Book review: Back To Methuselah – George Bernard Shaw
By: Faiz Ahmed
Oakland University
Working at the Mall is a boring job, especially as the major shopping season ended with Christmas. To rid myself of my boredom, I downloaded an online book written many years ago in the 1920s by an English intellectual, George Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw was an intellectual who had wisdom, not just knowledge. The preface of the book is the most interesting part. After the preface there are five plays that portray the beginning of human existence from the time of Adam and Eve and the serpent, to the end of times in Bernard Shaw’s understanding. The preface is an absolute work of philosophical achievement while the plays are fiction which he derived from his experiences and his philosophical enlightenment.
As I read on, I understood Shaw’s world view. Shaw had rejected canonical Christianity and the modern day bible.
Shaw was also an evolutionist, however he was not a Darwinian, as in he did not agree with the concept of natural selection. He was a neo-Lamarckian evolutionist, believing in the concept of creative evolution.
While reading Shaw, I could recognize agnostic influences in his philosophy as in he believed in the existence of god, but not in religion as taught by the bible.
There were also a few places where Shaw speaks about Islam, and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and holds both in high regard.
Bernard Shaw wrote a few words of praise for the religion of Islam in his book and also later on in life had a special liking for Islam. He was one of Britain’s finest intellectual contributions and his interest in Islam led him to interview the renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Abdul Aleem Siddiqui.
In his book, he comes to the conclusion that mankind is corrupt and self destructive and that modern civilization as he saw it, futile.
He explains that the secular educational system was nothing but mis-education and a poison to the mind. Some of his opinions are very similar to Islamic spiritual philosophical thought.
For instance, he says “Another observation I had made was that Good natured unambitious men are cowards when they have no religion. They are dominated and exploited not only by greedy and often half-witted and half-alive weaklings who will do anything for cigars, champagne, motor cars, and the more childish and selfish uses of money …Government and exploitation become synonymous under such circumstances; and the world is finally ruled by the childish, the brigands, and the blackguards … At the present moment one half of Europe, having knocked the other half down, is trying to kick it to death, and may succeed: a procedure which is, logically, sound Neo-Darwinism. And the good natured majority are looking on in helpless horror, or allowing themselves to be persuaded by the newspapers of their exploiters that the kicking is not only a sound commercial investment, but an act of divine justice of which they are the ardent instruments.”(Bernard Shaw)
In that passage, he first expresses his distaste and his understanding of the evils of materialism and that he recognizes this age that Europe had entered as an age in which the rulers of the people would be the worst people. He also mentions that “one half of Europe brought down the other half and is kicking it to death.” This maybe in reference to the secularization of Europe where secular Europe brought down the religious establishments and then tried to extinguish religious sincerity among the people through immoral seductive vices, or it may be in reference to the emergence of capitalism where profiteers are kicking to death those Europeans in abject poverty. It could also be in reference to the First World War which got over just a year before he published this book.
He mentions that good natured unambitions men are cowards when they have no religion. This is also a very Islamic concept. The duty to speak out against evil and against injustice can be carried out when people do not fear persecution.
There is another aspect of the book that I really enjoyed.
Shaw saw the educational system not as education but as indoctrination.
Shaw writes that “When the doctors inoculate you and the homoeopathists dose you, they give you an infinitesimally attenuated dose. If they gave you the virus at full strength it would overcome your resistance and produce its direct effect. The doses of false doctrine given at public schools and universities are so big that they overwhelm the resistance that a tiny dose would provoke. The normal student is corrupted beyond redemption, and will drive the genius who resists out of the country if he can” (Bernard Shaw)
What Shaw means here is that education in universities and schools is effective in keeping people from thinking ‘outside the box’. Education is used as a method of binding a person’s mind rather than letting the mind think freely. And this false doctrine that is taught at universities and colleges is so difficult to see through that most people fall victim to the lies that they are fed and when someone comes along to tell them something different than the generally accepted philosophical theories, the average student will try their best to persecute the genius.
Then Shaw goes on to explain the more sinister aspect of modern education.
“But meanwhile--and here comes the horror of it--our technical instruction is honest and efficient. The public schoolboy who is carefully blinded, duped, and corrupted as to the nature of a society based on profiteering, and is taught to honor parasitic idleness and luxury, learns to shoot and ride and keep fit with all the assistance and guidance that can be procured for him by the most anxiously sincere desire that he may do these things well, and if possible superlatively well. In the army he learns to fly; to drop bombs; to use machine-guns to the utmost of his capacity… the instructors know their business, and really mean the learners to succeed. The result is that powers of destruction that could hardly without uneasiness be entrusted to infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence are placed in the hands of romantic school boy patriots who, however generous by nature, are by education ignoramuses, dupes, snobs, and sportsmen to whom fighting is a religion and killing an accomplishment; whilst political power, useless under such circumstances except to militarist imperialists in chronic terror of invasion and subjugation, pompous tuft hunting fools, commercial adventurers to whom the organization by the nation of its own industrial services would mean checkmate, financial parasites on the money market, and stupid people who cling to the status quo merely because they are used to it, is obtained by heredity, by simple purchase, by keeping newspapers and pretending that they are organs of public opinion, by the wiles of seductive women, and by prostituting ambitious talent to the service of the profiteers, who call the tune because, having secured all the spare plunder, they alone can afford to pay the piper.”(Bernard Shaw)
Here Shaw explains that modern secular education does not broaden the intellectual horizons of a person’s mind, rather education is now a technical knowhow, for example the ability to design cars is not education as in it does not broaden a person’s intellectual understanding therefore it is a technical knowhow, the ability to design software is not education, it is a skill for it does not improve a person’s ability to understand the problems of the world and to see where they fit into that world picture, this is the same with nursing, engineering, accounting, medical practice etc.
However there is another aspect to this technical knowhow, and that is, the good natured people who attain their skills are mostly employed by the profiteers and the exploiters. They are employed by military imperialists, multinational corporations which destabilize the homegrown industries of other nations, and manufacturers that are busy destroying the delicate balance that natural environment stands on.
Of course he also mentions how these profiteers and war mongers achieve these goals and attain political power.
Firstly he says that they do it by “keeping newspapers and pretending that they are organs of public opinion” then he also mentions that “having secured all the spare plunder, they alone can pay the piper” meaning that the press is not free, because the capitalists and the ruling elite have the ability to dictate what public opinion should be. Of course today the digital media also functions like that.
Then he says secondly, by the wiles of seductive women, meaning that they get people so engrossed in sexuality that they cannot think of anything else except for sex then attaining political power is easier, by putting the masses of the people to sleep.
Bernard Shaw also writes about the “flimsiness of civilization” as a chapter in his book is called. Over here he says basically that mankind is doomed to destruction due to its own foolishness. He puts forth in his book, the suggestion that humans are too immature to rule the world. Rather by the way of creative evolution, if mankind does not save itself it will be replaced by a better creation. He says “The power that produced Man when the monkey was not up to the mark, can produce a higher creature than Man if Man does not come up to the mark.” This is the basic theme of the five plays that follow the preface in his book, each in a different era separated by thousands of years, the journey of how man would evolve into a more advanced form of humanity for better or for worse. It is an exceptional book worth reading, but it is necessary to keep in mind while reading that it is a fiction.
First Published with East West Link News - ewlnews.com
Oakland University
Working at the Mall is a boring job, especially as the major shopping season ended with Christmas. To rid myself of my boredom, I downloaded an online book written many years ago in the 1920s by an English intellectual, George Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw was an intellectual who had wisdom, not just knowledge. The preface of the book is the most interesting part. After the preface there are five plays that portray the beginning of human existence from the time of Adam and Eve and the serpent, to the end of times in Bernard Shaw’s understanding. The preface is an absolute work of philosophical achievement while the plays are fiction which he derived from his experiences and his philosophical enlightenment.
As I read on, I understood Shaw’s world view. Shaw had rejected canonical Christianity and the modern day bible.
Shaw was also an evolutionist, however he was not a Darwinian, as in he did not agree with the concept of natural selection. He was a neo-Lamarckian evolutionist, believing in the concept of creative evolution.
While reading Shaw, I could recognize agnostic influences in his philosophy as in he believed in the existence of god, but not in religion as taught by the bible.
There were also a few places where Shaw speaks about Islam, and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and holds both in high regard.
Bernard Shaw wrote a few words of praise for the religion of Islam in his book and also later on in life had a special liking for Islam. He was one of Britain’s finest intellectual contributions and his interest in Islam led him to interview the renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Abdul Aleem Siddiqui.
In his book, he comes to the conclusion that mankind is corrupt and self destructive and that modern civilization as he saw it, futile.
He explains that the secular educational system was nothing but mis-education and a poison to the mind. Some of his opinions are very similar to Islamic spiritual philosophical thought.
For instance, he says “Another observation I had made was that Good natured unambitious men are cowards when they have no religion. They are dominated and exploited not only by greedy and often half-witted and half-alive weaklings who will do anything for cigars, champagne, motor cars, and the more childish and selfish uses of money …Government and exploitation become synonymous under such circumstances; and the world is finally ruled by the childish, the brigands, and the blackguards … At the present moment one half of Europe, having knocked the other half down, is trying to kick it to death, and may succeed: a procedure which is, logically, sound Neo-Darwinism. And the good natured majority are looking on in helpless horror, or allowing themselves to be persuaded by the newspapers of their exploiters that the kicking is not only a sound commercial investment, but an act of divine justice of which they are the ardent instruments.”(Bernard Shaw)
In that passage, he first expresses his distaste and his understanding of the evils of materialism and that he recognizes this age that Europe had entered as an age in which the rulers of the people would be the worst people. He also mentions that “one half of Europe brought down the other half and is kicking it to death.” This maybe in reference to the secularization of Europe where secular Europe brought down the religious establishments and then tried to extinguish religious sincerity among the people through immoral seductive vices, or it may be in reference to the emergence of capitalism where profiteers are kicking to death those Europeans in abject poverty. It could also be in reference to the First World War which got over just a year before he published this book.
He mentions that good natured unambitions men are cowards when they have no religion. This is also a very Islamic concept. The duty to speak out against evil and against injustice can be carried out when people do not fear persecution.
There is another aspect of the book that I really enjoyed.
Shaw saw the educational system not as education but as indoctrination.
Shaw writes that “When the doctors inoculate you and the homoeopathists dose you, they give you an infinitesimally attenuated dose. If they gave you the virus at full strength it would overcome your resistance and produce its direct effect. The doses of false doctrine given at public schools and universities are so big that they overwhelm the resistance that a tiny dose would provoke. The normal student is corrupted beyond redemption, and will drive the genius who resists out of the country if he can” (Bernard Shaw)
What Shaw means here is that education in universities and schools is effective in keeping people from thinking ‘outside the box’. Education is used as a method of binding a person’s mind rather than letting the mind think freely. And this false doctrine that is taught at universities and colleges is so difficult to see through that most people fall victim to the lies that they are fed and when someone comes along to tell them something different than the generally accepted philosophical theories, the average student will try their best to persecute the genius.
Then Shaw goes on to explain the more sinister aspect of modern education.
“But meanwhile--and here comes the horror of it--our technical instruction is honest and efficient. The public schoolboy who is carefully blinded, duped, and corrupted as to the nature of a society based on profiteering, and is taught to honor parasitic idleness and luxury, learns to shoot and ride and keep fit with all the assistance and guidance that can be procured for him by the most anxiously sincere desire that he may do these things well, and if possible superlatively well. In the army he learns to fly; to drop bombs; to use machine-guns to the utmost of his capacity… the instructors know their business, and really mean the learners to succeed. The result is that powers of destruction that could hardly without uneasiness be entrusted to infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence are placed in the hands of romantic school boy patriots who, however generous by nature, are by education ignoramuses, dupes, snobs, and sportsmen to whom fighting is a religion and killing an accomplishment; whilst political power, useless under such circumstances except to militarist imperialists in chronic terror of invasion and subjugation, pompous tuft hunting fools, commercial adventurers to whom the organization by the nation of its own industrial services would mean checkmate, financial parasites on the money market, and stupid people who cling to the status quo merely because they are used to it, is obtained by heredity, by simple purchase, by keeping newspapers and pretending that they are organs of public opinion, by the wiles of seductive women, and by prostituting ambitious talent to the service of the profiteers, who call the tune because, having secured all the spare plunder, they alone can afford to pay the piper.”(Bernard Shaw)
Here Shaw explains that modern secular education does not broaden the intellectual horizons of a person’s mind, rather education is now a technical knowhow, for example the ability to design cars is not education as in it does not broaden a person’s intellectual understanding therefore it is a technical knowhow, the ability to design software is not education, it is a skill for it does not improve a person’s ability to understand the problems of the world and to see where they fit into that world picture, this is the same with nursing, engineering, accounting, medical practice etc.
However there is another aspect to this technical knowhow, and that is, the good natured people who attain their skills are mostly employed by the profiteers and the exploiters. They are employed by military imperialists, multinational corporations which destabilize the homegrown industries of other nations, and manufacturers that are busy destroying the delicate balance that natural environment stands on.
Of course he also mentions how these profiteers and war mongers achieve these goals and attain political power.
Firstly he says that they do it by “keeping newspapers and pretending that they are organs of public opinion” then he also mentions that “having secured all the spare plunder, they alone can pay the piper” meaning that the press is not free, because the capitalists and the ruling elite have the ability to dictate what public opinion should be. Of course today the digital media also functions like that.
Then he says secondly, by the wiles of seductive women, meaning that they get people so engrossed in sexuality that they cannot think of anything else except for sex then attaining political power is easier, by putting the masses of the people to sleep.
Bernard Shaw also writes about the “flimsiness of civilization” as a chapter in his book is called. Over here he says basically that mankind is doomed to destruction due to its own foolishness. He puts forth in his book, the suggestion that humans are too immature to rule the world. Rather by the way of creative evolution, if mankind does not save itself it will be replaced by a better creation. He says “The power that produced Man when the monkey was not up to the mark, can produce a higher creature than Man if Man does not come up to the mark.” This is the basic theme of the five plays that follow the preface in his book, each in a different era separated by thousands of years, the journey of how man would evolve into a more advanced form of humanity for better or for worse. It is an exceptional book worth reading, but it is necessary to keep in mind while reading that it is a fiction.
First Published with East West Link News - ewlnews.com
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