MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IRECEIVED this morning from an unknown correspondent in Winnipeg a letter in which he refers to an article which I wrote one month ago upon this page. In that article I had made a passing, and indeed casual, reference to "American materialism" and had by implication contrasted it with the pursuit of " social justice." My correspondent asks me to explain what I mean by these two terms. " It would," he writes, " do us all on this side much good if you would devote an article to an explanation of what the British people mean exactly when they talk about Canadian and American materialism, and what exactly they mean by social justice, for frankly most of us on this side do not understand it." " We ourselves," he continues, " can only see that American and Canadian so-called materialism has built up for large populations the highest level of living in the world, and such an accumulation of wealth that we have been able—and glad to do it of course—to come to the aid of socialised Britain and many other countries in their hour of need." That seems to me a subtle, polite and somewhat unanswerable retort. My correspondent then proceeds to ask me equally pertinent ques- tions regarding my use of the phrase " social justice." Do I mean by those casual words that there should be a further distribution of wealth in this island? If so, would not the consequent denial of rewards to " talented" people discourage such people from putting forward their best efforts? Or do I mean that by some means more wealth should be produced and made available to all? If so, is not the best method of securing such increased production to offer high rewards to the " talented " and at the same time " to have the mass of the people work harder, or at least have them produce more per man . .. as is now being done in the United States and Canada? " Such questions present one with a formidable challenge.
* * * * Let me say at once that I agree with my unknown friend in Winni- peg that it is an evil thing to employ words or phrases which have either no meaning at all or which mean entirely different things to different people. Even more evil is it to introduce into one's argu- ment words which, one well knows, have an emotional, rather than a rational, significance. We are entering upon a demagogic age, in which even at international conferences responsible statesmen will address themselves, not to the thoughts of their colleagues, but to the feelings of the listening masses outside. " The broad masses," wrote Hitler in his powerful text-book on demagogic technique, " cannot understand the gradations between right and wrong.... Let us therefOre avoid gradations and present them only with a positive or a negative, hatred or love, truth or lies, never half this and half that." "The driving force," he writes again, "in all sreat movements has always been, not rational or intellectual convictions, but some fanatical inspiration, and often even a form of hysteria which sweeps the masses onwards." The difference between the democrat and the demagogue is that, whereas the former aims at gaining and retaining the confidence of the people by argument, the latter seeks only to arouse their momentary excitement or appetites. And it has thus occurred in this difficult modern world of ours that men have lost their own self-respect in the handling of the spoken or the written word and have come to atter cries which are indistinguishable from those which goatherds and cowherds use. I am aware of all this. But I contend none the less that the expressions "American materialism" and " social justice," in spite of their emotional asso- ciations do possess a rational meaning which it is not impossible to define.
* * * * In using the word " American materialism " I was not, of course, thinking in ethical terms. I was not suggesting that the new world is less aware of spiritual values than the old. I well know how generous and how high is the strain of idealism which permeates the Americas and which finds positive expression in their missionary spirit ; I am fully aware that the American idea is " a shining thing in the mind." I was thinking rajher of the different habits of thought
engendered in the old world and in the new by the circumstances of their economic, social and political development. The old pioneer spirit transmuted itself into the conception of " the Frontier " ; and that in its turn was succeeded by the belief in " limitless opportunity and " rugged individualism." Even territorial expansion which, when practised by other countries was denounced as " imperialism," was in the new world excused as "manifest destiny." The astonish- ing development of the New World during the nineteenth century implanted in generation after generation of her citizens an instinctive belief in the need for constant and rapid growth. " From the very beginnings" writes James Truslov: Adams, " the quantitative measure of value assumed a definite place in the American mentality." The dollar became, assuredly not the aim, but equally surely the measure, of personal success. And in the process the sense of qualitative values was submerged. Thus, although statistically speaking the United States is the richest country in the world, it is also a country which has no national health or unemployment insurance. " It con- tains," writes John Gunther, " four-fifths of the world's automobiles and one-half of its telephones: but not quite so overwhelming a proportion of its moral character or most interesting ideas." That, more or less, is what we are thinking about when we use the ex- pression " American materialism."
* * * But there is more in it than just that. We of the old world are alarmed by the dominance acquired in the new world by the machine. We are frightened by the spectre of factories which in a week will produce more boots than there are feet in the United States or Canada. We dread the emergence in America of a new governing class of technicians who will know little, and reek less, of the principles of the founding fathers, and who will give a metallic edge to the American soul. We chafe in the strait jacket of economic dependence, and it is the metal buckles which gall us rather than the leather straps. It may be that there enters into our criticism some element of envy, malice and uncharitableness ; it may be that in preferring our intended order, our " social justice," we are making a virtue out of our present hard necessities. But the fact remains that when we speak of American " materialism " we are thinking of something rigid, mechanical and as such alarming ; and that when we speak of " social justice " we are thinking of something more organic and humane. We are temperamentally distrustful both of speed and size ; we are terrified by the inconsistencies of American policy and by the fluidity of American opinion ; and we feel our- selves borne away by some vast aeroplane the pilot of which is subject to black-outs and the navigator to nerve-storms. Our habits of thought also have been formed by our economic and social development ; our conscience is suffering from a heavy hang-over resulting from the economic orgies of the nineteenth century. And we have come to assess the value of a civilisation not in terms of money, but in terms of the amount of human unhappiness which it is able to prevent.
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We have no cause to be sell-righteous about this. Our conversion has been imposed by circumstances and is terribly belated. In the new world the harshness of rugged individualism, the harshness of rewards and penalties, is still mitigated by comparative equality of opportunity. In our stratified society that equality has still to be created. Thus when we sneer at American " materialism " we forget the different social structure upon which it is largely based. And when they sneer at our desire for " social justice "—regarding it either as meaningless or hypocritical—they do not know how many talented people in this country are denied opportunities which the untalented enjoy. If the old world can render its opportunities less limited, and the new world its energies less mechanical, then the difference between them will become little more than a difference in terms.
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