Wild Geese Overhead (18 page)

“Granted. But the whole aim of our socialist creed is so to run society, so to eliminate its shocking miseries and tyrannies and botched economics, that the individual in the socialist society will be in a far better position to contribute the maximum that's in him and so help society forward to a degree that's never been seen before.”

“Granted. So we establish the validity of the personal contribution. Now this is what I want to suggest: that it is possible, by our over-concentration on the importance of social relations, on the importance of a society functioning in a certain ‘perfect' way, it is possible that meantime, in the process, we may so forget the need for the intimate personal life and development of the individual, so relegate it to the machinelike function of achieving the perfect state, that it will tend to atrophy in itself, tend to the perpetuation accordingly and in due course of the machine-like state.”

“You can postulate any possibility. But what you say is, I think, a bit thin. Where we have to deal with such terrible realities as war and the possible destruction of humanity because of capitalist relations, your fear is, if not fantastic, at least academic. Take a great desire like peace, world peace. It is an emotion, intimate and personal to each one of us. Can you in the process of achieving the perfect state see that emotion, that emotion that is part of our socialist inspiration, possibly becoming atrophied?”

“That's a shrewd one! But I daren't dodge it, I suppose. So let us have a look at it. The first thing I notice is that you say peace, and then immediately, automatically, say world peace. That is, the peace—which is an absence of war. The very conception of peace in your mind has become
negative.
It is no longer an individual possession: it is something beyond you, it is something that belongs to that amorphous thing called society and it is placed in the future. It has ceased to be a reality, and has become, of all terrifying things, an ideal. It's not the peace that passeth understanding. It's not the peace that—that makes you feel—that lifts you on its wings, not that lovely exquisite moment of understanding when you know, beyond all telling, that life is good; deeper than that—that life is creation. It's not that
positive
peace.”

“But in the permanent absence of war, surely that
positive
peace—as you call it—would have a better chance of thriving?”

“No doubt,” said Will.

“I would seem to have missed the point?”

“Which is perhaps the whole point.” Will smiled. “It would be the usual endless discussion anyhow. And probably, as you say, the point is merely a fine one.”

Joe's face grew a trifle stern. “As you like—but you should play fair, even in discussion. Either you had a point to make or you hadn't.”

“The point, I had hoped, was made.
If
that conception of positive peace is not in your mind, is not in the minds of all those striving for an absence of war in the ideal state, then I cannot see logically how it is to be in the ideal state. Individuals cannot contribute to any form of society what it is not in them to contribute. If you talk peace, but do not know positive peace in your own mind, you are talking a lie. It happens to be a historic fact that those who did know this peace and wanted to contribute it to society, were crucified by society, or made to drink poison out of a bowl, or similarly liquidated.”

“I see what you are getting at. But again I think you are being fantastic. You are shrouding the appalling facts of social life, and therefore of individual life, in a mere metaphysical argument. That takes us nowhere. It's not talk now: it's action we need. Looking at things sanely, with a sense of balance, surely that is clear?”

“Quite clear. Remember that I agree with all your fundamental propositions; that I have worked, after my fashion, and will go on working, for the cause. That is why it is all the more imperative that you and I see quite clearly what we are doing. Very well. All that I'm trying to say is that it is you—not me—who are shrouding the issue in metaphysics. That's my point. I want peace, real, vivid, now, as a personal possession. You say we can't have it now because we have to fight to have it in another form of society in the future. My realist mind sees that as a form of dangerous idealism, based on an illogicality. If I am not quick with life inside myself then the belief that I can bring life to others is a fake. It's this
life
I have to find, and meantime I see us making for death. In our minds, peace talk is already thrilled through with the sensationalism of death. In our own leaders is this sensationalism of revolution and death, in our most austere and heroic men. The mood induced by the mass emotion, the mood of heroism and death. But death.”

“They die—so that we may have life more abundantly.”

“And after two thousand years—where are we? Being crucified, not individually, but in batches. Why? Because we have failed to understand that it is the individual who must have life more abundantly. You and me. Only then can he contribute of the abundance to a common stock. You cannot take whisky out of an empty bottle. All you can do is to go on imagining what the empty bottle will be like when it's full.”

“You mean that—you mean that, to put it shortly, all our leaders have been crucified in vain? You mean that they will go on being crucified in vain? You mean that all the purpose, organization, results—all have been in vain? You mean that?”

“I mean something much more profound than that. I mean this: that it is we—you and I—who have crucified our leaders, and who will go on crucifying them. Why? Because we have abdicated life. Because we are empty bottles. Just as there is no true peace in us, so there is no true life in us. When you shift the emphasis from the individual to society, to social relations, you shift it from the vivid springing core of life to a windy, if convenient, abstraction. But, and this is the snag: it is
difficult
to be a real individual living from your feet up. It needs grit, and pride, and courage, and power to endure through despair; you need to be quick with beauty, and light, and love, and sex; you must see men, not as social units, but as your individual brothers, full of this magic thing called life. And that is difficult. But—it is
easy
to be a socialist, it is easy to cry for ideal justice and go forward as one in the ranks, shedding this difficult thing that is real life upon the imaginary back of the army. You are then like one committed to a great fate. You have the surge of the crowd emotionalism within you. This surge will carry you over the barricades superbly. But when the surge is spent and you are sitting on your backside with a sore head—you are not then Joe Wilson, the individual, the indomitable, an entity in its own eternal right under heaven—you are merely a unit who has got lost, and you scurry around until you regain the obliterating safety of the army, and then the surge of crowd emotionalism again, and once more the barricades, and—so on, until, of course, you reach your own final fatal barricade. But that army has its leaders, must have its leaders, and its leaders must be individualists. Power is sweet. The temptation is strong. And you can always make it look like a beneficent bureaucracy—to an army of units. But you could never on God's earth make it look like a beneficent anything to an army of individualists.”

“Isn't a lot of that pure rhetoric?”

“Ah, but such rhetoric!”

“I could put up a case to prove that the life of the unit, as you call it, may be something a little different from your conception——”

“Listen, Joe. All I am trying to say is you can't
prove
life: you can only
live
it. And living it, it should be a thrill, a joy. If it isn't going to be that, it doesn't seem to me it matters a damn what it is going to be.”

“But you know there's another side to all that. You know, for example, that if there is one thing that keeps us back from attaining socialism, it is that very individualism that you boost. To have power against the forces of destruction you must have discipline; to conquer, you must submerge your own petty so-called independence in the greater social purpose that will win real freedom for all, including you. What's wrong with the Scot is this self-same curse of individualism, the anarchy of the individualism that creates schism, for ever and all the time. And I now see it rising in you.”

“I know you have wondered why I have been so attracted by Scottish Nationalism, and so far I have given in to your fear that it would merely cause a diversion in
our
fight. I am beginning to doubt your wisdom very profoundly. Look at the history of this nation before it became a herd of lost units in a southern army. When these individualists decided to have their own church, they combined all right—and my God did they put up a fight? And won too, just as long, long before they defended their national independence—they themselves, the common people—against terrific odds. But then, you see, the poorest, most miserable crofter, surprised by the enemy—think of ‘the killing times'—was not a lost unit. He faced his enemy; he fought by himself, until he died. Why? Because that poor crofter
was
the Scottish church. He was not merely one of the many. He was
one
, one in himself. The church burned in him. And he respected and trusted his brother like himself. And they combined in that way, and won. And that is the way men should combine, and in that way they must surely win, for they not only bring strength unto death, but they bring in themselves that which they seek.”

“We've discussed all that before.”

“Doubtless. But you've never answered it.”

Joe was silent. Will, looking at him, smiled slowly. Arguments did tend to go on endlessly.

“We seem to have wandered a bit,” said Joe.

“From where?”

“You said you were going to apply your findings, if any; something about my having lost faith or belief in the individual.”

Will saw he could not avoid the real issue any longer. “It seems rather absurd, doesn't it? Particularly when we think of that night at Jamie's; what you did—for the individual—there. I know.” He grew silent. Then he said quietly: “Not to realize how individual and personal you were is to suggest that you were slumming.”

Joe looked at him. Will met his eyes, then stared down thoughtfully at his hand on the table.

“You think—that?” said Joe.

Will shook his head. “No.”

“Well?”

“But there may be the suggestion of something in it. Otherwise I am slightly at a loss.”

“Go on.”

“It's very difficult, Joe,” said Will, reluctantly, “because you happen to be one of the great individualists, the born leader. That being so, however, you must, in the final count, be concerned more for your great aim than for any particular individual. Jamie and Ettie.…” Will paused, and looked away. “I merely perceive that I am going to make a mess of it. An unpardonable mess. I withdraw—unconditionally—and slightly ashamed.”

“You mean that Jamie and Ettie were units to me? Not altogether, of course, but still what I did for them I really did for the cause? In the long run I should be prepared to sacrifice Jamie and Ettie and you and even myself—for the greater glory? That being so I am losing my individual response, losing this vivid personal life you talk of? That's really your point?”

“Well?” said Will, but without any challenge.

“Perhaps there's something in it. There would have to be something in it.”

Will's smile twisted slowly. “Rub it in.”

“No,” said Joe quietly, “for it's a simple issue. Had it not been for the cause, I should not have done what I had done? Possibly. What is certain is that had it not been for the cause I should not have known them at all, and so have done nothing. Though no doubt I should have been trying to make my precious little personal life vivid in some other way.”

Will's laugh came in soft gusts through his nostrils.

“The personal now with a vengeance!” he said. “That's me being hoist with mine own criticism. And I have nothing to offer—except sincere acknowledgments.”

“And we can't even leave it there—because of the personal. For all this talk has been really about something much more personal.”

“Sort of camouflage about my personal conduct that night with the prostitute. I have been trying to criticize you indirectly—for your personal reaction to my behaviour. I—who profess to believe in the personal! You always could make a fool-proof case, Joe.”

“I was wrong,” said Joe. “That's what's troubled me. And I'm glad we've had this talk. I have no right to be personal. The personal is always sticky and full of misunderstanding. It destroys—what the mind builds up. I had no right——”

“Oh God, you had a right! Otherwise how are we going to march together? You had—and you must. At this point niceties are drowned. There was just this odd inconsistency, it seemed to me. You could understand not only Jamie and Mary and the policeman and the rest, but you could also understand Ivy, the prostitute. You would work for them in understanding and forgiveness. They are products of their environment. But when it came to me—I was a product of
my
environment. There was no excuse for me. It was not a moral judgement with you—though it was perhaps to some degree, because you, too, are a product of our puritanical background. But actually it was a judgement delivered from the point of view of the betrayal of the cause. By my conduct, I was bringing our crusade into disrepute. And that—got you.”

“Roughly, that is so. And by that judgement I still stand. I see no inconsistency.”

“Perhaps there is none. And so I may make my small point. Primarily, then, to you, we are all products of our environment. That great social fact brings out the best that's in you. On that basis you have understanding and pity and act with kindness and personal consideration. I wish I could emphasize the greatness of that—but I don't want to embarrass you or myself. Still, at that moment of judgement, I was primarily a product—not Will Montgomery, your friend. That is the matter from this
personal
point of view.”