In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. Now-a-days (Nowadays) they acquire these powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils. There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_260.HTM
All this, the reader may think, is mere unnecessary nightmare. I wish I could share this view. Mechanical power, I am convinced, tends to generate a new mentality, which makes it more important than in any former age to find ways of controlling governments. Democracy may have become more difficult owing to technical developments, but it has also become more important. The man who has vast mechanical power at his command is likely, if uncontrolled, to feel himself a god –not a Christian God of Love, but a pagan Thor or Vulcan.
Leopardi describes what volcanic action has achieved on the slopes of Vesuvius :
These lands that now are strewn
With sterilizing cinders, and embossed
With lava frozen to stone,
That echoes to the lonely pilgrim’s foot;
Where nestling in the sun the snake lies coiled,
And where in some cleft
In cavernous rocks the rabbit hurries home–
Here once were happy farms,
And tilth, and yellowing harvests. and the sound
Of lowing herds; here too
Gardens and palaces:
Retreats dear to the leisure
Of powerful lords ; and here were famous towns,
which the implacable mountain, thundering forth
Molten streams from its fiery mouth, destroyed
With all their habitants. Now all around
Lies crushed ‘neath one vast ruin.(note:)
【I questi campi cosparsi Di ceneri infeconde, e ricoperti Dall’ impietrata lava, Che Sotto i passi al peregrin risona ; Dove s’annida e si contorce al sole La serpe, e dove al noto Cavernoso covil torna il coniglio ; Fur liete ville e colti, E biondeggiar di spiche, e risonaro Di muggito d’-enti ; Fur giardini e palagi, Agli ozi de’ potenti Gradito ospizio, e fur citta famose, Che coi torrenti suoi l’ altero monte Dall’ ignea bocca fulminando oppresse Con gli abitanti insieme. Or tutto intorno Una ruina involve. (note: I owe the above translation to the kindness of my friend, Mr. R. C. Trevelyan.】 These results can now be achieved by men. They have been achieved at Guernica; perhaps before long they will be achieved where as yet London stands. What good is to be expected of an oligarchy which will have climbed to dominion through such destruction? And if it were Berlin and Rome, not London and Paris, that were destroyed by the thunderbolts of the new gods, could any humanity survive in the destroyers after such a deed? Would not those who had human feelings to begin with be driven mad by suppressed pity, and become even worse than those who had no need of suppressing their compassion? 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_250.HTM
Power over men, not power over matter, is my theme in this book; but it is possible to establish a technicological (technological) power over men which is based upon power over matter. Those who have the habit of controlling powerful mechanisms, and through this control have acquired power over human beings, may be expected to have an imaginative outlook towards their subjects which will be completely different from that of men who depend upon persuasion, however dishonest. Most of us have, at some time, wantonly disturbed an ants’ nest, and watched with mild amusement the scurrying confusion that resulted. Looking down from the top of a sky-scraper on the traffic of New York, the human beings below cease to seem human, and acquire a faint absurdity. If one were armed, like Jove, with a thunderbolt, there would be a temptation to hurl it into the crowd, from the same motive as in the case of the ants’ nest. This was evidently Bruno Mussolini’s feeling, as he looked down upon the Abyssinians from his aeroplane. Imagine a scientific government which, from fear of assassination, lives always in aeroplanes, except for occasional descents on to landing stages on the summits of high towers or rafts on the sea. Is it likely that such a government will have any profound concern for the happiness of its subjects? Is it not, on the contrary, practically certain that it will view them, when all goes well, in the impersonal manner in which it views its machines, but that, when anything happens to suggest that after all they are not machines, it will feel the cold rage of men whose axioms are questioned by underlings, and will exterminate resistance in whatever manner involves least trouble? 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_240.HTM
機械力に頼る寡頭政治における支配者の心理学は,今までのところ,まだいかなるところでも十分には展開されていない(開発されていない)。しかし,それ(その心理学)は今にも起ってきそうであり,質的には全く新しいことではないとしても,量的には全く新しいことである。現在,技術的に訓練を積んだ少数独裁政府(寡頭独裁国)が,飛行機や海軍や発電所や自動車輸送その他をコントロール(制御)することによって,支配下の人々(注:subjects 臣民)を懐柔する(機嫌を取る)必要がほとんどなしに独裁制を確立することは可能だろう。ラピュタ帝国(注:ガリヴァー旅行記に出てくる,全地上を支配していた天空の城にある帝国)も,太陽と反乱地方の間に立ちいる(自らを介在させる)力をもっていたので維持することができた。(即ち)これとほぼ同じくらい思い切ったものが,科学技術者の連合(体)には可能だろう。彼ら(科学者集団)ならば,どんなに頑強に反対する地域でも,(食料を絶って)飢えさせることができるし,また光や熱や電力のような生活を快適にしてくれるものにまず頼るようにさせておいてから,それらを奪い去ることができる。彼らはその地域に毒ガスや細菌を撒き散らすこともできる。(これに対する)抵抗にはまったく希望がない(勝利は見込めない)。そうして,統制に当たる者たちは,機械(装置)について訓練されているので,ちょうど彼らが自分たちが所有している機械を見ることを学んだように人材(注:human material 人的資源)を見るであろう。(つまり)人材を機械装置の操縦者が自分たちに都合がよいように操作できる法則によって支配された感情をもたない何か(木石のごときもの)だと見るであろう。そのような政体(政治体制)は,過去の(多くの)暴政において知られているいかなるものも凌駕する冷酷な不人情(残酷さ)によって特徴づけられるであろう。
Chapter II: Leaders and followers, n.23
The psychology of the oligarch who depends upon mechanical power is not, as yet, anywhere fully developed. It is, however, an imminent possibility, and quantitatively, though not qualitatively, quite new. It would now be feasible for a technically trained oligarchy, by controlling aeroplanes, navies, power stations, motor transport, and so on, to establish a dictatorship demanding almost no conciliation of subjects. The empire of Laputa was maintained by its power of interposing itself between the sun and a rebellious province ; something almost equally drastic would be possible for a union of scientific technologists. They could starve a recalcitrant region, and deprive it of light and heat and electrical power after encouraging dependence on these sources of comfort; they could flood it with poison gas or with bacteria. Resistance would be utterly hopeless. And the men in control, having been trained on mechanism, would view human material as they had learnt to view their own machines, as something unfeeling governed by laws which the manipulator can operate to his advantage. Such a regime would be characterized by a cold inhumanity surpassing anything known in previous tyrannies. ‘
出典: Power, 1938.
詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_230.HTM
While the orator needs much intuitive psychology for his success, the aviator of Bruno Mussolini’s type can get his pleasure with no more psychology than is involved in knowing that it is unpleasant to burn to death. The orator is an ancient type; the man whose power is based on mechanism is modern. Not wholly: read, for example, how Carthaginian elephants were used, at the end of the first Punic War, to trample mutinous mercenaries to death, where the psychology, though not the science, is the same as Bruno Mussolini’s. (note: Diodorus Siculus, Bk. XXV (fragment). See Flaubert’s Salammbo.) But speaking comparatively, mechanical power is more characteristic of our age than of any previous time. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_220.HTM
「まわり一面火の海に囲まれ,約五千人のアビシニア人がいやな結果となった(came to a sticky end)。まるで地獄だった。」
Chapter II: Leaders and followers, n.21
Power-loving individuals, however, are not all of the orator type. There are men of quite a different kind, whose love of power has been fed by control over mechanism. Take, for example, Bruno Mussolini’s account of his exploits from the air in the Abyssinian war:
“We had to set fire to the wooded hills, to the fields and little villages…. It was all most diverting. … The bombs hardly touched the earth before they burst out into white smoke and an enormous flame and the dry grass began to burn. I thought of the animals: God, how they ran … After the bomb-racks were emptied I began throwing bombs by hand…. It was most amusing: a big Zariba surrounded by tall trees was not easy to hit. I had to aim carefully at the straw roof and only succeeded at the third shot. The wretches who were inside, seeing their roof burning, jumped out and ran off like mad.
雄弁家が欲する大衆(mob)とは,反省よりも情緒を好む大衆であり(one more given to emotion than to reflection 反省に割り当てられるよりも,情緒の割り当てられる),恐怖(心)に満ち,その結果,憎悪に(も)満ちた大衆であり,緩慢で漸進的な方法に我慢ができない大衆であり,憤慨しかつ希望にあふれた大衆でなければならない。雄弁家は,よほどの冷笑的な皮肉屋でもないかぎり,自分の活動を正当化する何らかの信念を手に入れるであろう。彼は感情の方が理性よりもずっと良い案内役であると考え,また,我々の意見は頭悩よりもむしろ血によって形成されるべきであり,人生の最上の要素は個人的なものよりもむしろ集団的なものである,と考える。もし雄弁家が教育を支配すれば,彼は教育を反復練習(drill)と集団的な陶酔とが交互に入りまじったものにして,知識や判断は非人間的な科学の冷酷な野心家の手に委ねられるであろう。
Chapter II: Leaders and followers, n.20
The kind of mob that the orator will desire is one more given to emotion than to reflection, one filled with fears and consequent hatreds, one impatient of slow and gradual methods, and at once exasperated and hopeful. The orator, if he is not a complete cynic, will acquire a set of beliefs that justify his activities. He will think that feeling is a better guide than reason, that our opinions should be formed with the blood rather than the brain, that the best elements in human life are collective rather than individual. If he controls education, he will make it consist of an alternation of drill and collective intoxication, while knowledge and judgment will be left to the cold devotees of inhuman science. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_200.HTM
しかし指導者は,彼の追従者たちに対する力(権力)を享受しなければ,(指導者として)ほとんど成功しそうもない。従って,指導者は,自分の成功を容易にしてくれるような(種類の)状況や大衆(mob)を好むようになるであろう。最も(都合の)良い状況(と)は,その状況と闘うことにおいて人々に勇気を感じさせるのに十分なほどの危険が存在するけれども,恐怖(心)が(人々を)支配するほど優勢にならない状況,-たとえば,恐るべきだが征服できないことはない敵に対する戦争が起ったというような状況である。巧みな雄弁家が好戦的な感情を刺戟したいと思うと(思う時),彼は聴衆に対して二重の信念を創り出す。一つは浅い層の信念であり,(味方側に)大いなる勇気が必要だと思わせるほどに敵のカを誇張する。(もうひとつの)深い方の層の信念は,(自分たちの)勝利に対する固い信念である。これら二つの信念は,共にいわゆる「正義は力(権力)に打ち勝つ(right will prevail over might)」というスローガン(標語)によく具現化されている。
Chapter II: Leaders and followers, n.19
Although a leader is not essential to this emotion, which can be produced by music, and by some exciting event which is seen by a crowd, the words of an orator are the easiest and most usual method of inducing it. The pleasure of collective excitement is, therefore, an important element in the power of leaders. The leader need not share in the feelings which he arouses; he may say to himself, like Shakespeare’s Antony : Now let it work: mischief, thou art afoot, Take thou what course thou wilt! But the leader is hardly likely to be successful unless he enjoys his power over his followers. He will therefore be led to a preference for the kind of situation, and the kind of mob, that makes his success easy. The best situation is one in which there is a danger sufficiently serious to make men feel brave in combating it, but not so terrifying as to make fear predominant — such a situation, for example, as the outbreak of war against an enemy who is thought formidable but not invincible. A skilful orator, when he wishes to stimulate warlike feeling, produces in his audience two layers of belief: a superficial layer, in which the power of the enemy is magnified so as to make great courage seem necessary, and a deeper layer, in which there is a firm conviction of victory. Both are embodied in such a slogan as “right will prevail over might.” 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_190.HTM
臆病な者の間で,組織化(組織の形成)が促進されるのは,指導者への服従だけからではなく,同じように感じる群衆の中の一人であることで感じられる安心(感)によってである。その(開催)目的に共感を持っている公的な集会においては,暖かさ(warmth 興奮)と安心が結びついた一種の精神的高揚感が存在している。つまり,共有されている情緒はしだいに強度を増していき,終にはこの情緒が他のすべての感情を押しだし(crowds out 締め出し),自我(ego)の増殖(注:群衆においては個々人の自我が倍加)によって生れてくる権力の高揚感だけが残る。集団的な興奮は甘美な陶酔であり,そのなかにおいては,正気さも,人間性も,自己保存さえも容易に忘れさられ,残酷な虐殺も英雄的な殉教も,等しく可能となる。この種の陶酔は,他の(種類の)陶酔と同様に,一度その喜びを経験した者にとっては抵抗することが困難であるが,それは,結局は,無関心と倦怠へと導き,また,もし以前の熱情が再び再生されれば,さらにより強い刺激の必要性へと導くのである(注:より強い刺激が必要となる)。
Chapter II: Leaders and followers, n.18
Among the timid, organization is promoted, not only by submission to a leader, but by the reassurance which is felt in being one of a crowd who all feel alike. In an enthusiastic public meeting with whose purpose one is in sympathy, there is a sense of exaltation, combined with warmth and safety: the emotion which is shared grows more and more intense until it crowds out all other feelings except an exultant sense of power produced by the multiplication of the ego. Collective excitement is a delicious intoxication, in which sanity, humanity, and even self-preservation are easily forgotten, and in which atrocious massacres and heroic martyrdom are equally possible. This kind of intoxication, like others, is hard to resist when its delights have once been experienced, but leads in the end to apathy and weariness, and to the need for a stronger and stronger stimulus if the former fervour is to be reproduced. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_180.HTM
Of those who withdraw, some are not genuinely indifferent to power, but only unable to obtain it by the usual methods. Such men may become saints or heresiarchs, founders of monastic orders or of new schools in art or literature. They attach to themselves as disciples people who combine a love of submission with an impulse to revolt ; the latter prevents orthodoxy, while the former leads to uncritical adoption of the new tenets. Tolstoy and his followers illustrate this pattern. The genuine solitary is quite different. A perfect example of his type is the melancholy Jacques, who shares exile with the good Duke because it is exile, and afterwards remains in the forest with the bad Duke rather than return to Court. Many American pioneers, after suffering long hardship and privation, sold their farms and moved further West as soon as civilization caught up with them. For men of this temperament, the world affords fewer and fewer opportunities. Some drift into crime, some into a morose and anti-social philosophy. Too much contact with their fellow-men produces misanthropy, which, when solitude is unattainable, turns naturally towards violence. 出典: Power, 1938. 詳細情報:https://russell-j.com/beginner/POWER02_170.HTM