The British Radical in 1959

By PHILIP TOYNBEE Prim radical and the conservative mentalities I have survived through all changes of English history, although the issues which divide them have continuously shifted in the radical direction. Thus the voices which howled for the retention of the stake are the same voices which are now howling for the retention of the gallows. And the radicals who succeeded in abolishing the stake have enabled their successors to concern them- selves with the abolition of the gallows. But it is important that the Radical should, from time to time, take stock of his position, consider what he is and what he should be doing. (Just as it would no doubt be a good thing if the Conservative were sometimes to ask himself what he is trying to conserve.) In this article I shall try to describe my own idea of the modern English Radical. This will not be, alas, a self-portrait, but it will be the statement of a personal ideal. It is in the nature of things that other radicals will not agree with all of it.

(1) The True Radical is not to be confused with the False Radical. There is a lot of ground to be cleared here, since the False Radical is a peculiar and significant figure of our time. He may be discerned by his strident assault on minor or irrelevant issues, and by the fact that none of his assaults are in the least damaging to the psycho- logical foundations of the status quo. Thus he is likely to be violently anti-German, while the true Radical recognises that this is as vulgar a form of racial prejudice as any other. The False Radical constantly inveighs against bureaucracy—as if the tiresome proliferation of our civil servants were a major evil of our times instead of a minor and corrigible source of irritation. The False Radical is liable to be anti-American and to spend much of his time deploring the increase of American investment in British, industry. He talks with contempt of 'the modern world' which is run and inhabited by `little grey men.' Though almost certainly a philistine in the arts the False Radical is greatly outraged by such phenomena as rock 're roll, skiffle and Teddy-boy fashions. He is quite likely to make a show of genuine radicalism by attacking such comparative triviali- ties as Prinv Philip's polo or the expenses of the royal yacht. He claims to be against all parties and all politicians, but he is far more virulent and active when a Labour government is in power. The False Radical is not a Fascist and is unlikely to become one, but he is the raw material of Fascism.

(2) The True Radical believes in Liberty, Equality and Fraternity—and that the greatest of these is fraternity, which is a modest form of Christian love. He knows, as his predecessors had less reason to know, that liberty and equality are not different aspects of the same thing, or even natural allies. He knows that when they come into conflict the balance between them must be struck by means of some criterion which is outside them both. This is the obscure but mean- ingful criterion of fraternity.

(3) The Radical believes that the worst public vice of our time is the continued failure to recog- nise a common humanity in those who are dif- ferent from ourselves. The principal psycho- logical aim of the Radical is to enlarge his true sympathies and to try to see how the world looks through eyes other than his own.

(4) Thus in domestic affairs the Radical is prin- cipally concerned with those minorities which are still treated as though they had forfeited, or had never earned, the rights of full humanity. Whether or not he is a homosexual the Radical is passion- ately opposed to the persecution of homosexuals. Whether or not he is a murderer, he finds the ordeal of the death cell and the gallows an un- bearable ordeal. Whether or not he is an old-age pensioner he feels that grinding poverty is an intolerable' condition for humanity. Whether or not he is a coloured immigrant he shares the suffering and the rage of all those who are slighted or discriminated against on account of their colour. (The Radical would not care in the least if his daughter married a Negro, unless he happened to think ill of him as a man.) (5) The Radical does not believe that English society is now more or less as it should be. He believes that England is still a long way from that measure of equality—in income, in cducat ion and in status—which would encourage fraternity instead of thwarting it. He respects privacy—per- haps with passion—but he detests all artificial barriers between men. He therefore dislikes, and wishes to amend, both the economic and the social structure of his country.

(6) But the Radical does not oppose for the sake of opposing, and he is as suspicious of the term 'The Establishment' as he is critically sus- picious of all established persons and institutions.

(7) The Radical may or may not be a Socialist, but he cannot be a doctrinaire. He may support or oppose the nationalisation of steel, but which- ever view he takes he cannot regard any form of social or economic change as an end in itself.

(8) For on everything which comes under the heading of Means the Radical is pragmatical and open to argument.

(9) The Radical may support the Liberal ca the Labour Parties; his attitude to the Conserva. tives is one of reasoned but extreme distaste. For the Radical cannot and does not wish to say, 'A plague on all your houses.' He does not claim to be superior to politics, or to be independent of parties. For the Radical is not a striker of attitudes, but a man who wishes to get things done, and he recognises that most things can only be done through existing political institu- tions.

(10) Therefore the Radical who supports the Labour Party does not spend his time bemoaning the failure of the Labour. Party to incorporate all his hopes. He would be willing to divide the partY only on the most fundamental issues of principle. For though he is scrupulous about means he tries to confront things as they arc, and not as he would like them to be. Knowing that the best is un- achievable the Radical will put up, for the time being, with the better, or even the less bad, W hik continuing to campaign for his own beliefs.

(11) The Radical who supports the Liberal PartY will be made uneasy by the possibility of his in' effectiveness; just as the Labour Radical is made uneasy by many of his party's attitudes and state' of mind.

(12) The Radical detests the Conservative PartY not only because it is the party to which nearly all the floggers and hangers belong; not onlY because of the Conservative voice, but princi- pally because he has never forgotten Suez and never will forget it. He regards Suez as the para- mount and archetypal act of modern Conserva- tive government. And his deep loathing of that action is based not on its inexpediency cv failure; not even on its dishonesty, but on the fact that several thousand people were wantonly murdered. This was another, and the grossest, example Orf a failure to recognise the common humanity ot 'people who are different from ourselves. (13) This leads to the fact that the Radical recognises the paramount importance of world over domestic affairs in 1959. He is far frorn indifferent to what happens in his own country.° earlier propositions have shown. He is not a Mrs' Jellyby. He knows that the idealist who disregards what is close to him in favour of what is dislant is a lost man. But the Radical also knows that the fate of the world does not depend on the nationalisation of the British steel industry.

(14) The Radical may or may not be a ,or porter of unilateral nuclear disarmament, brit he certainly recognises that no other issue of our time is of comparable importance. (15) The Radical recognises that, in 'Add affairs, his country is suffering from a virulent national neurosis. This was among the manY lessons he learned at the time of the Suez Inas' sacre. He knows that, politically, England has become a second-class power, but that almost no politician will dare to saY so. He knows that this fact, which in itself is neither good nor bad' causes acute fury in many of his fellow-countrra men and easily leads to a dangerous form os defensive national arrogance. (16) The Radical, in fact, is a patriot onlY in the sense that he wishes well to his own counlrYt as he does to every other; that he believes his own country to have certain unique contributions I° make—as have many other countries; and that he probably likes his own country the best. He recognises that a fierce sense of national pride or indignity is simply a childish extension of the ego's self-aggrandisement. (The Radical may indulge this emotion by sharing in the ferocious partisanship of international sporting events. He considers this to be a harmless release, and he knows what he is up to. Or at least he remembers what he's up to when the match is over.) MISCELLANEOUS ADDITIONS (17) The Radical has no respect whatever for tradition as such—which is not to say that he has no sense of history, or that the past has no fascination for him. In his private life he may be an arcadian—all men of passion and imagina- tion are filled with private regrets, nostalgias and visions of a Golden Age. But the Radical does not confuse his own nostalgia with a belief that everything used to be better than it is. He knows that in his own country most things are now better than they were.

(18) But the Radical is not a Utopian. He be- lieves that the world can be greatly improved by the exercise of intelligent goodwill, but he knows, if he has any sense or sensibility, that personal life is irredeemably tragic.

(19) The Radical may or may not be a Chris- tian—but he cannot be a black Christian. He does not believe that men should grovel or that the existence of monstrous evil in the world is a reason for despairing of the world.

(20) The Radical can be a Roman Catholic, but only by something of a tour de force. This is not because the Vatican is committed to any par- ticular anti-radical policy, but because it is an authority which may not be questioned. The worker-priests had to come to heel, or leave the Church. The Radical, while recognising the need for interim alliances and disciplines for the sake of achieving specific purposes, denies all claims in this world to binding moral authority.

(21) The Radical cannot be either a fellow- traveller or a professional anti-Communist. The first implies a mentality which is both sly and self-deceiving, and which involves the toleration of the intolerable. The second presents as an end an attitude which is crude, negative and obtuse. The Radical does not believe that Communism is intrinsically and in all circumstances wicked. Nor could he function properly in any existing Communist society.

(22) Whether he is a trade-unionist or not the Radical is deeply sympathetic towards trade unions and believes that the great majority of strikes in the past have been justified. But he is made uneasy by the principle of the closed shop, and indignatit by the childish and cruel sanction of ostracism which has been used against scabs. (Yet he cannot feel warmly towards scabs.) (23) But above all, the Radical is a man who tries to love most of his fellow-men. He would like to feel that any remediable suffering any- where in the world is his personal concern. He does not feel this—unless he is a saint as well as a Radical—but he would like to feel it, and he tries to act as if he did.