And these in the end depend upon those
inclusive patterns which constitute our philosophy of life. If in that
philosophy we assume that the world is codified according to a code
which we possess, we are likely to make our reports of what is going
on describe a world run by our code. But if our philosophy tells us
that each man is only a small part of the world, that his intelligence
catches at best only phases and aspects in a coarse net of ideas,
then, when we use our stereotypes, we tend to know that they are only
stereotypes, to hold them lightly, to modify them gladly. We tend,
also, to realize more and more clearly when our ideas started, where
they started, how they came to us, why we accepted them. All useful
history is antiseptic in this fashion. It enables us to know what
fairy tale, what school book, what tradition, what novel, play,
picture, phrase, planted one preconception in this mind, another in
that mind.
4
Those who wish to censor art do not at least underestimate this
influence. They generally misunderstand it, and almost always they are
absurdly bent on preventing other people from discovering anything not
sanctioned by them. But at any rate, like Plato in his argument about
the poets, they feel vaguely that the types acquired through fiction
tend to be imposed on reality. Thus there can be little doubt that the
moving picture is steadily building up imagery which is then evoked by
the words people read in their newspapers.
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