A Dialogue Upon Revolution and Freedom

Tolerance Towards the Tolerant and Implacable Intolerance Against Meddlers Is the Way to Personal Liberty

ALDOUS HUXLEY

THE Time: The present.

The Place: London.

The Characters:

JACK STRAW: One of those genial theorists of revolution with five thousand pounds a year to keep them out of the workhouse.

THE MARQUIS OF CARABAS: An impoverished nobleman who can only make two ends meet by playing bridge Jor ten or twelve hours a day. Being, admittedly, the eleventh best bridge player in London, he manages in this way to make a fairly steady twenty-five hundred a year; and as he is wise enough to avoid horse racing and games of chance, he succeeds with this and the little that the shrunken domains of Carabas now bring in, in keeping up something like appearances. They are dining quietly together at a little hostelry at the corner of Pall Mall East and the Haymarket.

JACK STRAW (leaning back in his chair, between two courses, and sipping thoughtfully at his Chateau Yquern): I like to think of the scene there will be when this place is pillaged by the furious mob. You and all the other sleek young men dragged off for mock trial and very genuine decapitation: the dowagers stripped of their pearls and thrown into the cellars: the young ladies being compelled to abandon, at the revolver's point, that honor which, we all know, my dear Carabas, is dearer to them than their lives. When that jolly day comes—and believe me, it is not so far off— you will see me at the head of the Sans Culottes.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: But with your culottes, I hope.

JACK STRAW: That depends solely on the weather. If warm, sans; if chilly, avec. We shall abolish all the old conventions and prejudices when the revolution comes. The reign of nature will be re-established.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: It won't last long, your reign of nature. Particularly if it means no culottes.

JACK STRAW: Of course it won't last long. But while it does last, think how delightful and invigorating it will be! In a very short time everything will naturally settle down into very much the same grooves as before. That's inevitable—and, really, all for the best. No revolution has ever made any real difference.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: Then what's the good of having revolutions?

JACK STRAW: What's the use of going to Brighton for the week end? For the change, my dear boy, for the change. One must have a change from time to time, a little excitement, a shock, a general shaking up, a thorough sneeze and stretch. Any doctor will tell you that. And the body politic needs these little shocks, just as much as the individual body.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: But am I to be decapitated merely to provide a few hours change of occupation for the multitude?

JACK STRAW: That's the idea. The greatest good of the greatest number, Carabas—you must sometimes think of that.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: That's precisely what I was thinking of. I am a man of ideals, you know. Or at least, I certainly should be, if I could spare the time. As things are (he shakes his head and sighs), it's difficult. Always at work, from night till morning. Never a day off. But all the same, Straw, I have ideals. Lying awake sometimes on my bed, through the long dreary hours of the morning, 1 do often think—though you won't believe me—of the greatest good of the greatest number. I worry about it. I even feel sometimes that I should like to do something about it. And if you really could convince me that my decapitation would materially increase the total sum of liberty and all that sort of thing in the world—why, I'd go gladly to the guillotine. Gladly! (He drinks a glass of wine in heroic style.)

JACK STRAW: I shouldn't be such a fool as to try and convince you of anything of the sort. Of course your decapitation won't increase the sum of liberty. Why should it? Or how could it? After all, there have been enough revolutions in the past to show pretty clearly that you don't get liberty by chopping heads off.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: Very well, then. I stick to my head, in that case. No liberty, no head. That's my last word.

JACK STRAW: We modern revolutionaries have profited by experience, which is more than you romantic and sentimental reactionaries seem to have done. The only point of a revolution is the fun of the thing. That's the great political discovery of modern times—the wisdom born of many disappointments and bitter disillusions. We shall start our affair, inspired by the knowledge of that great truth. The cry won't be: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". It will be: "Hurrah for a breezy day at the sea-side". That we shall shout, as we massacre one set of bloodsuckers and tyrants in preparation for setting up another. Your decapitation, my dear Carabas, will just be one of the little amusements by the way. Liberty, indeed! (He snorts contemptuously.)

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: Liberty ... I may be old-fashioned, but I must say I like the word. It's a charming word. And I like the idea it stands for.

JACK STRAW: Of course you like it. So do we all. But do you think you're going to get it by making a revolution?

MARQUIS OF CARABAS (rather shyly breaking through his English reserve and revealing his deeper feelings): Well, you know, sometimes, on sleepless mornings, I do dream of a world set free, of men like gods, and dogs like men, and H. G. Wells, and all that sort of thing. It seems so rosy. And I fancy myself sacrificing everything to attain it; leading poor suffering humanity on, don't you know, to the heights. Through terror to triumph, you know. Per ardua adastra. And all that sort of thing.

JACK STRAW: Very fine and generous, I'm sure. Your feelings do you credit, my dear Carabas. But consider the facts. Consider the French Revolution.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: Oh, I do, I do!

JACK STRAW: What did people ask for then? Liberty. Political liberty, to be precise. For the sake of political liberty, they made mincemeat of your ancestors, Carabas. Votes, equality before the law, no taxation without representation, and all that. Excellent things in their way, no doubt; excellent and obtainable things. They got them—all of them, in time. Today we have all the political liberty anyone could ask for. But are we free? Are we fundamentally freer than people who haven't got political liberty? Of course not. For the simple reason that the greater part of our waking life is spent, not in being political, but in working.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS (groaning): I should think it is! Do you know, Straw, I got so frightfully tired last night at about half past three, that I went to sleep over my cards. I actually revoked. Revoked, mark you. The first time I've done that since 1 was eight years old and had to play double dummy with my grandmother. Only she was too blind and dotty, poor old lady, to notice; and what's more, she was always doing it herself.

JACK STRAW (piqued at being interrupted for so frivolous a reason; with emphasis): As I was saying. We spend most of our waking life at work, not at politics. So after about half a century of hitting the wrong nail on the head; after Reform Bills and Charters and LouisPhilippe constitutions and all that, the slowly moving mind of man began to see that political liberty wasn't all that people thought it was going to be. Scratching their heads, men began wondering why it was that, though politically free, they were still working twelve hours a day. The notion of industrial liberty began to dawn. They passed anti-sweating laws and eight-hour bills and . . .

MARQUIS OF CARABAS: Eight-hour bills! How blissful that sounds! I wish someone would pass an eight-hour bill for me. I start playing directly after lunch every day and never stop before three or four o'clock in the morning. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours every damned day! It's a dog's life.

JACK STRAW: A dog's life-precisely. How tersely you express the universal discontent of humanity with modern conditions of labor! Well, these eight-hour bills and so on were all very excellent in their way. But they weren't, my dear Carabas, they still aren't, liberty. Only ameliorations of slavery. Well, now we have the syndicalists and the idea of a revolution that shall give the workmen the control of the factories, that shall allow them to decide their own conditions of work, share the profits, and so on. Long live the syndicalist revolution! But don't let's pretend that it will bring liberty. You may control your conditions of work; but the work remains, the revolting necessity of work remains. And work, except for the few rare people who are born with a mission and an enthusiasm to perform it, work is always slavery, whatever the conditions of labor.

MARQUIS OF CARABAS (with feeling): It is! JACK STRAW (continuing with the enthusiasm of one who was certainly born with a mission and who has consumed nearly a bottle of Chateau Yquern): And even suppose, which is very unlikely, that you will ever be able to prolong the leisure of working humanity—and a revolution, of course, would be the last thing to achieve that end. Would human beings really be any freer in that case? Some would, no doubt—the few independent spirits, who are already reasonably free even in the present condition of things. But for most people, even leisure is a kind of slavery . . . Not having the wits to think of some sensible way of entertaining themselves, they abjectly accept what is offered them. They look at the moving pictures, listen to the radio concerts, read the magazines and the Sunday papers, watch the football matches. In a word, they fill up their leisure with a routine of amusement as rigid and depressing, as much forced on them from without, as the routine of their working hours. For the majority of people, more leisure would merely mean the shifting of the weight of slavery from one part of the day to another.

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MARQUIS OF CARABAS: You fill me with depression. Must I give up even the hope of personal, private liberty, the liberty of the leisure hours, when one is being neither a politician nor a laborer?

JACK STRAW (generously): No, I'll leave you that; I'll leave you personal liberty to brood about in your sleepless forenoons. For even if the mass of people don't do what they personally like during their leisure, but only what the herd has been told it ought to like, it is still important that personal liberty should remain as complete as possible. A few may learn to use that freedom, which is the only real and solid liberty, with intelligence and to their own profit. But personal liberty is not to be achieved by revolutions. It is to be achieved bytolerance towards tolerant people and a ceaseless, implacable intolerance towards those whose mission it is to interfere with other people's lives. Cne can possess complete political liberty and be blessed with all the possible ameliorations to one's industrial slavery, and yet be bullied out of all one's poor little stock of real personal liberty. There is, for instance, a certain great country beyond the Atlantic Ocean . . .

MARQUIS OF CARABAS (raising his glass): There is . . .

JACK STRAW: Long may it remain on the other side of the ocean! (They drink together, solemnly.)