Rotting Hill (7 page)

    “Ordinary people,” I explained to him, “find it difficult to reconcile with their conscience anything short of censure of the methods employed by the Russian leaders. I do for instance. I see what is good in the theory, but I cannot swallow the practice.”

    To this he made no reply. He could have argued, for instance (for even the worst cause is polemically defensible), that barbarity had marked the regimes which the revolutionary governments had supplanted, in Russia and elsewhere. He even could have instanced the cruelties still inflicted upon people daily by the operation of the capitalist economy, or any existing economy, or spoken of “poverty in the midst of plenty”: to which of course there are answers, too, for a good debater. There are plenty of answers to the criticism of
any
policy. He is not interested in being an
advocate
however. He just enjoys pushing under people’s noses something they detest. He does not want to find himself in the role of
selling
it to them, of being too serious about it. And, as I have said, he is genuinely no Red.

    Where politics are concerned Rymer is not, as I have also said, merely what-is-left of a ’twenties undergraduate fellow-traveller. What
does
conspicuously remain, it must be confessed, is the juvenile impulse to
épater le bourgeois.
But behind the exhibitionism is an authentic issue, that of the priest inheriting a rotted religion from his laodicean fox-hunting ancestors which he would naturally desire to reinvigorate. That he should borrow a little reality from politics and pump it into the decayed tissues of the Church is an obvious proceeding, more especially as his instinct must inform him that what he would be borrowing had, in the first instance, been stolen from his religion. That that
instinct,
alone, is involved was proved by Rymer’s reception of my subsequent identification of socialism with Christianity.

    Whatever is at work behind the mask has the character of a religious experience: i.e.,
he knows.
With any cause that he embraced, it would not be a civil marriage. Meanwhile he is as tightly sealed-up as a clam. In his secretiveness (that of the priest, resembling the woman’s) he sees no point in exposing what he
knows,
or intuits, to the crude processes of the human reason. So he remains very reticent and his manner is aloof and also casual. “Here it is. What do you think of it?” That kind of thing. Then he will turn his back and saunter away:
never
get into a serious argument if he can help it, though he is willing enough to argue provided you do not show signs of pressing matters too far.

    If socialism, instead of Christianity, were an official cult, and he its bonze, he would teach from the absolutist angle—carelessly, almost disdainfully, without “proofs”. He would deal in mystical fiats, allowing of no argument. But socialism is
not
his religion. He probably regards it as a reflection, upon an inferior (a political) plane, of Christianity. Or he would so regard it if he were going to be rational and orderly about it, and come out of his muscular mist.

    Of course Rymer is quite explicit about a number of things. He asserted for instance on this occasion that “whenever Christianity and communism have been confronted, Christianity has won the day”. But his reason for making this assertion was not in order to arrive at some objective certainty, but in order to sway opinion. From this it would follow, if I interpret him correctly, that Christians need not fear to hobnob with communists, for the communists would all succumb to the superior medicine and become Christians—or, the only alternative, take to their heels. If communism, like any other form of socialism, were in fact only Christianity on a lower and mundane level, then (1) in close contact and association with Christianity it would naturally be elevated and in the end rise to the Christian level: and, further (2) there is an obligation to protect socialism against the wicked world. He did not push on into all these implications of what he said, though I have done so. His policy was to lead the mind in that direction—though I was never quite certain what he explicitly proposed.

    Russia, he observed, must be regarded as “a great missionary field”. “Ah, you mean to effect conversions, do you, among the reds?” I asked. “You propose to convert Stalin to Christianity?”

    He looked down, then said shortly and cheekily: “Yes—p’raps.”

    He knew he was talking nonsense, but he didn’t care.

    After this absurd conversation I felt discouraged. Sitting a little while in front of Rymer’s poker-face makes one feel that way as a matter of course. That socialism was something that needed defending against the wicked world was a proposition with which I was in agreement—provided it was the Western variety. But these were propositions existing in isolation from reality. For socialism could be taken over by the worldly, and then who or what was it required protecting? The worldly are never so dangerous as when they masquerade as idealists.

    I have been building up an inductive Rymer which has some coherence: but that is not at all what transpires on the outside. He was dishing out to me the kind of rigmarole he had prepared for the conference. The diocesan conference was going to be a grisly affair.

    But I then decided to see if I could break into this absurd reserve, by enlarging upon the whole question of Christianity and communism. I thought I would explain something about it, and see if I could tempt this cleric out of his shell. It was a passing
énervement,
no doubt, but at that moment the large, blank, harassed, formality of the mask in front of me was a challenge. The reserve struck me as insolent and stupid. Why is this silly fellow playing a part with
me!
is what I was disposed to ask. It is the way one is bound to react in the end, before a shut door. This is particularly the case, if from behind the shut door comes a constant stream of words, all vetted for public consumption. Anyhow—verbally—I charged at the shut door.

    “It has always been obvious to me,” I began, “that the Christianity of the Sermon on the Mount plays a major role in the history of socialism.”

    “Not the Sermon on the Mount,” Rymer, a little sullenly, but lazily, objected.

    “Oh, I see: not the Sermon on the Mount,” I said.

    “Well, why that?” he asked.

    “I understand perfectly, as a matter of fact, your objection to that. Contemporary socialism is so phenomenally tough that you would rather not have the Sermon on the Mount mentioned in connection with ‘purges’, faked trials, and labour camps.”

    Rymer said nothing.

    “The idea that socialism is unthinkable without Christianity does not appeal to you. Yet was it not fundamentally a Christian impulse that moved the Western intellectuals (even though no longer Christians) to champion the cause of the oppressed and ‘underprivileged’, the underdog?”

    He neglected the second member of this compound question, answering the first. “Socialism”, he said, “is not unthinkable without Christianity.”

    “In that case you differ entirely from the present socialist administration.”

    “Do I?” he sang, amusedly musical.

    “So it appears. One of their brain trusters is my authority.” And I produced a cutting from among some papers in my pocket. “Here is a cutting from the Paris
Herald Tribune.
”

    It would be impossible for Samuel Rymer to scowl, he is really too gentle in spite of his brutal dimensions but he made an effort to do so. At the mention of anything to do with the United States he reacted violently. The United States, in spite of its weaknesses, I like, so this is of his idiosyncrasies the one that appeals to me least. He drawled, in a bored and withering voice:

    “Do you read the
Herald Tribune?
”

    “Sometimes. But listen. The headline reads ‘Ex-Adviser of Attlee Attacks U.S. Capitalism as Immoral.’”

    “I’m glad Americans are being told what their capitalists are like,” he breathed guardedly. “That’s good.”

    “So you are prepared to accept a
moral
basis for the indictment?”

    He blinked and let that pass.

    “Well, listen now.” (
I read.
)

    “American capitalism was attacked as immoral and producing a neurosis with ‘the stature of a national disease’, in a long article in
Fortune
magazine by Francis Williams… former public relations adviser to Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee.

    “Mr. Williams called his article ‘The Moral Case for Socialism’…

    “‘I am a socialist,’ wrote Mr. Williams, ‘because I believe that only within a socialist society can human rights be assured…’

    “… Mr. Williams said it is no accident that many early leaders of British socialism were drawn from the churches and non-conformist chapels. ‘It was not personal economic interest but ethical compulsion that drove men like Attlee, Cripps and others to try to build a more moral society,’ he wrote…”

    (
I stop reading.
)

    “Finally we are told that Mr. Williams speaks of the ‘great American tradition of
freedom
and
democracy
’.”

    Rymer’s response was instantaneous. “Which is utter nonsense, the Americans have never known what freedom is. It is funny to hear freedom spoken of in the same breath with the lynchers and witch-hunters.”

    “You are interested in
freedom
now?”

    “Of course I am.” He was aggressively bland and blank.

    I sighed. “Freedom, reverend sir, is what socialism takes even less interest in than does monopoly-capital. A socialist sympathizer must learn to be very guarded where
freedom
is concerned. Alas, there are far more political prisoners and concentration-camps—far less freedom of movement, less freedom of speech, in the Soviet Union than in the United States. Socialist England is far more regimented already than is the United States.”

    Rymer muttered something about the “third degree” and “prohibition”. We were now approaching that invisible line, dividing the terms on which he was prepared to discuss something, from the terms on which he was not prepared to do so.

    “But once we begin to discuss
freedom
…!
Cela n’en finirait plus.
Let us say that Christianity and socialism is our subject. Would you object if, instead of leaving this question of the religious origins of socialism floating about in the clouds, I brought it down to earth and attached it to a few hard facts from which it could not escape?”

    “Why should I mind,” he smiled, “if you regard it as important?”

    “Our conscience must be
clear.
A muddy conscience is a bad conscience. But how can the conscience be clear unless we
see
clearly? Our conscience has no rest, nor has for years, it is being appealed to all the time by the contemporary politician. But before the conscience can function properly, or be of any service at all, we must
see clearly.
The politicians have a policy to sell us: let us get the clearest view of it we can—and of the politician! It may be a genuine moral article: or of course it may only be baited with a big moral appeal. No moral judgement is possible without a sharp image of the thing at issue.”

    “An almost cartesian desire for clarity!” Rymer smiled tolerantly.

    “Appeals to the conscience seldom fail especially with the English. The fact that it is the
conscience
to which appeal has been made is so reassuring, too! A political party so appealing must be a peculiarly
moral
party! One takes for granted that a man appealing to one’s good feeling, to one’s humanity, must surely himself be a good humane man—the majority at least are apt to draw this conclusion.”

    “You are saying I suppose that socialists are attempting to secure power disguised as men engaged in a moral mission?”

    “I am saying nothing of the sort. Nothing should be taken for granted. It is advisable to gain a
clear
idea of what is actually proposed, lest the conscience, working in the dark, mislead one. That is all.”

    “Are you saying,” Rymer enquired, “that a stupid person cannot possess a conscience?”

    “Obviously not so good a one as a wise man.”

    “Oh!” howled Rymer.

    “When a matter is beyond their understanding people cannot judge it morally any more than in any other way. But that is what I wanted to discuss. I am not as clear as I would like to be myself upon a number of points. But this is really a side-issue.”

    “No it isn’t,” he interrupted. “Your case stands or falls upon that.”

    “My own conscience feels clear, as I am quite sure yours does. I would like to check up on its functioning however. The way to do that is to test the validity of one or more of the main beliefs responsible for the clear feeling. I always suspect a clear conscience, don’t you?”

    “Yes.”

    “In giving my own conscience this overhaul I may assist you to discover whether
your
conscience is as sound and as clear as you think.”

    “Speak for your own conscience. Mine is all right.”

    “You
think
so. You may be mistaken. People often buy things in a shop and when they get them home find they do not like them at all.”

    “Short-sighted people usually.”

    “Why, exactly. What they
thought
they saw in the shop has changed into something else: into its real self. They have bought something they did not bargain for. Now the kind of socialism which people, in their woolly and hazy way, have fastened on their back, may be one of those things that look very different later on to what at first it seemed. As an indication of what I have in mind, there have been many things to cause misgivings in socialist behaviour (especially in the official class) since the Welfare State took over from free enterprise. In a word, those who have come to rescue us from Power have themselves displayed too patent an appetite for power. The old bosses are being economically liquidated. Too often it seems that Bossiness has come in their place. As this state-power grows more absolute, will not these disquieting symptoms develop? English socialism as we know it today is complex: in it what is desirable and what is undesirable do battle.”