親であることの幸福を考察してみよう。まず,'その生物学的本質'において考察し,ついで,平等を信じる世界(世の中)にとって必須であると示唆してきた,'他の人格に対する態度'によって,それ(親であることの幸福)が親の中で生命を吹き込まれる様子を考察しよう。 |
In all human relations it is fairly easy to secure happiness for one party, but much more difficult to secure it for both. The gaoler * may enjoy guarding the prisoner; the employer may enjoy brow-beating the employee; the ruler may enjoy governing his subjects with a firm hand; and the old-fashioned father no doubt enjoyed instilling virtue into his son by means of the rod. These, however, are one-sided pleasures; to the other party in the transaction the situation is less agreeable. We have come to feel, that there is something unsatisfactory about these one-sided delights: we believe that a good human relation should be satisfying to both parties. This applies more particularly to the relations of parents and children, with the result that parents obtain far less pleasure from children than they did formerly, while children reciprocally suffer less at the hands of their parents than they did in bygone generations. I do not think there is any real reason why parents should derive less happiness from their children than they did in former times, although undoubtedly this is the case at present. Nor do I think that there is any reason why parents should fail to increase the happiness of their children. But this requires, as do all those equal relationships at which the modern world aims, a certain delicacy and tenderness, a certain reverence for another personality, which are by no means encouraged by the pugnacity of ordinary life. Let us consider the happiness of parenthood, first in its biological essence, and then as it may become in a parent inspired by that kind of attitude towards other personalities which we have been suggesting as essential to a world that believes in equality. * gaoler = jailer / |
(掲載日:2006.06.19/更新日:2010.5.4)