After the eclipse of Europe, the allegiance of men gradually
crystallized into two great national or racial sentiments, the American
and the Chinese. Little by little all other patriotisms became mere
local variants of one or other of these two major loyalties. At first,
indeed, there were many internecine conflicts. A detailed history of
this period would describe how North America, repeating the welding
process of the ancient ‘American Civil War’, incorporated within itself
the already Americanized Latins of South America; and how Japan, once
the bully of young China, was so crippled by social revolutions that she
fell a prey to American Imperialism; and how this bondage turned her
violently Chinese in sentiment, so that finally she freed herself by an
heroic war of independence, and joined the Asian Confederacy, under
Chinese leadership.
A full history would also tell of the vicissitudes of the League of
Nations. Although never a cosmopolitan government, but an association of
national governments, each concerned mainly for its own sovereignty,
this great organization had gradually gained a very real prestige and
authority over all its members. And in spite of its many shortcomings,
most of which were involved in its fundamental constitution, it was
invaluable as the great concrete focusing point of the growing loyalty
toward humanity. At first its existence had been precarious; and indeed
it had only preserved itself by an extreme caution, amounting almost to
servility towards the ‘great powers’. Little by little, however, it had
gained moral authority to such an extent that no single power, even the
mightiest, dared openly and in cold blood either to disobey the will of
the League or reject the findings of the High Court. But, since human
loyalty was still in the main national rather than cosmopolitan,
situations were all too frequent in which a nation would lose its head,
run amok, throw its pledges to the winds, and plunge into fear-inspired
aggression. Such a situation had produced the Anglo-French war. At other
times the nations would burst apart into two great camps, and the League
would be temporarily forgotten in their disunion. This happened in the
Russo-German War, which was possible only because America favoured
Russia and China favoured Germany. After the destruction of Europe, the
world had for a while consisted of the League on one side and America on
the other. But the League was dominated by China, and no longer stood
for cosmopolitanism. This being so, those whose loyalty was genuinely
human worked hard to bring America once more into the fold, and at last
succeeded.
In spite of the League’s failure to prevent the ‘great’ wars, it worked
admirably in preventing all the minor conflicts which had once been a
chronic disease of the race. Latterly, indeed, the world’s peace was
absolutely secure, save when the League itself was almost equally
divided. Unfortunately, with the rise of America and China, this kind of
situation became more and more common. During the war of North and South
America an attempt was made to recreate the League as a Cosmopolitan
Sovereignty, controlling the pooled armaments of all nations. But,
though the cosmopolitan will was strong, tribalism was stronger. The
upshot was that, over the Japanese question, the League definitely split
into two Leagues, each claiming to inherit universal sovereignty from
the old League, but each in reality dominated by a kind of supernational
sentiment, the one American, the other Chinese.
This occurred within a century after the eclipse of Europe. The second
century completed the process of crystallization into two systems,
political and mental. On the one hand was the wealthy and close-knit
American Continental Federation, with its poor relations, South Africa,
Australia, New Zealand, the bedridden remains of Western Europe, and
part of the soulless body that was Russia. On the other hand were Asia
and Africa. In fact the ancient distinction between East and West had
now become the basis of political sentiment and organization.
Within each system there were of course real differences of culture, of
which the chief was the difference between the Chinese and Indian
mentalities. The Chinese were interested in appearances, in the sensory,
the urbane, the practical; while the Indians inclined to seek behind
appearances for some ultimate reality, of which this life, they said,
was but a passing aspect. Thus the average Indian never took to heart
the practical social problem in all its seriousness. The ideal of
perfecting this world was never an all-absorbing interest to him; since
he had been taught to believe that this world was mere shadow. There
was, indeed, a time when China had mentally less in common with India
than with the West, but fear of America had drawn the two great Eastern
peoples together. They agreed at least in earnest hate of that strange
blend of the commercial traveller, the missionary, and the barbarian
conqueror, which was the American abroad.
China, owing to her relative weakness and the irritation caused by the
tentacles of American industry within her, was at this time more
nationalistic than her rival. America, indeed, professed to have
outgrown nationalism, and to stand for political and cultural world
unity. But she conceived this unity as a unity under American
organization; and by culture she meant Americanism. This kind of
cosmopolitanism was regarded by Asia and Africa without sympathy. In
China a concerted effort had been made to purge the foreign element from
her culture. Its success, however, was only superficial. Pigtails and
chopsticks had once more come into vogue among the leisured, and the
study of Chinese classics was once more compulsory in all schools. Yet
the manner of life of the average man remained American. Not only did he
use American cutlery, shoes, gramophones, domestic labour-saving
devices, but also his alphabet was European, his vocabulary was
permeated by American slang, his newspapers and radio were American in
manner, though anti-American in politics. He saw daily on his domestic
television screen every phase of American private life and every
American public event. Instead of opium and joss sticks, he affected
cigarettes and chewing gum.
His thought also was largely a Mongolian variant of American thought.
For instance, since his was a non-metaphysical mind, but since also some
kind of metaphysics is unavoidable, he accepted the naïvely
materialistic metaphysics which had been popularized by the earliest
Behaviourists. In this view the only reality was physical energy, and
the mind was but the system of the body’s movements in response to
stimulus. Behaviourism had formerly played a great part in purging the
best Western minds of superstition; and indeed at one time it was the
chief growing point of thought.
This early, pregnant, though extravagant, doctrine it was that had been
absorbed by China. But in its native land Behaviourism had gradually
been infected by the popular demand for comfortable ideas, and had
finally changed into a curious kind of spiritism, according to which,
though the ultimate reality was indeed physical energy, this energy was
identified with the divine spirit. The most dramatic feature of American
thought in this period was the merging of Behaviourism and
Fundamentalism, a belated and degenerate mode of Christianity.
Behaviourism itself, indeed, had been originally a kind of inverted
puritan faith, according to which intellectual salvation involved
acceptance of a crude materialistic dogma, chiefly because it was
repugnant to the self-righteous, and unintelligible to intellectuals of
the earlier schools. The older Puritans trampled down all fleshly
impulses; these newer Puritans trampled no less self-righteously upon
the spiritual cravings. But in the increasingly spiritistic inclination
of physics itself, Behaviourism and Fundamentalism had found a meeting
place. Since the ultimate stuff of the physical universe was now said to
be multitudinous and arbitrary ‘quanta’ of the activity of ‘spirits’,
how easy was it for the materialistic and the spiritistic to agree! At
heart, indeed, they were never far apart in mood, though opposed in
doctrine. The real cleavage was between the truly spiritual view on the
one hand, and the spiritistic and materialistic on the other. Thus the
most materialistic of Christian sects and the most doctrinaire of
scientific sects were not long in finding a formula to express their
unity, their denial of all those finer capacities which had emerged to
be the spirit of man.
These two faiths were at one in their respect for crude physical
movement. And here lay the deepest difference between the American and
the Chinese minds. For the former, activity, any sort of activity, was
an end in itself; for the latter, activity was but a progress toward the
true end, which was rest, and peace of mind. Action was to be undertaken
only when equilibrium was disturbed. And in this respect China was at
one with India. Both preferred contemplation to action.
Thus in China and India the passion for wealth was less potent than in
America. Wealth was the power to set things and people in motion; and in
America, therefore, wealth came to be frankly regarded as the breath of
God, the divine spirit immanent in man. God was the supreme Boss, the
universal Employer. His wisdom was conceived as a stupendous efficiency,
his love as munificence towards his employees. The parable of the
talents was made the corner-stone of education; and to be wealthy,
therefore, was to be respected as one of God’s chief agents. The typical
American man of big business was one who, in the midst of a show of
luxury, was at heart ascetic. He valued his splendour only because it
advertised to all men that he was of the elect. The typical Chinese
wealthy man was one who savoured his luxury with a delicate and
lingering palate, and was seldom tempted to sacrifice it to the barren
lust of power.
On the other hand, since American culture was wholly concerned with the
values of the individual life, it was more sensitive than the Chinese
with regard to the well-being of humble individuals. Therefore
industrial conditions were far better under American than under Chinese
capitalism. And in China both kinds of capitalism existed side by side.
There were American factories in which the Chinese operatives thrived on
the American system, and there were Chinese factories in which the
operatives were by comparison abject wage-slaves. The fact that many
Chinese industrial workers could not afford to keep a motor-car, let
alone an aeroplane, was a source of much self-righteous indignation
amongst American employers. And the fact that this fact did not cause a
revolution in China, and that Chinese employers were able to procure
plenty of labour in spite of the better conditions in American
factories, was a source of perplexity. But in truth what the average
Chinese worker wanted was not symbolical self-assertion through the
control of privately owned machines, but security of life, and
irresponsible leisure. In the earlier phase of ‘modern’ China there had
indeed been serious explosions of class hatred. Almost every one of the
great Chinese industrial centres had, at some point in its career,
massacred its employers, and declared itself an independent communist
city-state. But communism was alien to China, and none of these
experiments was permanently successful. Latterly, when the rule of the
Nationalist Party had become secure, and the worst industrial evils had
been abolished, class feeling had given place to a patriotic loathing of
American interference and American hustle, and those who worked under
American employers were often called traitors.
The Nationalist Party was not, indeed, the soul of China; but it was, so
to speak, the central nervous system, within which the soul presided as
a controlling principle. The Party was an intensely practical yet
idealistic organization, half civil service, half religious order,
though violently opposed to every kind of religion. Modelled originally
on the Bolshevik Party of Russia, it had also drawn inspiration from the
native and literary civil service of old China, and even from the
tradition of administrative integrity which had been the best, the sole,
contribution of British Imperialism to the East. Thus, by a route of its
own, the Party had approached the ideal of the Platonic governors. In
order to be admitted to the Party, it was necessary to do two things, to
pass a very strict written examination on Western and Chinese social
theory, and to come through a five years apprenticeship in actual
administrative work. Outside the Party, China was still extremely
corrupt; for peculation and nepotism were not censured, so long as they
were kept decently hidden. But the Party set a brilliant example of
self-oblivious devotion; and this unheard-of honesty was one source of
its power. It was universally recognized that the party man was
genuinely interested in social rather than private matters; and
consequently he was trusted. The supreme object of his loyalty was not
the Party, but China, not indeed the mass of Chinese individuals, whom
he regarded with almost the same nonchalance as he regarded himself, but
the corporate unity and culture of the race.
The whole executive power in China was now in the hands of members of
the Party, and the final legislative authority was the Assembly of Party
Delegates. Between these two institutions stood the President. Sometimes
no more than chairman of the Executive Committee, this individual was
now and then almost a dictator, combining in himself the attributes of
Prime Minister, Emperor, and Pope. For the head of the Party was the
head of the state; and like the ancient emperors, he became the
symbolical object of ancestor worship.
The Party’s policy was dominated by the Chinese respect for culture.
Just as Western states had been all too often organized under the will
for military prestige, so the new China was organized under the will for
prestige of culture. For this end the American state was reviled as the
supreme example of barbarian vulgarity; and so patriotism was drawn in
to strengthen the cultural policy of the Party. It was boasted that,
while indeed in America every man and woman might hope to fight a way to
material wealth, in China every intelligent person could actually enjoy
the cultural wealth of the race. The economic policy of the party was
based on the principle of affording to all workers security of
livelihood and full educational opportunity. (In American eyes, however,
the livelihood thus secured was scarcely fit for beasts, and the
education provided was out of date and irreligious.) The party took good
care to gather into itself all the best of every social class, and also
to encourage in the unintelligent masses a respect for learning, and the
illusion that they themselves shared to some extent in the national
culture.
But in truth this culture, which the common people so venerated in their
superiors and mimicked in their own lives, was scarcely less superficial
than the cult of power against which it was pitted. For it was almost
wholly a cult of social rectitude and textual learning; not so much of
the merely literary learning which had obsessed ancient China, as of the
vast corpus of contemporary scientific dogma, and above all of pure
mathematics. In old days the candidate for office had to show minute but
uncritical knowledge of classical writers; now he had to give proof of a
no less barren agility in describing the established formulae of
physics, biology, psychology, and more particularly of economics and
social theory. And though never encouraged to puzzle over the
philosophical basis of mathematics, he was expected to be familiar with
the intricacy of at least one branch of that vast game of skill. So
great was the mass of information forced upon the student, that he had
no time to think of the mutual implications of the various branches of
his knowledge.
Yet there was a soul in China. And in this elusive soul of China the one
hope of the First Men now lay. Scattered throughout the Party was a
minority of original minds, who were its source of inspiration and the
growing point of the human spirit in this period. Well aware of man’s
littleness, these thinkers regarded him none the less as the crown of
the universe. On the basis of a positivistic and rather perfunctory
metaphysic, they built a social ideal and a theory of art. Indeed, in
the practice and appreciation of art they saw man’s highest achievement.
Pessimistic about the remote future of the race, and contemptuous of
American evangelism, they accepted as the end of living the creation of
an intricately unified pattern of human lives set in a fair environment.
Society, the supreme work of art (so they put it), is a delicate and
perishable texture of human intercourse. They even entertained the
possibility that in the last resort, not only the individual’s life, but
the whole career of the race, might be tragic, and should be valued
according to the standards of tragic art. Contrasting their own spirit
with that of the Americans, one of them had said, ‘America, a backward
youth in a play-room equipped with luxury and electric power, pretends
that his mechanical toy moves the world. China, a gentleman walking in
his garden in the evening, admires the fragrance and the order all the
more because in the air is the first nip of winter, and in his ear
rumour of the irresistible barbarian.’
In this attitude there was something admirable, and sorely needed at the
time; but also there was a fatal deficiency. In its best exponents it
rose to a detached yet fervent salutation of existence, but all too
easily degenerated into a supine complacency, and a cult of social
etiquette. In fact it was ever in danger of corruption through the
inveterate Chinese habit of caring only for appearances. In some
respects the spirit of America and the spirit of China were
complementary, since the one was restless and the other bland, the one
zealous and the other dispassionate, the one religious, the other
artistic, the one superficially mystical or at least romantic, the other
classical and rationalistic, though too easy-going for prolonged
rigorous thought. Had they cooperated, these two mentalities might have
achieved much. On the other hand, in both there was an identical and
all-important lack. Neither of them was disturbed and enlightened by
that insatiable lust for the truth, that passion for the free exercise
of critical intelligence, the gruelling hunt for reality, which had been
the glory of Europe and even of the earlier America, but now was no
longer anywhere among the First Men. And, consequent on this lack,
another disability crippled them. Both were by now without that
irreverent wit which individuals of an earlier generation had loved to
exercise upon one another and on themselves, and even on their most
sacred values.
In spite of this weakness, with good luck they might have triumphed.
But, as I shall tell, the spirit of America undermined the integrity of
China, and thereby destroyed its one chance of salvation. There befell,
in fact, one of those disasters, half inevitable and half accidental,
which periodically descended on the First Men, as though by the express
will of some divinity who cared more for the excellence of his dramatic
creation than for the sentient puppets which he had conceived for its
enacting.