Freedom: A fighting FaithV
An adequate philosophy of free society would have to supplement the Churchill tests by such questiones as these:
Do the people have a relative security against the ravages of hunger, sickness and want?
Do they freely unite in continuous and intimate association with like-minded people for common purposes?
Do they as individuals have a feeling of initiative, function and fulfillment in the social order?
It has become the duty of free society to answer these questions- and to answer them afformatively if it would survive. The rise of the social-welfare state is an expression of that sense of duty. But the social welfare state is not enough. The sense of duty must be expressed specifically and passionately in the heart and Will of men, in their daily decisions and their daily existence, if free men are to remain free.
The contemporary schism between the individual and the community has weakened the will of man. Social conditions cannot, of course, make moral decisions. But they can créate conditions where moral decisions are more or less likely to be made. SOme social arragements bring out the evil in man more quickly than others. Slavery, as we knew well in America, corrupts the masters; totalitarian society, placing unbearable strains on man´s selfish restraint, produces the most violent reactions of fanaticism and hatred; the unchecked rule of the business community encourages greed and oppression. So the reform of institutions becomes an indispensable pasrt of the enterprise of society. But the reform of institutions can never be a substitute for the reform of man.
The inadequacy of our institutions only intensifies the tribute that society levies from man: it but exarcerbates the moral crisis. THe rise of totalitarianism, in other words, signifies more than an internal crisis for democratic society. It signifies an internal crisis for democratic man. There is a Hitler, a Stalin in every breast. "Each of us has the plague within him", cries Tarrou in the Camus novel; "No one, no one on earth is free from it. And I know, too, that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in a careless momento we breath in somebody´s face and fasten the infection on him. What´s natural is the microbe- All the rest - health, integrity, purity (if you like)- is a product of the human Will, of a vigilance than must never falter."
How to produce a vigilance than never falters? how to strengthen the human will? Walt Whitman in his later years grew obsessed with thhe moral indolence of democracy. Once he had hymned its possibilities with unequaled fervor. Now he looked about him and saw people "with hearts of rags and souls of chalk". As he pondered "the shallowness and miserable selfism of thse crowds of men, with all their minds so blank of high humanity and aspiration", then came "the terrible query---It is not Democray of human rights humbug after all?" The expansion of the Powers of government provided no solutions. "I have little hope of any man or any community of men, that looks to some civil or military power to defend its vital rights.- If we have not in ourselves to defend what belongs to us, then the citadel and heart of the towns are taken."
Wherein lies the hope? In "the exercise of Democracy," Whitman finally answered "...to work for Democracy is good, the excercise is good- strength it makes and lessons it teaches"- The hope for free society lies, in the last resort, in the kind of men it creates. "There is no week, nor day nor hour," wrote Whitman, "when tiranny may not enter upon this country, if the people loose their supreme confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of deniance -Tiranny may always enter - there is no charm, no bar against it- the only bar against it is a large resolute breed of men."
In times past, when freedom has been a fighting faith, producing a "large resolute breed of men" it has acquired its dynamism from communion in action. "The exercise of Democracy" has quickened the sense of value of the individual; and, in that exercise, the individual has found a just and fruitful relation to the community. We require today exactly such a rededication to concrete democratic ends, so that the exercise of democracy can bring about a reconcilition between the individual and community, a revival of the élan of democracy, and a resurgence of the democratic faith.
Do the people have a relative security against the ravages of hunger, sickness and want?
Do they freely unite in continuous and intimate association with like-minded people for common purposes?
Do they as individuals have a feeling of initiative, function and fulfillment in the social order?
It has become the duty of free society to answer these questions- and to answer them afformatively if it would survive. The rise of the social-welfare state is an expression of that sense of duty. But the social welfare state is not enough. The sense of duty must be expressed specifically and passionately in the heart and Will of men, in their daily decisions and their daily existence, if free men are to remain free.
The contemporary schism between the individual and the community has weakened the will of man. Social conditions cannot, of course, make moral decisions. But they can créate conditions where moral decisions are more or less likely to be made. SOme social arragements bring out the evil in man more quickly than others. Slavery, as we knew well in America, corrupts the masters; totalitarian society, placing unbearable strains on man´s selfish restraint, produces the most violent reactions of fanaticism and hatred; the unchecked rule of the business community encourages greed and oppression. So the reform of institutions becomes an indispensable pasrt of the enterprise of society. But the reform of institutions can never be a substitute for the reform of man.
The inadequacy of our institutions only intensifies the tribute that society levies from man: it but exarcerbates the moral crisis. THe rise of totalitarianism, in other words, signifies more than an internal crisis for democratic society. It signifies an internal crisis for democratic man. There is a Hitler, a Stalin in every breast. "Each of us has the plague within him", cries Tarrou in the Camus novel; "No one, no one on earth is free from it. And I know, too, that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in a careless momento we breath in somebody´s face and fasten the infection on him. What´s natural is the microbe- All the rest - health, integrity, purity (if you like)- is a product of the human Will, of a vigilance than must never falter."
How to produce a vigilance than never falters? how to strengthen the human will? Walt Whitman in his later years grew obsessed with thhe moral indolence of democracy. Once he had hymned its possibilities with unequaled fervor. Now he looked about him and saw people "with hearts of rags and souls of chalk". As he pondered "the shallowness and miserable selfism of thse crowds of men, with all their minds so blank of high humanity and aspiration", then came "the terrible query---It is not Democray of human rights humbug after all?" The expansion of the Powers of government provided no solutions. "I have little hope of any man or any community of men, that looks to some civil or military power to defend its vital rights.- If we have not in ourselves to defend what belongs to us, then the citadel and heart of the towns are taken."
Wherein lies the hope? In "the exercise of Democracy," Whitman finally answered "...to work for Democracy is good, the excercise is good- strength it makes and lessons it teaches"- The hope for free society lies, in the last resort, in the kind of men it creates. "There is no week, nor day nor hour," wrote Whitman, "when tiranny may not enter upon this country, if the people loose their supreme confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of deniance -Tiranny may always enter - there is no charm, no bar against it- the only bar against it is a large resolute breed of men."
In times past, when freedom has been a fighting faith, producing a "large resolute breed of men" it has acquired its dynamism from communion in action. "The exercise of Democracy" has quickened the sense of value of the individual; and, in that exercise, the individual has found a just and fruitful relation to the community. We require today exactly such a rededication to concrete democratic ends, so that the exercise of democracy can bring about a reconcilition between the individual and community, a revival of the élan of democracy, and a resurgence of the democratic faith.
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