Fantasia of the UnconsciousLawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Philosophy
Fantasia of the Unconscious
Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)
Psychoanalysis; Sex; Subconsciousness
Let us substitute action, all kinds of action, for the mass of people,
in place of mental activity. Even twelve hours' work a day is better
than a newspaper at four in the afternoon and a grievance for the rest
of the evening. But particularly let us take care of the children. At
all cost, try to prevent a girl's mind from dwelling on herself, Make
her act, work, play: assume a rule over her girlhood. Let her learn
the domestic arts in their perfection. Let us even artificially set
her to spin and weave. Anything to keep her busy, to prevent her
reading and becoming self-conscious. Let us awake as soon as possible
to the repulsive machine quality of machine-made things. They smell of
death. And let us insist that the home is sacred, the hearth, and the
very things of the home. Then keep the girls apart from any
familiarity or being "pals" with the boys. The nice clean intimacy
which we now so admire between the sexes is sterilizing. It makes
neuters. Later on, no deep, magical sex-life is possible.
The same with the boys. First and foremost establish a rule over them,
a proud, harsh, manly rule. Make them _know_ that at every moment they
are in the shadow of a proud, strong, adult authority. Let them be
soldiers, but as individuals not machine units. There are wars in the
future, great wars, which not machines will finally decide, but the
free, indomitable life spirit. No more wars under the banners of the
ideal, and in the spirit of sacrifice. But wars in the strength of
individual men. And then, pure individualistic training to fight, and
preparation for a whole new way of life, a new society. Put money
into its place, and science and industry. The leaders must stand for
life, and they must not ask the simple followers to point out the
direction. When the leaders assume responsibility they relieve the
followers forever of the burden of finding a way. Relieved of this
hateful incubus of responsibility for general affairs, the populace
can again become free and happy and spontaneous, leaving matters to
their superiors. No newspapers--the mass of the people never learning
to read. The evolving once more of the great spontaneous gestures of
life.
We can't go on as we are. Poor, nerve-worn creatures, fretting our
lives away and hating to die because we have never lived. The secret
is, to commit into the hands of the sacred few the responsibility
which now lies like torture on the mass. Let the few, the leaders, be
increasingly responsible for the whole. And let the mass be free:
free, save for the choice of leaders.
Leaders--this is what mankind is craving for.
But men must be prepared to obey, body and soul, once they have chosen
the leader. And let them choose the leader for life's sake only.
Begin then--there is a beginning.
CHAPTER VIII
EDUCATION AND SEX IN MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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