8IS PROGRESS POSSIBLE?WILLING SLAVES OF THE WELFARE STATE[From the French Revolution to the outbreak of the First World
8
IS PROGRESS POSSIBLE?
WILLING SLAVES OF THE WELFARE STATE
PROGRESS MEANS MOVEMENT IN A DESIRED DIRECTION, AND we do not all desire the same things for our species. In 'Possible Worlds"
Having removed what I think a red herring, I return to the real question. Are people becoming, or likely to become, better or happier? Obviously this allows only the most conjectural answer. Most individual experience (and there is no other kind) never gets into the news, let alone the history books; one has an imperfect grasp even of one's own. We are reduced to generalities. Even among these it is hard to strike a balance. Sir Charles enumerates many real ameliorations. Against these we must set Hiroshima, Black and Tans, Gestapo, Ogpu, brain-washing, the Russian slave camps. Perhaps we grow kinder to children; but then we grow less kind to the old. Any G.P.2
will tell you that even prosperous people refuse to look after their parents. `Can't they be got into some sort of Home?' says Goneril.3
Thirdly, I do not like the pretensions of Government - the grounds on which it demands my obedience - to be pitched too high. I don't like the medicine-man's magical pretensions nor the Bourbon's Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet's Politique.4