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Page 56
For most people "thinking" is just the discovery of convenient phrases
or labels, such as "pessimist," or "socialist," or "pacifist" or
"Bolshevik." When any puzzling mental attitude comes before their
notice, they pin one of their labels to it, and, having labelled it,
they think they understand it. The Press supplies them with these
labels, and, consciously or unconsciously, they store them up in their
minds and always have a few ready for immediate use.
So familiar and commonplace were the phrases which my opponent selected
from his store in order to reply to my every utterance, that I could
almost tell what he was going to say before he said it. Moreover, the
fact that he had travelled abroad and had associated with foreigners,
instead of widening his view had only narrowed it. Had he never
travelled he might have been sufficiently modest to admit that he knew
nothing of foreign countries and he might have suspended judgment about
them; but the mere fact that he had travelled filled him with a deep
conviction that he knew all about the places he had visited, and this
conviction, enunciated with pompous emphasis, supplanted the real
knowledge and understanding derived from honest observation. Like so
many people who do not possess the faculty of experiencing, he
continually appealed to his own experience and continually referred to
his maturer years, as though old age of itself brought wisdom.
As for the war itself he took no deep interest in it, although he
glanced at the war news every day. But to understand it, to analyse its
causes, to grasp its significance, to realize its true nature, that he
never attempted to do. His labels and his alleged experiences and his
years were sufficient to cope with the entire question and answer it
satisfactorily for himself. I almost envied him for his
self-sufficiency. He would never suffer acutely from any mental strife
or agitation due to any but immediate and personal causes. Perhaps such
a stable mentality that can without effort reject all inconvenient data
is the most desirable of all and the most conducive to happiness.
Certain it is that the stability of society and the very existence of
civilization itself depend upon the preponderance of that particular
type.
I knew that the argument was hopeless. Indeed, it was no argument. It
was no exchange of ideas. It was no mutual attempt at discovering truths
by an impartial comparison of two different attitudes.
At times there were signs of heat on both sides. My opponent spoke of
"our democratic army" (familiar phrase!) and the overbearing manner in
which he connected this dictum with a number of false, irrelevant or
arbitrary generalizations made me feel a momentary pang of anger and I
wished he could experience a term of military service. Nevertheless,
there was no actual display of bad temper or emotion and we parted with
all the habitual formulae imposed by social decorum.
I knew I had come into contact with the truly representative man. His
opinion and the opinions of those like him, they all made up popular
opinion. All other opinion was abnormal and negligible. It was with
despair that I realized the hopelessness of my own position and that of
my friends.
The public did not understand the war and did not want to understand it.
It was far away from them and they did not realize the amount of
suffering caused by it. It also brought wealth to many who would
therefore have regretted its sudden termination. This seems a hard thing
to say, but nevertheless it is true. The so-called "working-classes" had
developed an appetite for wealth and power that nothing could satisfy.
This appetite was being fed continually, but the more it devoured the
more voracious it became. Nor did the shameless profiteering of the
wealthy tend to allay it in any way. Protests against the war never went
beyond the passing of mere resolutions. Those who had sufficient
humanity and imagination to hate the war in its entirety and to suffer
from it, although not necessarily taking any part in it, were too few
and too scattered and isolated to take any effective action.
The extent to which a man can suffer is the precise measure of his
merit, and thus it was that our patriots and war-enthusiasts being
incapable, by reason of their grossness and vulgarity, of suffering in a
spiritual sense, were immune from the misery caused by the war and yet
it was they above all others upon whose support the continuance of the
war depended.
This was the terrible fatality. The more a man suffered from the war the
smaller was his control over it.
Everywhere, those who deserved to suffer did not suffer and those who
did not deserve to suffer suffered. And that was why the war went on.
Most people were so indifferent that it was impossible to talk to them
without anger. I could think of nothing else but the war. I could not
escape from its invisible presence. The streets and houses seemed the
immaterial creations of some dream, and somewhere behind them the
slaughter was going on, and amid the noise of the traffic the throbbing
of the bombardment was plainly audible.
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