A DEFEATED GENERATION
By RICHARD RUMBOLD
HAVING passed my early youth amidst the frustrations of the pre-war years and my late youth in the Army and subse- qu...ntly the R.A.F., I may be able to contribute something to the discussion on what I would call the defeated (rather than the submerged) generation.
Your readers will remember that the discussion started in "Marginal Comment " when your distinguished contributor spoke of youth's sense of forsakenness and lack of faith. He also mentioned a letter to Horizon in which a young lieutenant has written of (a) a sense of frustration that reaches the stage of desiring self-destruc- tion, (b) a lack of confidence leading to unhealthy and almost un- controllable- introspection, (c) the vulgarity of the times (Press, radio, advertising, &c.) that mocks the aspiration of intelligent sensitive young men. On the other hand, Sir Norman Bennett claims in the columns of The Spectator that youth failed to seize the opportunity to make itself felt in the pre-war years and, therefore, that it has no right to make a fuss now.
I believe that the answer to Sir Norman should run as follows: British democracy is in a state of transition: the old values are dead, the new scarcely born. The old values consist of narrow, anachronistic traditions that no longer appeal to youth, i.e., traditions of family or party or class. Or they are relics of nineteenth-century individualism and laisser-faire. People still live for their private ambitions and gratifications, chiefly of a most material kind. They scarcely trouble to relate their activities to the welfare of the whole— or, if they do, it resolves itself into a lame attempt to square their public activities with their real or pretended social consciences whilst, in truth, these activities are directed to private ends. Conse- quently, democracy, as we know it today, cannot give us the basis of a living faith. We defend it for two reasons only. One, because it is, nevertheless, superior to any other form of government, particularly dictatorship. Two, because we still believe whole- heartedly in the theoretical principles of democracy. But we do not—cannot—believe in our actual democracy. We defend it with our heads, but not with our hearts.
Why in the pre-war years were we unable to replace the 'old traditions—the old ways of life, outdated economically, politically, morally—with wider and higher social concepts? As Sir Norman 'says, apathy had much to do with it. Yet the forces of reaction (and herein I include those numerous anti-cultural forces which exploit the public, introducing it to greater and greater vulgarities for the sake of private gain) were—still are—strong; and in those times of competition arising out of unemployment one had time and again to compound with them. There were indeed young men who at the time of the Spanish Civil War risked not only their livelihoods, but their lives, to testify to wider and more progressive ideals ; others turned to religion, and especially to the Oxford Group, or simply became out-and-out Communists, in their search for a social discipline and the basis of a social faith. But their example was not strong enough to withstand apathy and the immediate claims of self-interest.
As Walt Whitman (amongst others) has shown, democracy is capable of all manner of enthusiasm, particularly with its un- bounded opportunities of growth and development; and I believe that it is only in some such new, dynamic conception of democracy that youth will achieve its identity, renew its confidence in itself and life generally, and find its faith. The problem of forsakenness and the problem of faith are largely one and the same: how are you to feel faith in a system to which you have no sense of " belonging- ness "? Similarly, are not the neurasthenia and the introspection symptoms of this same malady of non-identification and non- participation? A generation without exterior outlets will necessarily become a generation of introspective, inward-turning souls inter- ested only in its own frustrations and in evolving private philosophy of escape. Further, our lives, broadly speaking, only acquire individual significance in the measure of their social significance; and, therefore, young men whose lives lack identity with the community are apt to fall into moods of self-doubt and inferiority-feeling. Nor is it surprising that some of than should feel that, when there is something worth dying for—as there 'is today—it is better to die than to live the aimless days of peace which they experienced once and fear they may experience again: if one cannot lose one's life in the spiritual sense it is better to lose it in the material than not at all.
But to others of us the war has given a new hope. For in the Service (I speak as an ex-Sergeant Pilot) we were able to identify ourselves with the aspirations of a whole nation. For the first time in our lives we have seen our own reflections in the community, and the community, I believe, its reflection in us; and the more so on account of the extraordinary testimonies from our fellow citizens of their pride and gratitude, expressed individually and in a collective way through institutions such as the Press. Further, we no longer feel " out of it " to the same extent as in the peace. Our longing to play a part whereby we could acquire a sense of social significance (and upon this desire our keenness largely rests), has been gratified. Finally, we have been given, in the R.A.F. at any rate, many personal opportunities denied us in the peace. Con- sider one example among thousands : that of a navigator—I often flew with him—who was formerly an assistant in a " gentlemen's clothiers " in the provinces, where, as he said, his job chiefly con- sisted of wrapping and unwrapping parcels. But now he plays a significant part. in the national life, and upon his initiative and intelligence depends largely the success of each operational sortie, as well as the lives of the other members of the crew.
Even in the best conditions it will be difficult to find for all these young men equivalent opportunities of self-realisation, since war tends not only to give opportunity, but also responsibility, to youth; and once the first, sudden delights of a new-found freedom have worn off, these young men, as they sink again into the obscurity of their private lives, may well miss, not indeed the war, but the triumphs and opportunities that war frequently gave them.
Nor must it be forgotten that many of us have found in flying the love of our lives. Modern industrial conditions give little scope to the adventurous-minded, except in the fictions of the cinema; and after the quick tempo and exhilarations of flight ordinary life is apt to be tame. Many an airman will, in the ennui of the office, remember nostalgically the time when he drove his aircraft through the vast, luminous spatiality of the heavens. Finally, Service life has made us realise, as did evacuation in another sphere, that gulf between the educated and the uneducated; and in the strength and circumstances of our comradeship we have been able to narrow it a little. It will be deplorable if, after the war, the old class feelings are allowed to revive.
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