Security and the Price

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 382, 18 October 1946, Page 5

Security and the Price

T is not at all unnatural that Sydney Greenbie, who failed in his mission to sell America to New Zealand, should now be defending himself to America. Nor is it unfair that we, who sometimes laughed at -him, should be laughed at by him in the columns of the Saturday Evening Post. It is good for us to be laughed at, and some of the things that Mr. Greenbie says about us are true. It is the truth that there are not many of us, and that we are still nearer to Britain than to America. It is true also that we have obtained social security at a price, as America maintains rugged individualism at a price. What Mr. Greenbie fails to see is that we would sooner pay our price than pay his. The price we pay for security is reduction in the opportunities for adventure. Life is clearly more exciting when you don’t know that the roof‘above your head to-day will still be above it to-morrow; that the spoon in your porridge will have an uninterrupted passage to your mouth; that the wife who makes your bed may not have to make someone else’s bed next week or go without bread for her children; and that you must somehow or other avoid getting sick in case you can’t pay for the doctor. It would be more exciting not to wash your hands — you would never know from hour to hour what new bug you had swallowed; or not to wear clothesyou might get pneumonia and you might get jail; or not to cut your hair-you might be taken for a prophet and you might attract the birds. Every civilised thing we do takes the zest out of life, as Mr. Greenbie will discover if he makes a few simple experiments — eats with his mouth open, scratches himself as often as he is itchy, or even uses the ‘language about us that comes first to his mind when he remembers how little we listened to him. Every time he restrains himself in those ways, and in hundreds of others, he avoids social conflicts at the price of primitive delights. The question is whose price we are going to pay-the barbarian’s, who offers the excitement of driving along a road without rules or road signs, or the civilised man’s, who robs us of the fun of collisions and the adventure of sudden death but gives us a 90 per cent. chance of getting home. |