On Broadcasting

The recurring discussion about the problem of Broadcasting contains some sense and a great deal of nonsense J and ranges from the admirably good work of bringing consolation to the old and sick to the wild absurdity of talking about listening-in to spectacles which were obviously for the eye and not the ear. When a paper announces, "listening-in to the launching of a ship," it might just as well talk about "smelling a famous statue or eating a symphony or examining a silence with a microscope. To listen to the few confused and accidental noises that accompany a great visual spectacle must be about as satisfactory as shutting your eyes and smelling all the oil paints of the Royal Academy. On the other hand, the more modest plea is a perfectly just and reasonable plea. It is really true that Broadcasting can be used to bring pleasure to those who are hampered in their ordinary movements by age and sickness j and the duty of bringing that pleasure, so far from being nearly a modern scientific fad, ought to be recognized as a branch of the very ancient mission of human charity. It belongs to the spirit so nobly noted in one of the oldest books in the world: "Eyes was

I to the blind and feet to the lame"j and there is no man in that religious tradition who will say a word against it.

But I am rather inclined to think that a healthier society would regard these things as generally things for the unhealthy. It is a good thing to be "feet to the lame" in the sense of providing wooden legs and crutches to those who cannot otherwise walk about. But if we were to approach any athletic young gentleman of our acquaintance, and solemnly present him with a wooden leg, he would possibly regard it as an insult if he did not regard it as a joke. He certainly would not regard it as the next step in scientific evolution that he should go about adorned with three legs. It is a good thing to be "eyes to the blind" in the sense of providing short-sighted people with spectacles or possibly with telescopes. But it is not so tactful to insist on a beautiful lady with perfect and piercing sight wearing a pair of large goggles 3 or to provide her with a telescope to look at herself in the looking-glass. In regard to all these props and special supports of our bodily organs, we permit science to supply deficiencies 5 but not to imply deficiencies, and deficiencies that are not there. A healthier society may see that what is true of our physical organs is also true of our physical senses. The athletic young man ought really to be ashamed to sit at home and listen to a concert when he has only to walk down the street to find it. He ought to be still more ashamed to enjoy only half a play, when by walking out of the house he could enjoy the whole play. Such people are often criticized if they merely look on at athletic sports. They ought surely to be more criticized if they only listen-in, because they are not even athletic enough to look on.

I have remarked elsewhere that my own social ideal would admit many things as a sort of second best, which other social systems can only oflFer as the best. Just as we might give a man shares because we could not give him land, so we would give him a wireless set because we could not give him a walk. The change involves an altered attitude towards the modern worship of machinery j and the recognition of it as something really secondary to the much more wonderful machinery of the human body and mind. But it will be no disgrace to this branch of the science of electricity that it should take on the compassionate character of the science of medicine; or that the exceptional case should be cured by the physicist as by the physician.

I am not at all fond of regimentation or repression; that is why I have never written a novel about Utopia, as is the case with almost all of the sinful human race who have written anything in our time. Utopia always seems to me to mean regimentation rather than emancipation; repression rather than expansion. It is generally called a Republic and it always is a Monarchy. It is a Monarchy in the old and exact sense of the termj because it is really ruled by one man: the author of the book. He may tell us that all the characters in the book spontaneously delight in the beautiful social condition 5 but somehow we never believe him. His ideal world is always the world that he wants 5 and not the world that the world wants. Therefore, however democratic it may be in theory or in the book, it is always pretty despotic when it begins to be approached in practice through the law. The first modern moves towards any Utopian condition are generally as coercive as Prohibition. They are, as I have said, despotic because the whole design is despotic. It is despotic because it is a dreamy and a man is always alone in a dream. All that we call Utopia is but the rather evasive and vague expression of the natural, boyish, and romantic sentiment, "If I were King."

Therefore, however ready I may be to explain what I would do if I were King to broadcasters and many others among my cowering subjects, I am very glad that I am not King. I do not seriously press my proposals for social management in this mattery and the broadcasters may breathe again. The millionaires and the men of science and the masters of machinery may take heart once more 5 for I have decided to let them live. But since it is so much the fashion to take a fancy and then describe it as a social policy, I do not see why I should not suggest this one, which I believe to be far more sensible than most. I would suggest that a really sane society will not further extend these extended communications j but rather restrict them. It will restrict them to those who really cannot do without them. It will refuse them to those who would really be much better without themj even if they were only better for the exercise of walking down the road. If they will not take the trouble to go and hear their own favourite public orator, I really cannot see why the public orator should come to them. Of course he does not really come to them 3 it is only a small part of him called his voice that comes j and many a politician will be all the safer when nobody can see his ugly face or criticize his shallow and shifty manners. The real objection to listening-in is that you cannot, however deep and earnest be your desire, tear a politician in pieces. But nobody, in any case, could expect the aged and the infirm to join in the happy youthful sport of tearing him in pieces. It is not a suitable game for invalids in hospitals or old women seated by the fireside 3 and if they enjoy the beautiful illusion of supposing that they will learn something about politics, by listening to political speeches, why should we not leave them their innocent dreams? And the more intelligent invalids, the more sensible old women, who wish to listen to good music, or even to bad, have obviously a claim on all Christian people to help them in their helplessness.

If Prohibitionists demand a medical certificate for brandy, why should we not demand a medical certificate for broadcasting? If a man must prove that he has a licence and a legitimate reason for importing large quantities of drugs, why should he not show a reason for dragging long streams of words through the air because he is too lazy to go and listen to them? If this sort of coercive collectivism is indeed our ideal state, cannot the police put a stop to the universal waste of crutches on people who are not cripples? Could not citizens be asked to make some effort to preserve the arts and institutions of the city in their old civic form? I do.not profess any particular understanding of music 5 but I have some rudimentary understanding of patriotism 3 and the failure of the Queen's Hall Concerts does seem to me a definite disgrace to a great nation. I am told that people left off attending them because they could hear music on the wireless — heaven knows, not invariably the same sort of music. Now I cannot believe that all the audience of the Queen's Hall has been stricken with paralysis or now consists entirely of people who limp on one leg. And if they take it for granted that an art must always be enjoyed in the most comfortable conditions, as if they were the most inspiring conditions, I think they are wrong about the whole psychology of art. A man who climbs a mountain to see the sunrise sees something quite different from that which is shown in a magic lantern to a man sitting in an armchair. Let us be kind to the man in the armchair when he cannot get out of the armchair 3 but let us not assume that there are no peaks worth climbing or no theatres good enough to go to. I remember even in my childhood all the pleasures of going to the theatre; and one of the greatest pleasures was simply going there.