First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of LifeWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Conduct of life
Now this class-war idea is one diametrically opposed to that
religious-spirited Socialism which supplies the form of my general
activities. This class-war idea would exacerbate the antagonism of the
interests of the many individuals against the few individuals, and I
would oppose the conceiving of the Whole to the self-seeking of the
Individual. The spirit and constructive intention of the many to-day
are no better than those of the few, poor and rich alike are
over-individualized, self-seeking and non-creative; to organize the
confused jostling competitions, over-reachings, envies and hatreds of
to-day into two great class-hatreds and antagonisms will advance
the reign of love at most only a very little, only so far as it will
simplify and make plain certain issues. It may very possibly not
advance the reign of love at all, but rather shatter the order we have.
Socialism, as I conceive it, and as I have presented it in my book, “New
Worlds for Old,” seeks to change economic arrangements only by the way,
as an aspect and outcome of a great change, a change in the spirit and
method of human intercourse.
I know that here I go beyond the limits many Socialists in the past,
and some who are still contemporary, have set themselves. Much Socialism
to-day seems to think of itself as fighting a battle against poverty and
its concomitants alone. Now poverty is only a symptom of a profounder
evil and is never to be cured by itself. It is one aspect of divided
and dispersed purposes. If Socialism is only a conflict with poverty,
Socialism is nothing. But I hold that Socialism is and must be a battle
against human stupidity and egotism and disorder, a battle fought
all through the forests and jungles of the soul of man. As we get
intellectual and moral light and the realization of brotherhood, so
social and economic organization will develop. But the Socialist may
attack poverty for ever, disregarding the intellectual and moral factors
that necessitate it, and he will remain until the end a purely economic
doctrinaire crying in the wilderness in vain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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