The Appetite of Tyranny

The Refusal of Reciprocity

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In the last summary I suggested that Barbarism, as we mean it, is not mere

ignorance or even mere cruelty. It has a more precise sense, and means

militant hostility to certain necessary human ideas. I took the case of the

vow or the contract, which Prussian intellectualism would destroy. I urged

that the Prussian is a spiritual Barbarian, because he is not bound by his

own past, any more than a man in a dream. He avows that when he promised to

respect a frontier on Monday, he did not foresee what he calls "the

necessity" of not respecting it on Tuesday. In short, he is like a child,

who at the end of all reasonable explanations and reminders of admitted

arrangements, has no answer except "But I _want_ to."

There is another idea in human arrangements so fundamental as to be

forgotten; but now for the first time denied. It may be called the idea of

reciprocity; or, in better English, of give and take. The Prussian appears

to be quite intellectually incapable of this thought. He cannot, I think,

conceive the idea that is the foundation of all comedy; that, in the eyes

of the other man, he is only the other man. And if we carry this clue

through the institutions of Prussianised Germany, we shall find how

curiously his mind has been limited in the matter. The German differs from

other patriots in the inability to understand patriotism. Other European

peoples pity the Poles or the Welsh for their violated borders; but Germans

pity only themselves. They might take forcible possession of the Severn or

the Danube, of the Thames or the Tiber, of the Garry or the Garonne--and

they would still be singing sadly about how fast and true stands the watch

on Rhine; and what a shame it would be if any one took their own little

river away from them. That is what I mean by not being reciprocal: and you

will find it in all that they do: as in all that is done by savages.

Here, again, it is very necessary to avoid confusing this soul of the

savage with mere savagery in the sense of brutality or butchery; in which

the Greeks, the French and all the most civilised nations have indulged in

hours of abnormal panic or revenge. Accusations of cruelty are generally

mutual. But it is the point about the Prussian that with him nothing is

mutual. The definition of the true savage does not concern itself even with

how much more he hurts strangers or captives than do the other tribes of

men. The definition of the true savage is that he laughs when he hurts you;

and howls when you hurt him. This extraordinary inequality in the mind is

in every act and word that comes from Berlin. For instance, no man of the

world believes all he sees in the newspapers; and no journalist believes a

quarter of it. We should, therefore, be quite ready in the ordinary way to

take a great deal off the tales of German atrocities; to doubt this story

or deny that. But there is one thing that we cannot doubt or deny: the seal

and authority of the Emperor. In the Imperial proclamation the fact that

certain "frightful" things have been done is admitted; and justified on the

ground of their frightfulness. It was a military necessity to terrify the

peaceful populations with something that was not civilised, something that

was hardly human. Very well. That is an intelligible policy: and in that

sense an intelligible argument. An army endangered by foreigners may do the

most frightful things. But then we turn the next page of the Kaiser's

public diary, and we find him writing to the President of the United

States, to complain that the English are using Dum-dum bullets and

violating various regulations of the Hague Conference. I pass for the

present the question of whether there is a word of truth in these charges.

I am content to gaze rapturously at the blinking eyes of the True, or

Positive, Barbarian. I suppose he would be quite puzzled if we said that

violating the Hague Conference was "a military necessity" to us; or that

the rules of the Conference were only a scrap of paper. He would be quite

pained if we said that Dum-dum bullets, "by their very frightfulness,"

would be very useful to keep conquered Germans in order. Do what he will,

he cannot get outside the idea that he, because he is he and not you, is

free to break the law; and also to appeal to the law. It is said that the

Prussian officers play at a game called Kriegsspiel, or the War Game. But

in truth they could not play at any game; for the essence of every game is

that the rules are the same on both sides.

But taking every German institution in turn, the case is the same; and it

is not a case of mere bloodshed or military bravado. The duel, for

example, can legitimately be called a barbaric thing; but the word is here

used in another sense. There are duels in Germany; but so there are in

France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain; indeed, there are duels wherever there

are dentists, newspapers, Turkish baths, time-tables, and all the curses of

civilisation; except in England and a corner of America. You may happen to

regard the duel as a historic relic of the more barbaric States on which

these modern States were built. It might equally well be maintained that

the duel is everywhere the sign of high civilisation; being the sign of its

more delicate sense of honour, its more vulnerable vanity, or its greater

dread of social disrepute. But whichever of the two views you take, you

must concede that the essence of the duel is an armed equality. I should

not, therefore, apply the word barbaric, as I am using it, to the duels of

German officers, or even to the broadsword combats that are conventional

among the German students. I do not see why a young Prussian should not

have scars all over his face if he likes them; nay, they are often the

redeeming points of interest on an otherwise somewhat unenlightening

countenance. The duel may be defended; the sham duel may be defended.

What cannot be defended is something really peculiar to Prussia, of which

we hear numberless stories, some of them certainly true. It might be called

the one-sided duel. I mean the idea that there is some sort of dignity in

drawing the sword upon a man who has not got a sword; a waiter, or a shop

assistant, or even a schoolboy. One of the officers of the Kaiser in the

affair at Saberne was found industriously hacking at a cripple. In all

these matters I would avoid sentiment. We must not lose our tempers at the

mere cruelty of the thing; but pursue the strict psychological distinction.

Others besides German soldiers have slain the defenceless, for loot or lust

or private malice, like any other murderer. The point is that nowhere else

but in Prussian Germany is any theory of honour mixed up with such things;

any more than with poisoning or picking pockets. No French, English,

Italian or American gentleman would think he had in some way cleared his

own character by sticking his sabre through some ridiculous greengrocer who

had nothing in his hand but a cucumber. It would seem as if the word which

is translated from the German as "honour" must really mean something quite

different in German. It seems to mean something more like what we should

call "prestige."

The fundamental fact, however, is the absence of the reciprocal idea. The

Prussian is not sufficiently civilised for the duel. Even when he crosses

swords with us his thoughts are not as our thoughts; when we both glorify

war, we are glorifying different things. Our medals are wrought like his,

but they do not mean the same thing; our regiments are cheered as his are,

but the thought in the heart is not the same; the Iron Cross is on the

bosom of his king, but it is not the sign of our God. For we, alas, follow

our God with many relapses and self-contradictions, but he follows his very

consistently. Through all the things that we have examined, the view of

national boundaries, the view of military methods, the view of personal

honour and self-defence, there runs in their case something of an atrocious

simplicity; something too simple for us to understand: the idea that glory

consists in holding the steel, and not in facing it.

If further examples were necessary, it would be easy to give hundreds of

them. Let us leave, for the moment, the relation between man and man in

the thing called the duel. Let us take the relation between man and woman,

in that immortal duel which we call a marriage. Here again we shall find

that other Christian civilisations aim at some kind of equality; even if

the balance be irrational or dangerous. Thus, the two extremes of the

treatment of women might be represented by what are called the respectable

classes in America and in France. In America they choose the risk of

comradeship; in France the compensation of courtesy. In America it is

practically possible for any young gentleman to take any young lady for

what he calls (I deeply regret to say) a joy-ride; but at least the man

goes with the woman as much as the woman with the man. In France the young

woman is protected like a nun while she is unmarried; but when she is a

mother she is really a holy woman; and when she is a grandmother she is a

holy terror. By both extremes the woman gets something back out of life.

There is only one place where she gets little or nothing back; and that is

the north of Germany. France and America aim alike at equality; America by

similarity; France by dissimilarity. But North Germany does definitely

aim at inequality. The woman stands up, with no more irritation than a

butler; the man sits down, with no more embarrassment than a guest. This is

the cool affirmation of inferiority, as in the case of the sabre and the

tradesman. "Thou goest with women; forget not thy whip," said Nietzsche. It

will be observed that he does not say "poker"; which might come more

naturally to the mind of a more common or Christian wife-beater. But then a

poker is a part of domesticity; and might be used by the wife as well as

the husband. In fact, it often is. The sword and the whip are the weapons

of a privileged caste.

Pass from the closest of all differences, that between husband and wife, to

the most distant of all differences, that of the remote and unrelated races

who have seldom seen each other's faces, and never been tinged with each

other's blood. Here we still find the same unvarying Prussian principle.

Any European might feel a genuine fear of the Yellow Peril; and many

Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Russians have felt and expressed it. Many might

say, and have said, that the Heathen Chinee is very heathen indeed; that if

he ever advances against us he will trample and torture and utterly

destroy, in a way that Eastern people do, but Western people do not. Nor do

I doubt the German Emperor's sincerity when he sought to point out to us

how abnormal and abominable such a nightmare campaign would be, supposing

that it could ever come. But now comes the comic irony; which never fails

to follow on the attempt of the Prussian to be philosophic. For the Kaiser,

after explaining to his troops how important it was to avoid Eastern

Barbarism, instantly commanded them to become Eastern Barbarians. He told

them, in so many words, to be Huns: and leave nothing living or standing

behind them. In fact, he frankly offered a new army corps of aboriginal

Tartars to the Far East, within such time as it may take a bewildered

Hanoverian to turn into a Tartar. Any one who has the painful habit of

personal thought, will perceive here at once the non-reciprocal principle

again. Boiled down to its bones of logic, it means simply this: "I am a

German and you are a c******n. Therefore I, being a German, have a right

to be a c******n. But you have no right to be a c******n; because you are

only a Chinaman." This is probably the highest point to which the German

culture has risen.

The principle here neglected, which may be called Mutuality by those who

misunderstand and dislike the word Equality, does not offer so clear a

distinction between the Prussian and the other peoples as did the first

Prussian principle of an infinite and destructive opportunism; or, in other

words, the principle of being unprincipled. Nor upon this second can one

take up so obvious a position touching the other civilisations or

semi-civilisations of the world. Some idea of oath and bond there is in the

rudest tribes, in the darkest continents. But it might be maintained, of

the more delicate and imaginative element of reciprocity, that a cannibal

in Borneo understands it almost as little as a professor in Berlin. A

narrow and one-sided seriousness is the fault of barbarians all over the

world. This may have been the meaning, for aught I know, of the one eye of

the Cyclops: that the Barbarian cannot see round things or look at them

from two points of view; and thus becomes a blind beast and an eater of

men. Certainly there can be no better summary of the savage than this,

which as we have seen, unfits him for the duel. He is the man who cannot

love--no, nor even hate--his neighbour as himself.

But this quality in Prussia does have one effect which has reference to the

same question of the lower civilisations. It disposes once and for all at

least of the civilising mission of Germany. Evidently the Germans are the

last people in the world to be trusted with the task. They are as

shortsighted morally as physically. What is their sophism of "necessity"

but an inability to imagine to-morrow morning? What is their

non-reciprocity but an inability to imagine, not a god or devil,

but merely another man? Are these to judge mankind? Men of two tribes

in Africa not only know that they are all men, but can understand

that they are all black men. In this they are quite seriously in

advance of the intellectual Prussian; who cannot be got to see

that we are all white men. The ordinary eye is unable to perceive

in the North-East Teuton anything that marks him out especially

from the more colourless classes of the rest of Aryan mankind. He is simply

a white man, with a tendency to the grey or the drab. Yet he will explain,

in serious official documents, that the difference between him and us is a

difference between "the master-race and the inferior-race." The collapse of

German philosophy always occurs at the beginning rather than the end of an

argument; and the difficulty here is that there is no way of testing which

is a master-race except by asking which is your own race. If you cannot

find out (as is usually the case) you fall back on the absurd occupation of

writing history about pre-historic times. But I suggest quite seriously

that if the Germans can give their philosophy to the Hottentots, there is

no reason why they should not give their sense of superiority to the

Hottentots. If they can see such fine shades between the Goth and the

Gaul, there is no reason why similar shades should not lift the savage

above other savages; why any Ojibway should not discover that he is one

tint redder than the Dacotahs; or any n****r in the Cameroons say he is not

so black as he is painted. For this principle of a quite unproved racial

supremacy is the last and worst of the refusals of reciprocity. The

Prussian calls all men to admire the beauty of his large blue eyes. If they

do, it is because they have inferior eyes: if they don't, it is because

they have no eyes.

Wherever the most miserable remnant of our race, astray and dried up in

deserts, or buried forever under the fall of bad civilisations, has some

feeble memory that men are men, that bargains are bargains, that there are

two sides to a question, or even that it takes two to make a quarrel--that

remnant has the right to resist the New Culture, to the knife and club and

the splintered stone. For the Prussian begins all his culture by that act

which is the destruction of all creative thought and constructive action.

He breaks that mirror in the mind, in which a man can see the face of his

friend or foe.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.