3.11. OF AN ORGANIZED BROTHERHOOD.
The idea of organizing the progressive elements in the social chaos into
a regular developing force is one that has had a great attraction for
me. I have written upon it elsewhere, and I make no apology for
returning to it here and examining it in the light of various
afterthoughts and with fresh suggestions.
I first broached this idea in a book called "Anticipations," wherein I
described a possible development of thought and concerted action which I
called the New Republicanism, and afterwards I redrew the thing rather
more elaborately in my "Modern Utopia." I had been struck by the
apparently chaotic and wasteful character of most contemporary reform
movements, and it seemed reasonable to suppose that those who aimed at
organizing society and replacing chaos and waste by wise arrangements,
might very well begin by producing a more effective organization for
their own efforts. These complexities of good intention made me
impatient, and I sought industriously in my mind for a short cut through
them. In doing so I think I overlooked altogether too much how
heterogeneous all progressive thought and progressive people must be.
In my "Modern Utopia" I turned this idea of an organized brotherhood
about very thoroughly and looked at it from this point and that; I let
it loose as it were, and gave it its fullest development, and so
produced a sort of secular Order of governing men and women. In a spirit
entirely journalistic I called this the Order of the Samurai, for at the
time I wrote there was much interest in Bushido because of the capacity
for hardship and self-sacrifice this chivalrous culture appears to have
developed in the Japanese. These Samurai of mine were a sort of
voluntary nobility who supplied the administrative and organizing forces
that held my Utopian world together. They were the "New Republicans" of
my "Anticipations" and "Mankind in the Making," much developed and
supposed triumphant and ruling the world.
I sought of course to set out these ideas as attractively as possible in
my books, and they have as a matter of fact proved very attractive to a
certain number of people. Quite a number have wanted to go on with them.
Several little organizations of Utopians and Samurai and the like have
sprung up and informed me of themselves, and some survive; and young men
do still at times drop into my world "personally or by letter" declaring
themselves New Republicans.
All this has been very helpful and at times a little embarrassing to me.
It has given me an opportunity of seeing the ideals I flung into the
distance beyond Sirius and among the mountain snows coming home
partially incarnate in girls and young men. It has made me look into
individualized human aspirations, human impatience, human vanity and a
certain human need of fellowship, at close quarters. It has illuminated
subtle and fine traits; it has displayed nobilities, and it has brought
out aspects of human absurdity to which only the pencil of Mr. George
Morrow could do adequate justice. The thing I have had to explain most
generally is that my New Republicans and Samurai are but figures of
suggestion, figures to think over and use in planning disciplines, but
by no means copies to follow. I have had to go over again, as though it
had never been raised before in any previous writings, the difference
between the spirit and the letter.
These responses have on the whole confirmed my main idea that there is a
real need, a need that many people, and especially adolescent people,
feel very strongly, for some sort of constructive brotherhood of a
closer type than mere political association, to co-ordinate and partly
guide their loose chaotic efforts to get hold of life--but they have
also convinced me that no wide and comprehensive organization can supply
that want.
My New Republicans were presented as in many respects harsh and
overbearing people, "a sort of outspoken secret society" for the
organization of the world. They were not so much an ideal order as the
Samurai of the later book, being rather deduced as a possible outcome of
certain forces and tendencies in contemporary life (A.D. 1900) than, as
literary people say, "created." They were to be drawn from among
engineers, doctors, scientific business organizers and the like, and I
found that it is to energetic young men of the more responsible classes
that this particular ideal appeals. Their organization was quite
informal, a common purpose held them together.
Most of the people who have written to me to call themselves New
Republicans are I find also Imperialists and Tariff Reformers, and I
suppose that among the prominent political figures of to-day the nearest
approach to my New Republicans is Lord Milner and the
Socialist-Unionists of his group. It is a type harshly constructive,
inclined to an unscrupulous pose and slipping readily into a
Kiplingesque brutality.
The Samurai on the other hand were more picturesque figures, with a much
more elaborated organization.
I may perhaps recapitulate the points about that Order here.
In the "Modern Utopia" the visitor from earth remarks:--
"These Samurai form the real body of the State. All this time that I
have spent going to and fro in this planet, it has been growing upon me
that this order of men and women, wearing such a uniform as you wear,
and with faces strengthened by discipline and touched with devotion, is
the Utopian reality; that but for them the whole fabric of these fair
appearances would crumble and tarnish, shrink and shrivel, until at
last, back I should be amidst the grime and disorders of the life of
earth. Tell me about these Samurai, who remind me of Plato's guardians,
who look like Knight Templars, who bear a name that recalls the
swordsmen of Japan. What are they? Are they an hereditary cast, a
specially educated order, an elected class? For, certainly, this world
turns upon them as a door upon its hinges."
His informant explains:--
"Practically the whole of the responsible rule of the world is in their
hands; all our head teachers and disciplinary heads of colleges, our
judges, barristers, employers of labour beyond a certain limit,
practising medical men, legislators, must be Samurai, and all the
executive committees and so forth, that play so large a part in our
affairs, are drawn by lot exclusively from them. The order is not
hereditary--we know just enough of biology and the uncertainties of
inheritance to know how silly that would be--and it does not require an
early consecration or novitiate or ceremonies and initiations of that
sort. The Samurai are, in fact, volunteers. Any intelligent adult in a
reasonably healthy and efficient state may, at any age after five and
twenty, become one of the Samurai and take a hand in the universal
control."
"Provided he follows the Rule."
"Precisely--provided he follows the Rule."
"I have heard the phrase, 'voluntary nobility.'"
"That was the idea of our Founders. They made a noble and privileged
order--open to the whole world. No one could complain of an unjust
exclusion, for the only thing that could exclude them from the order was
unwillingness or inability to follow the Rule.
"The Rule aims to exclude the dull and base altogether, to discipline
the impulses and emotions, to develop a moral habit and sustain a man in
periods of stress, fatigue and temptation, to produce the maximum
co-operation of all men of good-intent, and in fact to keep all the
Samurai in a state of moral and bodily health and efficiency. It does as
much of this as well as it can, but of course, like all general
propositions, it does not do it in any case with absolute precision. AT
FIRST IN THE MILITANT DAYS, IT WAS A TRIFLE HARD AND UNCOMPROMISING; IT
HAD RATHER TOO STRONG AN APPEAL TO THE MORAL PRIG AND THE HARSHLY
RIGHTEOUS MAN, but it has undergone, and still undergoes, revision and
expansion, and every year it becomes a little better adapted to the need
of a general rule of life that all men may try to follow. We have now a
whole literature with many very fine things in it, written about the
Rule.
"The Rule consists of three parts; there is the list of things that
qualify, the list of things that must not be done, and the list of
things that must be done. Qualification exacts a little exertion as
evidence of good faith and it is designed to weed out the duller dull
and many of the base."
He goes on to tell of certain intellectual qualifications and
disciplines.
"Next to the intellectual qualification comes the physical, the man must
be in sound health, free from certain foul, avoidable and demoralizing
diseases, and in good training. We reject men who are fat, or thin, or
flabby, or whose nerves are shaky--we refer them back to training. And
finally the man or woman must be fully adult."
"Twenty-one? But you said twenty-five!"
"The age has varied. At first it was twenty-five or over; then the
minimum became twenty-five for men and twenty-one for women. Now there
is a feeling that it ought to be raised. We don't want to take advantage
of mere boy and girl emotions--men of my way of thinking, at any rate,
don't--we want to get our Samurai with experiences, with settled mature
conviction. Our hygiene and regimen are rapidly pushing back old age and
death, and keeping men hale and hearty to eighty and more. There's no
need to hurry the young. Let them have a chance of wine, love and song;
let them feel the bite of full-blooded desire, and know what devils they
have to reckon with...
"We forbid a good deal. Many small pleasures do no great harm, but we
think it well to forbid them none the less, so that we can weed out the
self-indulgent. We think that a constant resistance to little seductions
is good for a man's quality. At any rate, it shows that a man is
prepared to pay something for his honour and privileges. We prescribe a
regimen of food, forbid tobacco, wine, or any alcoholic drink, all
narcotic drugs...
"Originally the Samurai were forbidden usury, that is to say, the
lending of money at fixed rates of interest. They are still under that
interdiction, but since our commercial code practically prevents usury
altogether, and our law will not recognize contracts for interest upon
private accommodation loans to unprosperous borrowers," (he is speaking
of Utopia), "it is now scarcely necessary. The idea of a man growing
richer by mere inaction and at the expense of an impoverished debtor is
profoundly distasteful to Utopian ideas, and our State insists pretty
effectually now upon the participation of the lender in the borrower's
risks. This, however, is only one part of a series of limitations of the
same character. It is felt that to buy simply in order to sell again
brings out many unsocial human qualities; it makes a man seek to enhance
profits and falsify values, and so the Samurai are forbidden to buy or
sell on their own account or for any employer save the State, unless by
some process of manufacture they change the nature of the commodity (a
mere change in bulk or packing does not suffice), and they are forbidden
salesmanship and all its arts. Nor may the Samurai do personal services,
except in the matter of medicine or surgery; they may not be barbers,
for example, nor inn waiters nor boot cleaners, men do such services for
themselves. Nor may a man under the Rule be any man's servant, pledged
to do whatever he is told. He may neither be a servant nor keep one; he
must shave and dress and serve himself, carry his own food from the
helper's place, redd his sleeping room and leave it clean..."
Finally came the things they had to do. Their Rule contained:--
"many precise directions regarding his health, and rules that would aim
at once at health and that constant exercise or will that makes life
good. Save in specified exceptional circumstances, the Samurai must
bathe in cold water and the men shave every day; they have the precisest
directions in such matters; the body must be in health, the skin and
nerves and muscles in perfect tone, or the Samurai must go to the
doctors of the order and give implicit obedience to the regimen
prescribed. They must sleep alone at least four nights in five; and they
must eat with and talk to anyone in their fellowship who cares for their
conversation for an hour at least, at the nearest club-house of the
Samurai, once on three chosen days in every week. Moreover they must
read aloud from the Book of the Samurai for at least five minutes every
day. Every month they must buy and read faithfully through at least one
book that has been published during the past five years, and the only
intervention with private choice in that matter is the prescription of a
certain minimum of length for the monthly book or books. But the full
rule in these minor compulsory matters is voluminous and detailed, and
it abounds with alternatives. Its aim is rather to keep before the
Samurai by a number of simple duties, as it were, the need of and some
of the chief methods towards health of body and mind rather than to
provide a comprehensive rule, and to ensure the maintenance of a
community of feeling and interests among the Samurai through habit,
intercourse and a living contemporary literature. These minor
obligations do not earmark more than an hour in the day. Yet they serve
to break down isolations of sympathy, all sorts of physical and
intellectual sluggishness and the development of unsocial preoccupations
of many sorts...
"So far as the Samurai have a purpose in common in maintaining the State
and the order and discipline of the world, so far, by their discipline
and denial, by their public work and effort, they worship God together.
But the ultimate fount of motives lies in the individual life, it lies
in silent and deliberate reflections, and at this the most striking of
all the rules of the Samurai aims. For seven consecutive days of the
year, at least, each man or woman under the Rule must go right out of
all the life of men into some wild and solitary place, must speak to no
man or woman and have no sort of intercourse with mankind. They must go
bookless and weaponless, without pen or paper or money. Provision must
be taken for the period of the journey, a rug or sleeping sack--for they
must sleep under the open sky--but no means of making a fire. They may
study maps before to guide them, showing any difficulties and dangers in
the journey, but they may not carry such helps. They must not go by
beaten ways or wherever there are inhabited houses, but into the bare,
quiet places of the globe--the regions set apart for them.
"This discipline was invented to secure a certain stoutness of heart and
body in the Samurai. Otherwise the order might have lain open to too
many timorous, merely abstemious men and women. Many things had been
suggested, sword-play and tests that verged on torture, climbing in
giddy places and the like, before this was chosen. Partly, it is to
ensure good training and sturdiness of body and mind, but partly also,
it is to draw the minds of the Samurai for a space from the insistent
details of life, from the intricate arguments and the fretting effort to
work, from personal quarrels and personal affections and the things of
the heated room. Out they must go, clean out of the world..."
These passages will at least serve to present the Samurai idea and the
idea of common Rule of conduct it embodied.
In the "Modern Utopia" I discuss also a lesser Rule and the modification
of the Rule for women and the relation to the order of what I call the
poietic types, those types whose business in life seems to be rather to
experience and express than to act and effectually do. For those things
I must refer the reader to the book itself. Together with a sentence I
have put in italics above, they serve to show that even when I was
devising these Samurai I was not unmindful of the defects that are
essential to such a scheme.
This dream of the Samurai proved attractive to a much more various group
of readers than the New Republican suggestion, and there have been
actual attempts to realise the way of life proposed. In most of these
cases there was manifest a disposition greatly to over-accentuate
organization, to make too much of the disciplinary side of the Rule and
to forget the entire subordination of such things to active thought and
constructive effort. They are valuable and indeed only justifiable as a
means to an end. These attempts of a number of people of very
miscellaneous origins and social traditions to come together and work
like one machine made the essential wastefulness of any terrestrial
realization of my Samurai very clear. The only reason for such an Order
is the economy and development of force, and under existing conditions
disciplines would consume more force than they would engender. The
Order, so far from being a power, would be an isolation. Manifestly the
elements of organization and uniformity were overdone in my Utopia; in
this matter I was nearer the truth in the case of my New Republicans.
These, in contrast with the Samurai, had no formal general organization,
they worked for a common end, because their minds and the suggestion of
their circumstances pointed them to a common end. Nothing was enforced
upon them in the way of observance or discipline. They were not
shepherded and trained together, they came together. It was assumed that
if they wanted strongly they would see to it that they lived in the
manner most conducive to their end just as in all this book I am taking
it for granted that to believe truly is to want to do right. It was not
even required of them that they should sedulously propagate their
constructive idea.
Apart from the illumination of my ideas by these experiments and
proposals, my Samurai idea has also had a quite unmerited amount of
subtle and able criticism from people who found it at once interesting
and antipathetic. My friends Vernon Lee and G.K. Chesterton, for
example, have criticized it, and I think very justly, on the ground that
the invincible tortuousness of human pride and class-feeling would
inevitably vitiate its working. All its disciplines would tend to give
its members a sense of distinctness, would tend to syndicate power and
rob it of any intimacy and sympathy with those outside the Order...
It seems to me now that anyone who shares the faith I have been
developing in this book will see the value of these comments and
recognize with me that this dream is a dream; the Samurai are just one
more picture of the Perfect Knight, an ideal of clean, resolute and
balanced living. They may be valuable as an ideal of attitude but not as
an ideal of organization. They are never to be put, as people say, upon
a business footing and made available as a refuge from the individual
problem.
To modernize the parable, the Believer must not only not bury his talent
but he must not bank it with an organization. Each Believer must decide
for himself how far he wants to be kinetic or efficient, how far he
needs a stringent rule of conduct, how far he is poietic and may loiter
and adventure among the coarse and dangerous things of life. There is no
reason why one should not, and there is every reason why one should,
discuss one's personal needs and habits and disciplines and elaborate
one's way of life with those about one, and form perhaps with those of
like training and congenial temperament small groups for mutual support.
That sort of association I have already discussed in the previous
section. With adolescent people in particular such association is in
many cases an almost instinctive necessity. There is no reason moreover
why everyone who is lonely should not seek out congenial minds and
contrive a grouping with them. All mutual lovers for example are Orders
of a limited membership, many married couples and endless cliques and
sets are that. Such small and natural associations are indeed
force-giving Orders because they are brought together by a common innate
disposition out of a possibility of mutual assistance and inspiration;
they observe a Rule that springs up and not a Rule imposed. The more of
such groups and Orders we have the better. I do not see why having
formed themselves they should not define and organize themselves. I
believe there is a phase somewhere between fifteen and thirty, in the
life of nearly everybody, when such a group is sought, is needed and
would be helpful in self-development and self-discovery. In leagues and
societies for specific ends, too, we must all participate. But the order
of the Samurai as a great progressive force controlling a multitude of
lives right down to their intimate details and through all the phases of
personal development is a thing unrealizable. To seek to realize it is
impatience. True brotherhood is universal brotherhood. The way to that
is long and toilsome, but it is a way that permits of no such energetic
short cuts as this militant order of my dream would achieve.
