{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61234/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61234","id":"gutenberg_61234","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61234","summary":null,"tags":["Anarchism","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Utopias"],"text":"_\u201cLIBERTY\u201d PAMPHLETS._      _Price One Penny._\n\n[Illustration: LIBERTY PRESS]\n\n\n\n\n                         Common-Sense Country.\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                            L. S. BEVINGTON.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                LONDON:\n                PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JAMES TOCHATTI,\n           \u201cLIBERTY\u201d PRESS, 60, GROVE PARK TERRACE, CHISWICK.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                           Liberty Pamphlets.\n\n\n                             IN THE PRESS.\n\n  =Socialism in Danger.= Part II. BY E. DOMELA NIEUWENHUIS. Translated\n      by R. GRIERSON.\n\n  =Parliamentary Politics in the Socialist Movement.= BY ERRICO\n      MALATESTA.\n\n\n            16 pp., 8vo., printed on toned paper, Price ONE PENNY.\n\n  =Jones\u2019 Boy: Dialogues on Social Questions= Between an \u2018Enfant\n      Terrible\u2019 and his Father. By \u201cSpokeshave.\u201d\n\n  =Liberty Lyrics=, BY L. S. BEVINGTON.\n\n  =The Ideal and Youth.= BY ELIS\u00c9E RECLUS.\n\n  =An Anarchist on Anarchy=, BY ELIS\u00c9E RECLUS.\n\n  =In Defence of Emma Goldmann and the Right of Expropriation.= BY\n      VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE.\n\n\n                                FIRST SERIES.\n\n  =The Why I Ams=: Why I Am a Socialist and an Atheist, by Conrad\n      Naewiger; Why I Am a Social Democrat, by G. Bernard Shaw; Why I Am\n      an Individualist Anarchist, by J. Armsden.\n\n\n                                SECOND SERIES.\n\n  =The Why I Ams=: Why I Am a Communist, by William Morris; Why I Am an\n      Expropriationist, by L. S. Bevington.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\n                                LIBERTY:\n\n                   A JOURNAL OF ANARCHIST COMMUNISM.\n\n\n                Published Monthly.      Price One Penny.\n\n\n                        THE CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE\n\n  LOUISE MICHEL, A. HAMON, W. MORRIS, P. KROPOTKIN, ERRICO MALATESTA,\n  ELIS\u00c9E RECLUS, G. B. SHAW, L. S. BEVINGTON, J. GLEN, TOUZEAU PARRIS,\n                                  AND\n                   ALL THE BEST WRITERS AND THINKERS\n                       IN THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                         Common-Sense Country.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nThere was a country where Common-sense had somehow got the upper hand.\nIn that country sense was as common as lunacy is in a madhouse. There\nwas a place for everything, and everything was either in that place, or\nelse was on the direct way there\u2014the shortest way, the easiest way, the\ncheapest way. In that country everybody was brought up with the notion\nthat the simplest plan in everything served everybody\u2019s turn best, even\nthe clever people\u2019s; and it was taken as a matter of course that if\nthings did not go wrong people wouldn\u2019t. They read in their books of\nhistory and comparative sociology that in countries were things do go\nwrong, people go wrong too, in the blind, blundering attempt to\nstraighten things back a bit. But in Common-sense Country it was always\nsaid when things went wrong that there had been some nonsense\u2014that is,\nempty word-play\u2014in the heads or habits of the people, which had diverted\nattention from realities, and caused the people to let things wander out\nof the way.\n\nIn Common-sense Country all the commodities and goods, all the\ninstruments, utensils, and appliances\u2014in short, all the \u201cthings\u201d\u2014had\nvery simple and unadventurous biographies, and, if they could have\nspoken, they would not have had much harrowing information to impart\nabout the ravages of their tissues and textures caused by moth and rust,\nnor yet of vicissitudes incurred at the hands of thieves breaking\nthrough to steal. \u201cI was needed: I was made: I was conveyed: I was\napplied: I was consumed.\u201d That would have summed up the history of a\nthing in the country where things went right: only five short chapters.\nIn most countries, of course, all sorts of distressing and distracting\nother chapters intervene. Thus: \u201cI was coveted: I was done without: I\nwas lied for: I was hated for: I was speculated in: I was adulterated: I\nwas advertised. I was legislated about: I was sold (and my buyer with\nme): I was squandered: I was hoarded: I was quarrelled over: I was\nfought for: I was burgled: I was bombed.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nIn Common-sense Country there was a job for everyone, and everyone was\nmerrily, ardently, or placidly doing that job. No one was doing mere\n\u201cbusiness\u201d and calling it work. No one was doing real work and feeling\nit \u201ctoil\u201d. Dull jobs were done in short spells by an immense number of\npeople; delightful jobs were worked at for the pleasure of the thing, in\nlonger spells, and by a fewer number of people. It fell out so,\nnaturally, and because of common sense; nobody had to be at the trouble\nof enforcing the arrangement. The man with the dullest or most fatiguing\njob, as a matter of course, got the longest leisure for re-creation of\nhis naturally flagging zest for the job. The man with the pleasurable\nand healthy job hardly knew leisure from job. The kindliest and most\nable-bodied and jolliest of the people had common-sense reasons for\nattending to the least appetizing tasks. Everybody knew they wanted\ndoing; and these kindly, vigorous, and jolly folks were those who cared\nmost about getting them done, and cared least about minor disagreeables.\nThey also liked the peculiar way in which other people shook hands with\nthem for it, and more than made it good to them in the way of respect\nand hospitality wherever they went.\n\nYou never saw any feet without shoes in cold weather in Common-sense\nCountry. And you never saw any shoes heaped up thousands thick in\nwarehouses with no feet to put into them. Common-sense citizens had\ngrave objections, not only to cold, discomfort, and disease, but also\ngrave objections to the enormous expense of thought, time, material, and\ngoodwill, necessarily involved in any and every measure for keeping\nempty shoes warm indoors, and human feet cold outside in the street. You\nnever came to a place in any Common-sense city where, by turning your\nhead to the right, you could see one horn of a dilemma in the shape of a\nlot of grain or fish being destroyed on the lunatic excuse that it could\nnot be sold for more than it cost, while by turning your head to the\nleft the other horn of the dilemma became visible in the shape of men\nand women (with their children) hungry, worried, and constantly at their\nwits\u2019 end, only because they could not buy back the comestibles they had\nploughed, reaped, milled, fished, and otherwise laboured to bring within\nhuman reach.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nIn Common-sense Country there were no jerry built houses, because people\ncould not see any reason for making insecure and unhealthy dwellings.\nThere were no ground landlords to make it disadvantageous to any builder\nto build honestly; no builders so hard pressed, therefore, that they\nwere obliged to cause the masons to scamp work, use limeless mortar, or\nunseasoned wood. No builder or mason, moreover, had (in the name of\ncommon-sense) any object whatever in view so immediately as the\nsupplying of buildings wanted for use. He built houses for bakers,\nclothiers, artists, and all sorts of other useful persons; and these\nlived in the houses and produced food, clothing, works of art, and all\nsorts of other useful things for the builder in exchange.\n\nThere was no waste of any energy or of any talent in Common-sense\nCountry. There were no churches and temples made with hands; because\nhands had better things to do than build prisons to shut up souls in.\nAlso because in strict common sense the sky was holy enough to \u201csit\nunder,\u201d and even to sing spiritual songs under. Besides,\nCommon-senseites had discovered that you could not get the sun and fixed\nstars and all their lesser lights into the biggest of temples ever made\nwith hands. In Common-sense Country people liked daylight for their\nminds and morals as well as for their bodies; and found it cheapest in\nthe long run.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nThere were next to no shipwrecks on the coasts of Common-sense Country;\nno one raced any ships to port in all weathers for the nonsensical\nreason of getting in before other ships. People on shore could always\nafford to wait a day or so for the weather, better than they could\nafford to kill men, sink ships, and spoil cargoes through running amuck\nat nature\u2019s meteorological arrangements. It did not matter a jot to any\none which ship got in first, since all ships were full of supplies, and\nsure to drop in, in natural order, as fast as needed. What sense of\nhurry there was, founded of course on experience of the inconvenience of\nwaiting, led to all possible improvements in the art and science of\nship-building and engine-building, so that wind-and-wave difficulties\nhad been reduced to a minimum. So there was no colliding in fogs, no\nbursting of boilers, no over-lading, and no un-seaworthy craft; also no\n\u201cLloyd\u2019s\u201d agencies, to speculate on anyone\u2019s want of common-sense, and\nto live as parasites on the low moral vitality of the public, making\nprofit at its expense. When folk talked of \u201cinsuring\u201d in that country,\nthey always meant making as sure as possible against chances of mishap.\nTo insure a ship was to build her well, fit her well, man her well, to\nsteer clear of shoals, and keep her in sound repair. Likewise with the\ninsurance of houses. And to insure your life, you had only to eat,\ndrink, and clothe yourself on hygienic principles, to avoid the\nindolence or the over-taxing of any of your faculties, and to act fairly\nby every one of your fellow-creatures with whom you had to do. In\ncommon-sense language, insuring your life or property never meant to\nmake it worth anyone\u2019s while to destroy either one or the other.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nNo visible teacher taught common-sense in that country. Children were\nborn with it ready-made. It lay in their human nature. It taught itself.\nIt \u201cgrowed\u201d (like Topsy) because neither \u201cbusiness\u201d nor \u201cpolicy\u201d existed\nto check or warp it\u2014indeed neither the policy of business nor the\nbusiness of policy were known at all, except as queer, sad, old\nsuperstitions, suffered through and done with ages ago, during the time\nwhen human generations were paying a big price in the purgatory of\ncivilization, for the privilege of having beaten other creatures in the\ndangerous matter of language. Children in Common-sense Country were\nnever taught to be \u201cwise and prudent,\u201d because that was the way to\nprevent anything of any interest or beauty or high import from being\n\u201crevealed.\u201d Their little, honest, ignorant, simple questions received\nhonest, accurate, and simple answers, in language which they could\nunderstand, and which they never needed to unlearn afterwards. And this\nalike on all subjects. Every young man and young woman grew up with as\nmuch common-sense in his or her head or expectations as the elders could\nhelp them to. And each young man or young woman went on from a\ncommon-sense starting point to use his or her faculties as individual\nendowment suggested, so that each generation kept on fearlessly adding\nto real knowledge by experimenting in new directions as common-sense\nprompted; while the elders loved to have it so, and felt rewarded for\ntheir good faith to the children, and were sometimes in their own turn\nlisteners, questioners, learners.\n\nCommon-sense citizens never said \u201cTime is money.\u201d They said that\nmoney-minting, money-managing, and money-protecting entail endless waste\nof time and trouble; that they are an abuse of human faculty, resulting\nin a great deal of death\u2014bodily, intellectual, moral, and spiritual.\nAlso it was said these and like employments were as nonsensical in their\nobjects as they were vicious in their effects. Money in Common-sense\nCountry had no meaning, any more than it has in a beehive. No one said\n\u201cMoney is power.\u201d Sometimes it was said \u201cMoney is weakness.\u201d That was\nwhen Common-senseites were speaking of the doings and miseries of the\ninhabitants of Lunatic Land. (By the way, the word used was not _money_\nbut _mammon_.) One objection they had to money, beyond its\nnonsensicalness, was its tendency\u2014in proportion to the degree of its\naccumulation in a man\u2019s hand\u2014to sap away his \u201csoul,\u201d his moral\nindividuality, his character. They said, \u201cWhat can it profit a man to\nlose his soul, and become a moral paralytic?\u201d They observed also that\nwherever in Lunatic Land mammon had accumulated in a man\u2019s hand, it had\na tendency to put into his other hand a sceptre, a truncheon, a gatling\ngun, or some other preposterous implement, making of that moral\nparalytic a lord over two, or five, or ten cities, or markets, or\ncommunities\u2014as the case might be.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nAs there was no mammon, there were none of those dismal things which are\neternal essentials where mammon reigns. There were no arsenals, no\narmies, no police, no spies: no banks, no prisons, no poorhouses: no\nbrothels, no divorce courts, no nunneries, no confessionals: no \u201crings,\u201d\nno strikes, no infernal machines, no gallows. Common-sense found no sort\nof use in any of these queer things. Common-sense knew by hearsay that\nmammon could not reign without them; but then common sense found no\nreason whatever for putting up with mammon, or paying its expenses.\n\nThere were many stores and depots where anyone who wanted anything for\nwear, or consumption, or instruction, or pleasure, or any other use,\ncould go, or send and get it, or get it made. He never had to ask\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the damage?\u201d because in Common-sense Country damage was objected\nto. Everyone knew that no one had got what he did not want, because\nnobody was so insane as to cumber himself with the custody of anything\nthat was of no use or pleasure to him; so that to ask him to give up\nwhat was of direct use or pleasure to him would damage him. No one was\nshort of anything, because the world is very fruitful, and human beings\nare very numerous, very ingenious, and very industrious, and are able\nand eager to make it more and more fruitful. Wealth in Common-sense\nCountry increased even faster than the population, so that there was\nmore leisure for every new generation born. Whatever was not of direct\nuse to the individuals who produced it, it was to the convenience of\nthese individuals to place in care, and outside custody altogether, so\nthat those to whom it was not superfluous might choose their own time\nand put it to their own uses. It is only in Lunatic Land that everybody\n(willingly or not) makes a practice of fining everybody else for the\nprivilege of living alongside of him on the same planet. It takes a\nhereditary lunatic of many generations\u2019 standing to go shamming about in\nthe roundabout, nonsensically solemn effort to convert man\u2019s natural\nhome into a penal colony, by means of a cunningly devised system of\nfines all round for being alive and active and wanting to stop so.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nIn Common-sense Country there were born ninety-five per cent. fewer\nidiots, cripples, and otherwise afflicted mortals than are born\nelsewhere. The few there were, were not felt as a burden; for those of\ntender hearts found a natural pleasure in doing what could be done to\nmake life tolerable for these sad and ever diminishing exceptions; and\nof course they were no expense in a land of plenty, where access was\nfree to whatever was wanted, without money and without price.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nIn Common-sense Country words were true, and purposes single; even\nnewspapers expressed real opinions, and conveyed real information; fun\nabounded, and nobody preached. Every shade of individuality was\nrespected and made welcome, variety being suggestive as well as\ninteresting. No one wheedled, no one canted, no one flattered, or\nequivocated, or slandered; because none of these were necessary\nexpedients. There was never anything to fear from either honesty or\ngenerosity in that land. People could have food, friends, fun, and\nfreedom without little abject servilities. Every individual was, as a\nmatter of course, left perfectly free on his capable side, while being\ncourteously and gladly aided, by custom and common consent, on his weak\nside. So that there was nothing to prevent his voluntarily and naturally\nmaking common cause with others in the overcoming of common\ndifficulties, and in the acquirement, production, and distribution of\nall good things.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nThere was no schism in that country, because there was no Church. There\nwas a great deal of religion, because Common-senseites had time to try\ntheir best powers of life and mind on everything, and the more they\nknew, the deeper depths of sheer wonderfulness did they find beneath the\nnew-won knowledge. They found that life, love, liberty, peace, progress,\nand everything worth having came as the reward of adherence to certain\ninexorable, universal laws, inherent in everything; laws in which there\nwas no variableness, nor shadow of turning; and also no respect of\npersons. They had the intensest interest and zest in getting hold of\nthese laws, and in falling in with them as fast as they became visible;\nand they never dreamt of making cheap and nasty substitutes for laws in\nplaces or cases where none appeared of their own accord. As neither the\nignorance nor superstition of their fellows served anyone\u2019s turn in a\ncountry where citizens were free and trusted one another, no people in\nblack were kept to purvey either the one or the other, not even to women\nor to the little children. All black arts were forgotten, and not\nmissed. On the other hand Common-sense Country was rich in prophets, or\npoets, of the variety known as \u201cborn not made.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nThere was no sedition, because there was no State. Instead, there was\nevery where a most beautiful order; for common-sense, left to itself,\nsaw no use in a public muddle, or in a private scramble; such as exists\neverywhere and all the while in Lunatic Land. It was moreover found that\nthere were a thousand simpler, cheaper, and surer (because more natural)\nways of forestalling and discouraging any atavistic aggressiveness on\nthe part of individuals, than bribing a number of strangers beforehand\nto be in readiness to retaliate by proxy.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nThere was no swindling because there was no competition. Instead, there\nwas endless emulation. The results of doing anything well, usefully, or\nadmirably were wholly pleasant. The social results of doing any thing\nthat wanted doing better and more easily and swiftly than it had been\ndone before, were so exceptionally pleasant that all the most energetic\nand able people aspired and endeavoured to experience those results at\nfirst hand. No man-imposed restriction thwarted or impeded any\nexperiment, and in the end the community learnt something useful by\nevery mistake made. General goodwill and prosperity were immense;\nbecause there were no reasons at all for tricking anybody\u2014quite the\nreverse.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nHuman nature was never made a butt for satire, or a subject of regret,\nin Common-sense Country. No mud, no rotten eggs, no printers\u2019 ink were\nthrown at it. No one made a \u201cliving\u201d by undertaking to convince others\nof their unsuspected depravity, with promise of cure for it in exchange\nfor cash down and vows of allegiance. No one made any name or fame for\nhimself by undertaking to keep human nature in others in order, by means\nof penal and restrictive regulations invented and imposed by human\nnature in himself or his set. Common-senseites saw that human nature was\na branch of nature at large, and that to divide it against itself was\nthe surest way to get it out of gear. Whenever a proclivity was found to\nbe universal amongst humans, common-sense put the natural interpretation\non the fact, and respected the proclivity, however superficially\ninconvenient in minor respects or exceptional cases. They respected it\nas due to some instinct, implanted and developed by the law of\nLifewardness, and which it was therefore dangerous and disastrous\nsystematically to nullify and oppose. Their endeavour was, instead, to\nbecome better acquainted with it.\n\n[Illustration: -ooo-]\n\nThe great pleasure of trustful, unchecked sympathy, and of spontaneous\nglowing kindliness, was enjoyed nowhere to such a degree as in\nCommon-sense Country. The old people, the little children, the animals\nand birds had a happy time of it; and there was free exchange of\nfriendship and affection between the dumb and the human sharers of\nearthly life. And in the healthy, breathable, moral atmosphere of\nhabitual good faith, fearless thinking, true speech, and sincere dealing\nwhich (by dint of simple good sense) people had gradually instituted,\nthe necessary love of self, which takes such crude forms in Lunatic\nLand, had overflowed at every point, and become indistinguishable from\nthe delicious, zest-giving, and inexhaustible pleasure of love for those\naround.\n\nThere was Peace in Common-sense Country, and Goodwill among men; and\nHappiness and Fullness of Life had become the Natural Order of the day.\n\n\n   Printed by James Tochatti, at 60, Grove Park Terrace, Chiswick, W.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.\n 2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as\n      printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.\n 4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.","title":"Common-Sense Country","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":3441}