The Salvaging of CivilizationWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
The Salvaging of Civilization
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization, Modern -- 20th century; Education
It may seem a much greater undertaking to attack nationality and
nationalism instead of patching up a compromise with these things, but
along the line of independent nationality lies no hope of unity and
peace and continuing progress for mankind. We cannot suffer these old
concentrations of loyalty because we want that very loyalty which now,
concentrates upon them to cement and sustain the peace of all the world.
Just as in the past provincial patriotisms have given place to national
patriotisms, so now we need to oust these still too narrow devotions by
a new unity and a new reigning idea, the idea of one state and one flag
in all the earth.
The idea of the World State stands to the idea of the League of Nations
much as the idea of the one God of Earth and Heaven stands to a Divine
Committee composed of Wodin and Baal and Jupiter and Amon Ra and Mumbo
Jumbo and all the other national and tribal gods. There is no compromise
possible in the one matter as in the other. There is no way round. The
task before mankind is to substitute the one common idea of an
overriding world commonweal for the multitudinous ideas of little
commonweals that prevail everywhere to-day. We have already glanced at
the near and current consequences of our failure to bring about that
substitution.
Now this is an immense proposal. Is it a preposterous one? Let us not
shirk the tremendous scale upon which the foundations of a world state
of all mankind must be laid. But remember, however great that task
before us may seem, however near it may come to the impossible,
nevertheless, in the establishment of one world rule and one world law
lies the only hope of escape from an increasing tangle of wars, from
social overstrain, and at last a social dissolution so complete as to
end for ever the tale of mankind as we understand mankind.
Personally I am appalled by the destruction already done in the world in
the past seven years. I doubt if any untravelled American can realize
how much of Europe is already broken up. I do not think many people
realize how swiftly Europe is still sinking, how urgent it is to get
European affairs put back upon a basis of the common good if
civilization is to be saved.
And now, as to the immensity of this project of substituting loyalty to
a world commonweal for loyalty to a single egotistical belligerent
nation. It is a project to invade hundreds of millions of minds, to
attack certain ideas established in those minds and either to efface
those ideas altogether or to supplement and correct them profoundly by
this new idea of a human commonweal. We have to get not only into the at
present intensely patriotic minds of Frenchmen, Germans, English, Irish
and Japanese, but into the remote and difficult minds of Arabs and
Indians and into the minds of the countless millions of China. Is there
any precedent to justify us in hoping that such a change in world ideas
is possible?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account