Oscar Wilde on the way socialism could lead to individualism
I did in fact finish drafting MELISANDE this morning, although I suspect I may work through the finale at least once more before sending it off to any readers.
So I'll give you something else to read, instead.
I discovered this piece through Ran Prieur's blog, which I discovered through Hacker News (since I am still determined to avoid Substacks and X feeds and anything that incentivizes algorithm-chasing and audience-capture [I had originally added Reddit to this list but find it very difficult to avoid if you're trying to do anything that resembles research [[even though I know that many Redditors are actually bots that are designed to manipulate your mind [[[but what am I supposed to do, google???]]]]]]).
It's by Oscar Wilde, and it's the best argument for socialism I've ever seen.
It may also be the best argument for artificial intelligence.
Oscar Wilde
It begins as follows:
The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes.
Where have we read that before?
As Wilde continues:
The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism — are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.
I need to read that article on the function of criticism, but later. First I need to read this piece a few more times.
When I read it to Larry, this was the quote he suggested I write onto our chalkboard:
Under the new conditions Individualism will be far freer, far finer, and far more intensified than it is now. I am not talking of the great imaginatively-realised Individualism of such poets as I have mentioned, but of the great actual Individualism latent and potential in mankind generally. For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is.
What are these new conditions? Not the authoritarian socialism that has been tried in the past, but a new kind of individualized socialism that could only be made possible by an industrial revolution and, eventually, an intelligent one.
You see where this is going, of course.
It may be the first time I've wanted to get there.
Now, I have said that the community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and that the beautiful things will be made by the individual. This is not merely necessary, but it is the only possible way by which we can get either the one or the other. An individual who has to make things for the use of others, and with reference to their wants and their wishes, does not work with interest, and consequently cannot put into his work what is best in him. Upon the other hand, whenever a community or a powerful section of a community, or a government of any kind, attempts to dictate to the artist what he is to do, Art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft. A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. Art is the most intense mode of Individualism that the world has known. I am inclined to say that it is the only real mode of Individualism that the world has known. Crime, which, under certain conditions, may seem to have created Individualism, must take cognisance of other people and interfere with them. It belongs to the sphere of action. But alone, without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.
That said, you don't have to be an artist in Wilde's world; you don't have to produce anything, necessarily, if you don't want to. You can spend the entire day sitting by the side of a lake and admiring the view, if that's the way you choose to spend your time.
For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature’s test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment. The new Individualism, for whose service Socialism, whether it wills it or not, is working, will be perfect harmony.
Read the piece yourself and let me know what you think.