Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

130 Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion
and the appearance of power is not inconsiderable, at least not until it is
challenged by real power. In that way Stephen and his mother are alike.
Had the business passed on to him, Stephen, like “all the other sons of the
big business houses,” would have had to hire a manager to run it. Even
then the enterprise would run primarily on its own momentum, as Undershaft
wisely notes (3:145). When that possibility is rejected by both
Stephen and his father, the discussion moves to finding an alternative career.
Stephen’s aristocratic disdain for any ordinary profession eliminates
all but one avenue: “He knows nothing and he thinks he knows everything.
That points clearly to a political career,” Undershaft sarcastically
reminds them. Andrew may have had something of that sort in mind all
along, as the other career choices were suggested merely as steppingstones
on the way to becoming prime minister. Even in the unlikely event
that Stephen ever did make it to such a pinnacle of political eminence, his
power would be circumscribed in much the same way that his mother’s is,
for in his next speech Undershaft declares, “I am the government of your
country: I, and Lazarus.” The moral choices of Andrew and his mother
isolate them from real power in ways that may not be readily obvious but
are debilitating nonetheless. They are the “butts” of the piece, but Barbara
and Cusins are equally weakened by their attempt to take the moral high
road. The differences between the aristocratic position of Stephen and
Lady Britomart and that taken by Cusins are obvious, but the similarities,
which are crucial, are overlooked. Stephen is sincere in his simplistic morality,
but he is immature and naive. His mother’s hypocrisy grows from
an unwillingness to give up either the moralism she shares with Stephen
or the money and power she gets from Undershaft. Cusins, as we shall see,
suffers from a more subtle form of the same disease.
The relationship of mother to son parallels in many ways that of Undershaft
with Barbara and Cusins—both taken together and separately.
Stephen is his mother’s protégé as Cusins and Barbara are Undershaft’s.
Stephen has his position by virtue of birth and upbringing; Cusins and
Barbara are both, in a very real sense, adopted, for Undershaft has not
previously known his daughter. Seen from another viewpoint: Barbara and
Cusins must both qualify for their inheritance, while Stephen simply has
the mantle laid across his shoulders. More interesting, both heirs try to
defy and even repudiate the bequests, yet there is a real question how effective
their claims to independence will be. Stephen declares his autonomy,
but on the central questions of morality and power how different
will he be—how different can he be—from Lady Britomart? Even as he