May 2016 Vol. 121 No. 5 Ethical The Proceedings of the Record THINKING ON SUNDAY TALK BY BILL COOKE Has Technology Communism First World Sabotaged What It Humanitarian Means To Be Male? and Music Summit Thinking on Sunday Sunday Concert 5 Core lecture by Chris Bratcher talk by Roderick Swanston Responsibilities PAGE 9 PAGE 13 PAGE 18 CONWAY HALL ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL www.conwayhall.org.uk Trustees’ Chair: Liz Lutgendorff; Treasurer: Carl Harrison; Editor: Norman Bacrac Please email texts and viewpoints for the Editor to: [email protected] Chief Executive Officer: Jim Walsh [email protected] Administrator: Martha Lee [email protected] Finance Officer: Linda Lamnica [email protected] Library/Learning: S. Hawkey-Edwards [email protected] Hon. 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For your time and convenience it is advisable to contact the library before your visit so we can ensure the material you seek is available. Tel: 020 7061 6747. Email: [email protected] Reg. Charity No. 1156033 Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose Charitable Objects are: the advancement of study, research and education in humanist ethical principles. We invite people who identify with our aims, principles and objects to join our society. The Society maintains the Humanist Library and Archives. The Society’s journal, Ethical Record, is issued monthly. Conway Hall’s educational programmes include Thinking on Sunday, London Thinks, discussions, debates and lectures, courses, and Sunday concerts of chamber music. Memorials, funerals, weddings, and baby naming ceremonies can also be arranged. The annual subscription is £35 (£25 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65) EDITORIAL Battling the Gods Atheism in the Ancient World* Norman Bacrac Tim Whitmarsh, Professor of Greek Culture at gods overseeing the social order, punishing wrong- Cambridge, has compiled a most valuable record of doing; that is simply what our leaders teach us, to atheist thought in the ancient world of Greece and keep us in check.” Rome. Humanists need to know this early history – it Whitmarsh explains why and how religion con- will prevent their believing that supernatural expla- solidated its power and influence at around 200 ce nations of the world and religious morality predated and dominated the intellectual landscape of Europe naturalist and atheist outlooks. It may even give pause until the Renaissance. Today we may be witnessing a to churchmen and critics like John Gray, forever bleat- proper re-evaluation, to which this book contributes, ing that humanism ‘lives off religious capital’, where of just how innovative and important were Greek one could argue that the contrary is the case. (and Roman) thinkers to Western culture. Tim Whitmarsh begins his book with an entirely A very partial list includes Thales, Anaximander, fictitious dialogue between two Greek thinkers, pos- Xenophanes, Democritus (only atoms and the void sible in 500 bce, about religion and atheism in their exist), Carneades, Epicurus, Thucydides (Harold society. This contains the substance of the arguments Blackham’s favourite writer for dismissing the role that have subsisted for the past 2500 years. The atheist of the gods in history), Protagoras (agnosticism), says: Lucretius (only the fittest animals survive to evolve). So “Humans created gods. Primitive humans saw many of the ideas current in today’s philosophical dis- divinity in the sun, moon and stars, in the cycles of cussions (matter, mind, chance, scepticism) were first the seasons. They lacked scientific understanding of broached in the period covered by Whitmarsh’s book, matter, the cosmos, and nature. In time, politicians which is now in Conway Hall’s Humanist Library. and rulers realized the power of religious belief and cynically twisted it to their own ends. There are no *Published by Faber & Faber (2016). In This Issue of the Ethical Record: 0 3 Battling the Gods: Atheism in Ancient World Norman Bacrac 04 Is Humanism Dead? Bill Cooke 08 Letter to the Foreign Office from Conway Hall Ethical Society Trustees 09 Man (Dis)connected: Has Technology Sabotaged What It Means To Be Male? Chris Bratcher 13 Communism and Music Roderick Swanston 18 Viewpoint: World Humanitarian Summit Jim Walsh 19 Viewpoint: Articles Appreciated Peter Draper 20 Forthcoming Events 3 THINKING ON SUNDAY LECTURE, 26 April 2016 Is Humanism Dead? Bill Cooke Readers of the Ethical Record might remember from Complacency: the confident belief that history 1993 the intemperate rant against humanism by John is on our side, that we’ve won. In her 1967 Conway Carroll. In Humanism: The Wreck of Western Culture, Memorial Lecture, Marghanita Laski (1915–1988) Carroll insisted that humanism is dead while also spoke of the secular responsibility to build a new declaring it to be a major threat to western civilisa- society. Why? ‘I think the answer must be, because tion. Though hardly a coherent or measured criti- we have won – whether by our own efforts or by the cism, Carroll’s philippic is a good enough starting increasing incompatibility of religion and society I point for a critical look at humanism in the twenty- would not care to say. But unbelief in religion, in first century. So if humanism is dead, presumably both its fundamental tenets and in its institutions, we will find evidence of decay. And here humanists is the order of the day.’ But the resurgence of fun- need to take stock because, if we look long enough, damentalism has shown clearly that history is not there is some evidence of atrophy, if not decay. automatically on our side; we haven’t won. Before making this brief survey, what are the Bland Niceness: the sanguine notion that being defining issues that we face at the moment? It seems a good person is sufficient. Irving Babbitt (1865– to me they are overpopulation, climate change, ine- 1933), a prominent humanist thinker a century ago, quality, mindless and unsustainable consumerism, thought in these terms. ‘After all,’ he wrote, ‘to be a fundamentalism and terrorism. What, then, are the humanist is merely to be moderate and sensible and embarrassing signs of atrophy that will count against decent. It is much easier for a man to deceive himself us in the face of the issues just outlined? There are and others regarding his supernatural lights than eight main areas of concern: it is regarding the degree to which he is moderate 4 and sensible and decent.’ Babbitt made good points Unitarian humanism, but it found expression in between all this, but taken on its own, this statement England with H.G. Wells (1866–1946), in his book comes across as superficial. God the Invisible King: ‘Modern religion has no rev- Shallow Optimism: this is a popular criti- elation and no founder; it is the privilege and pos- cism from without the movement, but sadly there is session of no coterie of disciples or exponents… It enough evidence for it from within. The least helpful is a process of truth, guided by the divinity of men.’ example comes from Lothrop Stoddard (1883–1950), To be fair to Wells, he soon returned to the sturdy best known now for his icon status on white suprem- atheism of his youth, as he called it. acist websites. ‘The age that is coming will be an age Postmodern Vacuity: much more recent, and of true enlightenment and progress if we succeed of a different style, is the defeatism of some post- in really assimilating the vast extensions of knowl- modern humanist thinkers. In 2003 Martin Halliwell edge and power which we have amassed into our and Andy Mousley put together a re-examination of present idealistic and cultural scheme. And the way some humanist thinkers called Critical Humanisms: to do it is the way already charted by the men of the Humanist/Anti-Humanist Dialogues. ‘We will show Renaissance; that is to say, by an attitude of mind and humanism,’ they wrote, ‘to be both a pluralistic and a spirit which we may term Scientific Humanism.’ Julian self-critical tradition that folds in and over itself, pro- Huxley is usually thought of as the first person to voking a series of questions and problems rather than speak of scientific humanism, but that’s not correct. necessarily providing consolation or edification for It was Lothrop Stoddard. individuals when faced with intractable economic, Progressionism: the confident belief that things political and social pressures.’ For all the criticisms can only improve. Julian Huxley (1887–1975) was one could make of the previous seven expressions of guilty of this sort of thinking, as when he said that humanism, they were at least committing themselves the ‘central belief of Evolutionary Humanism is that to something positive. But postmodern humanism existence can be improved, that vast untapped pos- prefers to sit on the sidelines and, while objecting sibilities can be increasingly realised, that greater to elitism, declare itself above offering any sort of fulfilment can replace frustration.’ programme.