For example, there is one element which must always tend to oligarchy—or rather to despotism; I mean the element of hurry. If the house has caught fire a man must ring up the fire engines; a committee cannot ring them up. If a camp is surprised by night somebody must give the order to fire; there is no time to vote it. It is solely1 a question of the physical limitations of time and space; not at all of any mental limitations in the mass of men commanded. If all the people in the house were men of destiny it would still be better that they should not all talk into the telephone at once; nay2, it would be better that the silliest man of all should speak uninterrupted. If an army actually consisted of nothing but Hanibals and Napoleons, it would still be better in the case of a surprise that they should not all give orders together. Nay, it would be better if the stupidest of them all gave the orders. Thus, we see that merely military subordination, so far from resting on the inequality of men, actually rests on the equality of men. Discipline does not involve the Carlylean notion that somebody is always right when everybody is wrong, and that we must discover and crown that somebody. On the contrary, discipline means that in certain frightfully rapid circumstances, one can trust anybody so long as he is not everybody. The military spirit does not mean (as Carlyle fancied) obeying the strongest and wisest man. On the contrary, the military spirit means, if anything, obeying the weakest and stupidest man, obeying him merely because he is a man, and not a thousand men. Submission3 to a weak man is discipline. Submission to a strong man is only servility.
Now it can be easily shown that the thing we call aristocracy in Europe is not in its origin and spirit an aristocracy at all. It is not a system of spiritual degrees and distinctions like, for example, the caste system of India, or even like the old Greek distinction between free men and slaves. It is simply the remains4 of a military organization, framed partly to sustain the sinking Roman Empire, partly to break and avenge5 the awful onslaught of Islam. The word Duke simply means Colonel, just as the word Emperor simply means Commander-in-Chief. The whole story is told in the single title of Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, which merely means officers in the European army against the contemporary Yellow Peril6. Now in an army nobody ever dreams of supposing that difference of rank represents a difference of moral reality. Nobody ever says about a regiment7, “Your Major is very humorous and energetic; your Colonel, of course, must be even more humorous and yet more energetic.” No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room conversation, “Lieutenant Jones was very witty8, but was naturally inferior to Captain Smith.” The essence of an army is the idea of official inequality, founded on unofficial equality. The Colonel is not obeyed because he is the best man, but because he is the Colonel. Such was probably the spirit of the system of dukes and counts when it first arose out of the military spirit and military necessities of Rome. With the decline of those necessities it has gradually ceased to have meaning as a military organization, and become honeycombed with unclean plutocracy9. Even now it is not a spiritual aristocracy—it is not so bad as all that. It is simply an army without an enemy—billeted upon the people.
Man, therefore, has a specialist as well as comrade-like aspect; and the case of militarism is not the only case of such specialist submission. The tinker and tailor, as well as the soldier and sailor, require a certain rigidity11 of rapidity of action: at least, if the tinker is not organized that is largely why he does not tink on any large scale. The tinker and tailor often represent the two nomadic12 races in Europe: the Gipsy and the Jew; but the Jew alone has influence because he alone accepts some sort of discipline. Man, we say, has two sides, the specialist side where he must have subordination, and the social side where he must have equality. There is a truth in the saying that ten tailors go to make a man; but we must remember also that ten Poets Laureate or ten Astronomers13 Royal go to make a man, too. Ten million tradesmen go to make Man himself; but humanity consists of tradesmen when they are not talking shop. Now the peculiar14 peril of our time, which I call for argument’s sake Imperialism15 or Caesarism, is the complete eclipse of comradeship and equality by specialism and domination.
There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable—personal government and impersonal16 government. If my anarchic friends will not have rules—they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with its tact17 and flexibility18, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. Objecting broadmindedly both to kings and creeds19 is called Bosh; at least, I know no more philosophic20 word for it. You can be guided by the shrewdness or presence of mind of one ruler, or by the equality and ascertained21 justice of one rule; but you must have one or the other, or you are not a nation, but a nasty mess. Now men in their aspect of equality and debate adore the idea of rules; they develop and complicate22 them greatly to excess. A man finds far more regulations and definitions in his club, where there are rules, than in his home, where there is a ruler. A deliberate assembly, the House of Commons, for instance, carries this mummery to the point of a methodical madness. The whole system is stiff with rigid10 unreason; like the Royal Court in Lewis Carroll. You would think the Speaker would speak; therefore he is mostly silent. You would think a man would take off his hat to stop and put it on to go away; therefore he takes off his hat to walk out and puts it on to stop in. Names are forbidden, and a man must call his own father “my right honorable friend the member for West Birmingham.” These are, perhaps, fantasies of decay: but fundamentally they answer a masculine appetite. Men feel that rules, even if irrational23, are universal; men feel that law is equal, even when it is not equitable24. There is a wild fairness in the thing—as there is in tossing up.
Again, it is gravely unfortunate that when critics do attack such cases as the Commons it is always on the points (perhaps the few points) where the Commons are right. They denounce the House as the Talking-Shop, and complain that it wastes time in wordy mazes25. Now this is just one respect in which the Commons are actually like the Common People. If they love leisure and long debate, it is because all men love it; that they really represent England. There the Parliament does approach to the virile26 virtues27 of the pothouse.
The real truth is that adumbrated28 in the introductory section when we spoke29 of the sense of home and property, as now we speak of the sense of counsel and community. All men do naturally love the idea of leisure, laughter, loud and equal argument; but there stands a specter in our hall. We are conscious of the towering modern challenge that is called specialism or cut-throat competition—Business. Business will have nothing to do with leisure; business will have no truck with comradeship; business will pretend to no patience with all the legal fictions and fantastic handicaps by which comradeship protects its egalitarian ideal. The modern millionaire, when engaged in the agreeable and typical task of sacking his own father, will certainly not refer to him as the right honorable clerk from the Laburnum Road, Brixton. Therefore there has arisen in modern life a literary fashion devoting itself to the romance of business, to great demigods of greed and to fairyland of finance. This popular philosophy is utterly30 despotic and anti-democratic; this fashion is the flower of that Caesarism against which I am concerned to protest. The ideal millionaire is strong in the possession of a brain of steel. The fact that the real millionaire is rather more often strong in the possession of a head of wood, does not alter the spirit and trend of the idolatry. The essential argument is “Specialists must be despots; men must be specialists. You cannot have equality in a soap factory; so you cannot have it anywhere. You cannot have comradeship in a wheat corner; so you cannot have it at all. We must have commercial civilization; therefore we must destroy democracy.” I know that plutocrats have seldom sufficient fancy to soar to such examples as soap or wheat. They generally confine themselves, with fine freshness of mind, to a comparison between the state and a ship. One anti-democratic writer remarked that he would not like to sail in a vessel31 in which the cabin-boy had an equal vote with the captain. It might easily be urged in answer that many a ship (the Victoria, for instance) was sunk because an admiral gave an order which a cabin-boy could see was wrong. But this is a debating reply; the essential fallacy is both deeper and simpler. The elementary fact is that we were all born in a state; we were not all born on a ship; like some of our great British bankers. A ship still remains a specialist experiment, like a diving-bell or a flying ship: in such peculiar perils32 the need for promptitude constitutes the need for autocracy33. But we live and die in the vessel of the state; and if we cannot find freedom camaraderie34 and the popular element in the state, we cannot find it at all. And the modern doctrine35 of commercial despotism means that we shall not find it at all. Our specialist trades in their highly civilized36 state cannot (it says) be run without the whole brutal37 business of bossing and sacking, “too old at forty” and all the rest of the filth38. And they must be run, and therefore we call on Caesar. Nobody but the Superman could descend39 to do such dirty work.
Now (to reiterate40 my title) this is what is wrong. This is the huge modern heresy41 of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the human soul. If soap boiling is really inconsistent with brotherhood42, so much the worst for soap-boiling, not for brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on with democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for democracy. Certainly, it would be far better to go back to village communes, if they really are communes. Certainly, it would be better to do without soap rather than to do without society. Certainly, we would sacrifice all our wires, wheels, systems, specialties43, physical science and frenzied44 finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often come to us with comrades in a common tavern45. I do not say the sacrifice will be necessary; I only say it will be easy.
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1
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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2
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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plutocracy
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| n.富豪统治 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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rigidity
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| adj.钢性，坚硬 | |
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nomadic
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| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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astronomers
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| n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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imperialism
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| n.帝国主义，帝国主义政策 | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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equitable
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| adj.公平的；公正的 | |
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mazes
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| 迷宫( maze的名词复数 )； 纷繁复杂的规则； 复杂难懂的细节； 迷宫图 | |
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virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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adumbrated
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| v.约略显示，勾画出…的轮廓( adumbrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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autocracy
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| n.独裁政治，独裁政府 | |
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camaraderie
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| n.同志之爱，友情 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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reiterate
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| v.重申，反复地说 | |
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heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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42
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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43
specialties
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| n.专门，特性，特别；专业( specialty的名词复数 )；特性；特制品；盖印的契约 | |
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frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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45
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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