Conscience & Fanaticism: An Essay on Moral Values

by George Henry Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers

Does any one suppose that if Mark Antony could have circulated his famous speech on the death of Cæsar in pamphlet form, or could have published his appeal in a leading daily, he would have chosen that method? Or if he had done so that he would have attained as striking a result as by the fire of his oratory? This brings us to a consideration of the difference between written propaganda and that which is spoken or acted and accompanied by emotional suggestion.

The mere written or printed proposition is assimilated by autosuggestion; its aim is to awaken what is already in the reader's mind, whether of fear or courage, love or hate, admiration or contempt, to make articulate what before was vague and undefined, to associate these qualities in the reader to certain objects or symbols, in this way gradually building up sentiments and ideals. But cosmic suggestion or psychic environment is a vital influence, capable of overcoming resistance and of kindling human passions and emotions. It is often asserted that the Press accurately voices public opinion; this, however, as all pressmen know, is not true. The Press to a certain extent approximates certain sections of public opinion, or more accurately adapts itself to it, but all it can truthfully be said to represent is the newspaper proprietors, and in a lesser degree the host of hired scribblers whom they employ. At the same time it would be foolish to minimize the enormous and ever-increasing power it wields—a power that increases pari passu with the growing power of the masses and corresponding decrease in responsibility and intelligence of their chosen rulers. The Press, no longer confining itself to its legitimate rôle of conveying news, tends more and more to present the appearance of organized concerns for the dissemination of lies and counter-lies, and the propagation of hate, envy and humbug, each organ shouting its particular claptrap and catchwords with the frenzied persistence of bucket-shop touts. Mr. Hilaire Belloc draws a subtle distinction between what he calls the "Capitalist Press," or those organs run for mere profit, and a "Free Press," or organs produced for the sole motive of influencing public opinion, i.e. for propaganda.[80] The former is vicious and untruthful, the latter is virtuous and bears witness to the truth. Having once consigned all the existing press organs to their respective categories as "Capitalist" or "Free" by this simple test of motive, the vice of the one and the virtue of the other are at once apparent: anything meriting the label "Capitalist" is naturally bad and depraved, while sufficient guarantee of the integrity and virtue of the "Free" Press may be found in the fact that Mr. Belloc himself writes for the "Free" Press, and testifies to the fact that it does not pay. While so arbitrary a distinction must necessarily appear captious and fanciful, and absurd when applied as a test of veracity, we may yet perhaps roughly distinguish between those organs which are designed primarily to sell at a maximum profit and those which are sold primarily to propagate a "cause," even at a loss. At the risk of appearing cynical, we might say that the chief difference between the two lies in the fact that the former is designed to pander to the foibles of its readers, and the latter is the expression of the fanaticism of its writers. As a matter of fact, such a hard and fast distinction can seldom be made between the two, since both motives are usually operative in the same enterprise, though in varying proportions. But surely it is absurd to claim for either an inherent predisposition to speak the truth. The failure of the "Free Press"—the carping rags that imagine themselves independent—would appear to lie in the very fact of their eagerness to convert. The natural resentment of the man who discerns an attempt to convert him was well expressed in a witty speech in the House of Commons during a debate on the relations between Press and Government. What had always attracted him most about Lord Northcliffe, said the Hon. Member for Stockport, was that he had never pretended to be a philanthropist. He was not one of those pestilent people who pretended to run newspapers in order that they might leave the world a little better than they found it.[81]

Tradition and the building up of sentiments and ideals, together with the symbols by which they are known and familiarized, are very largely, if not exclusively, the work of the written word. But Literature and the Press are themselves governed by their past history, and by traditions and conventions that have been gradually built up from a few fundamental ideas, however diversified they may eventually have become; and these ideas, in their turn, owe their origin to the passions and sentiments of the race as a whole. Even the work of genius has its roots in the ideas of the past. "Are we sure," asks a French author, "that the ideas which flow from great men of genius are exclusively their own work? No doubt they always spring from the wealth of individual souls, but the myriads of grains of dust which form the alluvion where those ideas have generated are surely formed by the soul of the nation?"[82]

We have seen that it is a fundamental principle that the strongest suggestion must prevail; mass tells against single individuals, overwhelming quantity against quality, when the strength of either is measured against the resistance to be overcome. Cosmic suggestion is conditioned by various circumstances which affect its influence. It is a commonplace to say that like attracts like; this fact is but another attribute of gregarious attraction and tends towards establishing the homogeneity of aggregations, and slightly modifies the attraction of mere numbers. It results in a diversity of centres of attraction; but these centres of attraction are apt to converge and coalesce if for any reason they are simultaneously affected by related or identical sentiments. Frequency and persistency, as is well known, also modify the force of mere numbers. The loudest and most frequently repeated affirmations carry the most weight. In this way small bands of fanatics, by dint of reiteration, have had their catchwords and shibboleths accepted unquestioningly.

So far from weakening the respect and awe with which mere symbols are regarded, their very obscurity and lack of meaning will ensure their position and inviolability. The vogue for mysticism in poetry, art, and religion reflects this love of symbolism. Men, from the very indolence of their minds, love to set up symbols and to worship them, without verifying the truths they are supposed to represent, for symbols are easily acquired and easily perceived, and dispense with the arduous necessity of probing reality and the mental discipline without which truth cannot be reached.

The power of words and symbols is entirely independent of their real meaning. As we have already shown, the most meaningless and the most obscure phrases are, as a rule, for that very reason the most potent. Such terms as liberty, equality, democracy, socialism, etc., whose meanings are so vague that whole libraries do not exhaust their possible interpretations, are solemnly uttered as though they were magic spells, at the very sound of which all problems disappear. Symbolism and mysticism form the fanatic's charter of licence. They revel in the dim obscurity which intensifies the false brightness of their symbols. They welcome the emotional domination of their minds that they may abandon themselves to passions and feelings, and by developing their subjective[83] powers, infect the masses with their madness. A true metaphysics, it is well to remember, is the very antithesis of mysticism, for it aims at the elimination of symbols; its method is to co-ordinate and synthesize, and by means of the systematization of materia to penetrate through and beyond, towards a realization of direction and of value; it tests the highest powers of the intellect.

Bergson defines metaphysics as the science which claims to dispense with symbols. A symbol, at best, can only stand for an aspect of the truth, a mere sign-post pointing somewhere in its direction. Symbols have no part in intuition, yet linguistic symbols are necessary for conveying thoughts and ideals to others. The generality of men, however, can only think in symbols, and can only be influenced by them; lies and illusions are propagated and perpetrated in the form of images, yet images perform necessary service in establishing goals of endeavour for securing co-ordination and moral direction. Symbololatry is a common trait of humanity, and few men analyse the symbols they worship; for this reason it is necessary that the ideals and symbols of "the good" should be forged by the few and the wise, not by the force of the greatest number, that is, they must come from above, not from below. Thus we see that in past history religion has performed a necessary function, and that in spite of the gross unreality of its symbols it constituted the only instrument of consolidation at the disposal of primitive man. Without this force, born of man's fear of the unknown, his ignorance and false appreciation of causality, together with a vague realization of his dependence on his fellows, the imposition of rough and arbitrary values, which first constituted moral conduct, would have been impossible. For this reason any advancement and progress in the direction of civilization would have been impossible without religion. The conservative spirit of religion is seen to have been the means of securing the consolidation and stability of society which was necessary for the well-being and strength of every community; without this it could not have survived. As long as men are dazzled by symbols and governed by emotions, and there is at present no sign of change in this respect, a strong hierarchy capable of evoking respect for its values alone can save a state from disintegration, anarchy and social decay; but only if that hierarchy is composed of the highest, noblest and most enlightened in the race can those values be the best possible, and can they continue to improve pari passu with advancing civilization. The alternative, the increasing despotism of the many, articulating through the voice of demagogues, resulting in the gradual extermination of the few and the highest, and in the imposition of values growing ever more false, points the way to decadence and barbarism. Evolution implies decline no less than advancement, and the "survival of the fittest" in the former case means the survival of the lowest and the most degraded.

A child's moral conduct, like primitive man's, is at first absolutely dependent upon his environment, but with the development of self-consciousness and with the growth of an ideal of self, his values and his conduct become progressively freer from his present environment, and in a greater degree determined by the direction of past habits and the force of early impressions.[84] "There is hardly anything," said Mill, "so absurd or so mischievous that it may not by the use of external sanctions and the force of early impressions be made to act on the human mind with all the authority of conscience."

The attainment of character through the development of an ideal of self and the systematization of habits and motives is a slow and gradual process, and only rarely is complete independence of judgment attained, which alone renders the highest form of moral conduct possible, when all conduct is determined by will with regard to the realization of ends.