As I See It
Bernard Shawn
What about this danger of war,which is making us all shake in our shoes at
present? I am like yourself :I have an intense objection to having my house
demolished by a bomb from an aeroplane and myself killed in a horribly with
mangled corpses gasp and strangle in the clutches of dead mothers . That is what
war means nowadays. This is what is happening in Spain and in China whilst I
speak to you ; and it may happen to us tomorrow. And the worst of it is that it
does not matter two straws to Nature, the mother of us all, how dreadfully we
misbehave ourselver in this way , or in what hideous agonies we die , Nature can sort of等于什么
produce children enough to make good any extremity of slaughter of which we are
capable. London maybe destroyed ;paris,rome,berlin,vienna,constantinople may be
laid in smoking ruins and the last shrieks of their women and children give wy
to the silence of death. No matter. Mother nature will replace the dead. She is
doing so every day.
Now, the moral of that is that we must not depend on any sort of divine
providence to put a stop to war. Providence says “kill one another, my children
:kill one another to your heart’s content. There are plenty more where you came
from.”consequently, if we want war to stop, we must all become conscientious
objectors.i dislike war not only for its dangers and inconveniences , but
because of  the loss of so many young men any of whom may be a Newton or an
Einstein , a Beethoven , a Michelangelo , a Shakespeare , or even a Shaw. Or he
may be what is of much more immediate importance : a good baker or a good weaver
or builder . if you think of a pair of combatants as a heroic British St.Michael
bringing the wrath of God upon a German Lucifer , or burm to avenge him if his
dastardly adversary mows him down with a machine-gun before he can get to grips
with him . In that way , you can get intense emotional experience from war . But
suppose you think of the two as they probably are ; say, two good carpenters
taken away from their proper work to kill one another. That is how I see it ;
and the result is that , whichever of them is killed , the loss is as grest to
Europe and to me . In 1914 , I was as sorry for the young Germans who lay slain
or mutilated in no man’s land as for the British lads who lay beside them , so I
got no emotional satisfaction out of the war. It was to me a sheer waste of life
.
The pacifist movement against war takes as its charter the ancient document
called the Sermon on the Mount, which is almost as often quoted as the speech
which Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have deliverde on the battlefield of
Gettysburg. The sermon is a very moving exhortation ;and it gives you one
firstrate tip, which is , to do good to those who despitefully use you and
persecute you . I , who is a much-hated man , have been doing that all my
life ,
and I can assure you there is no better fun , whereas revenge and resentment
make life miserable and the avenger hateful. But such a command as “love one
another”, as I see it , is a stupid refusal to accept the facts of human nature
. Pray , are we loveable animals ? Do you love the rate-collector? Do you love
Mr Lloyd George ? And if you do , doyou love Mr Winston Churchill? Have you an
all-embracing affection for Messers Mussolini , Hitler , Franco ,Ataturk and the
mikado ?
The lesson we have to learn is that our dislike for certain persons , or even
for the whole human race , does not give us any right to injure our fellow
creatures , however odious they may be . As I see it, the social rule must be
“live and let live “. And as people who break this rule persistently must be
liquidated, even pacifists and non-resisters must draw a line accordingly
It has become a commonplace to say that another great war would destroy
civilization . Well, that will depend on what sort of war it will be . If it is
to be like the 1914 war ---a war of nations ---it will certainly not make an end
of civilization. It may conceivably knock the British empire to bits and leave
England as primitive as she was when Julius Caesar landed in Kent. Perhaps we
should be happier then; for we are still savages at heart, and wear our thin
uniform of civilization very awkwardly. But , anyhow , there will be two refuges
left for civilization. No national attack can seriously hurt the two great
federated republics of North America and Soviet Russia. They are too big , the
distances are too great, But what could destroy them is civil war : wars like
the wars of religion in the 17th century . And this is exactly the sort of war
that is threatening us today. It has already begun in Spain , where all the big
capitalist powers are taking a hand to support General Franco through an
intervention committee which they think it more decent to call a
non-intervention committee. This is only a skirmish in the class war, the war
between the two religions of Capitalism and Communism which is , at bottom , a
war between labour and landowning. We could escape that war by putting our house
in order as Russia has done , without any of the fighting and killing and waste
and damage that the Russians went through ; but we do not seem to want to . I
have shown exactly how it can be done, and , in fact, how it must be done , but
nobody takes any notice.Foolish people in easy circumstances flatter themselves
that there is no such thing as the class war in the British enpire, where we are
all far too respectable and too well protected by our parliamentary system to
have any vulgar unpleasantness of that sort. They deceive themselves. We are up
to the neck in the class war.
What is it that is wrong with our present way of doing things ? It is not that
we cannot produce enough goods . Our machines turn out as much w
ork in an hour
as 10000 hand-workers used to.But it is not enough for a country to produce
goods:it must distribute them as well,and this is where our system breaks down
hopelessly. Everybody ought to be living quite comfortably by working four or
five hours a day with two Sundays in the week,yet millions of labourers die in
the workhouse or on the dole after 60years of hard toil so that a few babies may
have hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
As I see ti,this is not a thing to be argued about or to take sides about. It is
strpid and wicked on the face of it;and it will smash us and our civilization if
we do not resolutely reform it.Yet we do nothing but keep up a perpetual
ballyhoo about Bolshevism,fascism ,communism ,liberty,dictators,democracy,and
all the rest of it.The very first lesson of the new history dug up for us by
Professor Flinders Petrie during my lifetime is that no civilization,however
splendid ,illustrious and like our own,can stand up against the social
resentments and class conflicts which follow a silly misdistribution of wealth,
labour and leisure .And it is the one history lesson that is never taught in our
schools, thus confirming the saying of the German philosopher,Hegel,”Wlearn from
history that men never learn anything from history.”
依我之见
如何看待当前这种使我们每个人都不寒而栗的战争危险呢？和你们一样，我极不愿看待自己的房屋被飞
机投下的夷为平地，不愿自己痛不欲生地被芥子气毒死。我仿佛看到，大街小巷堆满了血肉模糊的尸体，孩子们徘徊其间呼喊着他们的父母，婴儿在死亡母亲的紧抱中奄奄一息，最后窒息而死－－现代的战争就意味着这一切。当此刻我向你们讲话时，在西班牙和中国发生着这样的事情，而明天，它可能就会降临到我们头上。最糟糕的是：不管我们的行为多么丑陋，不管我们如何痛苦地死去，对我们的大自然母亲来说都无关紧要，无论我们的杀戮本领如何登峰造极，大自然都能够降生足够的婴儿来弥补那些被杀戮的生灵。伦敦可能会被毁于一旦，巴黎、罗马、柏林、维也纳、君士坦丁堡可能会在一片硝烟中化为废墟。这些城里妇女儿童会发出最后的惨叫可能会被死亡的寂静所代替。这一些都没关系：大自然母亲会用新的生命来替代死者，她每天都这样做着。
这一切给予我们的教训是：我们不可相信任何神诋会来制止战争。上帝说：“互相蚕沙吧，我的孩子们。尽情地互相蚕沙吧，还会有许许多多的人像你们一样从娘胎里降生。”所以，如果我们希望战争停止，就必须都成为真心实意的饭战者，我之所以厌恶战争，不仅仅因为它带来危险和麻烦，而且还因为它使人类失去了众多的青年，他们中随便哪一个都可能成为一个牛顿、
一个爱因斯坦、一个贝多芬、一个米开郎基罗、一个莎士比亚、甚至也许成为一个萧伯纳。他们也许还能成为更直接有用的人：一个好面包师、一个好纺织工、或是一个好建筑工人。假如你把两个格斗的士兵看成是一个英勇的英国“天使”在对一个德国“恶魔”施以天罚，那么，如果“天使”杀死了“恶魔”，你可能会为他的胜利而感到欣喜若狂；但若在他还没来得急与他的卑怯的对手交锋之前就被其用激光抢扫倒，
你又会怒不可遏地为他复仇。这样，你就会体会到战争引起的
激情。可假如你是按实际可能设想，比方说把这两个人看作受人驱使而放下各自的活计去互相残杀的两个好木匠——这正式我对战争的看法，那结果将是：不管他们中哪一个被杀死，这对欧洲和我们来说损失都同样巨大。我在1914年，无论对那些残肢断臂横尸荒野的年轻德国人，还是对那些躺在他们身边的英国小伙子，都感到同样的难过。所以，我对那些战争没有丝毫的好感。我认为那仅是一场生命的浪费。
反战和平主义运动把那篇古老的名曰“山上垂训”的诫文奉为自己的信条。这篇诫文几乎和林肯的据说是在葛底斯堡战场上发表的演说一样经常被人们所引用。这是一篇非常感动人的诫文，它给我们提出一条非常有益的忠告，就是说：对那些残酷的对待你、迫害你的人要报之以德。我，一个结怨甚深的人，医生都是按此忠告待人的，我可以向你们保证：这样做会给你带来无上的乐趣。反之，报复和怨恨使生活充满不幸，使复仇者遭人憎恶。然而，像“你们要彼此相爱”这样的说教，依我之见，则是愚蠢的漠视人类本性的现实。试问：我们是可爱的动物吗？你爱收税员吗？你爱老埃德
乔治吗？如果你爱，那你爱温斯顿丘吉尔先生吗？你对墨索里尼、希特勒、佛郎哥、土耳其国父基马尔和日本天皇都是一概怀有下之情吗？
我们必须引以为戒的是：我们厌恶某些人，甚至讨厌整个人类，并不等于有权伤害自己的同类，不管他
们是何等的可憎。依我之见，社会的规则必须是“自己活也让别人活”。另外，由于不断违反这一规则的人必须受到清算，所以即使是和平主义者和不抵抗主义者也必须按此原则划清界线。
一旦大战再度爆发文明将会毁灭的说法如今已成人们的口头禅。不过，这要看爆发什么样的战争。若是像1914年那样的战争，即一场民族和民族之间的战争，那当然不会结束文明。可以想象，这样的战争会使大英帝国土崩瓦解、使英国回到裘立斯恺撒在背特登陆时那副原始模样去。说不定那样我们会更快活，因为今天我们内心深处仍属于野蛮人，非常别
扭的穿着一身薄薄的文明外衣。但无论怎么说，世界还会给文明留下两个庇护之所。任何国家的进攻都不可能严重伤害北美和苏俄两个联邦大国。它们太大了，距离也太遥远了。而能够使他们毁灭的是内战，像17世纪宗教战争那样的战争。这正是今天威胁着我们的那种战争。它已经在西班牙开始了。在那里，所有资本主义大国都正在通过一个干涉委员会参与支持佛朗哥将军的行动，但它们却认为称这个委员会为不干涉委员会更适宜。这仅仅是阶级战争中的一场小冲突，这战争是资本主义与共产主义两种信仰之间的战争，其实质乃是劳工和地主之间的战争，我们可以像俄国人已经做的那样在国内进行必要的改革以避免这样的战争，而不必经历俄国人所经历的那些战斗、杀戮、浪费和破坏。不过，看来我们并不想这样做。我已经确切地说明这件事可以怎样做，其实是必须怎样做，但没有任何人予以注意。生活在安逸之中的蠢人自以为大英雄，而且都受到我们议会制的极好保护，绝不会发生那种粗俗的煞风景的事。这是自欺欺人。我们现在已经深深陷于阶级战争之中。
我们当今在处理事情的方式上到底出了什么毛病呢？不是我们不能生产足够的商品，我们的机器现在每小时生产的东西相当于以前10000个手工工人干的活。但是，一个国家只生产商品是不够的，它还必须分配这些商品。而这却是我们的制度无可奈何地必然出毛病的地方。每个人一天工作4，5个小时，一周休两个礼拜天，就该过上十分舒适的生活。可是，为了几个天之骄子能够一年得到几十万磅的收入，千百万劳动者却不是死在车间，就是做60年苦工之后靠救济金度日。
依我之见，此事并不需要争论或表态。谁都可以一眼看出此事的愚蠢性及邪恶之处。如不坚决对之进行改革，我们本身及我们的文明都将被其毁灭。可是，我们只是喋喋不休的奢谈布尔什维主义、法西斯主义、共产主义、自由、独裁者、民主以及诸如此类的东西。与我同时代的弗林德斯-皮特里教授为我们新发掘出来的历史所提供的首要教训就是：任何一种文明，不管多么灿烂、多么辉煌、多么相似于我们这里的文明，都经受不住由于在财富和劳逸方面愚蠢地分配不当而产生的社会不满和阶级冲突。这一历史却偏偏是我们学校从来没有教过的，从而证实了德国哲学家黑格尔的说法：“我们学了历史就知道人们根本没有从历史上学到东西。”

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