Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 109 No. 8 £1.50 October 2004 ETHICAL SOCIETY VISITS THETFORD
Golden Statue of Thomas Paine, Thetford. Norfolk, Saturday 3 July 2004 Ethical Society Members and Friends gather round to hear about Thomas Paine from Chad Goodwin, Chair of the T.P. Society (full report in JulylAug ER).
ART SOIREE 2004: 2 PLAQUE TO JEREMY BENTHAM UNVEILED Philip Schofield 3 GILBERT & SULLIVAN EXCERPTS FOR CONWAY HALL'S 75TH Terry Mullins 5 HOW CAN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY COPE WITH RELIGION? David McLellan 6 REVIEW OF RICHARD NORMAN'S 'ON HUMANISM' Chris Bratcher 8 CARTOON OF CONWAY HALL'S 75th Martin Rowson 12 NEW EXHIBITION AT WOMEN'S LIBRARY Jennifer Jeynes 17 ANNUAL REUNION AND THE HUMANIST PEACE FORUM Diana Rookledge 18 THE INDEXING OF THE SOCIETY'S PUBLIC TALKS Tom Rubens 19 VIEWPOINT: Mental Violence in Cartoons Ben Rosten 20 MIRIAM ELTON 1934-2004 David Morris 21 RICHARD JOHN CADMAN HALL 1942-2004 B Smoker, Alex Hill et al. 22 • ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC I R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk [email protected] Officers Chairman of the GC: Terry Mullins. Hon. Representative of the GC: Don Liversedge. Vice Chairman: John Rayner. Registrar: Edmund McArthur.
Editor, Ethical Record: Norman I3acrac SPES Staff Administrative Secretary to the Society: Marina Ingham Tel: 020 7242 8034 Librarian/Programme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes M.Sc. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Hull Manager: Peter Vlachos MA. For Hall bookings: Tel: 020 7242 8032 Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova, Shaip Bullaku, David Wright Tel: 020 7242 8033 Administrative/Clerical Staff: Carina Kelsey, Victoria Le Fevre, Nanu Patel New Members Sydney Adair Butchins, a cosmologist, Swiss Cottage, London. Tony Novissimo, Richmond, London. Obituary We regret to report the death of Richard Hall of London (joined 1965), formerly a member of the General committee, who died on 27 September 2004. (Obituary on p22) SPES AGM This year's AGM will be held on 21 November 2004 at 1430, registration from 1400
THE ETHICAL SOCIETY'S ART SOIREE 2004 1930Friday 19 November FIRST LOVES AND HOW I DISCOVERED ART illustrated talk by Richard Cork, the well-known Art Critic, Art Historian and Broadcaster, Writer on Art for The Times and the New Statesman, Author, 4 recent paperbacks of Critical Writing on Modern Art, Yale University Press
SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Reg. Charity No. 251396 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the renowned.South Place Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal, Ethical Record, is issued ten times a year. Funerals and Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is £18 (£12 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65).
Ethical Record, October, 2004 PLAQUE TO JEREMY BENTHAM UNVEILED Speech of Philip Schofield on the occasion of the ceremony at the Home Office, Queen Anne's Gate Tuesday, 12 October 2004
Had we been here 200 years ago, on the 12th of October 1804, we would have been standing in Queen Square, as Queen Anne's Gate was then called, and we would have seen a narrow passage leading away from where we are standing. At the end of that passage would have been the two houses which constituted Queen Square Place, and the larger of the houses would have belonged to Jeremy Bentham.
We might have tried to gain admittance to Mr Bentham's house. We might not have been successful in our attempt, for many who would have liked to have met him, did not enjoy the privilege. For instance, Madame de Stael, who once said that the two most important men of the age were Napoleon and Bentham, was refused an audience with Bentham—she presumably reassessed her view of Bentham as a consequence of what she considered to be a snub. Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of South America, only got as far as Bentham's garden. The garden, however, was no doubt worth seeing, given Bentham's lifelong interest in botany, and the trade in exotic seeds in which he engaged. It was also an enormous garden, for the greater part of what is now the site of the Home Office was the site of Bentham's house and garden.
Bentham very much revelled in his reclusiveness. He called himself the Hermit of Queen Square Place. Indeed, on the day after our imagined visit, he wrote to his brother: 'I see scarce any body than L can help seeing, yet when I do, it is with good humour, chattering freely upon all sorts of subjects'.
Assuming we did gain entry into his house, we would probably have found Bentham in his study, working on the subject of judicial evidence, which would, twenty years and more hence, be edited by John Stuart Mill, and appear as Rationale of Judicial Evidence.
Many people did, of course, gain entrance, and a procession of statesmen, politicians (including at least two Home Secretaries), lawyers, and intellectuals made that same journey down the narrow passage as we have just imagined ourselves to do, unless they knew about the entrance to Bentham's garden and house which passed through a gate on Bird Cage Walk. Visitors to his house included Henry Brougham, the Lord Chancellor and law reformer, Francis Burdett, the radical MP for Westminster, Francis Place, the radical tailor of Charing Cross, Samuel Romilly, the law reformer, not to mention Bernardino Rivadavia, later the first President of the Argentine Republic, Prince Adam Czartoryski, Russian statesman and Polish patriot, and John Quincy Adams, later President of the United States of America.
The Hermit of Queen Square Place Bentham might have been, but he also described himself as 'a citizen of the world'. He was very proud of the fact that Jose del Valle, the Guatemalan statesman, addressed him as 'legislator of the world'.
Ethical Record, October, 2004 3 The Founder Of Utilitarianism But why did such a recluse enjoy such a world-wide reputation? Bentham was the founder of the doctrine of utilitarianism—by his insistence that actions be judged by their consequences in terms of happiness, he did more than anyone perhaps to lay the foundations for a tolerant, equitable, rational, and secular society.
Here lies a further link with organizations such as the Home Office—he was the first theorist of bureaucracy, and in his magisterial Constitutional Code laid down detailed principles for the construction of a government administration, characterized by the injunction to maximize official aptitude and minimize expense. These were the two main ends of government. Public examination and public accountability lay at the centre of Bentham's thinking—and these principles applied to ministers just as much as they did to any other official.
Bentham altered the course of British politics with his utilitarian justification of democracy, summed up in his principle that everyone is to count for one, and no one for more than one. In economics, cost-benefit analysis can be seen to have its origin in Bentham's utilitarian methodology. Bentham is the father of modern jurisprudence, having been the first to define clearly the main issues which legal philosophers are still debating today.
Bentham is the inventor of the modern concept of surveillance. He provides a plausible justification of identity cards—should anyone be in need of such a justification—by linking security with civil liberty, and thereby showing the fallacy of the arguments of those who claim that civil liberties are necessarily infringed by an increase in regulation.
Human Rights A Stratagem Bentham would, however, be disappointed with the current emphasis on human rights in our political and legal discourse. He would probably see it, as he did many things, as a stratagem employed by lawyers to increase their earning potential. Bentham developed a profound critique of such rights, albeit in the guise of natural rights, in the process of which he coined the memorable saying that talk of natural rights is simple nonsense, while talk of natural and imprescriptible rights is nonsense upon stilts.
Bentham still has much of relevance and importance to say to us, beyond his obvious historical importance. However, there is no complete and accurate edition of his works. Hence the Bentham Project has been established in order to produce an authoritative edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. Twenty-five volumes have been published to date, and there will be sixty-eight or so altogether. With good progress currently being made thanks to the support of University College London and of other funding bodies—the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Wellcome Trust, and the British Academy—when complete the edition will be a monument to scholarship.
Professor Brian Barry, the eminent political theorist, once said that if Bentham had been French or German, an edition of his works would have been fully funded and completed long ago. It was, however, Bentham's misfortune to be British, to be English, to be a Cockney even, and we perhaps do not cherish as we should our great intellectual tradition.
4 Ethical Record, October, 2004 At least today's unveiling of this plaque to Bentham goes some way towards recognizing Bentham, and on behalf of the Bentham Project I would like to thank Westminster City Council, the Home Office, and University College London, for responding with such enthusiasm and goodwill to our suggestion that the plaque be erected. Apart from providing a new tourist attraction for the thousands of I3enthamites who visit London each year, it considerably enhances the appearance of this wall—and therefore certainly contributes to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Prof Philip Schofield, now Director of the Bentham Project at UCL, has given two lectures to the Ethical Society. The Project'sformer Director, Prof Fred Rosen, gave the Conway Memorial Lecture entitled Philosophical Ideas in Politics: Bentham, Blair and Beyond in February 1999. lEd.1
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN EXCERPTS FOR CONWAY HALL'S 75TH ANNIVERSARY Terry Mullins
On Sunday 26th September we welcomed the Gilbert and Sullivan specialists 'The Wandering Minstrels' to the Conway Hall for a concert of excerpts from the delightful G&S 'operas' (really operettas) which contain so much trenchant political and social comment on the time and which even today, one hundred years after their composition, is still relevant. This was part of our 75 years of Conway Hall celebrations. 2004 also happens to be the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Gilbert & Sullivan Society.
The sextet of singers introduced themselves to splendid effect as 'The Merriest Fellows Are We' from the Gondoliers. We had the exhilarating 'Never Mind the Why and Wherefore' from HMS Pinafore with its guying of the class system. We had a send up of the timid country vicar with the 'Curates Song' from the Sorcerer. The lead baritone gave a splendid rendition of the Mikado's song from the opera of that name with its now famous refrain to let the Punishment Fit the Crime'. - This was followed by 'The Sun Whose Rays are all Ablaze' from the same opera. The Aesthetic Movement of Oscar Wilde and James Whistler was dramatically brought to life in period costume as the military men danced around brandishing flowers and adopting 'Stained Glass Attitudes'.
We had items from Utopia Limited, not one of the best known of the series but really very tuneful and amusing. On the whole it was a delightful afternoon and we were sent out to the toe-tapping strains of 'Three Little Maids from School' again from the 'Mikado'. A very pleasant change for all who attended and our thanks go to our Admin Secretary, Marina Ingham and Vice Chairman John Rayner for providing excellent tea and biscuits during the interval.
ACCESS TO THE LIBRARY The Programme Coordinator (Jennifer Jeynes) would like to know if any member of SPES is deterred from attending lectures in the library because of difficulty in climbing the stairs to the first floor.
Ethical Record, October, 2004 5 HOW CAN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY COPE WITH RELIGION? David McLellan Professor of Political Theory, Goldsmith's College, University of Limdon Lecture to the Ethical Society, I I July 2004
During my time as a teenager, student, university teacher - roughly 1950 until 1980 and beyond - the role of religion on public life seemed to be decreasing. Some version or other of the secularisation thesis - that the influence of modernization, progress, science, reason increasingly marginalized the influence of religion on human activity - held wide sway.
Possibly this was too parochial a view; was not the continuing conflict between Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland a counter-example? And how about the most powerful country in the world - the United States - which was simply dripping with religion? More recently, the arguments about the wearing (or not) of the hijab in France, the advisability (or not) of "faith" schools in this country, the introduction of laws against incitement to religious - in addition to racial - hatred, all point to the urgency of the question of the relationship of the religious to the secular. In so far as there is a "clash of civilizations", the major division in global politics seems just as much religious as political.
The Rational Is Inconclusive Faced with the evident changes that too close a linkage of some (at least) types of religion with politics, some have suggested that religious belief should just be a private matter and that religion and politics should not mix: they should be separate just as, say, sport and politics should be separate. But this is a little too simple. It is simply untrue that important political questions can be resolved on the basis of value premises that are shared by all or even on shared approaches to factual knowledge. To see the force of this, one has only to reflect on the arguments surrounding such issues as the possession of nuclear weapons, our attitude to the environment, or to abortion. Unfortunately, in very many important issues rational grounds for assessing what is true are highly inconclusive.
In such cases people are likely to rely on some sort of deep and intuitive feelings, and this often involves a religious perspective. To say this is not to undermine any vital premise of liberal democracy: it is to recognize the fact that citizens in a liberal democracy rely generally on moral judgements to arrive at decisions, and that moral judgements are frequently informed by religious views. It is also to recognize that liberal democracy is less anemic than many of its proponents would have us believe. Yet this recognition is also compatible with the view that, as far as open public discussion is concerned, it is mistaken for the ordinary citizen to advocate a position by direct reference to his or her religious values - general human welfare being the appropriate point of reference. Where individuals get their values is up to them: the terms in which individuals advocate their values to fellow-citizens is more circumscribed.
So far, maybe, so good. But we can still ask about the nature of the rules
6 Ethical Record, October, 2004 which should govern such justification and interchange in our pluralist society. One view, based on a Hobbesian approach to society, is that we can hope for no more than what John Rawls has called a modus vivendi. Different religious or political groups should arrive at a compromise based on prudential calculation. The Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland would be an example of this. People tolerate different views because to do otherwise would involve violence that would be to everyone's disadvantage. A balance of power is the best we can get.
Such a solution is bound to be unsatisfactory in that it is inherently unstable. It is based on calculations of relative power and not on agreed principles. On issues of public policy people's views, whether religious or secular, are bound to clash. And the relative instability of power relationships mean that violence always lurks as an underlying threat.
A Profuunder Humanism Required Some, including Rawls himself, have gone further and tried to establish some principles, an agreed framework, in which to tackle profound differences of opinion about the values which should govern political debate. The idea here is that we should try to arrive at an overlapping consensus which, hopefully, can be found in the various competing comprehensive doctrines. He thinks that the groups in society which maintain strong comprehensive doctrines might be persuaded to adhere to some principles of equality and liberty which would be overarching and themselves govern the way in which competing doctrines could advocate their views.
But it is difficult to avoid the view that this kind of political liberalism itself involves metaphysical principles in that it puts liberty and equality at the top of its hierarchy of values. Such liberalism would seem to be itself in competition with other comprehensive doctrines which might, unlike Rawls, give some conceptions of the good a higher value than some conception of the right and accord their concept of virtue a more central place than individual liberty and equality. So far from being a referee holding the ring and separate from the players, this liberalism itself seems to be a player competing on all fours with other players. Liberalism, on this view, would be no more than one ideology among others and has to be advocated on its own intrinsic merits, on metaphysical rather than procedural terms.
All this may sound rather unpromising. If there is no firm ground on which some sort of principled agreement could be worked out, are we forced back to rely on no more than a Hobbesian modus vivendi? It could be, as the philosopher Raymond Plant has argued, that we need look deeper for our overlapping consensus. A profounder humanism might be able to uncover the underlying preconditions for any form of ethical discourse. Just as Habermas has tried to uncover the commitment to truth involved in any form of communication, so it may be the case that the advocacy of any value system logically involves commitment to some concept of freedom and well-being. The exploration of such a position takes us well beyond the bounds of this short discussion. But it is well worth pursuing. Ethical Record, October, 2004 7 "FRAGILE, PROVISIONAL, PARTICULAR" : A REVIEW OF RICHARD NORMAN'S ON HUMANISM. Chris Bratcher Lecture to the Ethical Society, 10 October 2004
Over the last year, Routledge & Kegan Paul have brought out an acclaimed series of pocket sized paperbacks by philosophers, called "Thinking in Action". The title of each book begins with "On ..": for example, On Being Authentic, On Cloning, On Humour, On Science, and On Immigration & Refugees [by the logician Sir Michael Dummetti. All of them seem made for SPES consideration; but none more so than On Humanism, by Richard Norman. To avoid any confusion with our esteemed editor, I will be referring to him as Richard — although he is better known as Rick!
He has recently retired as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury. I have known him from my postgraduate studies there thirty-five years ago, and have run across him from time to time ever since, usually on anti- war demos. His field has been moral philosophy, and those of you who have heard me before will know how highly I rate his book The Moral Philosophers. He is active in the British Humanist Association [BHA], and the Humanist Philosophers Group. You may have come across his contribution to the BHA pamphlet What is Humanism?
My chief aim today is to extol his book, and to get even the lifelong humanists amongst you to buy it. I hope it will solve a Yuletide present giving problem [or you will ask for it yourselves]; and that you will persuade SPES and your local library to stock it, perhaps even present it to a local school, and above all, read it yourselves and reconnect with what Humanism ought or perhaps can only be about, 75 years on from the building of Conway Hall. I guarantee you will discover new things and heart.
Adherents of a view are naturally in fear either of seeing it poorly presented in a showcase book, or of finding the argument "old hat". Neither could be further from the case. Julian Baggini [perhaps familiar from Radio 4 talks and his book on Atheism] says that the book deserves to become humanism's unofficial manifesto. He is spot on about its deserts, and its "unofficial-ness". Richard would regard the idea of a manifesto as inappropriate, presumptuous, and off-putting: his book is far from being a polemic or tract; but in the literal sense of the word, Baggini is right. The book makes manifest, and has the necessary passion and commitment.
Richard keeps aware of his likely reader, both humanist and non-humanist — which is not always so with a committed writer or lecturer, humanist or otherwise! He is brisk, without being dismissive, gently but rigorously addressing concerns, primarily by establishing rapport, rather than by assertion, and offering personal answers and findings. Above all, it is evident that the book is written by a fine human being. I hope that when I say it is written in a Quakerly spirit, you will recognise that this is a compliment even though you reject the implication that the author is divinely inspired!
8 Ethical Record, October; 2004 To continue the eulogy: the book is exceptionally well written, to the point, and constantly engaging, even where one is familiar with its lines of argument. It is, of course, hard for you to appreciate the justice of all this high praise, without extended quotation. Richard is unnecessarily apologetic for a lack of novelty in his reasons for not believing in God, and for not requiring one to found Ethics, which I will not recount; familiarity is more than made up for in presentation.
A central question emerges of whether Humanism is even possible today, any more than is religious belief: a question, I reckon, that would not have occurred to most advocates, especially those of a generation ago. The title of my talk, "Fragile, Provisional, Particular", is taken from Richard's own description of what is possible. Although I struggle to disagree with any part of his take on the human and humanist condition, I do have some reservations about the status of what he will propose.
Richard briefly covers our genesis and history: perfectly adequately, given that he is not writing a history book or a guide to the movement, but an essay in practical philosophy, with such history of ideas as is necessary to it. The thrust of the book is therefore quite different from Harold Blackham's Humanism, which served so well as humanism's shop window for so long, but which appears now rather a civilised talk to the converted, and too comfortable a tour for comfort.
Atheism and Humanism Of course humanism, as now understood, presupposes atheism, or an agnosticism that concludes one should live, and construe the world, as if there were no God. But it is clearly not merely the secular outlook on life adopted by most of the UK population. Neither is it just an iconoclastic take on matters religious, as so wonderfully displayed by Martin Rowson at our recent 75th anniversary symposium; nor as such the exercise of 'free thought', or free speech as we would now term it. Nor does it equate to anti-religious campaigning, say by way of resistance to the reliance on religious resources in government policy, in defence of the separation of Church and State. None of these atheist stances amount, of themselves, to a humanist viewpoint.
Richard goes out of his way to distance his own from the implacable anti- religious animus, or, in political terms, negative campaigning, which he has found predominant in some humanists. We must acknowledge the good deeds and great works of art inspired by, or done in the name of religion: it is not uniformly harmful, or the source of all evil. [For example, the excellent work of Christian Aid, which I note has currently stolen our clothes with the slogan "We believe in life before deathl He concludes: "for now the point is simply to suggest that there are deeper causes of human destructiveness than the explicit beliefs that people hold". Religion is merely, but crucially, wrong as a belief.
Given that is the case, he says that "we had better look for some alternative beliefs to live by, and that is the project of secular humanism". There is no received set of humanist beliefs. This is partly the problem of a lowest common denominator amongst believers; which in turn depends on where one camps on the spectrum between optimism and pessimism about the human condition.
Ethical Record, October, 2004 9 Richard argues that neither end of that spectrum produces a supportable humanism. He identifies pessimism with the view that life is meaningless, and therefore bleak. He does not dwell on this; he says an atheist with this outlook will not be a humanist: "Humanism as I understand it involves not just the rejection of religious belief but, at the very least, the positive affirmation that human beings can find within themselves the resources to live a good life."
The way we are to understand this will turn out to be crucial. The "resources" in question are not, of course, economic ones, and their nature is not self-evident. The big question is: is humanism to be a belief that life is worth living, or has it also to be an ethic? As the book gathers pace, these ends become conflated. If "a good life" means a morally good life, then I wonder whether the bar set by Richard for humanism to clear may be too high; if it does not mean this, then the difference between pessimism and a humanist outlook becomes merely a question of personality and attitude to life; the cynics versus the epicureans.
One can perfectly well believe that life is meaningless, and endorse living through it: only a small subset of the clinically depressed will deny that other people can set aside existential despair to live a good life — whatever that may be in the eyes of the liver. Maybe Ian Brady still savours the times of his life, and, as Dylan Thomas enjoined, will not go gladly into that good night. For now, we should recall that the context is "some alternative beliefs to live by", and that Richard's working definition is put up as a minimum, and is intended to differentiate humanism from atheism without any sort of affirmation.
Richard started the book with Hamlet's paean on humanity's qualities: "What a piece of work is a man.. How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty.. In apprehension how like a god..". He had gone on to quote the early Marx, expressing another, now atheistic, panegyric on human potential: "Communism as completed naturalism is humanism, and as completed humanism is naturalism. It is the genuine solution of the antagonism between man and nature and man and man.", and he remarked that this was one of the earliest uses of the term 'humanism' to refer to the positive side of atheism.
Life-affirming humanists will want to register continuity with such celebrations of human dignity and worth. Let us look at our own history. These (sometimes competing) visions of man as an actual or potential apotheosis - literally, as taking on the attributes of a god - and of the world that he/she could and would realise, were at their most received in the period when God began to be shed as dead in earnest, and SPES and other components of the Humanist movement were founded. The constitution of the Ethical Society presumed that the Shakespearean vision of man was valid and a source of moral and personal ideals, objectives and achievements, to be discovered, celebrated and fostered.
A projection of freed-up, culturally ennobled, advanced thinking humans engaged in or capable of progress, is the common factor in the raft of bodies that flourished and bedded down together in the Humanist movement tent when Conway Hall was built, or have taken approved lodgings in the hall - for example, the Suffragettes' and Women's rights movements, umpteen varieties of socialists
10 Ethical Record, October, 2004 and anarchists, and campaigners for adult and child-centred educational experiment. The project of progress for new humans is ever present in Shaw's writings (classically [and wryly] in Man Si Superman): not surprisingly, wc adopt the Shaw Society as one of our own. Dare I say, we see it most obviously in the name of the Progressive League.
Richard says that such optimism carries a danger of a certain naivety, which he wants to confront from the start. The notion of progress, and a belief in "civilisation" - what Richard calls the "naive optimism" of the Enlightenment that "the source of corruption lies not in human nature" but in superstition and tyrants - have become progressively harder to maintain in the face of the horrors of the last century. It is reflected in the decline of politics today; and in later varieties of humanism. Richard does believe in a humanist philosophy that may hold up the tent: but the props have to be made from other, less idealistic, and more "provisional" materials.
"Conquer the world by intelligence", said Bertrand Russell, in his famous lecture, Why 1 am not a Christian [delivered to the National Secular Society in 1927]. Concentration on the intellectual powers of human beings lead many humanists to a core, and sometimes sole or exclusive, belief in rationalism: one that stresses the knowable and solvable [again, a progressive notion, but a less personal one], whether it be in the fields of population or economic planning, or latterly in, say, Daniel Dennett's take on the problem of consciousness; rather than literary or artistic achievement. Science is the watchword and arbiter that displaces, and in some aspects replaces, religion. For some, reason appeared to be the one faculty able to rescue us from feared abyssal aspects of human nature, such as misplaced passion and folly [something that exercised classical humanists].
Richard suggests that this rationalism is a distinct strain in Humanism. I find it particularly appeals to a certain sort of mind and temperament, and that is its limitation, and the reason for its limited appeal, as a complete philosophy. Rationalists may be of quite different political persuasions, often according tO what they take from Darwin and their attitude to human frailty, and so may not be in sympathy with many of the causes or beliefs in the 'movement tent'. Scientific or analytical method, for them, is the jewel in the human crown, and defines their humanism. It is something apart, in my view, from Richard's pessimism-optimism spectrum, because it is not, of itself, an attitude to life at all: but rationalism's apparent detachment, I suggest, is a sign of the difficulty of advancing a set of moral beliefs, religious or otherwise, in our times.
Richard quotes, inevitably in a conspectus of humanism, from Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism : to claim that man is magnificent is to assume that we can ascribe value to man according to the most distinguished deeds of certain men. Sartre thinks that sort of general judgement is not possible. He goes further: "Atheistic existentialism .. declares that .. there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it.. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself."
Sartre sharply contrasts this with the scientific conception of the natural world. In his view, materialism leads one to treat every man, including oneself, as (Continued on p14) Ethical Record, October, 2004 11
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Over 400 people attended the above event on the theme of Free Speech, to celebrate Conwsy Han Anniversary. We hope that noone caricatured above by Martin Rowson (especially Ben Roston farrowed; see his Viewpoint p 20]) feels the victim of `mental violence'. Compact discs with the speeches of the four main speakers, Barbara Smoker, Polly Toynbee, Martin Rowson and Richard Dawkins and remarks of Chairman Laurie Taylor, followed by the audience's questions and the panel's replies are being prepared for sale. Details in the November ER.
12 Ethical Record, October, 2004 Ethical Record, October, 2004 13 an object — that is, as a set of pre-determined reactions. His assertion that man has no set nature is clearly at odds with the science-based rationalist strain within humanism. But it is another kind of humanism, nevertheless. What Sartre, Russell [and say, Richard Dawkins, today] have in common, says Richard, is a belief in the "human" in opposition to a belief in a God, as that is all there is.
It is no accident that Sartre's lecture was a product of war, delivered in 1945. The horrors of the deportations, if not yet the concentration camps, in which people were reduced to objects, were become known. Which brings Richard to some extended quotations from Primo Levi's classic account of life in the camps: If this is a man; for him an exemplar of the "sceptical and modest" humanism that is purged of "the remnants of implausible optimism". Left to Levi is the aspiration to remain human — authentically human, that is, and the example of one Lorenzo, the civilian worker in the camp who shared his food and gave of his clothes without expectation of reward, because he was simply good and uncontaminated. It is this kind of possibility that Richard wants to assert, and defend as his personal humanism. Such value-evincing events are not an illusion; but they are, to Richard, "provisional", in that they are contingent, and for an individual, particularly in Levi's position, belief in their possibility is easily lost. The long introduction to the book closes with this.
So, there is no humanist creed; but rather, as 1 characterise it, an ostensive definition of ethical actions or demonstrations. Richard amplifies his original minimal definition of humanism: which was the affirmation that human beings can find "within themselves the resources to live a good life". This now becomes "... from our own resources the shared moral values which we need in order to live together, and the means to create meaningful and fulfilling lives for ourselves". We are indeed in the realm of Ethics, and the proposition appears to me to be rather more contentious.
Nazism, Daily Mail Readers, Autists, And Humanism Humanists do hold that meaningful and fulfilling lives have to be self-generating: it is pretty essential to have shared values to live together; but it is not self-evident that they have to be based on shared perceptions. No doubt successfully retired Nazis feel they have fulfilled lives [aside from regrets that the Reich was lost] as a result of their own resourcefulness, and they share a code and a consequent bond. They may be model citizens in everyday life. They may recognise Lorenzo's humanity. They simply take a different moral, or none, from it. They happen to get their inspiration from the sacrifices of their old comrades: what is so different?
Do they meet the formal conditions put up for humanism? Can Daily Mail readers be humanists? Perhaps we should take a vote on that! Can we, never mind the Nazis, simply not find Levi's tale a moral resource, or decline to use it, and still be humanists, if something else lights our fire? This prompts a question that I don't think Richard sufficiently brings out. Does humanism admit to degrees? Can we be just a little bit humanist, just like people who claim they aspire to be Christian, but fall short in the doing? That is a property of a morality, or a psychology, rather than a belief system. Do we think Humanism is, or should be, like that? In its customary identification with rationalism, it appears much more black and white.
14 Ethical Record, October, 2004 In the alternative, the conception that humanism is constituted by belief in the capacity to find our own or others' behaviour potentially exemplary may make almost everyone who is not autistic a humanist, without knowing it. Are we happy with that? Self-aware people on the autistic spectrum may recognise that they personally lack the ability to construe others' behaviour, but accept that others do with validity. It seems to me that they can hold a humanist position, even if perhaps they can't act like Richard advocates they should.
Richard's later assertion of a shared human nature that generates natural feelings of sympathy [following David Hume] leads to the parallel view that people naturally may behave as humanists, again without knowing it. If people are not conscious of the belief, but simply live accordingly, are they 'de facto' humanists? How different is that from the claim that many of us are 'de facto' Christians? Which brings me back to the status of his proposal: is it a proposition about our beliefs, or about our mental, or our moral, capacity, and is this a distinction worth making?
Human Nature And Morality Looked at formally, Richard's view may seem to lead to no particular morality. But he is not a Kantian. There are other steps to insert: that we have a shared human nature, that founds Lorenzo's goodness, and which should determine our values. Fle argues for the first in the third of the five chapters of the book: "What's so special about human beings?" This is in the main a deft exposition of what is meant by materialism and of alternative philosophies of mind. Fle does not shirk trying to respond to post Sartrean and post colonial challenges to the idea of human nature, which he terms theoretical anti-humanism — this alone makes the book unusual.
Essentially they are saying that a projection of an all-embracing humanity is bogus, and his response is that their protest presumes a common human nature that is the basis of their outrage. [They might still reply that the concept of humanity is a failing social one, like progress, whatever the biological facts] He also does a passing, and due, demolition job on the right wing philosopher, John Gray's false antitheses in his Grumpy Old Man book, Straw Dogs, that humanism whistles in the wind of its hero, Darwin: i.e., that humanists advocate rationalism when the evidence is to the contrary. The "unexciting" truth is that we can be both rational and not.
Chapter Four considers "Morality in a Godless World". The starting point is, as he says, is "In short, we matter to one another." That is a brute fact. One can argue whether this awareness is subjective or objective, much in the way that one can argue over the status of secondary qualities in perception, and the nature of colour, as against ethical, blindness.
There follows a rich, balanced, sensitive, and comprehensive journey in a short space, handling on the way the relative merits of utilitarian and Kantian moralities, to which 1 cannot possibly do justice, but can only commend, not least because it‘reaches beyond the 'academic' to the complexities of real situations, which one feels compelled to believe that Richard has lived through. The surpassing merit of the book is his ability to translate between the two realms of discourse. Ethical Record, October, 2004 15 It includes a discussion of 'the selfish gene'. [As I have tried to convey, every angle on humanism that I can think of is covered - including the common charge that humanists are concerned with humans in a way that is blind to the interests of non-humans and the natural world.] He revisits and finds reasons to counter the scepticism of the elitist rationalist who may believe that he, or we [members of the Ethical Society] can cope with a rational secular humanist understanding and morality, but the hoi polloi cannot.
I select as particularly perspicacious the thought that "the idea of the moral point of view as a distinct perspective from which to think about how to live is one which we ought to question. I suspect that it is in part the product of a religious way of thinking.? As he.says, following Bernard Williams [whom I discussed last year], it is not found in classical Greek philosophy. "Our obligations to our fellow human beings need to be seen not as the distinctive province of a 'peculiar institution' called 'morality', but as part of a whole way of life." "A secular humanist philosophy needs to recapture that way of thinking." Discuss?
He is withering on the "clutter" of religious morality, particularly in the field of sex. The other distinguishing mark of a secular morality, revealed by Richard's impassioned discussions of euthanasia, abortion, and the ending of relationships, is recognition of the complexity inherent in real situations. The label for this quality is "situationalism", rather than "relativism". There will not always be right answers. "Crude subjectivism" denies that there are right answers to any moral questions. Is it an act of faith that we can sometimes find them? Richard makes a compelling case that, with honesty and "by our rationality and our capacity for imaginative identification", we can.
The Meaning Of Life And The Need For Stories "Looking back on the previous chapters, I cannot escape the feeling that everything I have said is obvious. Certainly, there is nothing philosophically innovative about it ... It might be alleged that the positions I have defended are not so much obvious, as banal .. and the humanist view of the world is essentially shallow." So in the remaining pages of the book, Richard talks about how it is possible for a humanist to find life enriching and meaningful. He takes very seriously the need for a sense of mystery and awe [rather than the slippery word, "spirituality"]; but "we must resist the temptation to turn it into an appeal to non-rational insight." He makes the nice point that the unknown does not sit easily with the dogmatism of religion. Creativity, discovery, relationships, our mix of emotions, are all sources of enrichment, but he admits they are fragile, and they may not seem to add up to anything meaningful, in the way that a religion claims to do.
His response is that humanism has no messages, but rather, we have access to a fund of illuminating and shaping stories, in great literature and art — including the narratives of the great religions, stripped of their special status. This is neither a plea for art for art's sake, nor instrumentalism. We are back to "only connect", exemplified in extended passages from Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, where the central character, Mrs Ramsay, deftly creates meaning, in her words "like a work of art", for the others, and the author does it for us. Richard shows how, in a
16 Ethical Record, October, 2004 different way, this emerges in the demands for and satisfaction of meaning through personal history in Graham Swift's novel, Water/and. Such works have what he calls "paradigmatic particularity": you can't dispense with the detail, and I shan't try.
It should be clear by now that Richard is advancing an ideal to live by, rather than a doctrine. Hence, his humanism is fragile, because of our personal vulnerability and failings, it is provisional because of civilisation's tendency to lapse, and it is taught by the particular. "It does not deal in abstractions. It is not 'a religion of humanity' in the abstract."
As Richard has been avowedly personal, so shall I be. I hold up Sam Beckett as an explicitly humanist beacon in the gloom, because his works are ultimately life affirming; his characters do so by absurdly enduring in the teeth of the evidence. I am not sure that Richard would agree, because of his emphasis on shared moral values, which are arguably lacking in the Beckett universe. 1 am encouraged to think that he does, because Billy Holliday is one of his humanist heroines. Her sdng 'Laughing at life', is, for him, one of the great expressions of humanism. But for this, the trawl of instructive material might give the false impression that humanism is inherently a philosophy sourced in high culture.
My significant other, a devotee of Eastenders, makes exactly the same argument for the programme to me: that it is illuminating. I reply that you need only spend time in your actual local, or a football match. You can also "only connect" there. Humanists need only be emotionally literate. That is Rick's real message, and one we should embrace wholeheartedly.
NEW EXHIBITION AT THE WOMEN'S LIBRARY
Although SPES members quite often find interest in the exhibitions at the Women's Library, Old Castle Street El, the present one running until April next year may present them with conflicting emotions. It examines Women in the 1980s and in particular, our first female prime minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher. Visitors hear her voice on the night she was elected echoing round the room; see one of her trademark handbags and the camel hair and sable coat she wore for a Moscow walkabout 'where she made a deep impression on the Russian public as a symbol of democratic Western leadership' it says on the label.
This is apparently the first exhibition to explore the legacy of Mrs Thatcher. Dr Harriet Jones, the curator of the exhbition had twin aims - to consider how Mrs T rose to the top and was she an aberration for the time, plus what do the Eighties mean today. Visitors are asked to record what it meant to them.
For some of us the legacy of Mrs T was as outlined with feeling by Laurie Taylor while chairing the Free Speech panel on the Conway Hall 75 Anniversary on 23 Sept. He spoke of the appalling underfunding of the universities which has led to their having to make themselves businesses rather than concentrate on teaching and research. Many of us feel that the whole public service ethos was crippled and will probably never revive. J.J. Ethical Record, October, 2004 17 ANNUAL REUNION OF THE KINDRED HUMANIST SOCIETIES Sunday 3 October 2004 Norman Bacrac, Editor, Ethical Record introduced the speakers:- Lee Stacy, Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) Terry Liddle, Freethought History Research Group (FHRG) Sam Rimmer, British Humanist Association (BHA) Dorothy Forsyth, (Retd) Chair of the Progressive League (PL) Ian King, Sonnenberg Association GB (SAGS) Denis Cobell, National Secular Society (NSS) Robert Morrell, Thomas Paine Society (TPS) Bob Stuckey: Sang & played a selection of his favourite songs
The Keynote Speaker was Diana Rooldedge OBE of the Board of the Rationalist Press Association (RPA) and President of the Hampstead Humanist Society, who spoke on THE HUMANIST PEACE FORUM, the principles of which are summarised below:
THE HUMANIST PEACE FORUM It is intended to be a broad, inclusive and non-sectarian body encompassing both pacifists and others who, though not pacifists, are committed to judging the rights and wrongs of war by rational ethical standards and in the light of fundamental human values. Its debates and judgements will be guided by the recognition of the irreplaceable value of individual human lives; the commitment to a common humanity which transcends narrow national, religious or partisan loyalties; a recognition of the role that religion, organized and otherwise, has played in heightening tensions between different sectarian groups and in forming a basis for justifying war; the belief that conflicts should wherever possible be resolved by rational debate and diplomacy, not by violence; a preference for secular frameworks for conflict resolution; support for the Charter and principles of the United Nations. If you want that voice to be heard, please join us. Humanist Peace Forum is a group of individuals who came together during the autumn of 2003 in response to a call in Humanist News. Few people can travel to London for meetings and it was quickly decided that we should work as much as possible by e-mail. It was agreed that we Would not adopt a pacifist stance Would not have the resources to be a membership organization Would encourage donations and would need a bank account Would participate in the meetings of the Ministry for Peace Would meet for discussion 2/3 times a year at Gower Street. Forum participants would welcome more supporters, more donors, more participants in our e-group discussions, more volunteers for peace demonstrations, more humanist voices where it matters. Cheques can be made payable to Humanist Peace Forum and sent c/o Hanne Stinson, One Gower Street,London, WOE 6HD. See our site at: www.groups.yahoo.com/group/humanistpeaceforum Do please register. 18 Ethical Record, October, 2004 Humanist Reference Library Report THE INDEXING OF THE SOCIETY'S PUBLIC TALKS Tom Rubens
I recently completed an indexing of all public talks, including Conway Memorial Lectures, given to S.P.E.S. audiences from 1870 to the present. (The latest entry is for June 2004). My source material has been the range of journals (including, of course, The Ethical Record) which the Society has produced over this long period.
The indexed material is available in the Library. Its main part is a chronologically-ordered series of box files which specify all talks given (speakers and dates) and contain abstracts of those for which a text was provided. (In fact, about 70% of the talks have texts.) The smaller part is a card system which lists only those talks for which a text was supplied. Hence people interested primarily in reading texts of talks would go to the card system first; then to the boxfile for an abstract, then to the appropriate journal for the full text.
A Very ImpressiveList Now, students and researchers have ready access to whatever information they need on speakers who have addressed S.P.E.S. audiences both at Conway Hall and at South Place, Finsbury. Those speakers, taken together, constitute a very impressive list, including many of the most renowned thinkers of the last 130 years: for example, Peter Kropotkin, Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Gilbert Murray, Julian Huxley, Harold Laski, Jacob Bronowski--to name only a few.
But also due for honourable mention are a number of the Society's own people: several of its Appointed Lecturers, whose minds were, in my view, the equal of those of their better known contemporaries. In addition to Moncure Conway, examples include J.M. Robertson, J.A. Hobson, S.K. Ratcliffe and C. Delisle Burns. One of the many noteworthy things about these figures is the sheer number of talks they gave: often, one or more a month for year after year. Also, the talks were on an extremely wide range of subjects--displaying a truly Renaissance inclusiveness and magnitude of outlook. Other Appointed Lecturers from the past with a very substantial input include Archibald Robertson, John Lewis and of course Harold Blackham; and, more recently, Barbara Smoker, Peter Heales and Nicolas Walter.
These figures and others have delivered addresses whose texts form in toto what I regard as one of world humanism's pre-eminent bodies of journal literature, both in scope of subject-matter and in literary calibre. Reading it has been one of the most illuminating experiences I have ever had.
Selection from such a vast textual area is not easy, and so I will make just a few historical observations. Firstly, many if not most of the moral and epistemological positions which underpin present-day humanism and secularism were given definitive expression as early as the 1880s and 90s, by Conway but also by other figures little known today. Actually, this definitiveness should not be surprising, bearing in mind the decisive impact made by this time of thinkers of the earlier parts of the 19th century eg. Comte, Darwin, Mill, Spencer, Huxley. It should be added that the tone and implication of many of the talks in the 80s and Ethical Record, October, 2004 19 90s was one of rationalistic optimism--in line with the prevalent general tendency of thought in the second half of the last century.
The second observation follows directly from the above. The fundamental changes which took place in Western thought after 1914--the questioning of rationalistic optimism, plus the recognition, compelled by modern psychology, of the role of the sub-rational and the anti-rational in human affairs--were duly registered in many of the talks given in the inter-war years.
In a number of ways, these years, especially the 1930s, are the most dramatic, as distinct from being philosophically the deepest, in the history of the Society's talks. It was a period in which totalitarian systems of ideas and government scored many successes in the West, undoing much of the enormous progress in rational and scientific thinking which had previously been made. S.P.E.S. lecturers showed full awareness of this unprecedented and totally unexpected challenge to reason and intellect, and of the gathering storm that would eventually issue in World War II.
In fact, the inter-war talks helped set the tone for many of those in the period since 1945. Neither at Conway Hall nor anywhere else has there re-emerged the extreme confidence in humanity's commitment to rationality which characterised the later 19th century. A number of the most important addresses in the last half century on social, cultural and political issues have focussed on the problematic and, again, on the role of the non-rational. This latter point is particularly relevant to recent years, which have seen, among other problems, the re-surgence of religious fundamentalism in the West, as in several other parts of the world.
VIEWPOINT
" Mental Violence" In Cartoons As a life long humanist and an old member of South Place Ethical Society, of which I was a Treasurer some years ago, I very much enjoyed the 75th Anniversary Celebration on the 23 September last. On the chosen subject matter of "Free Speech" I fully agreed with Richard Dawkins who spoke of mental violence but I was very much surprised when Martin Rowson showed us many caricatures he had produced which seemed to exert mental violence against those who disagree with us.
Free speech is needed not only for us but also for those who disagree with us and Voltaire defined it correctly with his famous phrase "I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it": I hope that South Place Ethical Society will associate itself with that true meaning of "Free speech" and not approve of such caricatures, which reminded a German Jewish refugee who accompanied me of the horror of Nazi caricatures of Jews and of other people they regarded as their opponents. Ben Roston - London N6 Are the subjects of today's political cartoons victims of "mental violence"? If so, does it matter? What do other readers think? {Ed)
The views expressed in this Journal are not necessarily those of the Society.
20 Ethical Record, Octobet; 2004 MIRIAM ELTON 1934 — 2004
Miriam Elton, known by Society members for her great contribution to the Sunday Concerts and for her years as an active GC member of SPES during the 1990s, died peacefully on Saturday 24 July 2004 at St Francis Hospice in Berkhamsted after a short but very courageous fight against cancer.
Miriam was born in East London on 28 April 1934. In 1941, her family moved to Cardiff where she lived until 1956 when she married Lionel Elton, Organiser and Director of Music of the Sunday Concerts frorn 1987 to 2002 and Chair of the Ethical Society GC during 1998-1999. They moved to London for some years and then Bristol, eventually moving to Buckinghamshire where they spent the past thirty three years.
Over the years, in addition bringing up a family of two daughters, Naomi and Janine, and a son, Marc, Miriam was involved in many activities such as the Samaritans and a Board of Governors in the prison service. These were voluntary roles, but key nonetheless to those organisations to which she made a real contribution. Within SPES, she was best known for her work for the concerts and with the GC.
Diligent Treasurer Of South Place Sunday Concerts Miriam's early work for the concerts was as Treasurer, a role she took up from the time Lionel took over as Hon Secretary and Organiser to the time she became Chair of the newly created London Chamber Music Society (LCMS), in 2001. She soon took a firm grasp of the concerts' finances, With her diligence, prudence and her determination to preserve the continuance of the concerts from a sound financial base. She was formidable in protection of the concert funds and excellent in her representation to external funding bodies. As caretaker of the finances, she maintained a careful balance between expenditure and investment, which was instrumental in building up kcy assets such as replacing the piano with a top quality instrument. Equally important for her was proper use and guardianship of the many generous contributions made by audiences and supporters.
Miriam's role as Treasurer was exemplary. She also worked tirelessly in almost every activity related to running the concerts, including taking her part in the weekly rota and always welcoming members of the audience and obtaining increased support and help. This energy was a vital ingredient in what was effectively a regeneration of the concerts from the mid 1980s throughout the 1990s. In addition, Miriam played an active role within the SPES GC, contributing wherever she could whether working with SPES staff or promoting debate on the future direction of the society.
Her funeral was held at the Chilterns Crematorium near Amersham on 27th July 2004, attended by a large number including representation by SPES. It was a very moving secular event facilitated entirely by family and friends.
This has been a sad loss and our sincerest wishes go to Lionel and his family. But we remember and thank Miriam for her valued contribution to the organisations to which she dedicated so much of her time. D.M.
Ethical Record, October, 2004 21 RICHARD JOHN CADMAN HALL 1942-2004
The Funeral of Richard John Cadman Hall took place at Golders Green Crematorium on Monday 11 October, 2004, with Barbara Smoker as Officiant.
Alex Hill, Secretary, Ealing Humanists writes: Richard Hall was born in Kent in September 1942, but lived nearly all of his life in London. His father, a barrister, and his mother, a teacher, got divorced when he was still very young. He was brought up as an only child by his mother. He attended Dulwich College and other schools in South London, and afterwards studied physics at London University, where he got a B.Sc. degree. After his studies he worked for a while as a laboratory assistant, later on as a supply teacher, and his last occupation was in the civil service, before retiring early on health grounds. He never married and he had no children.
I met Richard in 1967, soon after I joined the London Young Humanists. He immediately struck me as very intelligent and knowledgeable, someone who used to argue in a logical and sometimes forceful manner. He was a member of several atheist/humanist organisations, both national and regional ones, and he attended numerous meetings, at which he often participated in a lively manner. Being a rather eccentric character, he was well known at those associations. He was exceptionally well read, and had a wide variety of interests, among them science and linguistics and politics and history.
During the last few years he suffered from several ailments, and he found moving around more and more difficult, yet he still managed to visit many places. When James Young and I had not heard from him for several weeks we went to his flat in Islington, where we found him lying dead on the floor. The cause of death was judged to be a coronary thrombosis. I, and hopefully others who knew him, will always remember Richard as a dedicated rational freethinking humanist.
Extracts from Barbara Smoker's Funeral Oration*: The habit of study - in books and in lectures (such as those arranged by the South Place Ethical Society and a number of other societies) - was something that remained with Richard for life, so that he became very knowledgeable, and up-to- date in science. He was an out-and-out sceptic and atheist, and the range of his intellectual interests was more like that of renaissance man than modern times.
Societies that Richard frequented in the humanist movement included the Ealing Humanists and the Hampstead Humanist Society. Also, of course. South Place Ethical Society, which was the most important one of all to him, because it holds two, and sometimes three, meetings a week.
Richard also belonged to a number of other social, political, amd educational associations, including the Hampstead Scientific Society, the Fabian Society, the Labour Party, the Co-operative Party, the Astronomical Society of Haringey, the Polytechnic of North London Astronomy Forum, and the Canal Society. He continued to attend the meetings of all these bodies, even when he became increasingly lethargic, and at one time he served as a school governor, as an appointee of the Islington South Branch of the Labour Party.
22 Ethical Record, October, 2004 One of the more recent symptoms of his physical condition was a tendency to fall asleep as soon as he sat down - which was probably due to the heart condition that eventually killed him.
For two or three decades 1 myself met him frequently at meetings of the South Place Ethical Society; and whenever he contributed to the discussion, even when he had slept through most of the preceding lecture, his contribution was apt and well-thought-out. But he was always diffident about it, often asking me afterwards if his contribution had been sensible and well expressed. And Norman Bacrac tells me that he did likewise with him - especially if the subject was a scientific one, as that was something they shared. He was good at seeing any flaw in an argument, especially if it seemed to lead to a religious conclusion.
Further Tributes: Richard played a full part in the political life of Islington. As well as being a member of the Islington South & Finsbury CLP hc belonged to two borough-wide organisations with Labour affiliations - The Fabian Society and The Co-operative Party.
At meetings of all these he was known for seeming to be asleep and then suddenly making a perceptive comment.
The Secretary of the Co-op Party branch, Carol Clinton, remembers him too for the courteous way he would thank her for sending him notice of the meetings, and for providing refreshments when that was the case.
Islington North's Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn also paid tribute to Richard. "We will always be grateful for his knowledge in debate and discussion and for his help in election campaigns."
*Full tart available on request. Ethical Record, October, 2004 PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Library, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holbom, WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8037/8034 Registered Charity No. 251396 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] No charge unless stated
OCTOBER 2004 Sunday 31 IWO WILLY BRANDT & THE MORAL RECOVERY OF GERMANY Dr Ian King 1500 BRITISH UNIVERSAL INHERITANCE - IS IT A LOST CAUSE? Dane CloustonDirector, Opportunity -Campaign for British Universal Inheritance NOVEMBER Sunday 7 1100 IS IT BRIGHT TO BE A BRIGHT? Keith Baker, UK Moderator of Brights UK, tells us why it is 1500 ETHICAL DILEMMAS: We should not pay people just because they work claims Christian Michel Saturday 13 1300 THOMAS PAINE SOCIETY AGM followed by Guest Speaker, SPES Librarian„lenniferJeynes MSc: The Use of the Humanist Reference Library as a Research Resource Sunday 14 1100 DAN CHATTERTON Terry Liddle 1500 ROBERT OWEN, CO-OPERATIVES, TRADE UNIONISTS AND A CO-OPERATIVE PARLIAMENT Alan Spence Friday 19 THE ETHICAL SOCIETY'S ART SOIREE 2004 1930 Friday 19 November FIRST LOVES AND HOW I DISCOVERED ART illustrated talk by Richard Cork, the well-known Art Critic, Art Historian and Broadcaster, Writer on Art for The Times and the New Statesman, Author, 4 recent paperbacks of Critical Writing on Modern Art, Yale University Press
Sunday 21 1200 Video of the Conway Hall 75th Anniversary Celebration on 23 Sept. 1430 SPES AGM. Registration from 2pm. SPES members only. Sunday 28
IWO ROBERT E GRANT (1793 - 1874):The Man Who Told Charles Darwin the Theory of Evolution Donald Rooum
SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS AT CONWAY HALL (by LCMS) 630pm. Tickets £7. For programme details Tel: 020 7483 2450.
Published by the South Place Ethical Society, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WCIR 4RL Printed by LG. Bryson (Printer) Ltd. 156-162 High Road, London N2 9,45 ISSN 0014 - 1690