Here's some left-wing extremism, because I know you like it:
Complete and unilateral disarmament. Abolition of censorship, sabbath restrictions and the established church. Repeal all laws against homosexuality, divorce and abortion. Teach everyone about contraception. Create national parks and the right to roam. Introduce strict town and country planning based on conservation. Ban performing animals. Work towards world government and global socialisation of industry.
Mind you, the Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals (FPSI) also advocated compulsory worldwide population control and "sterilisation of the feeble-minded." Eugenics was popular with left and right in the 1920s and 30s, and progressive rationalists sometimes have ice in their veins when in pursuit of efficiency and the greater good.
The FPSI, founded in London in 1932, was mainly the work of two men. The left-wing writer H.G. Wells is still a household name today, as one of the trailblazers of science fiction. His comrade in the FPSI was, during the 1940s, by far the best-known intellectual in Britain and one of the country's biggest all-round celebrities - but is remembered now only as the most famous fare-dodger in British history.
C.E.M. Joad (1891-1953) grew up in a strictly Christian household in Southampton, the son of a school inspector. At Oxford University he was good at sport and debating, became a Fabian socialist, an agnostic and a pacifist, and left with a full portfolio of philosophy degrees to work in the civil service and later as a university teacher while constantly writing books, articles and pamphlets.
The organisation which changed its name to The Progressive League in 1940, and was only finally wound up in 2005, was intended to bring together socialists, humanists and liberals in a sort of cross between a think-tank and a pressure group. It aimed to "provide a crystallisation of advanced opinion on all matters relating to human welfare as a whole," and to unify the small, scattered, fractious and "woefully impotent" forces of progress.
The FPSI was known to its detractors as the Federation for the Promotion of Sexual Intercourse, due to its advocacy of nudism, easy divorce and free love. Though it never achieved its ambition of uniting "advanced opinion," it had some influence on the shape of Britain after world war two.
It was that war which turned Joad into a star. He badgered the BBC to put him on the air, and they eventually did, in January 1941 in a programme called The Brains Trust. The idea was new, and instantly successful: a small panel of intellectuals, under the control of a chairman, would answer listeners' questions, which included "Do we think this world is worthwhile?" and "What is the difference between fresh air and a draught?" The apparently trivial and the supposedly highbrow were debated with the same seriousness and the same humour.
The first series ran for an astonishing 84 weeks without a break, and on Sunday afternoons was listened to by 29% of the UK population. At its height the programme was receiving more than four thousand letters from listeners every week. It was consciously controversial and provocative, designed specifically to be entertaining as well as informative. Joad, in particular, was the target of many complaints, including the MP who accused him of using "disgusting language" in quoting the Chinese proverb: "There is no economy in going to bed early to save candles if the result is twins."
Churchmen were outraged by the show's rationalist bias, while Conservative politicians complained that the programme was "socialistic," and it's certainly true that nothing even half as freethinking or democratic as The Brains Trust would be allowed within a mile of the airwaves today, when every presenter's every sentence must acknowledge that only neoliberal capitalism has ever existed or could ever exist.
The programme gave rise to two enduring catchphrases - Commander Campbell's "When I was in Patagonia ... " and Joad's rather more functional "It all depends what you mean by ... " with which he would often begin his answers, suggesting that an agreed definition of terms was a prerequisite for meaningful discussion.
His confident, well-informed contributions to The Brains Trust, his high-pitched voice and frequently irreverent anecdotes, rapidly turned Joad into a national celebrity. Brainy schoolkids, who these days might be called Einstein by their classmates, were nicknamed Professor Joad (though Dr. Joad was never actually a professor, he was quite happy to be addressed as such). Alongside a weekly newspaper column, he was in constant demand to open fetes and give after-dinner speeches. He was even used in advertising, and stood as the Labour candidate in a 1946 parliamentary by-election. His many books became bestsellers.
As the English-speaking world's most celebrated populariser of philosophy he was on the verge of getting a peerage when, in April 1948, Joad was convicted of "travelling on the railway without having paid his fare between Waterloo and Salisbury, and with intent to avoid payment." During the case, and then in his regular Sunday Dispatch column on 25th April, Joad gave various explanations and excuses for, and versions of, his behaviour. None of it was terribly convincing - largely because he had previously boasted in print that he ripped off the railway companies whenever he got the chance.
It's usually said that the fare dodging scandal ended Joad's career, but that isn't quite right. True, the BBC sacked him but from public and press there was a fair bit of sympathy. We can't know whether or not he might have recovered professionally, because he became seriously ill, first with thrombosis and then with terminal cancer.
That ended an unusally full life. Joad was a founding officer of the National Council for Civil Liberties, played a major part in the remarkable "King and Country" debate at the Oxford Union in 1933, and inspired Stephen Potter's concept of gamesmanship. Although he ended up expressing frankly misogynistic views, as a young man "I joined the Men's Political Union for Women's Enfranchisement, hobnobbed with emancipated feminists who smoked cigarettes on principle, drank Russian tea and talked with an assured and deliberate frankness of sex and of their own sex experiences, and won my spurs for the movement by breaking windows in Oxford Street for which I spent one night in custody." He was also involved in ghost-hunting expeditions alongside the legendary psychic researcher, Harry Price.
Every hour of his day was filled with purposeful activity because, as he admitted in his autobiography, "I never dare leave myself with nothing to do for fear of an attack of boredom, and, no doubt, I am wearing out very rapidly in consequence."
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Sources:
Evening Despatch 12 April 1948
Daily Mirror 19 April 1948
https://heritage.humanists.uk/the-progressive-league
https://spartacus-educational.com/Jjoad.htm
Radio: the great years by Derek Parker (David & Charles, 1977)
www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/january/the-brains-trust