A critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of indignant
reasonableness, “If you must make jokes, at least you need not make
them on such serious subjects.” I replied with a natural simplicity
and wonder, “About what other subjects can one make jokes except
serious subjects?” It is quite useless to talk about profane jesting.
All jesting is in its nature profane, in the sense that it must be the
sudden realization that something which thinks itself solemn is not so
very solemn after all. If a joke is not a joke about religion or
morals, it is a joke about police-magistrates or scientific professors
or undergraduates dressed up as Queen Victoria. And people joke about
the police-magistrate more than they joke about the Pope, not because
the police-magistrate is a more frivolous subject, but, on the
contrary, because the police-magistrate is a more serious subject than
the Pope. The Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in this realm of
England; whereas the police-magistrate may bring his solemnity to bear
quite suddenly upon us. Men make jokes about old scientific
professors, even more than they make them about bishops—not because
science is lighter than religion, but because science is always by its
nature more solemn and austere than religion. It is not I; it is not
even a particular class of journalists or jesters who make jokes about
the matters which are of most awful import; it is the whole human race.
If there is one thing more than another which any one will admit who
has the smallest knowledge of the world, it is that men are always
speaking gravely and earnestly and with the utmost possible care about
the things that are not important, but always talking frivolously about
the things that are. Men talk for hours with the faces of a college of
cardinals about things like golf, or tobacco, or waistcoats, or party
politics. But all the most grave and dreadful things in the world are
the oldest jokes in the world—being married; being hanged.
One gentleman, however, Mr. McCabe, has in this matter made to me
something that almost amounts to a personal appeal; and as he happens
to be a man for whose sincerity and intellectual virtue I have a high
respect, I do not feel inclined to let it pass without some attempt to
satisfy my critic in the matter. Mr. McCabe devotes a considerable part
of the last essay in the collection called “Christianity and
Rationalism on Trial” to an objection, not to my thesis, but to my
method, and a very friendly and dignified appeal to me to alter it. I
am much inclined to defend myself in this matter out of mere respect
for Mr. McCabe, and still more so out of mere respect for the truth
which is, I think, in danger by his error, not only in this question,
but in others. In order that there may be no injustice done in the
matter, I will quote Mr. McCabe himself. “But before I follow Mr.
Chesterton in some detail I would make a general observation on his
method. He is as serious as I am in his ultimate purpose, and I respect
him for that. He knows, as I do, that humanity stands at a solemn
parting of the ways. Towards some unknown goal it presses through the
ages, impelled by an overmastering desire of happiness. To-day it
hesitates, lightheartedly enough, but every serious thinker knows how
momentous the decision may be. It is, apparently, deserting the path
of religion and entering upon the path of secularism. Will it lose
itself in quagmires of sensuality down this new path, and pant and toil
through years of civic and industrial anarchy, only to learn it had
lost the road, and must return to religion? Or will it find that at
last it is leaving the mists and the quagmires behind it; that it is
ascending the slope of the hill so long dimly discerned ahead, and
making straight for the long-sought Utopia? This is the drama of our
time, and every man and every woman should understand it.
“Mr. Chesterton understands it. Further, he gives us credit for
understanding it. He has nothing of that paltry meanness or strange
density of so many of his colleagues, who put us down as aimless
iconoclasts or moral anarchists. He admits that we are waging a
thankless war for what we take to be Truth and Progress. He is doing
the same. But why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should we,
when we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way,
forthwith desert serious methods of conducting the controversy? Why,
when the vital need of our time is to induce men and women to collect
their thoughts occasionally, and be men and women—nay, to remember
that they are really gods that hold the destinies of humanity on their
knees—why should we think that this kaleidoscopic play of phrases is
inopportune? The ballets of the Alhambra, and the fireworks of the
Crystal Palace, and Mr. Chesterton’s Daily News articles, have their
place in life. But how a serious social student can think of curing the
thoughtlessness of our generation by strained paradoxes; of giving
people a sane grasp of social problems by literary sleight-of-hand; of
settling important questions by a reckless shower of rocket-metaphors
and inaccurate ‘facts,’ and the substitution of imagination for
judgment, I cannot see.”
I quote this passage with a particular pleasure, because Mr. McCabe
certainly cannot put too strongly the degree to which I give him and
his school credit for their complete sincerity and responsibility of
philosophical attitude. I am quite certain that they mean every word
they say. I also mean every word I say. But why is it that Mr. McCabe
has some sort of mysterious hesitation about admitting that I mean
every word I say; why is it that he is not quite as certain of my
mental responsibility as I am of his mental responsibility? If we
attempt to answer the question directly and well, we shall, I think,
have come to the root of the matter by the shortest cut.
Mr. McCabe thinks that I am not serious but only funny, because Mr.
McCabe thinks that funny is the opposite of serious. Funny is the
opposite of not funny, and of nothing else. The question of whether a
man expresses himself in a grotesque or laughable phraseology, or in a
stately and restrained phraseology, is not a question of motive or of
moral state, it is a question of instinctive language and
self-expression. Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long
sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses
to tell the truth in French or German. Whether a man preaches his
gospel grotesquely or gravely is merely like the question of whether he
preaches it in prose or verse. The question of whether Swift was funny
in his irony is quite another sort of question to the question of
whether Swift was serious in his pessimism. Surely even Mr. McCabe
would not maintain that the more funny “Gulliver” is in its method the
less it can be sincere in its object. The truth is, as I have said,
that in this sense the two qualities of fun and seriousness have
nothing whatever to do with each other, they are no more comparable
than black and triangular. Mr. Bernard Shaw is funny and sincere. Mr.
George Robey is funny and not sincere. Mr. McCabe is sincere and not
funny. The average Cabinet Minister is not sincere and not funny.
In short, Mr. McCabe is under the influence of a primary fallacy which
I have found very common in men of the clerical type. Numbers of
clergymen have from time to time reproached me for making jokes about
religion; and they have almost always invoked the authority of that
very sensible commandment which says, “Thou shalt not take the name of
the Lord thy God in vain.” Of course, I pointed out that I was not in
any conceivable sense taking the name in vain. To take a thing and
make a joke out of it is not to take it in vain. It is, on the
contrary, to take it and use it for an uncommonly good object. To use
a thing in vain means to use it without use. But a joke may be
exceedingly useful; it may contain the whole earthly sense, not to
mention the whole heavenly sense, of a situation. And those who find
in the Bible the commandment can find in the Bible any number of the
jokes. In the same book in which God’s name is fenced from being taken
in vain, God himself overwhelms Job with a torrent of terrible
levities. The same book which says that God’s name must not be taken
vainly, talks easily and carelessly about God laughing and God winking.
Evidently it is not here that we have to look for genuine examples of
what is meant by a vain use of the name. And it is not very difficult
to see where we have really to look for it. The people (as I tactfully
pointed out to them) who really take the name of the Lord in vain are
the clergymen themselves. The thing which is fundamentally and really
frivolous is not a careless joke. The thing which is fundamentally and
really frivolous is a careless solemnity. If Mr. McCabe really wishes
to know what sort of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded by
the mere act of what is called talking seriously, let him spend a happy
Sunday in going the round of the pulpits. Or, better still, let him
drop in at the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Even Mr. McCabe
would admit that these men are solemn—more solemn than I am. And even
Mr. McCabe, I think, would admit that these men are frivolous—more
frivolous than I am. Why should Mr. McCabe be so eloquent about the
danger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers? Why should he be
so ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers? There are not so very
many fantastic and paradoxical writers. But there are a gigantic number
of grave and verbose writers; and it is by the efforts of the grave and
verbose writers that everything that Mr. McCabe detests (and everything
that I detest, for that matter) is kept in existence and energy. How
can it have come about that a man as intelligent as Mr. McCabe can
think that paradox and jesting stop the way? It is solemnity that is
stopping the way in every department of modern effort. It is his own
favourite “serious methods;” it is his own favourite “momentousness;”
it is his own favourite “judgment” which stops the way everywhere.
Every man who has ever headed a deputation to a minister knows this.
Every man who has ever written a letter to the Times knows it. Every
rich man who wishes to stop the mouths of the poor talks about
“momentousness.” Every Cabinet minister who has not got an answer
suddenly develops a “judgment.” Every sweater who uses vile methods
recommends “serious methods.” I said a moment ago that sincerity had
nothing to do with solemnity, but I confess that I am not so certain
that I was right. In the modern world, at any rate, I am not so sure
that I was right. In the modern world solemnity is the direct enemy of
sincerity. In the modern world sincerity is almost always on one side,
and solemnity almost always on the other. The only answer possible to
the fierce and glad attack of sincerity is the miserable answer of
solemnity. Let Mr. McCabe, or any one else who is much concerned that
we should be grave in order to be sincere, simply imagine the scene in
some government office in which Mr. Bernard Shaw should head a
Socialist deputation to Mr. Austen Chamberlain. On which side would be
the solemnity? And on which the sincerity?
I am, indeed, delighted to discover that Mr. McCabe reckons Mr. Shaw
along with me in his system of condemnation of frivolity. He said once,
I believe, that he always wanted Mr. Shaw to label his paragraphs
serious or comic. I do not know which paragraphs of Mr. Shaw are
paragraphs to be labelled serious; but surely there can be no doubt
that this paragraph of Mr. McCabe’s is one to be labelled comic. He
also says, in the article I am now discussing, that Mr. Shaw has the
reputation of deliberately saying everything which his hearers do not
expect him to say. I need not labour the inconclusiveness and weakness
of this, because it has already been dealt with in my remarks on Mr.
Bernard Shaw. Suffice it to say here that the only serious reason which
I can imagine inducing any one person to listen to any other is, that
the first person looks to the second person with an ardent faith and a
fixed attention, expecting him to say what he does not expect him to
say. It may be a paradox, but that is because paradoxes are true. It
may not be rational, but that is because rationalism is wrong. But
clearly it is quite true that whenever we go to hear a prophet or
teacher we may or may not expect wit, we may or may not expect
eloquence, but we do expect what we do not expect. We may not expect
the true, we may not even expect the wise, but we do expect the
unexpected. If we do not expect the unexpected, why do we go there at
all? If we expect the expected, why do we not sit at home and expect it
by ourselves? If Mr. McCabe means merely this about Mr. Shaw, that he
always has some unexpected application of his doctrine to give to those
who listen to him, what he says is quite true, and to say it is only to
say that Mr. Shaw is an original man. But if he means that Mr. Shaw has
ever professed or preached any doctrine but one, and that his own, then
what he says is not true. It is not my business to defend Mr. Shaw; as
has been seen already, I disagree with him altogether. But I do not
mind, on his behalf offering in this matter a flat defiance to all his
ordinary opponents, such as Mr. McCabe. I defy Mr. McCabe, or anybody
else, to mention one single instance in which Mr. Shaw has, for the
sake of wit or novelty, taken up any position which was not directly
deducible from the body of his doctrine as elsewhere expressed. I have
been, I am happy to say, a tolerably close student of Mr. Shaw’s
utterances, and I request Mr. McCabe, if he will not believe that I
mean anything else, to believe that I mean this challenge.
All this, however, is a parenthesis. The thing with which I am here
immediately concerned is Mr. McCabe’s appeal to me not to be so
frivolous. Let me return to the actual text of that appeal. There are,
of course, a great many things that I might say about it in detail. But
I may start with saying that Mr. McCabe is in error in supposing that
the danger which I anticipate from the disappearance of religion is the
increase of sensuality. On the contrary, I should be inclined to
anticipate a decrease in sensuality, because I anticipate a decrease in
life. I do not think that under modern Western materialism we should
have anarchy. I doubt whether we should have enough individual valour
and spirit even to have liberty. It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy
to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the
discipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removes
the motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere
restraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint. The McCabe
school advocates a political liberty, but it denies spiritual liberty.
That is, it abolishes the laws which could be broken, and substitutes
laws that cannot. And that is the real slavery.
The truth is that the scientific civilization in which Mr. McCabe
believes has one rather particular defect; it is perpetually tending to
destroy that democracy or power of the ordinary man in which Mr. McCabe
also believes. Science means specialism, and specialism means
oligarchy. If you once establish the habit of trusting particular men
to produce particular results in physics or astronomy, you leave the
door open for the equally natural demand that you should trust
particular men to do particular things in government and the coercing
of men. If, you feel it to be reasonable that one beetle should be the
only study of one man, and that one man the only student of that one
beetle, it is surely a very harmless consequence to go on to say that
politics should be the only study of one man, and that one man the only
student of politics. As I have pointed out elsewhere in this book, the
expert is more aristocratic than the aristocrat, because the aristocrat
is only the man who lives well, while the expert is the man who knows
better. But if we look at the progress of our scientific civilization
we see a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popular
function. Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man
sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If
scientific civilization goes on (which is most improbable) only one man
will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest.
I do not know that I can express this more shortly than by taking as a
text the single sentence of Mr. McCabe, which runs as follows: “The
ballets of the Alhambra and the fireworks of the Crystal Palace and Mr.
Chesterton’s Daily News articles have their places in life.” I wish
that my articles had as noble a place as either of the other two things
mentioned. But let us ask ourselves (in a spirit of love, as Mr.
Chadband would say), what are the ballets of the Alhambra? The ballets
of the Alhambra are institutions in which a particular selected row of
persons in pink go through an operation known as dancing. Now, in all
commonwealths dominated by a religion—in the Christian commonwealths
of the Middle Ages and in many rude societies—this habit of dancing
was a common habit with everybody, and was not necessarily confined to
a professional class. A person could dance without being a dancer; a
person could dance without being a specialist; a person could dance
without being pink. And, in proportion as Mr. McCabe’s scientific
civilization advances—that is, in proportion as religious civilization
(or real civilization) decays—the more and more “well trained,” the
more and more pink, become the people who do dance, and the more and
more numerous become the people who don’t. Mr. McCabe may recognize an
example of what I mean in the gradual discrediting in society of the
ancient European waltz or dance with partners, and the substitution of
that horrible and degrading oriental interlude which is known as
skirt-dancing. That is the whole essence of decadence, the effacement
of five people who do a thing for fun by one person who does it for
money. Now it follows, therefore, that when Mr. McCabe says that the
ballets of the Alhambra and my articles “have their place in life,” it
ought to be pointed out to him that he is doing his best to create a
world in which dancing, properly speaking, will have no place in life
at all. He is, indeed, trying to create a world in which there will be
no life for dancing to have a place in. The very fact that Mr. McCabe
thinks of dancing as a thing belonging to some hired women at the
Alhambra is an illustration of the same principle by which he is able
to think of religion as a thing belonging to some hired men in white
neckties. Both these things are things which should not be done for us,
but by us. If Mr. McCabe were really religious he would be happy. If
he were really happy he would dance.
Briefly, we may put the matter in this way. The main point of modern
life is not that the Alhambra ballet has its place in life. The main
point, the main enormous tragedy of modern life, is that Mr. McCabe has
not his place in the Alhambra ballet. The joy of changing and graceful
posture, the joy of suiting the swing of music to the swing of limbs,
the joy of whirling drapery, the joy of standing on one leg,—all these
should belong by rights to Mr. McCabe and to me; in short, to the
ordinary healthy citizen. Probably we should not consent to go through
these evolutions. But that is because we are miserable moderns and
rationalists. We do not merely love ourselves more than we love duty;
we actually love ourselves more than we love joy.
When, therefore, Mr. McCabe says that he gives the Alhambra dances (and
my articles) their place in life, I think we are justified in pointing
out that by the very nature of the case of his philosophy and of his
favourite civilization he gives them a very inadequate place. For (if I
may pursue the too flattering parallel) Mr. McCabe thinks of the
Alhambra and of my articles as two very odd and absurd things, which
some special people do (probably for money) in order to amuse him. But
if he had ever felt himself the ancient, sublime, elemental, human
instinct to dance, he would have discovered that dancing is not a
frivolous thing at all, but a very serious thing. He would have
discovered that it is the one grave and chaste and decent method of
expressing a certain class of emotions. And similarly, if he had ever
had, as Mr. Shaw and I have had, the impulse to what he calls paradox,
he would have discovered that paradox again is not a frivolous thing,
but a very serious thing. He would have found that paradox simply means
a certain defiant joy which belongs to belief. I should regard any
civilization which was without a universal habit of uproarious dancing
as being, from the full human point of view, a defective civilization.
And I should regard any mind which had not got the habit in one form or
another of uproarious thinking as being, from the full human point of
view, a defective mind. It is vain for Mr. McCabe to say that a ballet
is a part of him. He should be part of a ballet, or else he is only
part of a man. It is in vain for him to say that he is “not quarrelling
with the importation of humour into the controversy.” He ought himself
to be importing humour into every controversy; for unless a man is in
part a humorist, he is only in part a man. To sum up the whole matter
very simply, if Mr. McCabe asks me why I import frivolity into a
discussion of the nature of man, I answer, because frivolity is a part
of the nature of man. If he asks me why I introduce what he calls
paradoxes into a philosophical problem, I answer, because all
philosophical problems tend to become paradoxical. If he objects to my
treating of life riotously, I reply that life is a riot. And I say
that the Universe as I see it, at any rate, is very much more like the
fireworks at the Crystal Palace than it is like his own philosophy.
About the whole cosmos there is a tense and secret festivity—like
preparations for Guy Fawkes’ day. Eternity is the eve of something. I
never look up at the stars without feeling that they are the fires of a
schoolboy’s rocket, fixed in their everlasting fall.