NATIONAL DECLINE

Doctors' Dilemma in Social Diagnosis.

Psychology or Economics?

("Whither Away? A study of race psychology and the factors leading to Australia's national decline," by a Psychologist and a Physician. Angus and Robertson, Limited, 4s 6d net).

By W. CURTIS ATKINSON.

THE authors of this thought-provoking book are certainly to be congratulated on the expression of opinions that are certain to prove unpopular. Whether the fact of their being medical men fits them better than other men, as they claim, for the elucidation of social problems, is open to question.
Medical men should be able to make more enlightened inferences, because they have greater opportunities for individual and therefore social observation. That is, they should approach social questions in a more scientific spirit than most men.
But it is not scientific to totally ignore part of the evidence, and the evidence they have neglected is the whole domain of economic laws, whose maladjustment is responsible for most of the ills they decry.

THE book seeks to prove that we are in for a population stalemate in the near future, and "a rising tide of inferiority which is submerging the progressive, as it appears to have done in ancient Greece and Rome."
Some of the authors' claims respecting the superiority of the "better classes" are too tall for acceptance. It is stated that "failure to reach the higher levels is usually due to lack of refined and disciplined inheritance, lack of education, as apart from mere schooling, lack of self-control, and of a highly developed brain."
On the contrary, it is frequently found in this competitive society that the higher financial levels are attained merely through superior animal cunning as distinct from real intelligence. The qualities which make for success in modern society are not those which would animate an ideal society, for too often they are epitomised in the saying "Every man for himself," the instinct of the wolf-pack.
It seems remarkable that the authors, though they try to be scrupulously fair, can be so out of touch with modern social consciousness that they can write, "Sad is the day for any community of people, when sustenance comes to be accepted as a right of citizenship." And they dilate upon the "sense of humiliation," which was once common on the receipt of public or State "charity."

The Sickness Of Society.

Many people remember the bitter opposition of the monied classes to old-age pensions, and the talk of "pauperisation" of the recipients. But seldom or never is this term applied to the generals, admirals, and scions of the aristocracy who draw, or have drawn, pensions from the nation. In many cases merely for being "born to the purple."
They run the gamut of social ills, the need for relief work, the cessation of immigration, the drift to the big cities, and so forth. But they confuse cause and effect.
They forget these things are symptoms of the sickness of an acquisitive society and that the system is breaking down under its own weight. They seem to assume these are the only blemishes in an otherwise perfect world.
Plainly our authors do not like modern tendencies towards socialisation but prefer the Established Order.

The Unity Of History.

The judgment of the reader will depend on his historical perspective. Is history a unity or not? Most historians assume that it is. They picture history in linear progression as a huge tapeworm for ever adding new sections to its length. On this conception of the movement of mankind the idea of progress has been built, a gigantic Cavalcade.
The book under review is based on Oswald Spengler's "Decline of the West." Now Spengler is obviously a great scholar and something of a genius, but he took the rash risks with analogies which tempt all intellectual pioneers. His root idea is that each Culture has its own life-history, which is the working out of its own latent destiny. He thinks that Western culture has finished its creative work, that we are in the last phase of "Winter," or "Civilisation" (as distinct from culture), that some specific and peculiar outlook on the universe is the characteristic of each group of men which have developed a Culture.

New Reading Of History.

The trouble with Spengler (and our authors) is that he takes no account of environment. The book ("Whither Away?") suffers from a certain incoherence due to jumping from one aspect of history to another. A certain amount of loose writing and repetition must put down to the fact that the authors are very busy men and had to write the book in their scanty leisure.

All praise must be given them for a provocative book. The truth of many of their charges irritates, but it is no comfort to feel that this occasional hitting of the mark is due rather to wild guessing than to correct diagnosis. They have accepted a new reading of world history too hastily, and have applied to it a bourgeois philosophy which calmly ignores economics and economic motives. Metaphysics are their undoing.

They have climbed those heights which command a view of the past, present and future of society, and it has made them giddy—so that they tell us their experiences one feels they are rather out of breath. They picture democracy a parasitic growth strangling the nation, when a truer picture would be of capitalism breaking down and falling to deliver the goods to the people, despite the remarkable resiliency of the system.

History's True Thread.

Enlisting the support of Sir Philip Gibbs (who, though a brilliant descriptive writer, is of little account as a political philosopher), the book quotes him as aptly expressing "the historical truth," viz., "that nation has survived the destruction of its gods." Maybe so, but this reviewer prefers to think that "when the half-gods go, the gods arrive," and these latter are the historians, philosophers and economists who, accepting a fundamental law of social development, take the thread of history in their hands, and make their way to a classless society.

Apparently bewitched by Spengler's fatal literary gift, the doctors apply his views as follows, (page 83):—

"If Australia is to survive as a white nation, she must alter her psychological outlook without delay by harnessing the herd instincts of suggestion, persuasion, imitation, and play so as to foster an intense national spirit in which every selfish consideration is subordinate to progress and the safety of the race. The aim need not be militaristic, but essentially disciplinary and defensive, and as such, worthy of every canon of religion. For the race it will spell a radiant future for a white civilisation in a land possessing outstanding advantages of climate and production; and for the individual it promises a larger and happier life of wholesome endeavor, working harmoniously with one's fellow men in the noble aim of the common good,"

Nationalism No Remedy.

If the authors are satisfied with the result of the fostering of an intense national spirit—and they are spread all over the earth's surface in this age of Imperialism (or if they like, the "Winter" of "Civilisation")—they must also approve of dictatorship and the totalitarian State. Their book seems a veiled defence of this. But which dictatorship? They may yet have to choose between plutocracy and the proletariat—there is no middle course.

Let me quote from a book which appeared about the same time as Spengler's, I refer to "The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation," by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, two plain, practical people who have given their lives to social analysis and the elucidation of modern history.

"We must face the practical certainty, that if the transition from Capitalism to Socialism is not intelligently anticipated, planned, and guided by the rulers of the people, the people, when the breaking strain is reached, will resort to sabotage to force the Government to tackle the job of reconstruction; and the danger is that the sabotage may go so far as to make the job impossible."

Die By Violence !—If.

And again:

"If trading without conscience is to be the order of the day, Capitalism need not hope to die quietly in its bed; it will die by violence and civilisation will perish with it from exhaustion."

A world movement needs a world conception, not a parochial and romantic view. What do our doctors propose to do about Socialism, which alone can save us from barbarism and the Wrath to Come?

Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld. :  1935) http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article186167202