POLITICAL IDEAS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19169, 7 November 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

POLITICAL IDEAS.

OPINIONS OF SANDY.

BY K OTA RE.

I found Sandy rather weary of elections the torrents of talk had left him dazed and ho was unexpectedly in love with th< strong, silent man. Usually, I hav< found him frankly contemptuous of thai . creation of our lady novelists, but hi , was prepared to admit ho had his uses. "Do you remember that diverting stick of a man the Grossmiths introduced . into their ' Diary of a Nobody,' the con ■ fcrsationalist whose, solo contribution t< every discussion is a cordial ' That': right,' and who never delivers his sou . of any variation on that theme ? W< I could do with a few more with his gift Jof reticence and agreement. That's tin | worst of a democratic age. We art j dazzled by mere words; have handed our i selves over to the glib talker. Democracy always puts a premium on verbosity. Wi I delude ourselves that we are doing tiling: J when we are only talking aboul them. " And what does it. all amount to anyway ? A host of talkers compete fo: the suffrages of the "intelligent electors Promises are as plentiful as blackberries and ought, like them, to come under tin provisions of the Noxious Weeds Act. I promises, like curses, come home to roost there are some folks that will have ; multitude of queer wild-fowl adorninp their backyards before they are mucf older. And they deserve all that t.lun yet. We used to sing a song ot "whiol theme and chorus were an intolerabh iteration of the striking fact that ' tin elephant now walks around and the. barn begins to play.' That's about all then is to an election. " I ventured to suggest that there was much more in it than mere talk. What about principles and convictions ? There was a growing interest in political matters, and a much more intelligent interest as well. Our education system was raising the standard of political intelligence. I An educated public was not to be fobbed I off with mere verbiage. They knew what they wanted, were able to sec through the palpable sophistry that imposed on their fathers, applied an alert mind to the problems of the state, and were qualified now in a mood of calm rationality to make a sound choice betweer competing policies. Otherwise our education system had failed. Surely one cf the chief ends of national education was to develop a race capable of thinking through problems to their logical solution. And if wo had not arrived yet, wi were distinctly on the way. Political Intelligence. "I'm glad you think so," said Sandy. "My own opinion goes quite the other way. There seems to me to have been more inane interruption this election than there used to be, more faith in noise and less in reason and argument. A friend of mine attended a political meeting and found himself seated beside a young mat: and his adoring mother. At intervals the young man expressed his educated intelligence by shouting in raucous tones • 'Yah!' His mother, her worship in her eyes, called on all around to notice what a card he was. Encouraged by the maternal adoration, he reached new heights of political intelligence by roaring 'Aw, go 'nme.' He rang the changes in these two brilliant comments throughout the two hours of the meeting. At least he possessed the virtue of consistency. "I oughtn't to judge of the whole from one choice specimen of inanity; but a mighty lot of the interjections that brought loud laughter from the politically intelligent audiences were on no higher plane. I suppose I am getting too old to appreciate horSe-play. I've tried to keep young, but this * election has shown me I must bo over the border of senile decay, if appreciation of this sort, of thing is a mark of political intelligence. Education for Politics. "I seo that President Butler, of Columbia University, has indicted the American education system on just such grounds as these. He says that they have aimed at producing a public that can apply its reason to political matters. They have spent countless millions with this end in view; and when an election comes the products of the American system take the old party lines, follow the old prejudices, re-echo the old foolish cries, are swept on wave upon wave of undisciplined emotionalism; while reason takes a forlorn back seat until the tumult and | the shouting dies. I understand that our elections are a Quakers' meeting compared j with the riot and frenzy of the American I article. And lam too great a believer in | the value of our own splendid system of education t.o lay upon it the blame for I our mild foolishness at election times. J "You have mentioned principles and j convictions. That is the crux of the j whole business. When you get down to bedrock, is it possible to discipline a free people so that its massed intellect will rationally tackle, with its magnificent con--1 lined resources of brain and temperament and experience and common sense, the great problems of state-craft that, are great clamouring for solution '! Human nature cannot be controlled in this way. The multitude, so far from having the combined wisdom of all its units, will usually develop, under emotional stress, a mind of its own. which is far less intelligent, far less penetrating in its vision of reality, far less sympathetic with the highest and worthiest ends, than the mind of almost any individual included in it. I fear Professor Butler not only will have to reconstruct the. American education system; he will have to face the, remaking of human nature, and a fundamental alteration in mass psychology. Our Convictions. " Even with the individual it is mighty hard to determine how lie got his convictions. Not by thinking, through his problems in the. calm light of a rationality, unimpeded by prejudice or antipathy or emotion. Gilbert asserts that every boy and girl is born either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative. I can't unravel all thp impulses that gave mo my political opinio is; so I don't expect, other people to be able to give a clear account of their political pilgrimage. I think most of us fet a bias from early environment. In the df.ys of our youthful hero-worship, we feel the impact of some strong personality on our own, and we unconsciously adopt Lis ideas and his mental attitudes. Or it may be that in self-defence against some strong personality that has stirred in us an antipathy which may go very near to hate, \vc take our youthful stand in direct opposition to his ideas and ideals. So wo get our direction, and usually we never get entirely off that early track. " However we make our decision, or however our decision is made for us, once we have, taken our direction, the rest of the process is quite clear. We. find ourselves with certain prepossessions; we have taken our side. So far, cold reason has had nothing to do with it. Now, we set our intellects to work, not to find a new path through the jungle, but to justify the, choice we have already made. 1 think the process is called 'rationalising.' Having made my choice, I spend my mental energies in finding good reasons for it. And I can always find them. We get our opinioas, our convictions, first ; pick them up haphazard. Then we justify them to ourselves. Not much thinking through to an issiie here. But that is how the mind of man is made, and, after all, it would lie a queer, drab, unpioturesquc world where reason ruled everything, and men's ideas were standardised on a basis of cold rationality."