It is necessary to point out that a Socialism arising in this way out of the conception of a synthesis of the will and thought of the species will necessarily differ from conceptions of Socialism arrived at in other and different ways. It is based on a self-discontent and self-abnegation and not on self-satisfaction, and it will be a scheme of persistent1 thought and construction, essentially2, and it will support this or that method of law-making, or this or that method of economic exploitation, or this or that matter of social grouping, only incidentally and in relation to that.
Such a conception of Socialism is very remote in spirit, however it may agree in method, from that philanthropic administrative3 socialism one finds among the British ruling and administrative class. That seems to me to be based on a pity which is largely unjustifiable and a pride that is altogether unintelligent. The pity is for the obvious wants and distresses4 of poverty, the pride appears in the arrogant5 and aggressive conception of raising one’s fellows. I have no strong feeling for the horrors and discomforts6 of poverty as such, sensibilities can be hardened to endure the life led by the “Romans” in Dartmoor jail a hundred years ago (See “The Story of Dartmoor Prison” by Basil Thomson (Heinemann — 1907).), or softened7 to detect the crumpled8 rose-leaf; what disgusts me is the stupidity and warring purposes of which poverty is the outcome. When it comes to the idea of raising human beings, I must confess the only person I feel concerned about raising is H.G. Wells, and that even in his case my energies might be better employed. After all, presently he must die and the world will have done with him. His output for the species is more important than his individual elevation9.
Moreover, all this talk of raising implies a classification I doubt. I find it hard to fix any standards that will determine who is above me and who below. Most people are different from me I perceive, but which among them is better, which worse? I have a certain power of communicating with other minds, but what experiences I communicate seem often far thinner and poorer stuff than those which others less expressive10 than I half fail to communicate and half display to me. My “inferiors,” judged by the common social standards, seem indeed intellectually more limited than I and with a narrower outlook; they are often dirtier and more driven, more under the stress of hunger and animal appetites; but on the other hand have they not more vigorous sensations than I, and through sheer coarsening and hardening of fibre, the power to do more toilsome things and sustain intenser sensations than I could endure? When I sit upon the bench, a respectable magistrate11, and commit some battered12 reprobate13 for trial for this lurid14 offence or that, or send him or her to prison for drunkenness or such-like indecorum, the doubt drifts into my mind which of us after all is indeed getting nearest to the keen edge of life. Are I and my respectable colleagues much more than successful evasions15 of THAT? Perhaps these people in the dock know more of the essential strains and stresses of nature, are more intimate with pain. At any rate I do not think I am justified16 in saying certainly that they do not know . . .
No, I do not want to raise people using my own position as a standard, I do not want to be one of a gang of consciously superior people, I do not want arrogantly17 to change the quality of other lives. I do not want to interfere18 with other lives, except incidentally — incidentally, in this way that I do want to get to an understanding with them, I do want to share and feel with them in our commerce with the collective mind. I suppose I do not stretch language very much when I say I want to get rid of stresses and obstacles between our minds and personalities19 and to establish a relation that is understanding and sympathy.
I want to make more generally possible a relationship of communication and interchange, that for want of a less battered and ambiguous word I must needs call love.
And if I disavow the Socialism of condescension20, so also do I disavow the Socialism of revolt. There is a form of Socialism based upon the economic generalizations21 of Marx, an economic fatalistic Socialism that I hold to be rather wrong in its vision of facts, rather more distinctly wrong in its theory, and altogether wrong and hopeless in its spirit. It preaches, as inevitable22, a concentration of property in the hands of a limited number of property owners and the expropriation of the great proletarian mass of mankind, a concentration which is after all no more than a tendency conditional23 on changing and changeable conventions about property, and it finds its hope of a better future in the outcome of a class conflict between the expropriated Many and the expropriating Few. Both sides are to be equally swayed by self-interest, but the toilers are to be gregarious24 and mutually loyal in their self-interest — Heaven knows why, except that otherwise the Marxist dream will not work. The experience of contemporary events seems to show at least an equal power of combination for material ends among owners and employers as among workers.
Now this class-war idea is one diametrically opposed to that religious-spirited Socialism which supplies the form of my general activities. This class-war idea would exacerbate26 the antagonism27 of the interests of the many individuals against the few individuals, and I would oppose the conceiving of the Whole to the self-seeking of the Individual. The spirit and constructive28 intention of the many to-day are no better than those of the few, poor and rich alike are over-individualized, self-seeking and non-creative; to organize the confused jostling competitions, over-reachings, envies and hatreds29 of to-day into two great class-hatreds and antagonisms30 will advance the reign31 of love at most only a very little, only so far as it will simplify and make plain certain issues. It may very possibly not advance the reign of love at all, but rather shatter the order we have. Socialism, as I conceive it, and as I have presented it in my book, “New Worlds for Old,” seeks to change economic arrangements only by the way, as an aspect and outcome of a great change, a change in the spirit and method of human intercourse32.
I know that here I go beyond the limits many Socialists33 in the past, and some who are still contemporary, have set themselves. Much Socialism to-day seems to think of itself as fighting a battle against poverty and its concomitants alone. Now poverty is only a symptom of a profounder evil and is never to be cured by itself. It is one aspect of divided and dispersed35 purposes. If Socialism is only a conflict with poverty, Socialism is nothing. But I hold that Socialism is and must be a battle against human stupidity and egotism and disorder36, a battle fought all through the forests and jungles of the soul of man. As we get intellectual and moral light and the realization37 of brotherhood38, so social and economic organization will develop. But the Socialist34 may attack poverty for ever, disregarding the intellectual and moral factors that necessitate39 it, and he will remain until the end a purely40 economic doctrinaire41 crying in the wilderness42 in vain.
And if I antagonize myself in this way to the philanthropic Socialism of kindly43 prosperous people on the one hand and to the fierce class-hatred Socialism on the other, still more am I opposed to that furtive44 Socialism of the specialist which one meets most typically in the Fabian Society. It arises very naturally out of what I may perhaps call specialist fatigue45 and impatience46. It is very easy for writers like myself to deal in the broad generalities of Socialism and urge their adoption47 as general principles; it is altogether another affair with a man who sets himself to work out the riddle48 of the complications of actuality in order to modify them in the direction of Socialism. He finds himself in a jungle of difficulties that strain his intellectual power to the utmost. He emerges at last with conclusions, and they are rarely the obvious conclusions, as to what needs to be done. Even the people of his own side he finds do not see as he sees; they are, he perceives, crude and ignorant.
Now I hold that his duty is to explain his discoveries and intentions until they see as he sees. But the specialist temperament49 is often not a generalizing and expository temperament. Specialists are apt to measure minds by their speciality and underrate the average intelligence. The specialist is appalled50 by the real task before him, and he sets himself by tricks and misrepresentations, by benevolent51 scoundrelism in fact, to effect changes he desires. Too often he fails even in that. Where he might have found fellowship he arouses suspicion. And even if a thing is done in this way, its essential merit is lost. For it is better, I hold, for a man to die of his disease than to be cured unwittingly. That is to cheat him of life and to cheat life of the contribution his consciousness might have given it.
The Socialism of my beliefs rests on a profounder faith and broader proposition. It looks over and beyond the warring purposes of to-day as a general may look over and beyond a crowd of sullen52, excited and confused recruits, to the day when they will be disciplined, exercised, trained, willing and convergent53 on a common end. It holds persistently54 to the idea of men increasingly working in agreement, doing things that are sane55 to do, on a basis of mutual25 helpfulness, temperance and toleration. It sees the great masses of humanity rising out of base and immediate56 anxieties, out of dwarfing57 pressures and cramped58 surroundings, to understanding and participation59 and fine effort. It sees the resources of the earth husbanded and harvested, economized60 and used with scientific skill for the maximum of result. It sees towns and cities finely built, a race of beings finely bred and taught and trained, open ways and peace and freedom from end to end of the earth. It sees beauty increasing in humanity, about humanity and through humanity. Through this great body of mankind goes evermore an increasing understanding, an intensifying61 brotherhood. As Christians62 have dreamt of the New Jerusalem so does Socialism, growing ever more temperate63, patient, forgiving and resolute64, set its face to the World City of Mankind.
1 persistent | |
adj.坚持不懈的,执意的;持续的 | |
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2 essentially | |
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3 administrative | |
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4 distresses | |
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5 arrogant | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的 | |
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6 discomforts | |
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7 softened | |
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰 | |
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8 crumpled | |
adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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9 elevation | |
n.高度;海拔;高地;上升;提高 | |
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10 expressive | |
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11 magistrate | |
n.地方行政官,地方法官,治安官 | |
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12 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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13 reprobate | |
n.无赖汉;堕落的人 | |
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14 lurid | |
adj.可怕的;血红的;苍白的 | |
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15 evasions | |
逃避( evasion的名词复数 ); 回避; 遁辞; 借口 | |
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16 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
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17 arrogantly | |
adv.傲慢地 | |
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18 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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19 personalities | |
n. 诽谤,(对某人容貌、性格等所进行的)人身攻击; 人身攻击;人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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20 condescension | |
n.自以为高人一等,贬低(别人) | |
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21 generalizations | |
一般化( generalization的名词复数 ); 普通化; 归纳; 概论 | |
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22 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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23 conditional | |
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24 gregarious | |
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25 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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26 exacerbate | |
v.恶化,增剧,激怒,使加剧 | |
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27 antagonism | |
n.对抗,敌对,对立 | |
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28 constructive | |
adj.建设的,建设性的 | |
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29 hatreds | |
n.仇恨,憎恶( hatred的名词复数 );厌恶的事 | |
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30 antagonisms | |
对抗,敌对( antagonism的名词复数 ) | |
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31 reign | |
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32 intercourse | |
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33 socialists | |
社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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34 socialist | |
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35 dispersed | |
adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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36 disorder | |
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37 realization | |
n.实现;认识到,深刻了解 | |
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38 brotherhood | |
n.兄弟般的关系,手中情谊 | |
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39 necessitate | |
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40 purely | |
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41 doctrinaire | |
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42 wilderness | |
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adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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44 furtive | |
adj.鬼鬼崇崇的,偷偷摸摸的 | |
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45 fatigue | |
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46 impatience | |
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47 adoption | |
n.采用,采纳,通过;收养 | |
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48 riddle | |
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49 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
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50 appalled | |
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51 benevolent | |
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52 sullen | |
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53 convergent | |
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54 persistently | |
ad.坚持地;固执地 | |
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55 sane | |
adj.心智健全的,神志清醒的,明智的,稳健的 | |
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56 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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57 dwarfing | |
n.矮化病 | |
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58 cramped | |
a.狭窄的 | |
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59 participation | |
n.参与,参加,分享 | |
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60 economized | |
v.节省,减少开支( economize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61 intensifying | |
v.(使)增强, (使)加剧( intensify的现在分词 );增辉 | |
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62 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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63 temperate | |
adj.温和的,温带的,自我克制的,不过分的 | |
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64 resolute | |
adj.坚决的,果敢的 | |
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