' 'The New Scepticism' (unsigned), The Times Literary Supplement, 9 June 1950, 3572 'Superfluous men'. The concept of the 'superfluous man' was given its familiar name by Turgenev in Dnevnik lishnego cheloveka ('Diary of a superfluous man'): see entry for 2 3 March 18 50. The term was also used as a catchphrase by Dostoevsky in Zapiski zz podpol'ya ('Notes from Underground', 1864).
Koestler, Burnham, Laski, passim? But I must not waste your time any further.
Once more I should like to say how deeply moved I was by your formulation of what it is that excites in us the unparalleled horror which we feel when we read of what goes on in Soviet territories, and [to record] my admiration and unbounded moral respect for the insight and scruple with which you set it forth. These qualities seem to me unique at present; more than this I cannot say. Yours ever, [Isaiah][136]
NOTES ON PREJUDICE
i
Few things have done more harm than the belief on the part of individuals or groups (or tribes or states or nations or churches) that he or she or they are in sole possession of the truth: especially about how to live, what to be & do - & that those who differ from them are not merely mistaken, but wicked or mad: & need restraining or suppressing. It is a terrible and dangerous arrogance to believe that you alone are right: have a magical eye which sees the truth: & that others cannot be right if they disagree. This makes one certain that there is one goal & one only for one's nation or church or the whole of humanity, & that it is worth any amount of suffering (particularly on the part of other people) if only the goal is attained - 'through an ocean of blood to the Kingdom of Love' (or something like this) said Robespierre:[137] & Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, & I daresay leaders in the religious wars of Christian v. Moslem or Catholics v. Protestants sincerely believed this: the belief that there is one & only one true answer to the central questions which have agonized mankind & that one has it oneself - or one's Leader has it - was responsible for the oceans of blood: but no Kingdom of Love sprang from it - or could: there are many ways of living, believing, behaving: mere knowledge provided by history, anthropology, literature, art, law makes clear that the differences of cultures & characters are as deep as the similarities (which make men human) & that we are none the poorer for this rich variety: knowledge of it opens the windows of the mind (and soul) and makes people wiser, nicer, & more civilized: absence of it breeds irrational prejudice, hatreds, ghastly extermination of heretics and those who are different:if the two great wars, plus Hitler's genocides haven't taught us that, we are incurable.
The most valuable - or one of the most valuable - elements in the British tradition is precisely the relative freedom from political, racial, religious fanaticism & monomania: Compromising with people with whom you don't sympathize or altogether understand is indispensable to any decent society: nothing is more destructive than a happy sense of one's own - or one's nation's - infallibility which lets you destroy others with a quiet conscience because you are doing God's (e.g. the Spanish Inquisition or the Ayatollas) or the superior race's (e.g. Hitler) or History's (e.g. Lenin-Stalin) work. The only cure is understanding how other societies - in space or time, live: and that it is possible to lead lives different from one's own, & yet to be fully human, worthy of love, respect or at least curiosity. Jesus, Socrates, John Hus of Bohemia, the great chemist Lavoisier, socialists and liberals (as well as conservatives) in Russia, Jews in Germany, all perished at the hands of 'infallible' ideologues: intuitive certainty is no substitute for carefully tested empirical knowledge based on observation and experiment and free discussion between men: the first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas & free minds.
brooding semi-religious Slav mystics who write deep novels + a huge horde of cossacks loyal to the Tsar, who sing beautifully. In our times all this has dramatically altered: crushed population, yes, but technology, tanks, godless materialism, crusade against capitalism, etc etc. - the English are ruthless imperialists lording it over fuzzy wuzzies, looking down their long noses at the rest of the world - & then impoverished, liberal, decent welfare state beneficiaries in need of allies. And so on. AU these stereotypes are substitutes for real knowledge - which is never of anything so simple or permanent as a particular generalized image of foreigners, - & are stimuli to national self satisfaction & disdain of other nations. It is a prop to nationalism.
III
Nationalism - which everybody in the 19th century thought was ebbing - is the strongest & most dangerous force at large to-day. It is usually the product of a wound inflicted by one nation on the pride or territory of another: if Louis XIV had not attacked & devastated the Germans, & humiliated them for years - the Sun King whose state gave laws to everybody - in politics, warfare, art, philosophy, science - the Germans would not, perhaps, have become quite so aggressive by, say, the early 19th century when they became fiercely nationalistic against Napoleon. If the Russians, similarly, had not been treated as a barbarous mass by the West in the 19th century, or the Chinese humiliated by opium wars or general exploitation, neither would have fallen so easily to a doctrine which promised them to inherit the earth after they had - with the help of historic forces which none may stop - crushed all the capitalist unbelievers. If the Indians had not been patronized etc. etc. - Conquest, enslavement of peoples, imperialism etc are not fed by just greed or desire for glory, but have to justify themselves to themselves by some central idea: French as the only true culture: the white man's burden: communism: & the stereotypes of others as inferior or wicked. Only knowledge, careful & not short cuts - can dispel this: even that won't dispel human aggressiveness or dislike for the dissimilar (in skin, culture, religion) by itself: still, education in history, anthropology, law (especially if they are 'comparative' & not just of one's own country as they usually are) helps.
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