George Walford: You Cannot Join the Walsby Society

The object of The Walsby Society is to develop and make known the work of the late Harold Walsby. The Society has no formal membership, no funds, no Constitution. People who take part in its work do so on their own initiative, on their own respensibility and at their own expense.

Harold Walsby worked in several fields, most notably in ideology, philosophy and mathematical logic; the interest of the present writer lies mainly in his ideological work, of which the main themes were set out in his book The Domain of Ideologies (at present out of print). Walsby did not accept the view that ideology is a mere epiphenomenon of some other field of activity. He showed that it is, like psychology, a relatively independent area, with laws and phenomena peculiar to itself. He showed that the various major ideologies are systematically related one to another, and this feature has led to the recent introduction of the term “systematic ideology” to distinguish this from other approaches to the subject.

The enclosed papers indicate some of the lines of investigation now being followed; other papers available are listed at the back of An Outline Sketch of Systematic Ideology. Other current activities are:

1. Monthly meetings. These are held in Highgate. Subjects are sometimes directly concerned with the work of the WS, sometimes of general social or political interest. Most speakers have come from the Sociology Departments of the universities. Admission by invitation2. Each year since 1973 a Harold Walsby Memorial Lecture has been delivered. These are open to the public and are advertised.

3. Twice a year WS people gather for a residential weekend at Braziers Park Adult College, Ipsden, Oxfordshire.

4. Private gatherings of small groups (sometimes of only two or three people) for study and discussion. People wishing to study or discuss ideology can usually be accomodated at short notice.
Meetings concerned with other aspects of Walsby’s work occur less frequently.

5. A journal, ASSUMPTIONS, is distributed mainly to people connected with The Walsby Society.

If you would like to take part in any of these activities, or would like to know more about the Society or its work, please write to: The Bookshop [address]

STOP PRESS: A Conference on Comparative Ideology is being arranged for September 1977.

handbill circa September 1977