No More Learning

That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment
it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords
Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the
House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by
Journalism. In America the President reigns for four years, and
Journalism governs for ever and ever. Fortunately in America Journalism
has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a
natural consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt. People
are amused by it, or disgusted by it, according to their temperaments.
But it is no longer the real force it was. It is not seriously treated.
In England, Journalism, not, except in a few well-known instances,
having been carried to such excesses of brutality, is still a great
factor, a really remarkable power. The tyranny that it proposes to
exercise over people's private lives seems to me to be quite
extraordinary. The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity
to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious
of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.
In
centuries before ours the public nailed the ears of journalists to the
pump. That was quite hideous. In this century journalists have nailed
their own ears to the keyhole. That is much worse. And what aggravates
the mischief is that the journalists who are most to blame are not the
amusing journalists who write for what are called Society papers. The
harm is done by the serious, thoughtful, earnest journalists, who
solemnly, as they are doing at present, will drag before the eyes of the
public some incident in the private life of a great statesman, of a man
who is a leader of political thought as he is a creator of political
force, and invite the public to discuss the incident, to exercise
authority in the matter, to give their views, and not merely to give
their views, but to carry them into action, to dictate to the man upon
all other points, to dictate to his party, to dictate to his country; in
fact, to make themselves ridiculous, offensive, and harmful. The private
lives of men and women should not be told to the public. The public have
nothing to do with them at all. In Prance they manage these things
better. There they do not allow the details of the trials that take
place in the divorce courts to be published for the amusement or
criticism of the public. All that the public are allowed to know is that
the divorce has taken place and was granted on petition of one or other
or both of the married parties concerned. In France, in fact, they limit
the journalist, and allow the artist almost perfect freedom. Here we
allow absolute freedom to the journalist, and entirely limit the artist.
English public opinion, that is to say, tries to constrain and impede
and warp the man who makes things that are beautiful in effect, and
compels the journalist to retail things that are ugly, or disgusting, or
revolting in fact, so that we have the most serious journalists in the
world, and the most indecent newspapers. It is no exaggeration to talk
of compulsion. There are possibly some journalists who take a real
pleasure in publishing horrible things, or who, being poor, look to
scandals as forming a sort of permanent basis for an income.