CHAP. The Decadent Spirit France Checks the Progress of Decay ardor for liberty has died down. "How much better is it," exclaims Menander, "to be under a good master than to live in poverty and be free!" He also coins the maxim: "He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day." Politics are abandoned by the best classes, and the gifted retire to schools of philosophy. The lower natures become dissolute, the higher become aloof and self-centered. One of the intellectuals, Callimachus, voices the sentiment: "I hate the cyclic poem, nor do I delight in a road that carries many hither and thither; I detest, too, a gadabout charmer, and I drink not from the fountain; I loathe everything popular." Having lost its folk root the Greek religion of this period is full of strange ceremonies and foreign gods. In literature the endeavor to startle is now carried so far that in one long poem there is a riddle in every line. Similes are heaped up for their own sake rather than to make the point clear. Temples are no longer built; it is house architecture which now develops. In a word, ancestors, posterity, the group, no longer give life its meaning. The aim is to get the most out of it for me and mine. Late in the last century the French passed through such a critical epoch, during which great writers and artists relentlessly dissected, not only all elements of religious faith, but, as well, all moral, social, and civic ideals. The result was a movement toward unbridled individualism culminating in a widespread moral disorganization, the symptoms of which were so plain at the beginning of the closing decade that the French got the repute of being a "decadent" and negligible people. Hereupon the group instinct of self-preservation took alarm, many intellectuals realized that negativism had gone too far, and there was a reaction toward building up sound ideals in the rising generation. Educaton was redirected, social aims came up in politics, and a fine idealism reappeared in literature. The France reborn out of such influences won in the World War the world's admiration by her superb exhibition of character and solidarity. PERNICIOUS INFLUENCES SET INSTINCTS ABOVE REASON The predominance of city life, by changing the mode of organization of the social mind, may open the door to decay. The countryman, steadied by tradition and by his first-hand experience of the concrete, is not easily swayed. But the townsman, СНАР. XLIII The Dem agogue People into Yield ing to Their mobile, skeptical, eager for sensation, prompt in response, is an ideal pipe for the demagogue to play on. Of Cleon, the idol of the Athenian assembly and the law courts, who led Athens into a disastrous militancy and imperialism, Aristotle says: "It Seduces is he, who seems to have done most to corrupt the people by means of their own instincts." Thucydides calls attention to the fact that Pericles really led the people, instead of allowing himself to be led by them. "On the contrary," he adds, "as those who came after him had no marked superiority to distinguish them, and yet were anxious to surpass one another, they forced themselves to please the masses and allowed them to manage public affairs." Lower eve Thrusts Aside Here, then, is a situation pregnant with evil - an omnipotent Instinct urban democracy meeting regularly in a single large assembly and Reason managing a government which makes little call for technical knowledge. Under these circumstances it would be a miracle if the people let themselves be guided by their élite. As they gather self-confidence, the blunt statesman, who frequently brings them up with a turn and exposes the folly of their impulses and first. thoughts, will stand no chance against the flattering orator. One who addresses their reason will have no such influence over them as one who appeals to their instincts and feelings. In a clever, leisured, city-people, organized in this fashion, the demagogue finds a tuned instrument on which to play. The News- paper tures the sions Which Opinion A like tendency to set the lower parts of human nature above the higher lurks in the leadership of the modern newspaper. The newspaper has a great and growing power over the public mind because it fixes the perspective in which current events are seen by the reader. By controlling the distribution of Breed emphasis in the telling of facts, by stressing day by day one sort of facts and keeping the opposite sort in the background, by giving the news which he wants noticed the front page and bold type, while giving the news he wants overlooked an inside page and nonpareil, the newspaper-owner manufactures the impressions that breed opinion. If he controls a chain of important newspapers, he may virtually make public opinion without the public being aware of it! Now what he will make it depends upon the conditions of competition in newspaper publishing. Consulting his own interest, the newspaper proprietor is tempted to curry favor with the CHAP. He Prospers by Appealing to Passion and Prej udice Rather Than to Reason Agencies Which poise the public by appealing to its foolish prejudices rather than to affront such prejudices and patiently build up in his readers a rational opinion. If he chooses the latter course, his trade rivals will quickly seize their opportunity to lure away his readers by taking the former line; so that, long before he will have educated the public to follow his lead, his rivals will have the circulation and advertising, leaving him with a small but select body of readers plus an approving conscience. In short, there operates in the newspaper field a kind of Gresham's law. Says Mr. Norman Angell: Just as in commerce debased coin, if there be enough of it, must drive out the sterling, so in the contest of motives, actions which respond to the more primitive feelings and impulses, first thoughts, established prejudice, can be stimulated by the modern newspaper far more easily than action which is prompted by rationalized second thought. Any newspaper appealing to the former group of motives must "get away with it" long before that which appeals to the second can.establish its case. The remedy for this sinister tendency is not the curbing of Counter- newspapers which should be left free to render such essential Newspaper services as they do render - but the strengthenng of corrective influences. The pulpit addresses itself to the deeper parts of human nature rather than to the more easily awakened instincts. The teacher relies on organized information rather than on organized emotion to bring about the reforms he desires. The writer of a book more often addresses the reader's intelligence than the newspaper writer, so that the use of public libraries has a steadying effect. Adult education through university extension makes for calm judgment on public affairs. The amazing growth of high schools promises to contribute greatly to the number of steady-minded people. The spread of community centers, where questions of public interest are discussed in a rational and responsible way, is another offset to the newspaper. Thanks to these institutions, Americans, for all their reading of newspapers, do not generally show the political psychology which seems to be produced wherever, as in England, the influence of newspapers is not balanced by influences of a more sober tendency. THE SUCCESSFUL MAKE THEMSELVES a privileged cASTE SO THAT SOCIETY CEASES TO BE A FAIR FIELD OF STRUGGLE СНАР. XLIII Deterioration of Character Heredi tary Priv lege Makes Decay sets in after the we-feeling has died out of the hearts of National many members of a group. This will happen if the social system comes to embody plain injustice. The poor generally do not resent great inequalities in lot, provided society still is fluid and competitive. They comfort themselves with the hope, "If I can't get up, some child of mine will." But the pushful capables who have won their way to power or wealth do their best to throw down the ladders they climbed by, so as to make their sons and grandsons safe from other capables. Perish society, if only we may save our family line! So the successful wall themselves off into a hereditary caste and a sense of injustice spreads among the masses. Society an OrganizaInjustice tion of Signifi cance Strong Middle Class We see now why a large and flourishing middle class is a guaranty of social health. It means plenty of stepping-stones of a leading up from bottom to top of society. It means a circulation of individuals between classes, which keeps alive hope in the ambitious youth of the lower orders. Moreover, such a middle class mediates between the extreme classes, trims the boat, so it shall not capsize. It allows neither aristocrats nor populace to have its way with the other. It prevents the state from becoming a class-state, and social institutions from becoming mere props of injustice. pearance the Death The dwindling or disappearance of the middle class, leaving the Its Disappeople in two camps, poor and rich, is, therefore, an ill omen. On the one hand is a nobility of wealth that, having rid itself of Society of every useful service to society, has given itself up to luxurious enjoyment; on the other, a rough, uncouth, unbridled, and irresponsible peasantry or populace and no broad bridges leading from the one to the other. Neither camp feels that the other is a part of "us." Each feels that its interests will be sacrificed if the other gets the upper hand, and will therefore go to any length to gain and to keep power. In a word, the national society is dead, and in its place are, to quote Plato, "two states, the one of poor, the other of rich men; and they are living on the same spot and always conspiring against one another."3 Again, society may decay because of a deterioration in the СНАР. XLIII Deteriora- character of the people. Once a social standpipe has been erected, a people's character is formed, not only by its daily experiences, but also by the models set before it by social superiors. If these should become luxury-loving and soft, their traits might gradually sap the manhood of the people. In Sparta, on the other hand, the military ideal in time caused the hard egoistic type of character to prevail to such a degree as to make true society impossible. Perhaps none are so sedulously patterned after as those who achieve a conspicuous success. If they are seen to get to the top by rapacity, deceit, and corruption, youth will form itself on their bad model. This is why it is not the petty crooks of dive and alley that are most dangerous to society, but the big crooks, who, unwhipped, steal, cheat, or bribe their way to the social dais. Both rob, but the latter also rot the national character, because the rising generation take their ways as proper means of getting on in the world. |