THE ANATOMY OF FRUSTRATION : XIV. THE FRUSTRATION OF LIBERALISM
By IL G. WELLS Ihis more fragmentary notes there is evidence that 1 Steele remained extremely dissatisfied with his treatment of the riddle of the frustration.of civilisation. He blamed the liberal type of 'mind for gentleness, for fastidiousness, for obscurity of thought and expression, for pedantry and needless dissensions, for mutual dis- trust. " Why is there no generosity in liberalism ? " he asks. He looked with envy at the working solidarity of the gangster world of America and of the gangster regimes in various European countries. He writes in one place of " the moral strength of stupidity." Through- out the world, practically the same conception of the desirable life takes shape in the minds of intelligent men of every race and tradition, the conception of a world pax, a socialised economic life, of a rising level of liberty, opportunity, amplitude of living, of a world- syntheSis of happy activities. It takes shape in their minds, but not in their acts and effects. And his answer to the riddle of this motor-paralysis is that there is at present no ".liberal morale."
In the notes attached to this discussion, Steele has jotted down a disconcerting summary of the quarrels, jealousies and treacheries of " liberal " leaders, of their want of candour with one another and their profound doc- trinaire distrusts. The stupid can co-operate loyally upon immediate objectives; the intelligentsia, it seems, cannot.
And I think if Steele had lived, the crown and culmina- tion of his Anatomy would have been the detailed working out of the necessary ethic and the necessary conventionaL imperatives for this " Liberal Morale " of his, which should achieve at once personal and world salvation., 'He would have drawn upon the experiences of Jesuit and Puritan, Communist and Fascist, for direction in the New Beginning. He was very insistent that he .did not want to produce any one uniform type of " liberal." He wanted co-operation and not uni- formity. His " New Model " was to be a creative mechanism of many parts. One of his primary require- ments was that " different sorts of liberal should under- stand one another better." And they should also understand the need for law and order as a going con- dition. " The impatience of undisciplined and unco- ordinated liberalism has wasted vast possibilities of creative liberal energy upon mere chaotic insurrec- tionism." Liberalism has to be as measured and restrained,.as it is hard and implacable. It is preferen- tially on the side of law: and order, unless the law is arbitrary and the order mere coercion. Its final objective is the ." candid exploratory, educational, socialist world pax," sternly defended against malignancy.
Necessarily his prescription for the New Puritans •who were to take the world in hand would have recapitulated much that had gone before in his " Anatomy." There is a curious parallelism between the problems he was wrestling with and those which brought Oliver Cromwell to create the New Model. The Parliamentary armies and the city train-bands were no match for the romantic cavalry of the usurping and illegal autocracy, until Cromwell created his troops of sober and religious men. In the modern liberal we need more of the Ironside and less of the artistic temperament. The backbone of a continuing creative revolution in the world must be sober and religious men and women—even though their religion is stripped down to that bare psychological adjustment- to which Steele'S analysis reduced all his assembled creeds. They must be wary of pleasure, they must be in sound training and sexually self-controlled. Their imaginations must be lit and sustained by habitual close contact with scientific work. Their habit of mind must be critical. They must be educated in the scientific outlook as the old Puritans were educated in the Bible. . . .
As Steele recapitulates these characteristics to which his analysis has led him, I seem to see his New Model marching by—like a procession by Mantegna. They are engineers and aviators, explorers, navigators, architects. laboratory workers, teachers, doctors of mind and body.
administrators, keepers of the peace, guardians and nurses, makers -and artists, cultivators and miners, men of the forge and men of the forest, tamers of animals and conser- vators of lift. And then I find myself echoing Steele's amazement. " Why is there now no liberal morale ? Why do not these people rule the world today ? Tell them" writes Steele, " and tell them. Call -upon them. Call them again and again. Create a real political science and apply it. Create a living and searching criticism- of political- conduct and social interaction to bind all these fine types together in a common purpose, so that the lovely work they do will not become in the aggregate a heap of waste."
And in another place he has written " Co-ordination, mutual understanding, is the first duty of modern liberalism. The disavowal of providential guidance, of mystical democracy, of a mystic belief in progress, must be the first article of its high and stoical creed." .
• And once one has caught a glimpse of this march- past, this Mantegna frieze, of Steele's New Model, the vision grows plainer. They will -be understanding. co-ordinated, resolute ; they will be merciful but -not foolishly gentle. On occasion they will kill. They must not hesitate to kill, without trial or ceremony, any mad dog that raids the world. They will kill without delay or compunction every political adventurer who menaces the common order or liberty. The world must be made safe from Caesars and secret tyrannies. -Not Caesar but a scientific Brutus is the ideal of the New Beginning. Patience with legal forms when they are perverted or abused, patience with all usurpation, is the supreme surrender of life.
- I had a dream the other night of these men and women, very deliberate and implacable, walking steadily out of these speculations of Steele's and saving the life of the world. They will not make formal conspiracies, they will organise no secret societies ; the business of pass-words and counter-signs and mutual intimidation is the method of the feebler folk. They will do their work of liberation alone or by twos and threes, held together by nothing but the common understanding of rational men. These are times of tyranny and suppression, when the private judgement must be the ultimate court of law, with lowers of life and death. The loudest upstart, the grimmest bully, nowadays must sooner or later hand himself over to the man of knowledge and judgement. The .needle and the scalpel, the aeroplane and the gun, arc for the hands that can use. them. The political oaf, the modern dictator with a gang or a mob behind him, is merely a destructive intruder in the human laboratory. We owe him no loyalty. He has to be got rid of, anyhow. The duty of the man of knowledge and judgement is to mankind.- -He- cannot divest himself of the power. that should make him -the judge and executioner of lawless aggression. He is not a trained dog to do tricks for his inferiors ; he is not a saddled beast to answer to the rein. He is Man ; his science is the mind 4 Pr Man and his opportunity is the measure of his duty. The distinctive quality of a modern liberal morale is the absolute refusal, even when rules have to be observed or mass action undertaken, to surrender individual responsibility. The modern liberal may ob- serve conventions and the rule of the road, obey without question the orders of doctor, engineer or other trusted guide, follow maps and signposts, but always with his eyes open. He waives his personal decision for the sake of Man in him. But it is a provisional waiver. He is responsible for his obedience and for the conse- quences of his obedience. While he stands by the tyrant or serves the mob he is still fully responsible. They can never master him while his integrity remains. This partly explains why liberalism, though it can be so overwhelmed at times by demagogy and mob con- tagion, is nevertheless so irrepressible and recuperative. In the hour of defeat it is already beginning again. As it dies with X it is horn again in Y. Every scattered particle of shattered civilisation is germinal and begins to restore itself.
Mr. B'ells' last article, to appear next week; is entitled " The Penultimate and the End."
Previous page
