Leader
“He who fills his lamp with water will not dispel the darkness, and he who tries to light a fire with rotten wood will fail.”—Buddha.
“He who fills his lamp with water will not dispel the darkness, and he who tries to light a fire with rotten wood will fail.”—Buddha.
“It is impossible,” remarks Agnes Repplier, “for an American to cherish any conviction, however harmless, without at once starting a League, or a Society, or an Association, to represent that conviction, and to persuade other Americans to embrace it at the cost of $10 a year.” She goes on to point out that we have a “League for Peace”, a “League to Keep the Peace”, and a “League to Abolish War”. You cannot escape: refuse the first, and you are enrolled in the second. If you are still young, there is a “League of Youth”, proposed by Sir James Barrie. If you are an inveterate pedestrian, there is a “League of Walkers”. However dismal our future may seem, there will always be the reward of membership in the Rotary Club; or we may become an enthusiastic Kiwanian; even a distinguished Klu Klux. Throughout the country people are being urged and urging others to “get together”. He who attempts to slip away is looked ataskance—there is something wrong with him. Any desire to be alone, to do anything alone, is beyond comprehension. And to seek solitude for its own sake—the man is a heretic!
Three years ago a friend of mine began to commute to the city, an hour’s trip morning and night. None of “the crowd” knew him, and efforts to get acquainted proved futile. He was cordial but firm. And after refusing repeatedly to join them at bridge, he was left quite to himself. One evening as the train came into the station, some one tapped him on the shoulder. “Say, old man, you ought to learn the game. Nothing like it for killing these boresome hours.” My friend answered that he often played, but preferred to read on the train. Yet he rarely bought a paper. If his eyes were not fixed upon some “odd” book, they were peering out of the window—at the morning mists or the first lights of the dusk. Those hours of thought and solitude gave him a serenity, a clearness of vision, which nothing else could. There he knit together the many strands of unrelated effort into definite order. He could sit back and give each day’s work a place in the Total Work. While his fellow-travellers lived day and night in their particular cogs, he stood off and saw whither the wheel was rolling. It was not that their natural endowments were different from his, or that they might not have done likewise. They merely passed him by as “hopeless”. Their eyes were narrowly focused—upon thirteen cards.
That is bridge on the train. Add to it golf on Sundays, dinners at the country club, theatres, motor trips, downtown luncheons, the ever welcome of the latest fad, and you have the outward criteria of our national crowd complex. The great principle is to spend every moment with somebody else, doing something—even if that be listening to the Chicago weather reports over your neighbor’s radio. Oh, let us not have a spare moment to think! Let us never be alone!—by ourselves!—completely at the mercy of our own ingenuity. And solitude, the greatest of torments, must be avoided at any cost—from $10 a year upward.
An odd state of affairs! Hardly possible in a cloister devoted to learning and education. Its very nature should make it immune to such a disease. Yet the symptoms of this widespread malady are quite evident within our four walls. We are fortunate tohave escaped the fraternity system of most colleges. One is pre-eminently a member of Yale, and not such-and-such a club or society. But the herd spirit is no less strong on that account. From the beginning of Freshman year we are conscious of it: we turn up our coat collars, buy a pipe—and are off in the right direction. Slowly and in various degrees we are moulded to definite standards. We come to dress as punctiliously as our allowances make possible; to act as casual and reserved as our youthful exuberance will permit. The few hours we have for reading are wisely devoted toVanity Fair. Our conversation is as circumspect: some subjects are not to be talked of, some adjectives not to be used if one is to escape the censure of aestheticism. And beneath these outward criteria we find the primary cause—a fundamental uniformity of thought. Left to ourselves we would certainly not think in the same channels; but thrown into a crowd we think as the crowd does. We blandly accept those opinions which are oftenest and loudest shouted in our ears, repeat them as our own, and go merrily off to find a “fourth” for bridge. Thus, we are propagating ideas which are not our own, which are second-hand. The voice, which was once ours, has become an echo. To speak specifically, are we sure that unlimited cuts would be a good thing? By nature opposed to paternalism, we thoughtlessly advocate any measure which would seem to lessen its power—our only assurance of this end being that “everybody says so”. Therefore, if unlimited cuts are generally acclaimed, we join our cry with the rest. The final result is that “most of us have only the courage of our conventions”. What a courage is that! Splendid for a sham battle, but hardly sufficient to withstand the first rumble of real cannon. And as for convictions, they are never the product of “crowd” thought. Lamps which are filled with water, fires built of damp wood, give neither light nor heat.
That is the reflection among us of a national crowd complex. Its grave danger, already hinted at, has been pointed out by Carlyle: if we live in crowds we are going to think in crowds—which is not to think at all. When that stage is reached, a stage where our ambitions and ideals are no longer our own, we cease as individuals to live. We become automatons, robots, beings rather below the par of an intelligent animal. Better a man witha will and energy turned to wrong uses than such Donothingness, such flotsam, such weight upon progress. The man who sinks into the crowd has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. He has lost his particular spark of individuality—that unnameable fibre which differentiates him from all others. What else has he to call his own? That lost, and all is lost. Thus, Agnes Repplier ironically concludes: “All these Leagues, Societies, Associations, and Guilds relieve man from the burden of individualism. Therefore does he pay their dues.” What dues they are? A Birthright for pottage!
Truly, the disease is a dangerous one, in many cases mortal. Its cure, in proportion, is difficult. And once cured, constant vigilance must be taken that it be not recontracted. The powers of nature are ever in league against bodily decay. It is our responsibility to fight and guard with like precision against mental inertia. There will be no help in any attempt to abolish the superficial conformity of dress, conversation, or interests. These things in themselves are trivial. They are the natural consequents of “crowd” thinking. That is where we must strike, and with all the power we can. Once cut away from us, its exterior betrayals will vanish as well.
The obstacles are many. It is so easy to drift! A ready agreement, a quiet acceptance of the latest tenets not only relieve us from the burden of thinking, but can make us no enemies—neither a troubled conscience nor scornful companions. That is why the herd mind is “essentially and inevitably a timid mind”. The gaps are filled up with bridge, the movies, plans for the next week-end. Little unorthodox doubtings, hesitances, questions, are suppressed. They would only cause trouble. Things are quite all right as they are!
Another obstacle is the over-organized life of the campus. Its rights and wrongs, goods and bads are ever being debated. In the meanwhile, there is little time for any of us to think. We are too busy putting out daily papers, producing plays, establishing world’s swimming records. There is no spare hour in the morning and another at night to sit back and reckon where the past day has brought us. And if there is such time, it has already been pledged to the card-table. Thus, solitude and intelligent reading—bothexcellent cures—are out of reach to the majority. Those who are privileged to enjoy both have always done so. They are quite immune from our disease.
There is one course left, requiring no end of patience and care. But its cure is certain. Moreover, it is within reach of us all—the busy and the idle, the radical and the conservative. We can make ourselves consciously challenge all ideas, opinions, theories which are foisted upon us—by others, or by our own sluggish minds. We must convince ourselves in every case that they are right or wrong, and once convinced, act fearlessly. Here is no place for timidity. We shall now vote as we choose, defying the dictates of the crowd. Ideas thoroughly analyzed and considered may wield tremendous power. They have not the hollow sound of an echo. Theirs is the true ring of the voice. All the Leagues for Peace in the world are a waste of time unless each member has implicit belief in the worth and need of peace. Progressive changes in college administration will never be promoted by jabbering repetition of “current opinion”. They will come only when a majority of us have quietly and firmly convinced ourselves that such changes are right and necessary. Then you have solidarity, which is uniformity of convictions and not conventions. Further, you have accomplishment and progress. The old lamp is cleansed of its water, and now at last pierces the darkness. Some dry wood is thrown upon the smouldering fire, and the flames rise high above the countryside.
WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR.