バートランド・ラッセル「協力について」(1932年5月18日執筆）* 原著：Of cooperation, by Bertrand Russell* Source: Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975 |
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* 部分訳を全訳化しました。(2011.1.12) Tweet 中学校頃までは,多くの子供は同年代の仲間と同じでないと不安を覚えます。しかし,（なかには大人になってもいつも流行を追うひとはいますが,）通常は,次第に成長するにつれ,他人と一緒であることがいやになっていきます。とは言っても,その個性の主張も,茶髪やピアスや人目をひく服装といったような外見的なものが大部分であり,自分なりの世界観を形成していく努力を日本人は余りしてこなかったように思われます。 社会や組織が複雑になればなるほど '社会的協力' は重要なものとなっていきますが,その中で個人が創造性を発揮できるような社会をつくっていくことは,現代社会の大きな課題だと思われます。（1999.09.26,松下）
教師の訓練の一部として,教師は皆,子供の非凡な知能の兆候を感知し,子供の何らかの非凡さによって教師にもたらせる'いらだち'を抑制することを教えられなければならない。このことがなされるまでは,アメリカでは最良の才能のほとんどが,15歳になる前に,迫害されて消滅するだろう。'協力'は,一つの理想としては欠点がある。自分ひとりのためではなく,社会とともに生きることは正しい。しかし,社会のために生きるということは,社会（一般）がやることと同じことを自分も行うということを意味しない。たとえばあなたが劇場にいて,火災がおこり,観客が出口に向かって殺到したとしてみよう。いわゆる'協力 '（の美徳）以上の道徳観を持ちあわせない人は,群衆に抵抗することを可能とするような気迫を持たないために,群集と一緒になって逃げるだろう。戦争に乗り出す国民の心理（状態）は,すべての点でこれと同じである。
これらの考え方は,もちろん滑稽であり,私としては私の見解がこのように戯画化されるのを見て満足に思う。にもかかわらず私は,現代では一つには民主主義的な感情の結果として,また一つには機械生産の複雑化のために,社会的協力の教義が,比較的無政府的な形で現れる個人の長所に対してのみならず社会的進歩に不可欠な形の個人の長所においても'致命的なものになる段階まで推し進められる危険性'があると確信している。従ってゴドウィンのような（協力を嫌悪する）人でさえ,社会との協調が美徳の全てであると信じている人たちに教訓になるものを有しているであろう,と私は思う。 |
In these days, under the influence of democracy, the virtue of cooperation has taken the place formerly held by obedience. The old-fashioned schoolmaster would say of a boy that he was disobedient; the modern schoolmistress says of an infant that he is non-cooperative. It means the same thing: the child, in either case, fails to do what the teacher wishes, but in the first case the teacher acts as the government and in the second as the representative of the People, i.e. of the other children. The result of the new language, as of the old, is to encourage docility, suggestibility, herd-instinct and conventionality, thereby necessarily discouraging originality, initiative and unusual intelligence. Adults who achieve anything of value have seldom been 'cooperative' children. As a rule, they have liked solitude: they have tried to slink into a corner with a book and have been happiest when they could escape the notice of their barbarian contemporaries. Almost all men who have been distinguished as artists, writers or men of science have in boyhood been objects of derision and contempt to their schoolfellows; and only too often the teachers have sided with the herd, because it annoyed them that a boy should be odd. It ought to be part of the training of all teachers to be taught to recognise the marks of unusual intelligence in children and to restrain the irritation caused in themselves by anything so unusual. Until this is done, a large proportion of the best talent in America will be persecuted out of existence before the age of flfteen.Cooperativeness, as an ideal, is defective: it is right to live with reference to the community and not for oneself alone, but living for the community does not mean doing what it does. Suppose you are in a theatre which catches fire, and there is a stampede : the person who has learnt no higher morality than what is called 'cooperation' will join in the stampede since he will possess no inner force that would enable him to stand up against the herd. The psychology of a nation embarking on a war is at all points identical. I do not wish, however, to push the doctrine of individual initiative too far. Godwin, who became Shelley's father-in-law becuse Shelley so much admired him, asserted that 'everything that is usually understood by the term "cooperation" is in some degree an evil' He admits that, at present, 'to pull down a tree, to cut a canal, to navigate a vessel requires the labour of many', but he looks forward to the time when machinery will be so perfected that one man unaided will be able to do any of these things. He thinks also that hereafter there will be no orchestras. 'Shall we have concerts of music ?' he says. 'The miserable state of mechanism of the majority of the performers is so conspicuous as to be even at this day a topic of mortification and ridicule. Will it not be practicable hereafter for one man to perform the whole ?' He goes on to suggest that the solitary performer will insist on playing his own productions and refuse to be the slave of composers dead and gone. All this is ,of cource, ridiculous, and for my part I find it salutary to see my own opinions thus caricatured. I remain none the less convinced that our age, partly as a result of democratic sentiment, and partly because of the complexity of machine production, is in danger of carrying the doctrine of co-operativeness to lengths which will be fatal to individual excellence, not only in its more anarchic forms, but also in forms which are essential to social progress. Perhaps, therefore, even a man like Godwin may have something to teach to those who believe that social conformity is the beginning and end of virtue. |
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