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Typos — p. 166: Virgina [= Virginia]; p. 167: Marchmont [= Marchamont] - p. 166 - XXVII Psychological Myopia One by one I have examined the many sophistries on which Liberal ideology is founded. Including its total rejection of the aristocratic solution of government, I have attempted to show how shallow and unrealistic it is. I hope that I have also succeeded in revealing its fundamentally pessimistic and negative attitude. What is the explanation of its stubborn insistence on error; its addiction to forming wholly false assumptions regarding the passions, sentiments and motivations of ordinary human beings; its reliance on these fantastic assumptions for the very functioning of its institutions? How is it that, from its earliest beginnings in the Middle Ages, Liberalism has been stamped with this trumpery intellectualism? What can account for the fact that even in its foreign and least Anglo-Saxon champions — in men like Rousseau, Pecqueur, Beaumarchais, Condorcet, Voltaire etc.' — these same irrational features are equally conspicuous?         There are three possible and major explanations:         First and foremost, there is the hopelessly defective psychological flair which is one of the least engaging of Anglo-Saxon characteristics and has led to untold suffering and conflict in both the political and domestic life of England. The tendency to ascribe to ordinary mortals attributes, impulses, virtues and motivations which only a writer of fairy tales could foist upon them, seems to be endemic in England; and its prevalence could be illustrated by innumerable examples drawn not only from political treatises, but also, and with far more damaging consequences, from English poetry and fiction. We have but to think of such instances as Wordsworth's misleading exaltation of children. Thomas Otway's extravagant and unrealistic tribute to Women, and Virgina Woolf's false view of the sexes in her silly novel Orlando. Whilst in books supposed to be more serious we have the preposterous glorification, to the - p. 167 - point or caricature, of the common man, his virtues, impulses and intelligence, by men like Locke, Bentham, Godwin and Marchmont Needham; and those ridiculous panegyrics of women in John Stuart Mill's Subjection of Women and Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. In Continental literature there is no parallel to this sort of psychological blundering.         "To believe in democracy," said F. M. Cornford, "you must believe in the essential goodness of common humanity" (The Unwritten Philosophy, Chap. IV). English thinkers have never found it difficult to accept both of these beliefs. This matters not at all provided they are recognised as fanciful. But when, as too often happens, they are taken seriously and applied to politics, the consequences are disastrous. Strangely enough, although we find among English publicists and philosophers abundant evidence of this weakness for romancing in discussing the character of common men and women, when it comes to acknowledging the fact of superiority in certain individual human beings, especially that form of superiority which can command respect, loyalty and obedience, they display a settled pessimism which insists on negating its very possibility — at least in the government of mankind. And they much prefer to accept the view that Aristocracy has failed because of the intrinsic shortcomings of the institution itself, than because of the natural iniquity of Man, which, when proper safeguards are lacking, can be guaranteed to make havoc of any institution whatsoever.         The reader may feel that the acceptance by such Frenchmen as I have enumerated, of the Anglo-Saxon fancies which make democracy seem a plausible governmental system, rather conflicts with an implicit charge of psychological myopia against Anglo-Saxons in particular.         Truth to tell, however, this anomaly is only apparent; for, apart from the many inconsistencies to be found in the French Liberal philosophers — Rousseau's advocacy of Aristocracy for instance — we must remember that what so deeply impressed the French, even a man as shrewd as Voltaire, and inclined them blindly to accept England's political institutions, the excellence of which incidentally, as Montesquieu himself admits (L'Esprit des Lois, Livre XI, Chap. VI), was taken for granted rather than subjected to any careful scrutiny, was not so much the condition of England at the time of their visit, but Eng- - p. 168 - land's immense success as a trading and commercial nation; her fabulous wealth, and the bottomless till from which she drew the subsidies she needed for her various allies in her struggle for ascendancy. Dazzled by these brilliant material achievements, which the European world with its vulgar Roman traditions found it difficult to resist, it is perhaps not surprising that many French thinkers, with their psychological flair momentarily numbed, assumed that where such phenomenal material success was to be found, political wisdom and sound political principles must of course accompany it.         Secondly, when over long periods the abuses of existing rulers tend to alienate even alert thinkers from the régime prevailing in their own day, there is always a tendency to swing over to hitherto untried, and superficially plausible innovations, if only as a release from past oppression. As Dr. David Thomson aptly remarks: "Popular vision of the desirably democratic society is usually based upon experience of alternative and less desirable forms of government." (The Democratic Ideal in France and England, Chap. I, ii). When moreover we remember that the more oppressive the existing régime may be, the less narrowly novel political alternatives are likely to be examined, it cannot surprise us that, throughout Europe, Democracy found its strongest support in aristocratic misrule. Liberalism thus understood, not as a spontaneous product of serious political reflection and wisdom, but as a more or less automatic reaction, loses much of its respectability as an ideology. For although we may allow for the compelling force of misery and oppression, the acceptance of the tenets of Liberalism even as an automatic reaction, demands a considerable amount of intellectual goodwill and complacency.         Thirdly, we have to reckon with common mankind's habit of always confusing the shortcomings of those running an institution with the faults of the institution itself. Instead of tracing the vices and grievous consequences of the aristocratic system of government to the crimes of the aristocrats themselves, even the most cultivated of the political reformers have generally tended to claim that they were specific to aristocratic institutions per se: whilst the Liberals, not only accepted this point of view unhesitatingly, but also placed to the score of Liberal virtues every defect recorded of aristocratic rule. When we add to this catalogue of errors, the fact that - p. 169 - both the reforming political philosophers, their Liberal converts and even the degenerate aristocrats as a body failed to appreciate that one of the most essential of governmental functions is the Setting of a decent Tone in a community, providing the pattern and model of a good and dignified Way of Life which the masses, high and low, can emulate; and that for reasons already adduced only an Aristocracy can perform this function, it cannot surprise us that Liberalism appeared to be the only political ideology that could meet the requirements of modern Europe.         It is true that the gross errors of judgment and insight on which this conclusion rested, can hardly be attributed to men as shrewd as your Laskis, Lenins, Trotskys and Stalins. But these men had other axes to grind, which made it both prudent and tactically advisable to pretend what less enlightened adversaries of Aristocracy genuinely believed. We may, however, safely ascribe the obtuseness necessary for this misunderstanding to men like Paine, Godwin, and the majority of English Liberals, Socialists and Labour politicians, together with most of the French revolutionaries of the late eighteenth century.         It was this error in political reasoning that I hoped to expose in this short treatise, and the fact that well-known believers in Democracy — men like Sir Fred Clarke, Dr. F. C. Happold, T. S. Eliot, Middleton Murry, and Professors Alfred Weber, Wilhelm Röpke and Karl Mannheim have recently declared themselves advocates of a revival of aristocracy, is the best testimony I can offer in support of my thesis. (For the documentation relating to this testimony, see my Quest of Human Quality, Chap. III.)         It is true that this group of political thinkers clothe their demand for a revival of Aristocracy in language least likely to offend modern sensibilities. They speak, for instance, only of "élites", and of the urgent need of producing and rearing new generations of such beings. But their meaning and intention are plain enough, and he who can read between the lines of their cautiously worded appeals, easily infers that they are really recommending a Revival of Aristocracy.

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