The Darkest Hours - 18 Chilling Dystopias in One Edition. Samuel Butler
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“Oh yes, there are certain pedagogical tricks and dodges that are decidedly clever. In fact, if the human race were a race of clever insects, the Meccanian system of education would be almost perfect. The pupils store up knowledge as bees store honey, and they learn to perform their functions, as members of an organisation, with wonderful accuracy. I cannot help thinking sometimes that Meccania is a society of clever insects.”
“Exactly,” struck in Mr. Villele. “There are the soldier ants, and the slave ants, and the official ants, and the egg-producing ants. We ought to call Meccania the Super-Insect-State, eh?”
“Yes; the land of the Super-Insects,” said Johnson. “No person in Meccania, certainly no child, is ever looked upon as an ‘end in itself’; he is simply one of a community of ants.”
“Of course,” I said, “to be quite fair, we cannot consider anybody strictly as an end in himself, even in Luniland.”
“Theoretically that is so,” replied Johnson, “but in practice it makes all the difference in the world whether you regard a man as an individual soul, or as a cell in an organism or a wheel in a machine.”
“Why do you Lunilanders and Francarians, if I may ask such a large question, allow yourselves to be influenced at all by what is done in Meccania? There is so little intercourse between the countries that it hardly seems worth while having any at all,” I said.
“Because in both countries there are still many people who regard the Meccanians not as Super-Insects, but as human beings,” answered Johnson. “And there is always, too, the ultimate possibility of conflict. If they were on another planet it would not matter, providing they could invent no means of communicating with us. In itself Meccanian education is of little interest, except, of course, as education in the insect world might be interesting, or perhaps as a branch of pedagogical pathology or psychological pathology.”
“In effect,” interrupted Mr. Villele, “it all comes back to what Mr. Johnson was saying a few nights ago, that the key to the whole polity of Meccania is military power. Meccanian education is merely a means to that end, just as the Time Department, and every other institution—and the absence of certain other institutions like the Press, for example—is. The Super-State is the grand instrument of Militarism.”
“Is it not possible,” I said, “that the real key to the Super-State is the desire of the ruling classes to keep themselves in power?”
“But the two things go together,” answered Villele. “The Meccanian maxim is that ‘The State must be strong within in order to be strong without.’”
“And is not that true doctrine?” I said, wondering how they would answer the argument.
“To a certain extent,” answered Johnson cautiously. “But where are their enemies? Why should they want all this ‘Super-Strength’?”
“They say they are surrounded by unfriendly nations,” I replied.
“So they are,” answered Villele, “but they have done their best to make them unfriendly. If you knock a man down, and trample on him, and rob him into the bargain, you can hardly expect him to be a friendly neighbour next day.”
“We started by talking about education,” I remarked, “but we have very soon got into a discussion about Militarism—somehow we seem to get to that no matter what point we start from.”
“And with very good reason,” said Villele. “There used to be a saying that all roads lead to Rome. In Meccania all roads lead to Militarism. You who are not faced by the problem it presents may regard it as an obsession, but a man who refuses to admit the plainest evidence is also the victim of an obsession.”
“And you think the evidence is unmistakable?” I said.
“For what purpose does the Meccanian Parliament—if it can be called a Parliament—surrender its control over taxation? For what purpose does the Government conceal its expenditure upon army and navy? For what purpose does it destroy the freedom of the Press, and freedom of speech? For what purpose does the Government keep every person under supervision? For what purpose does it control all production?”
“I cannot answer these questions,” I said; “but what evidence is there that the Meccanian system of education is designed as part of the scheme of Militarism?”
“The evidence is abundant,” answered Johnson, “but it is not so plain as to be unmistakable. If you see one of our elaborate pieces of modern machinery, a printing-machine or a spinning-machine, you will find that it contains a thousand separate contrivances, and unless you are an expert you will not be able to perceive that every part is absolutely necessary to the performance of the simple function of printing or spinning. Yet that is the fact. It is just the same with the Meccanian educational machine. Its chief purpose, according to the Meccanian theory, is to enable the citizen—or, as Villele and I might say, the Super-Insect—to perform his functions as a member of the Super-Insect community. But the chief end of the Super-Insect State is Power. The Meccanians say so themselves. Anyhow, we can easily see for ourselves that their system of education fits in exactly with Militarism. It makes men efficient for the purposes required of them by the Super-State; it makes them not only docile and obedient, but actively devoted to the interests, not of themselves individually, but of what they are taught to regard as something more important, namely, the Super-State; it fosters the superstition which makes possible such an incredible custom as Villele has told you of; it keeps them ignorant of all other ideals of civilisation.”
“All that may be true,” I replied. “It may very well be that the system of education does favour Militarism, but it may not have been deliberately designed to that end. It has been put to me,” I added, “that all this elaborate organisation, including education, is part of the inevitable tendency of things in the modern world, and that the Meccanians are only doing a little in advance of other people what they will all do sooner or later.”
“That won’t do at all,” interposed Villele. “They cannot have it both ways. What becomes of the genius of Prince Mechow if it is all an inevitable tendency? They tell us other nations are not clever enough, or not far-seeing enough, or not strong-willed enough, to produce such a system. These reforms had to be introduced in the teeth of opposition. Other nations have not adopted them and will not adopt them except under the pressure of fear. It is Militarism alone that is strong enough to impose such a system.”
“But,” said I, “I find it difficult to believe that any civilisation, even Meccanian, can be really the result of the domination of a single idea. Not even the communities of the ancient world were so simple in their principles.”
“That fact tells in favour of our contention,” answered Villele.
“How so?” I said.
“Why, you admit the natural tendency of all civilised peoples towards diversity of aims. The more highly developed, the more diversified. If, therefore, you find a people becoming less diversified, subordinating all individual wills to the will of the State, you must suspect some extraordinary force. You would not deny the fact that individual liberty has been suppressed?”
“No,” I said, “I do not deny that.”
“But you think the Super-State has such an interest in the tender plant of the individual souls of its children, their moral and spiritual and physical life, that it is merely a meticulous grandmother trying to prepare them all for a better world, eh?”
I laughed.
“No, that won’t do. Only two things are strong enough to suppress the spirit of liberty: one is superstition calling itself religion; the other is Militarism.”
“If it were less well done,” resumed Johnson, “it would be easier to detect. But it is diabolically well done. Who but the Meccanians would think it worth while to control the whole teaching of history for the sake of cultivating Militarism? In most countries anybody may write history, although very few people read it. Here only the official historians may write: only the books prescribed