AS I WAS SAYING
Dickens's responsibility for the disappearance of mighty conceptions and the rise of Gerrards Cross
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
The utopian dimension, at any rate for the foreseeable future, has been taken out of politics all over the world, except where religious fundamentalism reigns. And, prob- ably, it has been taken out more thoroughly here in Britain than anywhere else, if only because, since the religious wars of the 17th century, there has been so relatively little of it around to take out — no mighty concep- tions, passionate beliefs, or burning hopes enough to bring the soul `to such a pitch of passionate obduracy', as Herzen put it, 'as feels neither pain nor privation but walks with a firm step to the scaffold or the stake'.
And a good thing too, most of us will say, since having learnt in the 20th century that mighty conceptions, etc., lead to the con- centration camp or to the gulag, the most sensible prayer for the next century, if not millennium, must be: 'Deliver us, 0 Lord, from any more mighty conceptions.' At the time Herzen wrote, after the collapse of Europe's year of revolution in 1848, howev- er, such a prayer would rightly have seemed nothing short of blasphemous. For massive exploitation of men, women and, above all, children was then still so deeply embedded in the social and political system that noth- ing less than turning society upside-down seemed to hold any hope of progress.
But at least in the developed world today that is no longer remotely true. Yes, there are still poverty and injustice, but mankind does seem to have discovered, in democrat- ic capitalism, a politico-economic system which really can guarantee vast improve- ment without turning society upside-down — indeed, only if it is not turned upside- down. Knowing, therefore, what we now know of the dreadful consequences of revo- lutions — since power corrupts revolution- aries as much, if not more than, anybody else — and of the amazing progress that can be made without revolutions, surely no one in his senses can still believe that any new utopian dreams could fail to do more harm than good.
In other words, we are all on the same motorway driving in different lanes in the same direction at roughly the same speed, with no traffic coming in the opposite direction. Crashes may occur, of course, but they will be accidental, due to poor driving or drivers falling asleep — nothing that a new service station won't prevent. Hence, of course, the current lack of interest in politics. Not even the prospect of a Federal European Union now sets the public pulse racing since, being itself part of the demo- cratic capitalist system, it rightly is seen as unlikely to make any fundamental differ- ence to life or work.
Does the evaporation of the utopian dimension in politics matter? Not necessari- ly, since political — as against religious — utopianism is a relatively modern 19th-centu- ry growth. Before then mass poverty was assumed to be unavoidable, ordained by the Almighty, like bad weather. The lucky few might change, but that the majority would always be poor and hungry was just part of the natural order. That is why, before the 19th century, the emphasis was on transform- ing human nature through religion rather than transforming the economic system through politics. Nothing would ever improve until men could be persuaded to behave more like angels than animals.
This was very much Charles Dickens's view, as Orwell pointed out in a famous essay. Dickens did not want noblemen to be overthrown, least of all by violence, or employers like Scrooge to be expropriated, or schoolmasters like Mr Murdstone to be punished; only that they should be encour- aged, shamed even, into being less wicked, selfish or hypocritical. What was needed were gentler and kinder noblemen, more generous employers and less sadistic and cruel schoolmasters. Under the influence of Marx, of course, this attitude was under- standably condemned. Socialists and com- munists argued that there was no chance of a significant change of heart without a radi- cal change of institutions. Not to recognise this was, in effect, to justify the evil status quo. Nowadays, however, it seems we are moving back to the Dickensian view, putting our faith more in improving human rela- tionships than in reforming political arrangements, more in alleviating the human condition through drugs and coun- selling than through votes and revolution.
Could this indeed be the way forward? Given the relatively benign state of affairs already, perhaps it could. Certainly in theo- ry, the new political and social influence of the gentler sex ought to help. Indeed, even in my lifetime cultural changes in sexual mores, for example, in penal theory (aboli- tion of capital punishment) and in animal rights have owed more to what the poets, novelists and intellectuals have written than to what the politicians have done. As for
children, Dickens certainly has done more to banish sadism and cruelty from the class- room than has any politician. So human nature can be changed without revolution- ary upheaval. About this Dickens was right and Marx wrong.
In these respects, Montaigne's achieve- ments were perhaps the most spectacular of all. In his famous essays, written in mid- 16th-century Catholic France's civil war against Protestantism, he sought to persuade a bloodthirsty aristocracy to change its ways; to be truly noble, he suggested, was to for- swear cruelty and to show mercy, not vengeance. So great was the influence of these essays, as the American historian David Quint brilliantly demonstrates in a new book*, that Montaigne's version of noblesse oblige helped to bring about a redef- inition of nobility itself. If Montaigne could persuade the French aristocracy that it could afford to show mercy to the enemy on the battlefield, surely some latter-day Mon- taigne should be able to succeed in persuad- ing the contemporary business class that it can afford to get its snout out of the trough. And yet, even if the remaining ugly fea- tures of democratic capitalism, particularly of its boss class, were to be transformed by the kind of moral transformations wrought by Dickens and Montaigne — which is not inconceivable — and even if the material and moral benefits of the democratic capi- talist system were to be extended to include the whole country, North as well as South, inner cities as well as suburbs, doubts — not about the possibility of this happening but its desirability — would still keep intruding. For living, as I do, in a veritable Bucking- hamshire showpiece of democratic capital- ism — good education and good housing pretty well available to all, two cars in every garage, low crime rates, high-quality leisure facilities and marvellous shops and green fields — I feel I have seen the future and it does not work. Indeed, the very idea that progress henceforth consisted of the mass production and distribution of ever more Gerrards Crosses, say, all over the world, is enough to make one yearn for the return of 'mighty conceptions', even if this might mean walking with a firm step to the scaf- fold or the stake rather than driving to the supermarket with a full tank.
* Montaigne and the Quality of Mercy is published by Princeton University Press.
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