One of Dorothy
Day's friends in Greenwich Village was Floyd Dell who at the time had a well
deserved, national reputation for his book reviews. Floyd, a Socialist at age 16, became the editor of The Friday Review of Books in 1906 at the age of 23 and saw that he could contribute to setting the trajectory of American culture in the
20th Century through his book reviews and consciously promoted those books
offering alternatives to the established American narrative.
An agnostic (if not a pagan), a big fan of women's emancipation ("A guy doesn't have to marry the girl") and a serial seducer, his most favorite socialist author was G.K. Chesterton despite his "peculiar religious prejudices." Here are some abridged excerpts from his 1918 review of Chesterton's "A Short History of England":
G. K. Chesterton is one of the exponents of a mode of revolutionary thought which is older than Marxian socialism, which in all of its phases and sects numbers millions of adherents and which has made a profound impress upon revolutionary history. Yet this mode of thought is not exclusively Anarchist or Syndicalist, or even extremist. It is not a movement, but a philosophy, bearing a peculiar relationship to that which underlies scientific socialism. It has been generally either hostile to or contemptuous of the aims and methods of the Socialist movement, and it still competes as formidably as ever with Marxian socialism for the soul of man.
It cannot be described in a phrase, except perhaps by saying that it really is revolutionary in its essence, which Marxian or scientific socialism is not. It will be remembered that the Marxian theory was rooted in Hegelian evolutionism and is hence evolutionary in spirit. But those two words have become so obscured by much use that the best way of indicating the very real and profound chasm which divides the energies of the movement to which we all belong, is perhaps to say that half of the vital intellects of this century, as of the last, do not, and cannot, and will not believe in economic determinism. The refuse it credence, not because it is economic, but because it is determinism. They can and must, and do believe in free-will.
Under the sanction of pragmatism it is perhaps permissible to consider the theory of Evolution as a notion about the nature of change. In that light it appears as the most discouraging theory ever invented by the mind of man, except perhaps Calvinian Predestination, its forerunner in another field of thought. Think for a moment of the Darwinian theory, not as the most valuable contribution ever made to scientific speculation, but as a guide to ordinary human thought. To some hardy, youthful minds, the Darwinian vista of millions of years, with their slow, imperceptible “evolutionary” changes, was undoubtedly inspiring; but its general effect was to make Change appear to the human mind something brought about by vast natural forces operating over huge periods of time – a thing utterly beyond mere human power. If we were workingmen, we tried to get cheer out of the thought that we had climbed upward from the savage (or perhaps down from the simian) that we had railroads and public schools and republics, and were in fact the Heirs of All the Ages. If we were employers, we applied to ourselves the happy phrase about the survival of the fittest and put off the murmurings of workingmen against a 16-hour day, etc., with some consolatory reflection that the struggle for existence was a universal and inescapable law of nature. In either case, if the mist of determinism had settled upon our minds, there was nothing we could do about it except wait until vast natural forces operating over a huge period of time had brought about something better.
If we consider the theory of economic determinism with regard to its spiritual effects, we find, if we are candid, that it tended after its first inspiriting excitements, to cloud the mind with the same spiritual inertia. The habit of identifying oneself with a “struggle” so ancient as to make its momentary destinies trivial, the loss of the sense of personal responsibility both as to one’s oppressors and oneself, reliance upon vast historical processes, submissive acceptance of present fate, together with an eager friendliness toward apparently hostile forces, a fatuously cunning opportunism which sought to encourage the powers of evil to distend themselves in order that they might the sooner burst – these were, and still are, among the spiritual effects of the belief in economic determinism.
The ordinary human mind does not seem to be able to keep an idea in its place. The place of such ideas as those of Darwin and Marx is in the field of scientific speculation – the field, that is to say, where knowledge and not will is required. There, determinism is true. In the field of action – thanks be to the pragmatism, which has set us free to say this – determinism is mere mischievous nonsense. After we have acted, we may, if we have leisure, speculate upon the natural forces which inevitably determined our action; but at the moment of action we must conceive ourselves free to act. If a revolutionary movement is to act successfully, it must undoubtedly act along the lines of economic predestination; but if it is to act at all, it must exist in a world in which there is such a thing as free-will. The discovery of Marx, which gave the revolutionary movement knowledge, at the same time inhibited its will, by taking away its freedom.
It was in instinctive resistance to this loss that the early Anarchist movement rose. [The early anarchists] testified to the superiority of the human will over its environment. It is significant that from first to last they maintained toward the State an attitude of suspicion, contempt, or overt hostility – in contrast to the determinists, who were busy trying to use the State for their own purposes, encouraging it to enlarge its functions. And observe that the State is, in the Anarchist plan, dispensed with – perhaps too summarily: but it is possible for them to conceive of a real change, a real revolution, in human affairs.
An agnostic (if not a pagan), a big fan of women's emancipation ("A guy doesn't have to marry the girl") and a serial seducer, his most favorite socialist author was G.K. Chesterton despite his "peculiar religious prejudices." Here are some abridged excerpts from his 1918 review of Chesterton's "A Short History of England":
G. K. Chesterton is one of the exponents of a mode of revolutionary thought which is older than Marxian socialism, which in all of its phases and sects numbers millions of adherents and which has made a profound impress upon revolutionary history. Yet this mode of thought is not exclusively Anarchist or Syndicalist, or even extremist. It is not a movement, but a philosophy, bearing a peculiar relationship to that which underlies scientific socialism. It has been generally either hostile to or contemptuous of the aims and methods of the Socialist movement, and it still competes as formidably as ever with Marxian socialism for the soul of man.
It cannot be described in a phrase, except perhaps by saying that it really is revolutionary in its essence, which Marxian or scientific socialism is not. It will be remembered that the Marxian theory was rooted in Hegelian evolutionism and is hence evolutionary in spirit. But those two words have become so obscured by much use that the best way of indicating the very real and profound chasm which divides the energies of the movement to which we all belong, is perhaps to say that half of the vital intellects of this century, as of the last, do not, and cannot, and will not believe in economic determinism. The refuse it credence, not because it is economic, but because it is determinism. They can and must, and do believe in free-will.
Under the sanction of pragmatism it is perhaps permissible to consider the theory of Evolution as a notion about the nature of change. In that light it appears as the most discouraging theory ever invented by the mind of man, except perhaps Calvinian Predestination, its forerunner in another field of thought. Think for a moment of the Darwinian theory, not as the most valuable contribution ever made to scientific speculation, but as a guide to ordinary human thought. To some hardy, youthful minds, the Darwinian vista of millions of years, with their slow, imperceptible “evolutionary” changes, was undoubtedly inspiring; but its general effect was to make Change appear to the human mind something brought about by vast natural forces operating over huge periods of time – a thing utterly beyond mere human power. If we were workingmen, we tried to get cheer out of the thought that we had climbed upward from the savage (or perhaps down from the simian) that we had railroads and public schools and republics, and were in fact the Heirs of All the Ages. If we were employers, we applied to ourselves the happy phrase about the survival of the fittest and put off the murmurings of workingmen against a 16-hour day, etc., with some consolatory reflection that the struggle for existence was a universal and inescapable law of nature. In either case, if the mist of determinism had settled upon our minds, there was nothing we could do about it except wait until vast natural forces operating over a huge period of time had brought about something better.
If we consider the theory of economic determinism with regard to its spiritual effects, we find, if we are candid, that it tended after its first inspiriting excitements, to cloud the mind with the same spiritual inertia. The habit of identifying oneself with a “struggle” so ancient as to make its momentary destinies trivial, the loss of the sense of personal responsibility both as to one’s oppressors and oneself, reliance upon vast historical processes, submissive acceptance of present fate, together with an eager friendliness toward apparently hostile forces, a fatuously cunning opportunism which sought to encourage the powers of evil to distend themselves in order that they might the sooner burst – these were, and still are, among the spiritual effects of the belief in economic determinism.
The ordinary human mind does not seem to be able to keep an idea in its place. The place of such ideas as those of Darwin and Marx is in the field of scientific speculation – the field, that is to say, where knowledge and not will is required. There, determinism is true. In the field of action – thanks be to the pragmatism, which has set us free to say this – determinism is mere mischievous nonsense. After we have acted, we may, if we have leisure, speculate upon the natural forces which inevitably determined our action; but at the moment of action we must conceive ourselves free to act. If a revolutionary movement is to act successfully, it must undoubtedly act along the lines of economic predestination; but if it is to act at all, it must exist in a world in which there is such a thing as free-will. The discovery of Marx, which gave the revolutionary movement knowledge, at the same time inhibited its will, by taking away its freedom.
It was in instinctive resistance to this loss that the early Anarchist movement rose. [The early anarchists] testified to the superiority of the human will over its environment. It is significant that from first to last they maintained toward the State an attitude of suspicion, contempt, or overt hostility – in contrast to the determinists, who were busy trying to use the State for their own purposes, encouraging it to enlarge its functions. And observe that the State is, in the Anarchist plan, dispensed with – perhaps too summarily: but it is possible for them to conceive of a real change, a real revolution, in human affairs.
I'll post the rest of the review in a few days.
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