THE TOWER OF BEBEL

Utopia of Userers, et al

by Gilbert K. Chesterton

THE TOWER OF BEBEL, UTOPIA OF USERERS, ET AL by Gilbert K. Chesterton
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Among the cloudy and symbolic stories in the beginning of the Bible there
is one about a tower built with such vertical energy as to take a hold on
heaven, but ruined and resulting only in a confusion of tongues. The
story might be interpreted in many ways--religiously, as meaning that
spiritual insolence starts all human separations; irreligiously, as
meaning that the inhuman heavens grudge man his magnificent dream; or
merely satirically as suggesting that all attempts to reach a higher
agreement always end in more disagreement than there was before. It might
be taken by the partially intelligent Kensitite as a judgment on Latin
Christians for talking Latin. It might be taken by the somewhat less
intelligent Professor Harnack as a final proof that all prehistoric
humanity talked German. But when all was said, the symbol would remain
that a plain tower, as straight as a sword, as simple as a lily, did
nevertheless produce the deepest divisions that have been known among men.
In any case we of the world in revolt--Syndicalists, Socialists, Guild
Socialists, or whatever we call ourselves--have no need to worry about the
scripture or the allegory. We have the reality. For whatever reason,
what is said to have happened to the people of Shinak has precisely and
practically happened to us.

None of us who have known Socialists (or rather, to speak more truthfully,
none of us who have been Socialists) can entertain the faintest doubt that
a fine intellectual sincerity lay behind what was called "L'Internationale."
It was really felt that Socialism was universal like arithmetic. It
was too true for idiom or turn of phrase. In the formula of Karl Marx men
could find that frigid fellowship which they find when they agree that two
and two make four. It was almost as broadminded as a religious dogma.

Yet this universal language has not succeeded, at a moment of crisis, in
imposing itself on the whole world. Nay, it has not, at the moment of
crisis, succeeded in imposing itself on its own principal champions.
Herve is not talking Economic Esperanto; he is talking French. Bebel is
not talking Economic Esperanto; he is talking German. Blatchford is not
talking Economic Esperanto; he is talking English, and jolly good English,
too. I do not know whether French or Flemish was Vandervelde's nursery
speech, but I am quite cerrain he will know more of it after this struggle
than he knew before. In short, whether or no there be a new union of
hearts, there has really and truly been a new division of tongues.

How are we to explain this singular truth, even if we deplore it? I
dismiss with fitting disdain the notion that it is a mere result of
military terrorism or snobbish social pressure. The Socialist leaders of
modern Europe are among the most sincere men in history; and their
Nationalist note in this affair has had the ring of their sincerity. I
will not waste time on the speculation that Vandervelde is bullied by
Belgian priests; or that Blatchford is frightened of the horse-guards
outside Whitehall. These great men support the enthusiasm of their
conventional countrymen because they share it; and they share it because
there is (though perhaps only at certain great moments) such a thing as
pure democracy.

Timour the Tartar, I think, celebrated some victory with a tower built
entirely out of human skulls; perhaps he thought _that_ would reach to
heaven. But there is no cement in such building; the veins and ligaments
that hold humanity together have long fallen away; the skulls will roll
impotently at a touch; and ten thousand more such trophies could only make
the tower taller and crazier. I think the modern official apparatus of
"votes" is very like that tottering monument. I think the Tartar "counted
heads," like an electioneering agent. Sometimes when I have seen from the
platform of some paltry party meeting the rows and rows of grinning
upturned faces, I have felt inclined to say, as the poet does in the "The
Vision of Sin"-"Welcome fellow-citizens,
Hollow hearts and empty heads."


Not that the people were personally hollow or empty, but they had come on
a hollow and empty business: to help the good Mr. Binks to strengthen the
Insurance Act against the wicked Mr. Jinks who would only promise to
fortify the Insurance Act. That night it did not blow the democratic gale.
Yet it can blow on these as on others; and when it does blow men learn
many things. I, for one, am not above learning them.

The Marxian dogma which simplifies all conflicts to the Class War is so
much nobler a thing than the nose-counting of the parliaments that one
must apologise for the comparison. And yet there is a comparison. When
we used to say that there were so many thousands of Socialists in Germany,
we were counting by skulls. When we said that the majority consisting of
Proletarians would be everywhere opposed to the minority, consisting of
Capitalists, we were counting by skulls. Why, yes; if all men's heads
had been cut off from the rest of them, as they were by the good sense and
foresight of Timour the Tartar; if they had no hearts or bellies to be
moved; no hand that flies up to ward off a weapon, no foot that can feel a
familiar soil--if things were so the Marxian calculation would be not only
complete but correct. As we know to-day, the Marxian calculation is
complete, but it is not correct.

Now, this is the answer to the questions of some kind critics, whose
actual words I have not within reach at the moment, about whether my
democracy meant the rule of the majority over the minority. It means the
rule of the rule--the rule of the rule over the exception. When a nation
finds a soul it clothes it with a body, and does verily act like one
living thing. There is nothing to be said about those who are out of it,
except that they are out of it. After talking about it in the abstract
for decades, this is Democracy, and it is marvellous in our eyes. It is
not the difference between ninetynine persons and a hundred persons; it is
one person--the people. I do not know or care how many or how few of the
Belgians like or dislike the pictures of Wiertz. They could not be either
justified or condemned by a mere majority of Belgians. But I am very
certain that the defiance to Prussia did not come from a majority of
Belgians. It came from Belgium one and indivisible--atheists, priests,
princes of the blood, Frenchified shopkeepers, Flemish boors, men, women,
and children, and the sooner we understand that this sort of thing can
happen the better for us. For it is this spontaneous spiritual fellowship
of communities under certain conditions to which the four or five most
independent minds of Europe willingly bear witness to-day.

But is there no exception: is there no one faithful among the unfaithful
found? Is no great Socialist politician still untouched by the patriotism
of the vulgar? Why, yes; the rugged Ramsay MacDonald, scarred with a
hundred savage fights against the capitalist parties, still lifts up his
horny hand for peace. What further need have we of witnesses? I, for my
part, am quite satisfied, and do not doubt that Mr. MacDonald will be as
industrious in damping down democracy in this form as in every other.