The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde - Analysis, themes and devices

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Analysis

It is easy to pop dreams, because they are inflated with pretty thoughts like a balloon. So instead of refuting/rebutting communism…

A selfish gene always overtakes a population of altruists (converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and insure the material well-being of each member of the community. ")

Against communal property: entropy; living like pigs in a hotel

I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.

There is a way around this. Work harder and get your own property. Or was this when there was no class mobility?

The note of the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.

Peace breeds boredom which breeds unrest

People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people’s thoughts, living by other people’s standards, wearing practically what one may call other people’s second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment. ‘He who would be free,’ says a fine thinker, ‘must not conform.’ And authority, by bribing people to conform, produces a very gross kind of over-fed barbarism amongst us.

How post modern.

community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment, than it is by the occurrence of crime

or vice versa.

The State is to be a voluntary association that will organise labour

So these men will not get to explore their individuality.

To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine.

So this is all to happen at some time in the future when machines replace all man labor. This changes the discourse and moves it to the realm of scifi. So what happens when technology solves all our problems? HG Wells' Time Machine!

One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it.

Who makes the machines? Who decides which machines to attain?

Now, I have said that the community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and that the beautiful things will be made by the individual.

Not everyone wants to make pretty things. (false) Assumption: everyone's an artist.

In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. … The uncritical admiration of the Bible and Shakespeare in England is an instance of what I mean. With regard to the Bible, considerations of ecclesiastical authority enter into the matter, so that I need not dwell upon the point. But in the case of Shakespeare it is quite obvious that the public really see neither the beauties nor the defects of his plays.

When they say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made a beautiful thing that is true

Explaining resistance to avant-garde

The private lives of men and women should not be told to the public

Advocates change only in the public (artistic) sphere. Separation of mass from high culture.


Themes

Separation of emotion and rational thought (not a main theme but a belief mentioned in passing)

A symptom of the problem should not be used to solve the problem

There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.

Also

Men are moved, by the wrongs in society, to correct those wrongs

Advocating communism

Each member of the society will share in the general prosperity and happiness of the society, and if a frost comes no one will practically be anything the worse.

A human is defined by self-actualization (Maslowesque; humanist)

At present, in consequence of the existence of private property, a great many people are enabled to develop a certain very limited amount of Individualism. They are either under no necessity to work for their living, or are enabled to choose the sphere of activity that is really congenial to them, and gives them pleasure

Subversion of the Garden of Eden story

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.

The development of man is determined by the environment (I think this is a relatively new thought compared to traditional vertical transfer of funds & titles)

What I mean by a perfect man is one who develops under perfect conditions; one who is not wounded, or worried or maimed, or in danger

Longing for the purity of childhood

It will be a marvellous thing – the true personality of man – when we see it. It will grow naturally and simply, flowerlike, or as a tree grows. It will not be at discord. It will never argue or dispute. It will not prove things. It will know everything. And yet it will not busy itself about knowledge. It will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by material things. It will have nothing. And yet it will have everything, and whatever one takes from it, it will still have, so rich will it be. It will not be always meddling with others, or asking them to be like itself. It will love them because they will be different. And yet while it will not meddle with others, it will help all, as a beautiful thing helps us, by being what it is. The personality of man will be very wonderful. It will be as wonderful as the personality of a child.

Extreme follies or injustices are good because they bring about change. 

Fortunately in America Journalism has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural consequence it has begun to create a spirit of revolt. People are amused by it, or disgusted by it, according to their temperaments. But it is no longer the real force it was.


Style and devices

Cheap rhetorical tricks -- insults

As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They must also be extraordinarily stupid.

Sarcasm

Perhaps, however, I have wronged the public in limiting them to such words as ‘immoral,’ ‘unintelligible,’ ‘exotic,’ and ‘unhealthy.’ There is one other word that they use. That word is ‘morbid.’

 

Oscar Wilde 

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