3.6. THE PRELIMINARY SOCIAL DUTY.
The belief I have that contributing to the development of the collective
being of man is the individual's general meaning and duty, and the
formulae of the Socialism which embodies this belief so far as our
common activities go, give a general framework and direction how a man
or woman should live. (I do throughout all this book mean man or woman
equally when I write of "man," unless it is manifestly inapplicable.)
And first in this present time he must see to it that he does live, that
is to say he must get food, clothing, covering, and adequate leisure for
the finer aspects of living. Socialism plans an organized civilization
in which these things will be a collective solicitude, and the gaining
of a subsistence an easy preliminary to the fine drama of existence, but
in the world as we have it we are forced to engage much of our energy in
scrambling for these preliminary necessities. Our problems of conduct
lie in the world as it is and not in the world as we want it to be.
First then a man must get a living, a fair civilized living for himself.
It is a fundamental duty. It must be a fair living, not pinched nor mean
nor strained. A man can do nothing higher, he can be no service to any
cause, until he himself is fed and clothed and equipped and free. He
must earn this living or equip himself to earn it in some way not
socially disadvantageous, he must contrive as far as possible that the
work he does shall be constructive and contributory to the general
well-being.
And these primary necessities of food, clothing and freedom being
secured, one comes to the general disposition of one's surplus energy.
With regard to that I think that a very simple proposition follows from
the broad beliefs I have chosen to adopt. The general duty of a man, his
existence being secured, is to educate, and chiefly to educate and
develop himself. It is his duty to live, to make all he can out of
himself and life, to get full of experience, to make himself fine and
perceiving and expressive, to render his experience and perceptions
honestly and helpfully to others. And in particular he has to educate
himself and others with himself in Socialism. He has to make and keep
this idea of synthetic human effort and of conscious constructive effort
clear first to himself and then clear in the general mind. For it is an
idea that comes and goes. We are all of us continually lapsing from it
towards individual isolation again. He needs, we all need, constant
refreshment in this belief if it is to remain a predominant living fact
in our lives.
And that duty of education, of building up the collective idea and
organization of humanity, falls into various divisions depending in
their importance upon individual quality. For all there is one personal
work that none may evade, and that is thinking hard, criticising
strenuously and understanding as clearly as one can religion, socialism
and the general principle of one's acts. The intellectual factor is of
primary importance in my religion. I can see no more reason why
salvation should come to the intellectually incapable than to the
morally incapable. For simple souls thinking in simple processes,
salvation perhaps comes easily, but there is none for the intellectual
coward, for the mental sloven and sluggard, for the stupid and obdurate
mind. The Believer will think hard and continue to grow and learn, to
read and seek discussion as his needs determine.
Correlated with one's own intellectual activity, part of it and growing
out of it for almost everyone, is intellectual work with and upon
others. By teaching we learn. Not to communicate one's thoughts to
others, to keep one's thoughts to oneself as people say, is either
cowardice or pride. It is a form of sin. It is a duty to talk, teach,
explain, write, lecture, read and listen. Every truly religious man,
every good Socialist, is a propagandist. Those who cannot write or
discuss can talk, those who cannot argue can induce people to listen to
others and read. We have a belief and an idea that we want to spread,
each to the utmost of his means and measure, throughout all the world.
We have a thought that we want to make humanity's thought. And it is a
duty too that one should, within the compass of one's ability, make
teaching, writing and lecturing possible where it has not existed
before. This can be done in a hundred ways, by founding and enlarging
schools and universities and chairs, for example; by making print and
reading and all the material of thought cheap and abundant, by
organizing discussion and societies for inquiry.
And talk and thought and study are but the more generalized aspects of
duty. The Believer may find his own special aptitude lies rather among
concrete things, in experimenting and promoting experiments in
collective action. Things teach as well as words, and some of us are
most expressive by concrete methods. The Believer will work himself and
help others to his utmost in all those developments of material
civilization, in organized sanitation for example, all those
developments that force collective acts upon communities and collective
realizations into the minds of men. And the whole field of scientific
research is a field of duty calling to everyone who can enter it, to add
to the permanent store of knowledge and new resources for the race.
The Mind of that Civilized State we seek to make by giving ourselves
into its making, is evidently the central work before us. But while the
writer, the publisher and printer, the bookseller and librarian and
teacher and preacher, the investigator and experimenter, the reader and
everyone who thinks, will be contributing themselves to this great
organized mind and intention in the world, many sorts of specialized men
will be more immediately concerned with parallel and more concrete
aspects of the human synthesis. The medical worker and the medical
investigator, for example, will be building up the body of a new
generation, the body of the civilized state, and he will be doing all he
can, not simply as an individual, but as a citizen, to ORGANIZE his
services of cure and prevention, of hygiene and selection. A great and
growing multitude of men will be working out the apparatus of the
civilized state; the organizers of transit and housing, the engineers in
their incessantly increasing variety, the miners and geologists
estimating the world's resources in metals and minerals, the mechanical
inventors perpetually economizing force. The scientific agriculturist
again will be studying the food supply of the world as a whole, and how
it may be increased and distributed and economized. And to the student
of law comes the task of rephrasing his intricate and often quite
beautiful science in relation to modern conceptions. All these and a
hundred other aspects are integral to the wide project of Constructive
Socialism as it shapes itself in my faith.
