It is a question whether we have ever seen the full
expression
of a
personality, except on the imaginative plane of art.
personality, except on the imaginative plane of art.
Oscar Wilde - Poetry
In a community like ours, where property confers
immense distinction, social position, honour, respect, titles, and other
pleasant things of the kind, man, being naturally ambitious, makes it
his aim to accumulate this property, and goes on wearily and tediously
accumulating it long after he has got far more than he wants, or can
use, or enjoy, or perhaps even know of. Man will kill himself by
overwork in order to secure property, and really, considering the
enormous advantages that property brings, one is hardly surprised. One's
regret is that society should be constructed on such a basis that man
has been forced into a groove in which he cannot freely develop what is
wonderful, and fascinating, and delightful in him--in which, in fact, he
misses the true pleasure and joy of living. He is also, under existing
conditions, very insecure. An enormously wealthy merchant may be--often
is--at every moment of his life at the mercy of things that are not
under his control. If the wind blows an extra point or so, or the
weather suddenly changes, or some trivial thing happens, his ship may go
down, his speculations may go wrong, and he finds himself a poor man,
with his social position quite gone. Now, nothing should be able to harm
a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a
man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a
matter of no importance.
With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true,
beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in
accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live
is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
It is a question whether we have ever seen the full expression of a
personality, except on the imaginative plane of art. In action, we never
have. Caesar, says Mommsen, was the complete and perfect man. But how
tragically insecure was Caesar! Wherever there is a man who exercises
authority, there is a man who resists authority. Caesar was very perfect,
but his perfection travelled by too dangerous a road. Marcus Aurelius
was the perfect man, says Renan. Yes; the great emperor was a perfect
man. But how intolerable were the endless claims upon him! He staggered
under the burden of the empire. He was conscious how inadequate one man
was to bear the weight of that Titan and too vast orb. What I mean by a
perfect man is one who develops under perfect conditions; one who is not
wounded, or worried or maimed, or in danger. Most personalities have
been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been wasted in
friction. Byron's personality, for instance, was terribly wasted in its
battle with the stupidity, and hypocrisy, and Philistinism of the
English. Such battles do not always intensify strength: they often
exaggerate weakness.
immense distinction, social position, honour, respect, titles, and other
pleasant things of the kind, man, being naturally ambitious, makes it
his aim to accumulate this property, and goes on wearily and tediously
accumulating it long after he has got far more than he wants, or can
use, or enjoy, or perhaps even know of. Man will kill himself by
overwork in order to secure property, and really, considering the
enormous advantages that property brings, one is hardly surprised. One's
regret is that society should be constructed on such a basis that man
has been forced into a groove in which he cannot freely develop what is
wonderful, and fascinating, and delightful in him--in which, in fact, he
misses the true pleasure and joy of living. He is also, under existing
conditions, very insecure. An enormously wealthy merchant may be--often
is--at every moment of his life at the mercy of things that are not
under his control. If the wind blows an extra point or so, or the
weather suddenly changes, or some trivial thing happens, his ship may go
down, his speculations may go wrong, and he finds himself a poor man,
with his social position quite gone. Now, nothing should be able to harm
a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a
man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a
matter of no importance.
With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true,
beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in
accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live
is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
It is a question whether we have ever seen the full expression of a
personality, except on the imaginative plane of art. In action, we never
have. Caesar, says Mommsen, was the complete and perfect man. But how
tragically insecure was Caesar! Wherever there is a man who exercises
authority, there is a man who resists authority. Caesar was very perfect,
but his perfection travelled by too dangerous a road. Marcus Aurelius
was the perfect man, says Renan. Yes; the great emperor was a perfect
man. But how intolerable were the endless claims upon him! He staggered
under the burden of the empire. He was conscious how inadequate one man
was to bear the weight of that Titan and too vast orb. What I mean by a
perfect man is one who develops under perfect conditions; one who is not
wounded, or worried or maimed, or in danger. Most personalities have
been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been wasted in
friction. Byron's personality, for instance, was terribly wasted in its
battle with the stupidity, and hypocrisy, and Philistinism of the
English. Such battles do not always intensify strength: they often
exaggerate weakness.
