MATERIAL THINGS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 700, 28 November 1933, Page 4

MATERIAL THINGS

There is a growing feeling that the present troubles of the world are very largely of the spirit chiefly because they are popularly supposed to be purely material. In other words, we are suffering to-day from a snrfeit of "materialism," a seeking after material wealth and comfort without a due regard to moral influences. It can be said without imitating the croak of doom, that this was the condition of spirit which preceded the fall of Rome, when a befuddled civilisation, without any clear goal to strive for, bewildered by a pantheon of strange gods, and conteht to rely upon the doctrine of "eat, drink and be merry for to-morrow we die," decayed and vanished before the upsweeping tide of barbarian virility. To-day, we have the doctrine of that barbarian virility preached by people like Herr Spengler who sees in a ruthless crushing of the things of the spirit, the only eventual triumph of man. But fortunately the world has progressed a little since the first barbarians ravaged Rome and despite the outpouring of Germanic "kultur," thought is sufficiently enlightened to regard the Teutonic egotism of Spengler as the anachronism- which it is. There is, despite Herr Spengler, a growing conviction that the world must seek its recovery, not alone along material paths, but in a new and enlarged coneeption of man's relationship toward his fellow man. The thesis is that the very discoveries and inventions of our age have been turned against mankind. The machine which ought to be a servant of human-

ity has become its master. Knowledge of how to use the resources which have been vastly inereased has not kept pace with the growth of those resources. Moral life has been sacrificed to material life. Among those who have recent- j ly elaborated this theme is Ma- j dame Mury, who, in an article J which has attracted consider- j able attention in the Courier Col- 1 onial, asserts that nothing worth ! while can now be realised, even ] — and indeed, above all — in the j practical domain, "without a j spiritual regenerafion which will j rescue humanity from misery. A stupid materialistic idolatry, which is pseudo-scientific, has br ought the world to the very edge of the abyss." Whatever language may be ; employed, there is no doubt that ; the idea which she seeks to express is becoming prevalent. It is in this direction, happily, that buman thought is turning. Accumulation of material wealth for the sake of material wealth, in a mood of selfishness and rivalry, is bound to lead to disaster. Men are far more troubled today than when life was simpler. Despite the marvellous improvements, the unquestionable progress registered in nearly every department, there is probably more care and distress than before these generous gifts were poured upon the world. We have learned to make 'many things that a generation ago did not exist. We have learned to make necessaries and luxuries on any unprecedented scale, so that tahere is plenty where there was paucity. Yet instead of being better off, we subject ourselves to self-torture, and many of our fellows are suffering want in the midst of profusion. When everything has been said concerning the difficulties which we experience it is probable that the central and essential fact lies in the par.adox of our having made under-con-sumption the corollary of so-call-ed over-production. . Obviously, if there were greater good will shown by class howard class and by nation toward ^mtioi^^i^hi^iidividuaMwere

less mindful of his own advantages and" more concerned for the advantages of all- — most of the troubles which- have been created would disappear as if by magic. Even though it was necessary to make important sacrifices for the general well-being, the result would be beneficial all round. To set down these axioms appears elementary; yet it is because we have forgotten these elementary truths that we are wre&tling with a crisis which Is per-" haps unique in the annals 'of mankind. Nothing may sd^m simpler than this return to the earliest teachings of mortality, but unfortunately the obsession of material conditions has tended tot obscure the private and public sense of the most vital clause of the human code of conduct. The elevation of the material above the moral is, in large measure,. responsible for the chaotic conditions which appear to prevail. For the material cannot be other than chaotic unless it is suffused and guided by the moral. More and more it is clearly discerned by enligfetened men and women, whether in Europe or in America, that only by the complete acceptance of the Golden Rule can order be br ought into ' human affairs. Planning that is perpetually thwarted by selfish materialistic conceptions can lead nowhere; planning that is unreservedly forwarded by moral conceptions will unquestionably relieve the world of its self-imposed burdens.