Combed Out

by F. A. Voigt

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.