The Ethical Record Vol. 85 No. 9 OCTOBER 1980 • EDITORIAL Living Differently be numbered, but we are still its victim. In the USA there are at The next two years look like being least twenty-six ethical culture a major test of ideas and character societies. In the UK South Place both for South Place and for is unique. We cannot say we are Britain as a whole. It is character 'like' anybody because •there is no that counts. The dictionary defines other association like ours. We it as "moral strength, backbone". lack a denomination. Interesting It is experience and ideas that give enough, •however, there are many us a sense of direction, and charac- churches moving in a South Place ter, the will to get there. direction and the air is full of re- thinking in all matters religious Somehow we have to cut through and philosophical. It is just possible the static ideas and material values that we may be further on than that govern conventional thinking we realise. in order to help the right people to The creation of a new climate locate each other regardless of out- of confidence will take some dated labels. It is a meeting of making, but without it the future minds productive of a doing of is nihilistic. And new climates, like deeds that we need, a meeting of charity, start at home. We don't those who have shown by their do so badly at South Place where lives that they are intent on life- tomorrow's ideas have always been asserting ends. heard today. The 'eighties will be Somehow, again, it has to come the test of that—and we shall have from the whole country and from to deliver. History deals merci- a movement in the widest sense. lessly with those who rest on their The day of London-dominion may laurels. CONTENTS Coming at Conway Hall . 2 Self-Management: H. J. Blackham 3 Whatever Became of the Feminine Principle (2): Beata Bishop 5 From the New World: H. L. Mencken—T. F. Evans . 6 For the Record: The General Secretary 10 Francis Gallon and the Creative Genius (1): A. L. Vogeler 12 Religion and Superstition: G. N. Deodhekar . 14 South Place News 15 The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society Microfilm and reprints available—details on request PUBLISHED BY SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON WC1R 4RL SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Appointed Lecturers: H. J. Blackham„Richard Clements OBE, Lord Brockway, T. F. Evans, W. H. Liddell, Harry Stopes-Roe. General Secretary: Peter Cadogan (tel. 01-242 8032) Lettings SecretarylHall Manager: Iris Mills (Tel. 01-242 8032) Hon. Registrar: John Brown Hon Treasurer: C. E. Barralet Acting Editor, "The Ethical Record": Peter Cadogan COMING AT CONWAY HALL SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5: 11.00—Sunday Meeting. T. F. Evans on G. K. Chesterton. 6.00—Bridge. 6.30—Concert: Alberni String Quartet with Moray Welsh playing works by Haydn and Schubert. In aid of the Musicians' Benevolent Fund. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7: 7.00—Discussion, Cultivating Rationality, Jonathan Stopes-Roe. This is the theme for the month. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11: Ramble—see South Place News. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12: Sunday Meeting. .Harry Stopes-Roe on The Humanist Life-Stance. 3.00—Forum. Paul Ekins and Peter Cadogan on Can Ecology Have a Politics? 6.00—Bridge. 6.30—Concert: Jaye Consort of Violas playing works by Bach, Dowland, Jenkins, Purcell. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14: 7.00—Discussion, Humanist Rationality, Anthony Chapman. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18: 3.00—Country Dancing with Progressive League. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19: 11.00—Sunday Meeting. Peter Cadogan on Reverence for Life—Albert Schweitzer's Ethics. 3.00—Sunday Social with John White—see South Place News. 6.00—Bridge. 6.30—Concert: Coull Spring Quartet playing works by Haydn, Delius and Schubert. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21: 7.00—Discussion opened by Govind Deodhekar. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26: 11.00—Sunday Meeting. Ardon Lyon on Logic and Life: Ought We to Be Logical? 3.00—Forum. 6.00—Bridge. 6.30— Concert : Guadagnini String Quartet playing works by Wolf, Schonberg and Beethoven. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28: 7.00—Discussion opened by Nicolas Walter. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2: 11.00—Sunday Meeting. Peter Heales on Karl Popper and the Quest for Objectivity. 6.00—Bridge. 6.30—Concert: Quartet of London. NB—There will be a theatre visit during the month—ring 242.8032 for details. -. 2 Self-Management BY II. J. BLACKHAM THERE are two alternatives to self-management, drift and self-indulgence. One may look on at the life one lives, and not like it and not do anything about it. There was the farm labOurer in that state who did in his younger days make one bid for the life of his dreams, walking 40 miles to Newmarket, and trailing back to lapse for the rest of his days into his passive resentment. There are various ways of self-indulgence, from buccaneering disregard of others to sloth, or to a romantic dethronement of reason in favour of will, a reckless preference for the unorganized and unbounded, making an ideal of the spontaneous, the uncontrollable. Alternatives for self-management have an analogy in current forms of political government: autocracy, people's democracy, political democracy. Autocracy in terms of self-management stands for imposed (self-imposed) rule from without, in conformity with an established external order. Plato, asking himself why one should not act unjustly if one could get awa9 with it, argued that the structure and functions of human personality and of society correspond, and correspond with a cosmic order, and that this harmony is the sole good, so that no violation of it can bring any gain. In the Semitic religions there is an omnipotent Ruler whose will is law. In Hindu philosophy, the self is identical with the principle of universal life, so that self-identity and fulfilment are attained only by non-attachment to the world and its vanities—the so-called Perennial Philosophy. In all these philosophies, there is a cosmically ordained order which cannot success- fully be defied, so that conformity with it gives a rule of life for securing all good. Darwin's theory of the biological evolution of species is more than a footnote to these assumptions; for it takes ove'r the text. An alternative form of self-surrender is to identify oneself with a group. In this respect, the Nazis offered the youth of Germany an alternative to the Communist Panty. There is the invitation, the organized opportunity, reinforced by conditioning and pressures and constraints. Contemporary forms of this group indentification have been political, but it is basically a religious phenomenon. Jung suggested that most people found it easier to seek a group identity than to establish a responsible independence. Origins of Ethics Self-surrender in any form may be an independent personal decision. What is distinctive about self-management taken into one's own hands is the assumption that human life is a personal invention, not a cosmic order nor an historical destiny. We are left to the devices and desires of our own hearts. There have been notable attempts to cope with this situation in the history of ethics. Hobbes in Leviathan argued that the state of nature was a war of every man against every man, in •which human life is 'solitary, poor nasty, brutish and short'. Therefore, the State by enforcing a rule of law provided the basic order, a guarantee against one's neighbour which made it reasonable to treat him as oneself. For a time, ethical theory was a quest for the summum bonum or chief end of action, which would give one a rule of life. Recently, the American school of 'humanistic' psychologists (Rogers, Maslow) have posited 'self-actualization' as the normal goal of behaviour. If • 3 one is looking for a universal model, one is going back to the religious assumption of an ordained order. And if self-actualization is the goal, what is the self? The motion of self-determination is partly nonsense, partly a puzzle. It is nonsense if I think I really can determine what I am and how I live, since so much of that is unalterably given, genetically and socially. I have a cult- ural identity in growing up in a certain place at a certain time; I have a universal identity as a human being; and I have a personal identity in being the individual I am. These three identities, universal, corporate, and per- sonal, are interlocking spheres of being. Correspondingly, I am infinitely dependent, I am depended on, and I have a measure of independence, These identities and this interdependence are •the constituent characteristics of human reality; and respect for them is authentic self-respect. This structure of the self is involved in self-management and in what self-determination is possible. It represents the amount of truth there is in the Platonic or religious vieW. Inventing the Self There is no difficulty in thinking of the self as an object to itself : I am palpably there for myself in my body and in my behaviour, and in my experience. I am being determined by all that I do, all that I feel, all that I think. This self-determination as a reflex of all my behaviour and experience, which goes on inescapably and continuously, is not deliberate. Almost, I am self-made in spite of myself. The puzzle is: if I form myself, how can I that is unformed form that self? Where does the superior self come from to do the job? An answer is that I may make deliberate decisions or choices, in which I follow a procedure: alternatives are formulated, required infor- mation is acquired, probable consequences are weighed, interests liable to be affected are considered 'impartially.