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

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38 Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion that those seven hundred “Philistines” are quite as free from deluding ideals as is the one realist. That should warn us to beware of feeling smugly superior to nineteenth-century ideals. It is as easy to laugh at antiquated ideals as at discarded fashions, but our children will laugh as heartily and as justly at our own intellectual as well as physical garments. We wear our clothes and our morals more loosely now than then, and that is no doubt a good thing, but idealism is by no means dead; and an age in which presidential elections are decided by the intensity of a candidate’s commitment to flag worship should pause before condemning another age as idolatrous. Realism, in Shaw’s sense, is as distinctly abnormal today as it was one hundred years ago. Idealism is seductive because it provides masks for realities we dare not face. This is true of liberating ideals as well as enslaving ones; it is true for the woman who made an ideal of her will to become a mathematician as well as for the moralist who idealizes matrimony because he cannot face the failure of his own marriage. Idealism is a mask whether it is used to deny our wills or to liberate them. In the former case it allows us to hide from our sense of failure and inadequacy. In the latter it provides a hedge against responsibility. It allows us to avoid saying, “I will do it because I want to.” Thus both forms of idealism are a denial of self and of responsibility. Whether we thwart our wills or enable them, ideals provide a barrier between ourselves and our wills. That is why they are pernicious. Shaw’s rejection of idealism is inseparable from his belief in the inevitable primacy of the individual will. It led as well to something he called “moral equality.” On those three solid columns—realism, individualism, and equality—his entire philosophy was carefully and logically built. For all their logic and inevitability, however, some of those developments still have the power to startle and even to shock.
Consistency 3 The Will and Its Responsibilities 39 The Will and Its Responsibilities G. K. Chesterton dismissed Shaw’s early exposition of his philosophy as “Schopenhauer standing on his head” (186). His witticism neatly summed up the popular view that Shaw took a complex and recondite metaphysic, reduced it to a frivolous formula, and converted the scowl of pessimism into a grin of anarchism by turning it upside down. Schopenhauer on his head is ridiculous, and the easiest way to trivialize something is to identify it with something preposterous. The image of the irrepressibly cheerful Shaw as a topsy-turvy parody of the eternally gloomy Schopenhauer seems appealingly right but is actually misleadingly wrong. Realism, not Schopenhauer, led Shaw to his belief in the primacy of the will. Despite his attacks on Shaw, Chesterton understood him better than most. He said so. The introduction to his book on Shaw, obviously intended as an object lesson for its subject, consists entirely of two sentences: “Most people either say that they agree with Bernard Shaw or that they do not understand him. I am the only person who understands him, and I do not agree with him.” Despite his disagreement, Chesterton hit upon the fundamental truth that Shaw knew nothing of genuine paradox and that all “his splendid vistas and startling suggestions arise from carrying some clear principle further than it has yet been carried. His madness is all consistency, not inconsistency” (173). Shaw universalized his logical development as a thinker by presenting it as a historical progression. He repeated this tale numerous times but most clearly in the treatises collected in Major Critical Essays. Religious belief, Shaw said, gave way to rationalism, which then succumbed to Schopenhauer’s “will.” As intellectual history it is unconvincing and has re-
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Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religio
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Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religio
Page 5 and 6: For Jalma, who made it possible.
Page 7 and 8: Contents Foreword by R. F. Dietrich
Page 9 and 10: Foreword “I believe because it is
Page 11 and 12: Preface Foreword xi The seed of thi
Page 13 and 14: Preface xiii hope to reach some of
Page 15 and 16: Introduction Preface xv Here we hav
Page 17 and 18: Introduction xvii the facts asked i
Page 19 and 20: o I Foundations of Faith
Page 21 and 22: Unity 1 A Creed for Living A Faith
Page 23 and 24: A Creed for Living 5 ticism toward
Page 25 and 26: A Creed for Living 7 posed to the i
Page 27 and 28: A Creed for Living 9 ally—at the
Page 29 and 30: A Creed for Living 11 tions of deat
Page 31 and 32: A Creed for Living 13 For many the
Page 33 and 34: A Creed for Living 15 fying faith.
Page 35 and 36: A Creed for Living 17 We have inesc
Page 37 and 38: Realism 19 Thus, I blush to add, yo
Page 39 and 40: Realism 21 evenhanded. Tyndall pres
Page 41 and 42: Realism 23 no scoundrels. A similar
Page 43 and 44: Realism 25 sage and confuse and dis
Page 45 and 46: Realism 27 tific materialism is utt
Page 47 and 48: Realism 29 of his fellows) is natur
Page 49 and 50: Realism 31 to be tied down to textb
Page 51 and 52: Realism 33 as they do not denote an
Page 53 and 54: Realism 35 women who disparage home
Page 55: Realism 37 woven out of words and i
Page 59 and 60: The Will and Its Responsibilities 4
Page 89 and 90: II o A Guide to Art and Life
Page 91 and 92: Dramatic Realism 4 A Playwright’s
Page 93 and 94: Illusionism Is Not Realism A Playwr
Page 95 and 96: Contradictions in Scientific Realis
Page 97 and 98: A Playwright’s Progress 79 view,
Page 99 and 100: A Playwright’s Progress 81 horror
Page 101 and 102: A Playwright’s Progress 83 My pla
Page 103 and 104: A Playwright’s Progress 85 disast
Page 105 and 106: A Playwright’s Progress 87 Shaw i
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A Playwright’s Progress 89 jectiv
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A Playwright’s Progress 91 suprem
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A Playwright’s Progress 93 certai
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A Playwright’s Progress 95 In cal
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A Playwright’s Progress 97 pishly
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A Playwright’s Progress 99 too
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A Playwright’s Progress 101 woman
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A Playwright’s Progress 103 focus
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A Playwright’s Progress 105 Candi
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A Playwright’s Progress 107 Shaw
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A Playwright’s Progress 109 strug
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A Playwright’s Progress 111 Not t
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A Playwright’s Progress 113 Amiab
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A Playwright’s Progress 115 find
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A Playwright’s Progress 117 sexua
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A Playwright’s Progress 119 culti
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A Playwright’s Progress 121 ing t
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The Organic and the Didactic 5 Majo
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Major Barbara 125 fundamental confl
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Major Barbara 127 picture, but Majo
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Major Barbara 129 acters in a play,
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Major Barbara 131 goes his own way,
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Major Barbara 133 have you ever sav
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Major Barbara 135 gibbet, while Chr
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Major Barbara 137 Moral responsibil
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Major Barbara 139 motto is “Unash
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Major Barbara 141 (this is explicit
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Major Barbara 143 eryone else in th
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Major Barbara 145 which he himself
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Ethics 6 Ethics, Economics, and Gov
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Ethics, Economics, and Government 1
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III o God and Science The Marriage
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7 The Marriage of Science and Relig
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The Marriage of Science and Religio
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Can Science Be Purged of Materialis
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IV o A Peroration
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8 Catching Up with Shaw Shaw procla
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Catching Up with Shaw 237 would pre
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Catching Up with Shaw 239 to variou
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Catching Up with Shaw 241 rialists
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Catching Up with Shaw 243 Such goal
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Notes Chapter 1. A Creed for Living
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Notes 247 difficult to obtain, but
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Notes 249 turbing, these attitudes
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Works by Shaw Works Cited Notes 251
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Works Cited 253 Shaw and Ibsen: Ber
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Works Cited 255 ———. Introduc
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Works Cited 257 McRory, Desmond J.
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Works Cited 259 Weismann, August. E
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Aquinas, Thomas, 52 Archer, William
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Saussure, Ferdinand de, 74 Schopenh
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Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

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