夜读偶录--伟人几皆坏人
2022-03-23 05:58阅读：
世人提及擅权与腐败，常引用阿克顿勋爵（Lord
Acton）名言：Power tends to corrupt, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely.
阿克顿自认为一生庸碌，却因此言名垂青史。1887年4月，阿克顿致函柯莱敦主教（Mandell
Creighton），力陈教皇“永无谬误”之祸祟：
But if we might discuss this point until we found that we
nearly agreed, and if we do agree thoroughly about the impropriety
of Carlylese denunciations and
Pharisaism in history, I cannot accept your
canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a
favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any
presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power,
increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to
make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends
to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Grea
t men are almost always bad men,
【权力趋于腐败，而绝对权力则绝对腐败。伟人几皆坏人】 even when they
exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd
the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is
no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the
negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end
learns to justify the means.
哈耶克《通往奴役之路》序云：社会事务专业学者撰写政治著作，首要之务应言明，本书为政治著作。笔者或可，却不愿为本书冠以社会哲学论文高雅矫饰之虚名，以掩饰本意。然而，无论书名如何，基本观点仍为，笔者表述均源自确信终极价值。希望本书亦能完成另一要务：毋庸置疑地阐明，何为所有论证依据的终极价值。
其第十章 Why the Worst Get on
Top，殷海光译为“坏人为何得势”。然the
worst乃最坏者，即所谓“奸雄”、“恶魔”、“凶残”之流。
殷海光《通往奴役之路》序云：“我平生读书与思考，受影响最深的要推罗素...和海耶克。...
近四五年来，我对海耶克教授有进一步的认识。我从他的著作和行宜里体会出，他是一位言行有度、自律有节、和肃穆庄严的伟大学人。我所处的环境之动乱，社群气氛之乖谬，文化传统之解体，君子与小人之难分，是非真假之混淆，以及我个人成长过程中的颠困流离，在在使得我对他虽然心向往焉，但每叹身不能至。而且，近半个世纪中国的现实情形，不是使人易于麻木，便是使人易趋激越。从事述要《到奴役之路》时代的我，是属于激越一类的。十几年过去了，回头一看，《到奴役之路》经过我的述要，于不知不觉间将我的激越之情沾染上去。我那时的激越之情和海耶克先生的肃穆庄严是颇不调和的。关于这一点，我很惭愧。我认为我应该向海耶克先生道歉。
窃以为，精读哈耶克先生原文，或能领会哈氏灼见。
附：WHY THE WORST GET ON TOP
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.
Lord Acton
We must now examine a belief from which many who regard the
advent of totalitarianism as inevitable derive consolation and
which seriously weakens the resistance of many others who would
oppose it with all their might if they fully apprehended its
nature. It is the belief that the most repellent features of the
totalitarian regimes are due to the historical accident that they
were established by groups of blackguards and thugs. Surely, it is
argued, if in Germany the creation of a totalitarian regime brought
the Streichers and Killingers, the Leys and Heines, the Himmlers
and Heydrichs to power, this may prove the viciousness of the
German character, but not that the rise of such people is the
necessary consequence of a totalitarian system. Why should it not
be possible that the same sort of system, if it be necessary to
achieve important ends, be run by decent people for the good of the
community as a whole?
We must not deceive ourselves into believing that all good
people must be democrats or will necessarily wish to have a share
in the government. Many, no doubt, would rather entrust it to
somebody whom they think more competent. Although this might be
unwise, there is nothing bad or dishonourable in approving a
dictatorship of the good. Totalitarianism, we can already hear it
argued, is a powerful system alike for good and evil, and the
purpose for which it will be used depends entirely on the
dictators. And those who think that it is not the system which we
need fear, but the danger that it might be run by bad men, might
even be tempted to forestall this danger by seeing that it is
established in time by good men.
No doubt an English “fascist” system would greatly differ
from the Italian or German models; no doubt if the transition were
effected without violence, we might expect to get a better type of
leader. And if I had to live under a fascist system I have no doubt
that I would rather live under one run by Englishmen than under one
run by anybody else. Yet all this does not mean that, judged on our
present standards, a British fascist system would in the end prove
so very different or much less intolerable than its prototypes.
There are strong reasons for believing that what to us appear the
worst features of the existing totalitarian systems are not
accidental by-products, but phenomena which totalitarianism is
certain sooner or later to produce. Just as the democratic
statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be
confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial
powers or abandoning his plans, so the totalitarian dictator would
soon have to choose between disregard of ordinarymorals and
failure. It is for this reason that the unscrupulous and
uninhibited are likely to be more successful in a society tending
towards totalitarianism. Who does not see this has not yet grasped
the full width of the gulf which separates totalitarianism from a
liberal regime, the utter difference between the whole moral
atmosphere under collectivism and the essentially individualist
Western civilisation.
The “moral basis of collectivism” has, of course, been much
debated in the past; but what concerns us here is not its moral
basis but its moral results. The usual discussions of the ethical
aspects of collectivism refer to the question whether collectivism
is demanded by existing moral convictions; or what moral
convictions would be required if collectivism is to produce the
hoped-for results. Our question, however, is what moral views will
be produced by a collectivist organisation of society, or what
views are likely to rule it. The interaction between morals and
institutions may well have the effect that the ethics produced by
collectivism will be altogether different from the moral ideals
that lead to the demand for collectivism. While we are apt to think
that, since the desire for a collectivist system springs from high
moral motives, such a system must be the breeding ground for the
highest virtues, there is, in fact, no reason why any system should
necessarily enhance those attitudes which serve the purpose for
which it was designed. The ruling moral views will depend partly on
the qualities that will lead individuals to success in a
collectivist or totalitarian system, and partly on the requirements
of the totalitarian machinery.
* * * * * * * * *
We must here return for a moment to the position which
precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the
creation of a totalitarian regime. In this stage it is the general
demand for quick and determined government action that is the
dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow
and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action
for action's sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who
seems strong and resolute enough “to get things done” who exercises
the greatest appeal. “Strong” in this sense means not merely a
numerical majority-it is the ineffectiveness of
parliamentarymajorities with which people are dissatisfied. What
they will seek is somebody with such solid support as to inspire
confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants. It is here that
the new type of party, organised on military lines, comes
in.
In the Central European countries the socialist parties had
familiarised the masses with political organisations of a
semimilitary character designed to absorb as much as possible of
the private life of the members. All that was wanted to give one
group overwhelming power was to carry the same principle somewhat
further, to seek strength not in the assured votes of huge numbers
at occasional elections, but in the absolute and unreserved support
of a smaller but more thoroughly organised body. The chance of
imposing a totalitarian regime on a whole people depends on the
leader first collecting round him a group which is prepared
voluntarily to submit to that totalitarian discipline which they
are to impose by force upon the rest.
Although the socialist parties had the strength to get
anything if they had cared to use force, they were reluctant to do
so. They had, without knowing it, set themselves a task which only
the ruthless, ready to disregard the barriers of accepted morals,
can execute.
That socialism can be put into practice only by methods which
most socialists disapprove is, of course, a lesson learnt by many
social reformers in the past. The old socialist parties were
inhibited by their democratic ideals, they did not possess the
ruthlessness required for the performance of their chosen task. It
is characteristic that both in Germany and Italy the success of
Fascism was preceded by the refusal of the socialist parties to
take over the responsibilities of government. They were unwilling
wholeheartedly to employ the methods to which they had pointed the
way. They still hoped for the miracle of a majority agreeing on a
particular plan for the organisation of the whole of society;
others had already learnt the lesson that in a planned society the
question can no longer be on what a majority of the people agree,
but what is the largest single group whose members agree
sufficiently to make unified direction of all affairs possible; or,
if no such group large enough to enforce its views exists, how it
can be created and who will succeed in creating it.
There are three main reasons why such a numerous and strong
group with fairly homogeneous views is not likely to be formed by
the best but rather by the worst elements of any society. By our
standards the principles on which such a group would be selected
will be almost entirely negative.
In the first instance, it is probably true that in general
the higher the education and intelligence of individuals becomes,
the more their views and tastes are differentiated and the less
likely they are to agree on a particular hierarchy of values. It is
a corollary of this that if we wish to find a high degree of
uniformity and similarity of outlook, we have to descend to the
regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more
primitive and “common” instincts and tastes prevail. This does not
mean that the majority of people have low moral standards; it
merely means that the largest group of people whose values are very
similar are the people with low standards. It is, as it were, the
lowest common denominator which unites the largest number of
people. If a numerous group is needed, strong enough to impose
their views on the values of life on all the rest, it will never be
those with highly differentiated and developed tastes-it will be
those who form the “mass” in the derogatory sense of the term, the
least original and independent, who will be able to put the weight
of their numbers behind their particular ideals.
If, however, a potential dictator had to rely entirely on
those whose uncomplicated and primitive instincts happen to be very
similar, their number would scarcely give sufficient weight to
their endeavours. He will have to increase their numbers by
converting more to the same simple creed.
Here comes in the second negative principle of selection: he
will be able to obtain the support of all the docile and gullible,
who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to
accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into
their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently. It will be those
whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily swayed and
whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will thus swell
the ranks of the totalitarian party.
It is in connection with the deliberate effort of the skilful
demagogue to weld together a closely coherent and homogeneous body
of supporters that the third and perhaps most important negative
element of selection enters. It seems to be almost a law of human
nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative
programme, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better
off, than on any positive task. The contrast between the “we” and
the “they”, the common fight against those outside the group, seems
to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit
together a group for common action. It is consequently always
employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the
unreserved allegiance of huge masses. From their point of view it
has the great advantage of leaving them greater freedom of action
than almost any positive programme. The enemy, whether he be
internal like the “Jew” or the “Kulak”, or external, seems to be an
indispensable requisite in the armoury of a totalitarian
leader.
That in Germany it was the Jew who became the enemy till his
place was taken by the “plutocracies” was no less a result of the
anti-capitalist resentment on which the whole movement was based
than the selection of the Kulak in Russia. In Germany and Austria
the Jew had come to be regarded as the representative of capitalism
because a traditional dislike of large classes of the population
for commercial pursuits had left these more readily accessible to a
group that was practically excluded from the more highly esteemed
occupations. It is the old story of the alien race being admitted
only to the less respected trades and then being hated still more
for practising them. The fact that German anti-semitism and
anti-capitalism spring from the same root is of great importance
for the understanding of what has happened there, but this is
rarely grasped by foreign observers.
* * * * * * * * *
To treat the universal tendency of collectivist policy
to become nationalistic as due entirely to the necessity for
securing unhesitating support would be to neglect another and no
less important factor. It may indeed be questioned whether anybody
can realistically conceive of a collectivist programme other than
in the service of a limited group, whether collectivism can exist
in any other form than that of some kind of particularism, be it
nationalism, racialism, or class-ism. The belief in the community
of aims and interests with fellow-men seems to presuppose a greater
degree of similarity of outlook and thought than exists between men
merely as human beings. If the other members of one's group cannot
all be personally known, they must at least be of the same kind as
those around us, think and talk in the same way and about the same
kind of things, in order that we may identify ourselves with them.
Collectivism on a world scale seems to be unthinkable-except in the
service of a small ruling élite. It would certainly raise not only
technical but above all moral problems which none of our socialists
are willing to face. If the English proletarian is entitled to an
equal share of the income now derived from England's capital
resources, and of the control of their use, because they are the
result of exploitation, so on the same principle all the Indians
would be entitled not only to the income from but also to the use
of a proportional share of the British capital.
But what socialists seriously contemplate the equal division
of existing capital resources among the people of the world? They
all regard the capital as belonging not to humanity but to the
nation-though even within the nation few would dare to advocate
that the richer regions should be deprived of some of “their”
capital equipment in order to help the poorer regions. What
socialists proclaim as a duty towards the fellow members of the
existing states, they are not prepared to grant to the foreigner.
From a consistent collectivist point of view the claims of the
“Have-Not” nations for a new division of the world are entirely
justified-though, if consistently applied, those who demand it most
loudly would lose by it almost as much as the richest nations. They
are, therefore, careful not to base their claims on any
equalitarian principles but on their pretended superior capacity to
organise other peoples.
One of the inherent contradictions of the collectivist
philosophy is, that while basing itself on the humanistic morals
which individualism has developed, it is practicable only within a
relatively small group. That socialism so long as it remains
theoretical, is internationalist, while as soon as it is put into
practice, whether in Russia or in Germany, it becomes violently
nationalist, is one of the reasons why “liberal socialism” as most
people in the Western world imagine it is purely theoretical, while
the practice of socialism is everywhere totalitarian. 1
Collectivism has no room for the wide humanitarianism of liberalism
but only for the narrow particularism of the
totalitarian.
If the “community” or the state are prior to the individual,
if they have ends of their own independent of and superior to those
of the individuals, only those individuals who work for the same
ends can be regarded as members of the community. It is a necessary
consequence of this view that a person is respected only as a
member of the group, that is, only if and in so far as he works for
the recognised common ends, and that he derives his whole dignity
only from this membership and not merely from being man. Indeed,
the very concepts of humanity and therefore of any form of
internationalism are entirely products of the individualist view of
man, and there can be no place for them in a collectivist system of
thought.
Apart from the basic fact that the community of collectivism
can extend only as far as the unity of purpose of the individuals
exists or can be created, several contributory factors strengthen
the tendency of collectivism to become particularist and exclusive.
Of these one of the most important is that the desire of the
individual to identify himself with a group is very frequently the
result of a feeling of inferiority, and that therefore his want
will only be satisfied if membership of the group confers some
superiority over outsiders. Sometimes, it seems, the very fact that
these violent instincts which the individual knows he must curb
within the group can be given a free range in the collective action
towards the outsider, becomes a further inducement for merging
personality in that of the group. There is a profound truth
expressed in the title of R. Niebuhr's Moral Man and
Immoral Society - however little we can follow him in
the conclusions he draws from his thesis. There is indeed, as he
says elsewhere, “an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine
themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to
larger and larger groups.” To act on behalf of a group seems to
free people of many of the moral restraints which control their
behaviour as individuals within the group.
The definitely antagonistic attitude which most planners take
towards internationalism is further explained by the fact that in
the existing world all outside contacts of a group are obstacles to
their effectively planning the sphere in which they can attempt it.
It is therefore no accident that, as the editor of one of the most
comprehensive collective studies on planning has discovered to his
chagrin, “most 'planners' are militant nationalists”.
The nationalist and imperialist propensities of socialist
planners, much more common than is generally recognised, are not
always as flagrant as, for example, in the case of the Webbs and
some of the other early Fabians, with whom enthusiasm for planning
was characteristically combined with the veneration for the large
and powerful political units and a contempt for the small state.
The historian Elie Halévy, speaking of the Webbs when he first knew
them forty years ago, records that their socialism was profoundly
anti-liberal. They did not hate the Tories, indeed they were
extraordinarily lenient to them, but they had no mercy for
Gladstonian Liberalism. It was the time of the Boer War and both
the advanced liberals and the men who were beginning to form the
Labour Party had generously sided with the Boers against British
Imperialism, in the name of freedom and humanity. But the two Webbs
and their friend, Bernard Shaw, stood apart. They were
ostentatiously imperialistic. The independence of small nations
might mean something to the liberal individualist. It meant nothing
to collectivists like themselves. I can still hear Sidney Webb
explaining to me that the future belonged to the great
administrative nations, where the officials govern and the police
keep order. And elsewhere Halévy quotes Bernard Shaw arguing, about
the same time, that “the world is to the big and powerful states by
necessity; and the little ones must come within their border or be
crushed out of existence”.
I have quoted at length these passages, which would not
surprise one in a description of the German ancestors of national
socialism, because they provide so characteristic an example of
that glorification of power which easily leads from socialism to
nationalism and which profoundly affects the ethical views of all
collectivists. So far as the rights of small nations are concerned,
Marx and Engels were little better than most other consistent
collectivists, and the views they occasionally expressed about
Czechs or Poles resemble those of contemporary National
Socialists.
* * * * * * * * *
While to the great individualist social philosophers
of the nineteenth century, to a Lord Acton or Jacob Burckhardt,
down to contemporary socialists, like Bertrand Russell, who have
inherited the liberal tradition, power itself has always appeared
the arch-evil, to the strict collectivist it is a goal in itself.
It is not only, as Russell has so well described, that the desire
to organise social life according to a unitary plan itself springs
largely from a desire for power. 3 It is even more the outcome of
the fact that in order to achieve their end collectivists must
create power-power over men wielded by other men-of a magnitude
never before known, and that their success will depend on the
extent to which they achieve such power.
This remains true even though many liberal socialists are
guided in their endeavours by the tragic illusion that by depriving
private individuals of the power they possess in an individualist
system, and by transferring this power to society, they can thereby
extinguish power. What all those who argue in this manner overlook
is that by concentrating power so that it can be used in the
service of a single plan, it is not merely transferred but
infinitely heightened; that by uniting in the hands of some single
body power formerly exercised independently by many, an amount of
power is created infinitely greater than any that existed before,
so much more far-reaching as almost to be different in kind. It is
entirely fallacious when it is sometimes argued that the great
power exercised by a Central Planning Board would be “no greater
than the power collectively exercised by private boards of
directors”. There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can
exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning
board would possess, and if nobody can consciously use the power,
it is just an abuse of words to assert that it rests with all the
capitalists put together. It is merely a play upon words to speak
of the “power collectively exercised by private boards of
directors” so long as they do not combine to concerted action-which
would, of course, mean the end of competition and the creation of a
planned economy. To split or decentralise power is necessarily to
reduce the absolute amount of power and the competitive system is
the only system designed to minimise by decentralisation the power
exercised by man over man.
We have seen before how the separation of economic and
political aims is an essential guarantee of individual freedom and
how it is consequently attacked by all collectivists. To this we
must now add that the “substitution of political for economic
power” now so often demanded means necessarily the substitution of
power from which there is no escape for a power which is always
limited. What is called economic power, while it can be an
instrument of coercion, is in the hands of private individuals
never exclusive or complete power, never power over the whole life
of a person. But centralised as an instrument of political power it
creates a degree of dependence scarcely distinguishable from
slavery.
* * * * * * * * *
From the two central features of every collectivist
system, the need for a commonly accepted system of ends of the
group, and the all-overriding desire to give to the group the
maximum of power to achieve these ends, grows a definite system of
morals, which on some points coincides and on others violently
contrasts with ours-but differs from it in one point which makes it
doubtful whether we can call it morals: that it does not leave the
individual conscience free to apply its own rules and does not even
know any general rules which the individual is required or allowed
to observe in all circumstances. This makes collectivist morals so
different from what we have known as morals that we find it
difficult to discover any principle in them, which they
nevertheless possess.
The difference of principle is very much the same as that
which we have already considered in connection with the Rule of
Law. Like formal law the rules of individualist ethics, however
unprecise they may be in many respects, are general and absolute;
they prescribe or prohibit a general type of action irrespective of
whether in the particular instance the ultimate purpose is good or
bad. To cheat or steal, to torture or betray a confidence, is held
to be bad, irrespective of whether or not in the particular
instance any harm follows from it. Neither the fact that in a given
instance nobody may be the worse for it, nor any high purpose for
which such an act may have been committed, can alter the fact that
it is bad. Though we may sometimes be forced to choose between
different evils they remain evils.
The principle that the end justifies the means is in
individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In
collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule; there
is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be
prepared to do if it serves “the good of the whole”, because the
“good of the whole” is to him the only criterion of what ought to
be done. The raison d'état, in which collectivist
ethics has found its most explicit formulation, knows no other
limit than that set by expediency-the suitability of the particular
act for the end in view. And what the raison d'état
affirms with respect to the relations between different
countries applies equally to the relations between different
individuals within the collectivist state. There can be no limit to
what its citizen must not be prepared to do, no act which his
conscience must prevent him from committing, if it is necessary for
an end which the community has set itself or which his superiors
order him to achieve.
* * * * * * * * *
The absence of absolute formal rules in collectivist ethics
does not, of course, mean that there are not some useful habits of
the individuals which a collectivist community will encourage, and
others which it will discourage. Quite the reverse; it will take a
much greater interest in the individual's habits of life than an
individualist community. To be a useful member of a collectivist
society requires very definite qualities which must be strengthened
by constant practice. The reason why we designate these qualities
as “useful habits” and can hardly describe them as moral virtues is
that the individual could never be allowed to put these rules above
any definite orders, or to let them become an obstacle to the
achievement of any of the particular aims of his community. They
only serve, as it were, to fill any gaps which direct orders or the
designation of particular aims may leave, but they can never
justify a conflict with the will of the authority.
The differences between the virtues which will continue to be
esteemed under a collectivist system and those which will disappear
is well illustrated by a comparison of the virtues which even their
worst enemies admit the Germans, or rather the “typical Prussian”,
to possess, and those of which they are commonly thought lacking
and in which the English people, with some justification, used to
pride themselves as excelling. Few people will deny that the
Germans on the whole are industrious and disciplined, thorough and
energetic to the degree of ruthlessness, conscientious and
single-minded in any tasks they undertake, that they possess a
strong sense of order, duty, and strict obedience to authority, and
that they often show great readiness to make personal sacrifices
and great courage in physical danger. All these make the German an
efficient instrument in carrying out an assigned task, and they
have accordingly been carefully nurtured in the old Prussian state
and the new Prussian-dominated Reich. What the “typical German” is
often thought to lack are the individualist virtues of tolerance
and respect for other individuals and their opinions, of
independence of mind and that uprightness of character and
readiness to defend one's own convictions against a superior which
the Germans themselves, usually conscious that they lack it, call
Zivilcourage, of consideration for the weak and
infirm, and of that healthy contempt and dislike of power which
only an old tradition of personal liberty creates. Deficient they
seem also in most of those little yet so important qualities which
facilitate the intercourse between men in a free society:
kindliness and a sense of humour, personal modesty, and respect for
the privacy and belief in the good intentions of one's
neighbour.
After what we have already said it will not cause surprise
that these individualist virtues are at the same time eminently
social virtues, virtues which smooth social contacts and which make
control from above less necessary and at the same time more
difficult. They are virtues which flourish wherever the
individualist or commercial type of society has prevailed and which
are missing according as the collectivist or military type of
society predominates-a difference which is, or was, as noticeable
between the various regions of Germany as it has now become of the
views which rule in Germany and those characteristic of the West.
Till recently, at least, in those parts of Germany which have been
longest exposed to the civilising forces of commerce, the old
commercial towns of the south and west and the Hanse towns, the
general moral concepts were probablymuch more akin to those of the
Western people than to those which have now become dominant all
over Germany.
It would, however, be highly unjust to regard the masses of
the totalitarian people as devoid of moral fervor because they give
unstinted support to a system which to us seems a denial of most
moral values. For the great majority of them the opposite is
probably true: the intensity of the moral emotions behind a
movement like that of National-Socialism or communism can probably
be compared only to those of the great religious movements of
history. Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to
serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation,
most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us
follow of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance
and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the
life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable
consequences of this basic premise, and the collectivist can admit
this and at the same time claim that his system is superior to one
in which the “selfish” interests of the individual are allowed to
obstruct the full realisation of the ends the community pursues.
When German philosophers again and again represent the striving for
personal happiness as itself immoral and only the fulfilment of an
imposed duty as praiseworthy, they are perfectly sincere, however
difficult this may be to understand for those who have been brought
up in a different tradition.
Where there is one common all-overriding end there is no room
for any general morals or rules. To a limited extent we ourselves
experience this in wartime. But even war and the greatest peril had
led in this country only to a very moderate approach to
totalitarianism, very little setting aside of all other values in
the service of a single purpose. But where a few specific ends
dominate the whole of society, it is inevitable that occasionally
cruelty may become a duty, that acts which revolt all our feeling,
such as the shooting of hostages or the killing of the old or sick,
should be treated as mere matters of expediency, that the
compulsory uprooting and transportation of hundreds of thousands
should become an instrument of policy approved by almost everybody
except the victims, or that suggestions like that of a
“conscription of woman for breeding purposes” can be seriously
contemplated. There is always in the eyes of the collectivist a
greater goal which these acts serve and which to him justifies them
because the pursuit of the common end of society can know no limits
in any rights or values of any individual.
But while for the mass of the citizens of the totalitarian
state it is often unselfish devotion to an ideal, although one that
is repellent to us, which makes them approve and even perform such
deeds, this cannot be pleaded for those who guide its policy. To be
a useful assistant in the running of a totalitarian state it is not
enough that a man should be prepared to accept specious
justification of vile deeds, he must himself be prepared actively
to break every moral rule he has ever known if this seems necessary
to achieve the end set for him. Since it is the supreme leader who
alone determines the ends, his instruments must have no moral
convictions of their own. They must, above all, be unreservedly
committed to the person of the leader; but next to this the most
important thing is that they should be completely unprincipled and
literally capable of everything. They must have no ideals of their
own which they want to realise, no ideas about right or wrong which
might interfere with the intentions of the leader. There is thus in
the positions of power little to attract those who hold moral
beliefs of the kind which in the past have guided the European
peoples, little which could compensate for the distastefulness of
many of the particular tasks, and little opportunity to gratify any
more idealistic desires, to recompense for the undeniable risk, the
sacrifice of most of the pleasures of private life and of personal
independence which the posts of great responsibility involve. The
only tastes which are satisfied are the taste for power as such,
the pleasure of being obeyed and of being part of a
well-functioning and immensely powerful machine to which everything
else must give way.
Yet while there is little that is likely to induce men who
are good by our standards to aspire to leading positions in the
totalitarian machine, and much to deter them, there will be special
opportunities for the ruthless and unscrupulous. There will be jobs
to be done about the badness of which taken by themselves nobody
has any doubt, but which have to be done in the service of some
higher end, and which have to be executed with the same expertness
and efficiency as any others. And as there will be need for actions
which are bad in themselves, and which all those still influenced
by traditional morals will be reluctant to perform, the readiness
to do bad things becomes a path to promotion and power. The
positions in a totalitarian society in which it is necessary to
practice cruelty and intimidation, deliberate deception and spying,
are numerous. Neither the Gestapo nor the administration of a
concentration camp, neither the Ministry of Propaganda nor the SA
or SS (or their Italian or Russian counterparts) are suitable
places for the exercise of humanitarian feelings. Yet it is through
positions like these that the road to the highest positions in the
totalitarian state leads. It is only too true when a distinguished
American economist concludes from a similar brief enumeration of
the duties of the authorities of a collectivist state that they
would have to do these things whether they wanted to or not: and
the probability of the people in power being individuals who would
dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the
probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the
job of whipping-master in a slave plantation.
We cannot, however, exhaust this subject here. The problem of
the selection of the leaders is closely bound up with the wide
problem of selection according to the opinions held, or rather
according to the readiness with which a person conforms to an
ever-changing set of doctrines. And this leads us to one of the
most characteristic moral features of totalitarianism, its relation
to, and its effect on, all the virtues falling under the general
heading of truthfulness. This is so big a subject that it requires
a separate chapter.
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