THE ART OF MISSING THE POINT

Utopia of Userers, et al

by Gilbert K. Chesterton

THE ART OF MISSING THE POINT, UTOPIA OF USERERS, ET AL by Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Missing the point is a very fine art; and has been carried to something
like perfection by politicians and Pressmen to-day. For the point is
generally a very sharp point; and is, moreover, sharp at both ends. That
is to say that both parties would probably impale themselves in an
uncomfortable manner if they did not manage to avoid it altogether. I
have just been looking at the election address of the official Liberal
candidate for the part of the country in which I live; and though it is,
if anything, rather more logical and free from cant than most other
documents of the sort it is an excellent example of missing the point.
The candidate has to go boring on about Free Trade and Land Reform and
Education; and nobody reading it could possibly imagine that in the town
of Wycombe, where the poll will be declared, the capital of the Wycombe
division of Bucks which the candidate is contesting, centre of the
important and vital trade on which it has thriven, a savage struggle about
justice has been raging for months past between the poor and rich, as real
as the French Revolution. The man offering himself at Wycombe as
representative of the Wycombe division simply says nothing about it at all.
It is as if a man at the crisis of the French Terror had offered himself
as a deputy for the town of Paris, and had said nothing about the Monarchy,
nothing about the Republic, nothing about the massacres, nothing about
the war; but had explained with great clearness his views on the
suppression of the Jansenists, the literary style of Racine, the
suitability of Turenae for the post of commander-in-chief, and the
religious reflections of Madame de Maintenon. For, at their best, the
candidate's topics are not topical. Home Rule is a very good thing, and
modern education is a very bad thing; but neither of them are things that
anybody is talking about in High Wycombe. This is the first and simplest
way of missing the point: deliberately to avoid and ignore it.


The Candid Candidate

It would be an amusing experiment, by the way, to go to the point instead
of avoiding it. What fun it would be to stand as a strict Party
candidate, but issue a perfectly frank and cynical Election Address. Mr.
Mosley's address begins, "Gentlemen,--Sir Alfred Cripps having been chosen
for a high judicial position and a seat in the House of Lords, a
by-election now becomes necessary, and the electors of South Bucks are
charged with the responsible duty of electing, etc., etc." But suppose
there were another candidate whose election address opened in a plain,
manly style, like this: "Gentlemen,--In the sincere hope of being myself
chosen for a high judicial position or a seat in the House of Lords, or
considerably increasing my private fortune by some Government appointment,
or, at least, inside information about the financial prospects, I have
decided that it is worth my while to disburse large sums of money to you
on various pretexts, and, with even more reluctance to endure the bad
speaking and bad ventilation of the Commons' House of Parliament, so help
me God. I have very pronounced convictions on various political questions;
but I will not trouble my fellow-citizens with them, since I have quite
made up my mind to abandon any or all of them if requested to do so by the
upper classes. The electors are therefore charged with the entirely
irresponsible duty of electing a Member; or, in other words, I ask my
neighbours round about this part, who know I am not a bad chap in many
ways, to do me a good turn in my business, just as I might ask them to
change a sovereign. My election will have no conceivable kind of effect
on anything or anybody except myself; so I ask, as man to man, the
Electors of the Southern or Wycombe Division of the County of Buckingham
to accept a ride in one of my motor-cars; and poll early to please a
pal--God Save the King." I do not know whether you or I would be elected
if we presented ourselves with an election address of that kind; but we
should have had our fun and (comparatively speaking) saved our souls; and
I have a strong suspicion that we should be elected or rejected on a
mechanical majority like anybody else; nobody having dreamed of reading an
election address any more than an advertisement of a hair restorer.


Tyranny and Head-Dress

But there is another and more subtle way in which we may miss the point;
and that is, not by keeping a dead silence about it, but by being just
witty enough to state it wrong. Thus, some of the Liberal official papers
have almost screwed up their courage to the sticking-point about the
bestial coup d'etat in South Africa. They have screwed up their courage
to the sticking-point; and it has stuck. It cannot get any further;
because it has missed the main point. The modern Liberals make their
feeble attempts to attack the introduction of slavery into South Africa by
the Dutch and the Jews, by a very typical evasion of the vital fact. The
vital fact is simply slavery. Most of these Dutchmen have always felt
like slave-owners. Most of these Jews have always felt like slaves. Now
that they are on top, they have a particular and curious kind of impudence,
which is only known among slaves. But the Liberal journalists will do
their best to suggest that the South African wrong consisted in what they
call Martial Law. That is, that there is something specially wicked about
men doing an act of cruelty in khaki or in vermilion, but not if it is
done in dark blue with pewter buttons. The tyrant who wears a busby or a
forage cap is abominable; the tyrant who wears a horsehair wig is
excusable. To be judged by soldiers is hell; but to be judged by lawyers
is paradise.

Now the point must not be missed in this way. What is wrong with the
tyranny in Africa is not that it is run by soldiers. It would be quite as
bad, or worse, if it were run by policemen. What is wrong is that, for
the first time since Pagan times, private men are being forced to work for
a private man. Men are being punished by imprisonment or exile for
refusing to accept a job. The fact that Botha can ride on a horse, or
fire off a gun, makes him better rather than worse than any man like
Sidney Webb or Philip Snowden, who attempt the same slavery by much less
manly methods. The Liberal Party will try to divert the whole discussion
to one about what they call militarism. But the very terms of modern
politics contradict it. For when we talk of real rebels against the
present system we call them Militants. And there will be none in the
Servile State.