address a conference in Costa Rica
Although I started my education at the University of Northern Iowa by majoring in piano, I switched to government, then French, then psychology, and finally (in desperation) to English. After my Army service, I took advantage of the GI Bill and went to the University of Chicago, majoring in philosophy. But metaphysics (with Charles Hartshorne) and logic (with Charner Perry) didn't really turn me on, so I returned to Iowa for the BA and then got my MA in American Literature from Columbia University, where Lionel Trilling was my distinguished chairman. Although I found him a better writer than teacher, I was so entranced by his intellectuality that I resolved to imitate him up to my limits.
At the University of Northern Iowa I had started a Humanist Club, the first of its kind. And at Columbia I started up another Humanist Club, securing a check for $1 dues from philosopher John Dewey. This led to my founding a chapter of the American Humanist Association in New York City, editing a "Humanist Newsletter" with the aid of Charles Francis Potter, and from 1953-1958 becoming the book review editor of The Humanist. From 1957-1962, I operated the Hvmanist Book Clvb, a mail-order source for volumes mainly on philosophic subjects. In 1988 I founded the Secular Humanist Society of New York, edited its colorful newsletter called "Pique," and was named a Mentor by the Council for Secular Humanism, headed by philosopher Paul Kurtz.
So although I was basically a teacher of English, I developed a strong interest in philosophic naturalism (as opposed to religious supernaturalism). In corresponding about naturalism with individuals, starting with Thomas Mann in 1948 and including Walter Lippmann in 1949, George Santayana and Albert Schweitzer in 1951, and dozens of others right up to Gore Vidal in 1996, I developed a MS. which lists non-theists over the centuries. The work is called Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists,and Non-Theists (NY: Barricade Books, July 2000, 1,260 pages, $125.00).
I have been on the Board of Directors of the Bertrand Russell Society since 1973 and was vice president from 1977-1980, when Bob Davis was the President.
When only 19 or 20, as a student at the U of Northern Iowa, I recall doing some kind of paper for an English prof that required me to check out a dozen books by Bertrand Russell. Perhaps my interest was free love, perhaps philosophy, perhaps his views other subjects. Although the entire subject of philosophy was not something I knew much about, I did find Russell's ideas were dynamic and sufficiently radical that I wanted to know more about his views.
When 30, because of my interest in humanism and in philosophic naturalism, I wrote Russell to ask whether he was a naturalistic humanist. To my pleasant surprise, he responded:
You ask me whether I call myself a Scientific Humanist or a Naturalistic Humanist. I am not in the habit of giving myself labels, which I leave to others. I should not have any inclination to call myself humanist, as I think, on the whole, that the non-human part of the cosmos is much more interesting and satisfactory than the human part. But if anybody feels inclined to call me a Humanist, I shall not bring an action for libel.
In 1956, Russell added:
I do not object to your classifying me as a "naturalistic humanist," though it is not a description I should ever think of calling myself. When I have to describe my own philosophy I call myself a "logical atomist." I have read the material that you sent with your letter, but I have nothing to add except that my reason for not liking the word "humanist" is that I regard human beings as a trivial accident which would be regrettable if it were not so unimportant.
Later, I understand that he no longer used "logical atomism" as a description of his outlook.
Over the years I have attended Bertrand Russell Society conferences, have greatly enjoyed the comraderie of people
with similar outlooks, and in 1999 was asked by its then newsletter
editor Tim Madigan to write a column. Although most of the newsletter readers
are somewhat serious scholars, I came up with a "Russellian
Potpourri" column that I hoped would add a little humor to the
magazine.
AMERICAN HUMANIST
ASSOCIATION (AHA)
In the 1950s, I was book review editor of this group's journal, The Humanist. Isaac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. have been the association's presidents, but it was Corliss Lamont whose name is most closely connected with the group.
I founded the New York City chapter of the AHA, which today is known as the Corliss Lamont Chapter.
The AHA has chapters throughout the country:
I have been an activist member of this secular humanist society, the home page for which is
The Council for Secular Humanism is the organization which publishes Free Inquiry and which sponsors many organizations, including the following:
In 1995, the Council's board of directors voted to change the corporation's name from the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH) to the Council for Secular Humanism. The board then consisted of the following: Paul Kurtz (Chairman); Vern Bullough; Dave Henehan; Joseph Levee; Kenneth Marcelak; Jean Millholland; Lee Nisbet, and Robert Worsfold. The current board can be found on the Council's homepage.
In 2001, when Free Inquiry did an unsigned hatchet job on my Who's Who in Hell, I resigned as the journal's associate editor.
Rationalist Press Association--is at Bradlaugh House, 47 Theobald's Road, London WC1X 8SP. I have been a member for decades and a devotee of Editor Jim Herrick's New Humanist.
The Rationalist Press Association (RPA) began in 1890 as the Propagndist Press Committee. On 26 May 1899, an association of rationalists which grew out of a Rationalist Press Committee established by C. A. Watts, who had already founded the Agnostic Annual (1884) and the Literary Guide (1885). The original directors were R. B. Anderson, J. S. Dryden, C. T. Gorham, Clair Grece, G. J. Holyoake, Joseph McCabe, C. A. Watts, and A. G. Whyte. In 1902 it began to publish the R.P.A. Reprints and sold four million copies in twenty-five years.
In 1940, the honorary associates listed by McCabe were as follows: Arnold Bennett, Prof. Berthelot, B. Björnson, Sir John Boyd Orr, G. Brandes, Prof. Breasted, Prof. Buisson, Prof. Bury, G. Clemenceau, the Hon. J. Collier, C. Darrow, Prof. J. Dewey, Dr. Einstein, Dr. Sigmund Freud, Sir P. Geddes, Sir R. Gregory, J.B.S. Haldane, Prof. Haddon, E. Haeckel, Sir J. Hammerton, Lord Horder, Sir T. A. Hunter, Julian Huxley, L. Huxley, Sir A. Keith, Sir E. Ray Lankester, J. Loeb, C. Lombroso, Somerset Maugham, Sir P. C. Mitchell, Lord Morley, Prof. Pavlov, Eden Phillpotts, T. Reinach, Earl Russell, Bertrand Russell, Sir E. S. Schafer, Sir C. Sherrington, Sir G. Elliot Smith, Sir L. Stephen, H. G. Wells, and Sir H. Wood.
Mc Cabe added, caustically, "All the Churches in Great Britain put together could not, from their 8,000,000 members, compile a list which would be half as impressive."
Other honorary associates have included the following: Edward Brabuck, James Bridie, Jacob Bronowski, Basil Chamberlain, Robert Chorley, George Cole, William W. Collins, Joseph Fletcher, Alfred Foster, Frederick Furnivali, Charles Guignebert, Jane Harrison, Edwin Hartland, Édouard Herriot, Leopold Infeld, Ernest Jones, Harold Laski, Carl Lofmark, Willem Manen, Kingsley Martin, David Oppenheimer, Raghunath Paranjpye, P. H. Pardon, Karl Popper, Albert Rivett, Margaret Schlauch, B. F. Skinner, Grafton Smith, Robert Stout, Alan Taylor, George Trevelyan, Edward Westermarck, Edward Willis, Barbara Wootton, and Emile Zola.
In 1995, the honorary associates were as follows: Dr. Peter Atkins; Professor Colin Blakemore; Edward Blishen; H. J. Blackham; Professor Marcel Boll; Professor Sir Hermann Bondi; Brigid Brophy; Alan Brownjohn; Senator A. Bulsseret; Dr. Colin Campbell; Dr. S. Chandrasekhar; Noam Chomsky; Professor Bernard Crick; Professor Francis Crick; Dr. Richard Dawkins; Lord Dormand; Professor Paul Edwards; Professor Lionel Elvin; Gavin Ewart; Professor Sir Raymond Firth; Professor Antony Flew; Lord Foot; Right Honorable Michael Foot; Professor Ernest Gellner; Tony Harrison; Dr. James Hemming; Dr. Christopher Hill; Prof. Eric Hobsbawm; Richard Hoggart; Professor Ted Honderich; Lord Houghton of Sowerby; Professor Sir Fred Hoyle; S. I. Hsiung; Prof. Arthur Jacobs; Lord Jenkins of Putney (Hugh Jenkins); Ludovic Kennedy; Professor Paul Kurtz; Corliss Lamont; Richard Leakey; Sir Michael Levey; John Maddox; Professor Haydn Mason; Professor John Maynard Smith; George Melly; Naomi Mitchison; Brian Moore; Edwin Mullins; Dr. Joseph Needham; Kathleen Nott; Professor Patrick Nowell-Smith; Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien; Jack Parsons; Prof. John Postgate; Claire Rayner; Professor the Earl Russell; Lord Sefton of Garston; Mrs. Renée Short; Dr. David Starkey; Dr. D. J. Stewart; Dr. V. M. Tarkunde; David Tribe; Baroness Turner of Camden; Professor G. A. Wells; Arnold Wesker; Professor Lewis Wolpert; Baron Young of Darlington; and Professor J. Z. Young.
I have subscribed to their Freethinker for decades. On the Web: http://www.humanism.org.uk/
Gay & Lesbian Humanist
(England)
To see my "Across the Pond," click here.
Asociación Iberoamericana Ético Humanista (ASIBEHU) is an organization for Spanish-speaking philosophers interested in ethical humanism. I helped found this in 1994, and it has members in South, Central, and North America as well as the Caribbean, Spain, and elsewhere. My inspiration for this group was, of course, Fernando Vargas.
Of the various international humanists I have met over the years Rob Tielman stands out. He at one time was presiding officer of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Once he spoke in my apartment to a small group of my NY chapter of humanists (for he resided in a nearby inn). He was instrumental in working with me to set up ASIBEHU (and I also give a lot of credit to Matt Cherry). He was once Vice President of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA, which publishes the magazine that I write for). He wrote Homosessualiteit in Nederland, a work I wish were in English. We had fun conversing in Costa Rica as well as in Buffalo and Mexico City at humanist conferences. He and Jim Herrick, another chap who is stands at the top of my list, are responsible for the excellent International Humanist News, 47 Theobald's Road, London WC1X 8SP, United Kingdom. And although Rob is a full-time professor of sociology at the University of Utrecht, he somehow finds time to e-mail me almost weekly. We have a mutual interest that is paramount: tracking the doings of Silo and the Siloist movement, which purports to be a humanist group but which is not in the IHEU. Meanwhile, Babu Gogineni has become editor of International Humanist News.
Tim Madigan was once the executive editor of Free Inquiry, the international journal of secular humanism which is published by the Council for Secular Humanism (Box 664, Buffalo, NY 14226). The two of us go to numerous Broadway and off-Broadway shows (once taking anthropologist H. James Birx with us so Jim could see "Sunset Boulevard" for the 10th time; to Bertrand Russell meetings where we both are on the board of directors, to Bronte Society meetings, of which he is editor of the newsletter and I am a sometimes drama critic; and to Costa Rica, where we attended the first international meeting of the Spanish-speaking association of ethical humanists. Tim has published my interviews with Sir Peter Ustinov and painter Paul Cadmus as well as my "Potpourri" column and many of my book reviews. Following is a photo of Tim looking on as I am speaking at the Costa Rican conference. Next to me is the Costa Rican humanist who introduced me. Madigan, upon leaving Buffalo, is now with the University of Rochester Press in Rochester, New York.
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Dr. H. James Birx has become a special buddy. I was the one who notified him he'd been cited as an expert on Charles Darwin and Evolution by the Columbia Encyclopedia. He is the photographer for the rainforest photo on my homepage's first page. We have had great fun attending Broadway plays, subculture spots in Greenwich Village, driving through dangerous tropical rainforests, and walks along the Atlantic Ocean in Limon, Costa Rica.
Debbie and Allen Pérez are typical of the friends I admire: dignified, sedate, refined, Unitarian. Debbie's Costa Rican husband is a lawyer (I wrote a letter of recommendation that helped him land a job with the Unitarian Service Committee in Mexico, Haiti, etc.). Pictured below is the tropical Allen, who has just arrived in Debbie's state, Washington. Wow, Debbie, what a lucky catch, that one in the middle with his, uh, clients!
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In addition to my own listings in Who's Who in Hell, an excellent national and international directory is The Freethought Directory 2001. Buy it from
Atheist Alliance International, PO Box 6261, Minneapolis, MN 55406 (612) 588-7031
or read about the work on the Web:
