FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102  
103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>   >|  
and sturdiness of body and mind, but partly also, it is to draw the minds of the Samurai for a space from the insistent details of life, from the intricate arguments and the fretting effort to work, from personal quarrels and personal affections and the things of the heated room. Out they must go, clean out of the world..." These passages will at least serve to present the Samurai idea and the idea of common Rule of conduct it embodied. In the "Modern Utopia" I discuss also a lesser Rule and the modification of the Rule for women and the relation to the order of what I call the poietic types, those types whose business in life seems to be rather to experience and express than to act and effectually do. For those things I must refer the reader to the book itself. Together with a sentence I have put in italics above, they serve to show that even when I was devising these Samurai I was not unmindful of the defects that are essential to such a scheme. This dream of the Samurai proved attractive to a much more various group of readers than the New Republican suggestion, and there have been actual attempts to realise the way of life proposed. In most of these cases there was manifest a disposition greatly to over-accentuate organization, to make too much of the disciplinary side of the Rule and to forget the entire subordination of such things to active thought and constructive effort. They are valuable and indeed only justifiable as a means to an end. These attempts of a number of people of very miscellaneous origins and social traditions to come together and work like one machine made the essential wastefulness of any terrestrial realization of my Samurai very clear. The only reason for such an Order is the economy and development of force, and under existing conditions disciplines would consume more force than they would engender. The Order, so far from being a power, would be an isolation. Manifestly the elements of organization and uniformity were overdone in my Utopia; in this matter I was nearer the truth in the case of my New Republicans. These, in contrast with the Samurai, had no formal general organization, they worked for a common end, because their minds and the suggestion of their circumstances pointed them to a common end. Nothing was enforced upon them in the way of observance or discipline. They were not shepherded and trained together, they came together. It was assumed that if they wanted strongly the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102  
103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Samurai

 

organization

 

things

 

common

 

Utopia

 

essential

 

suggestion

 

attempts

 
personal
 

effort


terrestrial

 

wastefulness

 

conditions

 

disciplines

 

realization

 

existing

 

reason

 
development
 

partly

 

economy


insistent
 

justifiable

 

details

 

intricate

 

valuable

 

number

 

traditions

 

social

 

people

 

miscellaneous


origins

 

machine

 

engender

 
sturdiness
 

Nothing

 
enforced
 

pointed

 

circumstances

 

worked

 

observance


assumed

 
wanted
 
strongly
 
discipline
 

shepherded

 

trained

 
general
 

formal

 

isolation

 

Manifestly