*GliuIccE DicDE The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 113 No. 7 £1.50 July/August 2008 THE VIRGINIA CLARK MEMORIAL LECTURE, 9 JULY 2008 The first Virginia Clark Lecturer, Dr. Suzette Henke, Morton Professor of Literary Studies at the University of Louisville, USA (left) in conversation with author Jean Moorcroft Wilson of London University, who chaired the lecture entitled "Virginia Woolf and Madness:TraumainMrs. Dalloway", given in the Ethical Society Library at Conway Hall. (See reports on pages 3 and 4) EDITORIAL - THE TERRIBLE END OF YUGOSLAVIA Anyone travelling through Tito's secular Yugoslavia in the 1970s, as I did, would have been impressed by the way the varied ethnic groups of which it was composed seemed to live in harmony. The country was peaceful. Its innovative collective-style economy was independent of the Soviet bloc and was politically less oppressive, although of course still irksome, than other East European states. The horrific internecine killings (of which we are reminded today by the discovery of Radovan Karadzic) exploded when people decided they were less Yugoslav than Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim etc, and wished to live in states of one religion. The country was destroyed and Muslims and others were massacred in a vicious attempt to establish this. Jennifer Jeynes considers Titd should be given a posthumous Nobel prize for Peace! INTRODUCTION TO THE VIRGINIA CLARK LECTURE Jennifer Jeynes 3 LETTER TO THE PROGRAMME COORDINATOR Suzette Henke 3 THE LIBATION BEARERS: VINTAGE 1929 Virginia Clark ALARMING FINDINGS IN CELL BIOLOGY Harold Hillnian 8 SIMON CALLAGHAN - A NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR FOR CONWAY HALL SUNDAY CONCERTS Giles Enders 9 REFLECTIONS ON 'MARXISM 2008' Tom Rubens 10 ISLAM MEANS 'SURRENDER' Barbara Smoker 11 SCHOPENHAUER ON THE BASIS OF MORALITY Tom Rubens 18 VIEWPOINTS: S Ash, Forsyth, C Bratcher, N Sinnou, D Quint, K Greenbaum, C Purnell, G Enders. 27 GERALD VINTEN (1948-2008) Jennifer Jeynes 31 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 32 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square. London WC IR 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 Website: www.ethicaIsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] Chairman: GilesEnders li on. Rep.: Don Liversedge Vice-chairman: Terry Mullins Treasurer: John Edwards Registrar: Donald Rooum Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Executive Officer: Emma J. Stanford Tel: 020 7242 8034/1 Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7242 8034 Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7242 8032 Librarian/Programme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes M.Sc. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Lettings Assistant: Marie Aubreehtova Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova (i/c); Tel: 020 7242 8033 together with: Shaip Bullaku, Angelo Edrozo, Nikola Ivanovski, Alfredo Olivio, Rogerio Retuema, David Wright Maintenance Operative: Zia Hameed New Members We welcome to the Society: Raymonde Omasta-Milsom of Pinner, Middx; Clive Shortell of Belsize Park, London and Adam Singer of Limehouse, London CONWAY HALL SUNDAY CONCERTS Following the GC's decision to take the running of their concerts back in- house, Simon Callaghan was appointed as the new Artistic Director of the Sunday Concerts at Conway Flall in May this year (see page 9). So far, he has organised the first half of the concert season, which commences on Sunday 12th October 2008. He is working on the second half of the season which will run from January to April 2009. The work being undertaken with SPES involves finding suitable performers and repertory, organising concert diaries with our Chair, and publicity, including posters and a website. We are looking for volunteers to help at the concerts on Sunday evenings. Reasonable expenses will be reimbursed. If you are interested in volunteering, or in meeting Simon, please contact Emma Stanford on 020 7242 8031/4. 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 monthly. Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is £18 (£12 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65). 2 Ethical Record, JulylAugust 2008 Introduction to the Virginia Clark Lecture, 9 July 2008 Jennifer kynes I will say a few words about Virginia Clark, in whose name we are holding this Memorial Lecture. Virginia died very suddenly while visiting her home in Clinton, Ct., USA. at Yuletide 2004, a widow aged 75. She was a retired reference librarian for Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio and retired editor for Choice, a US academic library review journal. She came to love London while visiting with her Professor of History husband who researched English history, specifically the wool trade in East Anglia. Since 1981 Virginia had volunteered for the Fawcett (later, the Women's) Library. After I had invited her to speak to the Ethical Society in April 2000 about an original discovery she had made - that Moncure Conway had been involved in the previously unknown first women's suffrage meeting in London - she spent an increasing amount of time working on the Conway holdings in the Humanist Reference Library in Conway Hall and became quite an expert. Eventually she worked here four days a week. Her unstinting efforts were greatly appreciated by the General Committee and myself. Virginia also attended the South Place Sunday Concerts regularly and sang for the London-Welsh Chorale. She was already planning her contribution to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Conway's death in 2007 at the time of her death. Virginia gave every appearance of being a small, neat, inoffensive, grey- haired elderly lady. However she had an independent 'mind of her own', for instance joining the one million-strong march against the illegal Iraqi war in February 2003. One reason Virginia Clark was so strongly anti-war was, she told me, that her father had been seriously wounded in World War I in France which shortened his life and his relationship with his family. She also memorably objected when I needed to ask the audience in the Library to form an orderly queue - Virginia demanded, Why couldn't they form a disorderly queue? Jean Moorcroft Wilson Our chair tonight is Dr Jean Moorcroft Wilson, who lectures at London University. She has written biographies, as an expert on first world war poetry, of Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Charles Hamilton Sorley. We are calling tonight on her Bloomsbury expertise and of particular relevance is her book entitled Virginia Woolf - Life and London - A Biography of Place which was recommended in the Independent's correspondence page earlier this year and includes a Mrs. Dal loway wal k. Letter To The Programme Coordinator from Suzette Henke Dear Jennifer. I want to thank you, once again, for so successfully organizing the first Virginia Clark lecture on 9 July, 2008. Having met Virginia a number of times at the Ethical Society, I felt particularly honoured to be invited to deliver the inaugural lecture in this series. Jean Moorcroft Wilson proved to be a perfect chair for the event, as her extensive knowledge of Woolf, along with a gracious anecdotal style, gave a wonderful flair to the evening. Ethical Record, JulylAugust 2008 3 I was delighted that you were able to assemble such a marvelous audience for my lecture on "Virginia Woolf and Madness." I've rarely had the pleasure of addressing a group that proved to be so patient, engaged, and well-informed about literary and psychological issues. Attendees came not only from the Ethical Society, but from the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain, Birkbeck College, and even the Tavistock training program in psychoanalysis. The question period struck me as unusually astute and provocative, and I was truly gratified by conversations with a number of people from different backgrounds who enjoyed the talk and were tremendously kind and supportive at the end of the presentation. I had feared that auditors would be bored by my discussion of the Holloway case histories, but just the opposite seemed true. And, of course, there's never enough time in oral presentations to develop one's arguments in a way that's only possible in printed (and annotated) versions.* The Ethical Society Trustee, Kyvelie Papas, appeared to be very enthusiastic, as did a young woman who had recently completed a training program in Trauma studies at Tavistock. Most importantly, Cecil Woolf {Husband of Jean Moorcroft Wilson and nephew of Leonard Woolf, Virginia's husband lEd.1} liked the lecture and offered congratulations. Though the power point presentation didn't work out, I actually think that a number of people in the audience felt quite relieved to be liberated from the distractions of 21st-century technology. Sometimes "low tech" is a better choice, and the library in Conway Hall is such an intimate and cosy space that the best instrument might simply be the human voice, successfully amplified by a microphone. Given the controversial nature of the film version of Cunningham's Hours, it was probably fortuitous that we decided to forego the DVD clip representing Virginia's suicide. I myself find the film extremely moving, but realised during the question period that the movie is so melodramatic that it tends to move the discussion in the direction of Cunningham's art rather than focusing on Woolf 's creative genius.