So were the war propagandists: there was not a bestial quality in
human nature they did not find everywhere east of the Rhine, or west
of it if they were Germans. The bestiality was there all right. But
after the victory, eternal peace. Plenty of this is quite cynically
deliberate. For the skilful propagandist knows that while you must
start with a plausible analysis, you must not keep on analyzing,
because the tedium of real political accomplishment will soon destroy
interest. So the propagandist exhausts the interest in reality by a
tolerably plausible beginning, and then stokes up energy for a long
voyage by brandishing a passport to heaven.
The formula works when the public fiction enmeshes itself with a
private urgency. But once enmeshed, in the heat of battle, the
original self and the original stereotype which effected the junction
may be wholly lost to sight.
CHAPTER XII
SELF-INTEREST RECONSIDERED
1
THEREFORE, the identical story is not the same story to all who hear
it. Each will enter it at a slightly different point, since no two
experiences are exactly alike; he will reenact it in his own way, and
transfuse it with his own feelings. Sometimes an artist of compelling
skill will force us to enter into lives altogether unlike our own,
lives that seem at first glance dull, repulsive, or eccentric. But
that is rare. In almost every story that catches our attention we
become a character and act out the role with a pantomime of our own.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183