Пластилиновые человеки
Любимое место у Спенсера:
...The worship of the legislature is, in one respect, indeed, less excusable than the fetish-worship. The savage has the defence that his fetish is silent-does not confess its inability. But the civilized man persists in ascribing to this idol made with his own hands, power which in one way or other it confesses it has not got... Legislative misdeeds... are in large measure explained, and reprobation of them mitigated, when we look at the matter from afar off. They have their root in the error that society is a manufacture; whereas it is a growth. Incorporated humanity is very commonly thought of as though it were like so much dough which the cook can mould as she pleases into pie-crust, or puff, or tartlet.
It may indeed be said that, even irrespective of this erroneous conception of a society as a plastic mass instead of as an organized body, facts forced on [our] attention hour by hour should make everyone sceptical as to the success of this or that proposed way of changing a people’s actions. Alike to the citizen and to the legislator, home-experiences daily supply proofs that the conduct of human beings baulks calculation. He has given up the thought of managing his wife and lets her manage him. Children on whom he has tried now reprimand, now punishment, now suasion, now reward, do not respond satisfactorily to any method; and no expostulation prevents their mother from treating them in ways he thinks mischievous. So, too, his dealings with his servants, whether by reasoning or by scolding, rarely succeed for long; the falling short of attention, or punctuality, or cleanliness, or sobriety, leads to constant changes. Yet, difficult as he finds it to deal with humanity in detail, he is confident of his ability to deal with embodied humanity. Citizens, not one-thousandth of whom he knows, not one-hundredth of whom he ever saw, and the great mass of whom belong to classes having habits and modes of thought of which he has but dim notions, he feels sure will act in ways he foresees, and fulfil ends he wishes. Is there not a marvellous incongruity between premises and conclusion?
One might have expected that whether they observed the implications of these domestic failures, or whether they contemplated in every newspaper the indications of a social life too vast, too varied, too involved, to be even vaguely pictured in thought, men would have entered on the business of law-making with the greatest hesitation. Yet in this more than anything else do they show a confident readiness. Nowhere is there so astounding a contrast between the difficulty of the task and the unpreparedness of those who undertake it. (The Man Vs. The State: The Sins of Legislators; H. Spencer)
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=330&layout=html#chapter_119744
Мне кажется, проблема только ухудшилась с 1884-го года. Если раньше такие истины можно было выучить из отношений с прислугой и детьми, то сегодня слуг нет, а дети превратились в законодателей. Я практически не встречаю людей, которые не верили бы, в какой-то степени, в пластилиновость остальных. Интересно, что бы Спенсер сказал про нынешних управителей. Для них пластилиновость - аксиома. Иначе думать не могут.
...The worship of the legislature is, in one respect, indeed, less excusable than the fetish-worship. The savage has the defence that his fetish is silent-does not confess its inability. But the civilized man persists in ascribing to this idol made with his own hands, power which in one way or other it confesses it has not got... Legislative misdeeds... are in large measure explained, and reprobation of them mitigated, when we look at the matter from afar off. They have their root in the error that society is a manufacture; whereas it is a growth. Incorporated humanity is very commonly thought of as though it were like so much dough which the cook can mould as she pleases into pie-crust, or puff, or tartlet.
It may indeed be said that, even irrespective of this erroneous conception of a society as a plastic mass instead of as an organized body, facts forced on [our] attention hour by hour should make everyone sceptical as to the success of this or that proposed way of changing a people’s actions. Alike to the citizen and to the legislator, home-experiences daily supply proofs that the conduct of human beings baulks calculation. He has given up the thought of managing his wife and lets her manage him. Children on whom he has tried now reprimand, now punishment, now suasion, now reward, do not respond satisfactorily to any method; and no expostulation prevents their mother from treating them in ways he thinks mischievous. So, too, his dealings with his servants, whether by reasoning or by scolding, rarely succeed for long; the falling short of attention, or punctuality, or cleanliness, or sobriety, leads to constant changes. Yet, difficult as he finds it to deal with humanity in detail, he is confident of his ability to deal with embodied humanity. Citizens, not one-thousandth of whom he knows, not one-hundredth of whom he ever saw, and the great mass of whom belong to classes having habits and modes of thought of which he has but dim notions, he feels sure will act in ways he foresees, and fulfil ends he wishes. Is there not a marvellous incongruity between premises and conclusion?
One might have expected that whether they observed the implications of these domestic failures, or whether they contemplated in every newspaper the indications of a social life too vast, too varied, too involved, to be even vaguely pictured in thought, men would have entered on the business of law-making with the greatest hesitation. Yet in this more than anything else do they show a confident readiness. Nowhere is there so astounding a contrast between the difficulty of the task and the unpreparedness of those who undertake it. (The Man Vs. The State: The Sins of Legislators; H. Spencer)
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=330&layout=html#chapter_119744
Мне кажется, проблема только ухудшилась с 1884-го года. Если раньше такие истины можно было выучить из отношений с прислугой и детьми, то сегодня слуг нет, а дети превратились в законодателей. Я практически не встречаю людей, которые не верили бы, в какой-то степени, в пластилиновость остальных. Интересно, что бы Спенсер сказал про нынешних управителей. Для них пластилиновость - аксиома. Иначе думать не могут.