An Evening at the Athenaeum

AN EVENING AT THE ATHENAEUM

“Who’s Who” is a strange institution, simultaneously seeking to buttress the fiction of the traditional British establishment and to acknowledge successes in avant-garde and popular culture.

The format of the entries includes “recreation(s)”, traditionally expected to be shooting, fishing, golfing, sailing, rugby, cricket and so forth. One of the avant-garde entries, Charles Marowitz, a theatre director of the 60s and 70s (recently deceased) listed his sole recreation as “balling” – by which he didn’t mean croquet or billiards or, indeed, dancing. “Who’s Who” stoically allowed the somewhat tasteless subversion. (Although it could also be the case that the sub-editors didn’t know that “balling” was a hippy slang word for having sex.)

Moral Personality of Corporations

MORALITY PERSONALITY OF CORPORATIONS

(This post summarises one way of understanding how a kind of moral personality comes to be attributed to corporations. There are of course many other aspects of corporate or business ethics more generally.)

You are a company-formation agent. You fill out some paper or online forms; you and your assistant agree to subscribe £1 of share capital each; you choose a name (eg “2015/xx ltd); you adopt some generalised off the peg constitution; you pay a fee and file at the appropriate companies registry.

Congratulations. You have created life – well, not exactly: you have created a new “person” so far as the law is concerned. Never mind that your new company is now filed in your computer or cabinet and lies dormant in its slim line of code or slim folder of papers. It is a legal person.

Morality in the conduct of war

Morality and the Conduct of War

The early Christian Church had no state and no armies and no tradition of militancy – quite the opposite. Like its founder (in most of his words and deeds) it was largely pacifist in its attitude to conflict. That all had to change when Christianity, courtesy of the Emperor Constantine, became the state religion of a decidedly militaristic state – Rome. Military victories were attributed to divine assistance, with the clear implication that war and Christianity were perfectly compatible.

Asides from Glyndebourne

Asides from Glyndebourne

The first thing one notices on arriving at Glyndebourne is the beauty of the place, a series of wonderful large flower and tree gardens and vast lawns, all set in the South Downs. Beyond the gardens are fields and lovely hills. Perfect on a sunny, but not sweltering, summer’s afternoon. (A slight reservation must be registered over the large wind turbine at the back of the house and the big water tank-like structure on the roof where house joins concert hall – presumably containing the stage machinery.)

North Norfolk Miracles

NORTH NORFOLK MIRACLES

The great philosopher David Hume wrote this of miracles in general: “that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish”.

What would Hume have made of  Walsingham (during his lifetime its shrine and pilgrimages were in their long period of post-Reformation slumber)?