William Cooke

From Philosopedia

Cooke, William (1956— )

Cooke, a lecturer in the School of Art and Design, Manukau Institute of Technology, is on the editorial committee of the New Zealand Rationalist and Humanist. He is President of his country’s Rationalists and Humanists Association.

In 1997 he was working on a Ph. D. project, “The Best of Causes: A Critical History of the Rationalist Association.” He is author of Heathen in Godzone (1998), a work which evaluates the rationalist movement in New Zealand and cites Joseph McCabe as having been an inspiration for starting the New Zealand Rationalist Association.

Cooke signed Humanist Manifesto 2000.

Reviewing Warren Allen Smith's Who's Who in Hell, Cooke wrote the following - comments by author Smith are in boldface:

• Make no mistake, Who's Who in Hell has been a massive undertaking. There are 1,238 pages of entries of all varieties of non-religious people from Confucius and Anaxagoras to Bertrand Russell and Paul Kurtz. Even more remarkable are the huge number of references on people who have not been prominent in the humanist movement. This work has clearly been a mission for Warren Allen Smith for a considerable period of time. Interspersed between the biographical entries are comments, quotations and miscellaneous observations on all manner of topics: death, circumcision, William Shakespeare, Marxism, ideology, and so on. Print size alters with the different style of entry.
• Who's Who in Hell is such a massive undertaking that it seems churlish and ungrateful to criticise. And yet, I am bound to observe that this is a flawed work. First of all, there seems to be some uncertainty as to what sort of reference work this is. The main reference work for the freethought world is the Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Prometheus, 1985) which carries entries on prominent freethought individuals as well as articles on aspects of freethought. Prometheus Books is owned by Paul Kurtz, which asked $15,000 or more if I were to have them publish it. I had not known it was a vanity press and declined. In my book's 1,238 pages I found no one who described the Encyclopedia of Unbelief as the main reference work for the freethought world, unless they were on Dr. Kurtz's payroll. Nicolas Walter, a recognized leader of British rationalists, had qualifications about Gordon Stein's editing of that encyclopedia - he approved his own listing in my work and from time to time made favorable reference of the book in its early stages. Gordon Stein also submited an early draft of his own listing in the book.

• Who's Who in Hell seems unable to decide whether it is a replacement to the Encyclopedia of Unbelief or a directory of people who are freethinkers of one stripe or another. Unfortunately, the work hasn't succeeded in doing either to the level required to make it invaluable. Many of the topical entries are eclectic collections of bits taken from here and there and put together. This is not to say the entries are uninteresting, but it does mean that they shouldn't be seen as anything more than a complement to the Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Dr. Cooke seems to assume mine was meant to be an enyclopedia that would replce Stein's work. He seems conveniently to have overlooked the book's title and particularly its subtitle: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists. In short, it was never designed as being a house organ of the Council for Secular Humanism. Rather, it was meant to be an international directory.

• As the title suggests, it's as a who's who that this work should properly be judged. But the problems continue. To begin with, there are a fair number of people who one is surprised to find in the book at all. For example, the English philosopher Bryan Magee rates a mention. It is correct to note that Magee is generally atheistic, but he is specifically hostile to what he has described as the shallows of rationalist humanism. Magee writes of his atheism in Confessions of a Philosopher: A Journey Through Western Philosophy (1999) - in a handbook of and for non-believers, it is not clear why Magee should have been omitted simply because his views would be different from or even negative of Cooke's.

• Even more jarring is the inclusion of Charles Loring Brace (1826-1890), described as a Unitarian and philanthropist. But Brace also wrote Gesta Christi: A History of Humane Progress under Christianity (1882), in which he attributed all progress to benevolent Christians and all setbacks to malevolent unbelievers. He has no place in this book. Again, mine is a handbook showing the wide variations of non-belief and including those with a 19th century Unitarian stance. One also has to question the inclusion policy of some entries. Why, for instance, does Robin Mowat, known even to fellow New Zealanders only as an itinerant ex-serviceman, rate an entry of the same length as that of V Gordon Childe, a prominent and prolific Australian archaeologist and prehistorian? And are we any further ahead with the entry 'Greene, John Gardner (20th century). Greene has been a member of the American Humanist Association' (page 459). There are many entries with no more information than this. This provincial observation embarrased two Australasians who read it, lamenting his nationalism.

• Then there are the errors that can only be described as sloppy. There is an entry for 'J Bowden (20th Century)' which includes a couple of items. But then, two entries later, there is an entry on 'John Bowden, 1888-1981', featuring some of the same information. This is, of course the same person. Gordon Stein listed only a J. Bowden. A more thorough Ray Dahlitz listed John Bowden. It should be evident that the two were quoted as having written books with similar but not identical titles - both were therefore included.

• Then there is Lord Ritchie-Calder, who has one entry under 'R' and another entry under 'C'. The amount and quality of information on this single individual differs quite widely in the two entries. The same happens for Richard Blithell (wrong) and Richard Bithell (right). Neither entry gives the correct date of birth or any date of death (1902), even though that is freely available in English histories that Smith must have had access to. Stein's encyclopedia fails to mention him, but elsewhere Stein cites him without a death date. There are, unfortunatley, many examples of this sort of error or poor proofing. On page 1,237, readers were asked to please forward documentation for any suggested corrections. Cooke's review may have encouraged New Zealanders not to bother.

• Despite all this negativity, there is no question at all that Warren Allen Smith has done the Humanist movement a great service. The intent was never that. Again, as the subtitle emphasizes, the work was a handbook for all shades and stripes of non-believers.To be able to leaf through such an impressivwe variety of people makes one almost look forward to the day we meet them all in hell. The book's thesis is that Hell is a theological invention, whereas hell is like awakening with a hangover. Cooke seemingly does not use a similarly international system for capitalizing. Clearly, it's going to be a lot more fun than heaven. On the contrary, the book lists over 10,000 who happily disbelieve in Heaven and find heaven here and now. It's especially intersting to see the actors, playwrights, novelists we'll meet there. This should help to dispel the prejudice of humanism as a way of life only for pointy-heads. But to be truly useful, it is important that a slimmed-down, more rigorously selected and edited work appears sometime in the future. Dr. Cooke will likely disapprove of how the book has been expanded and is now online in Philosopedia. Meanwhile, it is surprising that Australasian pointy-heads have not called Cooke's attention to all this.

• One wonders if Cooke chose to follow the lead of Paul Kurtz in the alleged ethicist's panning of the Smith book - in an unsigned review, the only unsigned review ever in Free Inquiry). Kurtz at a later date explained to Smith in an e-mail about his having submitted his book to Prometheus,

• The reason why Prometheus rejected the work when first submitted to it and suggested a grant to publish the work is because the editors thought it essential to employ a special editor to meticulously check each entry, a time consuming and costly job, as it did with Gordon Stein’s The Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Gordon Stein, the leading free thought bibliographer in the world at that time, adamantly opposed the publication of Who’s Who in Hell, and he gave it an unfavorable review because he thought that it represented shoddy scholarship.

• Kurtz to date has not justified his deliberate panning of the book, in which he wrote that the shoddy book failed to note that Gilbert Ryle wrote The Ghost in the Machine. Ibn Warraq pointed out that of course Smith failed to include this, for that book was written by Arthur Koestler. In 2003 Kurtz wrote Smith that Stein had unfavorably reviewed the 1999 book. Cooke perhaps has an answer as to how his esteemed publisher knew this. Stein died in 1996.

Three Prometheus books by Bill Cooke are The Gathering of Infidels, A Rebel to His Last Breath, and "A Dictionary of Atheism, Skepticism, and Humanism.