Journal of the Fourth World
275 Kings Road, Kingston, Surrey, England
Volume 6 Number 5 November—December 1975 _
2. My Flying Saucer Story
Geoffrey Ashe 4. JP Narayan
Bernard Kops 6. Survival Quiz 9. Crisis of Lifestyles
Colin Hutchinson 11. United Farmworkers
Mark F. Imber 13. Hug the Trees
Anil Agarwal 14. Feast of the Harvest
Roger Rawlinson 14. A Conversation with
Lanza del Vasto 17. Handbook on Hunger 2
Roger Moody 23. Teds, Boots, Beats
John Seymour 23. What Kind of India?
E.F. Schumacher 26. Mint
John Merlin Morgan Books 27. John Osmond, Herbert
Girardet, Guy Dauncey, Keith Buchanan, Peter Abbs, Kathy Jones, Satish Kumar, Dick K itto , Miles Gibson 34. Poem
Spike Milligan
Layout: Mike Phillips, Peter Bonnici Cover: Peter Bonnici Editorial Group: Peter Abbs, William Bloom, Tony Colbert, Geoffrey Cooper, Stephen Horne, Steve Lambert, Thomas Land, June Mitchell, Terry Sharman, Anne Vogel Associate Editors: Ernest Bader, Danilo Dolci, David Kingsley, Leopold Kohr, Jaya Prakash Narayan, John Papworth, E.F. Schumacher Publisher: Hugh Sharman Printer: Graham Andrews, Webb Offset, heading Annual Subscription: £2.50 Overseas S7.00 Airmail $10.00
For Enthusiastic Readers Dear Editor, It seemed to me that the most helpful thing would be to suggest that more enthusiastic readers like myself try to give a year’ s subscription to twelve o f their friends and relations as Christmas presents. This would help to spread the ideas and also be a great help financially, and probably wouldn’t cost the subscribers anything as they might spend at least as much on giving less useful
Best wishes, Peggy Hemming, Flat 4, 62'Southwood Lane, London N6. 19.9.75. Credibility Gap Tfje letter by Yehudi Menuhin in Resurgence Vol.6, N o .3 craves reply. I am not here concerned with the Common Market debate, but with a classic defence o f the ‘ moderate’ (i.e. fabric conserving) standpoint in existing society. A statement made not with the easy words o f a politician, but with the sincerity and conviction o f a believer. A view which underlines a discrepancy between ecological and moral radicalism and social conservatism common to many Resurgence readers — and writers! (I have heard it referred to as Resurgence’s credibility gap: “ Eat brown bread and make Britain great” ).
Within the terms laid down I must count myself an ‘ extremist’ (i.e. radical), though I do not identify with either the Left or the Right. So how true are the charges levelled at extremists? Do they all stand for dictatorship? Some gentle anarchists and pacifists o f my acquaintance would deny it; so too did the anarchist practice o f revolutionary Spain. Have they a monopoly on bureaucracy? The monster has been reliably sighted in societies controlled for many years by the ‘moderate’ centre.
A more serious question: why are they always so shrill, so tense, so one-sided, compared to ‘ the measured voice’ , the ‘ balanced’ life-style o f the moderate? In part it is the natural prerogative o f the defence in any situation to make attack appear unreasonable aggression. In part the cloth-eared smugness o f the moderate is itself a defence against uncomfortable thoughts: thus men in relation to women’s liberation. All this is not to deny that the hate politics o f many political extremists are a perfect mirror to the values o f the society that spawns them. Better than a mirror in fact, for in the general case the mutual distrust, the status rat-race, are concealed beneath a polite veil o f formal behaviour. Which brings us to the central question dividing ‘moderate’ and ‘ extremist’ : whether the image o f society which the moderate holds — “ the humane greatness o f Britain, its tolerant yet disciplined civilisation, its socially unifying traditions” — is true or false. To me, it is so obviously false that I find it hard to enter the mind o f one who thinks otherwise.
I suggest that the inability to see the true nature o f society: the hostility o f each against all and the fragmentation o f life that results from it, stems from a missing concept — alienation (perhaps corresponding to a missing dimension o f perception, as with colour blindness). Societies are judged only on the dimension o f imposed authority (which becomes ‘ order’ when the impositions are approved, and ‘ dictatorship’ when they are not).
As the essay by Yehudi Menuhin in the same issue made clear, the total alienation o f society is perceived only in fragments, e.g. the brilliant description o f advertising on page 6, “ trapping us like mice” , or the understanding that competitive society has externalised the measure o f satisfaction from authentic fulfilment to status success; or the recognition that we are increasingly “ surrounded and inhabited by ugliness and brutality” ; that sensitivity and brutality are polarised within us.
Can these glimpses o f our real condition be squared with the moderate stance? — with “ the humane greatness o f Britain” under “ the healthy leadership o f balanced, enlightened human beings” ? I think not.
I believe that our total sickness, our complete dehumanisation, is inextricably bound up with social structure. With a compulsory state, regulated by an elected oligarchy, that calls itself an enlightened democracy; with faceless decision makers, manipulated by both human lobbies and inhuman forces, declared civilised administration; with control o f property, by ownership rather than use, described as freedom.
I would not like to suggest that a cure is possible by social change alone, without the reciprocal change in ourselves. But social change is a necessary part o f the renewal o f humanity which Yehudi Menuhin seeks. And it must be total — not just “ semi-autonomous regional cultures” but the co-existence o f fully autonomous voluntary states, where real democracy (government by the people) extends to the right o f withdrawal, and property by ownership collapses without a single undisputed authority to give it title. Would democracy be a recipe for carnage? Operated by the people we now are, with our mutual hostility and alienated values, it certainly would. For social structure and social values go hand in hand. Attempting to change one (either one!) without the other is futile. Which is why those o f us seeking to practise “ a change o f heart, a change o f mind, a new set o f images” need a new social structure that will grow with us, sustain our values. We belong to Albion, not to Britain.
Resurgence, as the self-styled Journal o f the Fourth World, has a special responsibility not to betray its trust. Woody, 161 Hinckley Road, Leicester. 11.8.75.
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