Home |
Texts |
Next Chapter |
|---|
|
XII Cloud-cuckoo Liberal Inhumanity "Liberty consists," said John Stuart Mill over 100 years ago, "in doing whatever one wishes only so long as we do not at tempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it." (Liberty, 1859, Intro.). This sounds eminently sensible and just. But, little as a hasty reader of the passage may suspect, it contains a fallacy. For it is not necessary to "attempt to deprive others of theirs" in order indirectly to do so. In other words, the liberty to do "whatever one wishes" may in countless ways "impede" the efforts of others to obtain it without one's wishing to be in the least deliberately obstructive or obtrusive. To state an extreme case, no one to-day can choose to make life on earth a Hell for himself without creating, however unintentionally, an inferno for his neighbours. Even if, as Bentham frivolously supposed, "there is no one knows what is for your interest as well as yourself" (Manual of Political Economy, 1798), Mill's proviso would still be wanting. But we know that Bentham was talking nonsense. Thirty minutes spent in any street, park or public place in England amply suffices to convince any one of that. "To suppose that a man is necessarily the best judge in what concerns him most," said de Quincey, "is a sad non sequitur; for if self-interest ensured wisdom no one could ever go wrong in anything." (Posthumous Works, 1891, XXIV, Brevia). Similarly, J. M. Keynes, speaking on the end of laissez faire (1926), remarked, "nor is it true that self-interest generally is enlightened." John Jelley gave the game away when he maintained that "if democracy has any meaning, it should mean a society where we can all choose our own way to hell or heaven." (Daily Mail 14.2.61). Quite so! But I repeat, can we choose to go to Hell without the eternal furnaces singeing some of our fellows? Even more fantastic is the extension of Bentham's principle
"Everyone voted at an election for one reason only," Monckton Milnes declared in 1842, "because they realised that some benefit would accrue to themselves or their own interests from the policy of the favoured candidate" (Thoughts on Purity of Elections). We have already seen what Rousseau had to say on this subject (See Chap. VII); whilst Montesquieu, in spite of his fervent raptures over English Parliamentarism, believed that "People imagine, but it is never the case, that the electors seek the public welfare, whereas it is only their private interest." (Voyages de Montesquieu, Quart. Rev. No. 379). Although Liberals have always kept their heads high enough up in the clouds to think otherwise, it is very doubtful whether the majority of the electorate would ever go to the polls at all unless they had some private interest to serve by registering their vote. Yet, not more than twenty-six years after Monckton Milnes made the above-mentioned remark, Samuel Morley, a cultivated and deeply religious man, the friend of Gladstone, felt able whilst in full possession of his mental faculties to say in an election address at Bristol, "I do not so distrust the character of Englishmen to fear that they will employ their newly acquired privilege, (i.e. the extension of the franchise provided by the Reform Bill of 1867) for selfish and unworthy purposes." To-day, almost a century after Morley expressed this astonishing point of view, we have but to reflect on the universal signs of popular indifference to Public Welfare, as manifested in the vandalism daily reported in our Press, in the complete disregard shown by the average holiday-makers of the comfort or pleasure of those who are likely to follow them on any beach, beauty-spot or rural retreat, and the complete failure of parents to inculcate public spirit on their children, in order to satisfy
But to return to the principle enunciated by Mill, quoted at the beginning of the chapter, to the effect that freedom consists in doing whatever one wishes only so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs etc. It is surely obvious that there are any number of ways by which we can and do deprive others of their liberty and impede their efforts to obtain it, without our ever consciously or deliberately attempting to do so. Take for instance the present widespread and insensate practice of pandering to the unbridled self-indulgence of children by gorging them incessantly with sweetstuffs of all kinds. We are now the greatest consumers of sugar and sweetstuffs in the world, and in addition we are probably also the greatest sufferers from all kinds of dental troubles which begin early in infancy when the milk teeth have not yet been replaced by the permanent dentition. Can anyone be so simple-minded as to suppose that this freedom to ruin children's teeth, although by no means constituting a deliberate attempt on the part of stupid parents to curtail other people's freedom, nevertheless does not fail to do so? How about the school and other dental services? Would the annual bill of hundreds of millions paid to meet the cost of the nation's widespread morbidity not be reduced if the dental services alone were less heavy? And is not every taxpayer's freedom therefore inadvertently impeded and curtailed by this one exercise of freedom by stupid parents? Who pays for the extraction every year of the 4 tons of teeth drawn from children's jaws? (See Times, 12.4.66). Similarly, we can point to the chiropody services of our hospitals. The freedom women enjoy to deform and damage their feet from the time of adolescence onwards by wearing monstrously unwise footwear, has given rise to a widespread demand for expert chiropodical treatment, which often becomes an urgent necessity long before middle age is reached. Bunions, hammer toes, ingrowing toe-nails, hallux rigidus and hallux valgus, are all afflictions that begin to appear soon after adolescence. Even ten years ago, at a time when stiletto shoes had not yet been introduced, it was found that in a factory employing 358 workers, 30 per cent of the women (still quite young) had some kind of foot trouble; the principal cause
Then we have the motor-car addiction, with the temptation it offers to neglect bodily exercise whilst in no way limiting food intake. To behold the stream of owner drivers taking to the highway on Sunday mornings with their families or friends, and adjusting their speed to the appetite they expect it to engender for the substantial meals awaiting them at midday, is at once to understand, or at least to be able to account for, the enormous demand for medical services to treat the widespread digestive disturbances, insomnia, and heart troubles, ultimately induced by the twofold error consisting of inadequate healthy activity and over-eating. No purpose can be served by adducing further examples of the indirect and inadvertent form, under a Democracy, of "impeding" other people's efforts to be free. The reader will be able to think of countless imbecilities on the part of the multitude to-day, which effectually limit his own enjoyment of freedom, the most scandalous of which is, of course, the Parliamentary vote itself, whereby any majority in the land may tyrannise over their neighbours and extort contributions from them, all of which amount to gross violations of their liberty. Thus we have seen that two of the most cherished principles of Liberalism have no foundation whatsoever: 1. There is no truth in Bentham's belief that people are the best judges of what serves their own interest. On the contrary, as a general rule, people form habits and pursue courses which ultimately prove to nave been utterly opposed to their own advantage. 2. There are no possible means whatsoever, under a Democracy, of safeguarding individual freedom from those impediments to, and violation of it which inevitably and frequently occur, without those who are responsible for them having made the slightest deliberate or conscious attempt to obstruct or limit their neighbour's free choice of action, or free command of their resources. Consequently the Freedom alleged to be the reward of Liberalism turns out to be largely mythical, and Mill's pro-
Nor, in a liberal society, is the unintentional violation by one person of another person's liberty, the only form which this kind of violation can take. For there is, and cannot help being, much involuntary self-injury perpetrated in this manner. Where ignorant majorities, ill-equipped and unable to take a long-term view of the policies and legislative measures to which they give their sanction at General Elections, are called upon to approve or disapprove of political programmes submitted to them by demagogic Parliamentary candidates, they may by their vote easily do themselves and their posterity grievous injury without in the least having wished to do so. Indeed, they may and often do thus bring harm on themselves whilst desiring and intending to do the very reverse, and the occurrence of such involuntary self-damage seems to be inevitable in any system of government organised on democratic lines. As an old Victorian, I have seen in the paltry space of only 8 decades what was once a people of considerable and impressive merit, a nation composed of an independent, thrifty and self-respecting race which courageously discharged its own obligations, insisted on standing on its own feet, and refused to owe charity to any man, so that the poorest were ashamed to solicit parish aid and refrained from doing so for as long as possible — I have seen, I say, this race transformed almost overnight into a populace expert in shifting its every legitimate burden and responsibility on the backs of its neighbours; in battening on legally enforced State charities, and in accepting subsidies even for performing the primitive function of procreation, and the irresponsible act of fornication. The havoc wrought in the character of this once proud people in the last three generations has now become apparent in every department of their lives. Self-respect, self-help and independence are dead. Over-indulgence of every kind, if possible at other people's expense, is the order of the day, and begins in infancy. The whole population aims chiefly at obtaining something for nothing. Vulgar ostentation is everywhere rife; for money easily come by is readily squandered. Because discipline is now regarded as not quite "English"
Blackmail, levied under threats of intolerable public inconvenience and privation, is the accepted method of increasing the weekly pay packet and reducing the hours of labour. And the effrontery with which doles of all kinds, including those for compensating uncontrolled individual lust, are pocketed by people of both sexes arouses no indignation. It is as if the original fibre of the nation's character sedulously built up by the more civilised conditions of the past, had rotted and perished. And how have these deplorable changes come about? — Need we ask? — Certainly not through any deliberate fault on the part of the masses. And he who can blame them for the deterioration that has taken place in their character misunderstands the functions of government and the responsibility resting on the shoulders of those who undertake the political leadership of their fellows. Can anyone be so simple as to suppose that national majorities composed of ordinary people, deprived of the example that should be given them by a Tone-Setting élite of their own flesh and blood, can perform the immensely difficult task of self determination without the risk of self-injury (self-deterioration), especially when they embark on the undertaking under the influence of emotions and desires whipped up by rival demagogues? Would the common people be human if they avoided such self-injury by resisting the lures, cajolements and seductive promises of these political representatives? As Salvador de Madariaga, speaking of demagogy alone, so well says: It tends "to involve prejudice, passions and emotions which deform the highly complex problems of the nation's collective life" and to "indulge in electoral outbidding which does not hesitate to sacrifice the good of the country and even the long-term interests of the electors, to their own immediate and apparent interests." (Democracy versus Liberty, 1958, Chap. XI, 7). It is this aspect of the Liberal ideology which reveals its essential inhumanity and uncharitableness. For it is manifestly un-
Yet it is precisely this inhuman, unfair and uncharitable feature of Democracy — its lack of solicitude for the character and ultimate welfare of the mob-majorities to whom it grants the right to determine the measures and policies on which their destiny depends — that Liberal philosophers, historians and politicians consistently overlook. They would be the first to raise an outcry if they saw children allowed to wander unattended through a menagerie, or on a canal bank, or in a busy city thoroughfare. But they see no analogy between this and forsaking an ill-informed and politically illiterate populace to the mercy of their own judgment. Only very exceptionally in the voluminous literature devoted to the propagation of the Liberal Faith can any reference be found to its fundamental inhumanity. Strange as it may seem, it was left to a popular thinker like Rousseau to explain to his eighteenth-century contemporaries the inevitability of this inhumane consequence of democracy and the Liberal ideology in general. For, as he pointed out, "De lui-même le peuple veut toujours le bien, mais de lui-même il ne le voit pas toujours. La volonté générale est toujours droite, mais le jugement qui la guide n'est pas toujours eclairé." (Le Contrat Social, Livre II, Ch. 6: "The people themselves always desire what is good; but left to themselves they cannot always see it. Their general will is always sound; but the judgment guiding it is not always enlightened.") Despite the moderation and cautious understatement of these words, they are an excellent example of Rousseau's honesty and his readiness to admit a truth damaging to his general philosophy. |
Home |
Texts |
Next Chapter |
|---|