The Egoist: No. 16, Vol. 1, August 15th, 1914.
by Dora Marsden
To such as are fascinated by the inter-play of motives in human action, the unravelling of the strands which combined to give the thrill of pleasure the adventure into war was welcomed with, is as attractive as the war-lure itself. The feeling of the people while waiting for England to throw herself wholeheartedly into war, as not that of mere approval or disapproval; rather it was a sense of pleasure and veiled enjoyment in the prospect of war itself. This was as much the case with those who realise definitely that its prosecution will mean inevitable material loss, as with those who are vaguely aware that war is high- priced, and that we shall all be implicated in the paying of it. Each man has been in fact something of a revelation to his neighbour. The silent hope which each was fostering that the issue would be war, they would have been afraid of acknowledging even to themselves; and certainly too afraid of owning to its existence to a neighbour. Then a sudden shock: an unpremeditated expression of opinion, and each betrays himself to the rest: and, lo and behold, all are alike: the secret sin against the spirit of peace is universal, and can be proclaimed from the housetops.
The protests that were thereafter made were more in the spirit of pious concessions to former utterances than spontaneous expressions of existing feelings, and they evaporated almost before they were well uttered. Old phrases moved en bloc on to the scene, disinterred from speeches made when war was sour because hung too high for reach for the moment, did appear wearing the look of ancient survivals. An orator might say that the only gain accruing from this war would be the profits of the armament-makers, and writers might enlarge on the "working- classes," "the inevitable victims," "the poor souls for whom this hungry war opens its vast jaws," and press into details of the "gouged-out eyes, and disembowelled entrails of the soldier," but the fact remains that the poor are at least as interested in the venture, and as enthusiastic for it as the rich, while entrails notwithstanding, none is keener than the soldier: and the thought that war can be materially profitable to anyone-armament-mongers or others-is something after the manner of a mild solace to startled consciences: a comforting thought that the war is not so ill a wind, materially speaking, that it blows no one any good; they know well that even should it prove so, for the spiritual satisfaction which it gives, they would still wage it. In short none of the objections made against war in times of peace have the force it was calculated they would have in keeping the desires of the people weaned from war when an opportunity presents itself to wage a good one. The error which gave birth to objections which proved themselves no objections arose from a failure to realise the existence of imperative human instincts which only war can fully satisfy, and which have as much force with a pacifist as with any jingo.
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The delicate tact of Mr. Asquith indeed in working a few "blessed words" into the drab fustian of Sir Edward Grey's statement of the case for war is more to his credit from a human point of view than any of his earlier strong-man shows. To be so exquisitely sensitive to the shyer because deeper human emotions, as to realise that the Sunday Congregations and Peace Societies must shout joyfully for the war or burst, makes a man genuinely attractive, and, the Prime Minister knew well that while to shout for war would strain the pacifist's creeds, to shout against infamy would fit in easily; thoughtfully therefore he works it in; the Kaiser's proposals are "infamous."
That is enough for the promoters of the gospel of peace: they are not the friends of war but the enemies of infamy: the same thing with ?a delicate allowance made for a verbalist difference.
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It becomes easily possible to understand the lure of a good war when the advocates of the two generalisations about war are viewed together. When the purplish flush of the jingo is set off against the white-drained countenance of the pacifist it becomes clear what has happened. Two abstractions have been torn piecemeal out of their genuine existence in fact, the nature of which is distorted until they are joined again, when two fads will dissolve in robust common sense. When a generalisation. i.e., a false abstraction, is made out of sound instincts, it creates the fad, and out of the remnants left by the incomplete generalisation is created another; a fad has always a twin. So to a gospel of Peace there must be a gospel of War. Whenever a sudden lull in the Structure of Words allows instinct to speak, it becomes clear that the purpose of Peace is War, and that when War is tired it seeks Peace; or rather, putting the generalisation of Peace and War aside, instinct reveals that we utilise the opportunity of the times when we are not fighting to make us ready for the test of a fight. The results of the test declared, we set toward peace to prepare for the test again: which explains why the kind of conduct which Christian propaganda seeks to make customary never becomes customary: never becomes any deeper. Constantly it advances and recedes--pendulum-like. In the shape of reaction from strife it gets a hearing now and again: to allow of recuperation for further strife: not for its own sake. When the recuperative work is established: when men have got over their sick turn it is thrown aside as healed limbs throw off their bandages. The gist of the gospel of Peace is not so much the inculcation of a "slave morality" as it is the custom, i.e., the morals, of the sick, the wounded, the uncertain of powers, of all those who are in the process of making good. When the period of peace is nearing to a close, always it becomes wistful with the longing for other things. The wistfulness of peace is the pause of the pendulum as it turns on the return swing towards war.
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A fight is merely putting to the test activities of any kind. Like a test in any other sphere it is of the nature of an examination, and its object is to ascertain status, by trial of strength. It is the pivot upon which turns the balance of what is elementarily just and exact. In peace we muster the strength which in war we put to the best show possible. To remain too long at peace is dulling and disappointing for ability as it would be for a young singer or violinist to practise scales and exercises interminably, without the hope of one day putting their powers of strength to receive the verdict of the world. It is for instance because of the increase in strength which the Kaiser believes his country has made in the years of peace that he forces the putting of it to the test. Test and preparation, war and peace go together: they are two stages of one process, each as necessary to the other as is the obverse to the reverse of a coin. Wisdom lies in choosing the kind of test which one may calculate one's preparations and increase of strength has fitted one, for it is the probabilities of success which make the joys or woes of the contest.
This is why people who are not filled with the belief that their forces have a chance of being successful refrain from fighting, much as they would love the exhilaration of it. The exhilaration of fighting which is an elemental need thus recedes from many men's grasp -necessary though it is: which explains why such men will fight for sides while they refuse to fight for themselves: why for instance imperial warfare flourishes while the industrial war faints.
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When a force is in a poor condition it is shy of fights: it seeks safety: let it improve or increase and fighting comes within measurable distance; fighting is in fact nothing other than the violation of boundaries which heavier forces have laid upon the less weighty on the calculation that the force is such and such.
The depressing yet indicative feature of modern "life" is that it has so little to say for individual fighting: that it deprecates it in fact. Verbal education has fitted itself to social customs which already place safety foremost, and back up a state of affairs which in themselves are sufficiently emphatic. The small boy with washed face and a volume on the "Worthy Citizen" under his arm, bent on doing good to his neighbour, not merely replaces but does so with official applause, the unsavoury ragamuffin who would invite the fellow of the biggest size which will allow of an outside chance of a win, to come and have a scrap round the corner. It is small wonder that in this anemic atmosphere we fall back perforce on the second best: on fighting for a side: on praise of esprit de corps: on composite games of all sorts of which the biggest is a big war.
The steady pressure which latterly has been put upon the young (the old matter less) to substitute without questioning l'esprit de corps for the egoistic spirit is, as a precaution, curiously redundant. The tendency to do so is working strongly enough before education takes a hand in it. Timidity suggests it, and its advantages from the safety point of view are obvious; pleasurable too. It gives scope to one's constructive tendency to an extent beyond anything to which the abilities of the mediocre person could run. One can admire vicariously in the members of a side all those qualities which one lacks oneself. A side, a corps, a composite unity can moreover be constructed: built up by making good the deficiencies of each by the picked qualities of all. Then with this superlatively excellent thing one identifies one self. The slenderest connection will furnish the point d'appui-the mark of identification: a common name school, county and nationality, and things far far less. And having assisted at the composition of the side, or oftener still having selected a ready-made one, one backs its fortunes and becomes identified with its interests. The "side" is the makeshift of the instinct to reach out into dominance, even if only at second-hand-or thousandth hand. It keeps alive a fainting self-respect, and lends the stimulus of the fight without its responsibility for risks and initiative.
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This constructive sense which the cult of esprit de corps utilises with such wide-spreading effects is worth dwelling on since it is this which provides the underlying design of "Order," of which laws, regulations, the entire maintenance of the status quo, are but the subsequent steps taken to keep such orders permanent.
As has been pointed out in these pages many times, the establishment of any order is nothing more or less than the progressive development of a purpose. The detailed features of any order equate exactly into the purpose which ushers them into co-existence. All that is apart from, or unseen in, the planning of the proposed development is "chance." If such chance "chances" to accentuate the original purpose-if it can be utilised to further the purpose it is "luck"; if the opposite, it is "accident"; if it is thrown across the line of development of purpose by another willed purpose it is "opposition." Every living being represents purpose to the exact extent that it is alive. The husbanding of living strength effects itself by hanging on to its own purpose for what it is worth, for where the individual permits his power-(or purpose: they equate into the same thing)-to become scattered or unequally developed, a certain procedure works itself out. The individual failing to mind his own business becomes engrossed in others, because the spectacle of the others' more advanced development attracts him. Thus we find that those who can least afford to spare attention from their own development are the very ones who are devoting the bulk of their energy to the purposes of others, for the simple reason that they are more attractive. After a while, relying on a little trick of words, they will even claim the alien order as their own. It is their own, of course, for just so much as it is- that is a sense of being in touch, however remotely, with the dominant: a sense of which the reverse side is not a call to dominate but to serve. The humblest soldier in the Kaiser's service is allied with the Kaiser's highest purposes: the humblest little urchin in a London slum brandishing his wooden sword bravely despite his hungry stomach, is sharing in the glory of every British hero throughout British history. That the servers "serve" is their misfortune: the price they pay for receiving their joys at second-hand.
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It is a mistake to imagine that the joys are any one whit less real than the yoke of service, and it is a fact open to even cursory observation that the way to make oneself thoroughly miserable is for such as are not competent to aspire to shine in a large and ambitious circle. Personal comfort, as well as success, requires a very nice and just estimate of one's powers and limitations, otherwise one is in danger of imagining that in accepting bestowed pleasures one will be requested to accept status to match the pleasures rather than the implications of bestowal: a very jarring mistake. Entry into ranks above one's capacity can be achieved only on an acceptation of the status of servant: terms, however, to accept which there is a willingness which is world-wide. To hobnob with one's betters on menial terms is the foible of the incompetent. The feeling that it is better to be a doorkeeper in the houses of one's betters than to reign monarch in the modest hut to which one's own individual powers run is nowadays almost universal. Is there not the common glory of the House, the State, the Empire: the common esprit de corps? To be the farthing dip in someone else's illumination- scheme is the "unity" ideal. The glory of Nelson, Drake, Raleigh, of Clive and the rest, of all the Empire builders, falls, as a mantle, on the shoulders of some underpaid seaman; in return he "serves" in the ranks. Napoleon quite accurately put it when he pointed out to his men that he lent them his glory: in return for which they-"served." Napoleon, of course, bathed in an effulgence of glory, and yet he did not serve: but that is the difference between being a Kaiser and being a unit in the iron battalions. Everything considered, it works out all square. The masses work to develop a Kaiser's personal scheme of order: he gives in return what glory an intimate acceptance of the esprit de corps reflects on them: he enables them, if they are not too wide-eyed, to flatter their self-respect, and enables them, of a certainty, to satisfy a starved desire for combat on terms which they can afford to pay. It is good enough for people who can do no better.
The Egoist: No. 16, Vol. 1, August 15th, 1914.
by Dora Marsden
IT would probably be paying English intelligence too great a compliment to characterise the outcry which has been made about the German Emperor's easy way with treaties, as Cant. The outcry much likelier represents a genuine failure to understand the function of treaties, compacts, or " Promises" in the structure of human society.
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To say that a Promise is not a sacred thing is not to deny its importance as the cement of all society living on a basis of non- violence. On such a basis the compact is the substitute for the sword. It has the same compulsory force, the same power of driving society's units into coherence; and a challenge of its authority is visited with as prompt a retort as a challenge of the authority of the sword would be were the basis war. Whence it follows that just as it is merely the hocus-pocus of the ignorant to regard promises as "Sacred," it is not otherwise when their violation is regarded as heinous and sacrilegious. Compact- breaking is not sacrilegious but onerous: that is, if one breaks a compact one must be prepared for serious consequences, whether social, legal, or diplomatic. It is perhaps just because its consequences are the least onerous in the field where a careless observer might even believe them missing, i.e., in the Social, that society defends itself here by an appeal to supernatural disapproval, such as is cloaked under the designation of sacrilegious.
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The promise-breaker in the Social sphere is the "bounder." Polite society being held together by an assumption that promises will be kept, the bounder can exploit it by utilising the assumption while failing to accord it respect. A society calls itself polite when violence is not included in its methods of reproof, and the bounder can therefore go far without hurting his skin. Upon such a one, polite society passes verdict to the extent of its powers by voting him unfit for society, and promptly shuts him out; he is ostracised. To characterise him as sacrilegious is a preliminary process of ostracism. The deficiency represented by the difference between this weight of punishment and the weight of disapproval is made good by invoking the force in the invisible wrath of God. Between the two the bounder has no easy time.
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It is, however, what happens to promise-breakers outside the radius of polite society which really makes evident the function of the "Promise." Upon a scene where the sword has decided the issue-delineated the features of what is "just"-the fabric of Promises can be woven. Promises are the holders-in-fief for conclusions arrived at by the test of the sword.
* * *
The might of the sword evaluates the forces, the weights of which will condition the Promises made by them. If, therefore, one comes to define the keeping of the terms of the promises as "Right," one can say that "Might" conditions "Right." Their variations are in direct ratio, but, " Might " is primary. Challenge "Right" and the appeal is to "Might": as can be illustrated afresh by a return of attention to the violation of compacts. If compacts whose sphere are outside the mere polite one of Social convention, and of which the violation comes within the legal sphere, are broken, Might is invoked to vindicate its offspring. Veiled though it is, the nature of the instruments which the penal code utilises are of the Sword: of Might: manacles, the bludgeon, the lash, the gallows. The primary and secondary characters of the Sword and of the Promise respectively, are made evident by the fact that the challenged Promise seeks its vindication in the Sword; but when the Sword is challenged, Promises are futile: they flee to the refuge of the future, and the Sword ultimately is absolute: it is blade against blade. Which brings us face to face with the spirit in which an emperor may tear up a treaty. Treaties are made on the computed strength of forces existent at the time of their making: which forces, with time, vary: some increase in strength, others diminish, and that party to the treaty which has augmented its strength cannot feel itself bound by the old terms. Gently and tactfully they will be departed from, but if the augmented power is hindered from so doing, the Sword springs out of its sheath. Appeal has been made to it: a reputable, if often cocksure and foolhardy action, wholly straight forward and in no wise to be held akin to the underhand exploitings of the assumptions of polite Society which create a sphere for the "bounders," among whom, for instance, one would place the panic-mongers and price inflaters of this our own patriotic population.
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Under the heading of " War and Class War " the " Times " of Monday last had a column of observations upon the startling manner in which socialist propaganda has crumbled up at the touch of a really formidable contest. It has disappeared as clean as a whistle-or smoke-without leaving a w rack behind. The phenomenon will, one hopes, be something for enthusiasts to remember and to give them pause when they are invited to swell the ranks of socialists in the future. For note what socialists-the individuals themselves-want: genuinely they desire that those who are poor and weak shall become somewhat richer and somewhat stronger; yet socialism: a manner of conduct which these individuals advocate, demands just the sort of temper which encourages the poor and weak to remain so relatively, permanently, at the same time filching from the unhappy situation just that " kick " which ordinarily it possesses within itself for its own recovery; the drive which makes poverty and weakness undesirable, i.e., discomfort.
Perhaps the one answer which might ba made to the " Times"' query as to why socialist propaganda has fizzled out almost in a night is that it has issued in success so complete that naturally a term has come to it. By placing side by side with the "Times'" utterance such an unintentionally expressed socialist defence as is contained, for instance, in a leading article in the " Daily News" of the same date (which paper has, by the way, latterly been pathetically extending its columns to Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Webb and to Mr. Bernard Shaw for dialetic assistance) on the "New Socialism," it is clear that there might be one reason at least to explain why socialists have left the field at this juncture with out striking almost z single blow. It says, " On Saturday the Government passed through all its stages in the House of Commons a Bill authorising the Board of Trade to requisition foodstuffs in the same way as military and naval authorities. They also introduced a Bill authorising the immediate expenditure of 4,000,000 [pounds] in promoting housing schemes throughout the country so as to mitigate unemployment. Both measures were received with acclamation by the Opposition, Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Robert Cecil and Mr. Bonar Law joining in the chorus of praise. They were scarcely discussed at all. Yet they mark two further important advances in the process of revolutionary change which has been going on with lighting-like rapidity before our eyes in the last week. The powers of the Government in the conditions in which we now are have been shown to be practically unlimited. The old social fabric has crashed down and a quite new and totally different structure has arisen as if by magic. A week ago cash payments were suspended for certain bills by proclamation. Last Tuesday the Government announced its intention- of taking over the insurance of war risks at sea. On Wednesday the moratorium was made general for all debts but rent, wages, rates and taxes. On Thursday the Chancellor announced his intention of issuing new currency notes on a basis totally unknown in this country hitherto. Railway nationalisation has been effected at a single stroke without a word from Parliament. An aliens law of undreamt-of severity has been passed almost without a murmur. The Government have simply taken over the question of food supply and of unemployment, and no one doubts or grudges for a moment the vigour with which they will be handled. Society as we have known it has simply dissolved; and a new social organisation been set up in its place amid general acclamation.
"No one dreams of blaming the Government for the steps it has taken; on the contrary, even its most bitter enemies applaud their vigour, and with reason. They are the sole alternative to anarchy now, and everybody knows it. They have been marvellously successful simply because they have the hearty support of the entire country.... The new changes ... are revolutionary, and they cannot be wholly temporary. The system which they superseded can never return in its entirety after the war, partly because the conditions in which that system was set will have vanished, partly because men's minds will have been so profoundly affected by the new experiment that they will not consent to return to the old conditions without modifications. The appeal from the Society of Friends which was published on Saturday called upon men of good will to prepare already for the great task of reconstructing society which will be imposed upon them after the war. There will not be wanting very new and very startling data on which to work for this end."
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The above, if socialists care to make a show of victory in words, will answer the "Times " fairly enough. "Why shout for a thing which willy-nilly is being thrust upon us?" they might ask. Yet they won't. It is to be borne in mind that it is not a socialist journal which pens the lines, but the mouthpiece of the socialist's arch enemy of barely a month ago, of the wealthy humanitarian, pacifist liberal. One can feel safe in surmising that as soon as socialists can get their wind after this knock- out blow of having their utopias neatly parcelled up and presented to them out of hand, they will repudiate the above as spurious socialism, though to do so will leave the gibes of the Tories without retort. In the meantime, however, while socialists are dumbstruck by the present farcical situation, it may be possible to make a word penetrate through the hypnotising chant of words and shibboleths by which ordinarily they hold themselves separated from the onslaughts of common sense.
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The socialists know vaguely that they desire, and are willing to struggle for, a change in position of certain portions of the community. They are like people who sick of a disease which they cannot specify are persuaded by the glib assertions of quacks that the disease is so-and-so, and that the remedy must be their own special nostrum. The state of illness is in fact labelled to conform with the remedy. Because the quacks mean to insist that the remedy is socialism their pains are spent in persuading patients that they are socialists. That is why when the fortunes of quite other views of "social order" are for the moment fortuitously assisted by a spell of socialism, the wind is taken from the sails of the socialist "movement." The panacea for the withholding of which socialists have cursed their opponents as enemies of God and man, earth and sky, and as creators of all social woes is suddenly thrust on them; and the social complaint is unaffected. If there is a moiety of change at all it is all in favour of their powerful opponents. To those who already had much, more has been given as far as power goes. Far from power widening down from individual to individual as the hawkers predicted, power has folded itself up tighter into the central knot of the governing clique. Freedom of action, the means of life, individual lives themselves-are all at the disposal of the central group; under socialism.
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It is an exceedingly happy accident for the elucidation of socialistic theory that the exigencies of the governing classes should have made it necessary to give a demonstration of socialism in practice just now. Upon the intelligence of people inocculated with shibboleths, argument is pointless. Hence an object lesson putting theory into practice is invaluable. On the face of it the experiment shows how little hostility there is between socialism and governments. The former is not merely innocuous as far as the latter is concerned; it is an enormous support to it; a very present help in time of danger. The reason the Government has thought it necessary to augment its ordinary great powers by the infinitely greater powers which accrue to it under socialism is for its own sake and not for the sake of those who will momentarily benefit by its action. Food for the people is as necessary for the successful prosecution of the war as rifles are for the Army. A starving discontented populace at home would be as disastrous to the Government's ambitions abroad as if one of the Allies went over to the side of the enemy. So out of the gush of warm feeling which the war has raised in all of us, the Government adds enormously to its powers and cuts down the individuals' proportionately; to the momentary accompaniment of the tune of the individuals' own satisfaction. For in a popular war it is as easy to disarm suspicion in regard to extraordinary measures as it is in love. Powers will even be given up voluntarily for the time being. A warm pink glow of sentiment veils everything.
Goodwill is at its height, so much so that the lie of the ground is hidden. As the "Times" heartily says, classes are forgotten. In the enthusiasm for the prosecution of an already successful "Order" just now presenting its Gala-show-it has brought out all its gew-gaws, its banners and its colour and music to allure us-it is really forgotten whose "Order" it is. For the moment, if we choose to call it so, it is ours, and we may as well accept this compensation considering that the pink mists of goodwill will soon fade; for last they won't and can't; even if they could we wouldn't have them; like sweet perfume half their charm lies in transitoriness. Then we should be able once more to reckon up how much of the great Empire belongs to us.
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The communistic, collectivist tendency of thought upon which the socialist error is founded, is given rise to by the making of a permanent generalisation upon the basis of this transient, charming impulse. What merely serves its moment the socialists would make the basis of each day's humdrum living. Hence the usefulness of the Government's object lesson. The present socialistic conditions will last as long as the Government needs them. Should the politicians under popular pressure seek to perpetuate them beyond that period they will be faced by the opposition of the only persons who really count; those of initiative who, released from, or tired of the sport of the war, will be setting about their own individual business again. The dream that each is for all and all are for each will have passed, and each will be, for as much as he can be, for himself. Later, when the vaulting ambitions of the most powerful individual "orders" have, with the passing of time, again risen to their height, there will again be war, again the warm goodwill of the ordinary multitude, the spectacle of brotherly-love, socialism and . . . then back once more on the inevitable individual swing.
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Accordingly, in this matter of socialism it is being revealed that a capitalist state can easily out-caesar Caesar: as might have been expected, since capitalism commands, not only the means, but the capable men; as likewise, too, socialism does not seek to abrogate the powers of the State, but to augment them. Socialism is so pleased to image the State as a species of lucky- bag whereas, after all, it is nothing but an official recognition of the state of existent forces; and since socialism seeks to make the State all-powerful and the seat of all authority, the best and likeliest persons to carry out the job are, obviously, those who own the existent forces; certainly not those who are gaping powerlessly at their interplay from the outer fringe of their inter action: the socialists. It is really an interesting fact that the powerful ones have withheld their hand so long from this job of apotheosising the State, and have waited until it was genuinely necessary to them. Doubtless, had they not been too busy enjoying themselves, to fall under the influence of the "word-cult" they would have put it through long ago.
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One is, of course, quite aware that the socialist would protest there exists all the difference in the world between an all-powerful Socialist State and an all powerful Capitalist one: they would make the protest for a reason we have referred to above-that they never take the trouble to think what they are saying when they say "State." A State is the equilibrium of the orders which make up a community. The powerful orders are the interests and established purposes of the powerful people; and they inevitably, like oil in water, rise to the top. They will be there under socialism; perhaps, indeed, a little unpleasanter because of the lip-service they will be expected to pay to an over-ripe goodwill, by that time doubtless become a fine stench. The "workers" will be at the bottom, looking for their bit of excitement in a "call to serve" and "sacrifice" themselves for the State; for the whims of the people on the top. They will enjoy themselves very well for the moment, and, satisfied, they will sink back again- to their State.
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It is plain why the egoist motive animating "tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief " is so carefully veiled. An egoistic explanation will always be confined to the very limited few who find their major interest in observing their fellows; and this for quite valid egoistic reasons. All the rest have interest to gain by flouting the notion with fine scorn.
The aristocrat, the oligarchs who maintain their status by diligently prosecuting their notion of good order, i.e., the continued establishment of their own paramount one on unblushing egoistic lines, are prevented from acknowledging that they do so by the restraining thought that should they, others might be encouraged (so excellently does their condition commend their creed's efficacy) to mark and learn of them, and follow suit. Which would spoil matters entirely. For their projects and purpose to mature to their full flower it is absolutely essential that there should be a crowd of persons with nothing better to do than to serve them. The number of persons with initiative and willingness to accept individual responsibility must be small if those spacious schemes which give such light-headed enjoyment to the servers are to maintain their momentum. As Mr. W. S. Gilbert puts it: "When everyone is somebody then no one's anybody." Whence, therefore, the Somebody must maintain that egoism is good for the classes but bad for the masses: carry the situation off blatantly and remember his place-on the top: as he did in the times when it was an achievement to curse like a lord-times when a lord was well loved by the people. When Somebodies take to dust-throwing as they do more and more nowadays, they appear less pleasant. They should regard high sentiments of brotherly love as the perquisite of the masses. For somebodies it should be regarded as sufficing if occasionally they feel it.
* * *
And if the oligarchic view of ruling "Orders" can only accommodate a few the anarchistic will tolerate none: except of course its own fad that there should be none. The anarchist looking round the affairs of the world sees that men are unequal in power: a condition the effects of which are that the less powerful fall into servitude to the great; he promptly leaps to the theory that the development of more powerful orders should be frustrated by a voluntary inhibition of will and initiative on the part of the greater ones. "Because all cannot equally establish such a 'Rule of Order' as each might desire, none therefore should attempt to establish any 'Rule of Order' at all," is the spirit beneath the doctrine of non-violation of individual liberty-the creed of the doctrinaire anarchist. It means in practice the non-utilisation of the limited character of the power of others. Naturally, such a doctrine of voluntarily applied embargoes has point only inasmuch as it is addressed to the powerful, and as it turns out the latters' ears in this regard are very deaf: the first instinct of power is for room to grow, and whenever such growth requires it, the power creates its own opportunities to exploit whatever helps it on its path. All this explains why we find the genuine anarchist so utterly the reverse of what popular imagination paints him. Gentle, if ineffectual, he would put himself to unlimited pains in order to make world-room for a weed or a fly.
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A syndicalist is an anarchist crossed with a mild egoist strain. He represents a first faint inarticulate prescience of the working-classes that if oligarchy suits them but little, anarchism suits them nothing at all. In "sabotage," or in the conception of the general strike, there is a faint realisation that to win large shares in the world's spoils working men must be ready to string their hearts and consciences up to the pitch of being despoilers. To hold one's own purposes so much in esteem as to be prepared to push others to the rear in their interest is a first sign of power. Other signs must be forthcoming in addition, but without this nothing. It is because syndicalism has raised its lip, and revealed this sharp gleaming egoist tooth, that it has earned such hearty execration as offending both God and Man.
The measure of hatred which this very mild syndicalism has aroused, and the spectacle of the strength of a challenged armed force is sufficient to prove to the "workers" the kind of foe they can expect to rouse should they bring the "capitalist state" to the test of force. The answer to the query why the brave protestations of the industrial warriors upon the approach of an Imperial conflict have fallen so flat as to justify the phrase of the "Times" concerning "artificial conflicts" which are "dispersed at the touch of a real one" is that relatively speaking the characterisation is true. The workers do not care about their interests as imperialists care about theirs-though in peace times they may use terms as big. It is to this extent that their conflict is artificial. "Workers" are not seriously concerned about their balance of power. They do not really understand what the possession of power means or entails, nor do they desire to, very ardently. Had they desired it they would not have been misled as they have been by socialism for half a century. The track to anything we definitely want, we scent: and though we might not be able to advance rapidly along it, we should not be misled very far in a contrary direction.
In the case of socialism, misdirection had the advantage, it is true, of leading away from the genuine struggle which pursuing the path to real power would have entailed, and will entail, but for which the "workers" are neither fitted nor prepared. If they want to be prepared and fit, the present situation, in addition to providing the sport of a good fight, can otherwise effectively subserve their purpose. In the first place it can make plain that force is a primary fact, not to be blown away with windy words on paper. It can further make them familiar with arms and their uses: with the hardening of fibre which will stiffen for attack: it can settle for all time that we may not expect miracles of a sort: men who have been obedient for generations do not select the hour of war to make a first experiment in disobedience. On the contrary, they are likelier to achieve a new respect for obedience. And in secondary ways we shall very willingly-some of us, that is-learn that we have fallen into a habit of expecting, accepting, and making necessary to ourselves, things which we could well forego if requiring them lessens our ability to garner our power. As we are all in a chastened and teachable mood, perhaps we as "workers " shall emerge at the far side of this crisis capable of waging a conflict to which the term "artificial" can be less justifiably applied.
D. M.