NOTES AND COMMENTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 87, 23 January 1942, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS

PARADOXICAL POSITION. The paradox is that in Germany, where the political machine could enforce soSnd scientific measures, the scientists are in chains, while in Britain the scientists are free to speak, and the politicians slow to move, says •the “Scotsman.” It is easier to propagate a false doctrine of racial superiority, that feeds on the ambitions and prejudices of a multitude, than to modify national habits in accordance with discoveries. But an almost unconscious educational process is taking place. The average man to-day is more truly scientific in spirit than was his grandfather. It may be hoped that the spread of knowledge will make it easier for politicians to persuade the electorate to accept the measures which have scientific justification, but even in the newest orders 'it would be optimistic to expect free people to accept without personal judgment the “ipse dixit” of a scientist in matters, intimately affecting their own lives. Scientific dictators might even be worse than the political kind. SOCIAL FUNCTION OF ART. We in Britain have been without community culture for so long that we are suspicious of it, writes Mr Julian Huxley in his book “Democracy Marches.” Culture sounds highbrow and is looked upon as something apart from the peculiar few. It happens, however, to be a fact that art can provide both new understanding of life for individuals and also unique ways of expressing the life of the community. In the recent past art has been almost wholly divorced from its social function; and most good artists have become mere individuals, often frustrated individuals, instead of tne agents by which society as a whole, and the common man in society, can realise possibilities that would otherwise remain latent. In the age of social man, art and beauty must be made to play their part. In art the motive of self-development and expression is linked up with that of creativeness. But creativeness can be given many other outlets. In so far as the gigantic social experiment of the Soviet Union has been successful, it owes its success largely to the feeling among the common people that they, by their own work, are helping to create something of value for themselves. This incentive, of shared creativeness has been large ly lacking in our "laisser-faire” democracies. The more it can be encouraged the more rapid our progress is likely to be toward organic society,