IDEAS v. IDEOLOGIES

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20498, 14 May 1938, Page 13 (Supplement)

IDEAS v. IDEOLOGIES

The Real and the Visionary

(Lews Rex Miller in Christian Science Monitor.)

IT IS OFTEN SAID in these times that the world is witnessing a gigantic struggle between conflicting ideologies, from which no nation and no individual can remain aloof. Generally, this conflict is described as a clash between Communism and Fascism, and it is often assumed that only with the universal triumph of one or other of these philosophies of government can the struggle cease. Against this assumption the thinking individual must and does protest. For government. to him. is not the realisation of a philosopher’s dream, but the manifestation in daily experience of justice, freedom and peace. Doctrinaire enunciations of political dogmas mean much less to him than the common sense practice of brotherly love. This patient individual, the thinking citizen, has to listen to much shouting and boasting. He hears the most extravagant claims made for this or that scheme of social organisation. He is told that only under some particular “isms” or some distinctive ologv can his highest aims be realised. But he instinctively knows that forms of government Signify Nothing unless they express the desires and aspirations of the governed. He longs for less of the letter and more of the spirit in law and public administration. He is assured that Communism offers salvation to the world. But when he asks: “ Where will I find a sample of this form of government ? ” he is told, if his informer is honest, that no such thing as genuine Communism exists, even in Russia. He reads in the headlines of his newspaper that Brazil has gone Fascist, and then he is assured by eminent authorities that the new Constitution promulgated by President Vargas lacks none of the essential features of classic Italian Fascism. He is told that national socialism in Germany is closely akin to Italian Fascism, but In the Italian scheme of things he does not discern the racial and religious theories which are characteristic of the German regime. By this time, the thinking citizen is beginning to reach the sound conclusion that “isms” are not enough. He is looking for truth, but he has found only words, and words which mean different things to dif-

ferent people. He has been searching for ideas, but he has merely been Pelted With Assorted Ideologies. Yet one thing he has learned. Henceforth he can forgo the luxury of placing his faith in anything that ends in the letters i-s-m. If he is American, or British, or French, or a citizen of one of the many other nations that have not succumbed to a totalitarian regime, he will probably be told that his country’s institutions are out-of-date, that they do not conform to modern needs. He may be told that his country must sooner or later line up with the forces either of the Right or of the Left, of Fascism or of Communism. To the thinking citizen of a democracy, neither sounds attractive. He looks about him and observes the prevalence of freedom of speech and of the press, and in general a higher level of well-being' rather than obtains in Germany, Italy, Japan or Russia. It hardly appears necessary to join up with a Communist ally or an anti-Com-munist coalition. He knows that Russia is probably more Fascist than Communist in its present state, and he suspects that Japan and Germany are more anti-Russian than anti-Communist. The democrat does not see any sufficient reason for pledging allegiance to either side. The citizen of the democracy is not trying to force his country into the mould of any philosophical doctrine. He has no theory of Marx or of Mussolini to prove by experiment in a political laboratory. His form of government is not an “ism.” He adheres not to an ideology, but to the Divine Idea of man self-governed. He hears the critics of his institutions describe themselves as realists and him as an impractical idealist. In fact, it is he who is the realist. He may be an idealist, but he is not, like hi* critic, an ideologist. The citizen of a democracy has no desire to impose his political convictions on subjects of other nationalities by force. He has learned by experience the fallacy of fighting wars to make the world safe for democracy. Democracy must be an indigenous growth. To attempt to force it upon others would be mere “democratism.”