The Outsider (58 page)

“Now, Mr. Blimin, keep that point in mind while I remind you of what is happening in the great cities of the earth today—Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburg, London, Manchester, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and the rest. These cities are, for the most part, vast pools of human misery, networks of raw human nerves exposed without benefit of illusion or hope to the new, godless world wrought by industrial man. Industrial life plus a rampant capitalism have blasted the lives of men in these cities; those who are lucky enough not to be hungry are ridden with exquisite psychological sufferings. The people of these cities are lost; some of them are so lost that they no longer even know it, and they are the real lost ones. They haunt the movies for distraction; they gamble; they depress their sensibilities with alcohol; or they seek strong sensations to dull their sense of a meaningless existence…

“Now, Mr. Blimin, above these so-called toiling masses, for whom I have some sympathy but not as much as you'd expect, are the few industrialists and politicians who yell night and day about freedom, democracy, high wages, etc. These are the exploiters of the millions of rats caught in the industrial trap. That they make great profits out of the exercise of their lordship is perhaps the least of their crimes—”

“Oh, you're showing your true colors,” Blimin
snorted. “Are you defending
exploitation
now? Next you're going to tell me what wonderful philanthropists these capitalists are—”

“Not at all. It just so happens, Mr. Blimin,” Cross explained, “that I think that their crime is a blacker one than mere exploitation. The end-results of their rule is that they keep the lives of their rats pitched to a mean, sordid level of consciousness. It's right here where you and I disagree deeply. Your wonderful trade unions for a quarter of a century have been fighting for so-called standards of living for workers, fighting for higher wages…Had I had anything to say about the goals of those trade unions, I'd have insisted that their fight be to escape completely the domination of the capitalists…Not that the workers become richer, but that they become more human, freer…You don't want that, Mr. Blimin, and the capitalists don't want it. Why? Because you cannot dupe free men who can think and know…

“Now back to my theme…The point is not so much that these capitalists despise their rats, but that they despise themselves and all mankind. To keep their rats contented, they strive to convince them that their rats' lives are more glorious, better, richer than at any time in history, and, in the end, they come to believe in their own lies. Consequently today the content of human life on earth is what these cheap-minded men say it is. They are jealous and uneasy, these men, of anyone who tries to lure their rats away. They preach to their rats that their nation is the best of any of the nations, and that as rats they are the very best of all possible rats. They even have I-Am-A-Rat days…As long as this works, it's wonderful. The only real enemies of this system are not the rats themselves, but those outsiders who are conscious of what is happening and who seek to
change the consciousness of the rats who are being controlled. In situations like this, public consciousness is the key to political power…The essence of life today is psychological; men may take power with arms, but their keeping of it is by other means…Get me so far, Mr. Blimin?

“Now, rising up from time to time from the pools of restless millions in these vast cities are men who seek to head new movements. Their appearance is much rarer than is popularly supposed, just as genuine revolutions on this earth are rare, few and far between…These men who rise to challenge the rulers are jealous men. They feel that they are just as good as the men who rule; indeed, they suspect that they are better…They see the countless mistakes that are being made by the men who rule and they think that they could do a more honest, a much cleaner job, a more efficient job. For simplicity's sake, let's call them the Jealous Rebels—”

“Lane!” Blimin thundered, rising in anger. “You
are
cynical, that's all! How can you say Lenin was jealous? He had the fate of mankind close to his heart! We love people—”

Cross was tempted to tell of what Hilton had told him just before he had shot him; but no, he couldn't do that.

“Mr. Blimin,
please
, be honest,” Cross begged. “You must assume that I know what this is all about. Don't tell me about the nobility of labor, the glorious future
…You
don't believe in that. That's for others, and you damn well know it. You and men of your type are convinced that you know how the game goes and you've thrown down the gauntlet to the capitalists, conservatives, socialists, etc. You Jealous Rebels are intellectuals who know your history and you are anxious not to make the mistakes of your predecessors in rebellious un
dertakings. You feel that life has become crummy and meaningless and you feel you can give it more meaning than the clumsy men who now rule.

“The thinking of the revolutionary is a cold kind of thinking; he has a realistic insight into history; he has, above all, a sense of what power is, what it's for, both as a means of governing other men and as a means of personal expression. That absolute power is corrupting, à la Lord Acton, is something revolutionaries laugh at. These Jealous Rebels would much rather be corrupted with absolute power than live under the heels of men whom they despise.

“In order to test themselves, to make life a meaningful game, these Jealous Rebels proceed to organize political parties, communist parties, nazi parties, fascist parties, all kinds of parties—”

“No!” Blimin roared. “You cannot equate or confound Communism with Fascism! They are
different
!”

“I admit they are different,” Cross conceded. “But the degree of the difference is not worth arguing about. Fascists operate from a narrow, limited basis; they preach nationality, race, soil, blood, folk-feeling and other rot to capture men's hearts. What makes one man a Fascist and another a Communist might be found in the degree in which they are integrated with their culture. The more alienated a man is, the more he'd lean toward Communism…”

“Toward rationality,” Blimin stated.

“No,” Cross corrected him. “Communists
use
rationality. I admit that the Communists are more intelligent, more general in their approach, but the same power-hungry heart beats behind the desire to rule! I'm on pre-political ground here, Mr. Blimin. And you know I'm speaking the truth.

“Now, where do these Jealous Rebels get their pro
grams…? Out of books? From Plato's
Republic
? No! Their programs are but the crude translations of the daydreams of the man in the street, daydreams in which the Jealous Rebels do not believe!

“In order to catch their prey, they deliberately spin vast spiderwebs of ideology, the glittering strands of which are designed to appeal to the hopes of hopeful men. Yes, there are men who think that ideas will lead them to freedom and a fuller life, and these are the men who are the natural victims of the Jealous Rebels who do not feel that to dupe others in this way is immoral; it is their conviction that this is the way life is and only the naive think to the contrary…

“Their aims? Direct and naked power! They know as few others that there is no valid, functioning religion to take the place of the values and creeds of yesterday; and they know that political power, if it is to perform in the minds and emotions of men the role and efficacy that the idea of God once performed, must be total and absolute. These Jealous Rebels are sustained by a sense of the total meaning—or lack of meaning!—of human life on this earth. Their courage is derived from the fact that, win or lose, they are making history, that what they do is decisive for mankind. Caught up passionately in such a realistic myth, what will not an ardent man do…?

“These men are free from petty prejudices. They have to be free from such, for it is precisely the prejudices of
others
that they seek to manipulate for their own uses. They will commit any crime, but never in passion. They work slowly, deliberately, with refinement even. And whatever natural terrors of life there are in the hearts of men, whatever stupid prejudices they harbor in their damp souls, they know how to rouse and sustain those terrors and prejudices and mobilize them for
their
ends.
The mere act of hoping, believing, of being alive makes you a prospective victim for these knowing men! Modern life is a kind of confidence game; if you dream, you can be defeated unless you are careful that you do not dream a dream that has been set up for you!

“I'm not so naive as to believe that these men want to
change
the world! Why, they love human nature just as it is! They simply want their chance to show what they can do with that world and the people in it. To their minds human life on this earth is a process that is transparently
known
! They are out to grab the entire body of mankind and they will replace faith and habit with organization and discipline
…And they feel that they have a chance to do it!

“Since God as functioning reality in men's minds and hearts has gone, since the death of the gallant liberal, every event of the modern world feeds the growing movement toward the total and absolute, making the Jealous Rebels believe that they have allies everywhere…Wars, by mobilizing men into vast armies to fight and die for ideals that are transparently fraudulent, justify this drift toward the total and absolute in modern life. Industrial capitalism, whether it operates for profit or not, herds men around assembly lines to perform senseless tasks—all of which conditions men toward the acceptance of the total and absolute in modern life. Implicit in all political and speculative thought are the germs of ideas that prefigure the triumph of the total and absolute attitudes in modern life. Communication, inventions, radio, television, movies, atomic energy, by annihilating distance and space and the atmosphere of mystery and romance, create the conditions for the creation of organizations reflecting the total and absolute in modern life. Commercial advertising, cheapening and devaluing our notions of human personality, develops
and perfects techniques which can be used by political leaders who want to enthrone the total and absolute in modern life. Even anti-communists and anti-fascists must, by fighting the totalitarian threat by using the methods of the totalitarians—and there are no other methods, it seems, to use—guarantee and make inevitable this surge toward the total and absolute in modern life.

“There is no escaping what the future holds. We are going back,
back
to something earlier, maybe better, maybe worse, maybe something more terrifyingly human! These few hundred years of freedom, empire building, voting, liberty, democracy—these will be regarded as the
romantic
centuries in human history. There will be in that future no trial by jury, no writs of habeas corpus, no freedom of speech, of religion—all of this is being buried and not by Communists or Fascists alone, but by their opponents as well. All hands are shoveling clay on to the body of freedom before it even dies, while it lies breathing its last…

“There are some people today who sincerely but mistakenly believe that by going to war against a totalitarian nation that they can save the past of which they are so deeply fond. Unwilling or unable to believe that the crisis is as serious and deep as it really is, these people want to launch vast armies and smash the evildoers and reestablish a reign of peace and goodwill—the right to exploit others without interference!—on earth. What these sincere people do not realize is that Communism and Fascism are but the political expressions of the Twentieth Century's atheistic way of life, and that the future will reveal many, many more of these absolutistic systems whose brutality and rigor will make the presentday systems seem like summer outings. The most ludicrous and tragic spectacle on earth is to see a powerful
nation bleeding itself white to build up vast heaps of armaments to put down a menace that cannot be put down by military means at all…Wars will but tear away the last shreds of belief, leaving man's heart more naked and compulsive than ever before. Can atom bombs correct a man's sense of life? Can ultimatums alter the basic beliefs or nonbeliefs of millions of men? Can you shoot attitudes?

“Mr. Blimin, if you believe that I believe what I've told you, how do you think I'm a menace to your Party? True, I may not believe your Party's aims, but I know enough about politics to know that I could not change your Party, or, as an individual, fight it. So what are you scared of in me? I give you my word that I do not belong to any political party on this earth, and I don't think I will ever join one.

“Now, you asked me what am I doing? Knowing and seeing what is happening in the world today, I don't think that there is much of anything that one can do about it. But there is one little thing, it seems to me, that a man owes to himself. He can look bravely at this horrible totalitarian reptile and, while doing so, discipline his dread, his fear and study it coolly, observe every slither and convolution of its sensuous movements and note down with calmness the pertinent facts. In the face of the totalitarian danger, these facts can help a man to save himself; and he may then be able to call the attention of others around him to the presence and meaning of this reptile and its multitudinous writhings…

“That's all, Mr. Blimin. I'm not really anti anything.”

There was a long silence. Blimin sat looking at the floor, lifting his eyes now and then to Cross's face. Blimin's eyes were serious; he seemed not to know if he should believe Cross or not; or, if he did believe Cross,
then in what way…? Finally Blimin rose, laughed, stared at Cross and said:

“You've answered my question, but I'm afraid that you've raised more questions than you've answered. Frankly, Lane, it's dangerous for a man knowing and feeling what you know and feel to hang around loosely on the peripheries of our Party…”