Christopher Hitchens - The Portable Atheist - Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

One may reach the same conclusion by another method. Much is often made of the statement that the end of social action is the production of strong individuals. This is true; but individuation is the product, biologically, of a differentiation, and this, instead of making the part less dependent on the whole, really involves a greater coherence and a more profound interdependence of parts. In the animal organism he taking on of specific functions by certain groups of cells involves the performance of other functions by other groups; and thus, while in view of a specific function a particular cell group may be said to acquire a greater individuality, from another point of view its individuality is an expression of the organized cell life of the entire organism. With equal truth this generalisation holds good of the individual in relation to society. Social action necessarily results, not in the production of individuals who are above social forces and who control them, but in the production of individualities that express the highly elaborated social forces behind and around them. There is positively no other source for their existence. An individual cannot create new forces; he can only utilize those already existing. And unless he is the exact equivalent of all the forces that preceded him, neither more nor less, we have in the individual something that is impossible of explanation, and which cuts the ground from under all scientific and all coherent thinking. The very feeling of the individual that he is controlling social forces is a trick of the imagination, which ultimately expresses the deeper truth I have indicated.

The most striking apparent exceptions will be seen to enforce this truth. Probably in thinking of strong, almost lawless individualities, many would light upon these “money kings” whose actions seem to be fettered by no consideration of social service. And yet, putting on one side that we are here dealing with the old predatory instincts modified to meet new conditions, the fact remains that the most lawless of the group are as dependent upon social forces as any others. For these men hold the wealth they have, and pursue the methods they employ, wholly in virtue of the social discipline—respect for private property, for freedom of action, habits of obedience, which the people have been subjected to, and to the laws—expressions of the same social discipline—which protects them from assault. So that, paradoxical as it may sound, the very people who imagine themselves free from the control of the social forces, are those who are most dependent upon their existence and operation.

We can, now, I think, see more clearly the futility of the remark that “the smallest and forlornest actual slum baby appeals to our sympathy immeasurably more than a vast dim aggregate of indistinguishable items called the Race.” Naturally, because we have here a concrete illustration of a universal fact, without which the general fact would not be appreciated. But the very sympathy which is excited is race-born, is an expression of that race solidarity which is thought of so little value. And sympathy, while immediately directed towards the individual, is ultimately directed towards race-welfare. The love of the mother for her child is nature’s method of securing race preservation; and the sympathy of one person with another is nature’s method of securing that social cooperation and efficiency without which human life would cease to exist. It is always good not to lose the particular in the general, but it is also good not to lose sight of the fact that the particular is only what it is because of its relation to the general.

If what has been said be correct, what, it may be asked, becomes of the individual? Well, the individual is as much there as ever; we simply realize his true worth and function in the social organism. The individual is no more doomed than an analysis of the laws of light destroys the beauty of a sunset. We are as able as ever to appreciate the individual, but it is an intelligent appreciation that comes from a perception of his true nature and of his relations to humanity as a whole, in place of the unreasoning and helpless wonder of a disguised supernaturalism. The individual stands, not as the chance product of incomprehensible powers, but as the necessary result and expression of social forces always in operation.

That this conception robs us of the incentive to progress I do not for a moment believe. In the first place, progress itself is not such a chance thing as to be dependent upon the voluntary cooperation of any one person or of any group of persons. Those who study carefully the history of ideas of progress in general will see the truth of Spencer’s statement that human progress is all of a piece with the unfolding of a flower and the development of a planet, a complex illustration of the laws of causation. All ideas are born of the past operating upon the present; and although ideas cannot run without feet, they must find a particular human vehicle for their expression, yet it is much nearer the truth to say that these find their vent in individuals than that individuals create the ideas themselves. Flattering to self-esteem as is the notion that ideas depend for their existence upon this or that individual, it is one that is quite devoid of scientific foundation.

Secondly, it is largely a question of how we are to set to work. If the individual originates social forces, our efforts must be concentrated on individuals, or, as it is said, “We must take care of the individual and leave the race to take care of itself.” If, however, the individual is the expression of countless social actions and reactions, then the line of effort must be in the direction of modifying social conditions so as to make for a more desirable manhood. And if we are to be guided by experience, one need have no hesitation in declaring for the latter method. For all experience testifies to the futility of our expecting ideas and beliefs to flourish in an unsuitable environment. Moral teaching is equally futile unless the general environment is such as gives it countenance. To do Christianity justice, one must admit that there has never been with it any lack of mere moral instruction; but there has been a fatal neglect of the conditions that would give the moral instruction force. A people is always what its environment makes it; only we must be careful to count in the environment the biological and psychological forces along with the purely material ones.

Finally, there is the question of inspiration. This is ultimately a question of imagination. Our preacher thinks the slum baby more effective than anything else. Others there are who find little inspiration in particular individuals, who may be quite unattractive objects. To them the story of human progress appeals far more powerfully. They feel that, unlovely and undesirable as certain individuals may be, their unloveliness and undesirability are atoned for by the worthiness of humanity as a whole. It is not that they multiply nothing to get something, or that they hope by a multiplication of ugliness to get beauty, but the conception of a slowly developing humanity compensates for the partial failures and for the marred beauty of isolated instances. And surely there is in this human story, from cave man to poet, philosopher, and scientist, enough inspiration to fire the most sluggish imagination. There is enough to make one feel that, whatever our failures may be, they are neither eternal nor irremediable; that the course of evolution has loaded the dice in our favour; and that even though as individuals we are mere links in the chain of beings, as links we still play our parts, and so serve to provide a finer metal out of which may be forged the links that follow.

In one of his writings Mr. G. K. Chesterton says that the real question at issue between the Christian and the Freethinker is, “Are there or are there not certain powers and experiences possible to the human mind which really occur when the mind is suitably disposed? Is the religious history of mankind a chronicle of accidental lies, delusions, and coincidences, or is it a chronicle of real things which we happen not to be able to do and real visions which we happen not to be able to see?” As is not unusual with Mr. Chesterton, he succeeds here in saying nothing in particular, while apparently expressing a deal in a small compass. For, far from meeting the case of the scientific Freethinker, it shows no real appreciation of it. Mr. Chesterton’s case is that the Christian saint or mystic is, by the exercise of certain spiritual expriences, brought into another world of being. The Freethinker does not deny the experiences—without the qualifying “spiritual”—but he submits there is another and more rational explanation at hand.