Heretics, IV - Mr. Bernard Shaw

It is typical of an artist that he aims to display his work; but it is typical of an orator that he aims to disguise his true thoughts-- see Mark Antony, or Joseph Chamberlain.

Bernard Shaw is often viewed as capricious and flitting from ideal to ideal.  In actuality, he holds himself rigorously to an unchanging standard, and this puts him at odds with both the liberals and conservatives at different moments-- hence the perception.  And his unchanging standard is not to veer from calling things as they are-- no bending the use of words, or backing off of his own perceptions.  He'll call a white wine a yellow wine, and be right in doing so.

But this insistence also means he insists against any traditional ideals or moral standards.  He takes this too far, in the sense that he denies some of man's most central qualities, like giving laws, or making generalizations.

And Shaw's ultimate devotion is to an even worse ideal: he looks down upon Man, but always in comparison to the Superman.  In this, he makes the same grave error as Nietzsche from whom he learned the trick: his point of comparison is to a thing that isn't, rather than seeing and loving and being surprised at the thing that is. 

Better to view the world from a lack of pre-conceptions or expectations.  The man who does this will live a life of joy at the wondrousness of his surroundings.  It is true: the meek shall inherit the earth.

Shaw's way leads to further despair.  When he sees the gulf between humanity and his Superman, between the world and his adopted notion of Progress, he holds tightly to his notion and discards humanity, repudiates the world.  But the things that last have the opposite approach.  The Church was built on the Rock of a man who was an exemplar of the good that is only found against an expectation of nothing, "and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it."

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This chapter got really beautiful by the end of it-- and in a hurry, too.  Good technique.

History I had to look up: Boer War (mentioned a few times already) -- British colonial conflict in present-day South Africa in the late 19th century.  Introduced the use of concentration camps by the British.