|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 21
To adduce prohibition as an illustration of this same character in the
thought and the tendencies of our immediate time may seem like forcing the
point. It is true, it may be said, that there has been within the past few
years a rapid spread of prohibition in almost every part of the country;
but the thing itself is sixty years old, has had its periods of advance
and recession, and is now, in the fullness of time, reaping the fruits of
two generations of agitation, investigation, and education. But to say
this is to overlook the distinctive feature of the present situation
regarding prohibition in the United States. A Constitutional amendment
providing for the complete prohibition of the sale of liquor throughout
the Union is pending in Congress. A year ago--probably six months
ago--there was hardly a human being in the United States, other than those
in the councils of the Anti-saloon League, who had so much as thought of
national prohibition as a question of present-day practical politics.
Suddenly it is announced that there is a distinct possibility of a
prohibition amendment being passed by Congress in the near future; and one
of the foremost representatives of the Anti-saloon League states, and with
good show of reason, that if the amendment be passed by Congress, its
ratification by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States can be
only a matter of time. What the probabilities actually are, I do not
undertake to say; neither am I concerned at this moment with the merits of
the issue itself. What I _am_ concerned with is the simple fact that in
this situation, brought upon the country with dramatic suddenness, nobody
seems to have been in the least startled, or so much as disturbed in his
equanimity. There will of course be a great struggle over the question,
sooner or later. But neither in Congress nor in the press has there as yet
been any sign of such an assertion of the claims of personal liberty as,
at any time previous to the past ten years, would have been sure to be
made in such a situation. This collective silence, on an issue affecting
so intimately the lives, the habits, the traditions of millions of people,
is, in my judgment, by far the most impressive proof of the degree in
which the public mind has grown accustomed to the inroads of regulation
upon the domain of individuality.
* * * * *
A number of years ago, when the mathematical concept of space of more than
three dimensions was attracting great popular interest, an ingenious
writer undertook to make the idea intelligible to "the general" by
picturing the state of mind in regard to three dimensions of a race of
beings whose life and whose sensual experience was limited to space of two
dimensions. He gave his little book the title "Flatland," and it gained
wide attention. In his Commencement address at Columbia last year,
President Butler had the happy thought of applying the term in the
characterization of certain aspects of the intellectual and political life
of our time. He was speaking particularly of that absorption in the
immediate problems of the day which makes almost impossible a true study
and contemplation of the lasting concerns of mankind as embodied in
history and literature. "Every ruling tendency," he said, "is to make life
a Flatland, an affair of two dimensions, with no depth, no background, no
permanent root." That this is a literal truth probably neither Dr. Butler
nor anyone else would contend; but it hits off with great force and with
substantial accuracy the prevailing character of thought in the circles
most active and most influential in almost every department of human
activity at the present time. And the tendency which President Butler
describes as arising out of our absorption in current problems is still
more manifest in the spirit of our actual dealings with those problems
themselves. On every hand we find a surprising readiness to accept views
which explicitly tend to take out of life that which gives it depth and
significance and richness. Each one of the four movements we have
mentioned affords an illustration of this: in following any one of them we
travel straight toward Flatland. They differ very much, one from another;
they have very different degrees and kinds of justification; it may be
difficult in the case of some of them to strike a balance between the gain
and the loss. The remarkable thing--the ominous thing, if we are to
suppose that the present tone of thought will long persist--is that the
loss involved in the flattening of life, as such, apparently almost wholly
fails to get consideration. I say apparently, because there is, no doubt,
a deep and strong undercurrent of opposition which, sooner or later, will
manifest itself; in speaking of "ruling tendencies" we are apt to mean
merely the tendencies that are most in evidence. But after all, it is to
these that criticism of contemporary life and thought must, of necessity,
be chiefly directed.
As I have already indicated, the attack on individuality and personal
dignity in the universities was met in a spirit that is highly gratifying,
and which is quite out of keeping with the tendency that I am discussing
and deploring. Yet it is doubtful whether, outside the circle of the
universities themselves, and of those individuals who are thoroughly
imbued with the university spirit, there is any true realization of what
it is that constituted the head and front of that offending. If some
bureau of research were to present a formidable array of figures showing
that the "output" of professorial work could be increased by so and so
many per cent. through the adoption of some definitely formulated system
of "scientific management," it is by no means certain that the scheme
would not receive powerful support in the highest quarters of efficiency
propaganda. We should be told just how many millions of dollars a year we
are spending on university education, and just how many of these millions
go needlessly to waste. Even the opponents of the "reform" would probably
find themselves compelled to use as their most powerful argument this and
that example of great practical results which have flowed from letting men
of genius go their own way. It would be pointed out that many an
investigation which, to the authorities of the time, appeared wholly
unpromising, turned out to be of cardinal value. We should be warned that
what we gain in a thousand cases through time-clock and card-catalogue
methods, might be lost ten times over through the shackling of the
initiative of a single man of unrecognized genius. And all this would be
very much to the purpose; but it is not upon any such special pleading
that the case ought to be made to rest. The loss that would be suffered
transcends all these concrete and definable instances of it. It would be
pervasive, fundamental, immeasurable. Grievous as might be the injury
caused by the prevention of specific achievements of exceptional
importance, this would be as nothing in comparison with the intellectual
and spiritual loss entailed by the lowering of the human level, the
devitalizing of the intellectual atmosphere, which must inevitably follow
upon the application of factory methods to university life.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|