FullReads

* * * * *

Meanwhile, from child to parent erosion also operates. I do not think that the modern child honors its father and its mother unless it thinks them worthy of honor. There is a slump in respect, as outside the family there is a slump in reverence. As in the outer world a man began by being a worthy, then a member of Parliament, then a minister, finally was granted a pension and later a statue; and as now a man is first a journalist, then a member of Parliament, a minister, and in due course a scoundrel, so inside the family does a father become an equal instead of a tyrant, and a good sort instead of an old fogy. For respect, I believe, was mainly fear and greed. The respect of the child for its father was very like the respect that Riquet, the little dog, felt for Monsieur Bergeret. Anatole France has expressed it ideally:

“Oh, my master, Bergeret, God of Slaughter, I worship thee! Hail, oh God of wrath! Hail, oh bountiful God! I lie at thy feet, I lick thy hand. Thou art great and beautiful when at the laden board thou devourest abundant meats. Thou art great and beautiful when, from a thin strip of wood causing flame to spring, thou dost of night make day….”

That was a little the child’s cosmogony. Then the child became educated, capable of argument. In contact with more reasonable parents it grew more reasonable. The parent, confronted with the question, “Why must I do what you order?” ceased to say, “Because I say so.” That reply did not seem good enough to the parent, and it ceased to be good enough for the child. If the child rebelled, the only thing to do was to strike it, and striking is no longer done; the parent prefers argument because the child is capable of understanding argument. The child is more lawful, more sensitive; it is unready to obey blindly, and it is no longer required to obey blindly, because, while the parent has begun to doubt his own infallibility, the child has been doing so, too. The child is more ready and more able to criticize its parents; indeed, the whole generation is critical, has acquired the habit of introspection. The child is a little like the supersoul of Mr. Stephen Leacock, and is developing thoughts like, “Why am I? Why am I what I am? How? and why how?” Obviously, such questions, when directed at one’s father and mother, are a little shattering. It is true that once upon a time the child readily obeyed; now and then it criticized, but still it obeyed, for it had been told that its duty was to execute, as was its parents’ to command. But duty is in a bad way, and I, for one, think that we should be well rid of duty, for it appears to me to be merely an excuse for acting without considering whether the deed is worthy. The man who dies for his country because he loves it is an idealist and a hero; the man who does that because he thinks it his duty is a fool. The conception of duty has suffered; from the child’s point of view, it is almost extinct; it has been turned upside down, and there is a growth of opinion that the parent should have the duties and the child the privileges. It is the theory of La Course du Flambeau, where Hervieu shows us each generation using and bleeding the elder generation. Or perhaps it is a more subtle conception. It may be that the eugenic idea is vaguely forming in the young generation, and that, in an unperceived return to nature, they are deciding to eat their grandfathers, a primitive taste which I have never been able to understand. Youth, feeling that the world is its orange to suck, is inclined to consider that the elder generation, being responsible for its presence, should look after it and serve it. That is not at all illogical; it is borne out by Chinese law, where, if you save a man from suicide, you must feed him for the rest of his life.