Are We “Proud” of our Class?
A controversy is raging in the columns of the “New Leader” on the burning question of Keir Hardie’s famous Cloth Cap. Two rival theories clash, one, that the hat (variety doubtful) originally intended to grace his temples was inadvertently left at home; the other theory, stoutly maintained by a relative, is that the rock of offence to a scandalised House was in the nature of a grand gesture, a proletarian signal of defiance of the “Here stands a Post” pattern.
There is an alternative explanation. The ostentatious adoption of a badge of social inferiority savours at best of theatricality and at worst of inverted vanity. The man who could publicly announce “My experience of the Labour movement in all its phases is second to that of no other man alive in England” (5/5/1910, at Browning Settlement) was hardly a model of modesty. His insistence on the importance of the text, “Come unto me all ye that labour,” was subconsciously an exaltation of his one-story Cap into the Triple Tiara of Labour’s Pope. Hardie’s mental outlook was typical of the Labour leader; the last war revealed the Hodges and the Barnes for what they were worth to the working class movement. Will the present war undeceive the worker ? The ruling clique has hired abler men from the workers’ ranks than in 1914, and a decisive Allied victory will probably effectually blur recollection of their slaps in the face to factory, field and mine worker. There is a faint hope that some of the latter will remember the solid backing their Trade Union bosses have accorded the “Go To It”-ers. The Chairman of the T.U.C. Conference kicks off with a hymn of praise to Churchill.
Much sentimental nonsense goes around in Labour circles about “pride” in belonging to the working class. The informed Socialist finds no reason for “pride” in his quite involuntary membership of that class. A consoling satisfaction, perhaps, is the reflection that his class is the sole instrument which can eventually deliver the world from the horrors of capitalism. An aspect of this “pride” business is the blether summed up in the word “Proletcult.” Broadly speaking, the ruling class in any given society and age dictate “culture,” and until comparatively recent times has alone been able to command the means for expression of that culture, whether in song or verse, in marble or paint on rostrurn, pulpit or stage. In “democratic” Athens an Aeschylus owed his just fame to a rich citizen. Virgil’s genius was hired by the astutest politician of his age to act as his propaganda minister and literary high priest. The black specks of sycophancy which tarnish the glory of a Shakespeare in later ages were the product of a fundamentally similar social basis and resultant outlook; (“Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed”).
Attempts have been made by the Cloth Hat Brigade of critics to exhibit ballads and “folk-songs” as emanating from the “great heart of the people” ; the simplicity of diction deceives. The “artiness” of the best ballads is hard to beat. As to “folk-songs,” the genuine articles to-day are the products of the music hall, and these can hardly be ranked as high art.
Hobbes dismissed the life of the savage as “poor, nasty, brutish and short”—an accurate description of the life of a huge mass of the working class, and under conditions which amply justify the description, what kind of “culture” can arise? The lewd dance, jazz, dreary tom-tom “spirituals”—these are some of the contributions to modern “culture” by which ages of negro slavery revenges itself on society. Augustus banished his daughter for a way of life contracted in a Rome saturated by the worst vices of gladiator and slave.
True, modern capitalism has evolved a section of relatively better placed “black-coated” workers, and the more far-seeing of the governing class have made it possible by scholarships to utilise the abilities of this section. But pay piper, call tune. How they dance to the tune !
The Socialist Party of Great Britain has never boasted of its proletarian origin and membership; it is so “proud” of its class that it is out for its abolition. “Spite of the gloomy days made for our searching,” there are glimmers of sunshine. In the party itself, there is a growing spirit of sober hope. We shall continue to pursue our immediate task—political education, never swerving from our adherence to the principle of delegation of executive work and abhorence of leadership; in short, to the principles of Socialism and all that Socialism implies.
REGINALD