(本館) 
(トップ) 
(分館)
(本館) (トップ) (分館)
* 参考：『ラッセル思想辞典』の「競争」の項
競争的な精神の習憤は,本来競争のない領域にまで容易に侵入してくる。たとえば,読書の問題をとりあげてみよう。読書には２つの動機がある。ひとつは読書を楽しむこと,もうひとつは読書について自慢できることである。アメリカでは,成人女性が毎月何冊かの本を読むこと,あるいは,読んだふりをすることが流行している。それらの本を（すべて）読む人もいれば,第一章（だけ）を読む人もいるし,書評（だけ）を読む人もいるが,誰もそれらの本を机の上に置いている（ことでは共通している→いわゆる「積読」（つんどく））。しかしながら,彼女らは大作（古典的名作）はまったく読まない。『ハムレット』や『リア王』がブッククラブによって選ばれた月は一度もなかったし,ダンテについて知る必要があった月もなかった。それゆえ,読まれる本は（←なされる読書は）,すべて現代の二流の本ばかりであり,古典的名作であることは決してない。これもまた,競争の結果であるが,多分まったく悪いということでもない。なぜなら,こういった成人女性の大部分は,放っておくと,古典的名作を読むどころか,彼女たちの文学上の指導者や師匠（＝ブック・クラブ）が選んでくれたものよりもいっそう低級な本しか読まないだろうからである。
このような悩み事の原因は,単に個人にあるわけではないし,また,単一の個人が,自分だけ単独の状態でそうした悩みをさけることもできない。こうした悩み事（心配事）は,広く一般に受け入れられている人生観から生じており,それによれば,人生はコンテストであり,競争であり,'勝者'のみが尊敬を払われる。こういう考え方は,感性（←諸感覚）と知性を犠牲にして,意志の不当な（必要以上の）育成に導く。（参考：「知・情・意のバランス」）こういう言い方は,あるいは本末転倒かもしれない。ピューリタンのモラリストたちは,近代では,つねに意志を強調してきたが,しかしもともとは,信仰を強調してきた。ピューリタニズムの時代は,意志は過剰に発達した一方,感性と知性は枯渇した人種を生み出し,そうして,そのような人種が,自分たちの本性に最も適したものとして競争の哲学を採用したのかもしれない。 しかしながら,こういう,現代の恐竜とも言うべき（意志ばかり強固な）人種は,前史時代のその原型と同様に,知性よりも力(権力)を好み,驚異的な大成功を収めたので,万人の模倣するところとなっている（安藤貞雄氏は,「現代の恐竜とも言うべき'大富豪たち'は,・・・。」と訳されている。しかし,感性や知性が乏しく,意志だけ強固な政治家その他,多様な競争の哲学の信奉者を指していると思われ,「意訳のしすぎ」ではないだろうか。)。つまり,彼らは,いたるところで白人の模範となっている。そして,この状況は,今後100年間,ますますひどくなっていくことと思われる。しかし,この流行に乗っていない人びとは,恐童は結局勝利者にはならなかったと思い,自ら慰めるとよい。恐竜たちは,互いに殺しあって絶滅し,知性ある傍観者が彼らの王国を受け継いだのだ。 (松下注：小惑星が地球に衝突し,巻き上がった塵が大気中に充満して日光を遮断したため,極寒の冬が訪れ,地球上の植物の量が減少し,恐竜も絶滅したという説は,1980年に初めて出されたそうであるが,最近,小惑星の衝突後すぐに恐竜は絶滅したという説が唱えられている。）現代の恐竜たちも,自ら絶減しつつある。彼らは平均して,結婚によって２人の子供しかもたない。彼らは,子供をもうけたいと思うほど人生をエンジョイしていない。この点で,彼らがピューリタンの祖先から受け継いできた不当に精力的な哲学は,現代世界に適合していないことは明らかである。自らの人生観のためにほとんど幸福が感じられなく,子供をもうける気になれないような人たちは,生物学的に見て不幸な結末を運命づけられている。遠くない将来,彼らは,もっと陽気かつ快活な人種によって取って代わられるにちがいない。
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  競争社会＝弱肉強食の恐竜時代 * From Free animation library https://www.animationlibrary.com/a-l/ From quite early years American boys feel that this is the only thing that matters, and do not wish to be bothered with any kind of education that is devoid of pecuniary value. Education used to be conceived very largely as a training in the capacity for enjoyment - enjoyment, I mean, of those more delicate kinds that are not open to wholly uncultivated people. In the eighteenth century it was one of the marks of a 'gentleman' to take a discriminating pleasure in literature, pictures, and music. We nowadays may disagree with his taste, but it was at least genuine. The rich man of the present day tends to be of quite a different type. He never reads. If he is creating a picture gallery with a view to enhancing his fame, he relies upon experts to choose his pictures; the pleasure that he derives from them is not the pleasure of looking at them, but the pleasure of preventing some other rich man from having them. In regard to music, if he happens to be a Jew, he may have genuine appreciation; if not, he will be as uncultivated as he is in regard to the other arts. The result of all this is that he does not know what to do with leisure. As he gets richer and richer it become easier and easier to make money, until at last five minutes a day will bring him more than he knows how to spend. The poor man is thus left at a loose end as a result of his success. This must inevitably be the case so long as success itself is represented as the purpose of life. Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom. The competitive habit of mind easily invades regions to which it does not belong. Take, for example, the question of reading. There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it. It has become the thing in America for ladies to read (or seem to read) certain books every month; some read them, some read the first chapter, some read the reviews, but all have these books on their tables. They do not, however, read any masterpieces. There has never been a month when Hamlet or King Leer has been selected by the Book Clubs; there has never been a month when it has been necessary to know about Dante. Consequently the reading that is done is entirely of mediocre modern books and never of masterpieces. This also is an effect of competition, not perhaps wholly bad, since most of the ladies in question, if left to themselves, so far from reading masterpieces, would read books even worse than those selected for them by their literary pastors and masters. The emphasis upon competition in modern life is connected with a general decay of civilised standards such as must have occurred in Rome after the Augustan age. Men and women appear to have become incapable of enjoying the more intellectual pleasures. The art of general conversation, for example, brought to perfection in the French salons of the eighteenth century, was still a living tradition forty years ago. It was a very exquisite art, bringing the highest faculties into play for the sake of something completely evanescent. But who in our age cares for anything so leisurely? In China the art still flourished in perfection ten years ago, but I imagine that the missionary ardour of the Nationalists has since then swept it completely out of existence. The knowledge of good literature, which was universal among educated people fifty or a hundred years ago, is now confined to a few professors. All the quieter pleasures have been abandoned. Some American students took me walking in the spring through a wood on the borders of their campus; it was filled with exquisite wild flowers, but not one of my guides knew the name of even one of them. What use would such knowledge be? It could not add to anybody's income. The trouble does not lie simply with the individual, nor can a single individual prevent it in his own isolated case. The trouble arises from the generally received philosophy of life, according to which life is a contest, a competition, in which respect is to be accorded to the victor. This view leads to an undue cultivation of the will at the expense of the senses and the intellect. Or possibly, in saying this, we may be putting the cart before the horse. Puritan moralists have always emphasised the will in modern times, although originally it was faith upon which they laid stress. It may be that ages of Puritanism produced a race in which will had been over-developed, while the senses and the intellect had been starved, and that such a race adopted a philosophy of competition as the one best suited to its nature. 
However that may be, the prodigious success of these modern dinosaurs, who, like their prehistoric prototypes, prefer power to intelligence, is causing them to be universally imitated: they have become the pattern of the white man everywhere, and this is likely to be increasingly the case for the next hundred years. Those, however, who are not in the fashion may take comfort from the thought that the dinosaurs did not ultimately triumph; they killed each other out, and intelligent bystanders inherited their kingdom. Our modern dinosaurs are killing themselves out. They do not, on the average, have so much as two children per marriage; they do not enjoy life enough to wish to beget children. At this point the unduly strenuous philosophy which they have carried over from their Puritan forefathers shows itself unadapted to the world. Those whose outlook on life causes them to feel so little happiness that they do not care to beget children are biologically doomed. Before very long they must be succeeded by something gayer and jollier. |
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