BOOK REVIEW

Grey River Argus, 21 May 1941, Page 8

BOOK REVIEW

(By

J. Scott)

A FAITH TO FIGHT FOR

We are all subject to these strong impulses, which have to be overcome before we can even strive to be truthful.

Privilege v. Truth Strachey refers to the discovery of the steam engine in the day of ancient Rome, and its suppression in the interests of the privileged classes. It was in order to prevent at all costs the truth-seeking, scientific attitude from spreading from the study of nature to the study of the social system, that science was murdered in the ancient world. This was one of the greatest of all the set-backs in human history. It killed for some fifteen centuries the very possibility of those extraordinary scientific achievements which have actually taken place in our own epoch. Yet it had to happen if the position and privileges of the slave-owning Roman world rulers were to be maintained. With the rise of , Nazi ideology comes once more the impulse to say what will please those who hear and so give power to those who speak to murder truth. ... For the Nazis are the most thorough enemies of truth the world has ever seen.

Faith Without a faith there can be no sense of common purpose between leaders and led; and without that sense of common purpose there cannot be mutual love and trust. Therefore a faith is indispensible. But a faith will not come to live with us until we begin to show that we are indeed serving truth and love. To-day that means carrying through that transformation of our whole social and economic way of life, without which the talk of loving our fellow men is a mockery.

Stracihey’s faith is a slimp.le one, “Truth and Love”; truth In our dealings with and love for our fellow men; a very difficult path to follow. The human mind is so constituted that we all experience strong impulses to believe, say and write things, not because they are true, but because they are pleasing to ourselves, or because wo judge they will be pleasing to those who hear us. We thus hope to control other men, and to gain and hold power.

Can we do it? We cannot tell till we try. But it is certain that if wff 1 cannot we British people will sdoU die. Truth, Love & Victory Shall we follow the path of trutli and love to victory and so win thei peace, or shall we just carry on, win the war, and pass again., into thei dark ages? That is the crisis we are facing as he sees it. “In order to survive we shall havd to light a beacon of hope for the world. That means that no one of us should rest while we see around us the crass inhumanities of to-day; that each one of us should shout and kick and protest and fight till these things are ended. The interests which stand in the way are the interests of private pro* perty run mad; of private property turned into monopoly; of a greedy,: evil, stupid, inhuman, fear-ridden, but tiny minority of the population, which must be overcome if our country is to live. Our war is only partly a war against the Nazis; it is equally a war against those amongst us who, at heart share the blacK Nazi faith.

We cannot win this double war unless out of our present sufferings 1 here grows a faith, and unless out of that faith there come works, which will make us once more the champions of “the last best hopes of man.” , , Mo)st readers of Strachey’s book! will come to the conclusion that we. are faced with two alternatives. We must either radically alter our present system, with its dominating, profit motive, or accept our place in a world dominated by fascist ideology, in which man is a slave, both mentally and physically.