I do not propose to study the psychological causes of the suppression of
thoughts which conflict with official dogma. I am inclined to think that
partisan feeling is of less effect in this matter than, in some,
ignorance of the facts and lack of critical faculty, and in others,
really well-informed persons, failure to verify alleged facts, or an
unwillingness to correct the errors of an overwrought public
opinion--errors which, quite unknown to themselves, they really desire
to believe. It is easier, and at the same time it is safer, to rest
content with the news supplied from house to house by the great
purveyors, rather than put oneself to the pains of going to the fountain
head in order to revise or to supplement current information.
These errors and these lacunae are serious, however they originate, as
the public is beginning to realise.[18] It is perfectly natural that the
ideas of this or that social or political party, in one or other of the
belligerent nations, should conflict with the ideas of this or that
journal in a neutral land. No one need be surprised that such a neutral
journal should openly express its dissent. Vigilant criticism would be
equally in place. But it is not permissible that a neutral journal
should ignore or distort everything of which it disapproves.
Is it not intolerable, for example, that we should know nothing about
the Russian revolution except from news items issued from governmental
sources (non-russian for the most part), or from hostile partisans eager
to calumniate all the forward groups? Is it not intolerable that the
great Swiss periodicals should never give an open platform to the
persons thus vilified, not even in the case of such a man as Maxim
Gorki, whose genius and intellectual candour are the glory of European
letters? Once more, is it not intolerable that the French socialist
minority should be systematically left out of the picture, should be
regarded as non-existent by the journals of French-speaking Switzerland?
Is it not monstrous that these same journals, during the last three
years, have maintained absolute silence concerning the British
opposition, or, if they have referred to it at all, have done so in the
most contemptuous terms? For we have to remember that those who voice
this opposition bear some of the greatest names in British thought, such
as Bertrand Russell, Bernard Shaw, Israel Zangwill, Norman Angell, and
E. D. Morel; we have to remember that its views find expression in
vigorous periodicals, in numerous pamphlets, and in books some of which
excel in value anything that during the same period has been written in
Switzerland and in France!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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