Anarchism and Other Essays
of today, except that the art connoisseurs of those days were far
away from the madding crowd. They felt honored to be permitted to
worship at the shrine of the master.
The art protector of our time knows but one criterion, one
value,--the dollar. He is not concerned about the quality of any
great work, but in the quantity of dollars his purchase implies.
Thus the financier in Mirbeau's LES AFFAIRES SONT LES AFFAIRES points
to some blurred arrangement in colors, saying "See how great it is;
it cost 50,000 francs." Just like our own parvenues. The fabulous
figures paid for their great art discoveries must make up for the
poverty of their taste.
The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.
That this should be so terribly apparent in a country whose symbol is
democracy, is very significant of the tremendous power of the
majority.
Wendell Phillips said fifty years ago: "In our country of absolute
democratic equality, public opinion is not only omnipotent, it is
omnipresent. There is no refuge from its tyranny, there is no hiding
from its reach, and the result is that if you take the old Greek
lantern and go about to seek among a hundred, you will not find a
single American who has not, or who does not fancy at least he has,
something to gain or lose in his ambition, his social life, or
business, from the good opinion and the votes of those around him.
And the consequence is that instead of being a mass of individuals,
each one fearlessly blurting out his own conviction, as a nation
compared to other nations we are a mass of cowards. More than any
other people we are afraid of each other." Evidently we have not
advanced very far from the condition that confronted Wendell
Phillips.
Today, as then, public opinion is the omnipresent tyrant; today, as
then, the majority represents a mass of cowards, willing to accept
him who mirrors its own soul and mind poverty. That accounts for the
unprecedented rise of a man like Roosevelt. He embodies the very
worst element of mob psychology. A politician, he knows that the
majority cares little for ideals or integrity. What it craves is
display. It matters not whether that be a dog show, a prize fight,
the lynching of a "nigger," the rounding up of some petty offender,
the marriage exposition of an heiress, or the acrobatic stunts of an
ex-president. The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater
the delight and bravos of the mass. Thus, poor in ideals and vulgar
of soul, Roosevelt continues to be the man of the hour.
On the other hand, men towering high above such political pygmies,
men of refinement, of culture, of ability, are jeered into silence as
mollycoddles. It is absurd to claim that ours is the era of
individualism. Ours is merely a more poignant repetition of the
phenomenon of all history: every effort for progress, for
enlightenment, for science, for religious, political, and economic
liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass. Today,
as ever, the few are misunderstood, hounded, imprisoned, tortured,
and killed.
The principle of brotherhood expounded by the agitator of Nazareth
preserved the germ of life, of truth and justice, so long as it was
the beacon light of the few. The moment the majority seized upon it,
that great principle became a shibboleth and harbinger of blood and
fire, spreading suffering and disaster. The attack on the
omnipotence of Rome was like a sunrise amid the darkness of the
night, only so long as it was made by the colossal figures of a Huss,
a Calvin, or a Luther. Yet when the mass joined in the procession
against the Catholic monster, it was no less cruel, no less
bloodthirsty than its enemy. Woe to the heretics, to the minority,
who would not bow to its dicta. After infinite zeal, endurance, and
sacrifice, the human mind is at last free from the religious phantom;
the minority has gone on in pursuit of new conquests, and the
majority is lagging behind, handicapped by truth grown false with
age.
Politically the human race would still be in the most absolute
slavery, were it not for the John Balls, the Wat Tylers, the Tells,
the innumerable individual giants who fought inch by inch against the
power of kings and tyrants. But for individual pioneers the world
would have never been shaken to its very roots by that tremendous
wave, the French Revolution. Great events are usually preceded by
apparently small things. Thus the eloquence and fire of Camille
Desmoulins was like the trumpet before Jericho, razing to the ground
that emblem of torture, of abuse, of horror, the Bastille.
Always, at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great
idea, of liberating effort. Not so the mass, the leaden weight of
which does not let it move. The truth of this is borne out in Russia
with greater force than elsewhere. Thousands of lives have already
been consumed by that bloody regime, yet the monster on the throne is
not appeased. How is such a thing possible when ideas, culture,
literature, when the deepest and finest emotions groan under the iron
yoke? The majority, that compact, immobile, drowsy mass, the Russian
peasant, after a century of struggle, of sacrifice, of untold misery,
still believes that the rope which strangles "the man with the white
hands"[1] brings luck.
In the American struggle for liberty, the majority was no less of a
stumbling block. Until this very day the ideas of Jefferson, of
Patrick Henry, of Thomas Paine, are denied and sold by their
posterity. The mass wants none of them. The greatness and courage
worshipped in Lincoln have been forgotten in the men who created the
background for the panorama of that time. The true patron saints of
the black men were represented in that handful of fighters in Boston,
Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and
Theodore Parker, whose great courage and sturdiness culminated in
that somber giant, John Brown. Their untiring zeal, their eloquence
and perseverance undermined the stronghold of the Southern lords.
Lincoln and his minions followed only when abolition had become a
practical issue, recognized as such by all.
About fifty years ago, a meteor-like idea made its appearance on the
social horizon of the world, an idea so far-reaching, so
revolutionary, so all-embracing as to spread terror in the hearts of
tyrants everywhere. On the other hand, that idea was a harbinger of
joy, of cheer, of hope to the millions. The pioneers knew the
difficulties in their way, they knew the opposition, the persecution,
the hardships that would meet them, but proud and unafraid they
started on their march onward, ever onward. Now that idea has become
a popular slogan. Almost everyone is a Socialist today: the rich
man, as well as his poor victim; the upholders of law and authority,
as well as their unfortunate culprits; the freethinker, as well as
the perpetuator of religious falsehoods; the fashionable lady, as
well as the shirtwaist girl. Why not? Now that the truth of fifty
years ago has become a lie, now that it has been clipped of all its
youthful imagination, and been robbed of its vigor, its strength, its
revolutionary ideal--why not? Now that it is no longer a beautiful
vision, but a "practical, workable scheme," resting on the will of
the majority, why not? With the same political cunning and
shrewdness the mass is petted, pampered, cheated daily. Its praise
is being sung in many keys: the poor majority, the outraged, the
abused, the giant majority, if only it would follow us.
Who has not heard this litany before? Who does not know this
never-varying refrain of all politicians? That the mass bleeds, that
it is being robbed and exploited, I know as well as our vote-baiters.
But I insist that not the handful of parasites, but the mass itself
is responsible for this horrible state of affairs. It clings to its
masters, loves the whip, and is the first to cry Crucify! the moment
a protesting voice is raised against the sacredness of capitalistic
authority or any other decayed institution. Yet how long would
authority and private property exist, if not for the willingness of
the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen. The
Socialist demagogues know that as well as I, but they maintain the
myth of the virtues of the majority, because their very scheme of
life means the perpetuation of power. And how could the latter be
acquired without numbers? Yes, power, authority, coercion, and
dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom, never the free
unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society.
Not because I do not feel with the oppressed, the disinherited of the
earth; not because I do not know the shame, the horror, the indignity
of the lives the people lead, do I repudiate the majority as a
creative force for good. Oh, no, no! But because I know so well
that as a compact mass it has never stood for justice or equality.
It has suppressed the human voice, subdued the human spirit, chained
the human body. As a mass its aim has always been to make life
uniform, gray, and monotonous as the desert. As a mass it will
always be the annihilator of individuality, of free initiative, of
originality. I therefore believe with Emerson that "the masses are
crude, lame, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not
to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything
to them, but to drill, divide, and break them up, and draw
individuals out of them. Masses! The calamity are the masses. I do
not wish any mass at all, but honest men only, lovely, sweet,
accomplished women only."
In other words, the living, vital truth of social and economic
well-being will become a reality only through the zeal, courage, the
non-compromising determination of intelligent minorities, and not
through the mass.
[1] The intellectuals.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
To analyze the psychology of political violence is not only extremely
difficult, but also very dangerous. If such acts are treated with
understanding, one is immediately accused of eulogizing them. If, on
the other hand, human sympathy is expressed with the ATTENTATER,[1] one
risks being considered a possible accomplice. Yet it is only
intelligence and sympathy that can bring us closer to the source of
human suffering, and teach us the ultimate way out of it.
The primitive man, ignorant of natural forces, dreaded their
approach, hiding from the perils they threatened. As man learned to
understand Nature's phenomena, he realized that though these may
destroy life and cause great loss, they also bring relief. To the
earnest student it must be apparent that the accumulated forces in
our social and economic life, culminating in a political act of
violence, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in
storm and lightning.
To thoroughly appreciate the truth of this view, one must feel
intensely the indignity of our social wrongs; one's very being must
throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are
daily made to endure. Indeed, unless we have become a part of
humanity, we cannot even faintly understand the just indignation that
accumulates in a human soul, the burning, surging passion that makes
the storm inevitable.
The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest
against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a
cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe
in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. Yet nothing
is further from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who have
studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come
in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their