THIS
IS the question: Europe has been left without a moral code. It is
not that the mass-man has thrown over an antiquated one in exchange for a new
one, but that at the centre of his scheme of life there is precisely the
aspiration to live without conforming to any moral code. Do not believe a word
you hear from the young when they talk about the "new morality." I
absolutely deny that there exists to-day in any corner of the Continent a group
inspired by a new ethos which shows signs of being a moral code. When people
talk of the "new morality" they are merely committing a new immorality
and looking for a way of introducing contraband goods.[1] Hence it would be a piece of ingenuousness to accuse the man of to-day
of his lack of moral code. The accusation would leave him cold, or rather, would
flatter him. Immoralism has become a commonplace, and anybody and everybody
boasts of practising it.
[1]I do not
suppose there are more than two dozen men scattered about the world who can
recognise the springing up of what one day may be a new moral code. For that
very reason, such men are the least representative of this actual time.
If we leave out of question,
as has been done in this essay, all those groups which imply survivals from the
past-Christians, Idealists, the old Liberals- there will not be found amongst
all the representatives of the actual period, a single group whose attitude to
life is not limited to believing that it has all the rights and none of the
obligations. It is indifferent whether it disguises itself as reactionary or
revolutionary; actively or passively, after one or two twists, its state of mind
will consist, decisively, in ignoring all obligations, and in feeling itself,
without the slightest notion why, possessed of unlimited rights. Whatever be the
substance which takes possession of such a soul, it will produce the same
result, and will change into a pretext for not conforming to any concrete
purpose.
