THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Saturday, March 17, 1945. DISTINCTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25796, 17 March 1945, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Saturday, March 17, 1945. DISTINCTION

To be distinguished is difficult; to be notorious is to lose respect; to be unknown is to be respectable. Distinction demands first of all rich gifts from Nature, and, secondly, long, hard work and the courage to stand up against rebuffs. To be notorious one has only to join with low associates and to transgress the frontiers of the law or of private morality. Happy is the land that has no history—it is free from wars, pestilence, and revolutions. Similarly happy is the man that is respectable—he does not figure in the police news, nor, as a rule, the divorce court. The compensation for his obscurity is the unruffled course of his life; he keeps the noiseless tenor of his way. Yet, strange as it may seem, though it is well known that ambition means pain and effort, practically all men, each in his own characteristic way, desire some fame, some kudos that will keep their names alive and in the public eye if only for a little while. In the first three lines of Shakespeare’s first play this longing for fame can be noted where the King begins the exordium: Let fame that all hunt after in

their lives Live registered upon our brazen tombs And then grace us in the disgrace of death. It may safely be assumed that the young Shakespeare, feeling within himself the welling up of his creative genius, allotted to his first speaker—a king, be it noted —what was uppermost in his own mind. Indeed, in later years he returned to this theme in his sonnets, expressing the conviction that his verse would outlive marble and bronze —a true anticipation of the verdict of posterity. Milton uttered the same sentiments; he knew, as he said, that fame was no plant that grew on mortal soil, that it was the last infirmity of noble mind, and that the attainment of it required the seeker to scorn delights and live laborious days. Such thoughts are for the great. Humbler men realise pretty early in life that they will never wield the sceptre, command the applause of Senates, enrich the poetry or drama of the world, discover new continents, or rise to eminence through slaughter of their fellows. Happier their lot! The bestliving perhaps of ancient philosophers, and the least understood in aftertimes, summed his philosophy in two words —“ Live unknown.” But for all he achieved he might as well have advised men not to eat. Even the dullest soul has aspirations, however parochial or circumscribed, the desire to attract the attention of his fellows and to bask in the sunshine of popular applause. This propensity is inseparable from human nature. To be human is to be an aspirant. Hence the dream of a Utopia where all men will remain on an even status is, like most dreams, a vision with a baseless fabric, and will ultimately vanish into thin air. One can see this in Russia. All equal, all things in common! Does anyone imagine that Stalin, and Zhukov, and Koniev are on the same level as Ivan the neatherd! No doubt Ivan has his dream of distinction too, but it will be of humbler texture. There is another aspect of distinction which the modern press and modern love of play have made universal —distinction in sport. At present there are only two worldwide outdoor games —lawn tennis and golf. Football is played everywhere, but in such different forms that there can be no worlddistinction in it. Cricket is British in the main, baseball American, and so again distinction in either of these games has a restricted circumference. The many varied types of distinction raise the question, which is greatest among them? No final criterion can be laid down except perhaps that of service to humanity; for example, a comparison between | Lord Rutherford and Einstein on the one hand and W. G. Grace and Bradman on the other would be ludicrous. The poet Browning lumps all forms of service together and says, “All service ranks the same with God.” Did Browning get his information on this point from headquarters? No doubt he means that all true service entails personal sacrifice and so the amount of selfdevotion put into any act must determine the value of the act — somewhat in the spirit of the widow’s mite. However this may be, there is a further urge in men besides that for distinction; it is the irresistible tendency to admire the distinguished, even if they are only the ephemeral butterflies of the screen, to study their lives, and above all to feel a great personal pride in being noticed by any living one amongst them. At its best this is one of the finest traits in human structure —the irresistible impulse to worship the towering figures of history who have contributed to the advancement and grandeur of life. If there were no worship of the superior man there would be no distinction of values and no value in distinction upon earth. But there is distinction of values, and there is distinction in the sense of eminence which will remain as long as man is man. And the primary tasks of democracy are, first, to breed men of distinction and, second, to induce the rank and file to accept their leadership. Unless that is done democracy will become a dull paradise for nonentities.