The heart craves for new activity. For new _collective_ activity. That is, for a new polarized connection with other beings, other men.
Is this new craving for polarized communion with others, this craving for a new unison, is it s.e.xual, like the original craving for the woman? Not at all. The whole polarity is different. Now, the positive poles are the poles of the breast and shoulders and throat, the poles of activity and full consciousness. Men, being themselves made new after the act of coition, wish to make the world new. A new, pa.s.sionate polarity springs up between men who are bent on the same activity, the polarity between man and woman sinks to pa.s.sivity. It is now daytime, and time to forget s.e.x, time to be busy making a new world.
Is this new polarity, this new circuit of pa.s.sion between comrades and co-workers, is this also s.e.xual? It is a vivid circuit of polarized pa.s.sion. Is it hence s.e.x?
It is not. Because what are the poles of positive connection?--the upper, busy poles. What is the dynamic contact?--a unison in spirit, in understanding, and a pure commingling in one great _work_. A mingling of the individual pa.s.sion into one great _purpose_. Now this is also a grand consummation for men, this mingling of many with one great impa.s.sioned purpose. But is this s.e.x? Knowing what s.e.x is, can we call this other also s.e.x? We cannot.
This meeting of many in one great pa.s.sionate purpose is not s.e.x, and should never be confused with s.e.x. It is a great motion in the opposite direction. And I am sure that the ultimate, greatest desire in men is this desire for great _purposive_ activity. When man loses his deep sense of purposive, creative activity, he feels lost, and is lost. When he makes the s.e.xual consummation the supreme consummation, even in his _secret_ soul, he falls into the beginnings of despair.
When he makes woman, or the woman and child the great center of life and of life-significance, he falls into the beginnings of despair.
Man must bravely stand by his own soul, his own responsibility as the creative vanguard of life. And he must also have the courage to go home to his woman and become a perfect answer to her deep s.e.xual call.
But he must never confuse his two issues. Primarily and supremely man is _always_ the pioneer of life, adventuring onward into the unknown, alone with his own temerarious, dauntless soul. Woman for him exists only in the twilight, by the camp fire, when day has departed. Evening and the night are hers.
The psychoa.n.a.lysts, driving us back to the s.e.xual consummation always, do us infinite damage.
We have to break away, back to the great unison of manhood in some pa.s.sionate _purpose_. Now this is not like s.e.x. s.e.x is always individual. A man has his own s.e.x: n.o.body else"s. And s.e.xually he goes as a single individual; he can mingle only singly. So that to make s.e.x a general affair is just a perversion and a lie. You can"t get people and talk to them about their s.e.x, as if it were a common interest.
We have got to get back to the great purpose of manhood, a pa.s.sionate unison in actively making a world. This is a real commingling of many.
And in such a commingling we forfeit the individual. In the commingling of s.e.x we are alone with _one_ partner. It is an individual affair, there is no superior or inferior. But in the commingling of a pa.s.sionate purpose, each individual sacredly abandons his individual. In the living faith of his soul, he surrenders his individuality to the great urge which is upon him. He may have to surrender his name, his fame, his fortune, his life, everything. But once a man, in the integrity of his own individual soul, _believes_, he surrenders his own individuality to his belief, and becomes one of a united body. He knows what he does. He makes the surrender honorably, in agreement with his own soul"s deepest desire. But he surrenders, and remains responsible for the purity of his surrender.
But what if he believes that his s.e.xual consummation is his supreme consummation? Then he serves the great purpose to which he pledges himself only as long as it pleases him. After which he turns it down, and goes back to s.e.x. With s.e.x as the one accepted prime motive, the world drifts into despair and anarchy.
Of all countries, America has most to fear from anarchy, even from one single moment"s lapse into anarchy. The old nations are _organically_ fixed into cla.s.ses, but America not. You can shake Europe to atoms.
And yet peasants fall back to peasantry, artisans to industrial labor, upper cla.s.ses to their control--inevitably. But can you say the same of America?
America must not lapse for one single moment into anarchy. It would be the end of her. She must drift no nearer to anarchy. She is near enough.
Well, then, Americans must make a choice. It is a choice between belief in man"s creative, spontaneous soul, and man"s automatic power of production and reproduction. It is a choice between serving _man_, or woman. It is a choice between yielding the soul to a leader, leaders, or yielding only to the woman, wife, mistress, or mother.
The great collective pa.s.sion of belief which brings men together, comrades and co-workers, pa.s.sionately obeying their soul-chosen leader or leaders, this is not a s.e.x pa.s.sion. Not in any sense. s.e.x holds any _two_ people together, but it tends to disintegrate society, unless it is subordinated to the great dominating male pa.s.sion of collective _purpose_.
But when the s.e.x pa.s.sion submits to the great purposive pa.s.sion, then you have fulness. And no great purposive pa.s.sion can endure long unless it is established upon the fulfillment in the vast majority of individuals of the true s.e.xual pa.s.sion. No great motive or ideal or social principle can endure for any length of time unless based upon the s.e.xual fulfillment of the vast majority of individuals concerned.
It cuts both ways. a.s.sert s.e.x as the predominant fulfillment, and you get the collapse of living purpose in man. You get anarchy. a.s.sert _purposiveness_ as the one supreme and pure activity of life, and you drift into barren sterility, like our business life of to-day, and our political life. You become sterile, you make anarchy inevitable. And so there you are. You have got to base your great purposive activity upon the intense s.e.xual fulfillment of all your individuals. That was how Egypt endured. But you have got to keep your s.e.xual fulfillment even then subordinate, just subordinate to the great pa.s.sion of purpose: subordinate by a hair"s breadth only: but still, by that hair"s breadth, subordinate.
Perhaps we can see now a little better--to go back to the child--where Freud is wrong in attributing a s.e.xual motive to all human activity.
It is obvious there is no real s.e.xual motive in a child, for example.
The great s.e.xual centers are not even awake. True, even in a child of three, rudimentary s.e.x throws strange shadows on the wall, in its approach from the distance. But these are only an uneasy intrusion from the as-yet-uncreated, unready biological centers. The great s.e.xual centers of the hypogastric plexus, and the immensely powerful sacral ganglion are slowly prepared, developed in a kind of prenatal gestation during childhood before p.u.b.erty. But even an unborn child kicks in the womb. So do the great s.e.x-centers give occasional blind kicks in a child. It is part of the phenomenon of childhood. But we must be most careful not to charge these rather unpleasant apparitions or phenomena against the individual boy or girl. We must be _very_ careful not to drag the matter into mental consciousness. Shoo it away. Reprimand it with a pah! and a faugh! and a bit of contempt. But do not get into any heat or any fear. Do not startle a pa.s.sional attention. Drive the whole thing away like the shadow it is, and be _very_ careful not to drive it into the consciousness. Be very careful to plant no seed of burning shame or horror. Throw over it merely the cold water of contemptuous indifference, dismissal.
After p.u.b.erty, a child may as well be told the simple and necessary facts of s.e.x. As things stand, the parent may as well do it. But briefly, coldly, and with as cold a dismissal as possible.--"Look here, you"re not a child any more; you know it, don"t you? You"re going to be a man. And you know what that means. It means you"re going to marry a woman later on, and get children. You know it, and I know it. But in the meantime, leave yourself alone. I know you"ll have a lot of bother with yourself, and your feelings. I know what is happening to you. And I know you get excited about it. But you needn"t. Other men have all gone through it. So don"t you go creeping off by yourself and doing things on the sly. It won"t do you any good.--I know what you"ll do, because we"ve all been through it. I know the thing will keep coming on you at night. But remember that I know. Remember. And remember that I want you to leave yourself alone.
I know what it is, I tell you. I"ve been through it all myself. You"ve got to go through these years, before you find a woman you want to marry, and whom you can marry. I went through them myself, and got myself worked up a good deal more than was good for me.--Try to contain yourself. Always try to contain yourself, and be a man. That"s the only thing. Always try and be manly, and quiet in yourself.
Remember I know what it is. I"ve been the same, in the same state that you are in. And probably I"ve behaved more foolishly and perniciously than ever you will. So come to me if anything _really_ bothers you.
And don"t feel sly and secret. I do know just what you"ve got and what you haven"t. I"ve been as bad and perhaps worse than you. And the only thing I want of you is to be manly. Try and be manly, and quiet in yourself."
That is about as much as a father can say to a boy, at p.u.b.erty. You have to be _very_ careful what you do: especially if you are a parent.
To translate s.e.x into mental ideas is vile, to make a scientific fact of it is death.
As a matter of fact there should be some sort of initiation into true adult consciousness. Boys should be taken away from their mothers and sisters as much as possible at adolescence. They should be given into some real manly charge. And there should be some actual initiation into s.e.x life. Perhaps like the savages, who make the boy die again, symbolically, and pull him forth through some narrow aperture, to be born again, and make him suffer and endure terrible hardships, to make a great dynamic effect on the consciousness, a terrible dynamic sense of change in the very being. In short, a long, violent initiation, from which the lad emerges emaciated, but cut off forever from childhood, entered into the serious, responsible pale of manhood. And with his whole consciousness convulsed by a great change, as his dynamic psyche actually is convulsed.--And something in the same way, to initiate girls into womanhood.
There should be the intense dynamic reaction: the physical suffering and the physical realization sinking deep into the soul, changing the soul for ever. s.e.x should come upon us as a terrible thing of suffering and privilege and mystery: a mysterious metamorphosis come upon us, and a new terrible power given us, and a new responsibility.
Telling?--What"s the good of telling?--The mystery, the terror, and the tremendous power of s.e.x should never be explained away. The ma.s.s of mankind should _never_ be acquainted with the scientific biological facts of s.e.x: _never_. The mystery must remain in its dark secrecy, and its dark, powerful dynamism. The reality of s.e.x lies in the great dynamic convulsions in the soul. And as such it should be realized, a great creative-convulsive seizure upon the soul.--To make it a matter of test-tube mixtures, chemical demonstrations and trashy lock-and-key symbols is just blasting. Even more sickening is the line: "You see, dear, one day you"ll love a man as I love Daddy, more than anything else in the _whole_ world. And then, dear, I hope you"ll marry him.
Because if you do you"ll be happy, and I want you to be happy, my love. And so I hope you"ll marry the man you really love (kisses the child).--And then, darling, there will come a lot of things you know nothing about now. You"ll want to have a dear little baby, won"t you, darling? Your own dear little baby. And your husband"s as well.
Because it"ll be his, too. You know that, don"t you, dear? It will be born from both of you. And you don"t know how, do you? Well, it will come from right inside you, dear, out of your own inside. You came out of mother"s inside, etc., etc."
But I suppose there"s really nothing else to be done, given the world and society as we"ve got them now. The mother is doing her best.
But it is all wrong. It is wrong to make s.e.x appear as if it were part of the dear-darling-love smarm: the spiritual love. It is even worse to take the scientific test-tube line. It all kills the great effective dynamism of life, and subst.i.tutes the mere ash of mental ideas and tricks.
The scientific fact of s.e.x is no more s.e.x than a skeleton is a man.
Yet you"d think twice before you stock a skeleton in front of a lad and said, "You see, my boy, this is what you are when you come to know yourself."--And the ideal, lovey-dovey "explanation" of s.e.x as something wonderful and extra lovey-dovey, a bill-and-coo process of obtaining a sweet little baby--or else "G.o.d made us so that we must do this, to bring another dear little baby to life"--well, it just makes one sick. It is disastrous to the deep s.e.xual life. But perhaps that is what we want.
When humanity comes to its senses it will realize what a fearful Sodom apple our understanding is. What terrible mouths and stomachs full of bitter ash we"ve all got. And then we shall take away "knowledge" and "understanding," and lock them up along with the rest of poisons, to be administered in small doses only by competent people.
We have almost poisoned the ma.s.s of humanity to death with _understanding_. The period of actual death and race-extermination is not far off. We could have produced the same barrenness and frenzy of nothingness in people, perhaps, by dinning it into them that every man is just a charnel-house skeleton of unclean bones. Our "understanding,"
our science and idealism have produced in people the same strange frenzy of self-repulsion as if they saw their own skulls each time they looked in the mirror. A man is a thing of scientific cause-and-effect and biological process, draped in an ideal, is he? No wonder he sees the skeleton grinning through the flesh.
Our leaders have not loved men: they have loved ideas, and have been willing to sacrifice pa.s.sionate men on the altars of the blood-drinking, ever-ash-thirsty ideal. Has President Wilson, or Karl Marx, or Bernard Shaw ever felt one hot blood-pulse of love for the working man, the half-conscious, deluded working man? Never. Each of these leaders has wanted to abstract him away from his own blood and being, into some foul Methuselah or abstraction of a man.
And me? There is no danger of the working man ever reading my books, so I shan"t hurt him that way. But oh, I would like to save him alive, in his living, spontaneous, original being. I can"t help it. It is my pa.s.sionate instinct.
I would like him to give me back the responsibility for general affairs, a responsibility which he can"t acquit, and which saps his life. I would like him to give me back the responsibility for the future. I would like him to give me back the responsibility for thought, for direction. I wish we could take hope and belief together.
I would undertake my share of the responsibility, if he gave me his belief.
I would like him to give me back books and newspapers and theories.
And I would like to give him back, in return, his old insouciance, and rich, original spontaneity and fullness of life.
CHAPTER X
PARENT LOVE
In the serious hour of p.u.b.erty, the individual pa.s.ses into his second phase of accomplishment. But there cannot be a perfect transition unless all the activity is in full play in all the first four poles of the psyche. Childhood is a chrysalis from which each must extricate himself. And the struggling youth or maid cannot emerge unless by the energy of all powers; he can never emerge if the whole ma.s.s of the world and the tradition of love hold him back.
Now we come to the greater peril of our particular form of idealism.
It is the idealism of love and of the spirit: the idealism of yearning, outgoing love, of pure sympathetic communion and "understanding." And this idealism recognizes as the highest earthly love, the love of mother and child.
And what does this mean? It means, for every delicately brought up child, indeed for all the children who matter, a steady and persistent pressure upon the upper sympathetic centers, and a steady and persistent starving of the lower centers, particularly the great voluntary center of the lower body. The center of sensual, manly independence, of exultation in the st.u.r.dy, defiant self, willfulness and masterfulness and pride, this center is steadily suppressed. The warm, swift, sensual self is steadily and persistently denied, damped, weakened, throughout all the period of childhood. And by sensual we do not mean greedy or ugly, we mean the deeper, more impulsive reckless nature. Life must be always refined and superior. Love and happiness must be the watchword. The willful, critical element of the spiritual mode is never absent, the silent, if forbearing disapproval and distaste is always ready. Vile bullying forbearance.
With what result? The center of upper sympathy is abnormally, inflamedly excited; and the centers of will are so deranged that they operate in jerks and spasms. The true polarity of the sympathetic-voluntary system within the child is so disturbed as to be almost deranged. Then we have an exaggerated sensitiveness alternating with a sort of helpless fury: and we have delicate frail children with nerves or with strange whims.
And we have the strange cold obstinacy of the spiritual will, cold as h.e.l.l, fixed in a child.
Then one parent, usually the mother, is the object of blind devotion, whilst the other parent, usually the father, is an object of resistance. The child is taught, however, that both parents should be loved, and only loved: and that love, gentleness, pity, charity, and all "higher" emotions, these alone are genuine feelings, all the rest are false, to be rejected.
With what result? The upper centers are developed to a degree of unnatural acuteness and reaction--or again they fall numbed and barren. And then between parents and children a painfully false relation grows up: a relation as of two adults, either of two pure lovers, or of two love-appearing people who are really trying to bully one another. Instead of leaving the child with its own limited but deep and incomprehensible feelings, the parent, hopelessly involved in the sympathetic mode of selfless love, and spiritual love-will, stimulates the child into a consciousness which does not belong to it, on the one plane, and robs it of its own spontaneous consciousness and freedom on the other plane.
And this is the fatality. Long before p.u.b.erty, by an exaggeration and an intensity of spiritual love from the parents, the second centers of sympathy are artificially aroused into response. And there is an irreparable disaster. Instead of seeing as a child should see, through a gla.s.s, darkly, the child now opens premature eyes of sympathetic cognition. Instead of knowing in part, as it should know, it begins, at a fearfully small age, to know in full. The cervical plexuses and the cervical ganglia, which should only begin to awake after adolescence, these centers of the higher dynamic sympathy and cognition, are both artificially stimulated, by the adult personal love-emotion and love-will into response, in a quite young child, sometimes even in an infant. This is a holy obscenity.