バートランド・ラッセル「情緒の予知」(1932年7月13日付)(松下彰良 訳)* 原著：On expected emotions, by Bertrand Russell* Source: Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975 |
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* 改訳及びHTML修正をしました。(2010.11.8)
この不都合な事実は、万人によって従来無視されてきており、現在でも老人たちはこれを十分に認識していない。我々の社会制度のほとんどすべてがうまく機能するかどうかは、情緒の予知能力（←予想される感情を事前に感じる能力）にかかっている。我々は、日曜の朝は教会での敬虔な情緒を予期し、もしも自分が日曜日のディナーを期待していることに気付くと、恥ずかしく思う。昔風の親であれば、子供が自分たち親に対して、育ててくれることに感謝し、大人の知恵を称賛し、'月並みのジョーク'がだされるたびに面白がるように期待するだろう。もしも子供がこの種の期待される情緒を感じないと、我々は彼らを'不自然な怪物'とみなす。結婚に際して、新郎新婦は、今後末永く愛しあうことは'義務'であると告げられるが、愛情は一つの情緒であるので、意志の制御に服するものではなく、それゆえ義務の範囲には入りえない。思慮深い振舞いは、義務に属すると言えても、愛（情）は天からの贈り物（才能）である。この才能（資質）が消滅する時、それは憐れむべきことではあるが、非難されるべきものではない。 確かに、自分の情緒を必ず予想通りに生み出す称賛すべき人も一部にはいる。彼らは必ずと言ってよいほど、堂々とした中年の、厳かで、尊敬すべき、非の打ちどころのない、'社会の柱石'ともいうべき人間である。私はこのタイプのとても愛すべき一人の男性を知っている。彼は今日のように（巡礼）旅行が一般化しない昔に、パレスチナ（の聖地）を訪問した。彼は思慮深いとともに経済観念の発達した男だったので、出発時に、家族との間に私的な電報符号を取決めた。たとえば、彼が 'Bang' という語を打電すれば、家族はそれが「ヤッファに上陸。健康かつ無事。着替え（？）（洗濯した物？）を送れ」という意味に解釈し、彼が 'Pish' と打電すれば「君たちからの手紙は、私の期待ほど長くも詳しくもない。庭のシャクナゲは見事に咲いたか、池のほとりに植えた'しだれ柳'は生い茂っているかどうか私は知りたい」という意味に解釈することとした。だが彼が'Grand' と打電してきたならば、「聖地の動植物は私の期待以上のものだった」と意味することとした。以上、現にそのとおりだったので、彼は予定通りに打電した。
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If you decide to catch a certain train at a certain time on a certain day, you can do so, unless some accident intervenes. But if you decide to feel some specific emotion at some predetermined moment, you are very likely to fail. You say to yourself (we will suppose) : 'At 6:23 p.m. next Saturday I will be overwhelmed by the beauty of Gray's Elegy.' But when the time comes you think this poem tiresome, and no exercise of willpower will make you feel otherwise. This is an inconvenient fact which used to be ignored by all, and is still not sufficiently recognised by the old. Almost all our institutions depend, for their success, upon capacity for feeling expected emotions. We expect religious emotions in church on Sunday morning, and feel ashamed if we find ourselves looking forward to Sunday dinner. If we are old-fashioned parents, we expect our children to feel gratitude to us for their existence and to combine admiration of our wisdom with perennial amusement at our stock jokes. When they do not feel these expected emotions, we regard them as unnatural monsters. In marrying, bride and bridegroom are informed that it will henceforth be their 'duty' to love one another, although, since love is an emotion, it is not subject to the control of the will and therefore cannot come within the scope of duty. Considerate behaviour may be a duty, but love is a gift from heaven: when the gift is withdrawn, the one who has lost it is to be pitied, not blamed. There are, it is true, some admirable men whose emotions are never unexpected. They are invariably portly, middle-aged, and dignified, respected, irreproachable, and pillars of society. I knew one highly amiable example of this type, who went to Palestine at a time when this journey was less common than it is now. Being at once prudent and economical, he arranged with his family a private telegraphic code. If he telegraphed the one word 'Bang', for example, they were to interpret it as meaning: 'Have landed at Jaffa. Am well and happy. Please send laundry.' If he telegraphed 'Pish', that was to mean: 'Your letters are neither so long nor so informative as I could wish. I desire to know whether the rhododendrons are blossoming well, and whether the weeping willow which I caused to be planted beside the lake is flourishing.' But if he telegraphed 'Grand', that was to mean: 'The flora and fauna of the Holy Land have surpassed even my expectations.' They did, and he did. Happy man, moving in stately fashion through a well-ordered universe that never surprised him except when he expected it to do so! What peace, what calm, must have been his! But for humbler mortals these joys are impossible: they find the world unpredictable, and themselves quite unlike the flora and fauna of the Holy Land. For them, whatever assumes the permanence and predictability of emotions is liable to be a cause of unhappiness, or at least of hypocrisy. In dealing with the young, it is of great importance to remember that one must never demand an emotion. Your children, if they are fond of you, will usually show a spontaneous pleasure when you return from a journey. But it may happen that someone has just given them a dog, or that they are absorbed in a puzzle, and in that case they may be completely indifferent to your arrival. If, in these circumstances, you demand a display of emotion, you are giving a lesson in humbug. And if there is anything in which our age is better than its predecessors, it is the dislike of humbug that characterises the young. |
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