NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 147, 3 April 1941, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

POLITICAL TEACHING

Although British educationalists have Striven to give to the people both technical and academic knowledge, they have fought shv of giving to the young any initiation into the mysteries of politics, writes Mr Edward Hulton in “World Review.” They have felt that it is wrong for a democracy to “pump politics into children.” Unless, however, an objective curriculum in the elements of political science can be evolved, citizens can never play their part in the governance of the State. This would have been pathetic in the past. To-day it is fatal. Unless the young citizen has undergone some course in elementary political knowledge, to include a very thorough section on “debunking,” how can he withstand the propaganda machines, which more and more are going to be turned upon him?

CONCEPTION OF THE STATE.

Wo hold that there is in fact no such, thing as “the State” as an entity in itself, writes Viscount Samuel. We would rather accept the view of another German philosopher, Professor Vaihinger, who speaks of all these ideas as “fictional abstractions.” The State is a “fictional abstraction,” which has no more real existence than a.. flock of sheep has existence apart from the sheep, or a swarm of bees apart from the boos. It is the sheep that are real, or the bees, or the people, and the notion of a flock or a swarm or a State is a “fictional abstraction.” The State is not an entity in itself having real existence; it is merely a pattern, an arrangement of individual men and women who group themselves and work together for the sake ultimately of their own welfare. The Hegelian theory of the State, P suggest, belongs not to philosophy, but to mythology. It really is just as much a myth as when you speak of Jupiter or Venus as persons. The State is merely an organisation of individuals which exists to promote the welfare of the people, and it is absurd to suggest that the individual exists for the sake of the State.