SPRING 1981 VOL. 1 NO. 2 $3.00

On Criticizing Secular The premier issue of ' containing The Secular Humanist Declaration provoked instant reaction. Debated Following front-page coverage in the New York Times, the advent of Free Inquiry was heralded by thousands of newspapers, magazines, and other media in the United States and Gina Allen Marvin Kohl throughout the world. The friends of warmly welcomed Isaac Asimov Richard Kostelanetz the Declaration, but, predictably, it evoked strong negative criticisms from Brand Blanshard George Marshall those on the religious right. The Declaration has also raised doubts Joseph Blau Kai Nielsen among some moderate liberals and conservatives. Patrick Buchanan Lee Nisbet Apparently, to be critical of religion is considered "immoral," "un- Vern Bullough Karl Popper patriotic," or at the very least "in bad taste" by a significant sector of the Hal Crowther John Roche American public. Accordingly, it will be an uphill battle to open up religious Roscoe Drummond Robert Rimmer beliefs and practices to intelligent critical discussion. Albert Ellis Phyllis Schlafly Millions of Americans are unchurch- ed; they may be nominal church Stephen Fenichell B.F. Skinner members or they may be skeptics, but they lack an adequate outlet for their Joseph Fletcher George Smith views. Religious believers daily bom- bard us with their claims. They surely have a right to believe in Garrett Hardin Thomas Szasz whatever they want. We share with many religionists their commitment to Valerie Turchin the values of a free society. But some dogmatic religionists are intolerant and wish to impose their views on others. Part of their growing influence may be attributed to the fact that the views they express often go unchallenged. Some skeptics ask, "Why take them Controversy over The Secular Humanist Declaration, The seriously?" Others behave ostrich-like, Moral Majority, Tea and Sympathy on the Way to Mecca, hoping that they will go away. But doc- trinaire must be taken The , Does Exist?, Blasphemy, The seriously, for they have a powerful in- Pope on Sex, Egalitarianism, The Fall of the Elitist Left, fluence on the lives of countless people. Books by Solzhenitsyn and Hans Küng Reviewed, Plus That is why we believe that religions should not be immune to free inquiry The Great Books of Secular Humanism or critical scrutiny. (continued on Back Cover)

SPRING 1981 ISSN 0272-0701 VOL. 1 NO. 2

Contents

1 Editorial— 3 Letters to the Editor About This Issue ARTICLES This second issue of Free Inquiry 6 The Secular Humanist Declaration: Pro and Con—John Roche, opens with a debate about the Sidney Hook, Phyllis Schlafly,Gina Allen, Roscoe Drummond, Secular Humanist Declaration, but Lee Nisbet, Patrick Buchanan, Paul Kurtz it touches on many other topics as 12 New England Puritans and the Moral Majority—George Marshall well. We have brought together the 14 The Pope on Sex—Vern Bullough views of some of the leading secular 16 Tea and Sympathy on the Way to Mecca—Thomas Szasz humanists of our time. 18 The Blasphemy Laws—Gordon Stein It should be clear that humanists 20 The Meaning of Life—Marvin Kohl do not necessarily agree on all 21 Does God Exist?: Reflections on Disbelief—Kai Nielsen topics. Although a diversity of opi- 27 Prophets of the Procrustean Collective—Antony Flew nion might be an embarassment to 31 Human Rights: The Madrid Conference—Stephen Fenichell absolutist points of view, it is the es- 32 The American Ideal of the Natural Aristocracy—Lee Nisbet sence of free inquiry. We are com- mitted to debate, not doctrine. FILMS Moreover, we are not adverse to 34 Meetings with Remarkable Men —Hal Crowther printing strong criticisms of secular humanism in this magazine. We BOOKS believe that truth is more likely to be discovered if the opportunity ex- 36 The Classics of Secular Humanism—Brand Blanshard, Joseph ists for the free exchange of op- Fletcher, Albert Ellis, Robert Rimmer, Garrett Hardin, posing opinions; the process of in- Isaac Asimov, Richard Kostelanetz, Sidney Hook, Antony Flew, Joseph Blau terchange is frequently as important as the result. We trust that our 39 Hans Küng on God—George Smith readers will profit from the many 40 Solzhenitsyn on the Decline of the West—Valerie Truchin vigorous exchanges of opinion in the 45 Classified following pages—Ed. 46 On the Barricades Editorial Board Editor: Paul Kurtz FREE INQUIRY is published quarterly by the Associate Editor: Gordon Stein Council for Democratic and Humanism (C0DESH, Inc.), a non-profit Contributing Editors: corporation, 1203 Kensington Ave., Buf- Lionel Abel, author, critic, SUNY at Buffalo; Paul Beattie, president, Fellowship of Religious falo, N.Y. 14215. Humanists; Jo-Ann Boydston, Director, Dewey Center; Laurence Briskman, lecturer, Edinburgh Copyright © 1981 by The Council for University, Scotland; Hal Crowther, film reviewer; Edd Doerr, managing editor, Church and Democratic and Secular Humanism. State: Albert Ellis, director, Institute for Rational Living; Roy P. Fairfield, social scientist, Union Subscription rates: $12.00 for one year, Graduate School; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical School; Antony $20.00 for two years, $27.00 for three Flew, philosopher, Reading University, England; Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of , years, $3.00 for single copies. Address sub- NYU; Marvin Kohl, philosopher, State University College at Fredonia; Ernest Nagel, professor scription orders, change of addresses, and emeritus of philosophy, ; Cable Neuhaus, correspondent; Lee Nisbet, advertising to: FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, philosopher, Medaille College; Howard Radest, director, Ethical Culture Schools; Robert Rimmer, Central Park Station, Buffalo, N.Y. 14215. author; William Ryan, free lance reporter, novelist; Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist, Upstate Medical Manuscripts, letters, and editorial inquiries Center, Syracuse; V.M. Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judge, India; Sherwin Wine, rabbi, founder, should be addressed to: The Editor, FREE Society for Humanistic INQUIRY, Box 5, Central Park Station, Editorial Associates: Buffalo, N.Y. 14215. All manuscripts H. James Birx; Marvin Bloom; Vern Bullough; James Martin; Steven L. Mitchell; Marvin should be accompanied by three additional Zimmerman copies. 0pinions expressed do not Editorial Staff necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher. Jean Millholland, executive secretary; Barbara Bergstrom; Doris Doyle; J. Quentin Koren; Patricia Kurtz; Lynette Nisbet; Richard Seymour POSTMASTER: Application to mail at se- cond class postage is pending at Buffalo, Art & Layout: N.Y. Send change of address to: Free In- Gregory Lyde Vigrass, director; Margaret Wells and Joellen Hawver, assistants. quiry, Box 5, Central Park Station, Buf- falo, N.Y. 14215.

2 ~ sTyïT 3 0 a(L4 • signature on an ethical document on freedom and dignity together with his. I am almost certain that you have not studied this book of his: you would not LETTERS TO THE EDITOR have asked him to sign. (2) I have a second , one which could in principle be overcome. Additional Endorsements of We wrote to Sir Karl Popper, influential I think that the contents of your state- The Secular Humanist philosopher at the University of London, ment are almost entirely excellent. But I Declaration inviting him to endorse the Secular am unhappy about the tone. In so far as the The following names were originally invited Humanist Declaration. Sir Karl declined to contents are concerned, one thing is miss- to endorse the Declaration, but arrived after do so, and he gives his reason why. We ask- ing in your statement — a thing I regard as we were in press: ed Professor B.F. Skinner to respond to important. This is the emphasis on the duty Warren G. Bennis, former president, Popper and are glad to publish both letters of intellectual modesty, which I regard as University of Cincinnati, professor of — Ed. the first duty of all intellectuals. business, University of Southern California I think it extremely unlikely that you and Paul Edwards, editor in chief, En- I disagree on this point. But it is not only cyclopedia of Philosophy, professor of Sir Karl Popper Criticizes missing from your statement (one cannot, philosophy, Brooklyn College, City Univer- B.F. Skinner in such a statement, say everything), but it sity, New York does not, in my opinion, inspire its form. Antony Flew, professor of philosophy, I largely endorse the contents of the As to adding to its content: you could Reading University, England Secular Humanist Declaration. still do so where you speak of . Isaac and Sara Hasson, Israel Human- Nevertheless, I cannot sign it. And I feel I Tolerance is closely related to the realiza- ist Secular Assn. owe an explanation why this is so. tion of our human fallibility. You nowhere Chaim Perelman, professor of There are two . The first is com- mention Voltaire, who wrote (the free philosophy, University of Brussels paratively unimportant but insurmountable. translation is mine): "What is tolerance? It Holward B. Radest, director, The Ethical The second could perhaps be surmounted, is a necessary consequence of our humani- Culture Schools but it is important. ty. We are all fallible, and prone to error. J.P. Van Praag, founding president, Inter- (1) My first reason is that you have in- Let us then pardon each other's follies. This national Humanist and Ethical Union vited Skinner to sign, and he has done so. is the first principle of natural right." You Alexander S.Y. Volpin, Russian dissi- This clearly cannot be undone. could still insert this, say, as a motto; and dent, professor of mathematics, Tufts But Skinner is an enemy of freedom and so introduce the idea of intellectual modes- University of democracy. He has explained his con- ty into the content of your statement. Other Endorsements (partial list): tempt for freedom quite openly in his book But there is still the form and the tone. Gina Allen, director, American Humanist Beyond Freedom and Dignity. He has ex- The statement is in my opinion too long; Association pounded it many years before in a book and there are too many long and impressive Jo Ann Boydston, director, The Center Walden Two, which is the dream of a very words in it: it is, understandably, written to for Dewey Studies kind but megalomaniac behaviorist who impress. But this is, in my opinion, a mis- Bonnie Bullough, dean of nursing, State defends a behaviorist dictatorship. take. Or to put it differently: if it is to im- University of New York at Buffalo I have never met Skinner, and I have press, it should impress by the modesty of Vern Bullough, dean of natural , nothing personal against him; I was even its claims, by its consciousness of human State University of New York at Buffalo attracted by the benevolent naivete which fallibility. Lawrence Briskman, lecturer of inspired Walden Two. But I regard these I fear that it is too late to rewrite your philosophy, University of Edinburgh two books — especially Beyond Freedom declaration in this , though I feel it Marvin Bloom, associate professor of and Dignity — as worse and more would be a great improvement. And at any social welfare, State University of New dangerous than the most fundamentalist rate I do not deny you the right to try a York religious tract: there is a mixture of naivete, different approach. It may, perhaps, not Wim van Doren, professor of philosophy, sheer ignorance, arrogation of omniscience, even have prevented me from signing it... . Delft University of Technology, Holland and Caesarean megalomania in these Sir Karl Popper Stephen Fenichell, executive director, books, which is, in my opinion, far more Buckinghamshire, England American Humanist Assn. urgent to combat than the churches. Anne Gaylor, president, Freedom From I cannot, therefore, sign this declaration. B.F. Skinner Religion Foundation The fact that Skinner found it possible to Replies to Popper Roger E. Greeley, Unitarian Minister, sign it seems to me difficult to comprehend. People's Church, Kalamazoo, Michigan He may have changed his mind after the I cannot answer the charge that I am naive, Ruth Greene, director, Freedom From publication of his Beyond Freedom and ignorant, and arrogant, because Popper Religion Foundation Dignity, but he still upheld these views, as cites no instances. But there are issues at J. Harold Hadley, former editor, far as I know, in 1976. stake and a few of them call for comment. Of course he has every right to hold such One is . In Beyond Freedom Walter Hoops, contributing editor, The views, just as a fundamentalist has. And I and Dignity I quoted this sentence of American Rationalist even think it valuable that such views Popper's: "What we want is to understand J.F. Hornback, senior leader, Ethical should appear in print — just as those of a how such nonphysical things as purposes, Society of St. Louis fundamentalist. But I cannot put my deliberations, plans, decisions, theories, ten- (continued on Page 45)

Spring, 1981 3 sions, and values can play a part in bringing not the first to assert that human behavior my readers credit for knowing that what I about physical changes in the physical is determined; the position has been taken write is what I believe, think, and venture world." As a behaviorist I contend that we by many respected philosophers and to say. The result may sound arrogant, but merely infer that a person has a purpose, theologians and, again, is gaining support at least it has the merit of making clear deliberates, makes plans, and so on, and as the biological and behavioral sciences in- where I stand, all retreat cut off.) that we infer it from physical facts about creasingly reveal the extent to which human Those who call themselves humanists are behavior. What the person feels as purpose, behavior can be traced to genetic and en- likely to be more comfortable with deliberation, a plan, and so on, are con- vironmental sources. To recognize this is Popper's "open society" than with a current physical states of the body. The no- not to have "contempt" for freedom or to behaviorist's version of a better world. I tion that these are nonphysical was imposed defend a "behaviorist dictatorship." I am have had doubts about my position as a upon Western civilization by the Greeks no enemy of the feeling of freedom or of a humanist for the same reasons. But the cen- and has always caused trouble. Popper may sense of human worth or dignity; on the tral issue is not the actualization or aggran- not like the behavioristic alternative but it contrary, I have done what I could to dizement of the individual (no matter how can be defended and is steadily gaining sup- promote both. Walden Two portrayed a strong that theme may have been in port from biology and the behavioral world in which people feel free and develop Western ), but the con- sciences. themselves to the fullest possible extent. struction of a social environment or culture I also cited Popper on values. He writes: But I must accept the view of human nature in which individuals will enjoy the greatest "It is impossible to derive a sentence which biology and the behavioral sciences sense of freedom and make their greatest stating a or decision from a sentence increasingly support. contributions. We may be closer than we stating a fact; this is only another way of Nor am I an enemy of democracy. I have think to a view of human nature, supported saying that it is impossible to derive norms criticized democracy, but is that not the by the biological and behavioral sciences, or decisions from facts." But the analysis of first duty of those who love it? To say that which will help solve some of the problems operant behavior offers an alternative for- democracy is not necessarily the final form which face us. It would be a shame if mulation of the things we value or call of government (certainly not as now prac- nostalgic affections for earlier views were to good, based upon selection by consequences ticed, for example, in the United States or stand in the way. as a causal mode (found only in living Britain) is not to advocate anything B. F. Skinner things or in machines made by living resembling communism or fascism. I began things). Natural selection, the best example, an essay called "Human Behavior and , Mass. is still fighting for full recognition, and Democracy" (published in Psychology To- parallel issues at the level of individual and day, September, 1977, and also reprinted in Kudos for Free Inquiry group have seldom even been clearly stated. Reflections on Behaviorism and Society) I have argued that values and "goods" are with a quotation from Lincoln: "That this Editorial Note: We have received hundreds to be found among the selective conse- nation under God shall have a new birth of of letters applauding the Secular Humanist quences of human behavior at all three freedom and that control of the people by Declaration and the launching of Free In- levels — species, individual, and culture. In the people and for the people shall not quiry — for which we thank you. We can and Human Behavior I paraphras- perish from the earth." Lincoln, of course, only publish a small sample of them. ed sentences containing the words "ought" said "government" rather than "control," and "should" to expose their factual under- but government is only one form of control, The Board of Directors of the American pinning, and a chapter of Beyond Freedom basically punitive, and I prefer other forms. Humanist Association, at its meeting in and Dignity was devoted to the point. The point of my paper was that people are Columbus, Ohio, November 1, 1980 has Popper may not agree with me, but the more likely to enjoy feelings of freedom asked that I express their good wishes and position cannot be dismissed simply as a and worth when they control each other support to you and to the Council for sign of naivete or ignorance. directly rather than through institutions in Democratic and Secular Humanism in the In a paper called "Why I am Not a which either punitive or economic power is publication of Free Inquiry. Cognitive Psychologist" (published in concentrated. I concluded: "The social en- We are happy to cooperate with you in Behaviorism, 1977, and reprinted in Reflec- vironment functions most successfully for any way that we can to assure the success tions on Behaviorism and Society, Prentice- the individual, the group, and the species if, of your endeavors ... for the extension of Hall, 1978), I quoted Popper on still so far as possible, people directly control our common philosophy. another issue, the difference between a people. The design of a social environment Lyle L. Simpson logical analysis of mind and the experimen- in which they do so is one of our most President, American Humanist Association tal analysis of behavior, the same facts be- pressing needs." That does not sound to me Des Moines, Iowa ing treated in both. For example, suitable like a dictatorship. contingencies of reinforcement will bring a As to my arrogation of omniscience and Being very much involved in investigation pigeon's behavior under the control of my megalomania, I can only plead that I of flummery known as parapsychology, I of selected properties of stimuli; if the pigeon believe in what I am doing and in its course share the philosophy so well express- were a person, the behavior would be said relevance to the world at large. Certainly ed in the pages of your new publication. to show abstraction or concept formation. nothing has followed from that or the Rather than diffuse my forces, I have It is an example of the tendency of the practices based upon it which encourages chosen to zero in on the psi-nuts and leave philosopher or the cognitive psychologist to any delusion of omniscience or power! (I the larger business of the Battle with God move a feature of the environmental con- should like to believe that Popper has been to greater intellects. tingencies into the brain or mind and call it misled by a stylistic device. I do not often In examining your journal, the thought mental. qualify my sentences with "I believe," "I once again came to me that it is incredible A fourth issue is freedom. Certainly I am think," "I venture to say," and so on. I give to find we need such information and argu-

4 ment in what is an otherwise pretty well- taught more and more and more. declaration. It was an excellent document informed society. That fact alone is Martin Wolfson and I want to congratulate you. frightening. To have to present arguments Middleton, New York Professor M.Z. Atassi against evident nonsense such as Special Mayo Clinic Creation, Virgin Birth, and Survival After Congratulations on the long overdue Rochester, Minnesota , our species surely finds itself in a Secular Humanist Declaration. critical situation. The Dark Ages are not by What is needed now is a powerful Better late than never — the appearance of any means behind us. followup, wherever and whenever Free Inquiry, that is. It should have James Randi necessary. The radio talk shows, for in- appeared years ago, when secular "The Amazing Randi" stance, should be phoned at every oppor- humanism was still ascendant, and then, Rumson, New Jersey tunity to refute the dangerous of perhaps, the credo would not be in decline religionists. We should confront and on-the-way-to-extinction. Assuming, of If the fundamentalists insist upon teaching counter every nonsensical assertion made, course, that as much attention would have their version of in the public whether from the pulpit or the electronic been given to "defining" as well as "defen- schools, then all versions of creationist church. The counterattack must be consis- ding" the secular humanist consciousness. myths of all religions should be taught also. tent and continuous, not episodic as a You state in your first issue that Free The resultant contradictions would wash momentous declaration. We should be Inquiry will have as its fundamental task to them all out, as did the babble of religions prepared, those of us who can leave the "define and defend" the general outlook when our constitution was written as a non- closet, to refute publicly every time these and positions of secular humanism, sectarian document. silly allegations are made. presumably to save it from total extinction. John Greene Please, literally, keep up the good work I hope that you will give as much attention Prospect Park, Pa. as publicly as possible! to the "defining" of secular humanism as Dorothy S. Klein you will to the "defending" of it. I think the Having spent many years as a lonely Brooklyn, New York matter of urgent importance, because I do freethinker, I welcome Free Inquiry, par- not think that secular humanism is in trou- ticularly in this era of blatant Christian fun- I have never objected to people believing ble because of the rise of powerful new damentalism and its correlative isms as ex- whatever nonsense they choose to, but I sources of irrationality that are overwhelm- pressed in many other orthodox religions. find it most offensive that an agnostic like ing it so much as it is because of its own You certainly have your work cut out for myself is forever subjected to the nonsense failures and mistakes. Secular humanism you but the current foreboding trend must that they've found some great "secret" was dominant and triumphant. If it had not continue without as much effort as which is between them and /God. clout it should still be. But it is in retreat possible to counteract it. For being one of When I was little, I heard Billy Sunday, and decline. Ergo, it must have lacked those efforts, I thank you! and nowadays I see that Billy Graham is something. To find out what is the task of Richard W. Bowers "preaching" the same kind of nonsense and "definition," not of "defense." San Francisco, California also collecting mazuma thereby. But I have David Allen so longed to see a journal such as yours Garnerville, New York In order to bolster support for the Declara- that attempts to state the rational and sen- tion, please place this letter on the part of sible situation as we best know it at this I was very impressed by the premiere issue. the balance which is with you as opposed to time. I completely agree with your Secular the mass of incriminations which will be on Herbie French Humanist Declaration. However, I would the other side of the scale. Congratulations New York, New York add two more planks to your platform: and more for the tough task that you un- (11) political action to further the spread of dertook. It is worthwhile! It is good to know that there is at least this secular humanism, and (12) legal action to Abner I. Weisman, M.D. much organized opposition to those who further the success of secular humanism. In Emeritus Professor threaten all of us with their fervor for other words, a detailed program for action New York Medical College whatever religion each of them happens to is the next logical step. support. One would hope that you could Harry Kerastas We need such a voice so badly to continue to speak with the words of reason Bridgeport, Conn. counteract those "born-again hillbillies" we need constantly to hear. who dominate the air waves on radio and A. George Akehurst It gladdens me and lifts my spirits to see in- TV. Now the time is ripe for a strong voice Springfield, Illinois dividuals devoting time and energy to so of reason in the land. vital a project. Felix De Cola No matter how the fundamentalists Hollywood, California affected last year's national election, I am Paul Basinski convinced that there is a need for extensive East Pembroke, N.Y. You are welcome to America at this - grass roots support for every kind of activi- ment when obscurantism is spreading over ty that increases human intelligence and its Your new magazine, Free Inquiry, is a pearl the land like a forest fire. And not only wise application in human affairs. of rationality in a sea of modern over America but all over the world in Dr. Ralph P. Gallagher . diverse shapes and forms ... There is one Bound Brook, New Jersey Martin A. Moe, Jr. philosopher who is the thinker for our day: Marathon, Florida Spinoza — universalist and secularist and I read yesterday with great interest in the scientist and humanist. Spinoza must be New York Times your recent humanist (continued on Page 44)

Spring, 1981 5 The Secular Humanist Declaration: Pro and Con The Secular Humanist Declaration has prompted a storm of controversy including many articles, pro and con. In the spirit of dialogue and debate — so crucial to free inquiry — we have reprinted four well- known columnists, all sharply critical of the Declaration: John Roche, Phyllis Schlafly, Roscoe Drum- mond, and Patrick Buchanan. These columns appeared in hundreds of newspapers. We present responses to them by four humanists: Sidney Hook, Gina Allen, Lee Nisbet,and Paul Kurtz — Ed. Is the Declaration Dogmatic? John P. Roche Between 1378 and 1415, Western was burdened As the Moral Majority, to whom being born-?gain must with two rival Catholic popes who annually excommunicated eliminate self-doubt, thunders through the land, it has predic- each other on Holy Days of Obligation. Caught between the tably generated a counter movement led by the secular certainties of the Moral Majority and the secular humanists, I humanists. In the closing weeks of a presidential election there feel sympathetic to the 14th-century Christian caught in the en- are bound to be political implications to this squabble: hold filade of Papal anathemas. What mystifies me is the hubris of them for a minute. The secular humanists, outraged at the mis- both armies: these who think they have God's unlisted number, treatment of their — "Science" — are denouncing and those who want Heaven picketed. their opponents for violating the separation of church and Perhaps it is the pervasive influence of my late friend and state, for leading us back to the Dark Ages, and other unscien- mentor , perhaps it is because I know myself tific moral sins. too well, but I would find it inconceivable to announce I was a The Secular Humanist Declaration, signed by a notable "moral man" or a "good Christian." When Jimmy Carter in body of scientists, philosophers, and other grandees, reminded 1976 announced to "Playboy" that he had "lusted in his heart" me of a marvelous Gay Talese story in the Times about 20 for women other than his spouse, my reaction was "welcome to years ago: "New York astrologers demand police crack-down the club." of frauds." The Declaration is at least as dogmatic as the Curiously, I grasped what Pope John Paul was murkily driv- pronouncements of the Moral Majority, except it is a reverse ing at when he extended this admonition to include those who mirror-image. For example, it is, they assert, immoral to "bap- lusted after their own wives. He was emphasizing that the es- tize infants, to confirm adolescents, or to impose a religous sence of Christian love, agape, was never to treat a human be- creed on young people before they are able to consent." ing as a thing. While they were at it, the signatories clobbered all forms of I have been accused of puritanical prurience because of religious obscurantism and announced stridently that moral savage attacks on pornography, but these were not moral standards should be based on and empirical experience. posturings. I was as dirty a little boy as the average American, Considering the intellectual gravity of those who signed it, the but at a certain point I realized the fearful consequence of porn odd aspect of the Declaration is its frenzied tone. In this con- was that it encouraged the treatment of women as things: open- text, let me reassure my old comrade-in-arms Sidney Hook ing a copy of "Hustler" was like entering a meat locker with that I will personally guarantee his safety from any Inquisition females hanging from the hooks. — Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or New Left! This insight was doubtless caused by the presence over the Most of my worst enemies are obscurantists, secular and past 33-plus years of a remarkable wife, and for some 20 of religious, and I operate on 's maxim that "all these years of a delightful daughter. Yet in other areas of life I saints are presumed guilty until proved innocent." I have no have often been harsh and have joined the immoral majority in time for Bible-beaters and look on a number of current treating people as objects, as mere things to be treated as political divines as Elmer Gantrys and public nuisances. But pawns on a chessboard. In short, I know I am not a candidate my complaint is I don't want them telling me how to be moral for beatification. — anymore than I want 58 eminent secular humanists offering to care for my , and informing me in papal fashion that John Roche, syndicated columnist for the New York Post, is Jesus was not Divine. professor at Brandeis University and former head of the Of course, the underwater six-sevenths of this iceberg is ADA. © /980, King Features Syndicate. Reprinted with per- political, not theological or philosophical. If, to borrow a ques- mission. tion from Einstein, the Declaration was true, why would not one signature, rather than 58, suffice? •

6 actions. The nature of moral experience, however, does not permit us to make absolutes of any value except intelligence, The Autonomy of Moral Judgment which is the judge of its own limitations. Good sometimes conflicts with good, right with right, and intelligent choice always depends upon the assessment of the consequences of feasible alternative options. If it were necessary to treat a Sidney Hook human being like a thing to save the world, or even a city, My friend John Roche errs in drawing an equation between from nuclear incineration, it would not be immoral to do so. the animadversions of the fundamentalist Moral Majority It might be unjust but justice is only one major good in the against secular humanists and the reply of the latter to the constellation of moral values. aspersions against them as immoralists. He would recognize The Declaration could not say everything, nor can this re- the error in other contexts as when ritualistic liberals joinder, and some of its sentences could have been phrased characterize anti-communist responses to the defamations of more clearly to avoid the impression that we would forbid in- communists against them as "reverse mirror-images" and just doctrination, i.e., a process of teaching through which accep- as objectionable. What Professor Roche has failed to note is tance of belief and practice is induced by non-rational means. that the statement of the secular humanists is primarily a rep- If we are to live in a civilized society it is necessary for human ly to the accusations of spokesmen for the Moral Majority beings when they are young to act upon beliefs long before that secular humanists are immoralists because their views they can possibly understand or justify them — whether they allegedly lead to moral anarchy and the multiple evils of are truths of arithmetic or or hygiene. The in- social life. The secular humanists have become the targets of escapability of indoctrination, therefore, imposes a moral impassioned attack because of the nature of their beliefs, their obligation on secular humanists to nurture and encourage at conception of the nature of moral judgment, and especially every level of development the individual's power of reflection their contention that the validity of a moral proposition (e.g. (but not, of course, this alone), so that when children reach "Divorce is preferable to murder if those are the only feasible maturity they will be able to assess for themselves the validity alternatives") is independent of any divine revelation or any of the beliefs and habits in which they have been indoc- other transcendent or element. The Secular trinated. Humanist Declaration was primarily a statement and defense Because secular humanists have emphasized the centrality of a rational morality based on the nature of Nature and of this method of intelligence (reason, critical method, scien- human nature in a world and society as disclosed by the most tific method) in education, spokesmen of the Moral Majority reliable methods of inquiry. have charged them with abetting the current immoralities that The Secular Humanist Declaration makes clear that we are allegedly are the fruits of this education. Our rejoinder was committed to the defense of religious freedom, the right to that any kind of indoctrination that neglects or refuses to believe or disbelieve, and therefore to opposition to any develop the human power of reflection may more legitimately regime that seeks to impose its views about the nature and be regarded as immoral. Any belief about the nature of the destiny of humankind on its citizens. That is why, among world, society and human beings, to be warranted must rest many other reasons, we are opposed to communism and other upon the available evidence. forms of totalitarianism. Finally, some minor points. John Roche knows that no If I understand correctly, John Roche is one of us. He statement endorsed by a committee or group can do justice to claims that the of Christian love is "never to treat a the nuanced views of its individual members. Einstein signed human being as a thing." Leave aside for a moment the many statements together with others that he believed to be curious consequence that this would make all moral persons true. Unhappily, in the field of foreign policy they were Christians. What he means is that we should never treat a sometimes very dubious. The Declaration was drafted by Paul human being merely as a means, since we must sometimes Kurtz. It was not "signed" by 58 persons but only "endorsed" take a taxi. But suppose someone were to ask: Why should we to indicate that although we were in agreement on essentials never treat a human being merely as a means or a thing? I am each of us would have formulated some sentences differently. confident he would reply in the same way as he would to Paul Kurtz is not a humanist pope and the Declaration was questions of why we should be kind, honest, just, etc., not a Humanist Bull. because of the nature of these actions and their consequences Nor is the Declaration a political document in the sense in in experience for human weal and woe — and not because which the Moral Majority is a political movement. The en- some supernatural power commands it. All moral values are dorsers consist of individuals who supported different both means and ends to satisfactory human experiences. presidential candidates or none of them. Secular humanists The point is fundamental. Morality is logically independent have been singled out for continuous vituperative criticism on of religion. Mankind builds its in its own moral image. the air waves from coast to coast. The Declaration was the It must take responsibility for its own moral judgments and first and so far the only reply. Sidney Hook, distinguished humanist philosopher, is The number of signers or endorsers of a document adds not professor emeritus at NYU and a Fellow at the Hoover a whit to its validity. But depending upon who they are, it Institution (Stanford). may attract the attention of readers. I always read statements signed or endorsed by John Roche. •

Spring, 1981 7 They wrap their ideology in the word "scientific" but use it as a witch doctor uses a magic talisman, to confer a fake prestige on their mythology and hope that simple people will fail to discern that it is empty of evidence. What lifts Secular Humanism out of the class of an obscure What Is Humanism? cult is the big names who have publicly signed the manifestos, thereby witnessing to its religion. The list includes some of the most influential names in education and philosophy in the last Phyllis Schlafly half-century: (father of progressive education), Alan Guttmacher (president of Planned Parenthood), Vashti I received a telephone call recently from a by-line reporter for a McCollum (famous for her Supreme Court case which remov- major metropolitan newspaper. ed "released time" religious classes from public schools), "I'm not calling for an interview," he said, "but just for Lester Mondale (brother of the vice president), B.F. Skinner some information, and I thought phoning you would be the (Harvard professor of psychology), and Lester A. Kirkendall easiest way to get it." Then he blurted out his questions. (known as the father of the sex education movement). "What is humanism? What's wrong with it? And what has it The reason humanism has become something reporters need got to do with politics? I always thought that it had something to be informed about is that alert parents have discovered that to do with being humanitarian or with studying those college Secular Humanism has become the established religion of the courses called the humanities." U.S. public school system. Many parents believe that the I explained that, no, the humanism he was inquiring about Humanist Manifestos, like the Rosetta Stone, provide the key doesn't have any relation to either of those things. Humanism to decipher the code languages of progressive education, values is a secular "religion" professed by humanists whose creed is clarification, sexuality curriculums, situation , and the enunciated in Manifesto I of 1933, the Humanist various rationales that have caused the public schools to Manifesto II of 1973, and the Secular Humanist Declaration eliminate , moral training, and the teaching of basics. of 1980. Humanism doesn't deal directly with politics, as the The Humanist Manifestos are just as dogmatic and une- reporter's question implied. But humanism has everything to quivocal as that statement of fundamental Christianity, the do with public school education, and it is clear that the remedy Apostles' Creed. for the wrongs in that area is at least partially political. Here is a summary of the of the religion of Secular The particular election-eve timing of the 1980 Secular Humanism, as revealed in its published manifestos. Humanist Declaration indicates that the humanists themselves Humanism denies and rejects God, , , faith, are reacting politically to the threat to their ideology posed by prayer, all divine purpose or providence, all religions which the emergence of fundamentalist Christian groups as a force in "place God above human needs," the existence of life after the 1980 elections. The humanists should be worried — death, a supernatural, heaven and hell, "traditional religious because the public has begun to see through their hypocrisy in morality," religious attitudes about sex, "national sovereign- fastening their atheist ideology on the public schools, all the ty," and a "profit-motivated society." while the humanists are loudly proclaiming as "imperatives" To replace the tenets of traditional religion, humanism not only "the separation of church and state" but even "the proclaims its own set of self-serving, unproved dogmas. separation of ideology and state." • Humanism asserts that the universe is "self-existing and not created," that man is the product of , that the "joy of living" and the "satisfactions of life" are the supreme goal of Humanism and Diversity of Opinion man, and that ethics come from "human experience" not from God. Humanism recognizes and accepts abortion, euthanasia, Gina Allen suicide, and all varieties of "sexual exploration" and immoral "lifestyles." Humanism works for the establishment of a Phyllis Schlafly used to fire her flaming verbiage at the "secular society," a "socialized economic order," world women's movement. Now she has taken on secular government, military disarmament, and population control by humanism. Her tactics haven't changed. First she proclaims government. herself an authority on the target of her outrage, defines it in The secular humanists offer no proof for their dogmas. They her own terms,and warns of the dangers it poses. accept no final arbiter of governmental or moral standards ex- What she describes rarely resembles the real thing. A cept their own arrogant elitism. humanism with dogmas? That's not the humanism I know, which in free inquiry and welcomes diversity of opi- Phyllis Schlafly is spokeswoman for a number of conservative nion. causes, including opposition to ERA. This syndicated column Of course there are humanists who are also socialists. And appeared in newspapers throughout the United States. ©]980, others who are capitalists. And some who are Georgists. Copley News Service. Reprinted with permission. There are humanists in favor of abortion, euthanasia, world government, disarmament, and the Equal Rights Amend-

8 otee o s ment, as I am. And there are humanists who disagree. Humanists value independent thinking. Religion and Democracy There even may be humanists who live and advocate "im- moral lifestyles," though I doubt it. The humanists I know are very much concerned with ethics and morality and the Roscoe Drummond welfare of other human beings. And I have yet to meet a There is no reason to be dismayed by the fact that religion is humanist who advocates "population control by the target of sharp attack by the modern humanists. But it is government." Last I heard it was the self-styled "moral ma- useful to see where this new attack is coming from and where it jority" that wanted control of reproduction by government may be headed. added to the Constitution. The issue at controversy arises from the way many of the Ms. Schlafly seems less familiar with humanism than with "born again" evangelical Christians and some others entered attacks on humanism by the fundamentalist right, whom she the political arena during the recent presidential campaign. parrots. Both accuse humanists of taking over the schools. They used their television and radio pulpits to favor certain Come on, now! Take a poll of your school board, superinten- candidates and did not mind leaving the impression that those dent, principals, teachers and authors of textbooks. You'll who disagreed with their political policies and values were find Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, etc., but somehow immoral. This kind of dialogue seemed to be intend- few, if any, humanists. ed to poison the political dialogue. Then why are Ms. Schlafly and the "born agains" accusing I would defend earnestly the right of these people to utilize humanists of taking over the schools? Because they want to their constitutional guarantee of free speech to expound their take them over. If they can discredit the "religion" of convictions. Religious leaders should not be barred from the humanism, and the science in which Ms. Schlafly claims its political forum. ideology is wrapped, then they can toss both out of the But now comes a counterappeal which proposes a cure that schools and replace education with indoctrination of the sort to me is more dangerous than the offense. that they approve. It comes in the form of an encyclical recently issued under In the long run they won't win. The Inquisition put Galileo the title of "A Secular Humanist Declaration." on trial and jailed him, but the earth still continued to revolve The humanists affirm that they put the highest value on around the sun. The present Inquisition can put humanists on rationality and logic. But when they apply them, they seem to trial, and defeat them, but evolution will continue to be a me to reach conclusions from which logic is absent. well-supported scientific principle. And science will continue For example, the Declaration sweepingly contends that to reveal truths of our universe and ourselves, whether or not "dogmatic authoritarian" religions — and their definition is those truths are acceptable to Schlafly and company. very broad — are an enemy of intellectual freedom, human Kids deserve better than to be made pawns in the rights, democracy, and the scientific mind. evangelicals' attacks on humanism. Those in their teens are Really? Wherein does scientific inquiry, wherein does logic already paying a high price — in an epidemic of pregnancies provide the basis for the foregoing assertion? Has "humanist and venereal disease — for an ignorance of their own sexuali- logic" taken account of the fact that in many countries where ty imposed on them by those who think morality and religion is active and dominant the institutions of democratic knowledge are incompatible. freedom are strongest, and that in many countries where As a humanist, feminist and mother I'm appalled at such a religion is weak or suppressed the institutions of human callous disregard for our greatest resource — our children. freedom are weak or nonexistent? And I'll fight for their right to uncensored education in every In Poland, where Roman Catholicism is a dominant force, field of knowledge, that they may develop to their highest religion is playing a major role in helping to recover human potential and make their finest contribution to human rights for the Polish people. If religion is an enemy of human progress. That's what humanism is all about. Too bad Phyllis rights and democracy, as the humanists seem to claim, it could Schlafly doesn't recognize that. And too bad that the media hardly be performing such a valuable service. accept her as an authority on a philosophy she knows In the United States, where churchgoing people of all nothing about. • denominations make up the overwhelming majority of the pop- ulation, religion is not proving to threaten human rights — as An award-winning author, Gina Allen writes frequently on the reasoning of the humanist Declaration contends — humanist and women's issues. She is Vice-President of the without, as I see it, logically and scientifically looking at all the American Humanist Association and Chair of the AHA facts. Quite the contrary, religion is usually a boon to Women's Caucus. democracy and freedom. Roscoe Drummond is the well-known Washington columnist Religionists and humanists live under the same Constitution, for the Los Angeles Times. ©1980, Los Angeles Times Syn- and it strikes me as illogical for the humanists to suggest that dicate. Reprinted with permission. religion should not be heeded in society's decision-making while humanists' views should be heeded. That would be a pret- Lee Nisbet, former executive editor of The Humanist ty one-sided democracy — humanist style. magazine, now teaches at Medaille College. I happen to believe that during the 1980 presidential cam- paign,as during the 1928 campaign when Al Smith was running

Spring, 1981 9 for president, some radio preachers were overly assertive in seeking to corral their followers into one political camp. But they were exercising one of the democratic freedoms which America's Coming Religious War religion has done so much to nourish and preserve. If the humanists want to warn of dangers in the free expres- sion of religion — while seeking increased exposure for their own views — it seems to me they are, I am sure unintentional- Patrick Buchanan ly, therein becoming the enemy of freedom. • In his Man of the Year interview with Time, Ronald Reagan was pressed as to why he would use Theodore Roosevelt's "bully pulpit" to promote his views on abortion and school Humanism and Freedom prayer, "rather than let political nature take its course." In his response, Reagan chose sides in America's coming religious war: "... letting political nature take its course means that the Lee Nisbet advocates of one position are supposed to remain silent while Roscoe Drummond makes this argument: Since many coun- the advocates on the other side can be as vociferous as they tries where religions are active are free and many countries want to be. Some of the exponents of — and I do not where religion is weak or suppressed are not free, how can the challenge anyone's right to believe or not to believe — but Declaration say that religion is the enemy of freedom? The some of them do not realize that, in effect, they have created argument begs the question. almost a religion of their own in that belief and are demanding The Declaration states that "dogmatic authoritarian things for their religion that they would deny others." religions," those whose followers claim that their opinions on The religion of which Reagan spoke is secular humanism. If issues rest on a higher authority and that disagreement with one doubts it is a faith, with its own tenets, beliefs, doctrines, these opinions immediately signifies error, and as some would let me draw attention to the premier issue of Free Inquiry, have it, bad character, are ideologies that hardly are friends which leads with a formal "declaration" for "all those who of freedom. It may be that religions flourish in many free believe in secular humanist values." societies but it does not follow that those societies are free "Regrettably, we are today faced with a variety of anti- because of those religions. In certain cases societies are free secularist trends," author-editor Paul Kurtz reminds his only because religious disputes were forcibly kept in check by fellows. Among them: "The reappearance of dogmatic the state or because people no longer felt that religion was an authoritarian religious, fundamentalist, literalist, and doc- issue worth killing each other for. The Irish have yet to learn trinaire Christianity; a rapidly growing and uncompromising that lesson. Moslem clericalism in the Middle East and Asia; the reasser- Mr. Drummond cites the case of the pope's support for tion of orthodox authority by the Roman Catholic papal human rights in Poland as proof that the is a hierarchy." friend of democratic freedom. While we applaud these efforts, The declaration thus neatly slides onto the same shelf of nox- we notice that, while he supports certain human rights in ious substances the Ayatollahs Khalkali and Khomeini, Liber- Poland, he opposes any choice at all on abortion or birth con- ty Baptist College, and John Paul II. trol in Italy, both apparently on the grounds of appeal to a Secular humanism "is opposed to all varieties of belief that higher authority. Unless the Pope is willing to concede that seek supernatural sanction for their values ... We find that the all issues are open to inquiry and that choices contrary to traditional views of the either are church doctrine in no necessary way constitute sin, he certain- meaningless, have not yet been demonstrated to be true, or are ly cannot be said to be a staunch friend of democratic tyrannically exploitative." freedom. Fair enough. But there are eminent scholars who think the Clearly,the reasons for a policy have to be understood if we "traditional views" of God's existence are not meaningless, but are to fully comprehend the meaning of the policy. We might all-important. There are scientists — and many of the greatest ask how fully the Catholic church in Poland supported minds in Western civilization — who believe that the existence political and moral freedom before the communists took over. of God is more demonstrable than the theory that we are in If the pope seems somewhat ambivalent on the issue of some eons-long uninterrupted ascent from the monkey freedom of inquiry and moral choice, religionists like kingdom. Khomeini are clear on the issue; and the Moral Majority As one wag put it, the only thing we know about the missing suggests that disagreement with them renders a person moral- link is that he's still missing. ly unfit for office. "We believe," declared Kurtz, "that moral development In sum, Mr. Drummond misses the entire point of the should be cultivated in children and young adults ... (however) Declaration when he claims that "humanists want to warn of we do not think it is moral to baptize infants, to confirm dangers in the free expression of religion." We did not say Patrick Buchanan is a former special assistant to President that. He said that. The Declaration warns of the dangers of Nixon. His column appears in 101 newspapers. © 1980, dogmatism: religious and secular. Dogmatism is not compati- Tribune-New York News Syndicate. Reprinted with ble with democracy, and that point, Mr. Drummond, is im- permission. portant for all of us to savor. •

10 1ir%ee Inq ii ( adolescents, or to impose a religious creed on young people The evidence for this claim is presumably a series of social before they are able to consent. These young minds should not developments that include the decisions of the Supreme Court be indoctrinated in a faith before they are mature enough to concerning abortion and the prohibition of prayer in the evaluate the merits for themselves." public schools. Yet it was a basically conservative Nixon Why, then, should children be taught, as Kurtz recommends, Court that rendered the abortion decision. Justice Blackmun "moral education in the schools that is designed to develop an argued, appealing to the right to privacy, that a woman appreciation for moral virtues, intelligence, and the building of should be allowed to choose whether or not to have an abor- character?" Whose moral virtues? Whose idea of moral tion, without the state intervening (at least in the first two character? trimesters). However, it has not been only secular humanists What Kurtz & Co. seek is the expurgation from public who have supported freedom of choice in abortion but also education of traditional religious beliefs about the nature of millions of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Some humanists man — and their replacement with the tenets of secular have reservations about abortion, especially where it is in- humanism. discriminately used as a method of birth control. The To be exact — and to quote Sen. Jeremiah Denton of Supreme Court ruled that prayer in the public schools was Alabama — what Kurtz is about is an "un-American and un- unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment, constitutional" drive "to establish secular humanism as a state which states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an es- religion." tablishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise If traditional views of God are meaningless, demonstrably thereof." So, contrary to Patrick Buchanan and Senator Den- unprovable by reason, and all religion is , why ton, those who oppose prayer in the public schools or approve should secular humanists be concerned about the competition? of freedom of choice in abortion are not advocating anything "Of special concern to secularists is the fact that the media unconstitutional or un-American, but reflect a belief in the (particularly in the United States) are inordinately dominated freedom and moral rights intrinsic to American democracy — by a pro-religious bias. The views of preachers, faith healers, a belief held by liberals and conservatives alike. and religious hucksters go largely unchallenged, and the Secular humanists are not attempting to "expurgate" secular outlook is not given a fair hearing." traditional religious beliefs from the public schools. Religious "Secular humanists," says Kurtz, "may be agnostics, attitudes pervade the values and outlook of a large number of atheists, rationalists, or skeptics" — not, however, believing teachers. The teaching of evolution in science classes, the Protestants, Catholics, Moslems, or Orthodox Jews. Why, reading of novels that fundamentalists consider "obscene," then — since the latter are in the majority, and since the former and programs in sexual education do not mean that the pay constant homage to "democracy" — shouldn't society "religion of secular humanism" is being established. reflect in its laws, customs, and tradition the values and Intemperate religious critics of the public schools, in effect, views of the majority? • seek to repeal the modern world. They are undermining the integrity of science in so far as they seek to dictate the content of biology textbooks and the science curriculum. They are im- The State Should Be Neutral posing their own narrow conception of literature and the arts when they insist on the removal of books from schools and libraries. Educators of diverse religious denominations and backgrounds support the independence of the sciences and the Paul Kurtz humanities and the viability of an enriched educational ex- perience for students. Patrick Buchanan, former speech-writer for Richard Nixon, Is secular humanism a religion? It is true that some uses all of his rhetorical skills to present a number of objec- humanists consider themselves to be religious humanists, and tions to secular humanism. In sum, they are a red herring. some religionists consider themselves to be humanists (Pope Buchanan suggests that a "religious war" may be coming Paul II considered Christianity to be humanistic). But many in America. This would be most unfortunate, for the genius of secular humanists (such as Sidney Hook and Corliss Lamont) the American political system is that it has been an open and deny that their views are religious; they consider them to be pluralistic democracy; the state has been largely neutral on philosophic, ethical, or scientific. Respecting that the United religious questions, and a variety of political, religious, States is a free society, it is totally untrue that secular philosophical, and moral points of view have existed side by humanists would deny to others the rights and liberties they side in relative peace and harmony. claim for themselves. Buchanan levels the preposterous charge — borrowing Buchanan takes issue with the fact that secular humanists phrases from Senator Jeremiah Denton, if he quotes him cor- are skeptical of the supernatural views of theology and rectly — that there is a movement afoot "to establish . He maintains that there are eminent scholars who humanism as a ," which, we are told, would be think that traditional views of God's existence are not "un-American" and "unconstitutional." meaningless. Well and good. If so, those questions deserve debate; and those who hold dissenting or heretical points of Paul Kurtz, editor of Free Inquiry, is professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. view have a right to freely express them. In America today, thousands of churches and publications constantly preach

Spring, 1981 I I "God's Word," and the media are dominated by their ex- Secular humanists say that there is a difference between a pressions of faith. Skeptics surely should enjoy the same right reflective approach to the moral life and the mere indóctrina- to present opposing viewpoints. tion of an absolutist faith without an appreciation of alter- What about the teaching of "moral education in the native points of view. schools"? All education is in a sense "moral." From a child's Finally, Buchanan poses a question. Since secular earliest years, parents and teachers attempt to instill moral humanists believe in democracy and since a "majority" of virtues: honesty, empathy, kindness, tolerance, sincerity, Americans are religious, he asks, "Why ... shouldn't society truthfulness, etc. The common moral decencies are not the ex- reflect in its laws, customs, and tradition the values and views clusive province of any one group of society. "Whose `moral of the majority?" virtues'?" asks Buchanan. Why not those that are the com- If we go back to the origins of the American republic, we mon heritage of humankind? Where there is disagreement in can appreciate the reasons for the separation of church and the community, is not some reflective debate of the issues ad- state. The wide diversity of denominations and in missible in the schools, at least for older children and young America have often vehemently disagreed about their adults, as part of moral development, or should they be religious beliefs and the moral implications inherent in them. sheltered from all controversy? Students are exposed to con- The greatness of America has been that a variety of groups trasting political views in history and civics classes without (religious and nonreligious) have coexisted in a situation in fear of "indoctrination." The development of reflective ethical which the state has remained neutral, favoring no one religion inquiry has deep roots in Western civilization, from the great but serving to protect the rights and free expression of all. To books of classical Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, the now enact into law the views of a supposed religious majority , and the Enlightenment, down to the modern would be to violate the vital principle of the separation of world. How can a religious Catholic, Protestant, or Jew ob- church and state — and this is what could bring about the ject to exposing students to rational inquiry and to the com- religious war that Buchanan prophesies. However, it would mon core of values shared by secularists and religionists, by not likely be a limited war between believers and nonbelievers thinkers as diverse as Socrates, , Aristotle, Aquinas, but would also be between Protestants and Catholics, , Kant, Newman, Mill, Dewey, Tillich, and Niebuhr? Christians and Jews, Buddhists and Moslems, liberals and The secular humanist especially wishes to cultivate an ap- fundamentalists, and established religions and the newer sects. preciation for the complexities of moral choice and the The Secular Humanist Declaration was issued largely as a development of critical intelligence. Ethics, like science and defense of freedom of thought and conscience in a pluralistic literature, has some claim to autonomy as a discipline. society against a crescendo of intemperate attacks by self- Humanists are not alone in making ethical inquiry one of the righteous religious absolutists. There are millions of vital goals of education. The Declaration states that secular Americans who live ethical lives and are committed to humanists do not believe it is moral to impose a religious American democracy but do not cling to a conventional creed on young people before they are able to consent. Of religious faith. They do not wish to impose their views on course we believe in the right of parents to bring up their others. On the other hand, should not all citizens be permitted children in their religious faith. But today religious fundamen- to enjoy the blessings of liberty in the spirit of cooperation talists are insisting that theirs are the only moral values. and tolerance — without the threat of a new religious war? New England Puritans and the Moral Majority

George Marshall

Two opposing views of the role of religion have propelled Christian point of view, and that damnation awaits the voter, themselves into the national consciousness. I refer, on the one or nation, who fails to fall into line. On the other hand, some hand, to the increasing effort of the so-called Moral Majority say that the most fundamental American tradition is that of to influence political events according to a rigid religious stan- the separation of church and state and that it would be a dard based on the assumption that there is only one right serious threat to our democracy if the born-again Christians solution to each of the affairs of state, that this is from the were permitted to select the office-holders and write the laws of this nation. George Marshall is a unitarian minister in the Church of the This past fall saw the 350th anniversary of the founding by Larger Fellowship, Boston. Puritan divines of the old city of Boston. In our democracy

12 d l~ today we trace a direct line of descent from the Puritans, who Eliot said, even while we honor these founding fathers and are founded a theocracy, not a democracy. The question therefore proud of being their spiritual or actual offspring, we must re- inevitably arises: What is there in common between the early joice that we are not living among them. Puritans and the Moral Majority or "Christian Voice" ad- It has been a puzzle to some that the blue laws — the old vocates of today? The Moral Majority claims that this nation Sabbath laws that are still on the books — and laws such as was founded as a Christian nation and that their own coercive those opposed to birth control and abortion have been retain- and judgmental efforts to influence political decisions are true ed and find their most ardent supporters, not in Puritan to the American heritage. descendants or religious establishments, but in those groups It is true that Massachusetts, as a Puritan commonwealth, that the Puritans would not tolerate in their communities — began as a theocracy, a state completely dominated by the those they called Papists, sectarians, and "schismatics." Such church; and it took the better part of a century to disentangle are the contradictions of history. the two. Indeed, by 1776 the sentiment was so strong against The Declaration of Independence provided for equality and church involvement in politics that the patriots made separa- freedom for all people — the drafters of this document even tion of church and state the battle cry of the American included so un-Puritanical a virtue (the Puritans would have Revolution: "Church and State: They Shall Not Meet!" called it a vice) as the "pursuit of happiness" — and provided The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, for a new federal government that would promulgate as the Article I of the Bill of Rights, assures the citizenry that there law of the land that "Congress shall make no law respecting shall be complete separation of church and state. This has the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise been generally recognized as the fundamental law of the land. thereof." It therefore followed that it did not require that a Then why is it that today we have the intrusion of the person participate in religious activities to be a citizen. This Catholic hierarchy (such as those in the Right to Life move- was the evolutionary process in government. ment) and the Protestant fundamentalist (the Christian However, there have always been religious bigots who think Right) on the political scene as never before? the only justified opinions in matters of religion are their own. The rapid colonization of the entire area of Massachusetts Hence there have been efforts made in the past century to Bay began with the arrival of the Arabella, which was follow- pass the Comstock laws, which would censor publications, ed by an armada that brought 15,000 Puritans here. They and to add a "Christian Nation Amendment" to the swarmed over the surrounding land, sprinkling it with clusters Constitution. At various times such movements have become of homesteads that were to become the cities and towns of groundswells, but fortunately such laws have never been pass- Greater Boston. They were a united, uniform, stiff-necked ed. Perhaps it is the memory of the principles of Thomas group of religious zealots who were intent on founding a Jefferson and James Madison that encourages the majority of Puritan commonwealth, free of all the sin and evils they had congressmen and senators to support the broader concepts on observed in royalist England. which our government was founded. From our schooldays onward, we have known that the We seem to be experiencing once again a tidal wave of Puritans wanted for themselves but not religious orthodoxy. To be a born-again Christian has become for others; and woe betide those who brought the censure of popular; to speak out against religious conformity, church- the church upon them, because they then had to answer to the sponsored political lobbies, or, worse, self-appointed authority of the state. spokesmen for the religious conscience, is to be labeled a poor These thoughts occurred to me as I sat in a pew of my American. Many of the evangelists are one-man churches, home church on the day Boston brought to a climax its an- sufficient unto themselves. This movement is a viscious af- niversary celebration. I smiled as I remembered the words of front and an internal threat to our democracy. The late Irwin T. S. Eliot, who chose to live in England for most of his adult Edman, who was one of my philosophy teachers at Columbia life. He once observed: "Those of us who claim any New University, once wrote, "If we cease to keep alive the things England ancestors may congratulate ourselves that we are that are civilized in our society, our land is destroyed without their descendants, and at the same time rejoice that we are a bomb bursting or an invader landing on our shores." I feel not their contemporaries." One need only think of some of this concept applies here: The is undermining those contemporaries: Roger Williams was driven from our basic freedoms and therefore is a danger to our civilized Salem in 1635 and, although he was a preacher of the Gospel, institutions. was forced to flee from the commonwealth to find refuge in We need to reaffirm that one need not be a "good the wetlands among the Narragansett Indians, in what is now Christian" in order to be a "good American." We need to Rhode Island. Mary Dyer, whose statue now graces the lawn support the principle of the right of everyone to pray in their in front of the Massachusetts State House, was hanged on the own way, at home, at church, at temple, or in a mosque, and nearby Boston Common in 1660 because of her Quaker we need to vote not only our conscietices but also our minds. leanings. Nineteen teen-age girls and mothers were sentenced The use of intelligence is needed if our democratic way of life to death, imprisonment, and censure in 1692 by the is to fulfill its destiny. Honorable Samuel Sewall, known to history as the Hanging This is the time for a call to action for religious liberals to Judge. Only in a theocracy, in a church-dominated state, stand up, to speak out, and to labor for the broader un- could any of these people have been tried and condemned for derstanding and interpretation of the Constitution and for the what by our lights cannot be considered crimes. Indeed, as continuation of our democracy as it was meant to be. •

Spring, 1981 13 The Pope on Sex

Vern Bullough

It is easy to make fun of Pope John Paul II's statements on traditional Christian anxieties, they represent something more. sexuality issued during the World Synod of Bishops held in Essentially they are an attempt, I believe, to reassert Church Rome in October, 1980. Anyone who prohibits the use of con- control over individual members who have been growing in- traceptives, denounces sexual intercourse among the divorced creasingly independent of Church authority in recent years. and remarried, and states not once but twice that a man could Outwardly, Catholicism has changed quite radically over the "commit adultery" with his own wife, all in the name of preser- past few decades. Symbolic of this change is the universal ad- ving the family, deserves parody. He simply is not facing reali- miration of Pope John XXIII and his jovial good-humored ef- ty. Unfortunately, my feelings parallel those of Adlai Steven- fort to update Church practices. Other events helped son, who after one of his electoral defeats by Dwight D. precipitate change, at least in the United States. The election Eisenhower, responded that the defeat hurt him too much to of John F. Kennedy, for example, marked the entry of laugh, and he was far too old to cry. I am much too angry to American Catholics into the mainstream of American life. make fun of the pope. Internal changes such as the replacement of Latin with English His statements display a sexist bias, an ignorance of sexuali- in the mass, the growing importance of the lay movement ty, and a disregard for the family. The pope does not seem to within the Church, and the mass exodus of clergy and religious realize, for example, that women may want sex as much as have made the distinction between Catholics and mainline men and even lust for it. His condemnation of lust reveals a Protestants more difficult to draw. The result has been a kind knowledge of sex which is better suited to Victorian times. Lust of ecumenism and religious cooperation that would have been is a healthy aspect of the sex life of both sexes and can be and impossible a few decades ago. For example , the anti- often is part of the mutual reciprocation of affection between Communism which internationally and nationally was so much the sexes. Most of all, however, the pope is putting impossible a part of the Church's political posture has been modified as burdens on the family while at the same time claiming to the Church has attempted to find ways and means for preserve it. In effect he is denying that sex has much part in Catholics to live and under Communism. Even the marriage, and is asking people to live in hypocrisy. Most separatism encouraged by the parochial schools in the United married Catholics in the more sophisticated parts of the world States has lessened if only because tuition has risen and lay use contraceptives. Even Ireland and Italy have now made teachers have moved into the vacant teaching positions in in- them legal. Divorce is a fact of life, and while many of us might creasing numbers, forcing many Catholics to wonder why they deplore the ease with which it is sometimes granted, we should send their children to such schools. Church attendance recognize that it is far better to terminate an unhappy marriage has declined, and the new secularism has affected Catholic than to endure it and make everyone else suffer. Instead of con- colleges, many of which have either merged with others or demning divorce or sexuality or contraception, the pope might changed their names to more secular sounding ones. have pleaded for some Christian understanding, urged better Inevitably, conservatives within the Church have become fear- marriage counseling, recognized the impersonality of overlarge ful that the reforms designed to bring the Church into the families, come to terms with the problem of unwanted 1980's have only resulted in weakening it, making it vulnerable children, advocated more effective sex education, or even to destruction. Signs of this fear have been in opposition to preached against the dangers of overpopulation and starvation. ERA, to abortion, and now again to sex in general. This, however, would be asking the pope to overcome cen- Though the conservative fears about the weakening of the turies of Christian and Catholic fear of sex. Pope John Paul moral fabric of the Catholic Church are groundless, they are II's statements, however, do more than hark back to nonetheless held by large numbers of Catholics not only at the local and national levels but at the international level as well. Instead of modifying or reinterpreting Church stands to fit into Vern Bullough, former professor at the University of Califor- the modern world, the reactionaries want to reassert nia at Northridge, is now Dean of Science at the State traditional ideology, to do all-out battle with the "immoral" University of New York. He is the author of the forthcoming trends they see in the secular world. There has always been a book Sexual Practices and The Medieval Church. strong anti-reform group in the Curia, the Roman bureaucracy which governs the Church from day to day. To these conser-

14 vatives, some would call them reactionaries, Pope John was a fluke, a betrayer of Catholic ideals, whose work had to be un- Some recent statements by done. John's successor, Paul VI, undoubtedly felt that John had gone too far, but to the dismay of the conservatives Paul's Pope John Paul II on sex: problem was that he turned out to be reluctant to make the hard decisions, perhaps in fear that too strong an action would split the Church. Inevitably, what Paul VI took on the one On Communion for Remarried Catholics: hand, he either qualified or restored with the other. He allowed Pope John Paul II stated that divorced and remarried the right wing traditionalists to continue saying mass in Latin, Catholics could receive communion in the Church — even condoning their of their own clergy, ever reluc- but only if they lived in complete sexual continence, tant to slam the door on them. He condemned contraception "that is, by abstinence from acts in which only but in effect allowed local bishops and priests to play the situa- married couples can engage." tion by ear. He allowed the independence of such theologians as Hans Kiing at the University of Tübingen to question some of the basic doctrines of the Church and others to teach situational rather than absolutist ethics. In the United States he permitted the Jesuit Robert Drinan to serve in the U.S. On Birth Control: Congress and express opposition to the enactment of anti- The Pope reiterated his condemnation of birth con- abortion legislation which Drinan felt went contrary to the trol: "The transmission of life is inseparable from the pluralistic nature of the United States. Both liberals and con- conjugal union. The conjugal act itself as the en- servatives wanted a more clear delineation of policies and both cyclical Humanae Vitae tells us, must be fully human, put their faith in a new, more activist pope. The trench battles total, exclusive, and open to new life." must have left many a suppurating wound. The liberals apparently won with the election of John Paul I but their victory was cut short, if it was one, by his death. The choice then fell on a dark horse, a non-Italian, who took the name of John Paul II. On the surface he had good credentials. On Adultery with One's Own Wife: He had worked out a modus vivendi with the Communists, he "Adultery in the heart is committed not only because was a non-Italian and therefore somewhat removed from Curia a man looks in a certain way at a woman who is not politics, and he was personable. John Paul II turned out to be his wife ... but even if he were to look that way at the decisive leader that both sides were looking for, unafraid of the woman who is his wife, he would be committing making hard decisions, but he turned out to be far more con- the same adultery in his heart." servative on many issues than had been suspected. Although he New York Times, October 26, 1980) has kept his options open on the social and economic issues, seeking the support of the masses in Latin America, trying to maintain a viable Church structure under Communism, on once he had spoken out he warned the synod members not to other issues he has been a staunch conservative, if not reac- dare criticize the pope. tionary. His actions have either crippled or silenced the liberal What John Paul II has done during his brief reign is to wing of the Church. He required Drinan to withdraw from reassert the positions set forth by St. Augustine that sex in any politics and declared that Kling could "no longer be considered but the position and for any reason other than a Catholic theologian." No similar moves took place against procreation was and is un-Christian. Augustine's position was the conservatives. Issues such as these, however, do not reach his own, one that Christianity adopted from him, and which the mass of Catholics, who probably dismissed such actions as reflects a Gnostic Manichaean base rather than a Jewish or not important to them. To reach these John Paul needed more scriptural tradition. Augustine himself had been a Manichaean direct means and he used the occasion of the fifth world synod before he became a Christian and as such had striven mightily to hone his weapons. This synod had been convened with great to reach the status of an adept, one who did not engage in sex- expectations by some liberals who expected a liberal stance on ual activity, partake of food that was a product of sexual un- the use of contraceptives, but it ended up with the positions on ion, or take any life, human or animal. Augustine failed to the family enunciated in the "Message to Christian Families in reach this adept level primarily because his sexual demands the Modern World," some of which were cited above. In kept him from achieving the celibate state; it was only after his accepting the document from the synod the pope used the occa- conversion to Christianity that he found he had lost his sexual sion to denounce sexual intercourse among the remarried, con- urge. For the new Christian Augustine, however, the demn contraception, and give a unique interpretation of lust. Manichaean teaching of celibacy remained the highest state of Though apologists for the pope have tried to modify some of earthly existence. Marriage was to be tolerated if only because the harshness in his statements, it should be clèar that these are there were so many begets in the Bible and Jesus himself was John Paul II's basic beliefs. He went to great effort to bring the said to have sanctified marriage. Marriage, however, was a unified statement from the Council of Bishops. He made cer- lesser state, and though sex was permitted, it was to be engaged tain that no dissenting scholars were invited to the synod, and in only for the purpose of procreation, only in the orifice God

Spring, 1981 15 designated for it, and only in the proper position. This Manichaean version of sex has continued to plague Christianity throughout much of its history. Fortunately, however, it has often been ignored in practice. Clerical celibacy, for example, only became a requirement for the clergy in the thirteenth century but even then it was a matter of Church discipline, not one of doctrine. In this sense celibacy is Tea and like requiring fish on Friday or mass in Latin, something that can be set aside if need be, and in fact has been set aside. Married clergy, for example, are still allowed in the Byzantine rite groups of the Catholic Church (although no longer in the on the Way United States), and married clergy of other are sometimes accepted into the Catholic priesthood today. (Protestants in general managed to ignore the Augustinian tradition on sex by insisting upon the more literal Biblical tradition). Within Catholicism, sex for pleasure is not prohibited as a matter of doctrine but of discipline, and it is this discipline which Pope John Paul II has chosen to emphasize. By asserting Church control over all sexual activi- Thomas Szasz ty, the pope is able to impose his authority over all com- municants in probably the most direct and pervasive way possi- Poking fun at the frauds and follies of religion made Voltaire ble. In short, John Paul II's sex statement is an attempt to both famous and infamous. Although it was then risky to do reassert papal authority so that all Catholics know where so, it was intellectually respectable — and it made a difference. authority comes from. Today, the situation seems to be just the reverse. Although Asserting something and enforcing it are two different poking fun at religious frauds and follies is no longer especially matters; how effective the Church will be in enforcing the John risky, it is also no longer intellectually respectable — and, Paul restatement is debatable. Some will turn to medically what's more important, it makes no difference. Still, let us im- authorized sterilization, whether vasectomy, tubal ligation, or agine what a Voltaire might now be saying about the Moslem hysterectomy, in order to conform with a minimum of confron- pilgrim who killed himself and three hundred other people by tation. Others will hunt around for clergy willing to tolerate brewing his own tea on a jetliner. Or about similar, though some of the sexual foibles of their communicants, since the perhaps less quickly lethal, American and Euopean religious Church is by no means united on the Pope's interpretation in customs. spite of what John Paul may believe. Others will rationalize He might remark, to begin with, that the essence of religion their use of contraceptives or remarriage as a lesser evil than is not so much reverence for a man-made idol, called God, but adultery, prostitution, or other alternatives, and maintain their the observance of sanctified by tradition and common membership in good standing by paying attention only to those usage. The is, after all, only a "projection" (he might say, parts of Church doctrine that they want to. I think this number borrowing from Freudian jargon). What really counts are the will increase. Ultimately, the papal ban on contraception, on observances that people perform — ostensibly to honor the denial of communion to the divorced and remarried, and the idol, but actually to impart significance to their own dreary John Paul's own quaint ideas on lust will be abandoned. There lives and to make themselves virtuous without having to be nice are already strong precedents for ways of handling these con- to anyone. troversies, and a good example is the Church stand on usury. What a Moslem pilgrim did on a Lockheed Tristar on Usury was once condemned by the Church, and usury was in- August 20, 1980, thus qualifies as a genuinely religious piece of terpreted to mean money earned by money. Eventually, after behavior. He was brewing tea for himself on a portable gas considerable agitation and widespread neglect of the ban, stove. Unfortunately, the Koran and the Islamic tradition did Church officials arrived at the concept of a just interest which not anticipate travel by jet plane. As a result, the "good man" therefore was not usurious; usury remained banned but interest incinerated himself and all of his fellow passengers and crew, was allowable. Similarly, it can be argued that effective plan- 301 persons all told. ning of families is desirable, but prevention of children is not. According to newspaper accounts of this story, pilgrims to Effective planning, however, is not prevention of children. the shrine at Mecca often carry gas stoves to make tea in flight Interestingly, the same pope who has condemned sex and con- "and on several occasions have touched off fires on airplanes." traception has worked to rehabilitate Galileo. Hopefully, it will Presumably the Israelis are working on ground-guidance for not take so long to change the Church's ideas on sex. If I were a betting man, I would lay money that within a few decades Thomas Szasz is professor of psychiatry at the Upstate there will be such a change. The pope's attempt to reassert his Medical Center, Syracuse University, and author of control distresses me, but indicates that the decision is a Psychiatric Slavery, The Myth of Mental Illness, and long way from being final. There are just too many Catholics numerous other books. who will not accept it.

16 Sympathy to Mecca

Drawing by Charles Reed "ALLAH IS GREAT"

passenger aircraft, to enable them to offer Moslems free flights Regrets from airline officials. Mini-compensation from the to Mecca — without tea service, of course. King. What none of the Saudis is talking about is responsibili- Given the cramped space on airliners, it seems unlikely that ty. But the fact is that the Saudi Arabian airline assumes a passenger could pull a portable gas stove out of his luggage responsibility toward the Koran by prohibiting serving and light it without his actions being observed. Do some fellow alcoholic beverages aboard its planes and by enforcing that passengers, or most of them, consider this to be normal rule (even though breaking it would not pose any risk of bodily behavior? How many people on Saudi airliners brew their own injury or death to anyone). Why, then, does the Saudi airline tea? No doubt Saudi officials discourage passengers from — that is, its owners and managers (does that include the royal carrying portable gas stoves onto airplanes. But what, if family itself?) — not assume an equally strict responsibility anything, do they do about devout pilgrims intent on toward its passengers and crew? Why does it not owe them a medicating themselves with tea en route to Mecca? duty to protect them from being set ablaze by pilgrims ritually No sooner was this "tragedy" reported in the press (curious- lighting gas stoves aboard Saudi aircraft? ly, we don't refer to the consequences of the Christian pilgrims' But enough! It is not quite fair to poke fun only at other piety in the Holy Land during the Crusades as a "tragedy," nor people's religious frauds and follies. We have plenty of our own do we so refer to the consequences of the Jewish pilgrims' piety to spoof. In fact, we have our own ceremonial-chemical today in that Godforsaken land), than King Khaled of Saudi customs whose victims far outnumber those killed by tea- Arabia announced that he was personally giving $15,000 to the brewing Moslem pilgrims. A mere hint about what Voltaire families of each of the victims to express his "deep con- might say about this subject must suffice here. dolences." Tea and sympathy. Surely Voltaire would have call- The Saudis don't approve of extramarital sex and punish it ed that an insult. Were the responsibility for such a disaster severely. We don't approve of extramedical drug-use and litigated in an American court, the verdict would likely be ten punish it almost as severely. or even a hundred times that amount (at least for some of the Although the caused by our "tea-brewing" passengers). But can one sue the Saudi Arabian airlines? Or ceremonies do not follow as directly — there are a few in- does that constitute prima facie evidence of impudence toward termediate steps — from the acts of those ultimately responsi- a despot who rules in the name of God? ble for them as do the deaths caused by the literally tea- "Regrettably," an official of the Saudi airline is quoted as brewing pilgrim airline passengers, the consequences of our saying, "some pilgrims traditionally carry with them — secret- pharmacomythological rituals are no less dangerous and dead- ly — such flammable equipment." But doing so on a jet plane ly and endanger many more innocent people. How many per- is not merely regrettable, it is criminal. Surely Voltaire would sons have been robbed, maimed, and murdered in New York say — and who among us would be so foolish to disagree? — City as a result of laws rammed through the legislature in that carrying a portable gas stove onto an airliner and lighting Albany by another oil-spoiled potentate? Perhaps satire could it is an offense rather more grave than serving cocktails aboard succeed where exposition has failed: people could be shown it. But then we must remember that when in Rome we must do that the consequences of our ritualized customs, which as the Romans do. En route to Mecca, you may brew your own enshrine our beliefs that licit drugs are good but illicit drugs are tea. If you incinerate your fellow passengers and the crew, the bad, are no less real, and not a whit less deadly, than are the Saudi airline directorate will express its regret for the incident consequences of the Moslem belief that drinking alcohol is a and the King will pay $15,000 for each corpse. (How many grave sin but that the results of brewing one's own tea on a seconds does it take for the King to "earn" $15,000?) jetliner are only "regrettable." •

Spring, 1981 17 The Blasphemy Laws

Gordon Stein

We all know that the First Amendment to the Constitution of blasphemes against God, either of the persons of the Holy the United States provides for freedom of religion. Suppose, Trinity, the Christian religion or the Holy Scriptures shall be however, that there were laws still on the statute books in a fined not more than one hundred dollars and imprisoned not number of states which specifically allowed a person to be more than one year and may also be bound to his good prosecuted for expressing his opinion about religious beliefs, behavior " (Conn. Gen'! Statutes, Sec. 53-242). The original especially when that opinion was critical of the dates back to 1642! beliefs of others? Suppose also that those laws had actually This statute does not explain or define the conditions for been enforced and people convicted and imprisoned for being considered blasphemous. However, there are laws of violating them. Most knowledgeable Americans would un- this sort which do make such an attempt. Let's look at the doubtedly respond that since such laws would be un- Oklahoma statute: "Blasphemy consists in wantonly uttering constitutional on their face, they could not exist for long, and or publishing words, casting contumelious reproach or that the scenario just mentioned must therefore be fiction. profane ridicule upon God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the We would all like to believe that this situation does not ex- Holy Scriptures or the Christian or any other religion" ist and that there are no such laws. But these statutes, called (Oklahoma Revised Statutes, Sec. 21-901). These statutes go blasphemy laws, were on the books of fourteen states as of on to say that if the words complained of were being used in a 1965: Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, serious discussion, then they are not blasphemous. This con- Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, cern for intent and the protection offered to religions besides Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Christianity are unusual features of the Oklahoma law. Vermont. As of 1980, several states had repealed their To give a full range of the types of laws that exist, let's ex- blasphemy laws, but in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, amine the Vermont law: "A person who publicly denies the Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Rhode Island, they re- being and existence of God, or of the Supreme Being, or con- main. tumeliously reproaches His providence and government shall There have been a number of prosecutions and convictions be fined not more than $200" (Formerly Sec. 13-801 of the under these laws in the twentieth century. In fact, the last case state statutes, this law was repealed in 1979). to receive any press coverage (Maryland v. Irving K. West), It will be noted that some of these state laws specify (in a occurred in 1970, and its appeal to that state's highest court general way) what matter shall be considered grounds for was responsible for the Maryland law being declared un- blasphemy charges, while others do not. Some include only constitutional. Since the Maryland ruling was not appealed to criticism or denial of God as blasphemy, while others include the federal court system, the United States Supreme Court comments about the Holy Ghost, Jesus or the Bible as has yet to rule upon a blasphemy case. prosecutable. In addition to the lack of a High Court ruling, there is There have been many blasphemy prosecutions in England, another problem with blasphemy cases: they are mis- but the law there is somewhat different in that the only actual demeanors, and so are rarely reported in the legal literature. statute concerning blasphemy, passed in the 1600s, was There may be many more cases than the 250 or so which are repealed in 1967. No prosecutions had ever been brought un- traceable in the United States, England, Canada and der this law, however. All of the more than 150 prosecutions Australia since 1650. There have also been a number of in- in Britain have been brought under the common law. It is im- cidences in France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland (and portant to understand this distinction, as it relates to perhaps elsewhere) which have not been tabulated. American cases. United States common law is based upon In addition to doubtful constitutionality, the blasphemy British common law. laws are also often written in an inexact, confusing and oc- Common law results from the opinion given by a judge at casionally contradictory way. Perhaps we ought to look at the the end of a trial. Some of these precedents go back several actual text of some of these laws to see what is being for- hundred years and continue to affect subsequent decisions in bidden. The Connecticut statute, for example (under which this area of law. When America consisted of British colonies, there have been convictions) reads "Any person who British statute and common law applied there. When the United States was formed as an independent country, and the Gordon Stein, the associate editor of Free Inquiry, is also the Constitution was ratified, the British common law applied at editor of the American Rationalist. first, while the statute law was up to the individual state legislatures to pass. In those states that eventually passed a

18 ti criminal code, there could not be a criminal prosecution for ing ignores the fact that most of the "innocent" would not be blasphemy unless it was covered under an actual statute. In likely to read the publications of "," or attend their other words, in states having a criminal code (all fifty states lectures. as of 1980), only those acts specifically covered by the code A fourth reason which has been given for retaining the were criminal. If blasphemy wasn't mentioned, it could not be blasphemy laws is that they are necessary to maintain the charged against someone as a criminal offense under the com- sanctity of judicial oaths. I must admit that I fail to see the mon law. It seems, then, that blasphemy charges under the connection between blasphemy laws and the ability to have common law are no longer permitted in the United States. effective oaths for testifying in court. The perjury laws would They are still permitted in England, and, in fact, the latest seem effective punishment for a violation of an oath, at any case (the so-called Gay News case of 1977) was tried under rate. the common law. This case will be discussed later. A final reason which has been used to justify blasphemy Several states have revised their criminal codes recently. laws is that they are for the protection of the blasphemer That was when a number of them dropped the blasphemy law himself. After all, a mob of pious Christians might be incited from the state code. Massachusetts revised its code in 1977- to riot or harm the speaker who was criticizing their beliefs. 78. In December 1977, their State Senate voted to reverse its This is perhaps true, but then the mob ought to be charged position of several months earlier and retain the state's with rioting, disorderly conduct, or assault and battery. How blasphemy law. The reversal was accomplished by means of the blasphemer is "protected" by the existence of a heavy lobbying by Rita Warren, a housewife who heads the blasphemy law is far from clear. There are no actual cases on American Christian Civil Liberty Union, a group dedicated to record where a person was charged with blasphemy to rescue returning compulsory prayer to the public schools. him from an angry mob bent upon attacking him. In general, the opposition that exists to having laws against The most important recent blasphemy trial in the United blasphemy is largely due to the fact that these laws punish States involved Irving K. West, a Maryland truck driver. In people for having a different opinion about aspects of religion 1968 he was arrested for disorderly conduct at a carnival near from that of the orthodox population. More precisely, those Westminster, Maryland. While he was being arrested, he said laws punish people for expressing their minority opinion. to the state trooper, "Get your God damn hands off of me." What reasons have been given for having such laws? For this, the charge of blasphemy was added to that of dis- The first and perhaps the least impressive reason was to orderly conduct. protect God from being offended by blasphemous statements. West was tried and convicted of both charges before a For example, English blasphemy indictments usually conclud- county magistrate. He received a 30-day sentence on the ed with the phrase "... to the great displeasure of Almighty blasphemy charge (Maryland law allowed a fine of up to $100 God." It is never mentioned how it was ascertained that God and a jail term of up to six months, or both). He had already was displeased. Besides, if God were displeased, he could begun serving his term when the American Civil Liberties probably handle the matter himself. Union entered the case and appealed his sentence. The Another reason which has been given for blasphemy laws, blasphemy law was found unconstitutional by the circuit this one pertaining especially to England, with its established court. On further appeal, by the state, it was declared un- Church of England, has been that Christianity is a part of the constitutional in 1970 by the Court of Special Appeals, law of the land. That meant, I suppose, that it was somehow Maryland's highest court. The decision, reported in 263 protected from public criticism. This piece of legal poppycock Atlantic Reporter 2nd 602, was based upon the fact that the was first promulgated by Justice Hale in 1676. Although he First Amendment requires that the state and federal relied upon a mistranslation of a ruling by the French judge governments assume a neutral position with regard to an in- Prisot, made in 1453, Hale's ruling was followed for several dividual and his religion. The blasphemy law violated the hundred years without challenge. The absurdity of this posi- First Amendment prohibition of laws respecting an establish- tion is that, if it were true, then any attempt to criticize the in- ment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. come tax, divorce, marriage, or the Electoral College, to give It is interesting to note that the magistrate who first found some Anglo-American examples, would be illegal because West guilty reported receiving hundreds of letters from all these have all been lawfully instituted. In fact, if Christianity over the country praising his enforcement of the blasphemy were really the law of the land in England, then it should be a law and cheering his advocacy of that law to the state police. crime not to observe Christianity. We would then expect there The magistrate reported receiving only one letter in opposi- to be fines for not going to church on Sunday and for not be- tion. This may reflect more upon the ignorance of the pop- ing baptized or confirmed. The fact that there are no such ulace concerning the Constitution than anything else, but it is punishable offenses shows that Christianity is not really a part frightening nevertheless. It could happen again. of the law. The latest blasphemy trial in Britain has been called the A third reason which has been used as a justification for Gay News case. It occurred in 1976-78, and received blasphemy laws is that such laws were necessary to protect widespread publicity in the United Kingdom, but very little in the young and/or the ignorant from hearing public criticism the United States. That is unfortunate, because the case can of their religion. As these innocents could not yet use their serve as a warning to Americans about the danger of having reason to see through the criticism, they might be led astray, archaic blasphemy laws still on the books. to the eternal damnation of their . Of course, this reason- (continued on Page 35)

Spring, 1981 19 The Meaning of Life and Belief in God Marvin Kohl The general public considers the great patron and women to believe in God; that without a belief in God, es- of twentieth-century and nonreligious humanism. pecially the belief in a loving Providence, life would have no, or It therefore came as no small surprise when his only daughter very little, meaning. described her , claiming that it added to all A humane humanism cannot casually dismiss this argument. he had taught her. Thus Lady Katharine writes: It cannot say, as some appear to do, that this "attitude has all the earmarks of pathology," that it is "infantile and im- For me, the belief in forgiveness and grace was like sunshine after long days of rain. No matter what I did, no matter how mature," that "it exacerbates all illusion in order to soothe the low I fell, God would be there to forgive, to pick me up and aching heart," or that it "expresses a basic lack of courage to set me on my feet again. Though I could not earn his love, persist in the face of adversity." For to do so, without a serious neither could I lose it. It was absolute, not conditional. My appreciation of the utility of religious belief, is to be indifferent earthly father loved me only when I was good (or so I to the problems that actually torment millions of human believed). I was not good; therefore he did not love me. But God did and does and always will... . beings. To do so is to neglect the present welfare of existing I realized that there were weaknesses in the Christian human beings and clandestinely substitute a new species of argument, I acknowledged that it was difficult to reconcile alleged ideal humans who do not have the same troublesome omnipotence with suffering and with ; but they were psychic needs that most existing humans have. equally difficult to reconcile with Science. Perhaps Whatever may be the source of this oversight, it is not con- Christianity was not a logically elegant and watertight demonstration of irrefutable reality, but what choice did I sistent with the humanism I cherish. For me humanism is a have? It saved my sanity, if not my life. system of thought and action that makes human welfare the All that my father said about the absurdity of Christianity measure and end of all moral and political endeavors. Welfare and the wickedness of the church remained true. I could not is the measure and end; knowledge and love (or its like) are the deny it. But it was only a part of the whole. He seized on the major means. It is notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to follies, which are many, and labeled them official religion, while claiming that Christians have never taken seriously the define welfare successfully. But we can, in a rough and good parts of Christ's teaching. But he never dealt with it preliminary way, say that by welfare is meant the minimal seriously either. When he wanted to attack religion, he satisfaction and protection of the means of satisfying basic in- sought out its most egregious errors and held them up to dividual needs and correlate interests as well as perhaps the ridicule, while avoiding serious discussion of the basic other fundamental interests a society would want to protect if message I found so liberating... . As I went deeper and deeper into religion ... I found it it were inspired by love and were fully rational. By love is ever more satisfying. I wished I could convince my father meant the kind of relationship between persons or things where that it added to all I had learned from him and took very lit- the object of this emotion is generally a delight to contemplate tle away. I did not find it a denial of life, a brier patch of and where, if the object is a living being, there is a strong dis- restrictions, but a joyful affirmation.[Katharine Tait, My position to protect or promote the welfare of that individual. Father, Bertrand Russell (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975), pp. 188-189.] Although love may be best, kindness is often more than suf- ficient. By knowledge is meant two things. It first refers to any I do not wish to exaggerate the importance of Lady person's correct belief that such and such is true (or false) plus Katharine's rejection of Russell's . Nor do I wish his having adequate evidence that what he believes is what he in any way to suggest that her statement provides the cognitive claims it to be. The humanist often uses the term knowledge grounds for a defense of traditional forms of theism. Yet there also as an elliptical way of referring to and applauding is an important argument here; and it is one neglected by reverence for knowledge and intellectual integrity. This in- humanists, who often seem mesmerized by the problem of cludes the willingness to do battle, when and where necessary, what can and cannot be known about the nature of God. It is to protect free inquiry as well as the willingness to defend the an implicit argument, not about the truth of religious belief but belief that intellectual integrity demands that we should doubt about its utility. The argument in brief is that, because of cer- what is doubtful almost as imperatively as it does that we tain basic human needs, there is a need for most ordinary men should disbelieve what is false. Now it is chiefly because of these overriding beliefs that the Marvin Kohl is professor of philosophy at the State Universi- humanist, after inquiry, concludes that belief in beneficent ty of New York at Fredonia. He is the editor of Beneficent Providence is untrue. It is untrue because there is no evidence Euthanasia and Infanticide and the Value of Life, among to warrant the claim that there is a benevolent force behind other books. nature. Not only does the secular humanist deny that we have (continued on Page 35)

20 YtWq16.1KDEOVAl Does God Exist?: Reflections on Disbelief

Kai Nielsen Introduction Religious people in our culture say things like this: "All cipally on questions concerning how we might establish the mighty God we have sinned against you," "The Lord will com- truth or probable truth of the claims of Judaism or Christianity fort us," "We will be happy with God in heaven," "To God our and whether we could reasonably accept them as articles of lives lie open," "God is our All Mighty and Eternal Father faith. I shall turn in Part III to the vexed question of whether whose realm extends beyond the bounds of space and time," such religious beliefs could even count as genuine truth-claims. "God will protect us, enlighten us and liberate us from fear and When we examine closely the truth of religion, our concern crippling anxiety," and "God's Kingdom is coming to bring on should gradually turn to questions about the meaning or in- a new world." telligibility of the key claims of religion. In some sense, God- We hear such things repeatedly and wonder whether we have talk is plainly meaningful. Believers and non-believers alike any good reason to believe that they are true or even probably know how to use religious vocabulary non-deviantly, but, to true or whether they can be reasonably believed by properly in- put it at first crudely, we can, if we reflect, come to wonder if formed people. Moreover, some of us wonder whether such such talk makes sense. This strikes us immediately when we utterances are sufficiently intelligible to make their acceptance study primitive religions. Our familiarity with Christian or a coherent object of faith. Can we reasonably believe that such Jewish discourse may dull our perceptions here. Yet if we try claims — and indeed the central claims of Judaism and for a moment to look at our own religious talk with the eyes of Christianity as well — make statements which are either true an anthropologist coming from an alien culture, we should at or false? least begin to feel the strangeness of talk of God in which God I believe that we should answer all those questions in the is said to be "an omnipresent, all mighty Father whose realm negative. Religious belief — or at least belief in God — should extends beyond the bounds of space and time." What is this be impossible for someone living in our century, who thinks realm beyond space and time? Try to think very literally about carefully about these matters and who has a tolerable scientific this. What are we really talking about here? What does 'God' education and good philosophical training. It is not so hard to or `Heaven' denote or stand for? What are you really referring convolute oneself into religious belief if one has philosophical to when you speak of God? What are you worshipping when expertise but little knowledge of the world and it is easy enough you worship God? I shall, after I have examined attempts to to be a believer if one is a scientist and philosophically naive. prove the viability of religious belief, turn to these questions However, if we have a scientific education and philosophical and attempt to show that the very concept of God is of such a sophistication, along with a willingness to reflect on such low order of intelligibility that belief in him is unjustified. matters, these things, taken together, should undermine Belief in God is an ideological belief which distorts our un- religious belief. I want to go some of the way toward showing derstanding of reality. This is not just an innocent distortion. that this is so and why it is so. I shall principally argue on two For often, where we have such beliefs or are affected by such fronts. First, familiarly — and only in a sketchy manner — I beliefs, they distort our lives. They are not, I shall argue, shall argue in Part I against the various attempts to prove that humanly desirable saving myths. In Part IV I shall turn to God exists, that revelation is reliable, that morality requires these considerations by briefly considering what interests religious belief and that God can be known directly in religious religion answers to, and what, under certain societal con- experience. The first part of my argument will be to show that ditions, socially necessary illusions religion secures. none of these apologetic appeals work. I do not claim originali- I ty here, but I do claim that what I argue is a good approxima- tion of the truth. In Part II, the skeptical perplexities turn prin- In the Middle Ages, it was generally thought that we could quite definitely prove the existence of God. There were a few Kai Nielsen is professor of philosophy at the University of skeptics, of course, but they were intellectual outcasts, very Calgary, Canada. He is the author of Ethics Without God, much in the minority. With the unfolding of the industrial Reason and Practice, and other books. revolution and the deepening effect of the Enlightenment, this intellectual attitude shifted. Hume and Kant came along —

Spring, 1981 21 Hume an agnostic and Kant a fideistic Christian — and cease to exist,but exists necessarily. Thus God must exist if together they provided powerful philosophical arguments God is conceivable at all, for a necessary or eternal being can- designed to show that we could not prove that God exists. not cease or even just contingently exist. He must exist Culturally speaking, though the battle took centuries to un- necessarily. Thus, if we can conceive of God at all then God wind, Hume and Kant won. Or, whatever the etiology, the must exist. Against this it should be noted that while an eternal Zeitgeist shifted in their favor. It is now a philosophical and, in being could not come to exist or just cease to exist, it still could many quarters, even a cultural commonplace that we cannot eternally be the case that there are no eternal beings. Thus to prove that God exists. Reason and observation cannot show conceive of an eternal being is not to establish that there ac- the unprejudiced mind, willing to follow the argument and tually is one. What our conceptualization tells us is that if evidence wherever it will go, that there is a God. What Hume there is one he or it exists timelessly. and Kant struggled to establish, many of us take as almost a A second type of argument that has also been popular was cultural dogma, so that in one sense we have not earned our articulated by in the Thirteenth Century and right to disbelief. Moreover, this disbelief in the proofs is com- repeated in various formulations ever since. Such arguments, mon ground between skeptics and many believers. They, of often called `cosmological arguments,' might, rather preten- course, differ over religious commitment, but not over such a tiously, be referred to as arguments from the matter of fact common cultural orientation. It is indeed true that from time nature of the world. If certain empirical facts actually obtain, to time, some philosopher — sometimes even some relatively so the argument goes, then either a) God must exist or b) (and distinguished philosopher — comes to believe that, after all, more weakly) the postulation of God is the best explanation of one or another of these proofs, usually in some increasingly es- those undeniable facts. The plain facts that Aquinas had in oteric version, works, but very few people are convinced.' If he mind are that there are contingent beings or beings who owe is clever enough or has enough weight in his profession, what their existence to some other beings. He argued there could not happens is that his refurbished version of one of the proofs be an infinite series of such beings with no non-contingent be- turns out to be a source of intellectual exercise which for a time ing who brought them into and sustains their existence. For, if helps fill the pages of professional philosophical journals and there were no such non-contingent being, even now there would gives people (often people without the slightest interest in be nothing, for something cannot come from nothing. And religion) who delight in solving puzzles a chance to strut their since such a series must finally come to an end, nothing could stuff: to whet their philosophical knives and show their have gotten started in the first place or be ultimately sustained philosophical wares. But, just as the Zeitgeist cut against the or explained, if there were not at least one self-existent, skeptic in the Middle Ages, so the Zeitgeist in our time, Billy necessary being who owes its existence to no other reality. All Graham notwithstanding, favors about proofs. other are said to depend upon it. Even the appeal to isn't what it once was. However, this will not do, for it con- However, the Zeitgeist may not speak the truth and, even if fuses an infinite series with a very long finite series. Nothing God is on the side of the big battalions, truth isn't a camp will have to have gotten started or needed a first sustainer in follower, so I will turn now to a rapid fire examination of the the first place, if the series is genuinely infinite, for an infinite traditional proofs.' series, no matter of what type, can have no first member. And, The first arguments I shall consider are arguments that while there will be no ultimate explanation of why there is philosophers call arguments of the ontological type. They anything at all, there is no good reason to believe that we can, perhaps fascinate philosophers more than any of the other type let alone must, have explanations of that type. That is to say, proofs and would, if correct, be strict demonstrations of the there are no good grounds for believing that there are, let alone reality of God, making the denial of God's existence into a self- that there must be, such ultimate explanations. In that special contradiction. The person articulating such an argument sense it need not be the case that there is a reason for claims, as Anselm did in the Middle Ages and Descartes in the everything. seventeenth century, that to conceive of God clearly is to There is a distinctive form of cosmological argument usually realize that he must exist. "God is that than which no greater tagged 'the argument from design.' It was very popular in the can be conceived but then God must exist or he would not be Eighteenth Century and remained popular even in Darwin's the greatest conceivable being." time. It is probably, in non-philosophical circles, still the most But to say that God exists is not to amplify our concept of favored of the attempts to prove — in this case inductively es- God, it is not to further characterize God, but to say that there tablish — the existence of God. The argument contends that is one or that the concept of God has exemplification. Our con- the universe shows an orderliness and design that can be ade- cept of the greatest conceivable being is not altered by whether quately accounted for only by an infinite and perfect designer or not that concept is exemplified in reality. Its exemplification of the universe, and that being we call God. But the order we or lack thereof does not make the concept greater. Our con- observe, which is surely order in the universe and not of the un- cept of God — our concept of the greatest conceivable being — iverse, is such that it hardly evidences the marks of a perfect is not altered by whether there is or isn't such a being. So such designer. Rather, if a designer at all, it bears the marks of an an fails. apprentice designer or a decrepit designer whose powers and Ontological type arguments are not helped by alternatively insight were failing. More fundamentally, this familiar Hu- arguing that God by definition is an eternal being and that an mean point aside, the observed order in the world (universe) eternal being could not come to exist, just happen to exist, or does not show or even lend any probability to the claim that the

22 MTQGTts-Wsur world (universe) is ordered let alone that the world (universe) is a drink before I go to bed. But no non-psychological ex- designed. Indeed no clear sense has been given to the phrase periences carry this indubitability. I may be perfectly confident 'The universe is designed.' An observed pattern of things, no that I am seeing an exit sign at the end of the hall and still be matter how intricate, does not show that there was or is an mistaken or I may be quite confident that what I hear is the orderer or designer. surf breaking and still be mistaken. We may be justifiably con- Since the destructive attacks of Hume and Kant, it has fident that we feel anxiety, but we cannot be so confident that become rather common, particularly in certain Protestant we have experienced God. There is no religious experience circles, to claim that we do not need the proofs, even if we which guarantees that our experience is an experience of God. could have them, for we have a much surer way of knowing This can be asserted without for a moment doubting that some God, namely through direct religious experience. At least some people have religious experiences. The psychological reality of people, so the claim goes, have an immediate, direct awareness such experience is one thing, that these experiences are actually of the reality of God which is so compelling that the person experiences of God is another.' who has the experience cannot deny this reality. But such a The cluster of arguments above has a definite skeptical claim — at least construed in some tolerably literal way — thrust. If these arguments are in the main right, and we cannot be right. Perhaps Zeus (if there is a Zeus) could be so recognize them to be right but we are still trying to cling to encountered, but the God of our developed Judeo-Christian- religious beliefs, we seem at least to be thrown back on a Islamic religions cannot be so encountered or encountered at straight appeal to faith. To have religion at all, we must have all. God is a Pure Spirit, a being 'out of time,' transcendent to religion without foundations: Christianity or Judaism without the world. If we just think what those conceptions literally con- rational grounds. If it is responded that we have foundations note, there can be no encountering — meeting — such a being. rooted solely in religious authority, we should in turn ask: Why Any being which could be met with — seen, observed, in any should we accept the authority of a given scripture, faith or way sensed — would not be the God of the developed Judeo- religious tradition? Why Jesus rather than Buddha or Christian-Islamic strand. God is supposedly a mysterious in- Mohammed? We need to recognize that there are many faiths, finite being `beyond the world,' `beyond space and time.' He many religious traditions, many alleged revelations. If we look could not be observed, as Kierkegaard quipped, like a great on the matter as social anthropologists would — that is if we green parrot. But then what is it to be aware of God, to stand in are genuinely empirical about religions — we need to count the presence of God, to experience God? them in the thousands. Why then opt for any particular one? To experience God, some have said in reply, is to experience Why claim or believe that one certain religion is the Truth and (or perhaps experience to the full) one's finitude, to have the Way? And if there is no decent answer to these questions, feelings of dependency, awe, wonder, dread or to feel a oneness why go in for any religious faith at all? If there is no proof for and a love and a sense of security, no matter what happens. But the existence of God, no independent way of establishing or these are plainly human experiences, psychological ex- making credible his existence, isn't a claim that Christianity is periences, which can have purely secular readings or inter- the Truth and the Way both incredibly arrogant, ethnocentric, pretations. They can be, as they were by Feuerbach, Freud, and and arbitrary? Moreover, we must recognize that these Marx, understood as a distinctive and often a psychologically different faiths, different religions, do not, in various ways, and socially compelling kind of human reaction to certain con- symbolize the same Transcendent reality. They are sometimes ditions of human living. They can readily be fit into a purely radically different. Some do not have anything like a God at all secular or scientific world perspective. Why should we multiply and they by no means say the same thing. Furthermore, there conceptions beyond need and say these understandable human are no non-ethnocentric criteria for determining 'the higher' experiences are also experiences of God or that they are best and 'the lower' religions. And that we have a higher material explained as experiences of God or as attesting to the reality of and scientific culture does not show our superiority in other God or as showing that somehow we stand in the presence of aspects of culture. It may well be that man cannot judge of the God? We are not justified in postulating such odd entities un- authenticity of a revelation. How is man to judge God's reveal- less there is reason to think that the phenomena cannot be ed word? But when there is a host of revelations all claiming to adequately explained by reference to less recherche' realities, be genuine, a reasonable person is not justified in claiming that which are plainly realities of our familiar spatio-temporal one of these revelations is the true revelation: the genuine word framework. Plainly, such experiences can be explained in of God which is to provide us with the Truth and the Way.' natural or secular terms, so there is no warrant for postulating Finally, an anguished Christian or Jew, looking for some God to account for them. way of anchoring his claim to religious truth, might, a fa It is sometimes said, trying to make the argument turn in Pascal, claim, absurdity or not, that we need religion to make another direction, that religious experiences are self- sense of our tangled lives and to give our morality some foun- authenticating experiences and thus we can know, if we actual- dation. If God is dead, he echoes a Dostoevskian character, ly have them, that they must be experiences of God. But the nothing matters. But that is false. For God or no God, killing only experiences which can plausibly be considered self- of innocent children, allowing people to starve when it can be authenticating — that is, can be plausibly considered ex- prevented, lying simply to further one's convenience or treating periences which guarantee the reality of what is said to be ex- other human beings as means to further one's ends are plainly perienced — are experiences of psychological realities, such as vile. Whatever philosophical account we give of the wrongness the fact that I am in , am tired or that I now intend to have of these things, we know that, if anything is wrong, these things

Spring, 1981 23 are wrong and that, even in a Godless world, they would still be God. We might try to elucidate how 'God' is used in such wrong, and that God's commanding us to do them could not religious utterances as we have quoted, by introducing the term make them right or morally justified. Without God there may intra-linguistically via definite descriptions. We can say, to use be no purpose to life, but life can still be purposeful, be worth some typical examples, living, even if there is no overarching purpose to life. Even if (1) "God is the only infinite individual." there is no purpose of life or purpose to life there can be pur- (2) "God is the maker of the universe." poses in life, e.g. to cure the sick, to achieve racial equality and (3) "God is the only ultimate reality upon whom all other social justice, to achieve happiness and a fuller and more varied realities depend." life for oneself and for those to whom one relates, to achieve (4) "God is the only person transcendent to the world." love and close human bonds and solidarity. These are purposes (5) "God is the foundation of the world." we human beings can have and they can remain intact in a (6) "God is the sole self-existent reality upon whom all other Godless world.' realities depend." We should note, however, that the alleged definite descrip- II tions we introduced to make it possible to answer our question If the arguments above have been close to their mark, claims who or what is God are at least as puzzling as `God.' We to religious truth are groundless and indeed Holmesless Wat- should ask if we actually understand what they mean. What is sons. There is no reason to think we have any justified religious it for something to `transcend the world' or to be 'an ultimate truth claims at all or that we need to make a religious leap in reality' or 'a foundation of the world' or an `infinite individual' the dark to give moral endeavor a point or to make sense out of or even 'the maker of the universe'? These phrases have a our tangled lives. But troubles for the believer do not end here cluster of varied and complicated resonances and they are and indeed what may be the deepest and most characteristic believed to be key elements in Christian cosmologies, but do contemporary malaise has not yet even been mentioned. The they have a sufficiently unproblematic meaning for us to un- trouble is traceable to problems about the very meaning of derstand what we are asserting or denying when we use them? religious utterances and to our religiously dominant non- Do we have any idea of what we are talking about or even any anthropomorphic . The worry is that God- understanding of what is being referred to when we use them? talk may not come to anything sufficiently coherent to be I think it is questionable that we do. To probe and to begin capable of even making false claims.' Reflect back on the to test that claim, consider someone who says "God is the religious utterances we mentioned at the outset. A Christian maker of the universe." Suppose A asserts it (tries to assert it) believer says "All mighty God we have sinned against you" or and B denies it (tries to deny it). That is, A avows it and B "God's kingdom is coming to bring on a new world and a new refuses to make that avowal. What support could either man" or "God is our all mighty and eternal Father whose provide to establish or even to give a somewhat greater realm extends beyond the bounds of space and time." How are probability to his or her view? What experiencable states of af- we to understand what is being said here or indeed do we un- fairs count for one view and against the other such that on derstand what is being said? The words are familiar enough, balance we are justified in claiming greater probability for one but do they make sense? In the above arguments about truth in view over the other? religion we have assumed that we have at least a minimally It seems that nothing does. But if everything actual or possi- coherent set of concepts embedded in our God-talk, but that we ble happening is equally compatible with either claim, then one just do not know if the claims of religion are true. But it is this must wonder what each is asserting. How could one sentence very assumption which is now coming under fire. Certain cen- succeed in asserting something different than the other tral concepts, including the concept of God, are so sentence is used to assert? What is one claiming that the other problematical that it is questionable whether we can know or is denying? If that question cannot be answered — and it reasonably believe or even justifiably take on trust that these appears that it cannot — then the alleged assertions really fail concepts can be put to work to make religious claims which are genuinely to assert anything. Since such claims purport to either true or false. assert `grand cosmological facts,' the claims are thus un- The believer talks of God and claims to pray and confess to masked as incoherent conceptions. They don't and can't do God. Who or what is he praying and confessing to? (If you do what they purport to do. Moreover, it isn't the situation where these things, ask it as a question for yourselves.) Once we leave we just have two theories equally compatible with the available an anthromorphic and idolatrous conception of God, where evidence. What we have is one set of putative claims — the God — as a kind of cosmic Mickey Mouse — is a being among religious ones — claiming to assert something thoroughly beings, it is unclear to what or to whom we are referring when different, through and through mysterious, and of a quite we use that term. What does 'God' denote or stand for? `God,' different order. Yet there are no differences of an experiential- unlike `Hans' or `Erika' or `Mexico,' cannot be ostensively ly specifiable sort between the two accounts. Experientially the defined or taught. As we have seen, it doesn't even make sense believer cannot show what more he is asserting, can't elucidate, to speak of seeing or encountering God. We can't literally be except in equally perplexing terms, what he means to be saying aware of God or stand in the presence of God. The term 'God' that the non-believer is not, so that the suspicion is very dif- can only be introduced intra-linguistically through definite ficult to resist that there is, after all, no non-verbal difference descriptions. It is understandable that we might try to help a between them. person puzzled about what we are talking about in speaking of Some Christians of a rather empiricist bent would accept

24 r-e '

much of the general thrust, if not the details, of the above If the central thrust of these arguments is correct, then arguments.' They would agree that the above `definite descrip- Christianity is wedded to conceptions so problematical that tions' are in reality Ersatz descriptions which are as Christian faith is rendered incoherent. (But then, given its problematic as the concept whose sense or at least whose guidance and salvation functions, it will be exposed as an reference they are trying to secure. However, they would argue ideology. This seems to be the position we are in.) We do not that there is another definite description readily available to understand what 'God' is supposed to refer to and the con- Christians which is far less problematic and is one of the most stituent terms in the supposedly elucidating descriptions are basic things we can say about God. Indeed it is a something equally puzzling about their reference. And the sentences in which gives the term an empirical anchorage and enables us to which these terms are employed are such that we have no idea describe or characterize God uniquely such that we can answer whether their truth or falsity is ascertainable. We do not know the question "Who is God?" The definite description in ques- how to distinguish between assertions and their denials. tion is this: "God is the being who raised Jesus from the dead." Here we have talk which relates to the spatio-temporal Gift Subscription framework we are in and with which we are familiar. It is a description which gives us a sense of who we are talking about We need Your help ... if we are to grow. Please when we talk of or to God. Unlike the alleged definite descrip- send a gift subscription to Free Inquiry to your tions I trotted out, this one is linked with the spatio-temporal library(ies) or friend(s), (a gift card announcing framework in which we live. Moreover, the claim is falsifiable that the gift is from you will be sent). and verifiable (confirmable and disconfirmable). If in some future situation, after the dissolution of our present bodies, we find out that God did not raise Jesus from the dead, we will Please send a copy to• have disconfirmed our claim. That is to say, if we discover in that world that Jesus is alive and well and all things are subor- name dinate to him, then we will have confirming evidence that God raised Jesus from the dead. If, however, we do not discover this, we will have disconfirming evidence. address We thus have shown, this Christian defense contends, how key strands of God-talk are verifiable and we have given some city, state zip determinate sense to 'God' by showing who it is we are talking about when speaking of God. But, we are not out of the dark woods yet, for "Jesus is alive and all things are subordinate to (please use separate sheet for additional names) him" is equally compatible with "God raised Jesus from the dead" and "It is not the case that God raised Jesus from the dead." But then we have not succeeded by that device in dis- From tinguishing what counts for one assertion and against the other. But if we cannot do that, we cannot distinguish between what name one is asserting and the other denying, so that we cannot — ex- cept in a verbal way — distinguish these claims. Moreover, we have trouble with "God raised Jesus from the dead," for while address we understand but do not believe that "Peter raised Jesus from the dead," it is not clear what it means to speak of God, i.e., 'a city, state zip pure spirit,' doing such things and it is not clear what (if anything) more is asserted by "God raised Jesus from the dead" than by "Jesus rose from the dead." How can 'a pure spirit,' `a being beyond space' and 'out of time' coherently be said to do any of these things? How can a being 'out of time' and `beyond space' act 'in time' to raise up anything and do all that without a body? It looks like language and indeed sense have gone on a holiday. If nothing more is asserted by the $12.00 for 1 year $20.00 for 2 years employment of "God raised Jesus from the dead" than is asserted by "Jesus rose from the dead," then we do not have Free Inquiry I enclose anything that atheists could not consistently assert. If Box 5, Central Park Station something more is intended, then what this additional (more) is Buffalo, NY 14215 must be explained, but this has not been done and it is not evi- dent that it can be done. But in lieu of an answer here this definite description is little, if any, improvement over the Er- satz definite descriptions I have given. We are still at a loss to say who God is and we cannot point either.

Spring, 1981 25 tations. Religion has deflected them from going after what they III might have collectively struggled to achieve in this world, by Let us suppose (in order to continue the argument) that instilling in them an attitude of resignation concerning this Christianity has been so exposed. Let us now ask what interests world and replacing their worldly hopes with eschatological it answers to and what socially necessary illusions it secures. ones concerning another far better but purely `spiritual world' How does it serve to block our understanding of the foun- which was to be their reward for the patient acceptance of the dations of society and deflect unreasonably our actions as evils in this world. One was to accept one's worldly masters human agents? here and look to this 'new spiritual world' where such exploita- Christianity in particular, and religion in general, arises as a tion and degradation would finally cease. It is there and only response to human suffering, degradation, and exploitation in there that they shall overcome. societies. Faced with this, it develops eschatological hopes for a We should clearly recognize, in this heavenly swindle, the new time and a new man grounded in a radical transformation ideological function of such age-old religious apologetics. It of man and social relations such that, when we have shuffled was a brilliant inspiration, for it both leaves scope for utopian off these mortal coils, we will in Heaven at last have a society hopes and effectively pacifies the masses, deflecting them from based not on man's inhumanity to man but on love, in which a the struggle to achieve their actual liberation. As Feuerbach genuine classlessness, and in that sense equality, will have been saw, the ideals and moral qualities that should properly be obtained, where there will no longer be any master and slave, made the objects of purely human ideals are projected onto and there will be a genuine human flourishing. This, de- God. As our concept of God is enriched our concept of man is mythologized, is the utopian ideal which Theodor Adorno says impoverished. Here we have, for a people caught in such should guide our critique of ideology. But in its religious form repressive societies, a socially necessary but still an ideological- the hope for a classless and truly humane society, through an ly distorted false consciousness. Religion cons them into accep- ideological conjuring trick, has been projected into some ting a dehumanizing status quo. It sings of man's liberation peculiar never-never land called Heaven. What we have here is while helping to forge his chains. a disguised ideologically distorted expression of genuinely In asking what is to be done, we should answer that we must human emancipatory interests and enduring human hopes. break the spell of this false consciousness and make the But, given the repressive and authoritarian nature of our demystified, ideologically unravelled, and utterly secularized societies, this hope is placed off in 'a spiritual world' after positive side of Christian utopian hopes the object of our `bodily death.' Man, in such an ideology, is seen as a sinful, realistic endeavors. With the ideal of a classless un- largely selfish and aggressive creature who must be tamed into authoritarian society before us, a genuine human flourishing giving unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is for all can be obtained and the maxim of egalitarian justice for God's and who must obey duly constituted authority. The a materially enriched society can not only be inscribed on our ideology tells us we must learn not to aspire to, let alone seize, banners but conditioned in our hearts.' • what is not `ours' but instead accept our God-given place in society, do our share, and accept God's will unquestionably. Footnotes We must come to know our station and its duties; we must L Norman Malcolm's resurrection of the ontological argument is the accept our lot. It is within this framework that we have our most striking example. But , various entitlements and our just deserts. We are enjoined to and Richard Taylor have gone off on their own special tangents. accept a social order whose foundations are built on , 2. I examine these proofs in some detail in my Reason and Practice. mystery, and authority and indeed on an authority which can 3. C. B. Martin has powerfully argued these matters in his Religious rightly claim neither a rational nor a morally justified authori- Belief. I have also elaborated these notions in my Skepticism. ty. The foundations of society are actually obscured from us 4. For further arguments about an appeal to faith and revelation see my "Can Faith Validate God-talk," Theology Today (July, 1963), and our condition in this world — which need not be so fixed — "Religious Perplexity and Faith," Crane Review, vol. 8, no. 1 is made to seem fixed, as a consequence of our fallen nature. (Fall, 1965) and my "The Primacy of Philosophical Theology," Everything, or almost everything, is, as the crude image goes, Theology Today, vol. 28, no. 2 (July, 1970). "Pie in the sky by and by." 5. See here my Ethics Without God and my "Linguistic Philosophy While there have been, and continue to be, as a tiny minority and 'The Meaning of Life,' " Cross-Currents, vol. 14 (Summer, in the Christian Church, such truly admirable charismatic 1964). figures as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Daniel 6. The claims made here have been developed in my Contemporary Berrigan and Beyers Naude, generally and massively, the Critiques of Religion and my Skepticism. They are most succinctly Christian Church stands, and has for a long time stood, on the made in my "In Defense of Atheism" in Perspectives in Education, side of reaction and repression. (We should remember Luther Religion and the Arts, Howard Kiefer and Milton Munitz (eds.). James Moulder pressed something like this against me, though I and the German peasants and not forget the horrible fate of his 7. would not like to saddle him with my particular formulation. perhaps equally great contemporary Thomas Muntzer, who 8. Some of the conceptual underpinning for this last section occurs in did stand with the German peasants.) Suffering, degraded, and my "On Speaking of God," Theoria, vol. 28 (1962), Part Two, exploited human beings have been repeatedly taught to accept "Religious Perplexity and Faith," Crane Review, vol. 8, no. 1 their fate as part of God's providential order and have pro- (Fall, 1965), "God as a Human Projection," The Lockhaven jected to a `Spiritual World' and a 'New Time' what could be Review, no. 1 (1967), and "Religiosity and Powerlessness," The distinctively human hopes, aspirations, and earthly expec- Humanist, vol. 37, no. 3 (May/June, 1977).

26 FoesIncuirgr Prophets of the Procrustean Collective

Antony Flew

I After this Theseus killed a man called Procrustes, who lived in what was known as Corydallus in Attica. This person forced The first necessary task is to distinguish four totally different passing travellers to lie down on a bed, and if any were too long kinds of claim about human equality. This de Tocqueville for the bed he lopped off those parts of their bodies which appears never to have done. In that failure, if in nothing else, protruded, while racking out the legs of the ones who were too he is followed by too many of our contemporaries. Claims of short. This was why he was given the name of Procrustes [The the first of these four kinds refer to what it is supposed are, for Racked. — Diodorus Siculus,The Library of History,1V59(v) better or for worse, the facts. The remaining three put forward ideals which it is thought, regardless of what has been or now is the case, ought to be realized. 1. Back in the twenties, the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences laid it on the line: "At birth human infants, regardless "The greatest single force changing and expanding the role of of heredity, are as equal as Fords."' In the eighties,professing the federal government in the USA is the push for equality." In social scientists are less ready to proclaim an extreme en- saying this the Editors of Business Week recognized how right vironmentalism. Yet a good deal of published work tacitly Alexis de Tocqueville was when, toward the end of Democracy assumes all its subjects to be the products of some single big- in America, he warned: "The foremost, or indeed the sole, con- batch cloning; while many who would hesitate outright to deny dition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme genetically determined inequalities between individuals insist power in a democratic community is to love equality, or to get nevertheless that there must be no significant differences men to believe that you love it. Thus the science of despotism, between the gene pools of any of the racial or social groups which was once so complex, has been simplified and reduced, they are prepared to distinguish.' In 1965, for instance, the as it were, to a single principle." U.S. Department of Labor ruled, by their own sheer authority: Paul Kurtz asked me to write, with particular reference to "Intelligence potential is distributed among Negro infants in "the state of freedom in Great Britain," about the way in the same proportion and pattern as among Icelanders or which so many intellectuals have "become enamoured of Chinese, or any other groups... There is absolutely no ques- egalitarianism, and have often abandoned the idea of tion of any genetic differential." freedom." I can think of few topics of more concern to Such surely implausible assumptions are no doubt, in part, everyone committed to a democratic and secular humanism, expressions of a professional imperialism. (Everything which is while the particular reference proposed is the one from which environmentally determined, they tell themselves, belongs to today the clearest lessons can be drawn. But here and now I us; whereas genetics is the province of unsocialized savages.) shall concentrate on general ideas, leaving to some later occa- But assumptions bf this kind are also thought, if not to be, at sion the task of describing and explaining to a North American any rate to be presupposed by one or other of the three ideals of public the unfortunate historical, institutional and con- equality soon to be distinguished. The great men of old knew stitutional facts combining to make the prognosis for my own better. Listen to Abraham Lincoln on the Declaration of country almost unbearably gloomy. Independence: "The authors of that notable instrument... did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say that all men were equal in colour, size, intellect, Antony Flew is professor of philosophy at the University of moral development, or social capacity. They defined with Reading. A prolific writer, he is the author of the forthcoming tolerable distinctness in what respects they did consider all men book The Politics of Procrustes. created equal — `certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' "

Spring, 1981 27 2. Lincoln might have added that the equality which the other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.") Signers were affirming is of a categorically different kind from Equality of option right also provides a basis for, even if it does that which he correctly insists they were not maintaining. not absolutely require, one-person-one-vote democracy. But at Rights are, in Stanley Benn's happy phrase, normative the same time, most certainly, it forbids total popular resources. So to assert that all men are endowed with certain sovereignty; the doctrine that anything and everything goes, rights is to assert not that they are equal in fact but that in provided only that it is supported by a majority. For that could these respects they ought to be treated equally. It is also part of and surely would constantly conflict with the rights to equal the logic of rights that these normative resources have to be liberties of members of minorities. grounded in some non-normative fact about what the persons The ideal proclaimed in 1776 just is, therefore, an ideal of so endowed either have done or are.' equal liberty. So if anyone is enamoured of this first sort of This too was altogether clear in the mind of the man who, egalitarianism, then they have not "abandoned the idea of thanks to his "peculiar felicity of expression," was deputed to freedom." The threat comes from quite different ideals of draft that Declaration. Readers of his Notes on the State of equality, though some adherents of these may mistakenly Virginia, will remember how, assuming that talent is, as it is, believe that their own ideals are either the same as, or logical both scarce and unevenly distributed, Thomas Jefferson extensions of, those of the Founding Fathers. sketched a highly meritocratic program for secondary and ter- 3. The second of the three kinds of ideal to be distinguished tiary education. In the same place he also permitted himself to here has traditionally been labeled equality of opportunity. advance, "as a suspicion only," the proposition that "the Wherever this label is construed thus, as referring to what the blacks are... inferior to the whites in the endowments both of Revolution of 1789 called "La carriere ouverte aux talents," it body and mind" (pp. 146 and 143).' This dangerous thought did would be much better to speak not of equality of opportunity not weaken — nor should it have weakened — his consistent but of fair and open competition for scarce opportunities. For insistence that "the faculty that gives man his unique dignity, in that revolution the original drive was simply to open all that grounds his rights, that makes him self-governing" is com- public appointments to competition from members of formerly mon to all mankind; black and white together. handicapped or excluded groups. The Declaration of the Nor did Jefferson ever lapse, with Kant, into an incoherent Rights of Man and of the Citizen says: "The law is an expres- description of rational beings as "ends in themselves."5 Both, sion of the will of the community ... it should be the same to however, were fully seized of the crucial importance of the all ... and all being equal in its sight are equally eligible to all facts: that we are all able to, and cannot but, form aims for honours, places and employments, according to their different ourselves; and that in giving to ourselves or to others our abilities, without any other distinction than that created by reasons for acting thus but not thus we are, however unsatisfac- their virtues and talents." tory those reasons, rational beings. Of course, from these Equality of opportunity, in this traditional understanding, neutral and necessary facts of our common human nature begins to clash with rights to equal liberties as soon as the law nothing can be immediately deduced about how such creatures imposes on private providers of opportunity what legislators ideally ought to treat one another. Nevertheless — to borrow a call fair employment practices: the USA has in the last ten more fortunate conceptual creation from Kant — "as years provided plenty of ludicrous yet at the same time burden- legislating members of the Kingdom of Ends" we ourselves can some and vexatious examples of such imposition.' The clash lay it down that, in so far as they are doing no harm to others, becomes more extensive, and more fundamental, to the extent all such rational agents are to be respected in their pursuit of that enthusiasts for equality of opportunity try effectively to their own chosen ends; or, in favorite words of a much more re- equalize the pre-competitive environments and even the cent generation, their doings of their own things. Indeed if I do original heredities of potential competitors. In his monster claim, on some ground, to have a right; then, by that same volume, A Theory of Justice, responds by mumbl- claim, I necessarily concede to everyone else satisfying the ing — like a Press Secretary diverting an awkward one: "Is the same condition a corresponding right. family to be abolished then? Taken by itself and given a certain The three fundamental and universal rights of that Declara- primacy, the ideal of equal opportunity inclines in this direc- tion are all option rather than welfare rights. The notion of es- tion. But within the context of the theory of justice as a whole sential equality enters through that of reciprocity. My right to there is much less urgency to take this course" (p. 511). On our be left alone generates both your duty to respect that right and side of the Atlantic spokespersons are bolder and more brutal: my duty to respect your parallel right. Nor is the right to the "It is," according to one socialist educationist, "the business of pursuit of happiness a right to be provided — By whom and at education in our social democracy to eliminate the influence of whose expense? — with either happiness itself, or the means of parents on the life-chances of the young.' its achievement. (Here the contrast is with contemporary The conclusion that equality of opportunity demands a un- manifestos containing long lists of rights to various welfare iversal uniformity of early environment may sometimes arise goodies. These are to be provided, presumably, always by from a crude misreading — a phrase traditionally construed as somebody else and at the expense of others. The U.N. Declara- referring to the career open to the talents is mistaken to mean tion, for instance, includes rights to "periodic holidays with literally equal opportunities; which, presumably, is just what pay ... a standard of living adequate for the health and well- such a state-imposed uniformity would provide. A somewhat being of himself and his family... and... security in the more subtle sophism argues that whatever constitutes an actual of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or competitive advantage must by the same token be unfair, that

28 VoKg In nsiiv whatever makes the actual chances of the various contestants policies," and his corresponding revulsion from "inequalities winning different one from another cannot but be a scandalous of earnings." These, he declares, are tolerable, if at all, only inequality in the conditions of the competition itself. A con- when "required to keep the economy moving." tributor to one of the torrent of volumes of essays on equality Since no conceivable measure of work done can rate argues angrily, for example, about an imaginary track event: everyone's actual or possible inputs or outputs equal, it is "Three of the competitors are forty years old, five are manifest that egalitarianism of the present third kind is flatly overweight, one has weak ankles, and the tenth is Roger Ban- incompatible with the last of what Donnison misdescribes as nister. What sense does it make to say that all ten have an three "egalitarian aspirations." That it is irreconcilable with equal opportunity to win the race? The outcome is predeter- the first I shall suggest in Part II at greater length. It remains mined by nature, and nine of the competitors will call it a in Part I: first, to show its incompatibility with our second mockery when they are told that all have the same opportunity ideal — equality of opportunity; and, second, to distinguish it to win."" from state-supported welfare-floor policies — policies designed Maybe they will. But, if the inference from unequal to guarantee for everyone the fulfillment of the second of Don- probabilities of actually winning to scandalous inequality in the nison's miscalled "egalitarian aspirations." treatment of the contestants is admitted, then there is no room Both these points ought to be similarly obvious. Yet in many for the realization of any ideal of fair and open competition for places they are not. So, first, the reason why equality of out- scarce opportunities — however limited or however extended come must in the end preclude fair and open competition for its application. For, by the hypothesis, any such competition scarce opportunities is that any opportunities which cannot be must result: either in a dead heat, leaving the allocation of made available to all must be, by the hypothesis, either forcibly scarce opportunities to be made in some other way; or else, taken from everyone or artificially offset by compensating dis- while there will be both winners and losers, the winners will advantages. Until and unless this is done there remains or have won only what has in effect become not a competition but emerges that most infamous of evils, inequality. Second, there a game of pure chance. is a world of difference both theoretical and practical: between, 4. The third and today most intellectually fashionable ideal on the one hand, trying to secure some minimum; and, on the of equality is not merely different from but ultimately incom- other hand, labouring to enforce equality. It is of the essence of patible with both of the first two. The objective here is equality egalitarianism to demand maxima as well as minima — to in- not of opportunity but of outcome — equal condition rather sist that ceilings and floors be screwed down as close as may be than equal liberty. Commonly it is said to be a matter of each to the other. But a minimum you can support while allow- (social) justice that everyone should be assigned, if not a ing that above it the sky's the limit. perfectly, at least a more nearly equal share of all goods of Many prominent egalitarians, at least some of the time, every kind. Most aficionados of this third ideal are hot to dis- appear unable to grasp this simple yet crucial distinction. Such claim commitment to precise equality of incomes or absolute spasmodic bouts of intellectual scotoma are here, I think, to be equality of condition. Yet surely, all such disclaimers understood as largely diplomatic afflictions. For even our most notwithstanding, must it be the perfection of equality which is notoriously right-wing figures support, and always have sup- here cherished as an ideal and a value. For that is what the ported, policies for the public provision of a welfare-floor or trade-offs with other values are trade-offs against. safety-net: both images were, indeed, part of the stock-in-trade Take this, for example, from C. A. R. Crosland, a man of Sir Winston Churchill's domestic speeches. But Procrustean usually considered to be the very model of a modern British politicos find it convenient to blackguard opponents, while social democrat: "The standard of living of working class peo- sanctimoniously representing themselves and their party as ple, it is (rightly) said, can be improved much faster by holding a monopoly on compassion. (I treasure a letter from economic growth than by any conceivable redistribution of ex- one of these paragons containing the sentence, apparently isting income... But this is not the point. For, at least in the written with a straight face, and reproduced here exactly as advanced industrialized countries, the argument for more received: "It is arguable that bad housing, pollution, ig- equality is based not on any direct material gain to be poor but norance, etc. are good. But unless you are prepared to argue on the claims of natural and social justice. And the question is: that case you must be an egalitarian ...") do these claims conflict with the need for incentives?"9 The II same point comes out even more clearly from an article in the London Observer by the doyen of Britain's Procrustean in- We now, at rather long last, consider how far the third kind telligentsia. D. V. Donnison begins by listing "Britain's longer- of ideal distinguished in Part I can be reconciled with the first; term aims" as three: first, liberty, "the right to run one's own how far, that is to say, the most intellectually fashionable life in one's own way without interference"; second "a secure egalitarianism is compatible with liberty — "the right to run home to live in, medical care when we need it, and a reasonable one's own life in one's own way without interference." The first income when we cannot work"; and, third, progress, including thing to notice is that for few of its often rather conspicuously "the expectation that work will bring its reward." These un- under-deprived adherents is this a self-imposed individual doubtedly common aspirations are then, without explanation ideal; which, by the force of argument and by sometimes and falsely, described as "egalitarian." The conclusion drawn sacrificial example, others are to be persuaded voluntarily to — this too being in all probability equally false — is that the accept for themselves. Instead it is almost always a proposed general public must share the author's devotion to "equalizing or actual aim of public policy, to be enforced by the full power

Spring, 1981 29 of an ever-growing state apparatus. Indeed — though this ownership and central distribution are there from the begin- neither is nor is offered as a refutation — Procrustean ning, in his very definition of `social justice.' This is, he says, egalitarianism typically constitutes the uniting and justifying concerned with "the way in which the major socia! institutions ideology of members of the new class making or hoping to distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the make above average incomes, and to hold positions of very division of advantages from social cooperation..." As he much above average power, in machinery for its enforcement. begins, so he continues: "... the chief primary goods at the dis- Were we confronted by an ideal of the former sort — as position of society are rights and liberties, powers and oppor- found among those volunteering to remain in or enter an tunities, income and wealth ... All social values ... are to be Israeli Kibbutz — there would be no question of any threat to distributed equally unless an unequal distribution ... is to liberty, and the epithet `Procrustean' would be inappropriate. everyone's advantage" (pp. 7 and 62: italics supplied). But as things are — and especially when equality of outcome, All this threatens liberty in three ways. First, the intention even if only a somewhat qualified equality, is presented as an will be to offer uniform goods and services to all: since equality imperative of justice — we should never be too shy to press is everyone's due, there must be no choices between alternative upon all the "rather conspicuously underdeprived adherents" providers or alternative provision. Second, there will be no aforementioned one embarrassing but potentially instructive room for those who would go round producing things or question: 'Why have you not yourself relinquished all those providing services without permission or direction. Third, a surpluses above average which must be, on your own account, socialist concentration of all political and economic power in unjust acquisitions unjustly held?' the central collective never has been and never could be recon- This question is potentially instructive as well as em- ciled with democracy and the basic liberties of a free society. barrassing. It may make the persons questioned wonder On this most vital of all issues extremes are agreed. Mill,in the whether, construed as an egalitarianism of this third kind, essay On Liberty,wrote: "If the roads, the railways, the banks, social justice is any more genuinely justice than People's the insurance offices, the great joint stock companies, the un- Democracy is democracy. To the Procrusteans it is extremely iversities, and the public charities were all of them branches of tempting — nor, again, is it on that account alone wrong — to government ... not all the freedom of the press would make present their ideal as a sort of justice. For this form of presen- this country free except in name." In 1971, with its eyes most tation legitimates their activities both in their own eyes and in immediately upon Chile and France, Moscow's Institute of the eyes of other people. It answers awkward questions about Marxism-Leninism outlined tactics for achieving irreversible the right of the Procrusteans to impose their ideals by force. Communist domination: "Having once acquired political They can therefore see themselves as good guys in a classical power the working class implements the liquidation of the Western, slinging their guns and swinging their fists to ensure private ownership of the means of production ... As a result, that justice is done all round. They would, however, be ill ad- under , there remains no ground for the existence of vised to pursue such reveries very far. For in these traditional any opposition parties counter-balancing the Communist Par- contexts justice is universally agreed to be a matter not of ty." Perhaps I shall find some later occasion to explain, with equality but of everyone getting and keeping their several, and homely illustrations, that the party establishing its irreversible often extremely different, deserts and entitlements: suum cui- domination by these means does not have to have been que tribuere — to each his own, his due. originally, or now or ever to be actually called, a Communist Social justice, construed as some more or less qualified ver- Party. • sion of equality of outcome — or, for that matter, any other predetermined pattern of distribution — can be achieved only NOTES through a fully socialist, centralized, command economy; an (I) Quoted F.A. Hayek New Studies (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, economy socialist in the straightforward sense of all the means 1978), p. 290. of production, distribution and exchange as well as all health, (2) See my , Equality and Education (London, and New York: Macmillan, and Barnes and Noble, 1976), Chapters 4-5; and for further education and welfare services being publicly and hence material, mainly American, compare my The Politics of Procrustes (Lon- presumably state-owned and state-controlled. (The expressions don, and Buffalo: Temple Smith, and Prometheus, forthcoming), `state capitalism' and `state socialism' I read as, respectively, Chapter II 2 and 4. (3) See, for instance 'What is a Right?' in the Summer 1979 special number self-contradictory and tautological.) That socialism is a of the Georgia Law Review (XIII 4, pp. 1117-41); and compare, again, necessary although by no means a sufficient condition of social PP, Chapter II 2-3. justice, so understood, seems to me certain. I am pleased to (4) The quotation is borrowed from G. Wills Inventing America (New York: Doubleday, 1978), p. 227. Jefferson's own book has been edited by W. notice that things are equally clear to that egalitarian ultra Peden (Chapel Hill: North Carolina UP, 1955). Christopher Jencks and his Harvard colleagues. In a fine (5) See A. Schopenhauer On the Basis of Morality tr. E.F.J. Payne (In- sociological study they first confess: "Our primary concern is dianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 95. (6) See, for instance, W.E. Simon A Time for Truth (New York: Berkley, with the equalizing of the distribution of income." A page or 1979), p. 61. two later they conclude: "We need to establish the idea that the (7) F. Musgrove The Family: Education and Society (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 135. federal government is responsible not only for the total amount (8) J.H. Schaar 'Equality of 0pportunity and Beyond' in J.R. Pennock and of the national income, but for its distribution."' J.W. Chapman (Eds.) Equality (New York: Atherton, 1967), p. 233. Rawls by contrast is reluctant to recognize socialist presup- (9) C.A.R. Crosland Social Democracy in Europe (London: Fabian Society, positions and implications: he seems sincerely dedicated to 1975), p. 6. (10) Christopher Jencks and others Inequality (London: Allen Lane, 1873), "the priority of liberty." Yet suggestions of collective pp. 261 and 264.

30 Inq. agreement. Another factor was the new saw Pact countries. (4) By emphasizing American president, Jimmy Carter, who human rights the NATO countries could Human Rights: The said in his inaugural address that advancing avoid disarmament discussions and human rights world-wide would be a princi- "proceed to build up their war machines" Madrid Conference ple of American foreign policy. Regardless with American help. Underlying the bicker- of how serious or consistent this govern- ing was Afghanistan and the unrest in ment was in applying its concern ,the mere Poland. statement acted as a spark. Western Euro- Neither side would make any concessions Stephen S. Fenichell pean leaders also reacted to Carter's on the agenda but if the meeting collapsed remarks. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said nobody would gain. The Helsinki pact The most significant conference for human criticism of the Russians would hurt detenté would be renounced, to Russia's detriment, rights in decades recessed in December, and the French Foreign Minister suggested and the momentum of the human rights 1980. Officially known as the Conference human rights questions should be dealt with movement would be slowed. Closed on Security and Cooperation in Europe through diplomatic channels where, of sessions were held day and night seeking a (CSCE), the meeting was an outgrowth of course, they could be nicely buried. compromise and in the feverish atmosphere the Helsinki Final Act signed by 33 Euro- Surprisingly, Basket III became a living on the night of November 10, at 11:57, the pean countries, the United States and document. In Czechoslovakia a courageous Spanish director of the conference stopped Canada in 1975. group of men and women issued Charter the clocks and said they would not be turn- The fallout from the Final Act con- 77, asking the government to abide by the ed on until an agenda was agreed upon. The founded most European governments and rules of its own constitution. Other groups crazy plan worked. sent tremors through Eastern Europe. The were preparing reports for the next The next night so-called non-aligned 1975 meeting in Finland was held at the in- Helsinski meeting, to be held in Belgrade in countries presented a proposal which was sistence of the USSR, who saw it as a con- 1978. Belgrade was a sparring match. finally accepted, two days after the clocks firmation of their control over Eastern bloc Nobody knew what to expect and the stopped. There was no voting in the CSCE nations. The key phrase was the "in- NATO countries could not agree on a un- and discussions moved by consensus. The violability of frontiers." Only after stub- ified position. The conference ended in con- Russians agreed to five weeks of open talks born negotiations by Western European fusion, agreeing only to meet again in on pact violations, human rights and countries was a statement about human Madrid in 1980. humanitarian concerns, until the year-end rights (called Basket III) included in the Long before the scheduled opening date recess. From January 27 to March 5, 1981 final document. in Madrid, human rights activists were the agenda was scheduled to deal with There are other high-minded becoming more vocal and pressing their topics which the USSR maintained were proclamations on individual freedoms, such governments for concessions. The exile of the only important items: disarmament and as the United Nations Charter and the Sakharov caused a world furor. The inva- economics. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so sion of Afghanistan worried even the most The meaning of Helsinki was as obvious lofty that most of the 154 members of the ardent supporters of detenté. The Soviet outside the Palacio de Congresos as it was UN who pay lip service simply ignore the Union and the Eastern bloc nations were in the private meetings of the delegations. declarations about free speech, arbitrary prepared for a confrontation. Human rights groups, uncoordinated as arrest, equality under law, and the freedom The Madrid meeting was to open on usual, converged on Madrid. The Argentine to leave a country. There was little reason November 11. Anticipating a struggle over winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, to believe the Helsinki pact would be the rights provisions, delegates met nine Adolfo Perez Esquivel, came to ask for different. weeks earlier to write the agenda. There greater public participation in the struggle Human rights activity had been on the was still no agreement the night of for human rights; Andrei Almarik, the wane in Europe since the Soviet Union and November 10 and the conference was close historian and Russian exile, died in an the Warsaw Pact countries marched into to collapse. Press coverage in Europe was automobile accident on the way to Madrid; Czechoslovakia in 1968 to put the "Prague intense, although the American press large- American and European organizations Spring" into cold storage. Amnesty Inter- ly ignored the session. A columnist in the working for peace sent representatives to national groups in communist countries New York Times recommended renouncing exert pressure on the delegations; the Pope were harassed and members arrested. the Helsinki pact as a warning to Russia, called upon the delegates in Madrid to Amnesty's annual reports listed, nation by and the Wall Street Journal suggested a work for human rights and religious nation, blatant violations of the most basic boycott, then reconsidered and sent a freedom. human rights including arbitrary arrest and reporter to Madrid. At the midpoint, the Madrid meeting can torture. In arguing about the agenda the Russians be called a moderate success. For five After the Helsinki meeting, as if by balked at any discussion of human rights, weeks the communist nations heard in- signal, "watch committees" were formed in using every argument in their arsenal: dictments of their violations of human Europe to report on government com- (1) Rights are an "internal matter," they rights. Possibly for the first time in an in- pliance. The basis was an unusual provision said, to be determined and administered by ternational congress, individuals who have in the Final Act which called for regular the government in power. (2) The CSCE been arrested, taken from their homes,and meetings to evaluate the progress of the was created "to prevent war and promote deprived of their jobs were named. If it did disarmament," not to take up the com- nothing else the conference drove home the Stephen Fenichell, executive director of the plaints of individuals who are unhappy with idea that human rights are of international American Humanist Assn., attended the their leaders. (3) The human rights issue is concern and not an "internal matter." And, Madrid Conference on Security and "a false one" promoted by the US and its possibly, the flack over Afghanistan kept Cooperation in Europe. allies to embarrass the USSR and the War- the Russians from using force in Poland.

Spring, 1981 31 The American Ideal of the Natural Aristocracy: The Fall of the Elitist Left

Lee Nisbet

America was and is now, to the extent that it is a fertile culture, these natural aristocrats into the offices of a frontier experience. America was founded and periodically government?... With respect to aristocracy, we should replenished by religious and political heretics, misfits, further consider, that before the establishment of the dreamers, the failed, the starving, the desperate, the adven- American States, nothing was known to history, but the turous: all those who were looking for a starting over, all those man of the old world, crowded within limits either small regarded as inferior or dangerous rabble elsewhere. America, or overchanged, and steeped in the vices which that situa- tion generates. A government adapted to such men would the frontier, pulled them here. be one thing; but a very different one, than for the man of Amazingly, this potpourri of types generated the most these states.' radical and beneficent ideal yet promulgated in human history. The generation was, of course, not spontaneous. The American Jefferson argued that it was the opportunities that America ideal was a synthesis of earlier ideas, ideals, and values sub- offered that had transformed the character of transplanted jected to the catalyst of the frontier. Europeans and made a secure society possible: Philosophical ideas and aristocratic ideals formulated in an- cient Greece, Old and New Testament values which grew Here every one may have land to labor for himself, if he among the slave tribes of North Africa and were carried by the chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, Roman masters themselves to the eternal city and beyond to may exact for it such compensations ... to afford a com- barbarian Europe would have a fantastic history. One day they fortable subsistence ... Everyone, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation is interested in the support of would be blended into the Renaissance, the Reformation and law and order.' then, more important, into the Enlightenment. The most important synthesis, however, developed in the Such men, Jefferson wrote, are well suited to govern most unlikely of places — the wild lands of North America. themselves and can be given "a degree of freedom, which in the Here the aristocratic Greek notion of virtue — excellence in hands of the canaille (rabble) of the cities of Europe, would be performance that was rewarded and recognized by rank — was instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of mated with the ideals of the crude democratic Christianity of everything public and private."' the American frontier. What resulted was an ideal that was and In the American ideal, past and present, America is much is revolutionary, but one which can only survive in action more than a nation. It is the opportunity for the development directed outward. of courage, fortitude, and ingeniousness through the explora- The American ideal has at its core the common man and his tion of the novel and the making of a better life. Freed of the potentialities. America is the stage where men and women un- artificial restraint of class barriers the common man for the encumbered by outdated tradition are free to employ their own first time in history was able to enter the process of becoming effort in making a better life for themselves. In the American more than he was with no predetermined limits on his ideal, the frontier ideal, inherited rank and prestige count for achievements. The process, the struggle itself, was the impor- nothing. On the frontier a man is known by his deeds, his tant thing, for through it he could transform himself. The willingness to persevere in the face of great odds and his in- American ideal is the most radical of ideals, for unlike all genuity in dealing with novel situations. In America the com- hitherto existing ideals it implies that to be completed is to die. moner could become ennobled through his struggle at the fron- America, the frontier experience, conceived in action, must tier. Thomas Jefferson wrote with great feeling about this continue to move outward; it cannot turn inward, that is, to ideal. In a letter to John Adams he claimed that a "natural complete the outward movement would destroy America. aristocracy" had developed in America, a development that If America is not only a nation but also an ideal, a way of had historic consequences for government: life in which the frontier experience of becoming is at its es- sence, then we can understand why self-styled elites have fared I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among poorly here. Eric Hoffer observes: men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent... May we not even say, that the form of government is the best, All civilizations we know of were shaped by exclusive which provides most effectually for a pure selection of minorities of kings, nobles, priests and the equivalents of

32 Ina the intellectual ... America is the only instance of a circumstances. Confronted by flaming evangelists ... civilization shaped and colored by the tastes of the com- they were at somewhat the same disadvantage as an ag- mon folk. No elite of whatever nature can feel truly at ing housewife whose husband has taken up with a young home in America.° hussy from the front line of the chorus.' The historical record is clear. No class, that is, no interest Release, becoming the revolt against formalism, appeared in group, whatever their pretensions to "higher knowledge," the form of this Great Awakening of the eighteenth century. whether of a religious or secular nature, has been able to seize What irony and what better scene for it — the wild lands of political control or dictate tastes and behavior in the land North America. Here pagan revels using the very language of where the common man might become a natural aristocrat. Christianity overcame the staleness of intellectualized self- Those who interfered or would interfere with the efforts of the denial. Puritan Christianity, the language of emotional self- common man to better himself, who threatened or would restraint, self-denial was overcome by the pagan forces of threaten the process of developing the self, end up challenging human nature babbling Bible phrases with frenzied jerks and the very mechanism that is America: the land of the frontier shrieks. Religious revivalism then shook the very foundations where a man has the opportunity to become what he wants to of the established churches. The assumption that a well- be. The kind of elitism that appeals to, and rests upon, educated clergy, preaching in regular churches to well-ordered knowledge that is supposedly beyond the grasp of the common congregations was at the marrow of religion was called into man threatens the possibility of exploration that is at the center question as never before.' of our genius, our heroism, our nobility as a people. Such What rude and crude democracy this frontier revivalism elitism is poison in America. was. Direct contact with God was made without the formal ap- In America, elitist religion was re-formed on the frontier. proaches of clergy, schooling, literacy, ritual, or dogma. The Religion had to adapt to the frontier and not vice-versa. pagan was let loose speaking in God's own tongue. Dionysius, Puritanism, for example, failed ultimately because its clergy not Christ, was king. It was letting go, going to extremes, that was highly educated and devoted its attention to the arts, existed here and the very passion of the release served notice sciences, and theological scholarship. That the Puritans and es- that stale intellectualism administered by an elite no matter pecially their clergy constituted an elite there can be no doubt. how talented would rule precariously amongst a people who wanted to go beyond the confining traditions of Europe. These Puritan emigrants, with their reliance upon the Christianity, in essence, was being re-formed by frontier Book and their wealth of scholarly leadership, founded conditions. The frontier, always moving outward, demanded that intellectual and scholarly tradition which for three clergy who would serve on its edge. The barely literate Baptist centuries enabled New England to lead the country in circuit rider, not the educated Puritan ministers, would bring educational and scholarly achievement ... The clergy God to crude, rough frontiersmen. He spoke their language spread enlightenment as well as religion, fostered science and had to be, at times, good with his fists. These evangelical as well as theology, and provided models of personal ministers were stalwart; they had to be, for they served the devotion to things of the mind in tiny villages where such examples might otherwise not have been seen.' needs of pagans. Men and women on the frontier, those who stayed there out of choice or foolishness, would not be ruled by However, Puritanism as a way of life disappeared. Why? It man or God. Courage, fortitude, cunning intelligence, and literally lost its flock to revivalism but more so to the frontier. fierceness were the ideals of that people; and it was the duty of Puritanism appealed to the settled propertied classes. Lower God's messengers to help those on the edge, on the frontier, to class people, the common men, wanted emotion in their develop the sense of brotherliness and neighborliness that com- religion, not erudition,and they did not want to be ruled by an es from struggling against difficult odds together. Christianity elite. in fact was reformed to suit the needs of a warrior people whose virtues, when they had them, were those of an The disinherited classes especially when unlettered, have aristocratic society that naturally would not tolerate com- been more moved by emotional religion; and emotional peting ruling elites. The ideal of a natural aristocracy develop- religion is at times animated by a revolt against the ing out of struggle with the unknown, out-there, was an ideal religious style, the liturgy, and the clergy of the upper class church, which is at the same time a revolt against that Christianity would serve but not rule. aristocratic manners and morals.' On the American frontier, then, came the fusion of two great historic traditions — the tradition of aristocracy and the tradi- In the mid-eighteenth century, a so-called Great Awakening tion of Christianity — in a manner that formed a fierce anti- took place. Here evangelists were able to help their audience let elitism with regard to inherited rank, privilege, or education, themselves go in frenzied emotional revelry, and they attracted but which expressed an unfailing admiration for character and not only the lower classes but the Puritan flock itself. skill formed in successful struggle. The brotherhood of man In truth, the established ministers found it difficult to was honored, for when a man depends on his neighbor he cope with the challenge of the awakeners. The regular honors that neighbor; yet it was recognized in the course of ac- ministers, living with their congregations year in and year tion that some men, in character and excellence of perfor- out under conditions devoid of special religious excite- mance, were better than others. Above all, there was recogni- ment, were faced with the task of keeping alive the tion that, although some were better than others, none shall spiritual awareness of their flocks under sober everyday (continued on Page 35)

Spring, 1981 33

of the Twenties became the spiritual FILM pabulum of the Sixties. August beards have been pulled, like the 's when he asked the late John Lennon why the Beatles were leaving his tutelage. If he was so cosmic, Lennon told him, he'd Meetings with know. Inevitably "Meetings With Remarkable Men" seems naive and archaic. It Remarkable Men demonstrates conclusively why esoteric sub- jects should never be filmed by believers. Imagine a study of the Rev. Moon by an un- dernourished Moonie. The life of Jesus film- ed by Billy Graham might be edifying as an act of worship, but I doubt that it would resound as a work of art. In all but the Hal Crowther simplest circles, which Gurdjieff never cultivated, Brook's film will present a blind I blush to admit in this humanist journal Gurdjieff at her evaluation and at the testimonial to his loftiness instead of an that I have always been sympathetic to philosopher's own. effective advertisement for his ideas. It will sincere mystics. Among the rickety This gullible error produced a motion pic- make no useful converts for his dwindling generalizations and overdressed truisms ture as vapid, humorless and inert as any . they pass as wisdom is an assertion I regard ever offered to the public by a director of "Meetings" also demonstrates a limita- as unassailable: that human beings utilize a proven intellect. tion of the film medium itself. Critics will tiny fragment of their mental resources and The opening scene, shot in some mountain say that Brook was a silly fellow to adhere that the greatest discoveries still open to our fastness of Afghanistan, shows tribesmen so faithfully to the text of an unremarkable race are internal. I've always believed that gathered for an annual competition, an an- book. But who can say, without having read Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan cycle or even cient ritual. With various instruments and it, that Gurdjieff's memoir didn't have its Hesse's "Glass Bead Game" could have voices pitched to a sort of Caucasus yodel, compelling moments? In the here and now, tremendous impact in the hands of the right adepts attempt in turn to strike the perfect the concrete, a picture is worth a thousand filmmakers. resonance that will make the cliffs words. In the abstract, the neither here nor I'm not as sanguine about these projects themselves respond. It's good theater and there, a few words can be worth a thousand as I used to be. Our most recent portrait of good cinema. Young Gurdjieff is as im- pictures. The world of linked paradoxes an influential mystic by an influential film pressed as we are. His dark eyes flash. The created so convincingly in a master's director is one of the most disappointing rest of his life is a search. The rest of our prose reduces to low comedy on the screen. films released in the United States this evening is a letdown. There are abstractions meant only for con- winter. In his quest for knowledge and spiritual templation that seem to self-destruct when George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, whose name growth he joins several groups of seekers. an actor speaks them aloud. is no household word today, was a Russian Each is as overeager, obscurely motivated, Gurdjieff, who was no filmmaker, could from the Caucasus who introduced the and superficially heterogeneous as any gang have explained very well the perils of trying mysteries of the East to Parisian intelligent- of adventurers in those abysmal Saturday to make the ineffable visual. In a film- sia of the Twenties and Thirties. Some of morning cartoons on network TV. The sages magazine interview a year ago, Peter Brook those mysteries, as reported by the yellow who guide them are less austere than car- revealed that he, too, knew precisely what he press but never by Gurdjieff himself, were toon models. They don't all have large pier- was up against. He speaks of "modes of unambiguously sexual. Nevertheless he was cing eyes, some are plain and earthy, even suggestion and evocation," relying on a guru and philosopher whose disciples, in short and stout. But they all mouth the music, color, and body movement. What reduced numbers and circumstances, remain familiar manual: Be passive but persevering. this means to me is that late in the film, faithful to this day. Defeat your ego. Learn not to prefer. Learn when words have clearly failed him, he One of them, Madame Jeanne de Salz- not to desire. Find a master and obey him. offers dancing — a kind of Far Eastern buck mann, collaborated with director Peter At the risk of an allusion more obscure than and wing — chanting, calisthenics, and Brook on his adaptation of Gurdjieff's Gurdjieff, Brook's "remarkable men" re- breathing exercises in an impeccably memoir, "Meetings With Remarkable mind me of Mr. Natural, a character spiritual mountain setting. This is your Men." Brook, the peerless iconoclast of the created by the legendary underground car- answer, the guru tells Gurdjieff and Brook British theater and creator of films as es- toonist Robert Crumb. Like these sages, tells us, but at this point we've long since timable as "Lord of the Flies" and Mr. Natural speaks in impenetrable forgotten the question. Rarely has a director "Marat/Sade," was much taken with this sophistries. Like the historical Gurdjieff, articulated his problems so clearly and failed remarkable woman. He chose to accept Mr. Natural never passes up a sexual oppor- to solve them so miserably. tunity. "Between the biblical at one extreme and Hal Crowther, nephew of Bowsley Brook asks us to take all of them as the psychedelic at the other," Brook told his Crowther (former film critic of the New seriously as Gurdjieff did. He never shows us interviewer, "there is a massive area concer- York Times), is now editor of Spectator, why we should. We've had a lot of ning the esoteric which has not been touched Raleigh, North Carolina. transcendental rhetoric in the public domain at all by film." since Gurdjieffs day. The Promethean fire It remains untouched. •

34 j `'e Gordon Stein Lee Nisbet least inadvertently, promotes gullibility; (continued from Page 33) (continued from Page 19) because many of those who have become At issue was a poem by James Kirkup, accustomed to the warmth of this illusion rule, for that would destroy the frontier, entitled "The Love that Dares to Speak Its suffer far more from the blasts of life's and only on the frontier is a man free to Name." It was published in June of 1976 adversities than do those who have harden- become what he might be. by The Gay News, a newspaper primarily ed themselves from the first; and because, We now understand why Jimmy Carter for homosexuals. The poem described a when this belief is developed along theistic lost the election. Jimmy Carter and the Roman soldier having homosexual relations lines, it more often than not encourages the elitist-left represented a view that is in with the dying body of Jesus at his crucifix- neglect of worldly welfare. For history direct opposition to the American ideal, the ion. In November of 1976, Mary abundantly shows us that belief in benefi- frontier ideal, the ideal of the natural Whitehouse, a private citizen who heads a cent Providence is typically coupled with an aristocracy. vigilante group against obscenity in the adoration of perfect happiness in a world to Jimmy Carter supported certain causes media, announced that she would start a come, with an ofttimes almost perverse ad- dear to the heart of the elitist left. He sup- private prosecution for blasphemous libel. miration for suffering in this world, and ported preferential treatment for certain in- The prosecution was brought against therefore with a proportionate general terests based upon race, ethnicity, and sex. the newspaper and its editor, Denis Lemon. neglect of the welfare of human beings. Yet These policies were opposed, as polls in- The trial was held in July 1977, and was with all this said we should not forget the dicated, not only by the majority of quite complicated from a legal standpoint. many positive contributions theistic Americans but by majorities of some of the As the statute against blasphemy had been religions have made. They have mothered very groups they were designed to benefit. repealed in 1967, the charges were brought some of the earliest forms of altruism. Nor The frontier ideal of proving oneself under the common law. After much discus- should we forget the many acts of religious through one's actions and not trading on sion, it was decided that this was possible, charity that in moments of darkness have origin was simply ignored by Carter but not and the trial ended in a conviction. The helped improve human conditions, not only by the voters. When left-wing Democrats Gay News was fined L1000 plus costs, and by encouraging acts of good- supported policies that jeopardized access Denis Lemon received a L500 fine and a but by establishing foundling homes, to jobs and education on the grounds that nine-month jail term, suspended for eigh- hospitals, and other philanthropic in- Americans of a certain race, sex, or ethnic teen months. Appeals all the way up to the stitutions. But even if we neglect, or decide origin had to pay reparations for supposed House of Lords were to no avail: the con- to take issue with, these claims, the facts misdeeds of their fathers, those Americans, viction was upheld. also indicate that many, like Lady many of whom had traditionally voted If we looked at other statements or Katharine, are given insight about the Democratic, realized that the party had writings which have been prosecuted, we meaning of life, about the chief end of betrayed them. The Left, acting as a moral would see that some accepted doctrines of human living, when they believe God makes elite, was using the courts and the today, such as Quakerism and a disclosure about His own nature and pur- bureaucracy to close off vital opportunities Unitarianism, have been successfully pose and gently embraces them in His ab- through quotas, minority contracts, and prosecuted for blasphemy in the past. Ac- solute love. In short, it appears to be true busing. tually, a member of any group could be that belief in God has had and still has the Jimmy Carter looked inward not out- prosecuted, since the laws are not specific. power to give comfort and consolation to ward. He reacted and did not act. With his No one is really "free" in our society until millions of devout believers. Largely continual focus on the downtrodden, on in- he or she is able to openly express an opi- because of this, two important claims can- justice, he ignored the truth that nion on any subject, assuming that it is not be easily, if at all, dismissed. They are: brotherhood is only fostered by joint done tactfully and with an honest intent. (1) that in addition to other basic human struggle outward. A contracting America is Groups such as the Moral Majority are needs, there is a need for psychological a dead America. Americans recognized his probably not above using the laws of this security, which includes the need to believe betrayal of our very being, the source of type to silence those who disagree with in God, or at least believe that the cosmos our genius and our generosity. Men and them. • is guided by a loving purpose; and (2) that women here still want very much to make this need is often successfully met if a man more out of their lives, to rule themselves, Marvin Kohl genuinely recognizes that his goal for living to explore what they can be, to move out- (continued from Page 20) is in, and given to him by, God. wards and not to be treated like naughty knowledge about a Friend Behind the Since these are empirical claims, the children. And yet a further lesson lies here. Universe; he also denies that we have humanist cannot dismiss them out of hand In the reasons for the defeat of Jimmy knowledge about divine or cosmic purpose. without also placing respect for truth in Carter and the elitist-left there is also a The argument in its essential form is simple similar jeopardy. And, since it may prove message for the flip side of this presidential and, I believe, decisive. Purposes can only to be the case not only that man has a campaign — the Moral Majority. • be correctly assigned to sentient beings; and general need to believe but also that belief since man does not have knowledge that in God (or some essentially similar belief) Note: We regret to report that since the last God or other sentient beings govern the un- produces at least as great a proportion of issue of Free Inquiry, the seven Praxis iverse, he cannot on a cognitive level main- good over evil as does any available known humanist philosophers at the University of tain that the universe has any purpose. alternative, to arrogantly crusade against Belgrade have been dismissed without com- The belief in beneficent Providence also religious beliefs — without distinguishing pensation from their teaching positions by has harmful dimensions. It is harmful between beneficent and nonbeneficent the Yugoslavian government — Ed. because it often encourages the confusion of varieties — may very well diminish impor- illusion with true belief and therefore, at tant elements of human welfare. •

35 Spring, 1981 The Classics of Secular Humanism Western Civilization has produced a rich history of secular humanist literature. Many of these books are classics, while Albert Ellis others have been forgotten or lost. We invited a number of Bertrand Russell, The Basic Writings of leading humanist intellectuals to provide a list of those books Bertrand Russell (New York: Simon and that influenced them most, with a special emphasis on the Schuster, 1961). Lays some of the important classics of secular humanism. We are pleased to present their philosophic groundwork for twentieth- selections — Ed. century secular humanist thought. Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, fifth edition (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1965). A simple but Brand Blanshard is professor emeritus at Brand Blanshard profound summary of some of the main Yale University. He is former president of tenets of secular humanism. the American Philosophical Assn. and the David Friedrich Strauss, Leben Jesu (1835, Humanist Manifestos I and II (Buffalo: American Theology Society. Among his Eng. trans. by George Eliot). The most Prometheus Books, 1978). Pioneer state- books are Reason and Goodness and thorough and decisive work of higher ment of secular humanism, nicely updated. Reason and Analysis. criticism yet written. George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case W.E.H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Against God (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, Joseph Fletcher was professor of pastoral Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in 1979). Scholarly presentation of some theology and Christian ethics, Episcopal Europe (1865). A masterly account of the aspects of secular humanism that are often Theological School, Cambridge, and taught rise of freedom of thought in modern times. neglected. medical ethics at the University of Virginia Andrew D. White, History of the Warfare Albert Ellis, Humanistic Psychotherapy: Medical School. He is author of Situation of Science with Theology (1896). A The Rational-Emotive Approach (New Ethics, and other books. temperate and accurate account of the York: Crown Publishers and McGraw-Hill clashes between science and super- Paperbacks, 1973). My own attempt to Albert Ellis, a clinical psychologist, is ex- . combine some of the best elements of the ecutive director of the Institute for J.M.E. McTaggart, Some Dogmas of existential-humanistic psychology of the Rational-Emotive Therapy. He is the Religion (1906). A remarkably lucid discus- human potential movement with the hard- author of numerous books, including The sion of some central concepts of religion by headed, realistic views of modern secular American Sexual Tragedy and A Guide to a mind of the first competence in humanism, and to apply both of these Rational Living. philosophy. to the field of psychotherapy. , The Life of Reason Robert Rimmer is the author of The (1905-06), in five volumes. (See especially Harrad Experiment and many other novels. Reason in Religion). A work of power and Robert Rimmer grace, written by a Catholic who became a Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888) Garrett Hardin is the chief executive officer naturalist. and Equality (1897). The two novels taken of The Environmental Fund (Washington, together propose a humanist oriented world, D.C.). He is professor emeritus of human Joseph Fletcher especially the sequal Equality, which is not ecology at the University of California, well known. Santa Barbara. Among his books are The , On Liberty (1859), Homer W. Smith, Kamongo (New York: Tragedy of the Commons and Promethean because it is the first essay to make adequate Viking Press, 1932). A short novel com- Ethics. sense of a precious principle too easily paring Man's adaptability to the African uttered. Lungfish. Isaac Asimov is the famous author of Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, James Cooke Brown, The Troika Incident science and science fiction. He has publish- edited by Bernard De Voto (New York: (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, ed over 200 books. Harper & Row, 1962), because we tend to 1970). This is the only novel written by forget that we need humor to protect us Brown. He invented a complete language Richard Kostelanetz, noted critic and from believing in things we cannot know. and still teaches it (so far as I know), in San author, has published dozens of books, in- George Santayana, Life of Reason (1905- Diego. Jim Brown also invented the game cluding The End of Intelligent Writing and 06, in five volumes), anywhere in the five Careers. The Troika Incident is a story of a Esthetics Contemporary. volumes, because of its brilliance and future world with meanings for our world. humility. King C. Gillette, The Human Drift For biographical sketches of Sidney Nook Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man's Fate (Delmar, N.Y.: Scholar's Facsimiles and and Antony Flew, see pages 7 and 27. (New York: Rhinehart, 1959), because it Reprints, 1976). The inventor of the safety gives us a biological setting for our attempts razor was a humanist, closely involved with Joseph Blau is professor emeritus of to understand our life and thought.. Upton Sinclair. The Human Drift is a great religion at Columbia University. His books Bertrand Russell, Human Society in American classic — together with Gillette's include Men and Movements in American Ethics and Politics (New York: Simon and The People's Corporation (New York: Boni Philosophy and Cornerstones of Religious Schuster, 1954), because of its wisdom and and Liveright, 1924), and World Corpora- Freedom in America. social sensitivity. tion (Boston: The New England News Com-

36 MkWin- ¡Tate pany, 1910). (most have been reread many times). It Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches seems to me that all of them should be con- Sidney Hook of Human Nature (New York: Viking Press, sidered "secular classics," because they are 1971). This is a collection of Maslow's es- certainly not religious. I feel more comfor- Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline says. I am proposing "Theory Z" as a new table with a personal list than an "objective" and Fall of the Roman Empire. An il- management technique in a novel which I one which may ultimately be a reflection of luminating account of how barbarism have just completed, The Birdwhistle Op- fad, literary-politicking or other inauthentic without and barbarism within (fanatical tion. "Theory Z" approaches, contrasted by process. Christian ), destroyed Maslow with "Theory X" and "Y," are George Orwell's essays, for the clarity and Roman civilization. totally humanistic. courage of his intellectual style, not only in George Santayana, The Life of Reason (And chuckling): My novel, Love Me articulating his perceptions efficiently but (1906). A felicitous expression of a Tomorrow (New York: Signet, 1978), which also in resisting deception (1959). naturalistic which I wrote under the title Looking Backward Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd recognized that all things natural have an I!, and which no humanist publication has (New York: Random House, 1960); for ideal fulfillment and that all ideals worthy of ever reviewed. showing me at the age of twenty how the fulfillment have a natural basis. anarchist critique of the world around me John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1874). was invariably more true than the Marxist, Mill has been called the saint of secular Garrett Hardin and for implicitly persuading me to avoid, at humanism, and like all saints has personal Benjamin Lee Whorf, Language, Thought, all costs, the perils of a steady job (1960). and intellectual failings. Whatever the and Reality (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1956). Hannah Arendt, The Origins of limitations of his , at its heart Percy W. Bridgman, The Intelligent In- Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, lies a vibrant sympathy for the sufferings of dividual and Society (New York: Mac- Brace, 1951); for its incomparable un- mankind, and a rational will to modify millan, 1938). derstanding of a distinctly modern malaise social institutions that needlessly intensify Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the (1961). or pepetuate them. Modern World (New York: Macmillan, Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War Morris R. Cohen, The Faith of a Liberal 1925). (second edition, Princeton: Princeton (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1946). Joseph Townsend, A Dissertation on The University Press, 1960); for realizing one Illustrations of the play of a profound Poor Laws: By a Well-Wisher to Mankind definition of a "brilliant" book, persuasively critical intelligence on some current (Berkeley: University of California Press, transcending, not only in evidence but in problems of our times. Liberalism is broadly 1971). concepts, previous critiques of its subject conceived as commitment to the use of in- Thomas R. Malthus, An Essay on the (1963). telligence in furthering the cause of human Principle of Population. Buckminster Fuller, Nine Chains to the freedom. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species Moon (1963) and Education Automation John Dewey, Experience and Nature (1859); and his Autobiography (1892). (1962) — both published in Carbondale by (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, R.A. Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Southern Illinois University Press — for 1925). A profound exploration of the rela- Natural Selection (New York: Dover, suggesting a profoundly radical, up-to-date tion between nature and human nature in an 1958). social thought based on neither "left" nor attempt to show how, without relying on any George Orwell, Animal Farm (New "right" but on the possibilities intrinsic in myths about the transcendent, creative in- York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, technological development and social telligence can function effectively and 1954). change (1966). humanely in building a better society. Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of L. Moholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion Social Behavior (New York: Harcourt, (Chicago: P. Theobald, 1947); for explaining Antony Flew Brace, and World, 1969). recent art to me, two decades after the book was actually written, and for identifying the Hume has to figure prominently on my list principal precursors of contemporary ex- since he was the first major thinker in the Isaac Asimov perimental literature (1966). modern period to be through and through I'm not sure that I have read any secular Barbara Rose, ed., Art as Art: The secular, this-worldly, and man-centred. That humanist books.... The books I enjoyed Selected Writings of Ad Reinhardt (New "juvenile work," A Treatise of Human most, without reference to their intrinsic York: Viking Press, 1975); for showing that Nature, even though it is too long and value, judged by the number of times I have a genuinely radical aesthetic position in- probably too much for the philosophical read and reread them, are: evitably incorporates a radical position layperson, and even though Hume did feel Homer, The Iliad within the politics of one's art (1966). that he had to castrate it, removing its Shakespeare's plays Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro "nobler parts" before publication, is a must. Dickens, Pickwick Papers Intellectual (New York: Morrow, 1967); for For us here and now the greatest thing there Cervantes, Don Quixote suggesting that intellectual thought and an is Hume's naturalistic account of every kind P.G. Wodehouse, various "Jeeves" novels intellectual's career could be analyzed as of value: values cannot be neutral, and ob- closely and skeptically as literature or socie- jective facts about the universe around us ty. but must instead be some sort — although it Richard Kostelanetz Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scien- is inordinately hard to specify precisely what In a recent volume of my Autobiographies tific Revolutions (Chicago: University of sort — of projection of our individual and (New York: Future, 1981), I listed the books Chicago Press, 1962); for implying that the collective desires and commitments; and to that have meant the most to me along with a consequential revolutions of art were as en- say that values spring from and are rooted in date that indicates when I first read them compassing as those of science (1967). nothing else but human desires is to say that

Spring, 1981 37

they are as important as anything could Realms of Being (1942), in which the "realm ly tempted to suggest the Kantian corpus, possibly be. An Inquiry Concerning Human of matter" is regarded as the source of the especially Religion in the Light of Pure Understanding has to go in, above all for its other realms of which he speaks, thus deny- Reason Alone, but this is so much a work inclusion of those "nobler parts." These two ing to those others anything other than a for the professional philosopher that I prefer Sections X-XI contain in outline knock- derivative "being" — being, then, in a pun- for general reading 's Natural down decisive refutations of the traditional ning sense. But Santayana vigorously . Hume's background two-stage rational apologetic: first, es- asserted that his was a materialist position, was much more limited than that of later tablishing the existence and certain unlike the Humanism about which he philosophical and historical students of minimum characteristics of the Mosaic God taunted his humanistic contemporaries. Can religion, but this brief work, the most by the proofs of Natural Theology, above all one legitimately ascribe to a philosopher as neglected of his major works, is in many the Argument to Design; and, second, the precise in his language as Santayana a posi- ways the finest expression of a secular authentication of a particular Revelation tion that he specifically denied holding? humanism before the twentieth century. claim by deploying historical evidence to And, of course, any sociologist might For the Nineteenth Century, we must verify the occurrence of endorsing . claim a right to be on the list, for, as declare Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) Equally certainly Hume's posthumous someone or other wrote some time ago, no and Descent of Man (1870) ineligible, masterpiece the Dialogues Concerning sociologist can be called `religious,' because they are not philosophical works; it Natural Religion must go in: although there "because he goes to church to count is clear, however, that if these two works had is scholarly dispute as to which of the genuflections, not to pray." Many never been written the question addressed in characters most nearly speaks for Hume biologists, too, might be listed, people such the making of these lists would probably himself, there seems little possibility of as Rene' Dubos who are so admiring of never have been raised. Thomas Henry Hux- denying that any residual religious belief in humanity and its possibilities that they con- ley, a second possibility, unwittingly Hume was almost indiscernible from no sistently refuse to acknowledge its complete- eliminated himself by arguing, in Evolution such belief at all. ly animal origin and ancestry. Darwin and Ethics (1893), for the exclusion of ethics Next I want to fly a flag for Thomas himself, whose studies and theories had so from the list of matters affected by the Hobbes and his Leviathan. Certainly it is ex- much to do with the current form of evolutionary hypothesis, which otherwise he tremely long and on some matters of great evolutionary naturalism (the boon compan- accepted. Of the big three of British for- practical importance very wrong-headed. ion of secular humanisim) studied for the mulation of secular humanist ideas, that Nowadays it is read mainly for the would-be ministry in youth and never abandoned the leaves Herbert Spencer, who applied anatomical science of the state in Chapters Church of England. evolutionary theory to sociology and to 13-30. But Part III, "Of a Christian What, then, can one advise an inquiring ethics, the latter especially in his Principles Common-Wealth," is a landmark in the person, young or old, to read to find out of Ethics which unites morals with those history of biblical criticism, while Parts I, what is best in the literature of secular areas of human concern that relate to and still more, IV, deliver the most humanism? Let me propose a list that is human survival. Spencer, of course, no devastating hammer blows in defense of a limited to the last four centuries — roughly longer seems to us the outstanding figure secular world-outlook. from the seventeenth through the twentieth that he seemed to our predecessors, but he Finally, no doubt in step with many century — and to works of a philosophic looms large in his own time. others, I nominate Charles Darwin's The cast (though not necessarily written by Finally, it should be noted that secular Origin of Species. For, although I should philosophers or theologians). humanist philosophers in the twentieth cen- claim that Hume provided all the materials Seventeenth Century tury are quite numerous, and many are very needed to destroy every version of the Argu- Galileo: Dialogues on the Two Chief able thinkers. There are two, however, who ment to Design, very few people could ever Systems of the World; supplemented by his seem to me to stand out: Bertrand Russell in in fact have been persuaded to accept the Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences. England and John Dewey in the United Stratonician atheism had not Darwin show- Eighteenth Century States. Each wrote widely and influenced a ed how fantastic complexity and integration David Hume: Natural History of broad spectrum of followers. Russell's might come about without conscious design. Religion. secular humanism, as expressed in his fre- Nineteenth Century quently reprinted essay, "A Free Man's Joseph Blau Herbert Spencer: Principles of Ethics Worship," as well as in the other essays (1895). belatedly collected in the volume entitled You set a problem that is almost impossible Twentieth Century Unpopular Essays (New York: Simon and to solve. Not that the candidates are so few Bertrand Russell: Unpopular Essays Schuster, 1951) offers an important correc- or their claims so weak, but that there are so (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), tive to the excessively optimistic visions of many fine works clamoring to find a place especially "A Free Man's Worship': the post-Darwinian "social evolutionists." on the list of "Best" Secular Humanist John Dewey: A Common Faith (New John Dewey, in his Terry Lectures, publish- Literature, and so many fields of inquiry in Haven: Yale University Press, 1934). ed under the title A Common Faith (New which the chosen few are to be found. How, York: Yale University Press, 1934), avoided Reasons for these selections for instance, can the rankest amateur ranker both Russell's pessimistic strain and any fail to list Edward Gibbon's History of the Galileo' Dialogues set the major problem degree of over-optimism by his emphasis Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? But of the scientific account of the universe in upon a democratic and cooperative striving Gibbon did not write from a consciously contradistinction to the biblical versions of for a better world to be brought about by secular humanistic position, even though we the story. This conflict is the controversy mutual formulation of intermediate goals may find that philosophy in our reading of within which the secular humanist tradition and the common effort to unite toward the the text. has developed. achievement of these "next steps," or, in Again, consider George Santayana's For the Eighteenth Century, one is strong- Dewey's language, "ends-in-view."

38 FieeInuigr Hans Kling is no doubt the most controversial Roman Catholic figure at the present time. A popular author and a strong critic of the papacy, Kling has suffered at the hands of the Church: all sorts of efforts to silence him have emanated from Rome. He has stood bravely against this, which can only elicit admiration. Although he is still permitted to teach at the University of Tubingen, the Catholic Church has divested him of his title "Catholic Theologian" — Ed. Hans Küng on God

George H. Smith

Does God Exist? An Answer for Today, by Exile: Modern Atheism. Hans Kling, translated from the German by It is to Kung's credit that he treats d Edward Quinn (New York: Doubleday, Ree

atheism (as he sees it) seriously and even 1980), xxiv + 839 pages, $17.50. sympathetically. There are good and bad les r One day a theologian and a philosopher aspects to atheism, Küng says, but the same Cha were criticizing the other's profession. "The may be said for religion. Atheism is not a by trouble with you philosophers," exclaimed deliberate (and sinful) rebellion against the theologian, "is that you are searching at God, as the facile analyses of many ing night in a dark alley for a black cat that theologians would have it; nor is it a form isn't there." "Ah," replied the philosopher, of crypto-theism. Küng exhorts his fellow Draw "you theologians also search at night in a theologians to treat atheism seriously and dark alley for a black cat that isn't there — with respect. Theologians, no less than somehow seen by Küng as the logical ter- except you think that you found the cat!" philosophers, should equip themselves with mination of an atheistic philosophy — ig- In his latest book, Does God Exist?, the the spirit of intellectual honesty and open noring the fact that many philosophers em- controversial theologian Hans Küng claims inquiry. Belief in God is a matter of truth braced atheism precisely to escape the to have located the elusive cat. He "is not or falsehood, and only a rational investiga- of irrationalism and a morality an object of immediate experience; he is not tion can decide between the two. based on the supposed will of God. The dis- part of existing reality, he is not among the Theologians should not be slavish tortion caused by Kung's selective focus is objects available to experience; no intuition apologists for religious dogma. perhaps best illustrated by his claim that or speculation, no direct experience or im- Kung's discussion of atheistic Feuerbach is "the `Church Father' of mediate perception, can provide a `view' of philosophers is frequently insightful and in- modern atheism." Now Feuerbach had a him" — but he is there nonetheless, Küng formative, but it is also the source of the dramatic impact on Marx, Freud, and assures us. book's greatest weakness. Feuerbach, other Continental thinkers — there is no Before joining Küng on his search, some Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and other doubt about that. But his impact on British general comments should be made about philosophers examined by Küng happen to and American was virtually nil. this massive, sprawling work of nearly 900 be atheists, but — with the exception of Kung's contempt for "bourgeois, mediocre pages. Most of this book is devoted not to a Feuerbach — none of them are properly `freethinking' " is obvious; it is not defense of Christian theism per se, but to designated as philosophers of atheism. They profound enough for his transcendent mind. an examination of various philosophers and did not approach atheism systematically, But this does not excuse Kung's ex- theologians. Descartes, Pascal, logical and for some (such as Marx) atheism is but trapolating a general view of atheism from , linguistic analysis, Thomas a minor part of a comprehensive theoretical a few atheistic philosophers regarded by Aquinas, — these are but a system. Many atheists not mentioned by him as worthy. sample of the wide range of philosophers Küng at all — especially those in the tradi- If Küng had taken the neglected and philosophies surveyed by Kung. When tion of British and American freethought freethinkers more seriously, how might his dealing specifically with atheistic — dealt with atheism in far more detail approach have differed? First, he may have philosophers, Küng concentrates on Feuer- than Kung's Continental atheists, and from understood that the dominant form of bach, Marx, Freud, and Neitzsche. And a radically different perspective. Of course atheism in freethought has been atheism as although his treatment of atheistic Küng is aware of other atheistic traditions the absence or lack of belief in a god (i.e., a philosophers is far superior to some (Enlightenment atheists, such as Baron supernatural being) rather than the absolúte previous efforts by Catholic theologians d'Holbach, receive occasional mention), but denial of a god's existence. Küng treats (e.g., Vincent Miceli's The Gods of Kung's Continental atheists are used by atheism exclusively in the latter sense. But Atheism), the reader in search of a him as a prototype for atheism in general. the freethinkers realized the importance of definitive Catholic work on this subject Much is made of Marx's "sociopolitical a precise definition of atheism, and should still consult Cornelio Fabro's God in atheism," but the social and political im- throughout their journals in the nineteenth George H. Smith, libertarian author from plications of religion have long been promi- century one finds rather extensive dis- cussions and debates concerning this topic. Los Angeles, is the author of Atheism: The nent features in the atheistic tradition. One cannot "prove" God's nonexistence, Case Against God. Nietzsche's alleged "nihilism" (a questionable interpretation at best) is Küng argues triumphantly; therefore, the

Spring, 1981 39 atheist is on an equal footing with the us, presumably, have repressed it), finds a theist, who admittedly cannot prove God's solution in God. God provides a rational existence. If Küng would descend from the basis for trusting in reality. "If someone Solzhenitsyn clouds of Feuerbach and Nietzsche and per- denies God," on the other hand, "he does mit himself a few hours of examining the not know why he ultimately trusts in writings of , J.M. reality." Then comes the usual complaint on the Decline Robertson, Joseph McCabe, Chapman about the consequences of atheism which, Cohen and other freethinkers, he would in the five hundred pages preceding this of the West find his argument demolished many times passage, one had reason to hope that Küng over. The atheist need not prove the nonex- would not resort to: Reviewed by Valerie Turchin istence of a god, the freethinkers main- The price paid by atheism for its denial Solzhenitsyn at Harvard: The Address, tained. The theist asserts a positive — the is obvious. It is exposed by an ultimate Twelve Early Responses, and Six Later existence of a god — so the onus probandi groundlessness, unsupportedness, aim- Reflections, ed. by Ronald Berman (burden of proof) rests with him. The theist lessness, to the danger of the possible dis- (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy must, first, provide a coherent, noncon- union, meaninglessness, worthlessness, Center, Sept. 10, 1980), xvi + 143 pp., cloth tradictory description or definition of God hollowness of reality as a whole. When $9.50, paper $5.00. (so we know whereof we speak); and, se- he becomes aware of this, the atheist is cond, must provide some reason (evidence exposed also quite personally to the There are usually three interweaving or argument) to believe in the existence of danger of an ultimate abandonment, themes in discussions of the present condi- such a being. If the theist fails in either of menace and decay, resulting in doubt, tion of Western democracies. Solzhenitsyn these tasks, the rational person, faced with fear, even despair. presented his interpretation of these themes no reason to sustain belief in a god, should in his Harvard address. remain a nonbeliever, i.e., an atheist. This, Against the radical uncertainty of Theme one is, in Solzhenitsyn's words, the in essence, is the epistemological basis for atheism, belief in God provides a decline of courage and the loss of will in atheism, and the one advocated by a great reasonable antidote. God is the "primal Western society. It is also the decay of many atheists, past and present. Yet ground, primal support and primal goal of morality and the disintegration of the socie- nowhere does Küng discuss such basic reality." (In case one misses this the first ty into one where individuals care only for issues. time around, it is repeated dozens of times themselves. How, then, does Küng justify theism? throughout the book). Exactly how does Theme two, which is not formulated ex- How does he locate the troublesome cat we belief in God remove radical uncertainty plicitly in his address, but is present by im- mentioned earlier? Unfortunately, it is im- about reality? There are no messy plication, is the necessity of belief in values possible to summarize Küng's argument. arguments here. Mere assertion replaces that transcend our day-to-day pains and There simply is no argument. There is page argument: pleasures and refer to the concept of Eterni- after page of assertions and profundities, If God exists, then the grounding reality ty. Such values, if shared by society as a but no argument. Küng concedes that the itself is not ultimately groundless. Why? whole, would provide the basis for moral traditional proofs for the existence of God Because God is then the primal ground of strength and cohesion in the face of a fail, but he still maintains that they are all reality. If God exists, then the suppor- totalitarian threat. "meaningful" and provide "food for ting reality itself is not ultimately unsup- Theme three is the possible solution of thought." To this the freethinker, blissfully ported. Why? Because God is then the this need for higher values. Solzhenitsyn's unaware of the subtlety of Küng's thought, primal support of all reality. If God ex- solution is based on the premise that it was might disrespectfully blurt out, "So what?" ists, then evolving reality itself is not ul- the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, It seems, according to Küng, that God's timately without aim. Why? Because God with their belief in the human being as existence can "be verified but not proved." is then the primal goal of all reality. autonomous of the "Supreme Complete En- Fair enough. If we take "proof' in Küng's tity" and in the power of rational thought sense to mean deductive proof, then the This, for Küng, is the ultimate in clarity. that initiated the process of decay in the atheist is willing to accept some less This is the substance of his "argument." West. We should therefore reject "the rigorous form of verification. But Küng And regardless of how many times Küng calamity of an autonomous, irreligious further insists that the verification must be repeats it (perhaps hoping to induce a hyp- humanistic consciousness." Science and "indirect," and now the mediocre notic trance in the reader?), and regardless technology, the products of modern history, freethinker becomes suspicious. God, of how many times one reads it over (as I are not of much worth. "All the celebrated argues Küng, "is not there to be discovered, did) hoping to find wheat among the chaff, achievements of progress, including the con- not ascertainable and knowable, as are the it never gets any better. Küng, who sees quest of outer space," says Solzhenitsyn, things of this world." When discussing himself in the tradition of Catholic "mod- "do not redeem the twentieth century's God, we face "the question of the ernism," has many bad things to say about moral poverty, which no one could have im- knowledge of a quite different reality." scholastic theology and the Aristotelian agined as late as the nineteenth century." How do we attain knowledge of this tradition. But the clarity of an Aristotelian Nor does the democratic form of govern- different reality? Basic to Küng's approach such as Mortimer Adler (in How to Think ment or civil rights make up for this loss. is his bald assertion that reality is About God) is far preferable to the vague The West therefore cannot be considered a "mysteriously unjustified." "Reality is obscurities of Hans Kling. Kling as a Valerie Turchin is a leading Russian dissi- there as a fact, but enigmatically, utterly historian of philosophy and theology is dent. generally sympathetic to Sakharov. lacking in any manifest ground, support or knowledgeable and worthwhile. One must He is now a professor at the City Universi- purpose." Man, plagued with this "radical look elsewhere, however, for a rational ap- ty of New York. uncertainty" concerning reality (many of proach to theology. •

40 Frtee Lnqiiiy his lack of "clear development of brutality and dehumanization — that argument." The structure and the passion of these strengths and virtues, as we con- his speech suggest that it is because of ceive them, are in fact the root cause of democracy, because of human rights, our decadence, our , our because of the legal system, and because of a criminality, our superficiality, our A Critical Appraisal free press that the higher values are spiritual exhaustion, our "loss of civil neglected and decaying in Western society. courage," our breakdown of leadership. Solzhenitsyn writes: "We have placed too [Harold Berman] much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived Naturally, the question arises: Why? model for Russia. of our most precious possession: our What is it in Solzhenitsyn's background that Solzhenitsyn makes no attempt to create spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob has led him to take, from the Western view- a new religion; his solution of the problem is, in the East, by the commercial one in the point, a paradoxical position? essentially, to return to the mentality of the West." First he claims that the preoccupa- Here the authors fall into two groups. One Middle Ages, when, if we are to believe him, tion of Western society with reforms is the believes that the origins of the paradox of "our spiritual being" was thriving. This cause of the spiritual poverty, and then we Solzhenitsyn are predominantly, if not pure- ideological regression, he suggests, could be read that spiritual life is also trampled by ly, Russian. sets the combined with a political one. We read in the mob in the East, where there is no such tone by stating unconditionally that another document by Solzhenitsyn ("A preoccupation. Can anyone seriously think Solzhenitsyn's views "... remain very Letter to the Leaders of the USSR") that an that the mob of the Middle Ages was better Russian: They arise from particular authoritarian regime is not, in itself, a bad than the commercial mob of our time? religious and political strains remote from thing. The dictators of our time are I agree with Solzhenitsyn that we are modern Western experiences." Other dangerous because they do not believe in witnessing a serious crisis of values in con- authors trace Solzhenitsyn's spiritual and in- higher values; but if an autocrat "feels temporary Western, and essentially global, tellectual attitudes to the Slavophiles, to himself to be responsible before God," as he civilization, and many people in the West conservative political thinkers of pre- did in the good old times, then there would share this view. But there is no direct causal revolutionary Russia, or to contemporary be no reason to worry. relationship between this crisis and Russian nationalists in the Soviet In his contribution to this collection, democratic institutions. We can only state bureaucracy. Boris Shragin pointed out that by Solzhenit- that both phenomena emerged as a result of In the second group, George Will, in reply syn's logic we might conclude that, while the one historical development. Democratic in- to the Washington Post writes: "[Solzhenit- late Shah of Iran was a bad autocrat, the stitutions are a wonderful invention of the syn's views] are indeed, unmodern, even Ayatollah Khomeini is a good one: he cer- modern era, like the steam engine, electrici- anti-modern, but they are not exclusively tainly feels himself "responsible before ty, and computers. To throw them away Russian. His ideas about the nature of man God." would be stupid. If the West were to forgo and the essential political problem are Theme one and theme three are in- its democratic institutions, it would not broadly congruent with the ideas of Cicero separable in Solzhenitsyn's presentation. He come any closer to the solution of the and other ancients, and those of Augustine, does not try to separate the analysis of the problem of values. Even if we were to Aquinas, Richard Hooker, Pascal, Thomas problem from his solution to it or show how assume that a universal belief in a "Supreme More, Burke, Hegel and others." Ronald the latter is derived from the former. He Complete Entity" was the way toward a rich Berman goes still further and states that the only presents a list of invectives, some of spiritual life, such a belief could not be im- Harvard speech is "a reading of the West which are justified and others not. posed in an authoritarian way; the result through Western eyes ... Many a course in Many of Solzhenitsyn's critics in would be sham and hypocrisy. twentieth century humanities will cover the Solzhenitsyn at Harvard note the logical Since this is all fairly obvious to points made by Solzhenitsyn in language weakness of his address. "Solzhenitsyn's Solzhenitsyn's American audience, no very much like his." Arthur Schlesinger Harvard speech, like much prophetic wonder that none of the authors in this compares Solzhenitsyn's views with those of utterance, lacks clear development of collection supports his political approach. the American Puritans and presents an in- argument," writes Arthur Schlesinger. The book reflects the consternation that teresting analysis of their similarities and Richard Pipes calls it "chaotic in structure." seized American intellectuals at the Harvard differences. Michael Novak states "He has confused the idea of legalism with speech: decisively: "The first thing to be said is that the nature of the legal system," notes Most people, no doubt, anticipated that Solzhenitsyn's analysis seems classically Ronald Berman. Sidney Hook points out he would now praise America for those Catholic." Solzhenitsyn's "failure to appreciate the dis- strengths and virtues it offers in opposi- Of course Solzhenitsyn is a profoundly tinction between legality and morality" and tion to the Soviet system: above all, our Russian writer. But to explain his views by finds that "many of Solzhenitsyn's for- freedom and our law. Imagine our dis- the fact that he belongs to Russian culture, mulations are inexact or exaggerated." may, when instead, he attacked the as some of these writers tend to do, is a mis- There is a fundamental logical incon- things we cherish most, and charged that take. First, Russian culture has never been sistency in Solzhenitsyn's indictment of the those very freedoms which we oppose to really separated from the rest of Christian West. He sees a decay of higher values, and the brutality of the Stalin terror, those civilization and has been an organic part of he sees the Western political system — very laws which are genuine laws and not it during the past two centuries. Second, democracy, law, free press. To draw the con- the perverted laws of the Stalin terror, there is a humanistic and democratic strain clusion that one is the result of the other that very humanism, that tolerance, that in the history of Russia as well as a conser- would be a logical error. Solzhenitsyn does pluralism, which we suppose to be the vative one. Unfortunately, political power not say it explicitly — but only because of very things needed to save us from has always been in the hands of the conser-

Spring, 1981 41

vatives, first of the Orthodox Christian mold earlier work. Wishful thinking is also a outside the Soviet Union, they do not enjoy and now of the Communist one. But typical product. Just as Marx wanted to as much popular support in Russia as is humanistic and democratic ideas have had a believe that the proletariat, because of their suggested by the quantity of their published decisive impact on the intellectual and objective role in the production system, were works. Solzhenitsyn's ideas are shared most- spiritual development of the Russian in- a chosen people, so Solzhenitsyn believes ly by professionals in the humanities, and it telligentsia. The best part of Russian culture that his people are chosen. He writes in the is this discipline that produces the bulk of in the twentieth century has been created Harvard address: "Through deep suffering, the literature. Scientists, engineers, in- within this strain, in opposition to those in people in our country have now achieved a dustrial workers, and others, may be prone power. Andrei Sakharov's views are as un- spiritual development of such intensity that to nationalistic agitation but are not so dis- mistakably and profoundly Russian as Alex- the Western system in its present state of posed toward a return to the Middle Ages, ander Solzhenitsyn's. spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive nor are they as hostile to humanism and I explain Solzhenitsyn's thinking as the ... The complex and deadly crush of life has democracy as one would think from reading result of a universal phenomenon called produced stronger, deeper, and more in- Solzhenitsyn. However, they rarely write ar- "noble impatience": the pursuit of a goal teresting personalities than those generated ticles. that is good and noble in itself by those by standardized Western well-being." Solzhenitsyn's criticism of the West means that seem to be most immediately This is the old idea that suffering (theme one) is neither new nor very ac- accessible, even though they may not satisfy strengthens the spirit as physical effort curate, and if the remedy he offers (theme long-range requirements. strengthens the body. In fact, however, there three) is obviously inadequate, and not new The Communist revolution brought is no reason to rejoice. The agony and op- either, then why has his speech received so spiritual and political devastation. The pression endured at the hands of the Com- much attention? Is it significant at all? Russians are in desperate need of a spiritual munist regime have left the vast majority of I believe it is. Not because of the way he base. What are they to do? Should they Russians submissive and degraded. Only a treats themes one and three but because of develop a new, synthetic philosophy, a new shamefully few are prepared to resist, and theme two — that is, society's need for a system of values? That might be good advice still fewer, of course, are actually resisting. consensus on the ultimate, highest goals and ,for a professor working quietly in his study, If the Politburo decides to move troops into values of humanity. This, in my view, is but what if you are a prisoner in one of Poland tomorrow, Russian soldiers will be most urgent for the West, and it is the basis Stalin's dreadful camps? A return to the killing thousands of Poles fighting for their of much of the discussion generated by the traditional pre-Soviet reference system freedom, as they killed thousands of Harvard speech. Even if one disagrees with would seem almost the only solution. Hungarians, and as they are now killing Solzhenitsyn's solutions and objects to his The same is true in the political field. One thousands of Afghanis. It is our tragedy as narrow view that is tied to the desperately wants to crush this terrible in- well as that of the nations subjugated by the idea of a "Supreme Complete Entity," one human regime, but how can the people be Soviet empire. And while this shame con- cannot fail to see in him a towering public moved to rise up against it? The ideas of tinues, I would not boast of "interesting per- figure who passionately appeals for a con- democracy and legality are still foreign to sonalities" with "intensive spiritual sensus on the most fundamental question: the masses in the Soviet Union; the new development." Of course there are unusually What is the meaning of life? Hardly anyone regime checked the spread of these ideas strong individuals, but we know of unusually in the world is better qualified than when they first began to be appreciated. So strong individuals in the West too. How can Solzhenitsyn to pose that question and to be it may take decades, or even generations, we compare them? heard. We should thank him for courageous- before the slogans of democracy can serve as With many of my friends I believe that ly doing so. (Richard Pipes, one of the a rallying cry against the Communist tyran- Solzhenitsyn's ideology, in both its intellec- severest critics of Solzhenitsyn's platform, ny. The only force that can unite the people tual and its political aspects, leads nowhere. remarks: "Like everything he writes of Russia (or anywhere) in this century is Solzhenitsyn states that the West cannot Solzhenitsyn's Harvard address shines with nationalism. It combines so naturally with serve as an ideal model for Russia. But there incorruptible courage.") the Christian orthodoxy that one cannot tell is nothing ideal below the moon; for exam- Solzhenitsyn warns the West that this which is the chicken and which the egg. ple, I have some reservations about the civilization is already critically imperiled Hence Solzhenitsyn's platform: the pre- system of political parties, which I have ex- and weakened by the absence of such a con- sent regime is non-Russian and has no roots pressed elsewhere, and which are apparently sensus in the face of the ominous rise of in Russian history or Russian tradition; all similar to those of Solzhenitsyn; and I would totalitarianism and that without one it will the evil came from the West in the form of put a greater emphasis on election through a perish altogether. On this, I side completely humanist and socialist ideas and proliferated hierarchical system of representatives — un- with Solzhenitsyn, and probably against like bacteria on the Russian soil (and this der certain conditions. And of course there many of the contributors to this book. without a culture medium and without roots are a multitude of defects and evils in con- A consensus on higher values need not — isn't it remarkable?). The remedy, of temporary democracies that are indirectly contradict human rights or the democratic course, is simple: reject the devil's tempta- related to the existing political system, but, form of government. It may exist and be in- tion and restore the Russian spirit to what it to cite Sidney Hook, "the cure, surely, is not stitutionalized in a democratic society. I will was before the October Revolution, before no democracy, but a better democracy." even state positively that it should be in- the February Revolution, and before the Beyond a doubt the main features of stitutionalized somehow, although, of Nikon reform of the seventeenth century. democracy as it works in the West should be course, not through compulsion. It should As all artificial platforms, this one com- taken as models when discussing possible not be fixed once and forever by a reference pels its proponents to violate the facts. political systems for the free Russia that is to the "unearthly" origins of some texts, but Solzhenitsyn's historical novels August 1914 to be. should evolve along with culture. and Lenin in Zurich are tendentious and It should be pointed out that, although The acceptance of any of the traditional weak and are not comparable with his Solzhenitsyn has many followers inside and religions is not a necessary precondition of a

42 Fihee In c,,t consensus on values. Sidney Hook expresses truth does not exist, then everything is per- tents of his truth. The Times said disap- this excellently: "Solzhenitsyn echoes Smer- missible." provingly: "He believes himself to be in diakov's dictum in Dostoevsky's Brothers In a book I wrote while still in Moscow possession of The Truth and so sees error Karamazov, that 'if God does not exist, (to be published by Columbia University wherever he looks"; then it proclaims him a everything is [morally] permissible.' But this Press under the title The Inertia of Fera and "zealot." The Times does not want us even is a non sequitur. Men build their gods in the Scientific Worldview), I called anti- to believe that we know the truth. We should their own moral image. When we profess to religion the tendency of contemporary simply do what everyone else is doing. derive a moral command from a religious Western society to take the rules of liberal Michael Novak gives the highest praise to revelation, it is only because we have democracy, which are essentially instrumen- Solzhenitsyn's speech: "The text of Alex- smuggled into our conception of Divinity tal, as the highest goal in itself and that no ander Solzhenitsyn's address at Harvard is, our own moral judgments." higher common goals or values may be look- in my view, the most important religious The basis for any consensus in a free ed for. The credo of anti-religion is that the document of our time, more shattering than society is not compulsion or authority, but goals and values of individuals are their own Pacem in Terris, more sharply analytical of truth. And the notion of truth extends to the business, and to meddle in them is unethical human condition in our century than any realm of values. Even in the most positivistic and a violation of their rights. I wrote: word from the World Council of Churches." and noncommittal of the modern inter- "Politics is encroaching on culture. Some He presents interesting observations and pretations, according to which it is only a kind of agreement as to goals is indispen- analyses of how what should, in theory, be way to organize our behavior to achieve a sable in society, so agreement as to the tolerance becomes, in practice, indifference. certain goal, truth still exists as something absence of the supreme goal replaces the He interprets Solzhenitsyn as sketching a vi- objective, and values can be true or false. agreement as to its presence that sion of "a society whose heart is not so emp- Because some values are such that when es- characterized religious society. But this ty as that of our present civilization, a socie- poused they lead to the happiness of in- symmetry is very relative. The presence of a ty that while remaining pluralistic, is not dividuals and the progress of humanity as a supreme goal assures social integration. Its relativistic ... Every idea is not equal to whole, we call them true. Other values or absence, elevated to the status of a principle, every other, nor is every moral value equal ways to organize our behavior may lead to leads to society's disintegration." to every other." misery and destruction. They are referred to When I came to the West, I saw that anti- I consider it unfortunate that those who as false. Of course, we rarely know for sure religion was as real and destructive a tenden- realize and stress the importance of theme what truth is; we can take false for true and cy as I perceived it from Moscow. When you two do it only from a traditional position on vice versa, but this does not mean that there live in Russia you somehow know that life theme three. Mr. Novak writes: "The is no truth and that we should not try to dis- should have a true meaning — even though positive antipathy to religion common cover it. you may be too stupid to understand it, and among the enlightened remains, however, a even though people around you do not live fundamental weakness in our culture." I up to that meaning. When you live in subscribe to this completely if religion is un- America, you are constantly told in one way derstood in its broadest sense, as any system or another that there should be no such thing of supra-individual values. It is in this sense as the meaning of life and that you better that I use the term religion in my book (the mind your own business. term anti-religion should be understood cor- But I also found that there is a growing respondingly). If, however, he means concern about this state of affairs. Two con- religion in the traditional sense, then the an- tributors to the collection under review, tipathy of "the enlightened" becomes un- Charles Kesler and Michael Novak, deal avoidable; it is simply unacceptable for directly with this problem. Mr. Kesler them. writes: Thus the most urgent need of contem- porary civilization is to create a system of Truth, after all — the very idea that there values and goals that would fit a free society is such a thing as objective truth — is not of critically thinking modern people and much at home on college campuses these would take the scientific picture of the world days. Once or twice a year it is invited to as its basis — not as an annoying nuisance to class, but only to be dismissed as dogged be accommodated on the basis of traditional superstition, or debunked as a sort of a religion. Until such a system is worked out grand Ptolemaic error. Never mind the and a consensus on it is achieved, the crisis Drawing by G. Vigrass paradox that the denial of truth has itself of values will continue, and with it a Liberal democracy is a great invention to be true: Solzhenitsyn was arresting dangerous vulnerability which sooner or because it allows ideas to compete freely in because he spoke of the truth as if it were later will lead to the collapse of the free the search for truth. People should be equal true. world. in their right to promote ideas. But this does People in the West tend to respond not make their ideas equal. Some are true When you read some of the responses to jokingly to such warnings. Arthur and some are false. If we do not believe in Solzhenitsyn's address, notably the one by Schlesinger writes: "Americans were deem- truth, there is no sense in the competition of the New York Times, you get the impres- ed as sinful in 1678 as Solzhenitsyn deems ideas, no point in liberal democracy, and no sion that much of the irritation over the them in 1978; the Day of Judgment was meaning in life. It is the end of culture, Harvard speech comes from the fact that quite as near and remote then as now." morality, and civilization. Dostoevsky's dic- Solzhenitsyn speaks as a man who knows Perhaps, but I am afraid it has become ex- tum should be reformulated in this way: "If the truth rather than from the specific con- actly three hundred years nearer. •

Spring, 1981 43 (continued from Page 5) A. Watts, who did more than anyone else publishers in maintaining the freethought during the nineteenth century to maintain tradition. In fact, I devote a large part of I like the idea of publishing Free Inquiry the continuous circulation of material the book Freethought in the United because every opportunity to stress the written by better-known people and to Kingdom and the Commonwealth to them. supreme social importance of human liber- provide the permanent basis for the There are a lot of other things I had to ty is of great value. development of the freethought ideology. leave out in a 1500-word article. I wish to suggest that Marvin Kohl's 2. Stein repeats the stock idea that the 2. Yes, C. A. Watts & Company had its doubts about a nontheistic ethics rest on his "peak of freethought activity" came in the peak of activity after the peak of organized unwillingness to examine ethical egoism as late nineteenth century and that "after freethought in all other parameters was a sound ethics. If it is a sound ethics, the 1906, freethought was on the decline." Yet over. So? I do not deny this, but I do say problem of needing "rewards" and it was during the early twentieth century that Watts & Company's activity cannot "punishment" in connection with human that C. A. Watts and the Rationalist Press make up for a sharp decline in activity in morality vanishes, since moral wrongs are, Association together distributed literally all other areas of organized freethought. as Socrates and Aristotle believed, bad for millions of copies of inexpensive 3. I am aware of the membership figures the person who commits them, while moral- freethought publications, and that such peo- for the RPA, as I have all of their Annual ly proper conduct is good for the agent. ple as Joseph McCabe and J. M. Robert- Reports, and have read them. To me, 1947, Only those who think morality is a mere son, J. B. S. Haldane and Bertrand Russell which Walter claims was the peak social tool, for helping others or sustaining made a much wider and deeper contribu- membership year is "at the time of the Se- society, are concerned about the lack of tion to the spread of freethought than their cond World War." That is what I mean, in pay-offs. Such people will want, as Kohl predecessors ever did during the whole of a perhaps not entirely precise way. The does, some kind of "adequate enforcement the nineteenth century. membership pattern after 1947, which factor." But enforcing morally good con- 3. Stein says that "the Rationalist Press Walter details, is, as I said, composed of duct robs the agent of the opportunity of Association reached its peak in membership "some rises and falls in membership, but being a morally good person. It substitutes, at the time of the Second World War." In the overall trend was downwards." He ad- as B.F. Skinner would, good behavior for fact there was a continuous increase both mits as much. I plotted out the membership virtuous conduct. Why is it so problematic during and after the war, reaching a peak in figures before I made that statement. for Kohl and many others to see morality 1947 of just over 5,000 members and about 4. This misses the point. I was trying to as a life-supporting code, as an answer to 300 subscribers. He adds that "after that, it correlate the readership of freethought the question "How should I, a human being showed some rises and falls in membership, periodicals and membership in freethought and the individual that I am, live my life?" but the overall trend was downwards." In organizations with the social and economic Why do they need to place the "life of fact there was a continuous fall to a trough climate of the times. Walter says that society" or, paradoxically enough, other in 1956 of just under 3,000 members and readership and membership of one liberal people, before one's own life and its ex- subscribers; but then another continuous thing correlates with readership and cellence (or best version)? Of course, the rise to the highest peak in 1964-65 of just membership of other liberal things. Maybe answer lies in various metaphysical and over 5,000 members and about 1,500 sub- so, but that was not what I was interested epistemological notions. But Kohl dismisses scribers; since then another continuous in or trying to examine. even the prospect of an ethical egoist decline to the present total of just under 2,- morality in his essay when he thinks 000 members and subscribers. So the real From Another Planet morality must "prevent self-interest." That climax of our membership came not in the is begging the entire question of what nineteenth century or in the early 1940s, I recently read in the British press of a morality is sound for us. but in the mid-1960s, coinciding with the collective decision by a group of eminent Tibor R. Machan, Senior Editor climax of the British . scientists to reject the divinity of Jesus Reason Magazine 4. Stein gives several complex reasons Christ (Secular Humanist Declaration). I Santa Barbara, Calif. for the rise and fall in the membership of wholeheartedly agree with this verdict. In and support for freethought organizations. my opinion a perfectly straightforward Free Thought in Great Britain In Britain there is a simple correlation historical record, namely the Bible, has between such figures and the membership over the centuries been distorted and used Gordon Stein's article, "Freethought: Past of progressive organizations in general and to gain power by various religious sects. and Present," over-emphasizes militant the readership of progressive periodicals in Over recent years I have read the Bible propaganda and under-emphasizes the general. Today we are far from being four times and consider that I have un- equally important publishing activity, and respectable but we are respected earthed sufficient evidence to point to the in this context some points in his coverage nevertheless, regardless of our leadership or fact that the Jews arrived from another of the British freethought movement should membership, because our arguments are planet, which was on the verge of nuclear be questioned. still as serious and significant as they have self-destruction. Jesus was probably the 1. Stein makes no reference to the un- always been. King's or the President's son, a do-gooder known but important people who main- Nicholas Walter, Director motivated by moralistic principles and able tained the tradition of freethought Rationalist Press Association to perform apparent miracles with the publishing during the half-century between London, England assistance of advanced drugs and electronic the eclipse of Richard Carlile in the 1830s aids of the kind that will be available here and the emergence of the Rationalist Press Gordon Stein Replies: on Earth in about forty year's time, if we Association in the 1890s. I would par- survive that long. ticularly emphasize the contribution of 1. Quite correct, but I plead lack of space. J.G. Flint James Watson, Austin Holyoake, and C. I am entirely aware of the role of small Guildford, England

44 (continued from Page 3) Lester A. Kirkendall, professor emeritus the Nineteenth Century, in six narrated, of family life, Oregon State University edited cassette tapes, $35 per set. Freedom Nettie Klein, humanist counsellor, CLASSIFIED From Religion Foundation, Box 40, Asbury, Holland NJ 08802 Jean Kotkin, executive director, Rates Per word (single insertion) American Ethical Union MICHIGAN ANIMAL RIGHTS SO- 10-word minimum 30 cents Gerald LaRue, professor of religion, CIETY invites inquiries about membership 10% discount for placement in 3 con- University of Southern California and purposes. 90 Oakwood, Ypsilanti, MI James R. Martin, instructor of English, secutive issues 1.00 48197 State University of New York at Buffalo Box numbers available Payment for insertion must accompany Thomas J. Moore, Michigan Cancer ARTWORK, graphic design, illustration copy. Foundation For additional information and rates for and layout. Rates available upon request. Lucy Paul, director, Freedom From classified display advertising, write: Berkshire Graphics, 286 Berkshire, Buffalo, Religion Foundation NY 14215 Nishan Paul, director, Freedom From FREE INQUIRY Religion Foundation Classified Dept. DO YOU QUESTION? Are you sorrowed Kenneth Phifer, minister, First Uni- Box 5, Central Park Station by human mortality? Does life surge tarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor Buffalo, N.Y. 14215 passionately within you? A new idea, im- C.G. Prado, philosophy department, probable but not impossible, awaits you in Queens University, Kingston, Canada PROFESSIONAL EDITING, rewrite, the book PROJECT PHOENIX, a concept James W. Prescott, president, Behavioral more. Prompt, reasonable. Theo French for future existence. $4.50. The Norns Systems, Los Gatlos, California Edits, 4263 Panorama Drive, La Mesa, CA Publishing Company, P.O. Box 1172, Larry Retka, director, Omichiana dis- 92041 Marathon, FL 33050. trict, American Humanist Association BOOK PUBLISHING, manuscripts and C.J. Richards, vice president, Central "Korean Human Rights" Information: 625 inquiries invited. Fiction, nonfiction, and States, Freedom from Religion Foundation Post Street #888B San Francisco, CA 94109 poetry. Free AUTHOR'S GUIDE. Write Margaret J. Richards, treasurer, Dorrance & Company, Dept. G, Cricket Freedom from Religion Foundation 49 BIBLICAL CONTRADICTIONS, Terrace Center, Ardmore, PA 19003. • Dwight C. Rinke, moderator, Unitarian $3.00, Discovery, Box 20331-FI West Valley Universalist Church, Detroit City, UT 84120 Hein Roethof, lawyer, member of Parlia- SECULAR ment, Holland WRITERS: "PROBLEM" MANU- Madzy Rood, professor of law, Universi- SCRIPT? Try AUTHOR AID HUMANIST ty of Utrecht and Roman Catholic Universi- ASSOCIATES, FI-340 East 52nd Street, ty of Tilburg, Holland N.Y.C. 10022 DECLARATION Max Rood, professor of law, University of Leiden, Holland FAR EAST correspondents seek American endorsed by Bert Schwarz, vice-president, board of correspondents. Cherry Blossoms, 58 leaders of thought, governors, Delft University of Technology, Honokaa, HI 96727 is now available co-chairman, International Humanist and Ethical Union, Holland ATHEIST, HUMANIST, FREE- in handsome James Simpson, secretary, American THOUGHT literature. Outstanding, booklet form. Humanist Assn., associate professor, acclaimed material. Free catalogue. University of Florida Independent Publications, Box 162, Pater- $1.95 each Warren Allen Smith, president, Variety son, N.J. 07513 (plus $1.25 for Sound Corporation, New York postage and handling) Morris Storer, director, American BERTRAND RUSSELL SOCIETY, In- Humanist Assn., professor emeritus, formation: FI, RD 1, Box 409, University of Florida Coopersburg, PA 18036 order in bulk Rob Tielman, associate professor of sociology, University of Utrecht, chairman, HEMLOCK cares about quality and choice special discount for Dutch Humanist League for the dying person. The only USA group 10 or more copies at Herbert Tonne, professor emeritus, working for the right of the terminally ill to 40% discount plus select active voluntary euthanasia. For business education, New York University $3.00 for postage. and State University of New York membership details, send SAE to: Hemlock, Gershon Weiler, professor, Universi- Suite 101, 2803 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405, or telephone (213) 391- ty of Tel Aviv, Israel Secular Humanist Declaration Anton Wichers, professor of sociology, 1871. University of Utrecht, Holland Box 25 Edwin H. Wilson, former executive direc- DO 300 POUND RELIGIONISTS KICK Central Park Station SAND IN YOUR FACE? Let Col. Bob tor, American Humanist Association Buffalo, NY 14215 William Young, founder, Society for Ingersoll make a man of you. Hear the lec- tures of Ingersoll, "The Great Agnostic" of Evangelical Agnostics •

45 Spring, 1981 reach the age of reason. The directive also rejects opinions voiced in recent years by some theologians that ON THE BARRICADES imposing the sacrament on the newborn negates freedom of choice and suggestions by some parents that they should decide when to baptize their children. It calls on Catholic parents to consider infant baptism Traditional Moralists Denounce a serious right and duty that is "necessary Book Censorship and Sin Secular Humanism for salvation." Noting that parents are required to make Washington County, Virginia Library is "The Ad Hoc Committee for Traditional many choices for their children in the for- embroiled in an intense controversy over Morality" has issued a statement endorsed mative years, the directive terms the desire of religious fundamentalists to by 28 religious signers, which attacks suggestions that baptism should wait until ban three novels — Philip Roth's Goodbye, secular humanism. adolescence or adulthood "simply an il- Columbus, Harold Robbins' The Lonely The statement notes the leading tradition lusion." It adds: "There is no such thing as Lady, and Sidney Sheldon's Bloodline. of the United States has been "a firm belief pure human freedom. Parents make choices Rising to prominence is the Rev. Tom in the Supreme Being and in his moral for their child that are essential for its life Williams, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist commandments recorded on the pages of and for its orientation toward true values." Church, who visited the library and loudly the Holy Bible." "The child is a' person long before it can voiced opposition to the novels, saying that It "vigorously" denounces "the secular show it by acts of consciousness and public funds should be cut off. humanist forces in general and the current freedom," the document says. "As a person Librarian Kathy Russell said she would national administration in particular for the child is ,already capable of becoming, resign if the books are banned. this utterly reprehensible failure to combat through the sacrament of baptism, a child Williams had demanded circulation lists pornography, sexual perversion, abortion, of God and a co-heir with Christ. Later, showing who had checked out the books, the concept of drafting women into the when consciousness and freedom awake, but Ms. Russell refused, saying privacy of armed forces, sacrilege and blasphemy in these will have at their disposal the powers library patrons should be preserved. various fields including media and enter- placed in the child's soul by the grace of Williams made copies of portions of the tainment, interference by government in the baptism."(New York Times, Nov. 21, 1980) books and handed them out, but Com- operation and policies of basically orderly monwealth's Attorney Dan Hall said the religious schools and institutions, the im- Giant Jesus: Ye Little Men of Faith preacher probably couldn't be charged with moral abandonment and betrayal of a distributing porno because he did so for an number of America's Free World friends A 900-foot-tall Jesus Christ assured Oral overriding political purpose. and allies and all forms of craven inaction Roberts his massive City of Faith medical "That filth degrades the human family regarding the spread of international complex in Tulsa, Okla., will be completed, lower than animals," Williams said. terrorism and godless international com- Roberts says in a fundraising letter. Williams was asked if his campaign munism." Roberts says in his letter that on May 25 might not create more buyers for sexy Among the signers were Edward he spoke to Jesus, who said, "I told you books. McAteer, president of The Roundtable; that 1 would speak to your partners and, "Why, bless your heart, I didn't make Rabbi Abraham V. Hecht, president of the through them, I would build it!" 'em popular," he said. "Sin has always Rabbinical Alliance of America; William "Partners" is the term Roberts applies to been popular." (Roanoke Times, Nov. 26, A. Powell, Sr., editor of Southern Baptist donors who have given millions of dollars 1980) Journal; Morton Hill, a Catholic priest and toward the project under construction on president of Morality in Media; and the city's south side. Mildred F. Jefferson, president of the Right The letter says Jesus appeared at precise- Pluralism is Immoral! to Life Crusade. ly 7 p.m. as Roberts stood praying in front McAteer, a member of Bellevue Baptist of the City of Faith: Gary Potter, president of the Catholics for Church of Memphis, said the issuance of "I felt an overwhelming presence all Political Action, described the nation he en- the statement was "one of the most signifi- around me. When I opened my eyes, there visioned and the America reflected by the cant of the century." (Baptist Press, Oct. He stood... some 900 feet tall, looking at writers of the Family Protection Act: 24, 1980) me; His eyes! He stood a full 300 feet taller "When the Christian majority takes over than the 600 foot tall City of Faith. There I this country," he said, "there will be no Vatican Insists Baptism Should was face-to-face with Jesus Christ, the Son satanic churches, no more abortion on de- Follow Soon After Birth of the Living God." (The Courier-News, mand and no more talk of rights for Oct. 18, 1980) homosexuals. After the Christian majority A directive sent to all bishops and made takes control, pluralism will be seen as im- public by the Vatican today reaffirms the American Universities Subsidizing moral and evil and the state will not permit Roman Catholic Church's view that the Secular Humanism anybody the right to practice evil." sacrament of baptism must be administered ( Playboy, Jan. 1981) soon after birth, not deferred until people Church and state are not separated in our

46 American universities: most of them either word humanism must be discarded or that the electorate. directly or indirectly promote the religion it is less useful because it has been ap- The charge that sex education in the of secular humanism. Thus, though com- propriated by some secularists and mis- schools is little more than pornography — mitted to neutrality, our government is in understood by some fundamentalists. It is Leveled by the so-called Moral Majority. fact providing billions of dollars annually to still a vehicle for expressing a central Chris- Denied by 61-22 percent majority of the promote institutions whose primary tian truth and that is why Pope Paul VI voters. (Buffalo Evening News, Dec. 17, religious emphasis is antagonistic to Chris- wrote in Populorum Progression: "By 1980) tian faith. This violates the First reason of his union with Christ, the source Amendment.• Congress shall make no law of life, man attains to a new fulfillment of Humanism: the New Scapegoat respecting an establishment of religion. No himself, to a transcendent humanism which matter what the intent, our present system gives him the greatest possible perfection. Maybe it is time to end the New Deal, and normally establishes the religion of secular This is the highest goal of personal the voters were right: the conservatives are humanism in most of our large development." (America[Jesuit magazine], now those with new ideas. Government has government-supported universities. We may Nov. 1, 1980) grown too big, too intrusive for our own fail to recognize this because of too narrow good. Laws are so complex that they are a definition of religion; but if we define it in McGovern Tells Liberals impediments to individual liberty and terms of ultimate commitments and values They Must "Retrieve Flag" benefit only those who can pay that govern life, surely secular humanism is professionals to take advantage of a religion. Just as surely, it is the religion of If liberals are to get back in political stride, loopholes. our great American universities. Not only they must prevent conservatives from por- But if we throw out liberal government, does this violate the constitutional traying themselves as the only defenders of who and what gets thrown out with it? guarantee against establishing a particular religion, family and flag, says former Sen. High on the list of expendables are religion, but it also grants to that religion a George McGovern. secular humanists, a term broad enough to near monopoly of government-supported "Why should they be allowed to pre- include the National Council of Churches, religious training in our nation. We must empt the flag? a confusing catch-all that seems to net recognize this stranglehold for what it is — "We've got to retrieve that flag," everyone except the true believer in Jesus a violation of our basic constitutional McGovern said at a dinner of the Fund for and unfettered capitalism. rights. And it must cease. (Christianity To- New Priorities in America. Only a few short years ago the humanist day, Nov. 7, 1980) "I became labeled as the anti family can- menace loomed only in the minds of those didate," he said. "Here Eleanor and I are, who handled snakes ecstatically or wrestled Christian vs. Secular Humanism with 37 years of married life, a son and four with Satan until they sweated. Today, daughters and four grandsons. riding the new Great Awakening, religious Every now and then, they issue a manifesto "And I was running against a 57-year- fervor has found direct-mail techniques and that evokes the memory of the old- old bachelor!" he said. television . Secular humanism is fashioned philosophic naturalism of the McGovern said the "final straw" was the the new majority's incubus, the cause of all 1930's. The latest of such statements, "A attempt by conservatives to equate their that is wrong with the world. This belief is Secular Humanist Declaration," was political philosophy with "God-fearing found not only in the hearts of those who released here last month over the signatures religion." populate the backwaters but presumably of 58 professors and writers of whom a dis- "If the right wing takes over the flag, and now in the heart of the nation itself, the proportionate number have reached retire- the family and God, and they leave us with White House. ment age. Although their main target was abortion and the Panama Canal Treaty, Who wouldn't find solace in discovering clearly the Moral Majority, they also had we're going to lose," he said. (AP—Dec. that all troubles are singularly caused, that sharp raps for the Pope and for various 16, 1980) one group of people and their philosophy is forms of , Judaism and "obscurantist responsible for inflation and unemploy- religions in Asia." This wide-ranging dis- The Moral Majority vs. ment, the decline of industrial productivity pleasure is explained, the 58 signers said, by The Actual Majority and American prestige, violence in the the fact that "secular humanism places streets and schools that cannot teach? Un- trust in human intelligence rather than Most of the positions espoused by the so- fortunately, the world is not like that. Yet divine guidance" and believes that "the called Moral Majority do not meet with the inner self seeks to find the simple solu- , though imperfect, is still support from the actual majority of the tion, the one menace which, if defeated, the most reliable way to understanding the electorate. Here are some of the issues and would soothe the turbulent soul. world." the way the two groups line up, according Whether we like it or not, humanists are With this outlook, all religious people to the latest ABC News-Harris Survey: seen by those in power as that malignant and not just the Moral Majority do indeed Exposing children to religious teachings element. In another place gypsies and Jews have the most fundamental of differences. in the schools — The television preacher were marched away. The tattoo of today's The issues being debated in the Presidential flock favors this by better than 2-1. The en- drumbeat is to a rhythm only slightly campaign will pass away but questions tire electorate opposes it by 50-47 percent. different, and it's getting stronger. Arthur about God and the divinity of Jesus Christ Calling for a constitutional amendment Dobrin Leader, Ethical Humanist Society and life after death will never pass away. to ban abortion — Favored by the extreme of Long Island. (New York Times, Nov. But those differences do not mean that the conservatives. Opposed by 61-34 percent of 16, 1980) •

Spring, 1981 47

(continued from Front Cover) HUMANISM AND POLITICS The foes of secular humanism indict it not only for its heretical views on religion but also for its so-called "left wing" or "liberal" political beliefs. But secular humanists are found in the en- tire range of the political spectrum. Many on the New Right fail to recognize that many secular humanists voted for Ronald Reagan and other conservative candidates. There are a right-wing, conservative, and liber- tarian freethinkers as well as liberal, radical, and left-wing ones. Some are pro-labor, others pro-business; some ... is a new magazine devoted advocate world government, others are against it; some are for nuclear energy, to the ideals of others oppose it; some support welfare programs, others are opposed to them; secularism and freedom . some insist on a strong foreign policy, others do not; some are liberals or socialists, while others are critical of egalitarianism and defend in- MAY WE INVITE YOU dividualism, free enterprise, and humanistic capitalism. TO SUBSCRIBE HUMANISM AND ETHICS One thing that all secular humanists Subscription Rates stand for is free thought. They are against censorship and tyranny and One Year $12.00 believe that the free person should be fully responsible for moral choices. Two Years 20.00 Humanists do not condone un- trammeled license. They are com- Three Years 27.00 mitted to the use of reflective in- telligence in dealing with moral Single Issue 3.00 problems rather than appealing to "divine commandments." The truth is Payment enclosed that humanists also disagree on many ethical issues: some are for abortion, Bill Me others have reservations; some are for sex education in the public schools, while others are opposed to it because Name they do not want the state to intrude in private matters; some are for the Equal Rights Amendment, others are uncer- Address tain that such a constitutional provi- sion is necessary. Humanists do not wish to undermine the role of the fami- City State Zip ly, as critics contend. They do advocate basic moral virtues — fairness, Add $1.00 for Canadian kindness, beneficence, justice, and Add $2.00 outside U.S.A. tolerance. Religionists trace the downfall of man to the eating of the forbidden fruit Box 5, Central Park Station of the tree of the knowledge of good Buffalo, New York 14215 and evil. But humanists hold the con- viction that it is by developing the art of critical intelligence that we humans can best achieve moral excellence and growth. • Paul Kurtz, Editor