverse, ethnic, national and religious nature of British society as it has been for decades (indeed centuries). Most of us believe that all different national, religious and ethnic groups etc should be encouraged to develop their culture in harmony, as should secular groups, provided that they do not attack (as distinct from criticising) each other. South Place Ethical Society is a registered charity; we risk endangering our public benefit, and thereby charitable status, if negative attacks on our opponents, as distinct from constructive criticisms, outweigh the undoubted benefits which we provide. Chris Purnell, Barrister, SPES GC Chairman – Orpington, Kent Tragic Happenings on the Island of Haiti Two years after earthquake, half a million people are still rotting in makeshift camps. Debris remains largely untouched. Thousands die of cholera. Of the $3.6 bn pledged by governments and individual donors for reconstruction, the largest single recipient was the US government which used a third of the cash to reimburse itself for the troops it sent to keep order. The Haitians received 2% and had no say in how the rest was spent - much went to government agencies and international NGOs, to private companies such as the New York construction firm that won a contract for $1.5m despite a complete lack of relevant qualifications. [The above facts were reported in The Week] The international community has proved it can’t do the job. Now it’s time the Haitians were given the chance to help themselves. Beatie Feder - London NW6 On ’ Oxford Days Jennifer Jeynes’ article on Christopher Hitchens (ER Feb, particularly p 13) reminds me of what a high-spirited young man he was when I and he were up at Oxford (1967-70 – in my case at Magdalen). I remember his vigorously attacking me in my Young Liberal days – with words only! – from his then Trotskyist (Independent Socialist) position. I think the reason why Mike Rosen was ‘more famous’ at Oxford is that he was more creative than Christopher H. His play Backbone was put on at the Oxford Playhouse in Autumn 1967, with myself playing the small part of Jim – and Rosen played a leading part in building the Oxford Revolutionary Socialist Students’ Federation, which mobilized us to go to the great demonstrations against the Vietnam War at Grosvenor Square outside the US Embassy. In later life Mike Rosen’s poetry – much of it for adults as well as children – has reached a very high quality. The poems are about family life, politics and working day experience – some even touch on the law – and will long outlive what most of his Oxford contemporaries have written (eg Hitchens’ sustained polemics, my letters in Tribune, the London Review of Books and the Morning Star). The other Oxonian of my generation whose work will probably last is James Fenton’s. Another poet! Chris Purnell – Orpington, Kent 12 Ethical Record, March 2012 AMERICAN BANKS AND BRITISH BUILDING SOCIETIES Notes by SPES Member Peter L. Griffiths

In discussing American banks in the twentieth century with a British readership, it is important to emphasise that under the American system there are three variables: advances, deposits and securities (or debentures), whereas under the British system we usually restrict ourselves to advances and deposits. Legislation governing American banks in the twentieth century cannot be understood without recognising these three variables. Prior to 1933, it was fairly easy for American banks to obtain funds for making loans; this they could do by issuing securities or debentures over and above their deposits. However it was thought that this facility had contributed to the failure of nearly 5000 banks during the Great Depression, so the Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933, prohibiting banks from being able both to accept deposits as well as issuing securities. It was fairly soon recognised that this restricted the funds available for making loans, particularly to buy houses. Securitisation and Fannie Mae Instead of repealing Glass-Steagall, the American legislators decided to set up a financial institution - Fannie Mae - in 1938 which could buy debtors from the banks so that the banks would have funds for further lending. In selling their debtors to Fannie Mae, the American banks recognised that a higher price could be obtained if these debtors were sorted according to yield, redemption dates and geographical origin, and then parcelled in units of the most attractive combination. This particular practice has acquired the name of securitisation. This acquisition of the debtors from the banks led to the practice of Fannie Mae guaranteeing debtors from the banks, in particular to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, devised by Jimmy Carter. This meant an insurance against default with Fannie Mae as the insurer. Fannie Mae then proceeded to issue in 1981 its first Mortgage backed securities (not apparently prohibited by Glass-Steagall) to raise funds for financing the purchase and guarantee of the debtors (including the subprime loans) acquired as a result of the Community Reinvestment Act 1977. Toxic Assets Acquired Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, which meant that the American banks could raise funds for making loans without the assistance of Fannie Mae. This led to greater losses incurred by Fannie Mae over and above the guarantee losses. The purchasers of the Mortgage backed securities included the world’s banks, who had not fully investigated the toxic assets they had acquired. Insurance against defaulting debtors deferred but did not eliminate the losses. It seems that the Americans have no understanding of the part which could be played by a system of housing benefits which would remove the defaulting debtors from the start. In Great Britain, the Building Societies Act 1986 was passed. Theoretically, this had as its objective improved access to capital with lower borrowing rates of interest for the building societies, so that in theory lending rates of interest Ethical Record, March 2012 13 would also fall so that house ownership would expand. Unfortunately this improved access to capital was copied from the American securitisation practice, leading to the bailouts of Northern Rock in 2007 and HBOS in 2008. The theory did not work in practice because easy access to capital on the part of banks and building societies led to extravagant expenditure and easy loans to defaulting debtors. Interestingly this may have been the motive for the passing of the American Glass-Steagall Act in 1933. Quantitative Easing, thought to be a measure for increasing bank loans and national output, could have the unintended consequence of extravagant spending and loans to defaulting debtors. The Mistake of RBOS The Royal Bank of Scotland was different in that it did not involve British building societies, and could have kept in the clear if it had not taken over ABN Amro on 9 October 2007. ABN Amro was a holding company of several American banks connected with Fannie Mae which has still not been sued for fraud by the Royal Bank of Scotland. On 13 October 2008, a bailout of the Royal Bank of Scotland along with the bailout of HBOS was announced by the British government. This seems to have been precipitated by the Royal Bank of Scotland’s not obtaining its share of the proposed $700 billion ‘TARP’ bailout approved by the US President on 3 October 2008. TARP was an expression invented by Hank Paulson on 19 September 2008 and stands for Troubled Assets Relief Program. The Americans gave no reasons for failing to encourage their banks to sue the issuers of these troubled assets for fraud. They also seemed reluctant even to identify the issuers. The numerous unintended consequences of the British Building Societies Act 1986 were compounded by the Bank of England Act 1998, which relieved the Bank of England from responsibility for the regulation of the banking and insurance services. This was transferred to the Financial Services Authority. AN UNBELIEVER’S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE* Including the Apocrypha by Leslie Scrase United Writers, Cornwall. ISBN 9781852001469 (2010)

Leslie Scrase, a Methodist minister for 20 years, has dedicated his latest book to, amongst others, Don Liversedge who “lit the fuse”. Previous books of his included Conversations between an atheist and a Christian on Matthew’s Gospel (SPES 2000) and Precursors of Humanism in the Ancient World (SPES 1997) about humanism in India, China and Greece. His Unbeliever’s Guide to the Bible describes how the Bible was gradually compiled and what it means to the various religions and to the unbeliever. Leslie’s views began to move away from Christianity in the 1970s, until his final realisation that he had no religious beliefs – which “lifted a great weight from my shoulders……the world suddenly became a simpler, and thereby a better and happier place to live in.” (*Now in the Humanist library) NB

14 Ethical Record, March 2012 THE MEDWIN-SHELLEY TRANSLATIONS OF GREEK CLASSICS Reviews by Jim Herrick Oresteia: The Medwin-Shelley Translation Edited and with Foreword by John Lauritsen. (Pagan Press, 11 Elton Street, Dorchester, MA 02126, USA; 192 pages, $14) Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, translated by Thomas Medwin & Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited and with Foreword by John Lauritsen (Pagan Press, 211 pages, $16). Who was Medwin? He was a cousin of Shelley, and they were long time close friends. Medwin was also friendly with Byron. In due course he wrote biographies of the two poets. He was with Shelley when he translated the Oresteia of Aeschylus and was much influenced by the experience as is seen in his own translations. Lauritsen argues that Shelley’s input was paramount. He also spent time with Shelley when he was translating Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound. The two Aeschylus translations were published first in book form and then in the journal Fraser’s Magazine in the 1830s. They were effective translations and transmitted some of the power of Aeschylus. They are translations which clearly benefitted from Medwin’s close contact with Shelley. There were alleged to be surviving manuscripts of Shelley’s versions but they have been lost. It is Lauritsen’s thesis that they were essentially the work of Shelley. It is a matter of accuracy and scholarship to delineate the origins of these works, in the interests of accuracy and proper recognition, Who Wrote Frankenstein? Lauritsen has elsewhere written that he believes that Frankenstein was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley rather than Mary Shelley, a view with which I do not concur. We must nevertheless be aware that Percy Bysshe Shelley had a conversational, collaborative and sharing temperament. Table talk or pillow talk or whatever was essential to Shelley. If they were written jointly with Shelley, why did Medwin not give a joint authorship to the works? Lauritsen argues that there were copyright reasons, the implacable opposition of Shelley’s father to the publication of his works, and the determination of Mary Shelley to slide the political element out of Shelley’s publications. Lauritsen obligingly prints Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound in the same volume as Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound. This demonstrates Shelley’s towering ability as a poet and to me provides a compelling argument that the translations by Medwin are not touched with genius in the way that Shelley’s writing often is. Much of the power of the translation comes from the power of the great poet Aeschylus – which is bound to come through even a moderately successful translation. Lauritsen is a forensic advocate of his case, and like me is a great admirer of Shelley. But just reread Prometheus Unbound, one of Shelley’s masterpieces, and the case has been made that these translations come from Medwin, here and there inspired by Shelley, rather than Shelley’s intrinsic work. The Plea for Liberty Shelley’s concerns are seen in these works – and the plea for liberty rings loud in Prometheus Unbound, although he disclaims any didactic intent and indeed the amazing beauty of the earth is as much his theme. Lauritsen sees Prometheus as Ethical Record, March 2012 15 an attractive young man rather than a gnarled ancient sage. There is an excellent picture of a young Prometheus by the French painter, Lair, who was a contemporary of Shelley. Shelley sees Jesus as “a youth/with patient looks nailed to a crucifix” – another attractive figure, but whose lasting impact was vile. The books are excellently produced. Lauritsen adds his own translation from the German of Goethe’s Prometheus . There is also an extract from John Addington Symonds’s work Shelley which reminds us what a good writer this largely forgotten figure was. Lauritsen writes effective forewords – but those who obtain both volumes will find some repetition. However, Lauritsen has done a service in bringing the Medwin translations, touched as they are with Shelley’s poetic magnificence, into print again. But equally we are more likely to remember the poet who could write in Prometheus Unbound: The nations thronged around, and cried aloud As with one voice, Truth, Liberty, and Love! RESPONDING TO CHEKHOV: The Journey of a Lifetime by Harvey Pitcher Swallow House Books, Cromer, 2010 ISBN 978 0 905265 08 7 £13.50 Book Review by Jennifer R. Jeynes Harvey Pitcher, longstanding Humanist and friend of the Ethical Society, has devoted his professional life to the study of the Russian language and society; in particular to the life and work of the great Russian dramatist and short story writer, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). Pitcher started the Russian Department at the University of St. Andrews and was a pioneer of the translation of Chekhov’s early stories. His works include a seminal study of Chekhov’s plays (The Chekhov Play: A New Interpretation); a biography of Chekhov’s actress wife, Olga Knipper, (Chekhov’s Leading Lady) and a novel (Lily) in which Chekhov is a central character. Of the 20 chapters that form the body of the book, two are biographical, while one mixes life and art by comparing the treatment of love in his most famous short story, The Lady with a Little Dog to his relationship with Olga Knipper. The others discuss individual stories in detail. How do readers respond to Chekhov? What is he about? How do we hear his voice? The author has been fascinated by these questions and the present book is a report of his findings so far, interpreting the man as well as his stories and plays. In highlighting how readers respond personally to Chekhov, Pitcher hopes to assist others, whether new to Chekhov or specialists, to appreciate him better. Pitcher points out that Chekhov did not like critics – he quotes him as saying, after reading a critical article about himself, “It seems I am already in my third period, there used to be no periods at all and now there are three” – and the irony of adding another tome to the copious volumes already in existence has not escaped him. There are critical reviews of 17 of the later stories. I am using this word to include informative, perceptive, interesting and extremely well-informed. The

16 Ethical Record, March 2012 book begins, however, with an extensive ‘Overview’. The author says this is the most important part of the book as it summarises his main findings. In ‘The Two Chekhovs’ Pitcher describes how he came to a significant new understanding of Chekhov: that instead of seeing him as a consistent, well rounded personality, one should instead see two Chekhovs, one, the devout humanist and two, the self-contained Chekhov. Anton Chekhov a Devout Humanist Anton was the third of six surviving children born in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia in 1860. We can call Chekhov a ‘devout humanist’ because he worked out a highly developed ethical code of conduct which owed nothing to a ‘pious’ but violent, Orthodox choir master father and pleasant mother who told him entertaining stories of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia but could not protect him from his father. The father, Pavel is generally seen as the portrait for the many hypocrites in the stories. In a letter to his eldest brother, Anton later reminded him, “Lying and despotism so mutilated our childhood that it’s sickening and frightening to think about it.” In 1876 Pavel was declared bankrupt and the parents fled to Moscow where the two eldest boys were attending University. Anton was left behind to sort out the family’s possessions and finish his education. He sent as much money as he could and also humorous letters to try and amuse the family. He himself came to Moscow in 1879 to qualify as a doctor and then spent much of his time helping the poor. ‘A Dual Allegiance’ argues that Chekov is not to be thought of as a writer who happened to be a doctor but that his allegiances were more evenly divided between the arts and the sciences. Overview Three, ‘How Do You Read Chekhov?’ turns from the man to the writer and offers an alternative view to the one currently fashionable in the West, that Chekhov deals in hidden meanings. There is a simple but illuminating idea in Overview Four, that a distinction needs to be made between the two ways in which he presents his fictional characters: rather than being ‘the dispassionate observer of the human scene’ he draws our attention to those aspects of human behaviour he particularly and even passionately, dislikes. ‘A Complex Vision,’ finally explains why the quiet sane voice of Chekhov, the questioning humanist, should be singled out and heard. Such a voice should be appreciated by the readers of Ethical Record. Your reviewer was fortunate enough to visit the White Dacha in Yalta, the house Chekhov had built after the success of The Seagull and in which he suffered the effects of tuberculosis from which he died at the far too early age of 44. From the study one can see the seafront that inspired The Lady with a Little Dog and at the back the scene of mulberry, peach, cherry, almond, cypress and acacia trees which inspired the setting of The Cherry Orchard. Pitcher notes that the publication date, 2010, is the 150th anniversary of Chekhov’s birth, clearly a matter of pride to the author which is symptomatic of his devotion to his subject and from which all readers can benefit. Ethical Record, March 2012 17 CONWAY’S RADICAL THOUGHTS IN AMERICA Based on an article by William B. Jensen (Univ. Cincinnati) extracted from his Assorted Lectures on Humanism and Skepticism, Epicurean Press, Cincinnati OH (2011) Moncure Daniel Conway was born in Falmouth, Virginia, to a slave-owning family. He began his career in 1849 as a pro-slavery Methodist minister. By 1852, however, he had come under the influence of Emerson’s and soon became, much to the distress of his family and friends, an avid abolitionist. This ‘conversion’ inspired him to earn a degree from the Harvard Divinity School in 1854 and resulted in his appointment the next year as Minister to the First Unitarian Church of Washington DC. Dismissed for his abolitionist views in 1856, Conway was appointed Minister for the First Congregational Church in Cincinnati, where he remained until 1861, when he was dismissed once again, this time for his rejection of supernaturalism. While in Cincinnati he married Ellen Davis Dana, a member of his congregation, in a ceremony that was attended by the poet Longfellow. Tom Paine and the ‘’ of Cincinnati While serving as Minister to the First Congregational Church, Conway discovered a small conclave of ‘infidels’ and Tom Paine worshippers in down- town Cincinnati. “The infidels gathered every Sunday afternoon in a room on Fourth Street. I attended some of their meetings, taking an obscure corner place. The speakers were partisans, the most prominent of them Englishmen, who, with somewhat faulty grammar, had good sense and a certain rude eloquence.” “I was impressed by the fact that, although these men had no belief in God or immortality, nearly every speech expressed enthusiastic homage for Thomas Paine, a fervent apostle of . Paine had become to them, more than the founder of a deistic church; he was the standard-bearer and apostle of religious freedom; to these free-thinkers he was what George Fox was to the Quakers and John Wesley to the Methodists.”

This encounter stimulated a growing interest in Thomas Paine on the part of Conway: “In early life I had heard Paine occasionally mentioned by preachers with abhorrence, but it was only in Cincinnati that I discovered that those denunciations were of interest to me as a student of myths and legends. In listening to the freethinkers in their humble hall I became aware of the large mythology grown and growing around Thomas Paine. I could not help be interested in a writer whom Jehovah was said to have chosen for the object of his special wrath.” Thus it was that Conway soon found himself researching the life and thought of Paine. “The immediate result of these researches was announcement that on Paine’s birthday, January 29, 1860, the subject of my sermon would be Thomas Paine. The church was crowded. I had feared that my pleading for Paine might excite some opposition, or at least some remonstrance on my imprudence; but instead of that I received next day a request to publish my discourse. It was signed by many eminent and wealthy citizens, some of whom did not belong to 18 Ethical Record, March 2012 my congregation; their letter and names were printed as the preface of the sermon, which bore the title Thomas Paine. A Celebration.” “From that time the freethinkers frequented my church, and I arranged that there should be each week an evening discussion with them. I had gained their good- will, and Moreau, a leading writer of their faith – for it was a fervent faith – dedicated a volume to me as the first who had ever uttered from a pulpit any word favourable to Paine.” It was perhaps inevitable that these encounters with both the local infidels and the writings and thought of Paine would also begin to impact on Conway’s own religious beliefs: “My vindication of Paine and its unexpected success was felt by the freethinkers of Cincinnati as a vindication of themselves also, and I felt it my opportunity for grappling with what I considered their errors. My theism was not indeed of the Paine type – I had passed from all dynamic theism to the theism evolved from by the poets – but I found that in criticizing these atheists I undertaken a difficult task. Several of them were shrewd disputants and steadily drove me to reconsider the basis of my beliefs. I entered upon a severely logical statement of the corollaries of theism. I had already rejected supernaturalism, to the distress of a third of my congregation, this being the first time that simple theism had invaded any western pulpit.” The Free Will of Both God and Man Denied “In a sermon on God, I maintained that the creation and government of the universe by an omnipotent and omniscient deity was incompatible with any free will. I affirmed that the so-called free agency of man was a much overrated notion. I contended that what theologians called the Will of God was a misconception; an all-wise and morally perfect deity could have no freedom. There is only one very best and to that he must adhere; the least deviation from it would un-deify him.” The end result was that a split occurred in his congregation which led to a lawsuit over how to divide up the church property and eventually to Conway’s own resignation: “My theological and philosophical heresies reported in the Ohio journals excited discussion far and near ... The secessionists went off on account of my series of sermons on and established the ‘Church of the Redeemer’.”

Note. In 1862 Conway moved to England to campaign for the abolition of slavery; he soon became Minister of the South Place Religious Society in Finsbury, London. In 1888, having by then rejected theism, this congregation become the South Place Ethical Society. The above notes are based on Conway’s Autobiography, Memories and Experiences, published in 1904. He died in 1907. His great two volume work The Life of Thomas Paine was first published in 1892.{Ed.}

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

Ethical Record, March 2012 19 PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7405 1818 Registered Charity No. 251396 For programme updates, email: [email protected] Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk Admission to Sunday morning lectures is free for members of SPES and £3(£2conc) for non-members. For other events, no charge unless stated. Sunday meetings are held in the Brockway Room. MARCH 2012 Sunday 18 PARANORMALITY: WHY WE ALL SEE WHAT ISN’T THERE 1100 Richard Wiseman Sunday 25 THE COMMON INTEREST: THEN AND NOW – 1100 Is change the same as progress? Bernard Burgoyne APRIL Sunday 1 UNNATURAL PREDATORS: THE FOLKLORE OF FEAR 1100 Deborah Hyde

FORTHCOMING BOOK LAUNCH for the new philosophy book by Tom Rubens POLITICS AND NEO-DARWINISM and other essays in political and cultural criticism Published by Societas, Imprint Academic, the book will be on sale for £8.95 7pm Wednesday 4th April 2012 Room, Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 Refreshments will be served All Welcome

Sunday 8 Easter - no lecture Sunday 15 WHAT SHOULD CHILDREN KNOW? 1100 John Tillson Sunday 22 ‘THE UNHOLY MRS. KNIGHT’ AND THE BBC: 1100 and the threat to Christianity. Callum Brown

To receive regular Society news and programme updates via email, please contact Ben Partridge at [email protected]. Similarly, if you have any suggestions for speakers or event ideas, or would like to convene a Sunday afternoon informal, get in touch with Ben on 020 7061 6744.

SPES’s CONWAY HALL SUNDAY CONCERTS 2012 Tickets on the door (£8/£4 concessions). 6.30pm Full details on: www.conwayhallsundayconcerts.org.uk

Published by the South Place Ethical Society, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1R 4RL Printed by J.G. Bryson (Printer). 156-162 High Road, London N2 9AS. ISSN 0014 - 1690

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