Theory III

Aspects of Mind (Continued):-- Lies; Hypocrisy; Fantasy.

A good reason for having a dog is that he doesn't tell lies. After a day spent amongst other human beings it can be rejuvenating to come home to such a loyal, affectionate, honest creature as one's four-footed pet. By and large we humans are the only creatures who tell lies: it's the downside of the invention of language. It seems that chimpanzees sometimes have a go, but they hardly begin, compared to us. Lying can be a habit, a custom, a fault, a necessity, an occupation ... and so on. It's a vast subject so I'll discuss, briefly, only some of the modes.

In an Honour society lies are not so common. In such a society it's often not safe to lie. There's a quick comeback: in the old days, a duel with lethal weapons; down amongst the folk, your teeth smashed in by a heavy fist. [I know about it: I grew up in such a society]. But nowadays, in Britain, we no longer live in an Honour society; we live in a society where dishonourable behaviour is put forward as the norm. And there's no comeback. This change -- a large one, and traumatic for many older persons who grew up under the Old Regime -- has occurred in Britain over the space of a couple of generations.

Institutes of Disinformation are staffed by hierarchies of Occupational Liars. 'What is your Occupation?' 'State Liar.' I.e. someone whose function it is to generate Lies to the advantage of the State for which he works. Since the food of the Mind is Truth the Profession of Liar is a personally dangerous one: he is swallowing poison all the time. Very similar, in this respect, to the Profession of Spying. The Disinformer Speaks the Lie: it becomes a part of his being; the Spy Acts the Lie. Since these kinds of Profession will obviously have extended corruptive resonances, is it wise to set up this kind of Enterprise; is it wise to allow the State to create rottenness, both directly and indirectly, within the Souls of some of its Citizens? The long-term subterranean social danger may outweigh the overt short-term gain.

Disinformation works best in a near-Monopoly situation. It is designed for a Mass society, one where saturation of the information space, and sheer weight of numbers of persons influenced, is what counts. Ancient Despotisms and modern Total States have always taken for granted the use of Disinformation. However, since in recent times Western States have become semi-Total, the technique has become important also with us. The most spectacular and illuminating example occurred during the Vietman War, itself part of the long drawn-out confrontation, the Cold War, between the Soviet Union and the West. [Mentioned earlier: see Essay 8.] During the 1970s the Controllers of Communication in the USA -- and especially those in charge of TV News -- for reasons mainly of personal ideology, presented the Vietnam War, both content and analysis, in a manner exactly concordant with the wishes of the Soviets. In effect they operated as a Fifth Column. A Western Constitutional Democracy is sensitive to Public Opinion. Mainly as a result of this manipulation of News the Americans withdrew their armed forces in 1975. This allowed some notably thoroughgoing Communist Ideologues to take over power in some of the States of the Indo-China region. With all too familiar consequences: several million persons in this region, who would otherwise have survived, were murdered over the next few years.

Nowadays, the activists of this type make up a sizeable -- sometimes completely dominant -- proportion of the staff of most of the various Schools, Universities and Media within the Western World. There's no point in singling out any particular Institution or Region; the tendency is too widespread. As already mentioned, the Internet has become the main medium used by those who are trying to stop the spread of this kind of Intellectual Slum.

• I can accept that a country -- the USA, say, or China -- might be more disposed to a military action if it helped to safeguard oil supplies, without assuming this to be the only reason, or the main reason, for that action.

• I can accept that a medical researcher, who is both a smoker himself, and whose funding is supported by a tobacco company, might be sardonically pleased if his findings cast doubt on the supposed dangers of passive smoking, without assuming that he deviated from proper scientific behaviour in establishing those findings.

• I can accept that Darwin made a good case for Evolution, for the thesis that there is a tendency for species to change over time, provided the span of time is long enough. This doesn't make me a Darwinist, since I consider that Natural Selection, the second thesis of Darwinism, is as often wrong as right: that where it's true it's a truism; that it often does little to illuminate a particular case of Evolution; that in general it doesn't tell you much about the direction of Evolution, and that sometimes -- most notably in the case of humans -- it can be quite misleading, since it leaves out the influence of Culture, in the case of humans preponderant.

• I can accept that the economic class position -- manual labourer, say, as against technical manager -- of a person will typically make a contribution to how he sees the world, his attitudes and actions. However, this doesn't make me a Marxist, since I don't think that class position unequivocally determines his thoughts and actions, or that it precludes a change of vision and characteristic action.
  The Marxist claim is an extreme one; it's also pure assertion -- no evidence is presented. To hell with Aristotle and all that. Two and a half millennia of the Western Tradition of Reason are casually thrown out the window.

Defined as: dissimulation, pretence; also, and especially, the pretension of moral standards which don't match actual behaviour.
There's a continuum here: from benign, constructive hypocrisy to less acceptable kinds. Constructive hypocrisy is when I say 'Good Morning' [i.e. 'May you have a Good Morning'] to someone whom I do not like at all. What's the alternative? On balance 'Good Morning' seems better than shaping up with my fists and knocking him down. Life would become one long extended brawl. On a grand scale, between Nation States, Hypocrisy is called Diplomacy. Which, most of the time -- but not all of the time -- is better than going to War.
Good Manners is the practice of a code of formal, helpful behaviour towards another person, regardless of your attitude to him as an individual. Hypocrisy is therefore frequently necessary. Good Manners is one of the main foundations of Society. Without Good Manners a Society can fall apart very quickly. In the West the period of the 1960s was the time when Good Manners were often set aside by the self-styled 'Beautiful People' -- they had a high opinion of themselves -- in favour of Sincerity : i.e. rejection of Hypocrisy. Having lived through this period I can report that there were not many who realized what a short step it was from the Cult of Sincerity to outright Barbarism. For the most part people were hesitant, confused.

To turn now to less acceptable Hypocrisy: pretensions which don't match behaviour; and especially in the Public Domain. For a long time most other countries have considered the Nations of the Anglosphere as being the virtuosos of Hypocrisy. And it's not hard to find evidence. I'll illustrate with an American example. For three reasons. Because of the symbolic importance of the USA; because the Americans claim so much for their Nation; and because they hide nothing: you know exactly what's going on; even Hypocrisy stands forth with total clarity. The example I will use is Black Slavery: Civil Rights for Negroes.

• 1776: All men are created equal ...
  [ Declaration of Independence. Written by Thomas Jefferson, one of the largest slave owners of his time.]

• 1861-1865: A Civil War. Ostensibly fought, at least in part, in order to proscribe Slavery.

• 1955: Rosa Parks, Citizen (Black: 2nd Class) of Montgomery, Alabama, refuses to give up her seat on a bus.

The Civil Rights Movement, beginning with the action of Rosa Parks, is considered to have achieved its aims by 1964. The period 1776 to 1964 is nearly two centuries. That's a long time for an ugly double standard to hold.

That's the case for the Prosecution. Now for the Defence: covering both the USA and Britain, the two chief Nations of the Anglosphere.

• There were anti-slavery movements in the USA, as early as the 1750s. All the Northern States passed emancipation acts, between 1780 and 1804.

• Colin Powell was US Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was succeeded by Condoleeza Rice. Both of them are Blacks. In other words: the Blacks have arrived. The Americans took their time, but they got there. And no one expects that there will be any backsliding -- no re-establishment of 2nd Class Citizenship, and certainly not Slavery.

• Great Britain was the Nation in the forefront of the protracted campaign to abolish Slavery. In Britain, during the first third of the 19th Century, after decades of agitation, Parliamentary Acts were passed forbidding enslavement, and also emancipating, within the British Dominions, those who were already slaves. Moreover, throughout the 19th Century, the British used their huge Navy, with its global reach, to inhibit other Nations from practising enslavement. Both emancipation, with compensation to slave owners, and Naval inhibition, were very costly to the British people, but they did not shirk the financial burden.

• By and large other Nations were mostly indifferent to the existence of Slavery. It was the peoples of the Anglosphere, the Hypocrites, who did the main work of abolition.

• By contrast it was the Bolsheviks, the Russian Marxists -- priding themselves on straight talk, boldly tearing aside the veil of Capitalist Hypocrisy -- who pioneered the re-introduction of Slavery in the 20th Century. The Soviet network of 'Corrective Labour Camps' began developing soon after the Bolsheviks captured State Power in 1917. The numbers increased greatly in the 1930s: by 1940 there were certainly several millions of slaves in the Camps; they had become an important element in the Soviet Economy. The slaves were known as zeks, and the system itself was known by the acronym GULAG, which identified the Government Department in charge. It was a harsh form of Slavery: inadequate food, poor conditions, and consequently a high death rate.

The Bolsheviks were not Hypocrites. In their view the zeks deserved what they got. But the Bolsheviks, and all other Marxists, are not within the central Western Christian Tradition. They have a different perspective, a different Weltanschauung.
The proto-articulation of the main Western Tradition begins with the Ancient Greeks. Plato (d. 347 BC) creates the notion of the Ideal. The truly wise Man aspires to the Good, which is the central Ideal. This is the informing principle for Human Conduct. Augustine (d. 430 AD), the great Christian Theologian, taking over much of Plato's thought, develops in detail his twin concepts of the Heavenly City (Civitas Dei), and the Earthly City (Civitas Terrena). As a bodily creature Man lives within the Civitas Terrena, with all its joys, its sorrows, its satisfactions, and its pains. As a spiritual creature he is drawn -- however minimally and sporadically -- to the Civitas Dei, where the central aim and activity is the Contemplation of the Glory of God. Man is a divided Soul. His existence -- explicitly so if he is a Christian -- is one of perpetual tension: he lives a double life.

Christianity is not like Buddhism, and not like Islam. It handles the tension between Body and Soul in a different manner. It does not resolve the tension, does not try to dissipate it or negate it; instead, by making it bearable, giving it an outlet, it turns it into a dynamic, creative force. (This is the essential reason for the enormous creativity of Western Culture throughout much of the last millennium). Christianity is a Religion of Hope. Despair and Apathy (Acedia) are proscribed as Sins. Christianity is a strenuous Religion, but not impossibly so, since one can be Saved. Christ, the Son of God, by dying for our Sins, gave us -- every single one of us (the equality of Souls) -- the chance of Salvation and Eternal Bliss in the Civitas Dei. The essential step, for the would-be Christian, is a radical commitment of Belief -- a commitment of the whole person, not just a commitment of intellect. This kind of commitment, being partly a matter of Will, necessarily has an ineradicable strand of Doubt. All of which explains the characteristic restless mobility of the Western physiognomy, and nowhere more so than in the Anglosphere. Which is also why conversation in England is so theatrical. (Also true of Australia -- not so true of America). Now that Asia has become semi-Western it is less tranquil, but once upon a time that was the place to go to find the beauty of Stillness and Serenity. Of course such beauty did also occur in the West, but it was much rarer.

Covering a span of two and a half millennia the Western Tradition incorporates and expresses itself within the love poems of Sappho (d. 570 BC), the philosophic speculations of Plato (d. 347 BC), the theology of St. Paul (d. 67 AD), the theology and philosophy of St. Augustine (d. 430 AD) and St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274 AD), the Romantic songs and love poems of the troubadours and the other poets, most notably Dante (d. 1321 AD), of the Middle Ages. It includes also the novels of the Brontë sisters (ca. 1850 AD), Louisa May Alcott (d. 1888 AD), Georgette Heyer (d. 1974 AD), Barbara Cartland (d. 2000 AD), plus the vast output of Romantic films of Hollywood from, say, 1920 to 1960. Plato was the pre-eminent philosopher of Eros, understood as Love which unites Body and Soul. Paul and Augustine were the pre-eminent theologians and philosophers of Agape, Christian Spiritual Love. Dante and Aquinas accommodate both Eros and Agape. The Brontë sisters, Louisa May Alcott, Georgette Heyer, Barbara Cartland, and Hollywood -- these continue the tradition of Sappho, modified appropriately for an age of Mass Democracy.

The above has been the main strand within the Western Tradition, emphasizing Ideal Love within emotional, intellectual and spiritual life, and informing the existence of all social classes. It is within this strand of Tradition that Hypocrisy, Illusion, Double Standards, Sentimentality and Romantic Love flourish. (Some of these terms are the denigratory characterizations of critics, of opponents. No matter; no need for argument. Let's accept the opponents' terms since they do contain elements of Truth; they point in the right direction.)
Seeking commitment, the girl says: 'Do you love me?' The boy knows he must say 'Yes'. Sometimes he is wholehearted, but at other times he is equivocal. Likewise, in Church, one also registers commitment by saying: 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth ... '. But there are periods of desolation when one has doubts.
This is the ineradicable vein of tension within the Western Weltanschauung. Most people learn to live with it.

Most sophisticated modern Westerners, and especially Continental Europeans, are Children of the Enlightenment. They regard the Christian Myth as antiquated nonsense: eyewash, bullshit, whatever. Forgiveable maybe as a Weltanschauung for their cloddish peasant forbears, but ridiculously childish, absurdly unsuitable for anyone with an advanced education. This seems to me foolish and self-deluding, since they live in Societies which have been, over many centuries, and in most respects still are, structured by the Christian Myth -- even when God is never mentioned explicitly.

Since for a Christian every Soul is of equal worth -- because it is of incalculable worth: all infinities are effectively equal -- then it is right and natural to help one's neighbour. (The Parable of the Good Samaritan). All of which helps to explain the spiritual and emotional driving forces underlying the creation of the Modern Western Welfare State. Whether the created social apparatus works, whether the mechanisms are effective, whether there are unintended and counter-productive consequences; these are separate questions.

Contrast the Hindu Tradition. This tradition is several thousands of years old. There is a vast corpus of sacred texts -- the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, etc. -- even greater in length than the corresonding set of Christian texts. As with Christianity there are several strands, but there is a discernible core, a Main Line. (The Laws of Manu, ca. 0 AD, was the most influential synthesis). The Caste System, the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation -- none of these is in accord with the Christian concept of the Soul. It is a radically different Metaphysical vision, and helps to explain some of the placidity of acceptance, by Hindus, of a degree of degradation of whole groups of individuals which has been traumatically shocking to many Western visitors to India over the last few centuries.

The Marxist Tradition is again different. [I'll discuss it in a later Essay]. In this Tradition the explicit Metaphysics -- for purposes of Action -- centres on two concepts: a negative one, and a positive one. The Negative: there's no such thing as a Human Soul. The Positive: the concept of History, conceived as a kind of Juggernaut. Being the Agent of History justifies everything. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the rest, they all had much the same casual unconcerned style as they went about their self-appointed tasks of liquidation (mass murder) of superfluous or awkward Units of Soulless Human Material. As far as I know, none of these Tyrants was an insomniac or had a deathbed repentance.

Is not the Lie; and is not the Truth. It's outside that dichotomy, not illumined by those categories. Fantasy is the Mind at Play. Play is the larger, more inclusive concept. Fantasy is the verbal and pictorial aspect of Play. (I'll sometimes use the two words interchangeably). And what is Play? I don't know, not articulately; but neither does anyone else know. Play is Exploration of Potentiality, for what little that's worth. It's like saying that the Infinite is that which is not Finite. Big Deal. Play is too close to the heart of Existence, of Life, to be definable. Not to define; no. However, we can illustrate a bit, and give examples. First, to mark out the field, to set down some guidelines.

We exist as animals, as living entities within Reality. But we are not just the Homo genus of the class Mammalia; we are also the Homo sapiens species within this genus. We have minds: we have this peculiar capacity of abstraction, of being able to stand outside Reality, at least partly; to be both within and without.

Work, Contemplation, Play, Fantasy are concepts we use to designate our Relationship to Reality, as we interact with it, or stand outside it, or a bit of both.
As Workers we focus on manipulating and moulding Reality, in accord with our desires.
As Contemplators our ultimate purpose is not manipulation but understanding. We watch Reality, but leave it alone.
As Players we sometimes light-heartedly manipulate, but we do not mould: it is all reversible, repeatable. We contemplate, but only evanescently, in passing. Of the three relationships, Play is the most Primal, the ur-concept. The other two derive from it. Before you try using a knife it is best to play with it -- on some disposable material. Likewise for a pen, or a rifle, or a computer keyboard. The basis and arena of fully developed Play (including Fantasy) is a constructed World; one wherein life is less intense. Experience is diluted; it is not fateful. The advantage of such diluted experience lies in the possibility of learning through repetition, and through the delights of exploration of a vast range of variation.
Half a mile from me is the Arsenal Football Ground; downtown are the Theatres and Entertainment Clubs; on my bookshelves are the volumes of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Work and Fantasy are at the two extremes of the spectrum of possible relationships to Reality. In Work it is Reality which dominates; we are committed to it. In Fantasy it is we who dominate Reality. We are not committed; we can break off at any time.
In the long history of the species, of our life upon Mother Earth, the several Relationships to Reality -- Work, Contemplation, Play, Fantasy -- develop in parallel, quite closely. This means that we can get some idea of the historical development of Fantasy by deduction from the development of Work. Which is fortunate since, because of its material basis, Work leaves more traces.
I'll turn now to the history of Work, i.e. the history of Production.

Production:-- It's true that man does not live by bread alone, but equally true that without bread he dies. Getting our daily bread is a main part of the dimension of Production and, according to the Anthropologists, there have been only three eras of Modes of Production in the long span of Human Life on this planet: Hunting/Gathering; Agriculture; Industry. To put it another way, in terms of the persons involved: Wanderers (Finding and Seizing); Growers (Planting and Harvesting); Fabricators (Crafting and Assembling).

Transitions:-- In each of these three eras one Mode of Production is dominant. There was a one-way sequence; i.e. the three different Modes became successively dominant, in the order in which I have set them down. By far the longest span of time was associated with the first Mode: Hunting/Gathering. Hard to say just how long -- because Hunter/Gatherers leave so few traces of their activities. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of years. But what we do know, with some precision (since Agriculturists do leave traces) is the time of onset of the second Mode, Agriculture; also the significant places. The second Mode was established between ten to fifteen thousand years ago; and the main places were the valleys of big rivers. And gradually Agriculture became the norm, for the human species.
This is Transition No. 1: Hunting/Gathering --> Agriculture.
The second Transition was very recent. The time was the second half of the 18th Century -- i.e. 1750 AD to 1800 AD. The place was England.
This is Transition No. 2: Agriculture --> Industry.

It's important to distinguish between occurrence and dominance. It may have happened that, at some place on the planet, 100,000 years ago, some clever nomads settled in an isolated river valley and learnt how to practise a proto-agiculture. Historically it doesn't matter much, because it didn't catch on; it didn't become the dominant economic mode of a large society.
Agriculture produces food surpluses. Population expands. The society is successful. It absorbs other societies or, to avoid absorption, they are driven to emulate it. The result is much the same. This is Transition No. 1, which is quite easy to understand. The shift -- from seeking out seeds and fruit and gathering them, to planting them at a fixed place -- is not a big shift. The discovery of the different elements and refinements of Horticultural and Agricultural Practice, and the cumulation and coordination of these items, would occur fairly naturally. Not surprisingly, Transition No. 1 seems to have occurred independently at several places on the Globe.

Industrial Society:-- Transition No. 2 is much harder to understand and illuminate. There had been bits and pieces of the potential for the Industrial Mode around for a long, long time. There had been traders, for millennia; there were factories, of a kind, in Athens, in Rome; and certainly in Florence in the late Middle Ages. But it takes more than traders and a few factories to make an Industrial Society.
Did it happen just in England? Yes, I think so. Holland comes nearest, but doesn't quite make it. And why just in England? The answer is not simple; there has been much argument amongst the Historians -- a lot of it quite frutiful. It seems that a kind of miracle occurred, a fortuitous combination of several factors. I think the facilitating conditions were set up way back; as long ago as the reign of King Alfred (d. 899 AD). Not so much the roots being planted as the soil being prepared. He was obviously an extremely gifted and versatile man; also a most unusual one in that, although a very competent warrior and strategist -- tough, inventive, and enduring -- he seems to have been immune to the seductions of Power. He appears to have been guided, in all of his actions, by the desire to leave behind him the memory of a capable, good and just ruler. The English were uniquely fortunate in having Alfred as the founder of the Nation.
About nine hundred years after Alfred the Industrial Revolution was brought into being by hundreds of thousands of craftsmen. Alfred also was a craftsman. State-craft and Society-craft were his concern. He knew what he was doing, and why he was doing it:--

"Desire for and possession of earthly power never pleased me overmuch, and I did not unduly desire this earthly rule, but that nevertheless I wished for tools and resources for the task that I was commanded to accomplish, which was that I should virtuously and worthily guide and direct the authority which was entrusted to me. You know of course that no one can make known any skill, nor direct and guide any authority, without tools and resources; a man cannot work on any enterprise without resources. In the case of the king, the resources and tools with which to rule are that he have his land fully manned: he must have praying men, fighting men and working men ... Another aspect of his resources is that he must have the means of support for his tools, the three classes of men. These, then are their means of support: land to live on, gifts, weapons, food, ale, clothing, and whatever else is necessary for each of the three classes of men. Without these things he cannot maintain the tools, nor without the tools can he accomplish any of the things he was commanded to do. Accordingly, I sought the resources with which to exercise the authority, in order that my skills and power would not be forgotten and concealed: because every skill and every authority is soon obsolete and passed over, if it is without wisdom; because no man may bring to bear any skill without wisdom. For whatever is done unthinkingly, cannot be reckoned a skill. To speak briefly: I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and to leave after my life, to the men who should come after me, the memory of me in good works."
[An interpolation by Alfred, within his translation into Anglo-Saxon of the Latin text of Boethius: 'Consolation of Philosophy'.]

[Note 1:-- 'Industrial Revolution' is an unfortunate term, but we are saddled with it. 'Revolution' refers usually to an event occurring over a short period, during which time large, profound and rapid changes take place. I have located the English Industrial Revolution between the years 1750 AD -- 1850 AD. I think it would be more accurate to use the period 1600 AD -- 1900 AD. In which case the changes would not be seen as rapid, although they were certainly large and profound.

Note 2:-- Radical Invention is difficult, and unexpected. In the case of the first, the English Industrial Revolution, so difficult, and seemingly -- with hindsight -- so inherently unlikely, as to seem a kind of miracle.
Radical Invention is difficult, unpredictable and uncommon; diffusion, replication, is easy, predictable and common. As the last hundred years of World History have shown, many times over.

Note 3:-- In England the Industrial Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, and the Political Revolution ( the invention of Civil Society: the change from a Warrior dominated Society to a Producer dominated Society) all went along together; mutually reinforcing each other. The inventions were coeval.
Replication is different, as the example of Modern China shows. It may be that you can take just some of the bits; not the whole package. The Chinese are attempting to create an Industrial Society without also having a Civil Society. It's too early to say if they will succeed.]

Eras of Fantasy:-- Within Western Culture there are two main eras of Fantasy, corresponding to the latter two eras of Production: Agricultural Era; Industrial Era. There was a shift in sensibility. There is certainly plenty of overlap, but the emphases are different; also some of the themes. It's a vast subject; I'll touch upon only a few topics.

Fantasy is objectively articulated within Imaginative Literature. Presumably the Hunter/Gatherers had their kind of Fantasy, but we know very little. The first recorded era of Fantasy in the West -- during the Agricultural Era of Production -- is recognizably a continuity and doesn't change much over two and a half millennia: from the days of Homer (ca. 8th Century BC) up to the 18th Century AD. In respect of Fantasy the two Epic Poems of Homer and the Plays of Shakespeare (d. 1616 AD) are not very different.
Agrarian Society is essentially conservative. People accept Reality. (It's only with the coming of seemingly automatic surpluses that the luxury of self-deception on a grand scale -- as in the 1960s, say -- is possible). In this Agrarian era Fantasy consists in no more than a rearrangement -- plus exaggeration -- of realistic elements: Chimeras, Basilisks, Centaurs, the Phoenix bird, one-eyed Cyclops; fairies, goblins, dwarves; instantaneous travel, and so on. The Chimera , for example, is defined as : "a fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail."

The Second Era:-- Inevitably the key country is Britain. Since sensibility (of a whole Culture) changes fairly slowly it is natural that the transition point for Fantasy is later than the transition point for the Mode of Production -- in this case by about a hundred years: around 1850 AD. And to get a decisive contrast one should have a big jump: comparing, say, Britain in 1800 with Britain in 1900.

According to the demographers, in 1800 AD about 4/5 of the people of England and Wales lived in small centres of population -- villages or small towns. They knew where their food came from: most of it locally. And News -- part of the food of the Mind -- was also mostly local, and purveyed by word of mouth, by gossip. In 1900 AD the ratios were reversed: 4/5 of the people lived in large towns. People were not in touch with the countryside: much of their food was grown in regions remote from where they lived, and came from shops via a national distribution system; likewise for News, much of which came from National Newspapers.

Throughout the Agricultural Era the great majority of the People were in touch with all the main elements of Reality. I'll give one example: Shakespeare. Meticulous examination of his plays shows that he retained, all his life, an accurate knowledge of the Midlands countryside: wildflowers, seasonal variations, etc. And this, even though he spent most of his adult life in London. Good scholarship this, but not necessary for a reader of poetic sensibility; who would intuit this anyway, by reading the lyrics interspersed throughout the Plays.

Three hundred years later, by 1900 AD, things were different. Life was becoming more abstract: much of it was lived secondhand, at one remove.
A major value of a genius, in imaginative literature, is to articulate and explicate, in his writings, the main drift of the life of his times. The playwright, J. M. Barrie, did just this. Especially in his extraordinary play Peter Pan, he brings out the implications, and the tensions, of our contemporary Era of Fantasy. There is a recent study of Barrie, by Lisa Chaney. I'll quote extensively from it.

By 1904 [the date of first showing of Peter Pan] Britain had become an industrial society whose underlying doctrine -- in practices and beliefs -- was that empirical science was the only valid way of thinking. Other modes of knowing and being were by now frowned upon. They were either, like Myth, often seen at best as primitive, at worst false; or, like play, merely trivial and to be outgrown and discarded as soon as possible...

As a counterpart to the steady rise of empirical science throughout the Victorian period, there was a corresponding decline in self-confidence about playing. In 1831 R. S. Surtees published the first of the Jorrocks adventures. Jorrocks, that robust, down-to-earth cockney grocer, was devoted to hunting, fishing and shooting, and any other pastime that came his way. Surtees takes for granted the universal and self-justifying attraction and value of playfulness and active play, as much for adults as for children. Over the last one hundred and fifty years an unmistakeable trend is clear: at first everyone played, then it was mostly children, now even many children seldom play, with the hours busily occupied in front of a screen...

The growth of a magnificent body of children's literature in Britain had its negative side: a tendency, as time passed, to put up barriers and build walls between a prosaic, disciplined life for adults and a playful life for children.
At the time when the factory system and urbanisation were developing steadily in Britain, many of the world's games were being formalised [also in Britain]: association football, rugby football, tennis, golf, the Queensberry Rules for boxing. Although this was remarkable and must have done much to make the constraints of industrialism more acceptable, these were largely spectator sports, overlapping with, but not quite the same as, play. The increasingly large number of spectators had become passive; they themselves were not playing.

Lisa Chaney discusses Peter Pan by concentrating on the variety of attitudes to Time of the different characters. Finally she arrives at Peter himself.

In the second world, the Never Land ... the Island of Lost Boys, the ruling principle is the complete denial and near obliteration of time ... Peter Pan, whose home is in the Never Land, has only a minimal capacity for memory. There is neither any real past nor any real future; there is only an eternal present. And as one who denies time, Peter is ultimately shallow. His passions are intense, but evanescent; he has no emotional endurance ...

With his novels about Tommy Sandys ... [Barrie] had not quite arrived at the heart of the matter... With Peter Pan [there is a] profound difference between Barrie and the other great writers for children. All of them -- Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Kenneth Grahame, Beatrix Potter, Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl -- no matter how subversive or anarchic their worlds, wrote stories that include the idea of negotiating with and becoming adult. By implication these authors are saying: 'How can we make the best of the world as it is?' But in Peter Pan it is unavoidably clear that at the deepest level Barrie's little hero refuses to grow up ... Barrie, for whom time ... was an obsession, is saying to us:
I wish that the universe were radically different, since the world as it is is not just tragic, it is for me an impossibility. To be completely human -- with its full range of both practical and imaginative potentialities -- and to grow up; these are in a sense contradictories. By growing up, by co-operating in social order, living, one has to curtail the imagination; by doing this one is obliged to give up so much that one becomes an unacceptably diminished person.

[Lisa Chaney: A Life of J. M. Barrie; Chapter 15].

Quite often Life imitates Art. Hamlet was written in 1600 AD. During the next three hundred years many, many thousands of intellectual young men modelled their lives on that unhappy Prince of Denmark.
Likewise, since the onset of mass affluence in the 1960s there have been, mostly in the Anglosphere, several million Peter Pans. Because of the enormous power of the apparatus of modern production it is possible for Society to carry them as passengers. They are permitted, even encouraged, never to grow up. Their world is one of near total Fantasy, underwritten by psychotropic drugs for the body, ceaseless pop music for the emotions, and electronically projected visual drugs for the mind. This is the only world they know.