Page:The Minority of One, April 1960.pdf/4

By Jeanne S. Bagby

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind: And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." -John Donne

One of the most troublesome aspects of our vast, unwieldly governments today is the increasing distance which the private individual feels between himself and the inscrutable bureaucracy which supposedly represents his best interests, through the majority view. Of course, democracy is notable in that although it does impose a majority programme, it still tolerates minorities, and actually depends upon them for its vitality. Yet, so removed have individuals become from prime fields of action that any kind of real interchange, dialogue or other human relationship has become increasingly impossible. We all recognize the uselessness of writing to the President about anything, though we may still indulge in the activity for its symbolical value; and even from our legislative representatives we seldom receive more than a stereotyped reply, if we do not represent some vast lobby or vested interest. There is no longer any channel in which the man-to-man actuality of give-and-take envisioned in America's early days can be supported. The cracker-barrel is almost extinct. We have been reduced to numerals on a voting machine, ciphers at the Census Bureau and precious digits enfolded in the mighty arms of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Yet this is but an inevitable dilemma of the Mass. The laws of physics uphold statistical measurement for atoms and humans alike, notwithstanding the absolute unpredictability of any given atom or human. Only thus can the huge machinery of government retain an ascendancy of order against the constant encroachings of chaos. Is it any wonder that most citizens accept cipher-status as a necessary evil, or at the mass level-as a refuge against the complexities of modern existence? In compensation, we manifest a supremely egotistical personalism - a tiny grasshopper chorus of shrill protest from those still capable of expression. In the arts, we observe a continual (and despairing) emphasis upon the value of the individual, whether as content or as part of the artist's exclusive obscurity of technique. Philosophers continue to vituperate from their quadrangles. In other fields, we find the cult of the Personality blossoming in astonishing variety. But most of the negativism of this rather desperate resistance to cipherism can well be excused or tolerated if we remember that it reflects a sincerely human aspiration toward commitment: a mature involvement with the real issues of life which is greatly frustrated by the Mass Machine.

For truly, most people who ripen past the point of childish self-interest do earnestly wish to play as active and responsible a part in life, on all its levels, as possible. What to do when the potential for individual initiative and cooperation is severely limited? Many great talents are doubtless buried in business, since our capitalist system still offers a variety of outlets for such expression. But it is all too frequent that the challenge of business, with its unceasing pressure of competition, fails to satisfy those whose vision extends to higher concepts of world cooperation and harmonious living -visions, indeed, which have been nobly expressed in our very Constitution, but which seem to have faded behind our present hysterical pursuit of happiness. The remaining choices of education, science, religion or government invite the more cloistered temperament and impose even stricter limitations upon the individualist.

The fact remains, however, that in each generation a surprising number of individuals manage to resist mass pressure and find some way of personal interaction, usually expressing the traditional beliefs of the perennial minority, but determined primarily on the faith that such action constitutes an ultimate value incommensurate with its transient apparent effects. Of such is the witness of great individualists of our times: Albert Schweitzer, Lord Bertrand Russell, Simone Weil. Others have become the focal points for popular action: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Michael Scott. These and many others form a kind of barricade against creeping cipherism which the idealist can use in his own defence as he extends his first hesitant feelers into the sphere of responsible minority action.

The first fact he must face, of course, is the one reflected in the title of this publication; all minorities begin with the minority of one, the individual decision. Those who run excitedly about from one altruistic group to another seldom find a lasting fulfillment of purpose and usually sink into the purely verbal comforts of teapot anarchism. It remains to the youthful idealists of each generation to try their wings against injustice, intolerance and coercion; and no matter how many fall back unwinged into the purely practical life, there will always be a significant few who find the altitude a permanent exhilaration. Of these there will also be a number unable to relate their vision successfully with action, remaining in the schizophrenic kind of limbo inhabited by ineffectual intellectuals and devotees to lost causes. The active remainder soon have their names inscribed in the rolls of various liberal groups; there is a kind of Society of the Committed which could be rostered from the mastheads of current altruistic appeals and the subscription lists of progressive publications. From time to time, some of these are eliminated by the pressures of passing hysterias and either incarcerated by the Machine or reduced to such questionable status by smear methods that they voluntarily withhold their support to prevent disrepute to their associates.

In any case, despite a difficult national and world climate featuring heavy propaganda fogs and increasingly humid coercion, the individualist still has a multitude of semi- respectable directions in which he may test his potential for personal commitment. The simplest route is to align with some group of traditional standing, such as the Quakers, who manage to accomplish an amazing amount of work very quietly under the aegis of religious freedom. Political extremists may gravitate to groups of whatever degree of pinkness they feel best. Pacifists may align with groups either religious or political in context, while artists may support creative community ventures. Plain humanistic altruists will find large numbers of community services, ethical unions and non-governmental agencies awaiting their energies. And in all of these activities are a large number of roles possible, embracing the most timid and the most adventuresome alike. The field is indeed more vital and comprehensive than the Machine and its spokesman, Mass Entertainment (mistakenly called Communications), would have us believe.

JEANNE S. BAGBY is a free-lance writer, who publishes extensively in a great number of American periodicals.