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Adventures in Philosophy |
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by James Hayden Tufts
Whether democracies in Europe and the Americas are to be permitted to retain any of the progress gained in freedom, welfare, equality, and peace seems likely to be decided, not by reason but by arms. But in the faith that right makes might we may at least consider what internal policies and course of action will tend to safeguard from destruction not only our way of life but also what we have come to hold as right and good. As regards our institutions and organizations, how can we be safe from the rise of despotic power? The outstanding lessons from Communism and National Socialism would seem to be the danger of concentration of all power in a single organization as contrasted with such pluralism, or division of power, as is found, for instance, in Scandinavian countries and the United States. Power is a necessary instrument of civilization. The preservation and advancement of moral ideals need the support of collective agencies as do trade, industry, and the administration of justice. But power, either over natural forces or over actions and minds of men is now seen to be, if possible, more dangerous than ever, to freedom and to life itself. History has seen various attempts to resist oppressive power, but effective restraint of power wielded by collective organization has usually been secured only the collective strength of some other organization. Both Communism and National Socialism are totalitarian states. They are systems of absolute power. They permit no counterbalancing or restraining agency. No opposition may organize. Secret police are vigilant to prevent even the beginnings of questioning. Neither organized wealth nor organized labor is allowed to influence. No opposition party appears at the polls. In the free democracies, on the contrary, are numerous collective agencies, not only for manifold educational. philanthropic, recreational, and social purposes, but for representing interests or groups of those who wish to influence or even to oppose government. In the United States there are a chamber of commerce, a manufacturers' association, two labor unions, a farm group, various religious groups, scientific and educational associations. All these inform or shape public opinion, secure or oppose legislation, influence national policies. At times, indeed, it has been charged that organized wealth was writing tariffs or controlling the press, or that organized labor was carrying elections. And at times government has seemed to be unable to act promptly in emergencies because of the numerous checks and balances provided by the cautious founders. Yet, on the whole, we have both kept our freedom and advanced justice. In the light of what totalitarian governments are doing we may well think that we have built better than we knew in encouraging such a variety of organized groups. Pluralism seems safer than totalitarianism. Yet pluralism is no sure reliance for maintenance of rights or for ensuring advance in moral ideals or moral standards. It affords agencies through which the spirit may act, but if the spirit is dead or lacking, the agencies are dead likewise. The spirit which must preserve moral gains is the same spirit which has won them; it lives only as it grows. Life for institutional as for individual morality must combine stability with change. Reverence for what we hold right, just, and good, must be matched with open-minded sensitiveness to new claims by or for those who hitherto have had small share in the vast increase in goods provided by science, invention, and mass production. Moral dilemmas are experienced when older morals and institutions fail as yet to meet new situations. Hard resistance to just changes provokes either violence or despair or apathy. Certain forces of the day, notably the power of mass -- in industry, in business, in social and political pressure groups, in subtler forms of propaganda -- make for disintegration of older moral structures. Family and religious influence has suffered. On the other hand, in the present century we have made daily steady progress in protection against disease, ignorance, hunger, industrial accidents, excessive hours of labor in factories, waste of natural resources. We have made provision for old age, have given legal standing to collective bargaining, and have recognized the plight of the farmer caught between low prices for his products and high prices for what he must buy. We have not yet learned how to prevent business depressions, but we have at least come to see that the moral injury of prolonged unemployment for workmen and of closed opportunity for youth is a more serious and difficult problem than that of bodily hunger. It is hard to believe that the enormous advances in means of communication through transport, electricity, and radio will not ultimately lower older barriers between peoples and make for better international understanding. But there is no prospect of Utopia, either for individuals or for peoples. Moral life will continue to need alertness, courage, faith in the good cause, and at times sacrifice. A new invention like the airplane may place at the disposal of ruthless force a terrible weapon; a new idea like that of Lebensraum may touch off with explosive violence a new train; an economics of force may change the problem of just distribution. What we may hope for, if the present threat to all our rights and values can be met, is the opportunity to work out further the promise of free American life.
Excerpted from Twentieth Century Philosophy |
Selected Writings of James Hayden Tufts Studies in Philosophy and Psychology, by James Hayden Tufts
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