Nearly every one of you has, I should think, at some time or another failed to turn up for a tea wash-up, or for some job of the kind Wennington calls squadwork. It may be that you forgot; it may be that you were prevented by accident; it may be that you honestly did not hear the whistle. But later, when you appeared, or when your squad- leader next met you, this genuine explanation failed to get across, and you were accused in a way difficult to answer, of something underhand and deceitful. Or some member of staff may have discovered you doing something you shouldn’t and spoken of you in terms that seemed to you grossly unjust, assuming things about your character you would indignantly deny. I want you to recall that feeling of just indignation, that irritation caused by a misunderstanding of you and a situation. I shall come back to it later, by what may seem to be a roundabout route.
When in discussion with Communists I discover how conservative I am; when with conservatives, I often make a spirited defence of communism. I am not an orthodox Xtn, but an hour or so with an atheist makes me talk like a Catholic; I do not – I hope – go about making nasty remarks about God, but an afternoon spent with the local vicar stirs me to say a few sentences in defence of irreligion. I do not think that this is mere perversity on my part; it is that my mind reacts against the kind of arguments put forward by many people in favour of their point of view. My mind has been formed by the influence of other minds much greater, and by the effect of certain experiences, some of which I would rather not have had to go through. Two years ago, when I first spoke in a Wennington assembly, I made a plea for four things – which you have possibly forgotten; integrity, sincerity, tenderness, and courage. I did that because xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxin the months before I had been trying to find out what xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx characteristics were possessed by those men I most admired. I found those four qualities; I now want to add a fifth, but unfortunately there is no name for it in English, and I’m not going to give it a name yet. Why is it that I tend, not necessarily to take, but at least defend, the point of view held by those with whom I am in d 3 held by those with whom I am in discussion.
Apart from perversity – which I confess – the reason is that it seems to me that most movements, most people with a defined point of view – whether Xtns, Communists, Conservatives, or what you will – show in argument a disregard for truth, a tendency to compel such facts as they know, to support their argument, and to refuse to bother to find out any facts that they don’t already know.
All philosophers who find
Some favourite system to their mind
In every point to make it fit
Will force all nature to submit.
There are two kinds of discussion: the patient conversation of those searching for truth, and the bitter quarrelling of those with opposite points of view. You can if you like call the first cooperative inquiry, and the second fiery debate. We live in a world of fiery debate; I happen to prefer cooperative inquiry. I hope you will join me in this, though I warn you that in doing so you will join a small minority, a dwindling minority; yet it is because I want to make it an increasing minority that I am talking tonight. If it had been a majority, you mightn’t have been so unjustly blown up when you last missed a wash-up or were late for a lesson.
I’m not really attacking the majority; I happen to believe that blaming people rarely does any good and is usually waste of time and emotional energy. But the domination of the world by fiery debate is an unfortunate situation, and I wonder how it arose. There are many causes, some of them analysable only by skilled psychologists; but one of them, an important one, is one about which I am qualified to speak – it is the slavery caused by the misuse of language.
“The forces of liberation in Korea are now, with their backs to the wall, fighting against fearful odds.”
Spoken now, those words brand me as a Communist, and in a good many circles here and in America would lead to my being unable to find a method of earning my living. Spoken two months ago, they would, in the same circles, have led to my being regarded as a good fellow who thought on the right lines. Some forces have their backs to the wall; two months ago it was the forces of the UN, and I should have been describing them as forces of liberation: now it is the government forces of 5 North Korea who have their backs to the wall, and I should be describing them as the forces of liberation. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxto think that I might honestly make xxxx this same statement and believe it both two months ago and now. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx It would I am sorry to say, occur to hardly anyone xxx to ask what I meant by forces of Liberation, or to bother to think that I believe that the forces of liberation in Korea have had their backs to the wall all the time. Liberation means making free, and so far as I can see no one on either side has bothered very much about the freedom of the Koreans, though in other ways xxxxxxxx one side may have been working for their good. The word liberation, like some others such as democracy, romantic, love, has lost its meaning in the smoke of xxxxxxxxx. fiery debate.
The other day, while I was being uncomplimentary to General Macarthur – possibly quite mistakenly –I was described as ‘as good as a Communist. The person who used these words obviously disliked Communists – which, of course, he has a perfect right to do.
Other words lose their meaning in a similar way. If someone now says something in favour of the north Koreans, he may be put down as ‘xxxxxxxxxxx ‘little better than a Communist’. The people who speak like this dislike Communists – which, of course, they have a perfect right to do. But they haven’t a perfect right to use a word that should mean something as a term of abuse without any other meaning. I am reminded of a distinguished Englishman who while in Spain asked for certain books by Voltaire and was told he was ‘little better than a liberal’. The word liberal had come to mean something different in Spain from what it means here. A Communist is a person who holds certain opinions; he may also be a nasty man, but he may also be a man full of goodness of intention. The fact that he is a Communist a man holds certain opinions is no evidence about his moral character at all; to assume it was is, and to use the word a word such as Conservative, Communist, Hindu as a term of abuse, is very dangerous. It leads to slavery; when we meet a Communist Capitalist who is good, and may prove a good friend, we are no longer free to consider his real nature; we are bound by our own misuse of language. If you read some books on modern poetry you will find no mention of EP & RC. They supported Fascist regimes. He is a Fascist. He is bad. He’s a bad poet A rose bush is prickly therefore it has a bad smell.
That is one cause of fiery debate and lack of real freedom; for there is no freedom for those engaged in fiery debate. The other is subtler; it consists of stating a fact which everyone knows to be true in such a way that it compels people to also believe a number of things for which there is no evidence at all. ‘George has been put in the first X1’ is a statement of fact. We can xxxxxxxxxxxx quite justly add to it an open expression of opinion & emotion, to say’That beast George has been put in the first X1 or’Good old George has been into the first X1’. But it is dishonest to say, without further evidence, ‘George has sneaked his way into the first X1’. Now this may seem to you not to matter. But think f the time when you genuinely forgot your squadwork. If someone said ‘You didn’t come to tea wash-up’ he would be stating fact. But what he usually says is ‘You cut tea wash-up’. Accusing you of doing it deliberately; or ‘You sneaked out of wash-up’. inferring that you were underhand and 8 deceitful about it. When you are accused in those terms, it is difficult to reply or explain. If you deny the accusation, you seem to be denying that you missed the wash-up, you seem to be telling a lie. This sort of thing constantly occurs in schools between those in authority and those who are supposed to obey. It is the commonest kind of injustice committed by schoolteachers, for example; and I hope it irritates you sufficiently for you to join me in condemning it. But please condemn it in yourselves, not merely in others.
Now why does it happen? It happens because a fact for which no one may be responsible causes annoyance; annoyance clouds he mind with emotion; then someone makes subtle accusations without bothering to find ou txxxxxxxxx any other facts. We all tend to blame xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx people for occurrences; we can’t lose our temper with the whistle for being difficult to hear; we can lose our temper with the person who didn’t hear it, and in order to do so, we assume he had a motive for which there is no evidence at all – especially if we happen to dislike him, or for some other reason to be irritated with him.
This also leads to slavery. Once we assume bad motives in someone our real understanding of him is gravely hindered. Thus, because someone forgot squadwork, we may say he sneaked out of it; we then think he’s a sneak; in our minds he has a bad name – and soon we shall cynically disregard all the goodness in him, and assume all his motives are bad because we once thought that one of his motives was bad. And he, knowing our distrust, will act in enmity or suffer without reason. This process accounts for a good deal of the quite unnecessarily unkind remarks I hear made about some children and members of staff.
This isn’t only a Wennington problem; I’ve merely used that example. It’s going on everywhere all the time. Notice how people talk of the spirit of their side, the mentality of the other side; the democratic spirit, the Communist mentality; notice how in capitalist countries workers are oppressed when they do overtime, and how in communist countries they do overtime out of a spirit of self-sacrifice; how when politics lead to violence some people heroes are murdered, others some traitors executed. All this is a development of the kind of false assumption of motive that makes someone say you sneaked out of something when ………… was that you were not there.
But there is a way out. Statements like this are made without proper attention to language by people who have a point of view, an opinion, of their own, instead of a determination to seek the truth. We are all given, alas, to making up our minds, then arguing for our point of view. But it isn’t necessary to make up our minds, to be either a Communist or a Capitalist, either a Christian or an atheist. This either/oring, this assumption that we should immediately take sides is destructive and dangerous. It is better to sit down calmly, and coolly, and with sweet reasonableness try to discover the truth, not trying to blame, to condemn, or attack, but to find. Sweet reasonableness, graciousness and tolerance of mind leading to cooperative inquiry– what the Greeks called sophrosyne – is the fifth virtue, which I want now to add to the other four. I’m sorry to be two years late, but better late than never. And the world is a place with so many possibilities for suffering and disaster, so many chances for things to go wrong, that it is pity that we should waste our energy in vain debate. Which is why I ask you to make this minority of
I’ve gone on for a long time, and want to say only one thing. What I mean by sweet reasonableness is not the same as cold logic; by being opposed to all emotion doesn’t attain it. Because it springs from tenderness, from sympathy with humanity in a harsh world, from te knowledge that so much many things in life may go wrong that because of love we should never increase the chances of their doing so.
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