THE SEAMY SIDE OF CIVILISATION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 241, 1 June 1932, Page 3

THE SEAMY SIDE OF CIVILISATION

Frederick

Stubbs,

F.R.G.S.

SOCIAL RESULTS

By

When Kaid Abderrahman Ben Abder-Sadek, the Governor of Fez, visited England, he exclaimed on his departure, "England is a great eountry, but I am glad to be going back to civilisation again." He meant, of course, tbe kind of civilisation to whieh he himself was accnstomed, but in saying this he simply gave expression to a feeling that lies in the hearts of many who hecome acquainted with our type of civilisation for the first time. To them the centres of European culture, which of course include U.S.A. and the Dominions, notwithstanding their wealth, their great resources, their wonderful inventions, their military-strength, represent a social condition inferior to their own. The awful poverty side by side with ostentatious wealth and luxury; the fierce .struggle for existence; the gross intemperance; the sordid and shameless immorality; the ahounding and defiant crime — these strike the visitor, unused to our type of civilisation, with astonishment and pain. Some observers have thought even the savage state preferable to this. Modern civilisation has enahled man to move fapidly from one spot of earth to another; to know more of the sayings and doings of his fellows; to extend his knowledge of natural phenomena; to garnish his home and person; has placed in his hands weapons of deadly precision wherewith to maim or slay th'ose who offend him. But has it increased his healthiness, his happiness, his free- 1 dom from care? The Children Let us begin with the child. How different is the lot of the civilised child, chained to a desk during most of its young life; puzzling its poor little brain over mathematical prohlems; picking its way amid the intricacies of grammar and syntax; burdening its memory with the vocabularies of languages long defunct; cramming its brain with a thousand facts that will never he of the slightest practicaLuse ; how different, I say, is this child's life to that of the free, healthy, active and untrouhled childlife that one has seen in "uncivilised" lands.

Or take the child when it has struggled through to manhood or womanhood. For millions of these life will hold little hope or comfort. Most men toil for a bare suhsistance; many will be unable to obtain work at all. That, alas! is the distressing lot of millions at the present moment. They are walking the streets, hegging, stealing; worst of all, sinking lower and lower in social and moral worth. In the case of many adults it is their own fault. Many thinking people (rightly or wrongly) regard it as mainly the fault of professional Politicans, and laVur Mosses. But what about the tens of thousands of young people who have just left school without any prospect of an independent or comfortable career; condemned not only to idleness but to moral degeneration and social uselessness? "Savage" Life Then contrast with this the condition of the man whom we despise and pity and spend much money to "raise" to our own condition. He does not know everything; is in many respects ignorant and de.ficient. But he at least enjoys freedom, fresh air and sunshine, leads a healthy, active life; with little labour or anxiety obtains sufficient food to keep him in health; hunts in the forest, fishes in the river, sits and plays in the sunshine, laughs and talks and sings around the fire at night. No doubt he has to protect himself against enemies; sometimes has to fight and is not always victorious; is nearly always the victim of foolish superstitions; but all this might be said of highly civilised peoples, too. Bullen — one of the most veracious of writers — pictures the Sandwich Islanders before "civilisation" reached them as intoxicated — not with alcohol, — as white men might he — hut "with the joy of living." "As far as I could judge," he says^ "they were the happiest of peoples.'' (I know these islands and agree with him.) "We are always happy," said one of the natives to another well-known traveller and writer. "We never grieve long ahout anything. When any one dies we hreak our hearts for some days and then are happy again. V/e are happy all day long, not like white people, happy one moment, gloomy another. We have no cares; the days are too short. What are foreigners always unhappy about?" The visitor might have replied, "Being a civilised Christian people they are unhappy about money, because they have not got more of it; unhappy about their houses and dress hecause they are not as fine as some other people's; unhappy about shares and dividends lest they should decline ; unhappy about politics, not knowing what new form of oppression their politicians may invent; .unhappy about commerce, about their rivals in trade.; ahout a thousand other things in heaven and earth, past, present, and future!" With so many labours and anxieties how can they help being unhappy?" And yet we pity the poor savage. and send him the best of books and the worst of liquor to elevate him! The Middle Class Even when civilised man has money and education it is doubtful whether on the whole he is happier than the uncivilised. His youth will be spent in acquiring a mass of knowledge, much of it useless. For five or six years he will be imprisoned within four walls, chained to a hard seat. Even when he goes home he will have the incubus of the next examination resting upon him and will probably have to pore over his books again. If he lives to become a merchant or a professional man, he wiH hav-e all sorts of responsibilities, anxieties, annoyances. Every day will bring a fresh burden of care. While he is still young his eyes will begin to fail, his hair hecome thin, his teeth decay. He will suffer from indigestion, etc., and may think himself lucky if he escapes medical charlatans. He will probably he worried to death by the social ambitions of his wife and children, which no labour on his part can

hope to satisfy. And when at last the struggle ends, there will he a scramble for his possessions, with which no one will be satisfied, and for which no one will feel the least gratitude. Such is the lot of the middleclass man. Why then should the "uncivilised" ra'ces envy him? Resting in their simple huts or squatting in the sun; their wants easily and quickly supplied ; with no care of the morrow, no financial anxieties or social ambitions, no politics or politicians, content to he simple human beings living • in Paradise and enjoying it; why should they envy the toiling', anxious, discontented sons of civilisation? There is no getting away from the fact that the progress of civilisation has been accompanied by an increase of worry, ill-health, and discontent. The moral results of civilisation I hope to deal with in my next article.