TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15th, 1914.
GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN.
By DORA MARSDEN.
IT seems almost heartless to make Christmas the excuse for a dissection of the nature of Goodwill. All of us, in the main, will be satisfied to allow that Christmas goodwill is comprehensively covered by tips to the dust-man and the butcher's boy, the giving of small oddments to all those from whom one is in danger of receiving such, or as acknowledgment of unrequited favours previously shown. However time is too far spent to allow compunction to have effect, or to allow the editor to interfere. So let goodwill again go under the microscope: the "good" section first.
There is really nothing very baffling in the signification of the "good" in spite of the fact that the Nature of Goodness has become wrapped round in mystery, and has been the subject of seemingly endless disputes. It is odd therefore that Nietzsche, a psychologist by genius but philologist by profession, should have been at pains to apply his philology only in relation to the word "good," while failing to apply it in the score and one cases where philological enquiry would have saved his philosophy from a quagmire of confusion and contradiction. For the word "good" and its equivalents belong to what may usefully be called a primary ejaculatory class of words as distinguished from a secondary class, which would come under the heading of inferential. The characteristic of the primary class, and that which makes it the simplest to designate, and which makes philological enquiry in regard to their genesis unnecessary, though interesting, is that the frame of mind of which they are the spontaneous expression, is always in close temporal connection with the words which express it. They carry their origins with them: the water can be drawn at the spring. It is quite otherwise with the inferential class of words which represent a species of verdict passed as the deferred results of a long claim of inferences and judgments. Compare, for instance, the two types as exemplified in "good" and "moral" respectively.
The ejaculation "good" as an involuntary comment on a labour or an event, offers a concrete tally, for the observant eye, in the state of feeling which has given rise to it and accompanies it. There is no need to seek the nature of the thing in the derivation of the word, because the thing itself is there to be examined and weighed up. Thus the actual form of the expression loses, under such circumstances, much of its importance. A slap on the leg or a triumphant whistle would express the thing—the condition of mind—just as well as, if more vulgarly than, the term "good" itself. All three, however, are at one in expressing the thing : they all mean "satisfactory," which is the meaning of "good" and its equivalents in their primary sense, for all times and for all peoples. It means "This thing has gone well : gone as I wished it : it is satisfactory : satisfactory to me: satisfactory from my point of view," a meaning which adapts itself to such universal uses as completely to set aside Nietzsche's plea that ''good" originated as a descriptive label of the "noble." "Good" originated in the condition of the mind of any individual of any rank, when that individual was pleased with a result —no matter how momentarily—or a turn of affairs —his or others—which suited his own personal desires.
It is quite a different affair with the word "moral," which is inferential and anything but ejaculatory. No truthful observer could conceive himself spontaneously ejaculating the comment "Moral."
* * * *
It is plain that the acceptance of the meaning of "good" as the "satisfactory," as regards a given end, has not been allowed to remain in sole possession of the verbal field. Had it been, the entire structure of Religion, Morals, Public Opinion, and Honour, would have been to seek, since these rest not on the "good" which is the "useful," but upon
something which is called "the Good"—a something pre-eminent among all other "goods," and whose satisfaction is claimed to take precedence before all others and even to these other's detriment. The origin of the "Supreme Good" must be regarded as a sequel to the trial of strength of individual powers to obtain individual satisfactions.
It was the genesis of this "Supreme Good" which Nietzsche confused with the mere "good" and for which he sought the clue in philology. Actually this clue must be sought in psychology proper. "The Good," as the "Supreme Good" comes simply to be called, means in a sentient world only one thing (and in a non-sentient world there can be no good at all, since there being no needs to satisfy, satisfaction of them is impossible, i.e., "good" is meaningless): that one sentient unit comes to appear in the eyes of the others as the supremely well satisfied: such a one as appears able to compel all things to go as he desires, and this in a degree possible to no other. In his power to enforce his own satisfactions he is without equal: his power is supreme, and his "good" which is his power's corollary is supreme to match. The possession of the "Supreme Good" simply means the possession of a Supreme Power: power being that which can effect the ends desired. The Most-Powerful having come to be recognised as "The Good," becomes naturally the "Authority": temporal and spiritual. The "Supreme Good" becomes the "God": God being He who has power to do as He pleases. Thus it is not so much that God is Good as that "The Good" is God: the essential character common in both being—Great Power.
It is the trick of conceptual speech which enables "The Good" to be depersonalised: that is, makes it appear to be detached from the individual on account of whose power it originally took its name. When it is personalised again it appears as the "God," under which form its original character, i.e., the satisfaction of the strongest, is sufficiently disguised.... How a power which was not "good" for me becomes a "God" for me: how by calling a great alien "good" the "Supreme Good," hocus-pocus succeeds in hoodwinking those whose "good" is ignored or over-ridden by this Supreme One, is interesting matter for psychology. The element which goes farthest to explain it is undoubtedly the impressiveness of the workings of a great power itself.
Evidence of the possession of great power calls forth the involuntary admiration of those who possess it from those who are merely witnesses of it, and among these witnesses there is born a recognition of their own inferiority at sight of it. Even if the spectacle of great power itself does not make this inferiority obvious, its natural effects in the normal course of things will. It is, therefore, exceedingly easy to make the feebler believe that the more powerful have not merely the power to rule them, but have something which they conceive to be very different—a right to. Accordingly, from being well able to satisfy themselves, the "Great" are enabled to persuade others that it is their "Duty" to keep them thus well satisfied: to concede that they not merely have to serve them, but that they ought to: that they should submit to a Duty as distinguished from and over-and-above Necessity. As far as the less powerful are concerned the recognising of this Duty leads to a substitution of "good conduct" of the primary sort by a species of "good conduct" of a secondary type: conduct which is assessed according as it satisfies not so much the actor as the adviser and admonisher: the Authority. Authority, that is the Powerful in their relation to the feebler, has now obtained the support of an Arm of Persuasion to back up the efforts of their original claim to command authoritatively—by weight of the Arm of Compulsion. Much now will render its account to Honour which otherwise would have had to square itself with the "mailed fist." Public Opinion—the instrument of Honour—is thus bound up with the acceptance of "The Good" : the assumption that interests exist which it is more imperative should be served than one's own.
* * * *
It is scarcely possible to dwell too long on this vastly successful trick worked by according to "The Good" an absolute significance. The acceptance of the latter leaves the simple completely at the mercy of Authority as far as words are concerned. As long as it fails to be recognised that the "good" is an ellipsis of which it is the most pertinent feature which is left unbespoken, so long will Reason be able to argue the "rightful" subversion of lesser men's "goods" to the requirements of the more powerful. Reason is merely a calculation: the nature of the calculation depending entirely on the content of the assumptions it is permitted to take as granted. As far as the case of "The Good" is concerned, the assumption is that the satisfaction of the powerful is a more important concern for the less powerful than their own. Let it be reiterated what "The Good" originally is: the satisfaction of the most powerful. Naturally the more absolute becomes the power the more absolutely does it become the "Good," resulting in fact directly in the "God." The arrogation of Godship by the great emperors of antiquity is quite in keeping with the logic of the situation: in spite of its strong effect on "common sense" risibility. The God and the "Good" are discreet variants of the one thing: power recognised as Authority, whose satisfactions it is "The People's" Duty to subserve. The Gods under the pseudonym of the Authorities forcibly compel the feebler whose imaginations have been seized and auditory sense has been confused. Under their other pseudonym of the "Good" they seduce the hearts of these "subjected" and take the heart out of rebellion. The age-long seduction of The People is Honour.
* * * *
Honour—Repute is the first defence of Rulers. It would be a pity to let a mistaken estimate of snobbery interfere with the accurate assessment of the weight of Society's opinion (Society with a capital S that is). Society is the concourse of satellites which shine round about a throne, and the throne is the earthly symbol of the God. The throne is the terrestrial fountain-head of "The Good"; of its smile are born Good Repute, Good Opinion and Honour, and of its frown, the Disreputable. Because these satisfy and fail to satisfy the Most Great. An exceedingly thin and superficial layer of "democratic" opinion experiments with the pretence that this is not so and inveighs against "snobbery." Democratic thinking is an affair too slender to grasp that Opinion is a veritable ocean of which what it conceives as Opinion is but a faint surface ripple. Of the existence of the almost unfathomable deeps of Opinion's waters, democratic thinking has been too frivolous a thing to be aware. And it is Society which has created the deeps of Opinion. It can so afford to be very indulgent regarding surface ripples, and can even join in democracy's soft impeachment of Snobbery. Society—those who move in the bright circle of a throne, and who are intimately concerned to retain its beneficent esteem, has created Opinion. It has provided the professional classes: the classes which, as their description implies, are responsible for the speaking forth of judgments on things. After having provided the directing forces of the Compulsory-Arm: the armed forces of the throne, in which actions speak even louder than words, it supplies the mouthpieces of the Persuasive-Arm: of the institutions which provide the word-pieces of civilisation and culture: The Law and the Church. These are the institutions whose intent is to preserve in their integrity the full claims of "The Good." That democratic word-twisting has tended to combat the influence of the Church by ousting the Gods in favour of Morals, in no way implies that any real inroad has been made upon the ancient standards of opinion created by the Church. Names have changed: the intention has remained, intact and undiscovered. To favour Morals rather than Religion is merely to have a penchant for an additional vowel: for the "Good" (the powerful) rather than "The God" (the powerful): a one Authority labelled twice, with equal intent in either case to addle the instinct for the "good" in its primary sense when still unpolluted by clever sophistication. Of both,
Honour and Dishonour are alike the instruments. Public Opinion, with its "well done" and its "ill-done," guards both: and the Ruling Classes are the founts of all these forms of opinion: honour, dishonour, and all the shades which fall between.
Such conduct as makes for Order and the Maintenance of Power they label as "good": such being "good" for them. For the subjected, the word-addled, it is "good" for "The Good": a Duty therefore. The Persuasive-Arm has done its work: with superlative skill, craft and guile the professional classes have done the business and sunk the well of Opinion very deep: so deep that they have deluded "The People," not excluding themselves, as to its sources and resources.
The enormously wide growth of modern democracy is, in fact, the most flattering testimony which could unconsciously be paid to the egoistic ability of these professional classes. It exhibits such an unsuspicious eagerness on the part of the deluded. They even resent any hint that they may be trusting too much to the high polish induced upon Society's boss-words. They would prefer to remove every trace which could suggest aught other than that such were brought down by an Archangel on a flaming plate from Heaven !
* * * *
The fascination which the big spectacle exercises over us all to the point that we acquiesce in calling the very great power of someone else the "highest good" of ourselves has proved a fatal seduction for philosophers themselves. Even those philosophers who had the instinct to assess the "good" as simply the useful have been content to ignore the obvious ellipsis: the fact that the useful is equally with the good meaningless until it is attached, particularised, and so limited. Good for what? Useful for what? In order to be able to fill in the bill to the satisfaction of their taste for the "big," they have handed the "useful" itself over to the region of the Absolute, there to keep company with the similarly earth-banished "good." The "good" becomes the "useful" to the end that it furnishes "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," and these utilitarians are forthwith driven to create a new big God to square with the big new scheme, and conduct becomes "good," which serves this new "Big God" which they now call Humanity. Conduct is "good" which is "good" for Humanity. Thus derailed do the psychological labours of the utilitarians become which, had they been spared from this devastating fascination of "bigness," might have penetrated far, and the "good" which by definition as the "useful" was well in the way of being brought from Heaven back to Earth, escapes again into the thin air of the mere verbal : the conceptual.
* * * *
The despising of the limited and the particularised, the fatuous worship of "unlimited bigness" which, being translated, is the Absolute, is the pons asinorum of the philosophers: few ever pass beyond it. However, since an unparticularised "good" is inconceivable and boggles the imagination, the mind inevitably snatches at the likeliest prop which presents itself. The "good" must be "good" for something, and this something, being unnamed, the gap is filled in to suit a childlike imagination by the figure of "The Great," and the panting mind rests comfortably with its riddle solved. Conduct must be "good" for the greatest: thus do the greatest and the good become inextricably intertwined. As conversely with the meanest, are intertwined "the bad," the "ill" and the "evil." These terms, used in an accurate, particularised sense, have the opposite significance of the "good" and the "useful." They mean "unsatisfactory for whatever end may be in question." There is no difference between the "bad" and the "evil" (notwithstanding Nietzsche's opinion to the contrary), save this: that whereas "good" serves to express in a particularised relation not only the genuine useful meaning of "satisfactory," but also the faked conceptual "Absolute" of "The Good": the two functions have been more or less differentiated as "bad,"
meaning "unsatisfactory"; and "Evil," conceived as as Absolute with meaning expressing the antithesis to "The Good." Even so the terms "bad," "ill" and "evil" interchange with each other and overlap: they have no fundamental differences.
* * * *
It is strange that out of the long succession of Word-lovers—Philosophers that is—practically all of them have loved words for their powers as instruments of deception. It has been the age-long ideal of Philosophy to wield the big-sounding phrase and play the vulgar magician before the populace. Philosophers have sought to be "constructive": unconsciously to be contrivers of snares for the simple. And still they came, these Word-lovers—whose love is one half reserve: Transvaluers of Values who contrive to avoid the obvious import of "values" as they already exist. It is nothing so highfalutin as the Transvaluation of Values of which philosophy stands in need, but such an apprehension of the character of motives as would lead to assessment of specific and existing values. Every additional high-sounding phrase is a hindrance; every new fakir's trick with the old verbal jugglements a thicker screen between men and men's knowledge of men. As long as the half-hypnotism of words holds dominion, Instinct—the feel towards increased life— must go covered, shamefaced, confused and tongue-tied; in comparison with Reason—dumb; Reason a mere calculation which, having been granted in "The Good" an insupportable assumption, has galloped off in easy triumph with all the well-sounding words. The deliverance of instincts from shame must wait for a race (a handful will serve) of philosophers who can love words all in all—love them well enough to be able to bear up against and revel in the complete revelation of their whole nature.
When men understand the overwhelming significance of the fact that "In the beginning—of civilisation—was The Word," they will for the first time realise what constitutes the cementing element in the history of "subjects" and "subjected instincts." Until then we shall have with us the pastors and masters to tell as of that Duty which we owe to "The Good."
* * * *
"God" and the "Good" being such, it will make a pretty Christmas puzzle to put "Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards men" in their suitable niches. All the more, since, the "good" part in goodwill being unparticularised, one may go as one pleases in regard to it. Thus we may apply the Golden Rule enjoining us to do good to men according to our views of good: "as we would have that they should do unto us;" or again, according to the recipient's view of "good": "as they would have that we should do unto them;" or yet again, according to God's view, after the stereotyped forms advised by Authority. To act after the first manner is to make one's taste in "goods" the standard of "good" among one's clientele: a process which has made it necessary to match the Golden Rule as addressed to the "Doers of Good" with one enjoining an etiquette for recipients about "never looking gift-horses in the mouth" The patent evidence of distaste indicated among recipients to this species of "goodwill" has led those more zealously determined upon "doing good" to do it after the second fashion: "as they would you should do it unto them." To search out men's wants to satisfy their needs from their point of view, is by no means an uncommon form of applied goodwill. In fact, it is just this determined type of well-doer who are the people's "Saints": the genuine men-pleasers. Unfortunately, their career in any very efficacious degree, is necessarily shortlived; its inevitable end being bankruptcy. Most men indeed find that one such client—for instance, a wife and family—will make one feel how easy it is to arrive at the rock-bottom of one's resources; but to espouse the "needs of the world" in bulk can of necessity have but one termination: bankruptcy. Doubtless, the notion behind the pretence of the Church to take Poverty as a Bride, was just to
anticipate the fleecing process involved in loving men more than themselves.
* * * *
It is curious, however, how reluctant men have been to give whole-hearted praise to this type of well-doer, in spite of the obvious advantages in the existence of a species of being who is prepared to regard other's needs as his very own. The explanation probably is that that which men most desire cannot be satisfied at secondhand. Love, power, friends, can be satisfyingly won only by the efforts of the desirers themselves. The activity of well-doers is thus limited to a bestowing of tenth-rate satisfactions: obligations in respect of "goods" which are too trifling in value to be worth it. One must be beneath a certain status in order to know oneself the object of "goodwill" without taking offence thereat. One feels its proper sphere to be with the "poor poor." Moreover, common sense is alive to the fact that one who finds his highest vocation in "doing good" cannot have any very strong interests of his own: the interests of others have become his makeshift. The slumming fraternity is made up of those who have more time than interests: nothing in themselves has been strong enough to preoccupy their activities, and gadding after others has been an inevitable sequel. And this truth holds good: love and respect are commanded by the character of the person, not by the "useful" works that he performs. The person who is interested in his own affairs, follows
his own bent, is the person who commands respect and even affection rather than the one who "gives his life for others."
Hence, Christmas goodwill, which, being left to a voluntary and individual interpretation is inspired by a common-sense egoism, in the main comes down to a tipping of the tradesmen. Perhaps a little effort to obliterate some of such misery as lies too near us and is too obvious for our own comfort, and perhaps if one is rich and is inclined that way, an indulging in spectacular "good works," which may promise in their maturity A yield of some sort of honour or status: a title, whatnot. Men, that is, do to others as seems best to themselves : after a manner calculated to produce results most to their own satisfaction. Being in a holiday mood they please themselves. "Peace on earth, Goodwill towards men," at Christmas, means a momentary truce—an off-day in the incessant fight for the securing of the upper hand. To desire to prolong a holiday mood perpetually is like desiring to perpetuate a moratorium: a lasting desistance from pressing advantages and claims. A holiday spirit like the moratorium takes on an intelligible meaning only from the fact that it is a transitory exception. The merit of Christmas tipping, or Christmas "peace and goodwill," is that these make a momentary change from the usual procedure. Their welcomeness has nothing to do with their particular character: it is accorded them in virtue of their being a change: a break which will result in the normal procedure being resumed with an additional zest.
THESE notes are not going to be about Mr. Bernard Shaw: in spite of the fact that the notes of last week on that gentleman were very considerably docketed because, be it confessed, being later in arrival, even than usual, they had to adapt themselves to what space was left for them. Mr. Shaw's name is merely a peg whereon to hang a brief homily. Mr. Shaw has been writing to a Northern daily paper, the "Manchester Dispatch," to protest against being called a pro-German, and he offers his critics these considerations to leave him alone. He wishes, he says, that people "Would make up their minds finally as to whether I am a negligible person or not. If I am the sensible course is to neglect me... If, on the other hand, I am a writer of some importance, it is clearly playing into the hands of the enemy, to announce in all directions that my pamphlet is a justification of Germany." One needs to pass no comment on the suggestion that Mr. Shaw's characterisation of the ways and doings of the Kaiser and Sir Edward Grey, is calculated to affect the course of the war: that is not the point we would pause to notice. Rather, we would point out why Mr. Shaw's name is so grateful a sound among the people, that they rally to it gladly, either for praising or blaming. It is due to the existence of a need, which is none the less urgent because it possesses no recognised status: it is the dire need of being provided with topics of conversation. Mr. Shaw thinks that his "utterances" are noted throughout the Press, because he is, or is not, a writer of importance, and thus fails to appreciate the particular satisfaction which this nation finds in him: something easy to talk about: the selfsame satisfactions as are provided by the humbler and more threadbare topic—the weather. It is not the quality which is of main account but the theme: it is sure. One may feel assured that the person with whom one exchanges comment on the weather is scarcely likely to respond with a vacant look and ask, "What is the weather?" Nor are even the simplest likely to ask "Who is Mr. Shaw?" It is not his "importance as a writer" but his "popularity": the fact that his name is familiar with the crowd which explains why his "Bloody" epithet will be given a whole newspaper edition to itself, or why if he speaks laboriously on the rights and wrongs of the modern combatants forthwith he is flamboyantly labelled a pro-German. It is because
he himself has become a "topic": popular, a common-ground in conversation. Hence he is the salvation of all the journalists gravelled for matter. As someone said the other day in connection with these Notes, "Write something easy; write on Mr. Shaw."
* * * *
The safe-pull of the "known name," is a subtle little puzzle: quite worth a little attention, indeed. Really to understand it, is to understand what to the "popular" appear as the vagaries of popularity. Popularity is mis-understood; it is taken to mean liking, affection, whereas what it really means is that the populace has chanced to become familiar with one's name and one's particularising characteristic. Nietzsche, for instance, has just become popularised, not indeed because the people have read him, but because it chances that at a time when a great war breaks out, and all our prophets and scribes are enlarging upon the wickedness of such as will dare to make war against us, someone happens to say that the enemy possesses a great philosopher, who maintains that on occasion war is a good and necessary thing. That is enough for popularity: the man is popular at once. That his popularity should carry a disparaging note in it and define itself as notorious, makes no difference: the notorious is but a particular case of the popular. Nietzsche is now popular; Bernhardt is exceedingly popular; and so is the Kaiser, so too is Mr. Shaw. The latter's gift for epigram, invective, and inversion, his familiar ease with strong-words, together with his general Mephistophelian air has made him into a popular institution not incomparable with "Punch" He has found his way to the lips of the populace, and being there, the people pass verdict on him after their kind, and also according to their variable moods. One day they will offer him fame, because of a forcible variation of sanguinary, and a few weeks later they will give him the "bird," because he puts forward a few stale, if sensible judgments on the causes of the war, but in his own bright and shocking way. As he was not greatly averse to the former treatment, one does not expect him to be surprised or perturbed at the latter.
****
If popularity, with its questionable attentions which the objects of it alternately solicit and deplore, were
confined to popular playwrights none could be much the worse: it is because of the fact that popularity governs the Press that we find ourselves brought face to face with an unescapable monotony. One may take up any journal whatsoever, daily, weekly, monthly, and in all the "topics"—the popular subjects—are identical, and all are "treated" in the popular spirit: all written down, that is, to the prejudices of the crowd: a state of affairs obviously the sequel to the introduction of "big business" into the Press-world. Journals which are founded expressly to cater for the crowd cannot pretend to occupy themselves with anything which the broad in-telligence of the crowd cannot appreciate; so the scope of intelligence common to the crowd dictates the confines of discussion and intercourse. A wearing down of instinct and taste to the popular level inevitably follows. To appeal to the crowd one must speak of the things with which one has the certainty the populace is familiar: and the appeal must be after the populace's own manner. To be "in" with everybody one must attempt the very least possible divergence into the fresh and original. The Common Measure of all-inclusive numbers shrinks to unity and the analogy in literature to this arithmetical one is the degradation of letters. There is, to be sure, little meaning in "Exclusiveness" in general: everything depends upon what one excludes ; but it is certain that what headway is to be made in matters of intelligence must be made through the agency and interaction of more or less equal abilities of a higher order. Only after a stringent process of exclusion can the stronger intelligences work together and be free from the drag, the heavy handicap of the less intelligent. Exclusiveness for specific purposes, that is, a division into classes for specific purposes becomes therefore imperative. Small reviews for the interchange of observations, of which the very nature, the concentration and acuteness must make them closed subjects of opinion for the populace, become the most highly significant feature of a nation's life. It is an ominious sign, in respect of a nation's intelligence, when there exist no unpopular journals of which it is convenient and advisable the "masses" should be unaware. The "masses" can always be relegated to the sequel of events; they will always continue to be found pouring forth inocculated opinion after the event with profound satisfaction and unction. And mostly every one temperamentally belongs to the masses now: all are inocculated with popularism. A Prime Minister will deliver himself to the effect that the importance of a journal is indicated by its circulation and its advertisement figures and yet will be quite ready, within the same term of office, to concur with those of his followers who maintain that the Press-man of the non-weighty species: a writer who could boast of having an audience of two before he laid down his pen, is he whose doctrines have precipitated a war. It is the one recognisable stamp of the popularised mind: to respect wisdom only after the event. To apply the illustration more closely, and to the affairs of this journal, THE EGOIST, and in respect of those subscribers who have hastened to withdraw their subscriptions because "Nothing matters now, save fighting men and fighting-material," as one of them puts it. They are precisely of the cast of mind which, a day before the outbreak of the war, would have said that war was a myth and war-provenders the heinous solicitors of crime! Before now, we have protested against the stupid description of war-material as "senseless armaments" and "blind force" and pointed out that the essential characteristics which converted unadapted material into armaments were precisely Will and Sensibility: that armaments were just the potent embodiments of the spirit of intelligence. It now remains for us to state the argument conversely. Not only is there intelligence in fighting-material, but fighting-material, in its purest and most undiluted form, is intelligence. The fountain-head of fighting-material is intelligence, and such as now endeavour to compound for former blank incomprehension of the nature of fighting-material, by denying the concomitant needs and claims of intelligence, do but make the incomprehension more conspicuous. D. M.