A writer must search for the integral large space of his soul and, once he has found it, never abandon it, and be always sure to write with his own true voice, and not reflect the shallow guidelines of society. If there comes a time when he cannot distinguish between the two, then he should no longer call himself a writer. He must break through the thin gauze of the social fabric and get to what exists underneath, to that which has more meaning. It may not be easy to pick out the truth, but it is not difficult to distinguish the lies. If a writer is awarded some form of authority by the society in which he lives, and he believes in that authority, he loses blood, and indulges in artistic suicide. He slits his wrists in the warm bath of society’s approval, and dies with a flaccid smile on his face.
No writer should agree to the simplicities and deceptions of the society in which he lives, and if he is true to himself he must fight against bourgeois culture, communist or otherwise, for with its lifeboats of surrealism and socialist realism it is a culture of deadness and mediocrity, sadism and self-praise imposed by those who came into the world with the truth on their lips and with nothing human in their hearts.
Some writers cannot go below the skin of their perceptions, so keep within standard lines of behaviour, and stick to the fossilized social patterns created for them. Others use the imagination as a way of exploring chaos, employing examples of archetypal myths that belong to both the past and the future. A writer may not be popular in this, but he is brought near the edge of sanity on beginning to write. His mind splits, becomes fragmented, and creates an agony which forces his pen to move in an attempt to reassemble it and so attain the peace of putting on paper what did not exist before. He is driven up to the holy frontier by the barbs of madness, but once there he is serene, writing with honesty and fire, and as near the truth as he can get.
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If the writer is to preserve his integrity and inspiration he must be concerned with life beyond such public arenas as the boxing ring or the cockpit, out of range of groans or cheers from people who are in thrall to such anaesthetical comfort. They are beguiled by a brash and clamorous truth which is not theirs, truth which is too much in the present, and exploits them because it is somebody else’s. Purveying what it believes to be the basic truths of the people, it deliberately puts them out in a monstrously exaggerated fashion, thus pampering the people into a sort of craven inanition, or a self-satisfying acceptance of all their vices. It stuns their senses, and no one can deny that they like its tune, for it takes them away from their own realities, which are less intoxicating, and more troublesome to all concerned.
How far must one go in fighting those who believe in the white truth, the absolute truth, their especial creed by which they seek to enslave others and force them into a ruination of their dignity? A writer can only live by his own truth if he is able to exist without offending his moral conscience. Otherwise he must fight, and in battling to preserve the integrity of the artist, he struggles to maintain the freedom of all individuals. This is another truth I will accept, but though I keep it small so that it tyrannizes no one, I hope to keep it big enough to fight all tyranny. You can only contend against unjust laws by breaking the law. There is no other way. Most laws are not made for the smooth running of society, but to keep people unnecessarily docile. Society could run itself, but those in power make laws, and thereby impose a tyranny which seeks to fix everyone in his place. Such domination destroys energy, talent, and any tangible freedom.
The great virtue of the English (especially the so-called lower classes) is that they are still expected to know their place in the social hierarchy created for them. The simple English workman is much honoured if he stays where he belongs. But it is not like that any more. Nowadays he is beginning to examine the basis of that discriminating society which has imposed injustice upon him, and to question himself who so willingly accepted it. It has been left too long, however, so that only the bitter, liberating energy to declare war and wreck everything for everybody is left. Most of the workers have not yet got into the way of wanting to take over the riches (i.e. the means of production) for themselves. They would like to, but they don’t know how. Baffled and smouldering with rage, and a terrifying historical sense of injustice, they know that to enjoy such riches they would need to control and maintain them — before sharing out the results.
They have not been trained to do this, nor educated to expect it. They are stalled, frustrated, unable to tolerate being what they are, or to make a long revolutionary effort for their own and everybody else’s benefit. The men who organized the Somme massacres, and those toadies who attended to the gruesome detail of it, still run the country. The same dead brains proliferate. The same morality governs. The same incompetence rules. Those who see themselves as masters, those who hate the poor because they want to enjoy more of life and are therefore seen as a threat, those keepers of the nation’s traditions, the bitter old-mannish intransigents and narrow-gutted guardians of privilege, the sham and shallow pontificators in the courts and churches and in parliament, those who accuse the British working man of sloth and deviousness, yet continue to live off his back (little knowing that if they were not on his back he might again become one of the best workmen in the world), those who are afraid of losing what they have aquired by system and not by intelligence and work — will have to die off or step into the background unless there is to be civil war. The country is creaking fit to crack.
Five per cent of the population owns ninety per cent of the wealth — a more wicked proportion than in any other European country. That is what the old men of 1914 sought so successfully to prolong. That was the victory of 1918, the fruits of which are still being enjoyed, but not by the men who died, and neither by those who survived, nor by their descendants. No Labour government since then has done anything to change it.
The working men of today do not trust those middle class and no doubt sincere socialists to help them and give justice, for they see socialism of that sort as perhaps the last defence of the ruling class against the working class, the only system that will effectively stop the workers getting at their throats. To accept this kind of help might be to lay themselves open to an oppression as bad as what they have now, for such socialists could then say: ‘This is what you yourselves wanted’—and what greater tyranny is there than that? We must become each other’s equals, and treat each other as fellow human beings. It is a fundamental attitude that must be stated, but also one which can alter in a very short time if the battle is joined.
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A mountain of uncertainties makes one unstable stepping-stone across a river, or a single drop of water in the desert. Beware of a man who always says no. He’ll enslave you as he too has been enslaved. Look out for a man who continually shouts yes. He’ll destroy you before doing away with himself. How can clarity come except out of confusion? How can one decide except through indecision? Seven negatives make a positive. If you dream you don’t act. If you act, you can’t dream. That rare and lucky person who does both lives in a world of angels. But he is further from the truth than anyone else.
All roads are set at the truth, whether it is down the valley of dereliction that filters back to the past, or up on to the saddle of exultation that leads into the future. Or take it the other way round, that chaos signifies neither comfort nor satisfaction. Toss the coin of limbo, throw the dice of confusion for any number from one to six. Win or lose, you may not choose, but move you must, until rest is a forceput, and not of your own selecting either. All valleys are exalted, and all hills have good views except when the mists of inbuilt obstinacy cloud them.