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

Ethics
6
Ethics, Economics, and Government 147
Ethics, Economics, and Government
Anarchism to Organization
It was important to Shaw as artist to develop a dramatic form that was true
to his creed, both in form and content, but it was even more important that
his creed fit the facts. A realist religion must not only be true to the facts of
experience, but must also be a guide to living. It must, that is, be true to
future possibilities as well as present facts. If it is honest, it must provide a
basis for social and political organization and not simply be ignored when
inconvenient. It must not impel us into such hypocrisies as preaching
peace while waging war. The easiest way to avoid hypocrisy is to set your
sights very low, which is exactly what many self-declared “realists” do.
Declare that all men are beasts, expect no more of them than bestial behavior,
and you will not be disappointed. If, however, you propose to eliminate
all law and regulation, as the strictest anarchists do, you most certainly will
be disappointed. Such attempted “total” freedom devolves in practice into
the freedom of the powerful to devour the weak; that form of liberty becomes
license: freedom for the unscrupulous or powerful and slavery for
the honest and weak. How is it possible, then, for Shaw as an advocate of
the supremacy of the individual will and of equality to promote the kind of
social organization necessary to protect the rights of the weak without
committing the very hypocrisy he insisted an honest creed must avoid?
Andrew Undershaft claims that brutal economic realities led him first
to violent anarchism and thence to social cooperation organized by a
strong central authority. His egoism was the foundation and necessary
precursor of his altruism. He swore that he would have his will in spite of
law or the lives of other men, and when his will was freed by this declara-