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Title: Principles Author: Dora Marsden Date: 1915 Language: en Topics: cant, democracy, egoism, morality, principles, The Egoist Source: Retrieved on 09/26/2021 from https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr521372/ Notes: Originally published in The Egoist Volume II Number 8 (August 2, 1915). Title is unofficial and derived from the text.
By now, in these hard times, the Government might have been expected to
be thoroughly alive to the difference between what some elegant person
has described as "Blowing your nose and blowing it off," but they still
appear to think that they can go to any lengths along the path of
obliging their friends. It turns out that the coal strike was allowed to
come about just to oblige an old fossil which some member of the
Government keeps warm in his pocket. This person's job is theorizing on
the subject of "Abstract Right," and the coal strike being the apt
illustration he was in need of at the moment it was of course
engineered. And the world is at war! There is, of course, nothing left
for the unprivileged public to do, but deplore as usual the subversion
of Public Interest to Private Ends and pick up any profitable
intelligence there may be among the spoil. And if the coal strike be not
due to the fact that this old gentleman required the suspension of the
resources of a coalfield in war-time in order to "boil an egg for
himself," what other adequate reason is there for permitting such a
catastrophe with such a "moral" to occur at such a time. We can think of
none. The "moral" of this strike for recalcitrant labour appears to be
that they should henceforth cease disparaging their opponents' methods
and morals for the plainly demonstrated reason that though these beat no
"noble" sound they are by far the better ones for winning. From the fact
that the miners have won in this strike the workers should be able to
cast aside their brand of "Ethics": the essential feature of their
position as "the workers." If they have the intelligence to grasp the
importance of this fact, the period of war between Classes and Masses is
now at an end, and the war between parties very nearly approaching
Equals, will have begun.
---
I see a correspondent objects to the word "should" in The Egoist,
because it is redolent of coercion I suppose. It would be nearer the
mark to consider it redolent rather of Purpose, and an Egoist—yea even
an Anarchist—must have a Purpose or two, so it "should" be in its place.
Having a Purpose merely means that you aim at arriving at a destination
by way of one route or other. What "should" implies is that, having
fixed the destination and the route towards it, you should occasionally
remember that you actually are aiming at some spot in particular, and
that arrival there necessitates a certain sense of direction. We cannot,
for instance, arrive and yet sit by the roadside permanently.
Accomplishment in its very nature is coercion. One has to coerce oneself
and many other people and things in order to carry out quite a small
undertaking, and that necessitates one's saying "should" quite a number
of times. The importance of any change in the brand of the "Ethics" for
the Masses has all to do with this word "should." "Should," as we have
implied, has the function of a signpost: it is important as indicating
the direction one should take relative to our desired destination. The
"ethical" position of the Masses is in this bewildering state: while
they aim at arriving at Power for themselves, the persons responsible
for the setting up and the marking of the signposts desire them to
arrive at a destination in a quite opposite direction: at Absence of
Power. And they hopefully trust to the signposts and expect to arrive.
It is true that they see all the powerful moving past them in the
opposite direction despite the signposts, but even this strong "tip"
appears to tell them nothing: their faith is fixed in it and they loudly
scold all such as are making strides in a contrary way. Hence the
importance of "should," and the importance of testing whether these
all-valuable indicators are set in accordance with their Purposes and
not those of others. Whichever end one wishes to take there exists the
corresponding "should": tyranny everywhere it seems.
---
"Democracy and Conscription" are twin tyrants, one is informed. But then
there are so many tyrants: as many as there are sparks of life it seems:
all established in proportion to their strength and unobtrusively in
proportion to their subtlety! Why, out of such a myriad of tyrants,
these two—one a mere way of speaking and the other a course of physical
training should be placed together as the tyrant-twins is not apparent.
Democracy, as has been reiterated here so often, is a method of sparing
the pride of the tyrannized by dint of politeness: a convention
misleading only to the unintelligent. And to save the unintelligent from
their unintelligence is not within the power even of tyrants.
Conscription is a different affair. Coupling Conscription with Democracy
is like comparing learning to earn a livelihood with knowing how to
raise your hat to a lady. It is difficult to understand why people who
are not the mouthpieces of some fixed "Principle" like that of
maintaining the "wrongness of coercion" can maintain an objection to
National Training. It is based on the understanding that it is best for
the Interests of a group—the instruments of aggression being what they
are—that each of its members should be as capable as may be of effectual
self-defence. It is surely against no one's interest to be as efficient
in self-defence as possible. The powers of self-defence are always
useful: for aggression as well as defence: at home as well as further
afield. Men who cannot fight with a fair chance of competing with the
rest of their fellows are—even though they possess true hearts of
gold—rabble. They fall back like a pack of sheep before a mere handful.
One thinks of the spectacle of Ben Tillett and his Ten Thousand on Tower
Hill in the Dock Strike. That spectacle revealed more than a whole
century of talk. Unarmed, untrained, undisciplined, men—though they can
call upon the heavens to witness their Righteousness and to encompass
the destruction of their enemies—are "shoved and shoo'd" from their
ground—by a few policemen. It is worth while reminding the inheritors of
the "spiritual" Principles of Democracy that these same "Principles"
(Politeness or Hoax, just as one pleases to regard them) were largely
the outcome of the temper of the soldiery which emerged from the last
great European War. It was the experience and training of the returned
soldiers which put stamina into the Reformist movement and which put a
corresponding fear into the hearts of the "Arch-Tyrants" as then
Established. If the movement ultimately went awry and broke its temper
struggling for nearly a century through a bog of words, this does not
dim the fact that it sprang from firm substantial quality. And rebellion
apart, the stout truth stands that tyrants can tyrannize only "so far"
among comparative equals, and they are alert enough to know when a
situation makes caution a necessary virtue. The recognition moreover
that "Peace and a quiet life" necessitate violent and acrid forms of
guaranteeing, in no way reflects on the former's attractiveness. It
merely recognizes that it is the power to retaliate with adequate
violence which virtualizes any claim to enjoy and possess "Peace" even
as also "Rights," "Property," "Free Conscience," "Anarchist Opinions,"
and the rest.
---
There are so many of these "blessed words" about, so many "spiritual
principles." It would purge the world of much unintentional Cant if the
word "spiritual" could be once and for all attached to its accurate
meaning: that of "verbal." This would make it more possible to give a
sensible meaning to "Principle" as that of "Customary mode of
behaviour"; and so effect a clearance invaluable in a community
disease-ravaged by Principles which are allowed to bolt madly like wild
horses harnessed to all kinds of valued Purposes, because the
"creations," being "Principles," are Sacred. It would also set free the
word "Spirit" for use in the important sense of Vital and therefore
Purposive Energy. Associated with purpose, Spirit would accurately
connect itself with the embodiments of Purpose: which embodiments would
cease to be underrated as valuable evidence of the working and intention
of a powerful spirit, just because they failed to fit into the verbal
conventions current at the time. War would be realized for what it is—a
colossal struggle of brains. It would become impossible to conceive of
the sort of governing intelligence which condescendingly allows that,
after all, brains are not altogether negligible, and which, just as it
has arrived at this interesting discovery, proceeds to appoint as
Minister of Education—yea Education—we will refrain from naming him. The
act proves this country an invincibly moral nation. It gets into the way
of doing things after "a certain fashion, and kill or cure, it insists
on continuing thus to do them. It has despised education: and it does
despise it and it will continue so to do, for ever, Amen. That is the
spirit of Morality: a true adherence to "Principles."
D . M .