Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social ReformBarnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
General
Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform
Barnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class
Lastly, it is said (3) that many whose imagination has been made dull
by the modern systems of education could never know the truth unless
it were shown to them under the strongest light. They have been so
rarely taught in school to take pleasure in knowledge or to stretch
their minds, they have so little accustomed themselves to think over
what is absent or to trace effects to causes, that it is more often by
ignorance than by selfishness that they are cruel. They have been so
eager in managing their inheritance of wealth that they have failed
to use their other inheritance--the power of putting questions. Such
people, it is argued, hearing of atrocities, learning the cost at
which wealth is made, and seeing the brutal side of vice, get such
development of character that they question habits, customs, conditions
which they before accepted, and become more just and generous.
On the other hand, against this use of sensationalism, keeping still in
view the effects on character, it is urged (1) that actions caused by
the excitement of the emotions before they can be supported by reason
are followed by apathy. The people who became ‘frantic’ at the tale
of the Bulgarian atrocities have since heard almost with equanimity
of suffering as terrible. The many who wrote and spoke of the bitter
lot of the poor hardly give the few pounds a year required to keep
alive the Sanitary Aid Society which was started to deal with what was
allowed to lie nearest the root of the bitterness--the ill-administered
laws of health. The leaders of the Salvation Army, pursued by this fear
of apathy, have continually to seek new forms of excitement, just as
politicians have to seek new cries.
Such examples seem to show that the wave which is raised by the
emotions must fall back unless it is followed by the rising tide of
reason, and that the effect on character of neglecting the reason is to
make it unfeeling and apathetic. According to Rossetti’s allegory, they
who are stirred by the sight of vice become, like those who look on the
Gorgon’s head, hardened to stone.
Let not thine eyes know
Any forbidden thing itself, although
It once should save as well as kill; but be
Its shadow upon life enough for thee.
The emotions, certainly, cannot be strained without loss. Of the
greatest English actress it is told that she paid in old age the price
of early strain on her feelings ‘by weariness, vacuity, and deadness of
spirit.’
It is urged further on the same side, (2) that the advertisement
which is said to be necessary to promote association promotes only
organisation, or that if it does promote association it fills it also
with the party spirit, which is a corrupting influence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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