Page
AUTHORITY
OR LIBERTY?
THE FALLACY OF DISCIPLINE
not
Do you agree that, for the indivi- nent parts of society. If instead "masses and of what agreeable tical one that has the ability
So the problem dual security and freedom are in- of being contained in society it to the masses is also due to a govern compatible? In either case, will contains society itself or makes kind of mental decay. The masses" one of the masses but of the ruling you summarise your reasons? society coextensive with itself, then are not, as some hold, a new thing class. And here, too, the evil, if
People often
༣
the world Do you think it is no longer military discipline in history, they have always ex- there is an evil, lies in ourselves:
turning
authoritarian regimes?
towards but the suppression of intelligence. isted, smaller in size than they are and in us, in us alone, lies the re-
Is philo sophy going towards a new anti- idealist realism? Is art going in the direction of futurism dadaism?” and so on. I call this
it in things: outside.
to look for
By Benedetto Croce Liberalism is both the friend
kind of question "meteorological," An artist, with the face of a
asks.. "Do you think it is going to rain to-day, and ought I to take an umbrella with
me?" But out blindly sure to
moral, intellectual, aesthetic, and political problems are not outside us, like rain and fine weather: they lie within us, so that there is no sense in asking what will or will
are artists or scientists or but just imbeciles.
The fact that political are set to-day in terms
con-
and the enemy of democracy. The friend because a liberal ruling class is an open? class and
towards a greater increase and a
cor- to-day, because the whole of society like the question of a man who poral, a scientist with that of a was smaller, but of the same quality its efforts areTM all directed sergeant, or a politician waiting on and mind, with the same menace
carry it and the same danger. And the heal better choice of its own members a command in
not really thy political mind has never politicians, sidered them as the rulers of and adherents, so that it is a mode society, but has always laid the of government which by its very problems work of ruling upon a class constitution educates the governed for the work of government. But of the not an economic class, but a poli-
it is an enemy of democracy when Ithe latter. tends to substitute bers or quantity for quality, cause it knows that when this hap- pens democracy is preparing the way for demagogy, and unwittingly for dictatorships and tyrannies, thus destroying itself.
not happen to them when the only THE
right course is for each one of us
to work and to solve them accor- ding to his own conscience and his own ability.
I should like further to declare that among offences committed against liberty to-day none seems more serious to me than that con-
tained in the question whether pre ference is to be given to a liberal or to an authoritarian regime.
WORLD GOES BY
By "ULYSSES"
Love will do. Here it is
tiful What shall it be? Love.
Robert has fallen out of love with Madeleine.
Whoever works for an ideal has
MUST think of something beau- would eye the other nervously, in that very activity his hope and cough or swallow slightly, and look his joy. Nevertheless his mortal away again. The other would simul flesh may ask the comfort of A Paris waitress falls in love taneously avert his blue, icy gaze, more definite hope. And he can I remember the story of a cer- with her waiter colleague. Im-People vainly tried to get them to get it, if he recalls how great, in tain man who turned to his friend agine the passion over the crepes-know each other. Neither could take the present conditions of the world,
suzettes No. 1 am wrong.
the first step, naturally.
the sum of intellectual and moral to ask him, "Tve had my face
Sitting daily at adjacent desks, ability still is, and that a liberal smacked. -What shall I do?" and
with a secretary between them, they order still obtains in certain great the friend replied, "Кеер "the
So Madeleine asks him to hang addressed each other through this and powerful countries which will Smack It is clear that he who frames questions on matters affect-up a saucepan in the kitchen, and secretary with punctilious unaware- be able to meet the dangers
"Perhaps Mr. uh” "No which that order is exposed ing his honour as a man has al shoots him twice in the back while ness. ready ceased within himself to he is doing it, as an inducement to doubt the er gentleman on your will serve as beacons for a general
say: I love you"
left, Miss Gunch
revival and recovery. Even in 20- safeguard his honour. Liberty
Robert (under protest, and can
You ask how it ended? Perhaps thoritarian regimes there are last- you blame him?) says, "I love you." you were expecting a fairy story? ing effects of a previously enjoy-
It has never ended. How could it?ed liberty to be found in many So she shoots him again.
(An American paper," the "New Republic," asked Signor Benedetto Croce, the Italian philosopher and historian, to comment on the fol lowing three questions:-
Do you consider that political democracy is now on the wane?
Do you believe that authoritarian government is superior to de- mocracy, and, if so why?
..
it.
and
end
acities which persist, and Four years in prison for Made
those regimes make use of, even leine. But this is France, so she Watch Out For Girlie
while suppressing them and suffocat- won't have to serve the sentence: And Robert gets twopence compen-To-night's the night, girls,
to-ing
seeds, thereby destroying night's the big night and for five and prapmising those productive sation.
This disposes yet again of the old quid I can let any of you kids forces for the future, forces which seat. The Duchess of they themselves need in order to point that the French are an ex-have a
table nation. They are the most Whipsnade will be there,
in her man
their power. chinchilla coat and her tiara, and But, many case, let phlegmatic nation in the world.
And if you don't think it sounds Lady Heoghhaugh, in her prewar the worst that can happen........ phlegmatic to plug a gentleman full mackintosh, and Mr. Hogmanay greatest evil imaginable would be of bullets because he has ceased to Snuffles. We're launching Girlie that the struggle which is raging and suppression of liberty are not love you, look at the other side of Grayle, the new star, in the world over the world to-day shor on the same footing, like two things]
in the premiere of "Oliphants Never for-in the defeat of liberty of different value, of which one can
of triumph of authoritarianism of a The French Courts shrug their get." Girlie plays the part reasonably be preferred to the
shoulders at Madeleine's crime. Camilla Oliphant, the cocotte whose "totalitarian" kind, as it other, for the former means human They shrug their shoulders at a good future lies behind her
called, in those very countrie dignity and civilisation, the latter
What hard work we've had with have not
been fected the abasement of men to the
that baby! We started her as a Well, that neans going under but likeness of a fock led out to pas-
call the with the certainty that the The French newspapers can ac blue-eyed, blonde what ture, or of herds of wild beasts
cuse anybody of being a murderer, Presiankitten type (You know of freedom must of broken in and trained.
When I consider our own epoch slightest evidence-
maniac or dope-fiend, without the "Girlie Grayle snuggled cosily into gin anew and that it will her furs) - But there were too mence on the basis of thos I envisage the future of liberty as perpetually radiant: I see no defamation of character.
Nobody cares. Nobody sues for many Persian kittens around. So which have been temporarily defeat-
we went to the other extreme-al-fed but will win in the future. promise of light in authori In France everybody minds histered the girl's eye-brows, bought To the final question (to tarianism. In the past authority, own business and remains calm pro- her a new set of eyelashes, and turn- which one must put aside whether in the form of a theocracy vided he makes enough money and ed her into one of those slinky tical and moral or of a monarchy or an oligarchy, gets enough to eat...
dagoes. The streamlined type, with "Whether
deal.
Libel, for example.
had a religious mystic basis which they are an odd race; the most a cigarette holder and a Mona Lisa rather than has been replaced by modern civilised race. And, as far as Eng smile. That didn't get too big a safety of humanistic thought with clear lish views are concerned, perhaps hand either. But now we've got the materia human ideals. But the authori a shade too civilised. tarianism of our day, or that of
the future, is irreligious and Idylle
materialistic, despite rhetorical
fictions and fanaticism, and it Britannique
amounts simply to the brutal rule
of force over the peoples who are “I remember a well-known city constrained not to see and not to firm in which the two partners know, but just to let themselves be did not speak to each other for led and to obey
In order to lift this
to a moré magin
heroic plane
Mr. D. N
e old
jane where we want her mystery-there brunette with wind tossed curls and by "great grey eyes deeper than the one's riddle of the Sphinx
Publicity Publicity? greatest of impalpal
pay thee
by
Thou
MOTE
cess
me before