Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion — John Shaqi
Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket CompanionShaw, Bernard
Philosophy
Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion
Shaw, Bernard
English essays
[1] The part played in evolution by the voluptuary will be the same as
that already played by the glutton. The glutton, as the man with the
strongest motive for nourishing himself, will always take more pains
than his fellows to get food. When food is so difficult to get that
only great exertions can secure a sufficient supply of it, the glutton's
appetite develops his cunning and enterprise to the utmost; and he
becomes not only the best fed but the ablest man in the community. But
in more hospitable climates, or where the social organization of the
food supply makes it easy for a man to overeat, then the glutton eats
himself out of health and finally out of existence. All other
voluptuaries prosper and perish in the same way; way; and this is why
the survival of the fittest means finally the survival of the
self-controlled, because they alone can adapt themselves to the
perpetual shifting of conditions produced by industrial progress.
V
THE POLITICAL NEED FOR THE SUPERMAN
The need for the Superman is, in its most imperative aspect, a political
one. We have been driven to Proletarian Democracy by the failure of all
the alternative systems; for these depended on the existence of Supermen
acting as despots or oligarchs; and not only were these Supermen not
always or even often forthcoming at the right moment and in an eligible
social position, but when they were forthcoming they could not, except
for a short time and by morally suicidal coercive methods, impose
superhumanity on those whom they governed; so, by mere force of "human
nature," government by consent of the governed has supplanted the old
plan of governing the citizen as a public-schoolboy is governed.
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