Moral Poison in Modern FictionJohnson, R. Brimley (Reginald Brimley)
History
Moral Poison in Modern Fiction
Johnson, R. Brimley (Reginald Brimley)
English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Pornography
We were, indeed, at the approach of Dawn; new light was breaking over
the mists of Victorian morality. To recover the _real_ progress, which
has been diverted into a mere riot of attack, we have endeavoured to
gather together, examine, and clearly state what the "new" morality
_really means and leads to_, how it has come to be upheld. Without
denying in some the honest seeking of truth, we have sought to make
clear where the teaching around us to-day is untrue, destructive of
reality, and poisonous in its effect.
As now proclaimed, this teaching cannot escape its responsibility for
much evil talk, thought, and emotion, for many black deeds. Under its
influence, thoughtless humanity is fast coming to believe and say that
all love, or even comradeship, between the sexes without immediate
physical satisfaction is hypocritical and unreal; that is, cramped by
forced self-denial or an evidence of cold blood and incapacity for real
love. The young live feverishly by this conviction: they flaunt their
passions, their falls and their conquests, before the world. They jest
at sin, sneer at restraint, and spare no thought for purity. Kindness,
courtesy, thought for others, are cast to the winds. At all costs, they
must be themselves, and snatch the hour's joy.
Such feverish disorder of emotion—the swooning delirium, sudden fires,
and complete abandon of balance—is not natural to wholesome humanity;
but, as we have seen, _it can easily be produced by suggestion_. Now
that popular novelists casually produce drama and crude excitement
by smart tales of such over-sexed human beings, an immense body of
readers, without knowledge or experience to combat the falseness of the
picture, have come to accept it as a _normal record_ of real life. They
are adapting themselves to its alluring thrills, modelling their lives
to its pattern, and acting upon its teaching. From men and women, they
may too soon become mere male and female, as God did _not_ create them.
The whole history of mankind, our centuries of growth from cave-man to
the last word in civilization, have established truths which remain
true. Our right to be ourselves can never wipe out our duty to others.
There is an eternal and infinite difference between Right and Wrong,
and those who ignore this _cannot escape the penalty_. Love is not
lust. All that is finest and noblest in human nature has been built
upon a pure and constant loyalty; of which the eternal symbol (however
smirched and stained by folly or sin) is marriage and the home.
Character, which ultimately rules the world, grows straight amidst
the influence of family life. The permanent ideal for man and woman;
creating new life, bearing and cherishing each new generation, is a
complete union of the whole nature, spiritual and physical, whereof the
spiritual bond must be supreme.
_Self-control, restraint, and, if needs be, Sacrifice, are the highest
expression of Self._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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