Think―Or be Damned

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 100, 23 May 1941, Page 5

Think―Or be Damned

F you want a book which may. succeed in making you thoroughly angry but at the same time should cause you to think furiously, then I can recommend Think-Or be Damned. Brian Penton says "Only when we have reduced to some objective basis all the national slogans, resounding abstractions, and poppycock encrusted catch-cries which we bandy to and fro whenever we put our heads together, will we have the remotest hope of travelling anywhere than in a big circle." He is, of course, talking primarily to Australians, but much of what he says is of considerable importance to New Zealanders. He points out that it is obvious that we have in the near future a large complex of economic and political problems to attend to, These problems consist briefly of our telation to the Empire, our relation to the world at large, our relation to the crowded Pacific basin and our internal economic and social set-up. And he asserts that before anything can be done, "a preliminary soul searching is called for. Our minds are at the moment befogged by words, slogans, maxims, catch-cries that are largely meaningless, by assumptions without justification and by cock-eyed judgments. As a result, we emphasise and set up as a standard the wrong kind of patriotism, the wrong kind of national pride, aims that only conflict with our, desire to make the most of living in this desirable corner of the world." His booklet is an ill. mannered, vigorous attack on popular superstitions in Australia, superstitions which can be duplicated here in New Zealand. He examines what has- been achieved by 153 years of Australian colonisation, what we mean by democracy, what we mean by saying that Australia has developed a national spirit of its own, what exactly is meant by references to high standards of living, what is meant by remarks such as Australia has the best education system in the world.’ The case that he puts is a case against humbug and cant, a case against respectable ostrichism which is practised in every part of the world as well as in Australia. His book is a plea for intelligent

thinking so that we shall not continue in a self-satis-fied manner; to accept the rhetoric and half-truths and abstract observations which usually pass for thinking. Brian Penton is right-unless we think and think well and rapidly we are like to be damned. But how many of us are really prepared to do a little soul searching, and examine forms of respectable ostrichism as practised in Australia or New Zealand? (Book Review by Winston Rhodes, 3YA, April 29).