Philosophy and the Social Problem

by Will Durant

This direction of attention to what is best and greatest in the work of our age is a matter of deeper moment than superficial thought can grasp. If, by some such method, the meaning of “success” could be freed from monetary implication and attached rather to excellence in art and science, the change would have almost inestimably far-reaching results. Men worship money, as has often been pointed out,[306] not for its own sake, nor for the material good it brings, but for the prestige of success that goes with its “conspicuous consumption”; let the artist find more appreciation for his ability than the captain of industry finds for his, and there will be a great release of energy from economic exploitation to creative work in science, literature, and art. A large part of the stimuli that prompt men to exploit their fellows will be gone; and that richest of all incentives—social esteem—will go to produce men eager to contribute to the general power and happiness of the community.[307]

The art impulse, as is generally believed, is a diversion of sex energy. An organism is essentially not a food-getting but a reproductive mechanism; the food-getting is a contributory incident in the reproduction. As development proceeds the period of pregnancy and adolescence increases, more of the offspring survive to maturity, large broods, litters, or families become unnecessary, and more and more of the energy that was sexual slides over into originally secondary pursuits, like play and art. At the same time there is a gradual diminution in pugnacity (which was another factor in the drama of reproduction), and rivalry in games and arts encroaches more and more on the emotional field once monopolized by strife for mates and food. The game—a sort of Hegelian synthesis of hostility and sociability—takes more and more the place of war, and artistic creation increasingly replaces reproduction.

If all this is anything more than theoretic skating over thin sheets of fact, it means that one “way out” from our social perplexities lies in the provision of stronger stimulus to creation and recreation, art and games. It is a serious part of the social planner’s work to find some way of nourishing the art impulse wherever it appears, and drawing it on by arranging rewards for its productions. And again we shall have to understand that play is an important matter in a nation’s life; that one of the best signs for the future of America is the prevalence of healthy athleticism; and that an attempt to widen these sport activities to greater intersectional and international scope than they have yet attained will get at some of the roots of international pugnacity. A wise government would be almost as interested in the people’s games as in their schools, and would spend millions in making rivalry absorb the dangerous energy of pugnacity. Olympic games should not be Olympic games, occurring only with Olympiads; not a month should pass but great athletes, selected by eliminative tests from every part of every country, should meet, now here, now there, to match brawn and wits in the friendly enmity of games. Let men know one another through games, and they will not for slight reasons pass from sportsmanship to that competitive destruction and deceit which our political Barnums call “the defence of our national honor.”

V
Education

THIS diversion of the sexual instinct into art and games (a prophylactic which has long since been applied to individuals, and awaits application to groups) must begin in the early days of personal development; so that our Society for Social Research would, if it were to take on this task, find itself inextricably mixed up with the vast problem of educational method and aim.

Here more than anywhere one hears the call for enlightenment and sees the need for clarification. Here is an abundance of ’isms and a dearth of knowledge. Most teachers use methods which they themselves consider antiquated, and teach subjects which they will admit not one in a hundred of their pupils will ever need to know. Curious lessons in ethics are administered, which are seldom practised in the classroom, and make initiative children come to believe that commandment-breaking is heroic. Boys and girls bursting with vitality and the splendid exuberance of youth are cramped for hours into set positions, while by a sort of water-cure process knowledge is pumped into them from books duller than a doctor’s dissertation in philosophy. And so forth: the indictment against our schools has been drawn up a thousand times and in a thousand ways, and needs no reënforcement here. But though we have indicted we have not made any systematic attempt to find just what is wrong, and how, and where; and what may be done to remedy the evil. Experiments have been made, but their bearings and results have been very imperfectly recorded.

Suppose now that our Society for Social Research should appoint a great Committee on Education to hire expert investigators and make a thorough attempt to clarify the issues in education. Here the function of philosophy should be clear; for the educator touches at almost every point those problems of values, individual and social, which are the special hunting-ground of the philosopher. The importance of psychology here is recognized, but the importance of biology and pathology has not been seen in fit perspective. Why should not a special group of men be set aside for years, if necessary, to study the applicability of the several sciences to education? Why should not all scientific knowledge, so far as it touches human nature, be focused on the semi-darkness in which the educator works?

Two special problems in this field invite research. One concerns the effect, on national character and capacity, of a system of education controlled by the government. The point was made by Spinoza, as may be remembered, that a government will, if it controls the schools, aim to restrain rather than to develop the energies of men. Kant remarked the same difficulty. The function of education in the eyes of a dominant class is to make men able to do skilled work but unable to do original thinking (for all original thinking begins with destruction); the function of education in the eyes of a government is to teach men that eleventh commandment which God forgot to give to Moses: thou shalt love thy country right or wrong. All this, of course, requires some marvellous prestidigitation of the truth, as school text-books of national history show. The ignorant, it seems, are the necessary ballast in the ship of state.

The alternative to such schools seems to be a return to private education, with the rich man’s son getting even more of a start on the poor boy than he gets now. Is there a tertium quid here? Perhaps this is one point which a resolute effort to get the facts would clarify. What does such governmentally-regulated education do to the forces of personal difference and initiative? Will men and women educated in such a way produce their maximum in art and thought and industry? Or will they be automata, always waiting for a push? What different results would come if the nationally-owned schools were to confine their work absolutely to statements of fact, presentations of science, and were to leave “character-moulding” and lessons in ethics to private persons or institutions? Then at least each parent might corrupt his own child in his own pet way; and there might be a greater number of children who would not be corrupted at all.

Another problem which might be advanced towards a solution by a little light is that of giving higher education to those who want it but are too poor to pay. There are certain studies, called above the social disciplines, which help a man not so much to raise himself out of his class and become a snob, as to get a better understanding of himself and his fellow-men. Since mutual understanding is a hardly exaggerable social good, why should not a way be found to provide for all who wish it evening instruction in history, sociology, economics, psychology, biology, philosophy, and similar fields of knowledge? Every added citizen who has received instruction in these matters is a new asset to the community; he will vote with more intelligence, he will work better in coöperation, he will be less subject to undulations of social mania, he will be a hint to all office-seekers to put their usual nonsense on the shelf. Perhaps by this medium too our Society would spread its reports and widen its influence. Imagine a nation of people instructed in these sciences: with such a people civilization would begin.