(1) Socialism, i.e. a large, a slowly elaborating conception of a sane1 and organized state and moral culture to replace our present chaotic2 way of living,
(2) the Socialist3 movement, and
(3) the Middle Classes.
The first is to me a very great thing indeed, the form and substance of my ideal life, and all the religion I possess. Let me make
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my confession4 plain and clear. I am, by a sort of predestination, a Socialist. I perceive, I cannot help talking and writing about Socialism, and shaping and forwarding Socialism. I am one of a succession—one of a growing multitude of witnesses, who will continue. It does not—in the larger sense—matter how many generations of us must toil5 and testify. It does not matter, except as our individual concern, how individually we succeed or fail, what blunders we make, what thwartings we encounter, what follies6 and inadequacies darken our private hopes and level our personal imaginations to the dust. We have the light. We know what we are for, and that the light that now glimmers7 so dimly through us must in the end prevail. To us Socialism is no piece of political strategy, no economic opposition8 of class to class; it is a plan for the reconstruction9 of human life, for the replacement10 of a disorder11 by order, for the making of a state in which mankind shall live bravely and beautifully beyond our present imagining.
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So, largely, I conceive of Socialism. But Socialism and the Socialist movement are two very different things. The Socialist movement is an item in an altogether different scale.
I must confess that the organized Socialist movement, all the Socialist societies and leagues and federations13 and parties together in England, seem to me no more than the rustling14 hem15 of the garment of advancing Socialism. For some years the whole organized Socialist movement seemed to me so unimportant, so irrelevant16 to that progressive development and realization17 of a great system of ideas which is Socialism, that, like very many other Socialists18, I did not trouble to connect myself with any section of it. I don’t believe that the Socialist idea is as yet nearly enough thought out and elaborated for very much of it to be realized of set intention now. Socialism is still essentially19 education, is study, is a renewal20, a profound change in the circle of human thought and motive21. The institutions which will express this changed circle of thought are important indeed,
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but with a secondary importance. Socialism is the still incomplete, the still sketchy22 and sketchily23 indicative plan of a new life for the world, a new and better way of living, a change of spirit and substance from the narrow selfishness and immediacy and cowardly formalism, the chaotic life individual accident that is human life to-day, a life that dooms24 itself and all of us to thwartings and misery25. Socialism, therefore, is to be served by thought and expression, in art, in literature, in scientific statement and life, in discussion and the quickening exercise of propaganda; but the Socialist movement, as one finds it, is too often no more than a hasty attempt to secure a premature26 realization of some fragmentary suggestion of this great, still plastic design, to the neglect of all other of its aspects. As my own sense of Socialism has enlarged and intensified27, I have become more and more impressed by the imperfect Socialism of almost every Socialist movement that is going on; by its necessarily partial and limited projection28 from the clotted29
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cants and habituations of things as they are. Some Socialists quarrel with the Liberal Party and with the Socialist section of the Liberal Party because it does not go far enough, because it does not embody30 a Socialism uncompromising and complete, because it has not definitely cut itself off from the old traditions, the discredited31 formulæ, that served before the coming of our great idea. They are blind to the fact that there is no organized Socialism at present, uncompromising and complete, and the Socialists who flatter themselves they represent as much are merely those who have either never grasped or who have forgotten the full implications of Socialism. They are just a little step further, a very little step further in their departure from existing prejudices, in their subservience32 to existing institutions and existing imperatives33.
Take, for example, the Socialism that is popular in New York and Chicago and Germany, and that finds its exponents34 here typically in the inferior ranks of the Social
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Democratic Federation—the crude Marxite teaching. It still awaits permeation35 by true Socialist conceptions. It is a version of life adapted essentially to the imagination of the working wage earner, and limited by his limitations. It is the vision of poor souls perennially36 reminded each Monday morning of the shadow and irksomeness of life, perpetually recalled each Saturday pay time to a watery37 gleam of all that life might be. One of the numberless relationships of life, the relationship of capital or the employer to the employed, is made to overshadow all other relations. Get that put right, “expropriate the idle rich,” transfer all capital to the State, make the State the humane38, amenable39, universal employer—that, to innumerable, Socialist working men, is the horizon. The rest he sees in the forms of the life to which he is accustomed. A little home, a trifle larger and brighter than his present one, a more abounding40 table, a cheerful missus released from factory work and unhealthy competition with men, a bright and healthy
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family going to and fro to the public free schools, free medical attendance, universal State insurance for old age, free trams to Burnham Beeches41, shorter hours of work and higher wages, no dismissals, no hunting for work that eludes42 one. All the wide world of collateral43 consequences that will follow from the cessation of the system of employment under conditions of individualist competition, he does not seem to apprehend44. Such phrases as the citizenship45 and economic independence of women leave him cold. That Socialism has anything to say about the economic basis of the family, about the social aspects of marriage, about the rights of the parent, doesn’t, I think, at first occur to him at all. Nor does he realize for a long time that for Socialism and under Socialist institutions will there be needed any system of self-discipline, any rules of conduct further than the natural impulses and the native goodness of man. He takes just that aspect of Socialism that appeals to him, and that alone, and it is only exceptionally at present, and very slowly,
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as a process of slow habituation and enlargement, that he comes to any wider conceptions. And, as a consequence, directly we pass to any social type to which weekly or monthly wages is not the dominating fact of life, and a simple unthinking faith in Yes or No decisions its dominant46 habit, the phrasings, the formulæ, the statements and the discreet47 omissions48 of the leaders of working-class Socialism fail to appeal.
Socialism commends itself to a considerable proportion of the working class simply as a beneficial change in the conditions of work and employment; to other sections of the community it presents itself through equally limited aspects. Certain ways of living it seems to condemn49 root and branch. To the stockbroker50 and many other sorts of trader, to the usurer, to the company promoter, to the retired51 butler who has invested his money in “weekly property,” for example, it stands for the dissolution of all comprehensible social order. It simply repudiates53 the way of living to which they have committed themselves.
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And to great numbers of agreeable unintelligent people who live upon rent and interest it is a projected severing54 of every bond that holds man and man, that keeps servants respectful, tradespeople in order, railways and hotels available, and the whole procedure of life going. They class Socialism and Anarchism together in a way that is as logically unjust as it is from their point of view justifiable55. Both cults56 have this in common, that they threaten to wipe out the whole world of the villa57 resident. And this sense of a threatened profound disturbance58 in their way of living pervades59 the attitude of nearly all the comfortable classes towards Socialism.
When we discuss the attitude of the middle classes to Socialism we must always bear this keener sense of disconcerting changes in mind. It is a part of the queer composition of the human animal that its desire for happenings is balanced by an instinctive60 dread61 of real changes of condition. People, especially fully12 adult people, are creatures who have grown accustomed to a certain method
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of costume, a certain system of meals, a certain dietary, certain apparatus62, a certain routine. They know their way about in life as it is. They would be lost in Utopia. Quite little alterations63 “put them out,” as they say—create a distressing64 feeling of inadequacy65, make them “feel odd.” Whatever little enlargements they may contemplate66 in reverie, in practice they know they want nothing except, perhaps, a little more of all the things they like. That’s the way with most of us, anyhow. To make a fairly complete intimation of the nature of Socialism to an average, decent, middle-aged67, middle-class person would be to arouse emotions of unspeakable terror, if the whole project didn’t also naturally clothe itself in a quality of incredibility. And you will find, as a matter of fact, that your middle-class Socialists belong to two classes; either they are amiable68 people who don’t understand a bit what Socialism is—and some of the most ardent69 and serviceable workers for Socialism are of this type—or they are people so unhappily
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situated70 and so unfortunate, or else of such exceptional imaginative force or training (which is itself, perhaps, from the practical point of view, a misfortune), as to be capable of a discontent with life as it is, so passionate71 as to outweigh72 instinctive timidities and discretions. Rest assured that to make any large section of the comfortable upper middle class Socialists, you must either misrepresent, and more particularly under-represent Socialism, or you must quicken their imaginations far beyond the present state of affairs.
Some of the most ardent and serviceable of Socialist workers, I have said, are of the former type. For the most part they are philanthropic people, or women and men of the managing temperament74 shocked into a sort of Socialism by the more glaring and melodramatic cruelties of our universally cruel social system. They are the district visitors of Socialism. They do not realize that Socialism demands any change in themselves or in their way of living, they perceive in it simply a way of hope from the
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failures of vulgar charity. Chiefly they assail75 the bad conditions of life of the lower classes. They don’t for a moment envisage76 a time when there will be no lower classes—that is beyond them altogether. Much less can they conceive of a time when there will be no governing class distinctively77 in possession of means. They exact respect from inferiors; no touch of Socialist warmth or light qualifies their arrogant78 manners. Perhaps they, too, broaden their conception of Socialism as time goes on, but so it begins with them. Now to make Socialists of this type the appeal is a very different one from the talk of class war and expropriation, and the abolition79 of the idle rich, which is so serviceable with a roomful of sweated workers. These people are moved partly by pity, and the best of them by a hatred80 for the squalor and waste of the present régime. Talk of the expropriated rich simply raises in their minds painful and disconcerting images of distressed81 gentlewomen. But one necessary aspect of the Socialist’s vision that sends the coldest
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shiver down the spine82 of the working class Socialist is extraordinarily83 alluring84 and congenial to them, namely, the official and organized side. They love to think of houses and factories open to competent inspection85, of municipal milk, sealed and certificated for every cottager’s baby, of old age pensions and a high and rising minimum standard of life. They have an admirable sense of sanitation86. They are the philanthropic and administrative87 Socialists as distinguished88 from the economic revolutionaries.
This class of Socialist passes insensibly into the merely Socialistic philanthropist of the wealthy middle class to whom we owe so much helpful expenditure89 upon experiments in housing, in museum and school construction, in educational endowment, and so forth90. Their activities are not for one moment to be despised; they are a constant demonstration91 to dull and sceptical persons that things may be different, better, prettier, kindlier and more orderly. Many people impervious92 to tracts93 can be set thinking by
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a model village or a model factory. However petty much of what they achieve may be, there it is achieved—in legislation, in bricks and mortar94. Among other things, these administrative Socialists serve to correct the very perceptible tendency of most working men Socialists to sentimental95 anarchism in regard to questions of control and conduct, a tendency due entirely96 to their social and administrative inexperience.
For more thorough-going Socialism among the middle classes one must look to those strata97 and sections in which quickened imaginations and unsettling influences are to be found. The artist should be extraordinarily attracted by Socialism. A mind habitually98 directed to beauty as an end must necessarily be exceptionally awake to the ugly congestions of our contemporary civilisation100, to the prolific101 futile102 production of gawky, ill-mannered, jostling new things, to the shabby profit-seeking that ousts103 beauty from life and poisons every enterprise of man. And not only artistic104 work, but the better sort of
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scientific investigation105, the better sort of literary work, and every occupation that involves the persistent106 free use of thought, must bring the mind more and more towards the definite recognition of our social incoherence and waste. But this by no means exhausts the professions that ought to have a distinct bias107 for Socialism. The engineer, the architect, the mechanical inventor, the industrial organizer, and every sort of maker108 must be at one in their desire for emancipation109 from servitude to the promoter, the trader, the lawyer, and the forestaller110, from the perpetually recurring111 obstruction112 of the claim of the private proprietor113 to every large and hopeful enterprise, and ready to respond to the immense creative element in the Socialist idea. Only it is that creative element which has so far found least expression in Socialist literature, which appears neither in the “class war” literature of the working class Socialist nor the litigious, inspecting, fining, and regulating tracts and proposals of the administrative Socialist. To too many
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of these men in the constructive114 professions the substitution of a Socialist State for our present economic method carries with it no promise of emancipation at all. They think that to work for the public controls which an advance towards Socialism would set up, would be worse for them and for all that they desire to do than the profit-seeking, expense-cutting, mercenary making of the present régime.
This is, I believe, a temporary and alterable state, contrary to the essential and permanent spirit of those engaged in constructive work. It is due very largely to the many misrepresentations and partial statements of Socialism that have rendered it palatable115 and assimilable to the working men and the administrative Socialist. Socialism has been presented on the one hand as a scheme of expropriation to a clamorous116 popular government of working men, far more ignorant and incapable117 of management than a shareholders118’ meeting, and, on the other, as a scheme for the encouragement of stupid little
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municipal authorities of the contemporary type in impossible business undertakings119 under the guidance of fussy120, energetic, legal minded and totally unscientific instigators. Except for the quite recent development of Socialist thought that is now being embodied121 in the New Heptarchy Series of the Fabian Society, scarcely anything has been done to dispel122 these reasonable dreads123. I should think that from the point of view of Socialist propaganda, the time is altogether ripe now for a fresh and more vigorous insistence124 upon the materially creative aspect of the Vision of Socialism, an aspect which is after all, much more cardinal125 and characteristic than any aspect that has hitherto been presented systematically126 to the world. An enormous rebuilding, remaking, and expansion is integral in the Socialist dream. We want to get the land out of the control of the private owners among whom it is cut up, we want to get houses, factories, railways, mines, farms out of the dispersed127 management of their proprietors128, not in order to secure their
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present profits and hinder development, but in order to rearrange these things in a saner129 and finer fashion. An immense work of replanning, rebuilding, redistributing lies in the foreground of the Socialist vista130. We contemplate an enormous clearance131 of existing things. We want an unfettered hand to make beautiful and convenient homes, splendid cities, noiseless great highways, beautiful bridges, clean, swift and splendid electric railways; we are inspired by a faith in the coming of clean, wide and simple methods of agricultural production. But it is only now that Socialism is beginning to be put in these terms. So put it, and the engineer and the architect and the scientific organizer, agricultural or industrial—all the best of them, anyhow—will find it correspond extraordinarily to their way of thinking.
Not all of them, of course. A middle-aged architect with a note-book full of bits of gothic, and a reputation for suburban132 churches, or full of bits of “Queen Anne” and a connexion among villa builders, or an engineer
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paterfamilias who has tasted blood as an expert witness, aren’t to be won by these suggestions. They’re part of things as they are. But that is only a temporary inconvenience to Socialism. The young men do respond, and they are the future and what Socialism needs.
And there’s another great constructive profession that should be Socialist altogether, and that is the medical profession. Especially does Socialism claim the younger men who haven’t yet sunken from the hospitals to the trading individualism of a practice. And then there are the teachers, the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. The idea of a great organized making is innate133 in the quality of their professions; the making of sound bodies and healthy conditions, the making of informed and disciplined minds. The methods of the profit-seeking schoolmaster, the practice-buying doctor are imposed upon them by the necessities of an individualist world. Both these two great professions present nowadays, side by side,
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two types—the new type, highly qualified134, official, administrative, scientific, public-spirited; the old type, capitalistic, with a pretentious135 house and equipment, the doctor with a brougham, and a dispensary, the schoolmaster or schoolmistress with some huge old stucco house converted by jerry-built extensions to meet scholastic136 needs. Who would not rather, one may ask, choose the former way who was not already irrevocably committed to the latter? Well, I with my Socialist dreams would like to answer “No one,” but I’m learning to check my buoyant optimism. The imagination and science in a young man may cry out for the public position, for the valiant137 public work, for the hard, honourable138, creative years. He may sit with his fellow-students and his fellow-workers in a nocturnal cloud of tobacco smoke and fine talk, and vow139 himself to research and the creative world state. In the morning he will think he has dreamed; he will recall what the world is, what Socialists are, what he has heard wild Socialists say
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about science and his art. He will elect for the real world and a practice.
Something more than a failure to state the constructive and educational quality in Socialism on the part of its exponents has to be admitted in accounting140 for the unnatural141 want of sympathetic co-operation between them and the bulk of these noble professions. I cannot disguise from myself certain curiously142 irrelevant strands143 that have interwoven with the partial statements of Socialism current in England, and which it is high time, I think, for Socialists to repudiate52. Socialism is something more than an empty criticism of our contemporary disorder and waste of life, it is a great intimation of construction, organization, science and education. But concurrently144 with its extension and its destructive criticism of the capitalistic individualism of to-day, there has been another movement, essentially an anarchist145 movement, hostile to machinery146 and apparatus, hostile to medical science, hostile to order, hostile to education, a Rousseauite movement
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in the direction of a sentimentalized naturalism, a Tolstoyan movement in the direction of a non-resisting pietism, which has not simply been confused with the Socialist movement, but has really affected147 and interwoven with it. It is not simply that wherever discussion and destructive criticism of the present conventional bases of society occur, both ways of thinking crop up together; they occur all too often as alternating phases in the same individual. Few of us are so clear-headed as to be free from profound self-contradictions. So that it is no great marvel148, after all, if the presentation of Socialism has got mixed up with Return-to-Nature ideas, with proposals for living in a state of unregulated primitive149 virtue150 in purely151 hand-made houses, upon rain water and uncooked fruit. We Socialists have to disentangle it from these things now. We have to disavow, with all necessary emphasis, that gibing153 at science and the medical profession, at schools and books and the necessary apparatus for collective thinking,
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which has been one of our little ornamental154 weaknesses in the past. That has, I know, kept a very considerable number of intelligent professional men from inquiring further into Socialist theories and teachings. As a consequence there are, especially in the medical profession, quite a number of unconscious Socialists, men, often with a far clearer grip upon the central ideas of Socialism than many of its professed155 exponents, who have worked out these ideas for themselves, and are incredulous to hear them called Socialistic.
So much for the specifically creative and imagination-using professions. Throughout the whole range of the more educated middle classes, however, there are causes at work that necessarily stimulate156 thought towards Socialism, that engender157 scepticisms, promote inquiries158 leading towards what is at present the least expounded159 of all aspects of Socialism—the relation of Socialism to the institution of the Family....
The Family, and not the individual, is still the unit in contemporary civilization, and
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indeed in nearly all social systems that have ever existed. The adult male, the head of the family, has been the citizen, the sole representative of the family in the State. About him have been grouped his one or more wives, his children, his dependents. His position towards them has always been—is still in many respects to this day—one of ownership. He was owner of them all, and in many of the less sophisticated systems of the past his ownership was as complete as over his horse and house and land—more complete than over his land. He could sell his children into slavery, barter160 his wives. There has been a secular161 mitigation of the rights of this sort of private property; the establishment of monogamy, for instance, did for the family what President Roosevelt’s proposed legislation against large accumulations might do for industrial enterprises, but to this day in our own community, for all such mitigations and many euphemisms162, the ownership of the head of the family is still a manifest fact. He votes. He keeps
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and protects. He determines the education and professions of his children. He is entitled to monetary163 consolation164 for any infringement165 of his rights over wife or daughter. Every intelligent woman understands that, as a matter of hard fact, beneath all the civilities of to-day, she is actual or potential property, and has to treat herself and keep herself as that. She may by force or subtlety166 turn her chains into weapons, she may succeed in exacting167 a reciprocal property in a man, the fact remains168 fundamental that she is either isolated169 or owned.
But I need not go on writing facts with which every one is acquainted. My concern now is to point out that Socialism repudiates the private ownership of the head of the family as completely as it repudiates any other sort of private ownership. Socialism involves the responsible citizenship of women, their economic independence of men, and all the personal freedom that follows that, it intervenes between the children and the parents, claiming to support them, protect
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them, and educate them for its own ampler purposes. Socialism, in fact, is the State family. The old family of the private individual must vanish before it, just as the old water works of private enterprise, or the old gas company. They are incompatible170 with it. Socialism assails171 the triumphant172 egotism of the family to-day, just as Christianity did in its earlier and more vital centuries. So far as English Socialism is concerned (and the thing is still more the case in America) I must confess that the assault has displayed a quite extraordinary instinct for taking cover, but that is a question of tactics rather than of essential antagonism173.
It is possible to believe that so far as the middle classes are concerned this discretion73 has been carried altogether too far. Socialists would have forwarded their cause better if they had been more outspoken174. It has led to preposterous175 misunderstandings; and among others to the charge that Socialism implied free-love.... The middle-class family, I am increasingly convinced, is a group in a
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state of tension. I believe that a modest but complete statement of the Socialist criticism of the family and the proposed Socialist substitute for the conventional relationships might awaken176 extraordinary responses at the present time. The great terror of the eighties and early nineties that crushed all reasonable discussion of sexual relationship is, I believe, altogether over.
The whole of the present system is riddled177 with discontents. One factor is the enhanced sense of the child in middle-class life: the old sentiment was that the parent owned the child, the new is that the children own the parents. There has come an intensified respect for children, an immense increase in the trouble, attention and expenditure devoted178 to them—and a very natural and human accompaniment in the huge fall in the middle-class birth-rate. It is felt that to bear and rear children is the most noble and splendid and responsible thing in life, and an increasing number of people modestly evade179 it. People see more clearly the social service of parentage,
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and are more and more inclined to demand a recognition from the State for this service. The middle-class parent might conceivably be horrified180 if you suggested the State should pay him for his offspring, but he would have no objection whatever to being indirectly181 and partially182 paid by a differential income tax graduated in relation to the size of his family.
With this increased sense of the virtue and public service of parentage there has gone on a great development of the criticism of schools and teaching. The more educated middle-class parent has become an amateur educationist of considerable virulence183. He sees more and more distinctly the inadequacy of his own private attempts to educate, the necessary charlatanry184 and insufficiency of the private adventure school. He finds much to envy in the elementary schools. If he is ignorant and short-sighted, he joins in the bitter cry of the middle classes, and clamours against the pampering185 of the working class, and the rising of the rates which renders his
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efforts to educate his own children more difficult. But a more intelligent type of middle-class parent sends his boy in for public scholarships, sets to work to get educational endowment for his own class also, and makes another step towards Socialism. Moreover, the increasing intelligence of the middle-class parent and the steady swallowing up of the smaller capitalists and smaller shareholders by the larger enterprises and fortunes, alike bring home to him the temporary and uncertain nature of the advantages his private efforts give his children over those of the working man. He sees no more than a brief respite186 for them against the economic cataclysms187 of the coming time. He is more and more alive to the presence of secular change in the world. He does not feel sure his sons will carry on the old business, continue the old practice. He begins to appreciate the concentration of wealth. The secular development of the capitalistic system robs him more and more of his sense of securities. He is uneasier than he used to be about investments. He no
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longer has that complete faith in private insurance companies that once sustained him. His mind broadens out to State insurance as to State education. He is far more amenable than he used to be to the idea that the only way to provide for one’s own posterity188 is to provide for every one’s posterity, to merge189 parentage in citizenship. The family of the middle-class man which fights for itself alone, is lost.
Socialism comes into the middle-class family offering education, offering assurances for the future, and only very distantly intimating the price to be paid in weakened individual control. But far profounder disintegrations are at work. The internal character of the middle-class family is altering fundamentally with the general growth of intelligence, with the higher education of women, with the comings and goings for this purpose and that, the bicycles and games, the enlarged social appetites and opportunities of a new time. The more or less conscious Strike against Parentage is having far-reaching effects. The
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family proper becomes a numerically smaller group. Enormous numbers of childless families appear; the middle-class family with two, or at most three, children is the rule rather than the exception in certain strata. This makes the family a less various and interesting group, with a smaller demand for attention, emotion, effort. Quite apart from the general mental quickening of the time, it leaves more and more social energy, curiosity, enterprise free, either to fret191 within the narrow family limits or to go outside them. The Strike against Parentage takes among other forms the form of a strike against marriage; great numbers of men and women stand out from a relationship which every year seems more limiting and (except for its temporary passional aspect) purposeless. The number of intelligent and healthy women inadequately192 employed, who either idle as wives in attenuated193 modern families, childless or with an insufficient194 child or so, or who work for an unsatisfying subsistence as unmarried women, increases. To them the complete conceptions
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of Socialism should have an extraordinary appeal.
The appearance of the feminine mind and soul in the world as something distinct and self-conscious, is the appearance of a distinct new engine of criticism against the individualist family, against this dwindling195 property of the once-ascendant male—who no longer effectually rules, no longer, in many cases, either protects or sustains, who all too often is so shorn of his beams as to be but a vexatious power of jealous restriction196 and interference upon his wife and children. The educated girl resents the proposed loss of her freedom in marriage, the educated married woman realizes as well as resents the losses of scope and interest marriage entails197. If it were not for the economic disadvantages that make intelligent women dread a solitary198 old age in bitter poverty, vast numbers of women who are married to-day would have remained single independent women. This discontent of women is a huge available force for Socialism. The wife of the past was, to put it
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brutally199, caught younger—so young that she had had no time to think—she began forthwith to bear babies, rear babies, and (which she did in a quite proportionate profusion) bury babies—she never had a moment to think. Now the wife with double the leisure, double the education and half the emotional scope of her worn prolific grandmother, sits at home and thinks things over. You find her letting herself loose in clubs, in literary enterprises, in schemes for joint200 households to relieve herself and her husband from the continuation of a duologue that has exhausted201 its interest. The husband finds himself divided between his sympathetic sense of tedium202 and the proprietary203 tradition in which we live.
For these tensions in the disintegration190 of the old proprietary family no remedy offers itself to-day except the solutions that arise as essential portions of the Socialist scheme. The alternative is hypocrisy204 and disorder.
There is yet another and still more effectual system of strains at work in the existing social unit, and that is the strain between
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parents and children. That has always existed. It is one of our most transparent205 sentimental pretences206 that there is any natural subordination of son to father, of daughter to mother. As a matter of fact a good deal of natural antagonism appears at the adolescence207 of the young. Something very like an instinct stirs in them, to rebel, to go out. The old habits of solicitude208, control and restraint in the parent become more and more hampering209, irksome, and exasperating210 to the offspring. The middle-class son gets away in spirit and in fact to school, to college, to business—his sister does all she can to follow his excellent example. In a world with vast moral and intellectual changes in progress the intelligent young find the personal struggle for independence intensified by a conflict of ideas. The modern tendency to cherish and preserve youthfulness; the keener desire for living that prevents women getting fat and ugly, and men bald and incompetent211 by forty-five, is another dissolvent factor among these stresses. The
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daughter is not only restrained by her mother’s precepts212, but inflamed213 by her example. The son finds his father’s coevals treating him as a contemporary.
Well, into these conflicts and disorders214 comes Socialism, and Socialism alone, to explain, to justify215, to propose new conventions and new interpretations216 of relationship, to champion the reasonable claims of the young, to mitigate217 the thwarted218 ownership of the old. Socialism comes, constructive amid the wreckage219.
Let me at this point, and before I conclude, put one thing with the utmost possible clearness. The Socialist does not propose to destroy something that conceivably would otherwise last for ever, when he proposes a new set of institutions, and a new system of conduct to replace the old proprietary family. He no more regards the institution of marriage as a permanent thing than he regards a state of competitive industrialism as a permanent thing. In the economic sphere, quite apart from any Socialist ideas or
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Socialist activities, it is manifest that competitive individualism destroys itself. This was reasoned out long ago in the Capital of Marx; it is receiving its first gigantic practical demonstration in the United States of America. Whatever happens, we believe that competitive industrialism will change and end—and we Socialists at least believe that the alternative to some form of Socialism is tyranny and social ruin. So, too, in the social sphere, whether Socialists succeed altogether or fail altogether, or in whatever measure they succeed or fail, it does not alter the fact that the family is weakening, dwindling, breaking up, disintegrating220. The alternative to a planned and organized Socialism is not the maintenance of the present system, but its logical development, and that is all too plainly a growing complication of pretences as the old imperatives weaken and fade. We already live in a world of stupendous hypocrisies221, a world wherein rakes and rascals222 champion the sacred institution of the family, and a network of sexual secrets, vaguely223
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suspected, disagreeably present, and only half-concealed, pervades every social group one enters. Cynicism, a dismal224 swamp of base intrigues225, cruel restrictions226 and habitual99 insincerities, is the manifest destiny of the present régime unless we make some revolutionary turn. It cannot work out its own salvation227 without the profoundest change in its determining ideas. And what change in those ideas is offered except by the Socialist?
In relation to all these most intimate aspects of life, Socialism, and Socialism alone, supplies the hope and suggestions of clean and practicable solutions. So far, Socialists have either been silent or vague, or—let us say—tactful, in relation to this central tangle152 of life. To begin to speak plainly among the silences and suppressions, the “find out for yourself” of the current time, would be, I think, to grip the middle-class woman and the middle-class youth of both sexes with an extraordinary new interest, to irradiate the dissensions of every bored couple and every squabbling family with broad conceptions,
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and enormously to enlarge and stimulate the Socialist movement at the present time.
Here ends the paper read by Mr. Wells to the Fabian Society, but in this that follows he sets out the Socialist conception of the new relations that must follow the old much more clearly.
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1
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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glimmers
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| n.微光，闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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replacement
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| n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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federations
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| n.联邦( federation的名词复数 )；同盟；联盟；联合会 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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sketchy
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| adj.写生的，写生风格的，概略的 | |
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sketchily
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| adv.写生风格地，大略地 | |
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dooms
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| v.注定( doom的第三人称单数 )；判定；使…的失败（或灭亡、毁灭、坏结局）成为必然；宣判 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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27
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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clotted
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| adj.凝结的v.凝固( clot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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subservience
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| n.有利，有益；从属（地位），附属性；屈从，恭顺；媚态 | |
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33
imperatives
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| n.必要的事( imperative的名词复数 )；祈使语气；必须履行的责任 | |
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exponents
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| n.倡导者( exponent的名词复数 )；说明者；指数；能手 | |
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permeation
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| 渗入，透过 | |
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perennially
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| adv.经常出现地；长期地；持久地；永久地 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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amenable
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| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
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40
abounding
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| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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41
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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42
eludes
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的第三人称单数 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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43
collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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44
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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45
citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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46
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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47
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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48
omissions
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| n.省略( omission的名词复数 )；删节；遗漏；略去或漏掉的事（或人） | |
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49
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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50
stockbroker
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| n.股票（或证券），经纪人（或机构） | |
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51
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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52
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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53
repudiates
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的第三人称单数 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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54
severing
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的现在分词 )；断，裂 | |
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justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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cults
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| n.迷信( cult的名词复数 )；狂热的崇拜；（有极端宗教信仰的）异教团体 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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60
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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71
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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72
outweigh
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| vt.比...更重，...更重要 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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envisage
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| v.想象，设想，展望，正视 | |
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distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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82
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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84
alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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86
sanitation
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| n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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impervious
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| adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的 | |
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tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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103
ousts
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| 驱逐( oust的第三人称单数 )； 革职； 罢黜； 剥夺 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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forestaller
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| 垄断者 | |
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recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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palatable
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| adj.可口的，美味的；惬意的 | |
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116
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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shareholders
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| n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 ) | |
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undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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120
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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121
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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122
dispel
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| vt.驱走，驱散，消除 | |
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dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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124
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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125
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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127
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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128
proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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129
saner
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| adj.心智健全的( sane的比较级 )；神志正常的；明智的；稳健的 | |
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130
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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131
clearance
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| n.净空；许可(证)；清算；清除，清理 | |
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132
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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133
innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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134
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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135
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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136
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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137
valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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138
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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139
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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140
accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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141
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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142
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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143
strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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144
concurrently
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| adv.同时地 | |
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145
anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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146
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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147
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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148
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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149
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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150
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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151
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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152
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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153
gibing
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| adj.讥刺的，嘲弄的v.嘲笑，嘲弄( gibe的现在分词 ) | |
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154
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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155
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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156
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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157
engender
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| v.产生，引起 | |
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158
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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159
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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160
barter
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| n.物物交换，以货易货，实物交易 | |
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161
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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162
euphemisms
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| n.委婉语，委婉说法( euphemism的名词复数 ) | |
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163
monetary
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| adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的 | |
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164
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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165
infringement
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| n.违反；侵权 | |
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166
subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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167
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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168
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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169
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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170
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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171
assails
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| v.攻击( assail的第三人称单数 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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172
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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173
antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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174
outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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175
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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176
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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177
riddled
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| adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式) | |
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178
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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179
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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180
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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181
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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182
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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183
virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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184
charlatanry
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| n.吹牛，骗子行为 | |
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185
pampering
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| v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的现在分词 ) | |
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186
respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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187
cataclysms
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| n.（突然降临的）大灾难( cataclysm的名词复数 ) | |
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188
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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189
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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190
disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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191
fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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192
inadequately
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| ad.不够地；不够好地 | |
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193
attenuated
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| v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱 | |
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194
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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195
dwindling
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| adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 ) | |
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196
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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197
entails
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| 使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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198
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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199
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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200
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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201
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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202
tedium
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| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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203
proprietary
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| n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主 | |
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204
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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205
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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206
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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207
adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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208
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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209
hampering
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的现在分词 ) | |
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210
exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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211
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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212
precepts
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| n.规诫，戒律，箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
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213
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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214
disorders
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| n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 )；凌乱；骚乱；（身心、机能）失调 | |
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215
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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216
interpretations
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| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
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217
mitigate
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| vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和 | |
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218
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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219
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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220
disintegrating
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
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221
hypocrisies
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| n.伪善，虚伪( hypocrisy的名词复数 ) | |
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222
rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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223
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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224
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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225
intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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226
restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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227
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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