Steerpike
VIP Member
- Dec 17, 2007
- 1,847
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It is easy to see how the European tradition of individual liberty
and freedom have been forgotten, and why the pendulum is swinging in
the wrong direction today. The reasons are two: first, the
consequences of the present economic movement toward collectivism, and
second, a heritage from the mechanistic outlook of the mid-Victorian
times. It seems that in the present age of rising collectivism of all
sorts--social, economic and political--mankind is naturally forgetting
and forfeiting its right to human recalcitrancy and losing sight of
the dignity of the individual. With the predominance of economic
problems and economic thinking, which is overshadowing all other forms
of human thinking, we remain completely ignorant of, and indifferent
to, a more humanized knowledge and a more humanized philosophy, a
philosophy that deals with the problems of individual life. This is
natural. As a man who has an ulcered stomach spends all his thought on
his stomach, so a society with a sick and aching economics is forever
occupied with thoughts of economics. Nevertheless, the result is that
we remain totally indifferent to the individual and have almost
forgotten that he exists. A man used to be a man for a' that. Today he
is generally conceived as an automaton blindly obeying material or
economic laws. We no longer think of a man as a man, but as a cog in a
wheel, a member of a union or class, an alien to be imported by
quotas, a petit bourgeois to be referred to with contempt, or a
capitalist to be denounced, or a worker to be regarded as a comrade
because he is a worker. It seems that to label a man as a petit
bourgeois a "capitalist" or a "worker" is already to understand him
completely, and he can be conveniently hated or hailed as a comrade
accordingly. We are no longer individuals, no longer men, but only
classes. May I suggest that this is an over-simplification of things?
The scamp has completely disappeared as an ideal, and so has the man
with his gloriously scamp-like qualities of reacting freely and
incalculably to his external surroundings. Instead of men, we have
members of a class; instead of ideas and personal prejudices and
idiosyncracies, we have ideologies, or class thoughts; instead of
personalities, we have blind forces; and instead of individuals we
have a Marxian dialectic controlling and foreshadowing all human
activities with unfailing precision. We are all progressing happily
and enthusiastically toward the model of the ants.
Some may recognize it. I'll post the source later if no one else does before then