CHEAP SMUT

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 June 1942, Page 8

CHEAP SMUT

THE PENALTY OF LEWDNESS.

“Predictions about the fate of nations have seldom been fulfilled. As to rhe French nation prophets have been curiously wrong. . . . “But there is on record one prophecy which has come lamentably true. Rather more than fifty years ago Matthew Arnold at the height of his fame as social essayist and poet foretold the downfall of France. Foretold with extraordinary foresight and accuracy just what has been happening under our eyes. France, he said, is suffering from a dangerous and perhaps fateful disease. “ ‘lf the disease goes on and increases, then things will go from bad to worse with her. She will more and more lose her powers of soul and spirit, her intellectual productiveness, her skill "in counsel, her formidableness as a foe, her value as an ally.’

“Has any prediction as to the future of a State ever been so exactly and so tragically justified?” writes Hamilton Fyfe, in the “Hibbert Journal.” : “What were the symptoms of the disease Matthew Arnold discovered eating away the vigour of the country?” Mr. Fyfe asks. “He dwelt chiefly on the character of popular novels, plays, and periodicals. These proved he said, that the readers of the novels and newspapers, the spectators at the plays, were under a malign influence. That influence he called ■Lubricity, a word akin to lubricate, originally denoting smoothness, which had become a synonym for lewdness. That again is an expression seldom used now. ‘Lewd’ is defined by the dictionary as ‘lustful, unchaste.’ , “Arnold recalled the question asked by the Town Clerk of Ephesus: ‘What man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana?’ He himself asked: ‘What man is there that knoweth not the city of the French is a worshipper of the great goddess Lubricity?” And then he offered as an alternative the Greek word Aselgeia.”

WARNING TO BRITAIN. ! After a survey of the history of France during the last fifty years, Mr. Hamilton Fyfe concludes:— “We have had during the past twenty years or so a disagreeably large increase in the evidences of Aselgeia worship in Britain. Especially has the number of novels which would formerly have'been rejected by any publisher as obscene or pornographic grown year by year till now there is nothing one may not find in a book, while on the stage there is a similar disregard for what used to be called ‘the limits of decency.’ “Ptequent protest against the over- , stepping of these limits in variety' theatres has been made in the Popu- I

lar Press by writers far from Puritanical. Smut is looked for by those who provide cheap entertainment for the masses as an element in their programmes that is certain to attract. There is always a fairly large proportion of the common herd which likes smut. Few care to show that they dislike it.

“A general feeling against it exists still, but it has lost the power it had. A small number, a minority, have beaten down that power and laid the way open to floods of suggestiveness, sometimes positive filth. ' How can this have happened? “It has happened because the mass of people, though they are, as I have said, ‘sound,’ are also sheeplike. They follow wherever resolute leadership is given. They have no opinions: they sway this way or that, according to the influences brought to bear upon them. When the decent few were the more vociferous and active, public opinion agreed with them. Now the 1 wind blows from another quarter; the smutty-minded have infected the

public with their view. “The same has happened in the book world. Chiefly to blame lor the increased laxity here are publishers, among them some who pride themselves on being heirs to an honourable tradition and others who came later in the field but professed to ‘hold high the banner of the ideal. It is hard to understand how Jhese men can scatter among all sorts and conditions of readers books containI ing language, discussions and descripI tions they would not tolerate in their homes. “If they are asked about it, they shrug their shoulders. ‘Times change,’ they say, ‘and we must change with them,’ which, by the way, was not the meaning of the Latin aphorism. The truth is that they know a public exists for such garbage and are willing to supply it. . , “It is always a mistake to attack any* publication which seeks to attract readers of lubricity. The most damaging treatment is silence. If, they are not talked about, they are

not read, they do not sell. Probably publishers would then decline to accept more. Soon more would not be written. If any were, they would not get into print. Attacking them increases their number. . . . “Novels which proclaim by their covers and jackets the order to which they belong are put forward to attract attention. The sale of one of the ‘rawest’ has passed 200,000 copies. Aselegia is not merely tolerated; she is encouraged. “That is a bad sign. There are already plenty of worshippers ready to bow the knee to her if they are given opportunities. All who know what are the consequences of such worship would combine to prevent those opportunities being multiplied and made easier. Their motto might be: Remember France.”