TOWARDS A NEW ORIENTATION.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 July 1923, Page 4

TOWARDS A NEW ORIENTATION.

(Lyttelton Times)

One of the most characteristic notes of contemporary life is the consciousness of a changed outlook. Wo are till more or less moving about in worlds not realised, or at least very dimly realised. Old landmarks, that had seemed to us as fixed as the very nature of things have been broken or removed. Aspiration that to some of us seem fanciful or nebulous have for the time at least displaced the old familiar goals of action towards which we once unhesitatingly directed our course. In the world of international politics wo y oo diirlvly tlio intoi-notions and reactions of new groupings and con Hiding ideals, lu the world of religion wo see the churches challenged, and men refusing longer to accept orthodox and traditional intei pi elutions of the facts of life and experience. In the world of society at large we see struggle, coiiitiot, 11 urerlain 1 y and discomfort. The mechanism of life lsomehow out u! gear, or it mat be. ve have suddenly become acutely conscious of workings which formerly, in "hat we once called normal times, we took for granted, nr indeed ignored. \\ o are caught in tlie machine we have created. The material forces of the world which in the “wonderful nineteenth century" we fondly believed we had mastered, are threatening, it would seem, to master us. “Like children who h*ivo boon noonstomoil to j»hiy with the levers and buttons and switches of a dynamo, we have ended by discovering bow to connect tin* current and set the wheels revolving. W hat ate we going to do with them, and wliat are tliov going to do to usb" The questions are as urgent as they are disconcerting. The answers are not easy to lind, and yet on our success in finding them depends nothing Jess than the fortune of 'Western civilisation. It is, we may sup|>o-c. inevitable that the vast forces we have within sucli recent years set in million should mould u> into new and unexpected forms. Mali cannot whullv escape from the influence of his environment But, though it may rule it must no. master us. Lor men mastered hy material tilings is ,’naii deleated and enslaved. On those lines there is no room for hope. And life without hope is morel v a living death. What. I hell, is the remedy, if indeed, there he any remedy, for tin* sickness of the age r That is the question to which the writer ut a stimulative leader in a recent issue of “The Times" Literary Supplement addresses himself. Matei lahu and mobility. lie points out. are dominant elmraeterist its ol the d,.\. V> have provided ourselves with a vast apparatus which multiplies a tlunisaudfo.o our capacity for expression, bid. alas, so far we have found no new thing to express. We mistake words for ideas, and forget in our mad rush and hurry that “the only way to understand an idea is to live through an experience.’ ami that the process of living through an experience is one that cannot be hurried, and may in fact last for generation-. Wo move ton liiueli and tear ourselves too violently from centres of repose. “Our minds are assailed by cataracts of impression which have the excitement, the alternating pleasure

and discomfort, ol dream-fantasies, ami exercise little more of formative inlluenee upon ns that dreams can do. Wo still love beauty, but we lack the large leisure and the environment..which enabled the artist of the past to achieve it. The village ol the past, in days before facilities ol transport tumbled the resources of tiie world at mi, feet, was a natural harmony: the wood and stone of the district, repented in its walls and roofs and timbers, seined the homogeneity ol house and landscape and so captured the essentials of beauty. We. as lias been pointed out. ‘■turn the fields and woods ol Essex into Last ami West Ham I" The beauty achieved in the past was a b.'.oproduet secured lice on.-eioush.. Ihe task that lies before us is the escape I rolil the obessicin ol the Ugly and s - (lire beauty ol c otiseior.s cliorl and hard-won triumph over Lhe heterogeneous and ton abundant resources ol material. Our inventiveness i- our undoing. Our strength is no longer to sit still. "Our actions have to lollow principles of ever-widening determination: wo have to duvet, a multiplicity of unfamiliar details, Knowing that every touch which does not create desire's. Our immediate need i- mmi ol large' ' i - ion w ho w ill c rente ior us new

governing idea- adequate to iiw vumrnious demands of the hour, and men endowed with the gilt of kindling enthusiasm for the arduous ami unlamiliar. The relation of the individual to tie- world’s goods must somehow be bxed upon a stable basis. Properl' must learn to postpone its rights to its duties. "In a peculiar sense ihe motto I'm our time is ‘devoted possession.'. . . What wo really need is to adopt towards the material abundance and |>r - \ oi at i vctiess ol our tune a religion- ottunde. to apply mir religion lervently 1 : the irraditit inn and redemption ol • lie blind forces which we control ; to see to il that all tbe energi"s w liic'i we unloose shall have the signilieani, their spiritual direction. Ami we have specially to bear in mind two aspects of mir possessors Ii ip. Tbe bust is. that tb" very multitude of our pos-es-inns or possibilities of possession makes real possession increasingly 'hlfietilf. Ihat. alone is really ours which we weave 1,a,, the pattern, of our persona! liic. and w ji icl: tlnougb tl- is ■ alowed w ith hitman value. The .second is that, -ume lji(. value of material tilings is always ), nm a,l and rail only be measured Hi lor,ns of eonsi-ioU-ne-’S no use of pro(erty (an be right by wlm h luumm lie* mv woaUonod ur vinlsiu'tl. is iiiu li tcud for liio 11 1»L in lids nmd erii nd;ii>lnti ,J, i ‘d («oI(l<Ti Uni.‘.