Shooting an Elephant Page 24
his views, so far as one can discern them, are not markedly liberal. No doubt he hates lords, kings, bishops, generals, ladies
of fashion, orders, titles and flummery generally, but he does not seem to think better of the common people than of their
rulers, or to be in favour of increased social equality, or to be enthusiastic about representative institutions. The Houyhnhnms
are organized upon a sort of caste system which is racial in character, the horses which do the menial work being of different colours from their masters and not interbreeding with them. The educational system which Swift admires in the Lilliputians takes hereditary class distinctions for granted, and the children of the poorest class
do not go to school, because 'their Business being only to till and cultivate the Earth... therefore their Education is of little
Consequence to the Public'. Nor does he seem to have been strongly in favour of freedom of speech and the press, in spite
of the toleration which his own writings enjoyed. The King of Brobdingnag is astonished at the multiplicity of religious and
political sects in England, and considers that those who hold 'opinions prejudicial to the public' (in the context this seems
to mean simply heretical opinions), though they need not be obliged to change them, ought to be obliged to conceal them: for
'as it was Tyranny in any Government to require the first, so it was Weakness not to enforce the second'. There is a subtler
indication of Swift's own attitude in the manner in which Gulliver leaves the land of the Houyhnhnms. Intermittently, at least,
Swift was a kind of anarchist, and Part IV of Gulliver's Travels is a picture of an anarchistic society, not governed by law in the ordinary sense, but by the dictates of 'Reason', which are voluntarily accepted by everyone. The General Assembly of the Houyhnhnms 'exhorts' Gulliver's master to get rid of him,
and his neighbours put pressure on him to make him comply. Two reasons are given. One is that the presence of this unusual
Yahoo may unsettle the rest of the tribe, and the other is that a friendly relationship between a Houyhnhnm and a Yahoo is
'not agreeable to Reason or Nature, or a Thing ever heard of before among them'. Gulliver's master is somewhat unwilling to
obey, but the 'exhortation' (a Houyhnhnm, we are told, is never compelled to do anything, he is merely 'exhorted' or 'advised') cannot be disregarded. This illustrates very well the totalitarian tendency which is implicit in the anarchist or pacifist vision of society. In a society in which there is no law, and in theory
no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity
in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by 'thou shalt not', the individual
can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by 'love' or 'reason', he is under continuous
pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else. The Houyhnhnms, we are told, were unanimous
on almost all subjects. The only question they ever discussed was how to deal with the Yahoos. Otherwise there was no room for disagreement among them, because the truth is always either self-evident, or else it is undiscoverable and unimportant. They had apparently no word for 'opinion' in their language, and
in their conversations there was no 'difference of sentiments'. They had reached, in fact, the highest stage of totalitarian
organization, the stage when conformity has become so general that there is no need for a police force. Swift approves of
this kind of thing because among his many gifts neither curiosity nor good nature was included. Disagreement would always
seem to him sheer perversity. 'Reason', among the Houyhnhnms, he says, 'is not a Point Problematical, as with us, where men
can argue with Plausibility on both Sides of a Question; but strikes you with immediate Conviction; as it must needs do, where
it is not mingled, obscured, or discoloured by Passion and Interest'. In other words, we know everything already, so why should dissident opinions be tolerated? The totalitarian society of the Houyhnhnms, where there can be no freedom and no development, follows naturally from this.
We are right to think of Swift as a rebel and iconoclast, but except in certain secondary matters, such as his insistence that women should receive the same education as men, he cannot be labelled 'left'. He is a Tory anarchist, despising authority
while disbelieving in liberty, and preserving the aristocratic outlook while seeing clearly that the existing aristocracy
is degenerate and contemptible. When Swift utters one of his characteristic diatribes against the rich and powerful, one must
probably, as I said earlier, write off something for the fact that he himself belonged to the less successful party, and was
personally disappointed. The 'outs', for obvious reasons, are always more radical than the 'ins'.1 But the most essential thing in Swift is his inability to believe that life - ordinary life on the solid earth, and not some rationalized, deodorized version of it - could be made worth living. Of course, no honest person claims that happiness is
now a normal condition among adult human beings; but perhaps it could be made normal, and it is upon this question that all serious political controversy really turns. Swift has much in common - more, I believe, than has been noticed - with Tolstoy, another disbeliever in the possiblity of happiness. In both men you
have the same anarchistic outlook covering an authoritarian cast of mind; in both a similar hostility to science, the same
impatience with opponents, the same inability to see the importance of any question not interesting to themselves; and in
both cases a sort of horror of the actual process of life, though in Tolstoy's case it was arrived at later and in a different
way. The sexual unhappiness of the two men was not of the same kind, but there was this in common, that in both of them a
sincere loathing was mixed up with a morbid fascination. Tolstoy was a reformed rake who ended by preaching complete celibacy,
while continuing to practise the opposite into extreme old age. Swift was presumably impotent, and had an exaggerated horror
of human dung: he also thought about it incessantly, as is evident throughout his works. Such people are not likely to enjoy
even the small amount of happiness that falls to most human beings, and, from obvious motives, are not likely to admit that
earthly life is capable of much improvement. Their incuriosity, and hence their intolerance, spring from the same root.
Swift's disgust, rancour and pessimism would make sense against the background of a 'next world' to which this one is the prelude. As he does not appear to believe seriously in any such thing, it becomes necessary to construct a paradise supposedly
existing on the surface of the earth, but something quite different from anything we know, with all that he disapproves of
- lies, folly, change, enthusiasm, pleasure, love and dirt - eliminated from it. As his ideal being he chooses the horse, an animal whose excrement is not offensive. The Houyhnhnms are dreary beasts - this is so generally admitted that the point is not worth labouring. Swift's genius can make them credible, but there can have been very few readers in whom
they have excited any feeling beyond dislike. And this is not from wounded vanity at seeing animals preferred to men; for,
of the two, the Houyhnhnms are much liker to human beings than are the Yahoos, and Gulliver's horror of the Yahoos, together
with his recognition that they are the same kind of creature as himself, contains a logical absurdity. This horror comes upon
him at his very first sight of them. 'I never beheld' he says, 'in all my Travels, so disagreeable an Animal, nor one against
which I naturally conceived so strong an Antipathy.' But in comparison with what are the Y
ahoos disgusting? Not with the Houyhnhnms, because at this time Gulliver has not seen a Houyhnhnm. It can only be in comparison with himself, i.e. with a human being.
Later, however, we are told that the Yahoos are human beings, and human society becomes insupportable to Gulliver because all men are Yahoos. In that case why did he not conceive his disgust of humanity earlier? In effect we are told that the Yahoos are fantastically different from men, and
yet are the same. Swift has overreached himself in his fury, and is shouting at his fellow creatures: 'You are filthier than
you are!' However, it is impossible to feel much sympathy with the Yahoos, and it is not because they oppress the Yahoos that
the Houyhnhnms are unattractive. They are unattractive because the 'Reason' by which they are governed is really a desire
for death. They are exempt from love, friendship, curiosity, fear, sorrow and - except in their feelings towards the Yahoos,
who occupy rather the same place in their community as the Jews in Nazi Germany - anger and hatred. 'They have no Fondness for their Colts or Foles, but the Care they take, in educating them, proceeds entirely from the Dictates of Reason.' They lay store by 'Friendship' and 'Benevolence', but 'these are not confined to particular Objects, but universal to the whole Race'. They also value conversation, but in their conversations there are no differences of opinion, and 'nothing passed
but what was useful, expressed in the fewest and most significant Words'. They practise strict birth control, each couple
producing two offspring and thereafter abstaining from sexual intercourse. Their marriages are arranged for them by their
elders, on eugenic principles, and their language contains no word for 'love', in the sexual sense. When somebody dies they
carry on exactly as before, without feeling any grief. It will be seen that their aim is to be as like a corpse as is possible
while retaining physical life. One or two of their characteristics, it is true, do not seem to be strictly 'reasonable' in
their own usage of the word. Thus, they place a great value not only on physical hardihood but on athleticism, and they are
devoted to poetry. But these exceptions may be less arbitrary than they seem. Swift probably emphasizes the physical strength
of the Houyhnhnms in order to make clear that they could never be conquered by the hated human race, while a taste for poetry
may figure among their qualities because poetry appeared to Swift as the antithesis of science, from his point of view the
most useless of all pursuits. In Part III he names 'Imagination, Fancy, and Invention' as desirable faculties in which the
Laputan mathematicians (in spite of their love of music) were wholly lacking. One must remember that although Swift was an
admirable writer of comic verse, the kind of poetry he thought valuable would probably be didactic poetry. The poetry of the
Houyhnhnms, he says,
must be allowed to excel (that of) all other Mortals; wherein the Justness of their Similes, and the Minuteness, as well as exactness, of their Descriptions, are, indeed, inimitable. Their Verses abound very much in both of these; and usually contain
either some exalted Notions of Friendship and Benevolence, or the Praises of those who were Victors in Races, and other bodily
Exercises.
Alas, not even the genius of Swift was equal to producing a specimen by which we could judge the poetry of the Houyhnhnms.
But it sounds as though it were chilly stuff (in heroic couplets, presumably), and not seriously in conflict with the principles
of 'Reason'.
Happiness is notoriously difficult to describe, and pictures of a just and well-ordered society are seldom either attractive or convincing. Most creators of 'favourable' Utopias, however, are concerned to show what life could be like if it were lived
more fully. Swift advocates a simple refusal of life, justifying this by the claim that 'Reason' consists in thwarting your
instincts. The Houyhnhnms, creatures without a history, continue for generation after generation to live prudently, maintaining
their population at exactly the same level, avoiding all passion, suffering from no diseases, meeting death indifferently,
training up their young in the same principles - and all for what? In order that the same process may continue indefinitely.
The notions that life here and now is worth living, or that it could be made worth living, or that it must be sacrificed for
some future good, are all absent. The dreary world of the Houyhnhnms was about as good a Utopia as Swift could construct,
granting that he neither believed in a 'next world' nor could get any pleasure out of certain normal activities. But it is
not really set up as something desirable in itself, but as the justification for another attack on humanity. The aim, as usual, is to humiliate Man by reminding him that he is weak and ridiculous, and above all that he stinks; and the ultimate motive, probably, is a kind of envy, the envy of the ghost for
the living, of the man who knows he cannot be happy for the others who - so he fears - may be a little happier than himself.
The political expression of such an outlook must be either reactionary or nihilistic, because the person who holds it will
want to prevent society from developing in some direction in which his pessimism may be cheated. One can do this either by
blowing everything to pieces, or by averting social change. Swift ultimately blew everything to pieces in the only way that
was feasible before the atomic bomb - that is, he went mad - but, as I have tried to show, his political aims were on the
whole reactionary ones.
From what I have written it may have seemed that I am against Swift, and that my object is to refute him and even to belittle him. In a political and moral sense I am against him so far as I understand him. Yet curiously enough he is one of the writers I admire with least reserve, and Gulliver's Travels, in particular, is a book which it seems impossible for me to grow tired of. I read it first when I was eight - one day short of eight, to be exact, for I stole and furtively read the copy which was to be given me next day on my eighth birthday - and
I have certainly not read it less than half a dozen times since. Its fascination seems inexhaustible. If I had to make a list
of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them. This raises the question: what is the relationship between agreement with a writer's opinions, and enjoyment of his work?
If one is capable of intellectual detachment, one can perceive merit in a writer whom one deeply disagrees with, but enjoyment is a different matter. Supposing that there is such a thing as good or bad art, then the goodness or badness must reside in the work of art itself - not independently of the observer, indeed, but independently of the mood of the observer. In one
sense, therefore, it cannot be true that a poem is good on Monday and bad on Tuesday. But if one judges the poem by the appreciation it arouses, then it can certainly be true, because appreciation, or enjoyment, is a subjective condition which cannot be commanded.
For a great deal of his waking life, even the most cultivated person has no aesthetic feelings whatever, and the power to
have aesthetic feelings is very easily destroyed. When you are frightened, or hungry, or are suffering from toothache or seasickness, King Lear is no better from your point of view than Peter Pan. You may know in an intellectual sense that it is better, but that is simply a fact which you remember; you will not feel the merit of King Lear until you are normal again. And aesthetic judgement can be upset just as disastrously - more disastrously, because the cause is less readily recognized - by political or moral disagreement. If a book angers, wounds or alarms you, then you will not
enjoy it, whatever its merits may be. If it seems to you a really pernicious book, likely to influence other people in some
And yet the opposite process can also happen: enjoyment can overwhelm disapproval, even though one clearly recognizes that
one is enjoying something inimical. Swift, whose world-view is so peculiarly unacceptable, but who is nevertheless an extremely
popular writer, is a good instance of this. Why is it that we don't mind being called Yahoos, although firmly convinced that we are not Yahoos?
It is not enough to make the usual answer that of course Swift was wrong, in fact he was insane, but he was 'a good writer'.
It is true that the literary quality of a book is to some small extent separable from its subject-matter. Some people have
a native gift for using words, as some people have a naturally 'good eye' at games. It is largely a question of timing and
of instinctively knowing how much emphasis to use. As an example near at hand, look back at the passage I quoted earlier,
starting 'In the Kingdom of Tribnia, by the Natives called Langdon'. It derives much of its force from the final sentence:
'And this is the anagrammatic Method.' Strictly speaking this sentence is unnecessary, for we have already seen the anagram
deciphered, but the mock-solemn repetition, in which one seems to hear Swift's own voice uttering the words, drives home the
idiocy of the activities described, like the final tap to a nail. But not all the power and simplicity of Swift's prose, nor
the imaginative effort that has been able to make not one but a whole series of impossible words more credible than the majority
of history books - none of this would enable us to enjoy Swift if his world-view were truly wounding or shocking. Millions
of people, in many countries, must have enjoyed Gulliver's Travels while more or less seeing its anti-human implications: and even the child who accepts Parts I and II as a simple story gets a sense of absurdity from thinking of human beings six inches high. The explanation must be that Swift's world-view is felt
to be not altogether false - or it would probably be more accurate to say, not false all the time. Swift is a diseased writer. He remains permanently in a depressed mood which in most people is only intermittent, rather as though someone suffering from jaundice or the after-effects of influenza should have the energy to write books. But we all know that mood, and something in us responds to the expression of it. Take, for instance, one of his most characteristic works,