My Humble Opinion

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 70, 21 March 1908, Page 12

My Humble Opinion

I PIEBSOT. I

A WORLD IX KEVOIX'TIOX. Whatever paper or magazine I pick up I seem to meet with some variation on one theme—the imminent ■world struggle J between Individualism and Co-operation. One at least of the London papers headed its; annual New Year's summary with "The Revolution," and the "Contemporary Review" (of all periodicals) j lately published what was virtually a revolutionary tract by Jack London," unI der that very title. ' In France, in GerI many, in Austria, in Italy, in America, there is the same eiy, the same hope, the same almost panic dread. Here in j Xew Zealand we can look on calmly, j philosophically, and take sides as we I choose. Here is no hungry, wild, maddened proletariat; and whether we regard that hunger and wildness and fury as necessary or as curable by deep changes, at least the matter is for u= [rather an intellectual than a practical and pressing problem. To mc this vast movement, in whatever way it ends, whether it does or does not lead to the total overthrow of all ideas of a colleetivist state, has the absorbing interest of the event of a lifetime. Death to mc at this moment would be singularly distasteful, simply because curiosity was never so strange aroused in mc. To ■be on the eve of the first great world struggle humanity has ever known is a matter so stupendous and awe-inspiring that it seems to mc to call forth. A3 hardly anything else could (at least in us oli moles of the study and the midnight oil) the passionate desire to live and see things through. As soldiers we stand in the coming great battle of reason—a battle with the truth for its prize. And our first duty, the duty of every intellectually honest man, is to equip himself for that battle providing himself with the weapon* of knowledge and calm, unbiassed logic. Then there is no fear. Otherwise ! Well, otherwise there might be other weapons, and the logic might not be calm. I should like to see every library provided with a mass of good clear literature in sociology and economics; Blatchford cheek by jowl with Mallock of Yves Guyot. and the Fabian tracts re--' posing peacefully among the most angry of the works of their antagonists. Tha day has long gone by to trust to ignorance. This is a ques-tiorAon which everyone has the "little knowledge"; it is time to realise that that, and not full acquaintance with the subject, is the "dangerous thing.* j Whatever happens in the near future, this iree discussion of the very bases j and foundations of society cannot but do good. If Socialism can be shown to ! offer a fallacious Utopia, it will be for j the individualists to give us something i in its place. The old world can now take an inventory of its stock and become young again in choosing a new era's goods. We insist on being offered material Ut Dpias in an age in which every quinquennium is worth a mediaeval century; vast evils must be made to suggest vast remedies; and the homeopathic political doctor is certain to be forsaken for the surgeon, who, while calm and scientific in his methods, is unflinching in his amputations and removal of membranes that r,re known to be diseased. Above all, it seems to mc, the time is now ripe for a new view of our obligations to the young people who are j going to live through two centuries of ' time (as it would have been to us). It I is in their keeping to mould a world j of light and beauty or a hideous earth j of animalism and sauve gui peut. 1 ! have said before that that is precisely ' where I am afraid —and I shall not say ; it again. Suffice it to remind ourselves that a world of sheer utilitarianism, in the narrowest sense of the word, is not j even ai world of utility; it is a world i of disease and death. Idealism is a supreme utility; and no Utopia can come of an education that is lacking in beauty and the higher aims of conduct. See to this, and carry it to its logical conclusion, and there straightway is Utopia, whether the world is in the hands of the individualist or the Socialist. Without idealism a revolution is possible, but it will be a revolution that suggests its own reaction-, and without idealism the revolution may be stayed, only to rise again with more I dreadful consequences. It has amused mc very much lately to read letters in the papers about "the Socialist controversy in wTHch each side remarks with childlike naivete, something to this effect: "How Mr. So-and-So can still write again after having read my conclusive arguments, I cannot imagine." As a matter of fact, I suppose a really thinking child could tear to tatters nine-tenths of the arguments that are adduced on both sides of this mighty question. That is my complaint —that people will not perceive that it is a matter to be taken seriously, and not pecked at on the strength of an odd five minutes' consideration. The cases for collectivism and for individualism are both splendid, if splendidly stated; but if stupidly stated, one wonders how

people could live in the world under either system! The, average controversialist quite fails to perceive that he cannot possibly have a strong case unless he knows something of the foundations of his opponent's beliefs. I remember my respect for a clergyman, who, not believing in Darwin's conclusions, nevertheless read every book on evolution by natural selection that he could come by. If the Socialists and anti-Socialists would pursue the same honest practice we should both be nearer getting at the truth, and our papers would, in addition, be considerably more interesting. Of course we are faced by that eas-h view of the case is the •only" and the "obvious" view. That seems to mc merely to prove that neither view is obvious or solely possibli;—that both, indeed, are the result of a very langerous obscurity in the minds of their ldvocates. Neither can the question be =aid to be resolvable by any supposition as to '•interest." I know of some wellfed philosophers who are Socialists, and r know of some lean and penurious mortals who are the sheerest individualists. In both instances conviction seems to mc to be forgetful of self, and to show a real desire to get at the truth independently of personal considerations. And if everyone would look at the thing in the same earnest and disinterested light, there would be little I danger of the consequences of the pre- I sent situation. The real danger would be in a state of affairs in which all the Haves were lgnorantly (whether wrongly or rightly) individualists, and all the Have Nots were ignorantly (whether wrongly or rightly) Socialists. And that is why I hold that we had better think and read before we take sides in the