バートランド・ラッセル「家具とエゴ」(1932年４月20日)(松下彰良 訳)* 原著：Furniture and the ego, 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。(2010.10.27) 画一化にひそむ危険を指摘する。「個性尊重」は民主主義・自由主義尊重につながる。自分より秀でた人間の足をひっぱり,自分と同じレベルにひきおろすことによって「平等」を実現しようとするのは,民主主義の精神ではないということ。個性を尊重しない精神は,「他者を迫害する心」を生み出し,戦争の原因にもなったりする,というお話（2003.04.29,松下）。 
大部分の普通の人間は,多い少ないの程度の違いはあるにしても,自己表現への欲求を感じる。この欲求の充足をなしとげる手段は,人によってかなり違う。完全に満足のいくなんらかの手段を持つ人々は,しばしばそれで満足し,他の手段を求めない。一流のオペラ歌手は,都市から都市へと渡り歩き,ホテル住いをし,大勢の見知らぬ世話人（主催者）とつき合い,自分の物質的環境に関してはくつろげるものはほとんどなしで済ます。彼らは,自分のエゴが彼らの芸の中に完全に表現されていると思っているので,こういった生活に耐えることができる。これほどではないが,同様のことが,何らかの非凡な芸術的もしくは文学的才能を持つ人たちのほとんど全員について言える。
隣人恐怖症（隣人の視線を恐れること）は,われわれの心の最も根深い感情の一つであり,これは居間の家具調度の飾りつけのような比較的簡単なことにおいてさえ,われわれが何事かを成し遂げようとする場合に障害となる。われわれは,意地悪い批評を通じてこの恐怖をお互いに隣人に押しつけ合い,その結果,お互いを面白味のない人間にし,自由な自己表現をする活力のある個性の目をみはるような光景から得られる喜びをお互いに奪い合う。そういうわけで,見苦しい家具が存在する原因（根源）は,戦争や宗教上の迫害や人間生活における主要な害悪が発生する原因と同じである。 |
Most normal human beings experience the need for self-expression, some in a greater degree, some in a less. The means by which they seek to achieve this end vary enormously. Those who enjoy some one thoroughly satisfactory form are often content to seek no other. Great opera singers wander from city to city, living in hotel suites, associating with hosts of strangers, and dispensing almost wholly with everything intimate in their material surroundings ; they are able to endure this life because their ego finds complete expression in their art. In a lesser degree the same thing will be found true of most of those who have some exceptional artistic or literary talent. But most people, and especially most women, desire to externalise their ego in material surroundings which they themselves have assembled or chosen. Many girls when they get married derive quite as much pleasure from their house as from their husband. The bare core of personality, as it exists in our own thoughts and feelings, is too tenuous and invisible to be wholly satisfying, so that most of us wish to see in the outer world some reflection of our inner being. We achieve this in varying degrees. The man whose name is advertised on every hoarding perhaps achieves it most, but such a depth of bliss is not for ordinary mortals. The typical housewife seeks self-expression in curtains and carpets, tables and chairs, dinner service and coffee cups. There are some to whom the process of furnishing is intimate and personal, the collection of a work of art which has individual beauty, specially appropriate to the temperament of its creator. There are others, however - and in the modern world they are the large majority - whose ego is more shy and timid. Their highest aspiration is to be thought exactly like their neighbours, and in their furniture they seek correctness rather than the expression of their own taste. According to their means, they buy complete sets from Grand Rapids, or furnish exquisite period suites that could be transferred bodily to a museum. The trade of the interior decorator thrives on this timidity. Tolstoy describes somewhere a newly married couple who are giving their first evening party; when it is over, they congratulate each other on the fact that it has been exactly like anyone else's evening party. Those to whom this is the highest ambition evidently fear contempt more than they hope for admiration, and in so far as they do hope for admiration they hope to secure it by successful imitation rather than by any genuine intrinsic quality. They may acquire taste, which can be learnt by those who take the necessary trouble, but they cannot acquire spontaneous enjoyment of the things that appear beautiful to them, whatever others may think of them. Fear of our neighbours is one of our most deep-seated emotions and is the enemy of all achievement, even in so comparatively simple a matter as furnishing a sitting room. We force this upon each other by our unfriendly censoriousness, by means of which we make each other dull and deprive ourselves of the pleasures to be derived from the spectacle of vigorous individuality expressing itself freely. Thus the source of ugly furniture is the same as the source of war and religious persecution, and of all the major evils of human life. |
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