Social Tendencies (1843)

AUTHOR: Lane, Charles

PUBLICATION:
Part 1, The Dial. Vol. IV, no. 1 (July 1843): 65-87.
https://archive.org/details/dial03riplgoog/page/64/mode/2up
Part 2, The Dial. Vol. IV, no. 2 (October 1843): 188-205.
https://archive.org/details/dial03riplgoog/page/188/mode/2up

In this two-part article, Lane does not call explicitly for a veg*n lifestyle though, in passing, he does condemn meat-eating but he describes the larger framework within which his veganism is located.

KEYWORDS: food, women's rights, social reform, education

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

In this essay Lane promotes what he designates as a new wave of social and institutional reforms aiming at a “new social existence” and “seeking an external state conformable to the spirit within” (66). These reforms, Lane insists, must be implemented as speedily as possible, because  reform conservatism will not do:

Urged by no better principle than the pressure from without, the holders of political power slowly and reluctantly concede some of the ground which might, in bygone times, wrested from the domains of love, but no new principle is recognised. A few more voters are admitted into the circle; but there is not sufficient courage to act universally, and cast aside all the barriers. Conservatism is still ruler by virtue of barricades. Election laws are modified. Sanguinary codes are meliorated. Poor laws are reconsidered. Black slavery is softened down to apprenticeship. White slavery is refined by a poetic periodical, or rendered more tolerable by music. This mending and patching, or cutting into pattern to suit the demands of the market, promises ages of employment for moderate reformers. It is not probable, scarcely possible, that if the progress of social man is thus capriciously dependent, much good will be attained during the next five or ten centuries (68-69).

Reformers like Lane, in contrast, “call for organic changes, and invite new experiments” (69). He then criticizes chartism as yet another means to make profit: “Ever since the invention of civilized society, the result has been found so unhappy, and so inadequate to the outlay, that there has been a constant aim to amend it. Even now, after so much labor, we seem as distant as ever from the desirable condition” (71). While “barbarism” thrives on self-reliance, “the very pith and heart of civilization is mutual dependence, which, in action, comes out in the representative form. Everything, every person is vicarious. No one lives out his own life, but lives for all. This is the great merit and boast of civilization: this, too, is its misfortune and its loss” (71).

Ramifications of this idea are found in every department of civilized life. The farmer applies fresh quantities of foul animal manure to force heavier crops from his exhausted fields; which, when consumed, generate a host of diseases as foul as the manures to which they are responsible. The consumer, attracted by cheapness, pays dearly in his doctor's bill, but in ignorance of nature's laws, which he has so entirely abandoned, he fails to connect cause and effect, and repeats his error to repeat his pain (72).

The idea of representative democracy, “the very ripeness of civilization” (73), is “best carried out in North America” (72). But this almost perfect employment of representation does not result in the equal measure of happiness. Representative democracy does and cannot amount to “real humanity” (73). “The best men are thus the first to be convinced, that the present order of existence is not so much to be designated as erroneous, as that it is essentially an error; a magnificent error possibly, but no less an error; a mistake which no perfecting of the system can rectify, but rather must render its inherent crookedness more obvious.” (75)

One crotchet after another, which it cost not a little to attain, has been accomplished, and happiness seems distant as ever. Magna Charta, Bill of Rights, Trial by Jury, Purity of Parliament, Diminished Taxation, Democracy, Separation of Church and State, Universal Suffrage, Pure Republicanism, Universal Education, Physical Abundance, — all these have been gained; and, although not in vain, yet it is uncertain whether they are really worth the powder, shot, and mental anxiety which they cost” (77).

Lane notes that both literature and science are predominantly profit-driven; they are marketable commodities and thus constitute “as frequently the avenue to degradation as to elevation” (80). Indeed, “[¨k]nowledge, pursued as an accumulation of useful store; science, studied with the omission of the masted science – con-science – is, at best, like an examination of the nutshell without a penetration to the kernel” (81). Literature, the arts, science – any and all contributions of civilization – do not add up to the good life.

But not all is lost, according to Lane. “Magnificence of idea and of execution have not, however, been wanting in the recent modes any more than in the ancient,” he writes (82). This also holds for the political and social realm. Lane then gives two examples of attempts to establish Fourierist communities (Phalansteries) and similar social and economic establishments, one in France and one in England. He prefers the French enterprise due to its mingling of the spiritual and material, in contrast to the purely materialist English experiment. But what Lane ultimately strives for is a “human association” that fosters “[t]he poetry in life, the soul of things, the spirit in the soul, the warmth in the light” (85) and that tries to work towards “a synthetic nature, which must know and feel all things as whole, as one, and provision for this nature must be part of the common stock, but, as far as we can judge by an inspection of the inventories, there is rarely any store laid in” (86).

Mere external, material change will not do. First and foremost, reform has to be internal and ideal. “Change the present social order altogether, and introduce forms entirely new; let the organs of exhibition and imbibition for social man be newly created, still man himself, who is the being in the organism, remains unchanged. He is thereby made no better, and it is his bettering which is the one desirable end. Whereas if he were elevated, the organization and form of society would necessarily be also elevated. Were man drawn to the centre, all his circumferential motions would be harmonious. Few truths are now more obvious than that reformers themselves need to be reformed. So will it be visible with regard to associative experiments.” (188)

Accordingly, Lane holds that “[h]uman degeneration is a self-act. To escape from degeneration human volition is necessary. The primary hindrance to holy life is to be found in the Will itself. Men are not yet disposed for it; they are not yet Willing” (189). But one should not mistake “those appetites and passions whose indulgence takes place through the body” for bodily passions. “Greediness is a vice of the soul, which is only manifested, not originated, in the body. It is sometimes embodied in heaps of gold and silver, at other times in popular applause, or private ease, at others in viands and stimulants, at others in wife and children. These are but its modes of life; the passion itself is in the soul; and it but goes forth and reenters through the portals of the senses. Such are amongst the most potent obstacles to present progress” (191). In other words, choice of diet, just like any other material craving, is a question of ethics. What is called for is a “change in habits or diminution of personal indulgence” (191). Theoretically, Lane maintains, “[c]ompetition, punishment, dogmatism, private property being banished, there would remain cooperation, pleasure, freedom, common property, and a cessation of every evil would ensue” (192).

To achieve this, it is necessary “to live up this day, this hour, to the best intuition of which [one] is sensible. This is an inner road which it is hard to travel” (194). Lane stresses repeatedly throughout the essay that internal rather than external reform is  needed. What is crucial is less political economy than ethics: “Outward union is not brought about by calling for it, but by the like spirit working in all men” (196). The road to travel is that of “universal education” (197). Hence, "[c]reation, construction, generation, not of life itself, but of new, beautiful, harmonious modes of it, is now man's great work (199).

A real Association would be modeled on family-love derived from “self-love” (200). But society is thoroughly male dominated. However, “[t]he necessity for permitting what may be called the female element in society to grow up in its due proportion, has recently presssed [sic] more and more upon the mind. Woman and her rights, duties, and position, is the theme for many pens” (201). But the proper means to achieve necessary internal reforms is through abstention rather than activism: “He who abstains from alcohol, effectively destroys the distilleries, and need not be so unwise as to strike his mallet against the building. Active destructiveness is not the function of the true man, but his cessation of use causes by-gone customs to fall off like tattered garments” (202). And the proper site for this kind of ethical inaction is the family.

The public sentiment which now condemns war, and slave-trading, and hanging of men, must extend its condemnation to the quieter and subtler contrivances of legislation, and tradecraft, and presscraft, which more certainly obstruct the attainment of human happiness. These institutions are equally fatal to the reign of the human family, and the highest, purest human affections on earth (203).

Thus, Lane concludes his essay with a celebration of the family and "the sacredness of home" (204) as the true seat of inner, spiritual reform.

 

Last updated on February 9th, 2024

SNSF project 100015_204481

@VLS@veganism.social | VeganLiteraryStudies | @veganliterarystudies |