Alternative Futures

A lecture Olaf Stapledon prepared for the Cambridge University Democratic Front, February 1938 (so the inscription on the first sheet of his notes; no independent record of the delivery is held) — re-set as an essay. The argument, structure, and emphases follow his manuscript notes sheet by sheet; the prose is editorial — connective sentences, examples, and asides in his manner that the notes do not contain. For exactly what is his, word for word, see the source-bounded reading edition; for his notes beside the reconstructed prose, the side-by-side reconstruction.

I want to speak about alternative futures, and I had better begin with a confession: prophecy is futile. I missed Fascism, and I missed Russia; and that is a sufficient warning against posing as a prophet. What a man can profitably do, I think, is something more modest — to envisage certain possibilities already implicit in the present state of mankind. And to do that we must begin by analysing today.

Intelligence and sociality

How did man gain his present position? Not merely by weapons, but by two powers: intelligence and sociality. By intelligence I mean insight together with the power of breaking habit — the power of dealing with novel situations. Consider the spectral tarsier: a small and weak creature, but equipped with hands, forward-looking eyes and a relatively versatile brain. In that odd little body you may see the beginnings of manipulation, of binocular vision, of versatility. Man's equipment carries the same capacities much further. His sensory discrimination is increased; his manipulation is far more delicate; and he has far greater versatility — the power of analysing things and of relating them to one another.

The second power is human sociality; and here we must distinguish carefully. There is mere gregariousness — the will to conform, and to enforce conformity: the herd mentality, in which neither the self nor other selves are realised. It resembles what Gerald Heard has called the pre-individual condition. Most human sociality, we have to admit, is still of this type. But there is in it a leaven of something better.

That better sociality depends on self-consciousness and consciousness of others. (I shall neglect the philosophical problem of what the self ultimately is.) It is awareness of oneself as an enduring conscious centre and as a system of particular needs, with an implicit goal: the fulfilment of one's capacities for knowing, feeling, willing or doing. And correspondingly there may arise an awareness of others as conscious centres also — an awareness that extends only to one or two others, and remains fragmentary and precarious. Yet from it arise genuinely self-conscious love and hate.

From it also arises community — a thing contrasted with gregariousness on the one side and with individualism on the other. Community includes respect for others precisely as individuals. There are two kinds. There is the small community of contact, based on mutual personal awareness: mates, the family, the intimate group, fraternity — individuals directly enriching one another. And there is the larger community of principle, resting on an established will to treat others as individuals, to respect differences, to encourage diversity for the sake of mutual enrichment, and yet to achieve synthesis through a common purpose. The part played by true community in actual human societies is slight and precarious. It is also important beyond its size.

And community has prerequisites. There must be at least a modicum of intelligence and sensibility; mutual knowledge, and information; education for what I shall call personality-in-community; freedom of expression; mutual acceptance; and the absence of serious frustration — economic justice, for example.

How history happens

I do not believe that history happens through dialectical idealism — through some logical necessity working itself out in ideas. Does it happen through dialectical materialism? Yes, I should say, if the doctrine is stated cautiously. We must certainly recognise the impact of the environment upon human nature. But human nature itself changes, by the force of tradition.

For our purpose we may distinguish three factors in human nature. The first is herd mentality, the gregariousness already described. The second is individualism, the shrewd pursuit of advantage for oneself, one's family or one's group. The third is the will for community, the true social will — the desire for a society of developed individuals who mutually enrich one another. Its ideal is personality-in-community.

All three may themselves be products of past environmental pressure; individualism, in particular, has favoured the strongest. Economic determinism operates on all three, through the desire for food, comfort and safety. But individualism is normally dominant now. Herd mentality interferes: wars spring partly from nationalist passions. The will for community also interferes, though rarely and precariously — something of it appeared in early Christianity, in the French Revolution, in the Russian Revolution. In estimating the future we must bear all three factors in mind, together with their fluctuations. And let me say at once what the analysis will keep forcing upon us: there is no hope unless the community-will wins.

What our struggles are about

In estimating the future, then, three things must be taken into account: the course of economic determinism, and of individualism with it; the future of herd mentality — will it increase or decrease? — and the future of the will for community — will it eventually dominate?

Now for the analysis of today. The cause of all our trouble, stated very broadly, is the impact of science and mechanical power upon a still primitive mentality. Traditional behaviour is no longer adequate to the instruments we have created. Those instruments demand, first, a planned world economy — and ours is haphazard; and secondly, a real will for community. Science opens vistas of progress, material and spiritual. And yet it also gives power to reactionaries, to whatever class is dominant; it supplies the means of propaganda and oppression. This is what our present struggles are really about: we are trying to achieve, at once, integration and individuality — unity and diversity.

There must be an integration of the human race: peoples organic to the whole, occupational groups the same, all the parts functioning harmoniously, freely and willingly, for the whole. But be careful with the analogy of the organism. Human individuals are not cells. A cell has no developed personality to be respected; a human being has, or may have, such a personality. The integration we require cannot properly be imposed as mere regimentation.

The flight from Liberalism

The second aim is the fulfilment of individuality. It seems to conflict with integration, as the individual is commonly said to conflict with the State. But rightly understood, community and individuality involve one another: real community demands high-grade individuality. The genuine conflict is between herd mentality and self-seeking individualism — or, in political language, between the abstract State and the abstract individual.

The temper of our age is the flight from Liberalism, in policy and in culture alike. Liberalism arose partly from the bourgeois struggle for power, at first in alliance with the proletariat, and partly from Puritanism and from science. Its essentials were four: individualism — keyed egoisms — democracy, free intelligence, and Christian morality. It failed, and in some respects deserved to fail. It did not deliver the goods: there was no equality of bargaining power, and its morality was insincere. Nevertheless there was good in it, and above all in one product of its failure: the workers' combination. Isolated individualism was useless to the workers; they turned to combination. Russia is the triumph of combination, and individualism stands discredited. Collectivism rose; but it was herd mentality rather than community that rose with it, while democracy was postponed. And was intelligence harnessed? Tyranny was accepted for good ends. Thus there appears what I shall call para-Fascism.

Italy and Germany also reject individualism, though there capitalism is harnessed to totalitarianism. But notice that Fascism is also a rejection of what it calls materialism: a revulsion from licentiousness and from intellectualism, an appeal to mystical cravings through the conception of a racial divinity. It rejects democracy and glorifies discipline; it suppresses free intelligence; it rejects Christian morality in favour of mastery and ruthlessness. A movement that answers a real craving with a sham object cannot be met by pretending the craving is not there.

Britain shows the same tendencies in a milder form. There is trustification: cartels in each industry to keep up prices, with perhaps some future coordination on the model of a Fascist Grand Council. There is the failure of democracy and the futility of Parliament. There is the curtailment of civil liberties — police encroachments, gas drill, physical culture, the Sedition Bill, the Vernon case and other such incidents. There is a growing disgust with intellectualism — appeals to Eddington, to praxis, to activism. And there is a change in the moral temper: blood sports and bull-fights are admired, and Hemingway is another instance. Similar tendencies would have to be examined in other countries also.

Planning and initiative

Modern industry is highly specialised, and must therefore be integrated. Russia's course has been due to armament and attack; under the threat of inevitable war there is more planning; afterwards, there will be no armament. Nor should we suppose that Christian ethics has simply disappeared: it turns up again.

Capitalism has made much of private initiative, and the point cannot simply be waved away. A collectivist order may sacrifice initiative — cultural initiative — and here the question of the moral standard arises. The problem is to combine centralisation with decentralisation. A local group must have room to act. If local activity is directed from the centre, cultural initiative is sacrificed.

The drift of things

Let me summarise the tendencies of today. Economic determinism tends toward the unification of control, ultimately on a world-wide scale; toward the suppression of individuality, of freedom, of free intelligence; and toward ruthlessness. In other words it threatens the loss of intelligence and sociality — the very powers by which man climbed.

The Marxian replies that the dialectic will breed a strong proletariat and an increasingly rickety capitalism; trade cycles and wars will weaken the capitalist order until world Communism finally succeeds it. But Marxians tend to overlook three things: the power of oppression and propaganda in the modern world; herd mentality; and the question — after the Revolution, what? The bad side of Russia warns us that revolution may issue not in community but in para-Fascism.

Can the will for true community interfere with this process? My answer is yes: we can interfere, if we keep the essentials steadily in view.

The Left, and Huxley's gospel

Consider, then, the Left Wing mentality of today. There is a heroic aspect of Communism, displayed in Spain. But there is also a glorification of bias. Communist thought is doctrinaire and oversimplified, partisan and ruthless, in social theory and in philosophy alike. Its righteous indignation is well justified against the smug, and indignation is a powerful driving force. But is the goal always kept in view — the goal of personality-in-community? I am thinking particularly of the second-rank leaders of the Left.

And certain facts must be faced. Britain is predominantly middle class. The appeal must therefore, in a real sense, be a middle-class appeal — to the best motives of the middle class, and to its self-interest concerning the future. What the best middle-class people fear, and not merely for themselves, is the suppression of kindliness and intelligence. The Left must stress precisely these; it must stress character and integrity.

Huxley's solution has the core of the matter right: he stresses intelligence, individuality and kindliness. But he oversimplifies, and he idealises human nature. No absolute precept works in every circumstance — that is the difficulty with an absolute theory of non-violence. His economics is vague; his mysticism is too Eastern. Yet his principle of non-attachment is needed, both as a source of strength and as a means of impressing the masses.

What we need is some union of Levy and Huxley: the spirit of Christ joined to the practice of Lenin. Macmurray points in a related direction, though I find his prescription vague.

The alternatives

Now let us set out the alternative futures. Are intelligence and sociality to go up, or down? There seem to be at least seven possibilities. First, a catastrophic crash in world war. Second, a long succession of trade cycles, wars and general decline. Third, a world Communist revolution — and after it, community or tyranny? Fourth, a Fascist future, whether through continuing national conflicts or through the eventual establishment of world Fascism. Fifth, a future of yet another kind. Sixth, a general decline of the West. Seventh, a falling population — which may prove either good or bad.

Trouble is certainly ahead. I see no hope without a revolution of some sort. But beyond the trouble one may conceive a smaller world population, unified and classless — its members aristocrats, every one. Such a society might combine full mechanisation with the simple life: machinery carrying the routine burden, men and women concentrating upon knowing, feeling and willing. And beyond even this, it might turn outward, toward the stars.

Recapitulation

Let me end by driving the analysis home. The future depends on intelligence and sociality. History is the impact of environment upon a changing human nature, and the three factors that matter are herd mentality, individualism and the will for community. The root cause of today's crisis is the impact of science and power; what is at stake is both the integration of the human race and the advance of individuality. The temper of today is the flight from Liberalism — which deserved to fall, but whose good we must keep, above all the workers' combination. The real trend of economic determinism, as things now stand, is toward Fascism or para-Fascism: toward bureaucracy, regimentation and ruthlessness, and the suppression of individuality and free intelligence. The Marxian's reply overlooks the power of propaganda and modern oppression, and ordinary human gullibility — the persistence of herd mentality. Can we interfere, and reinstate intelligence and individuality? Communism has devotion and energy, but indignation is not enough. Huxley's gospel carries an important principle, but no absolute precept is adequate to every situation, and it tends to ignore the concrete situation. We must somehow unite Levy and Huxley: put the spirit of Christ into the practice of Lenin.

So the final question remains: are intelligence and community to go up, or down? Trouble, in one form or another, seems unavoidable. And what comes after the trouble?