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FORUM 6d.NTERNAL JOURNALOF THE S.P.G.BNo. 24 September 1954ID EA S AN D ,ATTITUDES

In a previous article, I distinguished threeusual meanings of the word "Socialism":-

Socialism (1)-Afuture system of So-ciety.

Socialism (2)~A body of theory.Socialism (3)-An attitude or set of at-

titudes.Some may have thought this a little un-

necessary, an over-subtle ravelling out ofsomething very simple. An example willshow, however, that it is useful to make thisdistinction. Take the common sentence -"Our job as socialists is to put across social-ist ideas in order that people shall adoptthose ideas."

When one examines it, this sentence turnsout to mean- "Our job as socialists is toput a,cross Socialism (2) in order that peo-ple shall adopt Socialism (3)."

And putting it in this way enables us tosee at once what was hidden before-thatthe word "ideas", as usual, has been usedtwice in different senses. This dangerousword "ideas", which means everything andnothing, is always used by Party speakers,because it is a word which their outdooraudiences can easily understand-or thinkthey understand. But it would be better,perhaps, to insist on accuracy, as we have inmany other instances.

In this particular case, having made plainthat the object of propaganda is to get peopleto adopt Socialism (3), we can go on todiscuss the question of whether or not theputting across of Socialism (2) is necessar-ily the best way of doing this. We candiscuss what parts of Socialism (2) aremost likely to do it, what methods of puttingit across are the best, and the reasons why.

We can't discuss any 0f these things sowell if we talk about "ideas" . To talk of a

person adopting Socialist ideas is to throwup a picture of a person accepting a colouredslide as a present, and fitting it neatly intohis own private magic lantern. I t is to putSocialist ideas into the same category as theinformation that the Battle of Hastings wasfought in 1066, or that an triangles havethree sides.

But if, as 'I pointed out in an earlier art-icle (Aug. 53) "Socialist ideas" are reallya set of attitudes, the position is a very differ-ent one. An attitude does not only consist ofknowledge of facts: it also makes those whohave it want to do something, to take someaction; it leads to feelings of liking for somepeople, institutions, action etc., and dis-taste for others; it makes one see some thingsvery clearly, and ignore others completely,and interpret events one way rather thananother.

How do people adopt, hold and changetheir attitudes? That is the sort of questionwhich is thrown up by an analysis like this,and which is never thrown up by a discus-sion in terms of "ideas". It is a most im-portant question for us to answer.

Social PsychologyLet us see what we can find out about

this. The first place we shall look is amongthe works of social psychologists because theydevote a great deal of attention to this sort ofquestion. Much of this attention has beenaroused on behalf of the Gallup Poll, andsimilar attempts to measure people's beliefsand attitudes, but latterly the theory has beenmade more general.

Here are some of the more importantfeatures of attitudes which have so far beenunearthed in this field.

1. Attitudes wn be more or less pre-

cise. People's attitudes will not all be alike:some will be clear, explicit and highly dif-ferentiated, while others will be loose, vagueand relatively unstructured. A party member,for example, may have very well-dehned at-titudes towards the economic structure ofsociety, the field of left-wing politics orracial genetics, and at the same time havevery ill-defined and hazy attitudes towardsreligion, modern art or psychology. Everyattitude can be placed somewhere along thescale from utmost clarity to utmost vague-ness. This clarit]) means only a high degreeof differentiation, and must not be confusedwith suengih, In fact, a very strong pre-judice is an almost certain sign of a rela-tively unstructured atti tude.

2. A ttiiude ca n be more or less iso-laied, With one individual, all his attitudeson every subject may be unified into onemeaningful pattern, so that each one bearsa definite recognised relation to each otherone. This is very rare indeed. Where itexists, we may properly speak of him hav-ing an ideolog]). It is much more commonfor attitudes to be relatively disconnected,and for an individual to have loosely organ-ised groups of attitudes, though none willbe entirely independent of the rest. In suchcases, a single attitude may be very quicklyand easily changed without much alteringthe rest, and if left alone thereafter, willgradually swing back to its former stateunder the weak influence of its nearest un-changed neighbours, and the influence ofsocial pressure. In the case of the individualwhose attitudes are very closely connected,however, the reverse is, true. It will be verydifficult to change one attitude; but, oncechanged, this one will affect all the others,until the whole idealogy alters to a greateror lesser degree. Where a high degree ofconnectedness and unity exists, it will eitherbe because of an individual's unusually

The opinions expressed in this journal are those of the individual contributors, and are notto be taken as the official views of the party

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66 F O R U Mstrong urge to find meaning in life) or be-cause the world in which such a perron livesis a relatively simple one. It can be "sim-ple" in two ways : either it is a'ur;'owexistence which avoids the complexities ofthe world, or it is carried on in a highlyorganized state with a well-publicisedofficial ideology.

3 . A ttitudes can be more or less s trong .One attitude may persist for a long period,in spite of the impact of contradictory viewsand the pressure of contrary motivations.Another may be held for only a short time,and be easily changed. It will normally befound that a much higher degree of emo-tional tension is attached to the former, andthis makes it stronger. The strength of anattitude must not be confused with its pre-C1S10n, or with its importance to the In-dividual.

4. A ttitudes wn be rn ore or le ss im po r-tant. Not all of anyone's attitudes; nomatter how strong or weak, are of equalimportance for his day-to-day actions. Aperson's attitude towards. gas warfare maybe precise and may be strong, yet it may beof little importance in accounting for most ofhis behaviour in the world. On the otherhand, his attitude towards equality may notbe very precise, but it may be of tremen-dous importance in accounting for much ofhis social and political behaviour. An atti-tude will be important, in this sense, as it rsgiven opportunity for expression in the eventsof an individual's existence.

Many other things could be said aboutattitudes, but from what has been said sofar, we can at least see this: that the ordin-ary conception of attitudes as' simply being"for, against, or neutral" is very far fromcontaining the whole truth about attitudes.

Attitudes, then, can be precise or vague,isolated or connected, strong or weak andimportant or unimportant. How do we goabout changing them?

Change of AttitudesIn connection with this, the first thing

which must be realised is that an attitudealways fulfils some need, or set of needs, ofthe individual. Attitudes cannot be imposedon a person by social conditioning, by cap-italist propaganda, or by any other means,unless they do hold some definite functionalvalue for that person. All the attitudes whicha person holds actually perform some servicein that person's life, and any attempt tochange them must take full account of thatfact.

The second important point is that EOITleattitudes are being constantly reinforced byinfluences in the general social milieu, whereasothers may only fmd support in relativelyinaccessible situations. The attitudes heldby the majority of people in the group towhich an individual feels he belongs-theseare what constitute the major portion of whatwe call "social pressure". Of course, itdoesn't even need to be the actual majorityby direct count-it ~vil l be enough that theindividual believes it to be the majority.The attitudes of individuals 1 1 1 a group areconnected in much the same sort of way asthe attitudes of a separate individual-seepara 2 above. It is these factors which ex-plain the phenomenon which most of us haveencountered, of arguing a point with some-one, making the point, getting h im to agree,and thinking we have changed his ~hokattitude on the question. Next L;me we seehim, he puts the same arguments he didbefore; one reminds him that he had agreedto something different; and one findsthat his memory of the argumentseems quite strange, and quite di-vorced from one's own Impression.There should be nothing in this to cause jheleast surprise, and yet it is usually found tobe a source of great annoyance.

TREETOPSA few party members will be going to

Treetops for the week-end Sept 1 1 t h and12th. Those desiring to go-please writedirect to Mrs. Plant, Treetops HolidayCamp, F arley Green, near Guildford andreserve accomodation. Do not write 10 meor Com D'Arcy as it is being done ul1o'f[ciallyand direct, and don't decide to ccr.:e onSept. lI th if it is fine for there will be noaccommodation i f it is not booked soon.

A small party of us are going to ramblefrom Dorking on the Saturday morning Sept.11 th to Treetops. Details wil l be on thenotice board.

H. JARVIS.The third important point is that, as at"titudes involve perceptions, cognitions, emo-

tions and motivations, any attempt at large-scale changes in attitude must work throughnumerous means. Change in the objectiveenvironment will be necessary, as well aschanges in the facts and fact-relations pre-sented verbally to the individual. However,just because we can enumerate and defineand in principle control the factors whichit is necessary to change, we can be sure thatinadequate or detrimental attitudes are notdue to "the contrariness of human nature"

Septem ber ~1954or other unchangeable-because indefinable-factors.

So long as attempts to change attitudesare confined to verbal propaganda, there-fore, they can only move individuals whoare, for various personal reasons, ready toaccept the new way of looking at things.Only where other influences co-operate in thesame direction can verbal propaganda haveany mass effect. This is what is meant bythe old tag-"Nothing is as strong as anidea whose hour has come."

Ultimately, it is true to say that -chang-ing anyone attitude held by the broad massof the people means altering, to a greateror lesser extent, all the attitudes which ayesimilarly held. And this means a completechange" in culture. This view is put for-ward by such- a great thinker as Kurt Lewin,in his paper "Conduct, knowledge and ac-ceptance of new values" (wi th P. Grabbe,1945), and also by Krech and Crutchfieldin their monumental "Theory and Probiemsof Social Psychology" (1948).

The Social ist ViewIt is very interesting to note here that

science has confirmed the Socialist view.\Ve have pointed out for many years thatreforming t-his or that particular feature wil lnot produce any of the marvellous resultspredicted by reformists, and have insistedthat only a complete change in culturewii!s u the bill.We may doubt, however, whether many

Party members have really understood theposition here. The assumption ; s still 'Hadethat one 'can change attitudes without anymajor cultural change, and that the peoplewith new outlooks will proceed to changethe culture from too to bottom. Action basedon this assumption: of course, leads to noth-ing but [rustration,

The traditional Par-ty view that the mat-erial conditions for Socialism are ripe, andthat all that is needed is the adoption ofSocialist ideas (those damned ideas rearingtheir ugly heads again), the fantastic not.onthat all the changes taking place in Capital-ism are irrelevant to the establishment ofSocialism:--these must go if the Peltty is tobe more than impotent.

A party writer has satirized this woefullyinadequate view very well:-

"Since 1904 all that has happenedadds up to l~othing- fundamentally. Cor-

porative State. 'J/ elfare State, New Deal,Nazism, Titoism, Russ,ian, Chinese, In-dian 'Ell1dA frican revolutions-these have

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September 1954 FORUM 67motion but no direction, for they arecapitalism-fundamentally. The new in-dustrial revolution of spaceships andatoms, of plastics, cybernetics and elec-tronic brains, and the new industrial, poli-tical and international integrations whichaccompany them-the mind staggers atthe dizzy speed with which, today, noth-ing happens (fundamentally)."

He might have added modern management

THE S.P. ANDIn his article "Socialists and Parliament"

Comrade Carnell gives a number of reasonswhy he thinks that socialists must get controlof Parliament in order to establish socialism.His arguments are similar to those he put,forward in a previous article (Forum, Nov.1953) when he defended coercion andauthority in a socialist society.* * *In his most recent article (june, 1954)he writes:-

"We who wish to establish the commono,;nership and democratic control of themeans of living in the interest of all,must need make a law to t.his effect."

But why?' Surely, when the "immensemajority" are conscious of the need to replacecapitalism by a new society-socialism-theywill not need to bother making laws. Whenthe mass of people are thinking about, andworking for, a completely new way of lifesuch as socialism will be, they won't evengive Parliament a thought. There will betoo many important things to think aboutpertaining to the problems facing the futuresocialist society.If, of course, as Ipointed out previously,

Carnell or others envisage a recalcitrant min-ority of well-organised counter-revolutionaries,then of course they would need to control thearmed forces of the state, through Parliament.But I contend that this would be impossible(and it is up to them to prove me wrong).It assumes that all or almost all the capitalists,because of bheir uiI ldersCaJnding o f s ocia lis mwill be hostile to it, and that a section of theworkers, because of ~ heir lack of u nd erstand -in g o f s oc ia lism will also be hostile to it. Andthat these people will be in a position todisrupt the establishment of the new society.

This is a very dangerous point of view.It is typical of the bolshevik attitude towardsrevolution. The Socialist Party has alwaysclaimed that the working-class must emanci-pate itself; that the capitalist class cannot

methods to the list; I am thinking particularlyof the line of work pioneered by EltonMayo which attempts to apply under capi-talism the sort of attitude to work which willbe most common under Socialism, and hasachieved tremendous success in actual prac-tice.

We must start thinking about these thingsand wondering whether perhaps they dohave something to do with Socialism after

--.-PARLIAMENT

do it for! ~hem; that they are not likely to doit for them anyway. But we have neverstated that : 1 1 ' 0 ca,pitalisis can u'I1:dersiand anddesire socialism. Neither can we say thatsections of the community will be in a positionof a ct iv e h os tin ty to socialism. That largenumbers of people may not be in [avout maybe true. But there will be a bs ol ut el y n ot hin gthat they can do when the majority refuse tobe exploited any longer; when they refuse towork for wageS-except to not work them-selves; and this they will soon get fed-upwith. Everyone who is mentally and physi-cally capable (ex-capitalists included) will,in my opinion, be doing some useful workwithin a month or so after the establishmentof socialism-and there will be no privilegegroups, authority or coercion!

The only reason for keeping some form ofLabour Exchange would be to give peopleinformation and help in finding work to do.Not to convert non-existent idlers to the ideaof doing useful work!* * *In his last paragraph Comrade Carnell saysthat after the establishment of socialism theS.P. will control distribution, "make rulesand enforce them" and "use the alreadyexisting machinery for this purpose."

Now, either Comrade Carnell is a veryrecent member of the Party and does notfully understand our case, or the S.P.G.B.had some very peculiar ideas when he joined;because, to my knowledge, no Party speakerhas ever said that the S.P.C.B. would existin a socialist society. We have always saidthat the S.P .G .B . would go oui: of existencew ith th~ establishm ent of socialism .

The more Iread of Carnell's ideas onsocialism, with his Home Secretaries, Min-istries of Fine Arts, all the paraphernalia ofthe State, the more I dislike it. If what hehas defined in his twa articles (Nov. 1953and June, 1954) is socialism, then I'm'agin' it!

all. In a further article I want to deal withthe question of when a change is a fund amen-tal change, and when it is not.

Socialist articles have often ended-"Speed the Day!" Some of US--SOOI1, Ihope, most of us-e-can begin to see thatthere is no question of speeding the day;because this is M 1 e day.

]. C. ROWAN

If, on the other hand, socialism is a free,classless world-wide (not the "SocialistSociety ~f Great Britain", Comrade Carnell),equalitarian society, then the use of force-and that means the armed forces of the state-and violence, can take no part. '

When the masses abolish capitalism theywill not need the armed forces as "an instru-ment of emancipation," and they won't botherabout Parl iament either.

Peter E. Newell.Correspondence and articles shou4d be

sent to FORUM, S.P.G.B., 52, ClaphamHigh St., London, S.W. 4. Subscriptions12 months, 7/6d, 6 months 3/9d. Chequesand P.O.'s should be'made payable to;!'

E. lake, S.P.G.B.

C O R R E S P O N D E N C EComrades,

There is a minority in the Partyputting forward the view that those n:emberswho disagree with the DeclaratIOn ofPrinciples. should not remain in the Party.

At first glance their statement appearsquite reasonable, but when we look furtherinto ~t we can seethe way in which a slightmodification renders it far from harmless.

Members of the Socialist Party who haveshown they have a real understandingof the Party case, who want socialism,and are willing to accept Partydiscipline, but who have come to doubtthe truth or value of some or all of astatement formulated in 1904, shouldbe expelled from the Party.

This is a very different kettle of fish. Buton examination of the first statement anddiscussion of it with the comrades concerned;we find it is the second statement which theyare in fact defending. Let us examine thefirst statement together with a recapitulationof what has been the Party attitude todisagreement.

(continued on back page)

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68 F O R U M

THE NATURE

September 1954---------------OF THE SOCIALIST

REVOLUTION7 fllie S o.cialitj t JJi l loement

The Socialist movement still has an idealistattitude to the class struggle with which it ispre-occupied, holding that the class struggleis the dynamic of history-c-rnistaking classmotives for the social motor-and thatbetween successive class victories societiesremain fundamentally unchanged, Under-neath the verbal dialectic is a discontinuous,catastrophic, quixotic and highly personalisedoutlook on history and society,

Yet evolution is so much simpler thanGenesis. And until we recognise that socialevolution is continuous (because the motor isaccumulation of artefacts) and that its direc-tion is foreseeable as the integrations ('socialrelations') immanent in this accretion ofproducts, we do not begin the work of prog-nostication wh ich alone makes socialist ideasan agent of Socialism. The job of thescientific revolutionary is to further the pre-cipitation, out of particles in social solution,of the new grand integration by sharpening theawareness that the particles are in fact thuscoalescing. Some measure of what we wishmust already be knocking, or it would not bewishable. But the wish is offspring not fatherto the fact, and in acknowledging necessityoutside men's wishes we have a world to winand nothing to lose but our apostolic status.Meanwhile, political partisanship, likeother forms of organised religion, repulsesscience. Hence, for us, like the planets il lfeudal times, "each society has its ownlaws of development"! We do not un-derstand social change as issuing fromincrease of products, nor, therefore, capitalistproduction as increasing the momentum (outof inass of product) of the process which hasbeen continuous for half a million years, heldto its socialist orbit by social man.

As we do not understand the labourtheory of history in general, we do not un-derstand its particular capitalist application,the labour theory of value. Girded with awish, we will create Socialism in defianceof nature, unaware (and unwilling to beaware) that capital itself moves in a social-

ist direction. Scientifically;mancipate::lfrom moralism, Vie see in the accumula ~:onof capital only its more wicked canccntra-tion into fewer hands, not the qualitativechanges contained ll1 this increase notthe expropriation of individual c>:l;Jlld'which give rise to capitalism an.l which can-c .tal ism accelerates, \,Afe see t he C l cg re go ,i ::T lbut not the integration which depersonoli.esproduction property and difiLlles rowe)' an Jprivilege. We see quantity of trees but notnot quality of wood.Are Workers Worse Off?

Moreover, in urging expropriation of thecapitalist class, as the limit of our purpose,we merely extend to its arithmetical limitthe Communist claim for a bigger share.True (as a further step in the evolutionof the Socialist movement), there is an im -plicit undercurrent of concern with thehuman quality of socialist life, but itis secondary, sentimental and suspect, sub--ordinate in propaganda to the slogan "takethe lot," the Sociali,t concept still Corn-munist ...cocooned in '~food~ clothing ehel-ter", "standard of living" ~ "poverty andinsecurity", and "increasing misery", Thu:jour theory of valu: is conceived in themerely quantitative terms required to ex-pose exploitation. \Ve de~_l with magnltuc'eof value, surplus value, unequal shares ofvalue, and do so ve-ry ably, but always ina closed system which i gEOyeS the increa..ngproliferation of use-values progressively theundermining the value relations of societyfrom the inside, from the very heart of capi-tal, as a necessity of capital.

Horatio's treatment of value in the Mayissue ("Are the workers better off?") ex-cellent of its kind, is typical. He showsthat the workers are worse off in that theyreceive in wages a continually falling pro-portion of the values they produce, Thi:happens (briefly) because competition be-tween capitals compels a rising rate of ex-ploitation, achieved by increasmg relative

(co-ntinued)surplus value, by rarsing the composiuon ofcapital (by taking on more machinery at arate faster than than the taking on : : J f morehands). \Vhat is ignored, however, is thata rising Tate of exploitation compels a ris-ing standard of living, and' compels' in everydeterminist sense of the word, for this higherrate of exploitation is nothing other than theproduction of more use-values each contain-ing less value: the values of commoditiesfall, while their mass 'increases, and the valuelikewise of the commodity labour-power fallswh i l e the mass of use-values required to re-produce it increases. Thus ' the workersreceive as wages a rising mass of use-valuescontaining a falling proportion of the valuethey produce, and this movement inheres inthe mode of production: a rising standard ofliving is a necessary reciprocal of risingrelative surplus value - they are the samething from different angles.

"Increasing misery" is a piece of Corn-munist claptrap. If misery is to be meas-ured, it can be measured only 1Ilterms of things enjoyed or not,that is, used or not--in terms, that io , ofuse-values. And it is the continuous pro-liferation of use-values, pressing up thestandard of living (and narrowing the clit-ferences between better and worse-off in rc-lation to mass of use-values), '.-'11.;cl1k ills th eforce of exploitation propaganda in terms ofpoverty and misery.

But we are stuck with the dead horse.For as with "capital", so it is with "value":our half-Communist version of revolutiondoes not let us see the Socialist direction ofthe effects on value ..relations (in the institu-tions of class, property, law, religion, farn-i ly ) brought about by the increasing mass ofuse-values in which value is embodied.

Profusion of use-values undermines rowerand privilege as between classes and iudivid ..uals by reducing the socia] importance ofsocial differences arising from different sharesof value, Value, which historically emerge:

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eptem ber .1954 FORUMrom use out of aggregation of wealth,uborns use to the service of pro-t, making use a mere vehicle for expandingalue, and thereby promotes the proliferationf use-values which eventually stranglesalue. F or capital's appetite for valueeans the continual displacement of expen-ive prototypes by cheaper alternatives. Velo-ipedes and time-pieces, cars and cameras,ypewriters and telephones, are obvious ex-mples of what start as expensive luxuriesnd become commonplace necessities-anyxample will do, because it applies to com-odities in general. Through profusion ofheapening products, the more univer:al ac-essibility of me-values, profit and propertynd privilege and power and politics digheir own graves, F or one man's capacityo consume is much the same as another's,nd whatever the difference of wealth, inalues, the cheapening of commodities meanshe more equal accessibility of use-values,n relation to capacity to enjoy, between cneun-up and the next.

Capitalism accelerates the equal diffusionf use-values, because cheapening of pro-ucts is capital's specific mode of existence.n proliferation of artefact) capitalism dif-ers only quantitatively from earlier socie-ies (since increased productivity inheres inhe human productive act which produces theurplus which raises productivity), but byccelerating the more equal diffusiori of use ..alues it increases the social equality ofersons. In the earlier, Jess productive stagesf commercial society, class domination ha'::ITlOl'C awful majesty, a greater personal and

utocrat ic impact , O f all cla-s system:',apitalism is the most egalitarian, humanend democratic, capitalist power the leastatriarchal, personal, arbitrary and auto ..ratic, capitalist privilege' the most vicarious,nonymous, and irrelevant .

Hising StandardsSocialists we claim to be. arid dialectical

aterialists, yet We seem to have a poorense of social metabolism. of the subtly 01'-

relationships betwe~n products' andeha viour, and remain only the ablest ex-onents of value theory in the narrowc tconomic sense, allowing the sterile dualismvhich argues the precedence of ideas orconomics to obscure the fact that both arec-existent and congruent aspects of the

slim of artefacts. Our social visions too narrowly b!inkered between exploit-tion and misery to see the increa;inglyumane relations of everyday life as coun-erpart of the mcreasntg mass of use ...values

and its concomitant relatively more equal dif-fusion of them. \Ve are happy to show thatif there is a fall in brewers' prof; ts, the .eamerchants are making more, but are littleconcerned to ask what is happening to asociety where the ubiquitous caf] has dis-placed the streetful of Saturday nightdrunks. Humane relations are the relationsof sufficient equality in everyday life, rootedin the certitude, independent of another'shandout, of a suflicient modicum of everydaythings. In our own short time we have seenthe continuation of the increase in humanebehaviour, of respect for the person, orequality of consideration. All the currentbogies that bother and bewitch the 'nublicmind' -- "breakdown of marriage", ';teddyboys", "child cruelty", "perverts'I-c-all canbe shown to spell rising standards of respectfor persons, wider toleration of individuation,increasing equality of consideration indepen-dent of size .age, shape, colour, sex, incomeor property, all' reflect the receding of repres-sive sanctions and power attitudes and privil-ege relations, washed away by the Hood ofuse-values piped like common water intoevery mouth.

Obsessed with value, and the need for anexternal act of expropriation, we ignore thedynamic, SDcialisll1-creatlve effects of the in ..

69

creasing mass of use ..values which ciiscoivevalue-relations from the inside, by more andmore equal diffusion of use-values in relationto mass of value. Soft drinks displace hard.;and softer manners the harsh and autocratic,as between parent and child, teacher andpupil, foreman and gang, sergeant androokie, customer and counterhand, mistressand maid, ruler and ruled, class and class,in proportion as productive power, pantingfor profit, showers indiscriminately on allan increasing deluge of cheap use-values, onquick or slow, bright or beautiful, black orwhite.male or female, young or old, dissolv-ing the power of persons to withhold or be -stow, dissolving the cruelties of charity andthe stupidities of status, changing social re-lations essentially, fundamentally, universally,continuously and consistently in the directionof socialism, daily and hourlyc.nnouncingthe possibility, necessity, imminence andshape of socialist society, and offering a giftof the only propaganda that can hasten it-acknowledgment that still the world moves,and that the revolution is the conSCIOUSsumming up of its direction-while insteadwe enter the field of political action to playout a charade of St. George and the Dre-gon called Clause Eight and Class Struggle.

F. EVANS(to be continued)

HEREDITY AND ABILITYA iutther rcpllJ to ' Comrade F . Evans

(a ) "Let us, however, not forget thatwords are but tools of the mind . . . Itis by means of words that the expansion ofthe human mind has become possible: butwords may distort and limit thought andideas, as well as expanding them and promot-ing their efficiency."-("Th.e Science ofLife" Bk. VIII, p. 1254- Wells, HuxleyWells).-and again on p. 1255 :

"For certain purposes mathematics is thebest of all languages, because it enables usto think in the most general terms possible.It is only with the aid of the 'words' andideas of mathematical symbolism that thephysicists have been able to' make many oftheir recent discoveries about the structure ofmatter and the perplexing nature of the space-time universe."

On t hin !r in g .F. Evan s ch id es me for D e r n g careless. I-Iewrites (June '5 4) - _~ & r- rh e carelessness -vvhichpermits him to say in one breath that 'wethink with words, and in the next that wethink with tools (especially as in fact wethink with our brains)".

I wrote (June '53). "Thinking m manalmost exclusively involves the usc ofwords . bv means of a socialinheritance of technique "of his own making,thinks with his tools."

Evans' comment about the role of the brainin thinking appears to square admirably withthe somewhat narrow mechanistic biology ofthe 19th Century. ,My alleged carelessnesshowever, secrns to have led 1 1 1 1 . ' : into goodcompany as the following quotes, show.

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70 FORUM(b ) "Really language is csrentially a

social product" -po 28. "The 'capacityforwhat is termed 'abstract thinking'-probablya prerogative of the human species-dependslargely upon language"-(p. 31., "Manm al ee s h im se lf " V. Gordon Childe).

(c) "We do not think with the brain, orat least as we have seen, not with the brainalone. Thought requires the whole body, thewhole activity, and even the whole of socialactivity. Man, whose relations with theworld have been characte;ised since his originby tools of his own making, thinks with histools"-(p. 172. "Bio log:y and Marxism",M. Prenant, Profeswr of Zoology, TheSorbonne, University of Paris).

(d ) "What it amounts to is that by theuse of words we learn to see the connectionbetween things that are not obviously relatedto each other. In fact, like all tools, wordslead to the satisfaction of needs in indirectways."-(p. 91, "Doub t wnd Certaint:y tnScience", ]. Z. Young, Professor ofAnatomy, University College, London).

Perhaps I was not so careless after all.C ausalil:y.I stated that every difference is not a

cause. Comrade considers this an error andsays-"every difference is a cause of some-thing. "

Evans' particular difficulty here is that heevidently does not appreciate that whiledifference may have a subjective significance,we are concerned only with differences be-tween things in casual relationship. Thus I canbe aware of difference between a pebble onthe sea bed in Sydney Harbour, and the half-crown in my pocket. But the two objectsare not in any direct causal relationship, onewith the other. Evans considers "it a validcriticism of my examples of causal relation-ships to point out that only part of the effectsare the same. What escapes his observationis the fact that in every example of a causalchain of events we care to consider, we aredealing only with causes and effects whichar e partial; precisely because we are abstract-ing from a totality of causation, in which noparticular series of causally related eventsexist in isolation.Leadcrs,hip.

The crux of Evans' naive treatment of theleadership issue was his statement (April'S3)-"The absence of any need for it rests onthe irrelevance of differences of ability, innateor acquired, to the common capacity of ordin-ary people to understand and want what is

understood and wanted by other ordinarypeople-Party members." Boiled down thisjust means that where common qualities cn,t,qualities which are different are irrelevant tothem. A fair example of begging thequestion I think; and repeated two lines laterin his analogy of differences of gait beingirrelevant to the common capacity to walk, itbeing quite clear that the term 'gait' includesby definition the capacity to walk, anyway.

I thought it clear that what I consideredimportant were not differences in ability ingeneral, hut difference in mental capacity.Evans (April'S 3) recognises that leadershipis not needed if 'a common capacity to under-stand and want what is understood exists'.Also that the understanding of Socialismrequires the existence of common sense.Mathematics tells us that that which iscomn1OlH to all terms is equal in all terms.Thus the capaciity for COT{lmOnsense, beingcommon to all is equal in all. Absence orleadership is dependent on an equal capacityfor understanding. Leadership exists i.e., isnecessary, in those organisations where, intheir constituent members, that capacity isundeveloped. Differences in ability areirrelevant, but any difference in' the abilityto understand is relevant to this issue. Incase Ishould be called to order for equatinga common capacity with an equal capacity,I put the question to Comrade Evans-hthere a sense which transends C0111mOnsense i'Or alternatively-a-Can some individualsreceive through their genetic endowment thecapacity for common sense in a somewhat'di luted' form?V ariatio n a nd N atu ra l Se lec tIon .

In no statement have I implied that Ireject natural selection. Natural ..clccticn isone factor of biological evolution, but Manunique in that he is undifferentiated forfunction, has largely escaped from the filter-ing process of selection. We can see chi,when, we observe that for most living formevariation has followed divergent radiatinglines; whilst inMan variation is reticulate,due to recombination of genetic structures.Assuming that Evans regards natural selectionas a considerable force in the evolution ofcivilised man, it isdiflicult to follow his con-clusion that variation enriches the possibilitiesof co-operative labour. Natural selection isessentially a conservative force, operatingthrough competition and survival value ingeneral. Further there is abundant evidencethat intra-specific selection i.e., selectionbetween genetically different types within aspecies, is totally or i.rmost totally, of no use

Septem ber 1954to the species as a whole. But I do notaccept the suggestion that there is in generalany selecting of human types in the evolutionof civilised man. Nor, we find, do leadingauthorities on human evolution. (see Huxley,Haldane, Prenant).

Apparently what Evans had in mind whenhe wrote (Nov. 'S2)-"the rich geneticallydetermined variation in innate individualabilities"'~"a myriad multiplication ofopposable thumbs" are the variations result-ing from crossing and recombination. Hecould not have meant mutations, becausethese are rare events-v-not myriad multipli-cations. But the basis of biological evolutionat the genetic level is the mutation. More-over, not only is the mutation a comparativelyrare event, but the majority of them presentdisadvantageous features, particularly inspecies which have had a long evolutionaryhistory. For in their cases advantageousmutations would generally have already beenincorporated in the genetic endowment of thespecies as a whole. Thus evolution shows aseries of adaptive radiations ending in blankwalls.

Evolutionary progress being defined asgreater control over, and greater independenceof environmental change; all the possibleprogressive mutants within each level oforganisation and environment have beenoffered and accepted, ending either in stablespecies or extinction. Man can by selectivebreeding produce new varieties of organisms,as he frequently does in the laboratory and onthe wider field of agriculture and animalstock breeding, but this Nature alone cannotdo. Only in and through Man is progressbeing continued: in Man, who possesses asHuxley points out, 'a biologically uniquecapacity for tradition, providing a modih-cational substitute for genetic change.'

Man's increasing control over and inde-pendence of changes in environment are ingeneral non-genetic in character.

RAY BOTT

PUBLICITY RESEARCHCould members kindly send to the address

below any polls or surveys of public, groupor area opinion that they may see to:--A Brown, c/o S.P.G.B., 52 Clapham

High St., S.W.4.

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S eptem ber '1954 FORUM 71

PEN TO PAPERThe intention of these notes is to helpwriters for the Party. That does not meal:

only potential contributors to the "SocialistStandard"; it means, I think, all members.Rightly, we think of oral expression as thechief means of communicating ideaS-50much so that we have a habit of saying"verbal" when we really mean "oral".Nevertheless, we all write about Socialismat times, and there, is every reason why, liketalking about Socialism, it should be donewell.

After saying what this is about, it is worthsaying what it is not about. I am concernedwith the craft, not the art, of writing. If youcan see an overlap, that's fine; the factremains that art consists mainly of communi-cating feeling, and our sort of writing hagthe different aim of informing and explaining.As I see it, it is a matter chiefly of work-manship.

A lot of people are sufficiently misled bythe talk about art toirl1agine that a goodwnter simnlv sits down and turns it out.Don't believe it. The only man I knewwho claimed he did that was the worstregularcontributor the Standard had in recentyears (no longer with us-still, no names).For what it is worth, my own way of work-ing is something like this. First I make andarrange copious notes, as if I were preparinga lecture. Usually I find I have insufficientknowledge of some of the points, and haveto spend a day in the British Museum orsome other library looking up the things Idon't know. Then I write it out on foolscap,crossing out every other line, until I amsatisfied that I've said all I want to say. Icopy the article and go through it to weed outvaguenesses and ambiguities and look for bet-tel' phraseology; and finally I type it out asthe finished job. There is no universalmethod of writing articles, however, and whatsuits me may be hopeless for somebody else.The important thing is that, whatever one' 3approach, there is no analgesic for the throesof composition.

I f I were devising maxims for writers, theone at the top would be: Don't write unlessyou have something to say. The onlyreason I know for writing is to tell somethingor explain something to people. "I want towrite" means nothing until it is expanded to"I want to write about ... " There is scopeenough: socialists, after all, are people with

a different viewpoint on most things, and theworld is our parish. That does not mean anysocialist can write about anything-on thecontrary, another golden rule should be tokeep within the limits of one's own know-ledge. There are some things I should notdare to write about, because I know toolittle abo~t them; I can only say the boldnessof writers who false two-thousand-wordedifices on the basis of a smattering amazesme. One other thing about choice of subject-it ought to be worth while. It is notdifficult to find something a Cabinet Ministerhas said and sneer at it, or to quote a para-graph from the "Reader's Digest" and sayit con flfJ11 our case; most times, however,these articles are not worth even the SInaI!amount of trouble their writers have put intothem. When an item of the sort seems toogood to be missed, the best way of usingit is as a reference in an article on a largertopic.

Subject and subject-matter are not the samething; or, having a subject, you must gatheraccurate, interesting-and therefore carefullychosen-information about it. The worstway to "gather" information is to paraphrasefactual items from papers and magazines-i.e., to set up as a journalist on the back ofanother journalist whose journalism you sayyou despise. If you are borrowing, say so.Facilities for fact-gathering are available inmost areas. The public library is the obviousand convenient place, and in London thereare several very good reference libraries. Byspecifying research on a particular topic youcan get a one-day pass into the BritishIVluseum Library or the N ewspaper Libraryat Colindale, and there are several smalll ibraries with special collections.

So much for subject-matter. In itspresentation, good grammar and usage areessential. Some people argue the reverse,that you can play hell and Tommy with therules and 21i11 say what you mean. Theyare wrong. Grammar is the logic of alanguage, and gives precision that is nototherwise attainable. Precision IS lessnecessary in speech, where hearing is helpedby sight and words may be spilled usuallywithout harm being done; in writ ing-partic-ularly explanatory writing-it is all-import-ant. Grammar is a bogey to most peoplebecause an elementary education is too briefto give any sort of mastery of it, but there

are a few intelligently written books aboutit. The best I know is Eric Partridge' 3"English: A Course for I-Iuman Beings".It's expensive, but most libraries have it. Atthis point it may be worth mentioning thebooks which I think are necessary to a writer.He must have a dictionary (the most popularis the Concise Oxford, but Chamber'sTwentieth Century has much more in it ) andhe should have Roget's Thesaurus, whichprovides the right word or phrase for almosteverything. The more books he has inaddition to these, the better.

Perfect phraseology is a consummationdevoutly to be wished; the avoidance of bador hackneyed phraseology is a more modestbut most desirable aim. I should like to seesome expressions banned from the "Standard"for a very, very long time: "bloodbath" fora war, "sheeplike" for compliant workers,"woolly-minded" for idealists, and so on.And there are the too-often-meaninglessasides: "obviously" followed by somethingwhich certainly isn't obvious, "needless tosay", another lie, and "of course", which canusually be reckoned the precursor to anabsolute 'I1Oln sequitur. The best phraseologyis the clearest and most concise, and weightyterms seldom help in that direction. Nor dolong words: too many people think "com-mence" and "terminate" are better than"begin" and "end". They aren't. As asocialist. is reputed to have said to a ponder ..ous speaker, call a spade a spade and not ametallic implement for pene-trat ing the earth'scrust.

Such matters as tone and style arise fromthe consideration of phraseology. Tone isthe attitude, real or assumed, of the writer tohis readers, and it is extremely important toa writer about Socialism. When you arebeing critical of people and beliefs it is onlytoo easy to sound supercilious, self-satisfiedor just contemptuous, but none of theseapproaches wins anyone over. On the otherhand, a patronizing, sure-we-understand-eachother-John tone implies just as clearly thatyou have a low opinion of the reader. Thereis no question of "adopting" a tone to strikethe right note, any more than you can borrowa style. Both are integral parts of any pieceof writing, and have meaning only when theyare at work with the subject-matter.

Innumerable chapters have been writtenabout style without anybody becoming muchwiser. More than anything else, it is thewritten expression of personality. There-fore, try to write as you speak rather thandevelop a special manner for writing. A

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72 F O R U M(Correspondence . Coni i f/Lied from page 67)ood style is never obtrusive : its effect is of

making the subject-matter pleasant to read,without drawing attention to itself. I havesaid a style cannot be borrowed, but everywriter is influenced to some extent by thosehe has read, and there is great value ineading the masters of style. Probably theest modern writer in this respect is Georgerwell-a beautifully clear, direct style,lmost athletic in its easy, unhampered move-ent. Whatever else one thinks of Orwell,e is good to read. E. NL Forster is veryood; and so, in a different way, is jackondon-economical with words, reporter-ike and forceful. Farther back, Charlesamb is worth reading as a stylist (and forleasure), and among the ancients there waso one better than T acitus--no word in hisriting that is not usefully employed. And.s we are interested in writing aboutocialism, it is worth mentioning that theSocialist Standard" has had good stylists,oo: R. W. Housley was a particularlyble writer, and I hope H will not think 1m buttering him up by referring to him, too.

Of the many devices for' appealing toeaders, humour is the one, which temptsriters most. Don't do it. If you want tonow why, try counting how many successfulunny writers there have been. Oral humours not so difficult because tone of voice, facialxpression and the mood of the moment allelp it. MaxMiller in person is uproarious,ut his jokes in print (those which ar e print-ble) fall flat. Witty comment is a differenting, but again, it isn't easy; and even when

he wit can 'be seen to sparkle, it is onlyaluable when it is uced to sharpen aomment, and not as an end in itself.

There are a good many verbal deviceshich can heighten effect and even, usedkilfully enough, contribute to style; most ofem have long been classified as "figures of

peech." It is worth knowing about them,nd a text-book such as Partridge's willxplain and illustrate them. The presentationf contrasts and analogies and the constructionf phrases that will really tell are worth allat can be put into them.Finally, a writer needs to keep writing, toe self-critical and to obtain criticism. Show

our writing to other people and don't argueith what they say about it. One usefuleans of self-criticism is to put away or

orget something you have written and reada few months later; one way or the other,

ou'll be surprised. And there is a writers'lass at the Head Office every year-like alle Party's classes, it is very good.R. COSTER

When an individual presents himself formembership of the Party the Branch con-cerned examine him to see whether he has an vserious misconceptions about the Party case.In no case however, is the examination con-ducted along the lines of-"Oo you adhereto the first Principle?" etc. In all cases, itis an examination of understanding, not ofmere adherence.

The Party does apply a more systematictest to those who may be going to representus on the platform, or at debates etc. - Therehave been several versions of the speakers'test since it was first instituted in the earlvdays of the Party's existence, and in ~flcases it was and is an examination of under-standing, not of blind acceptance.

F rom its earliest days then, the Party hasbeen concerned not with acceptance, but withu ind erstand ing w ,h at w e are a'c ccp tiing . Andwhen we come to look at "Principles andPolicy" we find that it is not mere acceptancethat is required after all. V/edon't wantsomeone who accepts but someone who "intel-ligently accepts" (p. 27) the principles ofsocialism. "The strength of the revolutionaryParty (p. 26) depends upon the numb;rwho understand what socialism means, andwhos~ a~l;erence is founded upon this under-standing.

Understanding differs from acceptance inthat one can understand without accepting,and can accept without understandina. Italso differs in that unde;standing ir;~-olve" aquestioning attitude, a truth seeking attitude,a critical attitude which acceptance does not.And there is no way of preventing a question-ing, critical, truth seeking attitudc-v-which weencourage people to apply to all otherphenomena-from being a.pplied to the D. ofP. itself.

As it happens the Party has recorded itsopinion of the correct position to adopt whenthe situation arises. In 1949, over the caseof Comrade Ross, the vote was quite dehnitethat holding views contrary to the O. of P.was not in itself action detrimental to theParty's interests. Hackney Branch at thefollowing conference, tried to have thisdecision reversed, without success. The samequestion was raised at this year's conference,with the same result. Quite consistently,then, for at least five years, the Party hasexplicitly laid down, by a conference vote,that remaining in the Party does not dependon acceptance of the O. of P.

September 1954At every point, therefore, where Party

practice, whether in the past or at present,has touched this matter of acceptance of theD. of P. it has treated it as of only partialimportance.

Now a minority of members are. trying tochange all this. They are trying to overturnthe generally accepted and orthodox viewthat socialist understanding is the all-importantcondition of membership. And in order todo so, they are being forced to maintain.That the whole Party case is summed up inthe D. of P.-in fact, the D. of P. is theParty case. Having done that, they can nowgo on to say that (a ) those who question theD. of P. are opposed to the socialist case;and (b ) those who criticise the D. of P. areopposed tal the Socialist Party. Those whoare not sati~fied with the D. of P. are then,anti-socialist.

This however, will not stand up to criticalexamination. The socialist case contains formore than the O. of P. Each phrase in theD. of P. sums up a whole volume of theory,each of which is more fundamental than theD. of P. itself, just as a book is far moreimportant than its title. The D. of P. isbased on the work of Marx and Engels.Other pioneers, including William Morris,have made their contribution to the Partycase. Both historically and theoretically, theD. of P. is the visible tip of a vast iceberg.Historically because of the long history ofsocialist ideas and theoretically, because theD. of P. is an up to date expression of thegeneral theory of the class struggle, which inturn is a particular expression of historicalmaterialism, which in turn is one applicationof the general world view of dialecticalmaterialism. All these things are morefundamental to socialist understanding thanthe D. of P. In fact, if the D. of P. isequated with the socialist case, there were 110socialists before the S.P.G.B.-which isfantastic.

F r om the above it can be wen that socialistunderstanding and accepting the O. of P. arenot the same thing. It is the Socialist Partythat we joined not the D. of P. Party.Socialism as has been shown, is more funda-mental than the D. of P.

In conclusion, I would suggest that therequirements for membership of the Party,and membership of course involves speakingfor the Party are as follows:-

1. Un-derstanding of the Party case.2. Desire to help in the achievement of

Socialism.3. Willingness to accept Party discipline.

JOAN LESTOR,"ublished by S.P.G.B., 52 Clapham Higtl Street. S.W."" & Printed by L. E Westwood Ltd":T.U,) 14 Kingsbury Green Parade, N.W. 9