MAORILAND WORKER: THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH

 

The Maoriland Worker, launched in 1910, was an important voice of the New Zealand labour movement. On January 7, 1920, it published a column that reflected on the new year ahead. The column observes that 'Poverty, crime and war are incompatible with civilisation; they are always with us because the living have been ruled by the dead, and all the evils of the Past have been carefully fostered as if they were essential to human life.'  Maoriland Worker concludes that, to make progress, we must break with the past. Over a century later, its message still resonates with us today.


The old order changeth, yielding to new,
 And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custome should corrupt the world.
Tennyson.

The birth of a New Year gives rise to new thoughts. Surely never did a New Year dawn on this world which gave rise to more wonderful thoughts than those than now stir the mind of man. At the beginning of each year there is a tendency to review the past, make fresh resolves for the future, and endeavor to "turn over a new leaf." These are perfectly natural, and though scoffed at rather than applauded, reveal man's innate desire for reform, for improvement, for change and progress, for something new. The old ways, the old ideas, the old institutions, have a strong hold on men; they dread the unknown and untried; they lack the courage necessary to break with the past. But to do so is imperative; never was it more necessary than it is now. We do not say that whatever is old is bad, or that whatever is new is good, but in a sense that, proposition could be maintained with truth. Change and progress are laws of Nature; all natural changes make for progress. Evolution is a change from the lower to the higher; the unfolding and perfecting of the organism, be it a plant, an animal, or a human being. Therefore, in the nature of things, all fundamental changes in human society ought to be for the better, and, rightly considered, no matter what the superficial appearances may indicate, are so. The old order changeth, giving place to new because It must, because such is the law of Nature. Hence, to resist change and progress is to resist a law stronger than any made by man.

These truths are really self-evident but are not admitted nor acted upon by mankind. There are countless thousands of human beings whose vested interests lie in the Past: in the old forms of law, religion, morality, modes of thought and action. The vast majority of men bow down and worship constituted authority; they reverence the Past and thus stultify the Present. But unless the Present is an advance upon the Past how can it justify itself? Each human soul enters the world alone and departs from it alone. The individual should cherish his individuality as something sacred, something that gives him an inalienable right to make his own relations with the world. He should stand outside his environment, should subject it to the closest scrutiny, should challenge it; and endeavor to make this environment suit his individuality, rather than try to fit himself to his environment. Although few men do so consciously, all men, by the very laws of their being, are bound to do so, in obedience to the unchanging laws that compel all forms of life to contribute to the miracle of creation, which, ordain that the world shall be constantly born again by means of the travail of man s body and soul.

The Great War is the most powerful argument in favour of breaking with the Past. The war was possible only because mankind failed to think out new methods, create new forms of government, and discard those of the Past. Instead of devoting his natural love of change to seeking peace and ensuing it, man used his genius to invent new and more deadly engines of destruction for use in warfare. His changes in method were not from the lower to the higher in the spiritual sense; his improvements were mechanical improvements. The result is that the war, while waged with weapons that are marvels of scientific ingenuity, repeated every form of barbaric warfare known to history. Thus change and progress were diverted from their proper purpose and made to serve evil ends rather than good. But the very force of the impulse backward will lead to a reaction, and a strong attempt on the part of mankind to work with rather than against evolution. The world will clamour for change: for changes that will deliver it from thraldom to the Past; for changes that will satisfy the Spirit of the Age and lead the race forward rather than backward. In the very nature of things, obedient to this innate desire for change which spells progress, man will yet create and mould a civilisation which will look upon war as we look upon cannibalism. The first essential to this is a conscious and determined breach with the spirit of the Past, and a resolute endeavor to solve the problems of the age in the light of its own reason and knowledge.

Although the evils that afflict mankind are clearly due to the evil heredity we have inherited, and also to the slavish following in the footsteps of our fathers, there are innumerable forces in society making for reaction instead of progress. Thousands of men are paid to keep the human mind in bondage to the laws of the Past, to instill into them reverence for the graven images their fathers worshipped, to teach them to boast of practising the ceremonies and cherishing the superstitions that darkened the minds and blighted the lives of past generations. Thus, the right of the human soul to think out the great problems of life and death is denied, the father imposes his own wretched ideas on his child, and the human race is compelled to do homage to the ghosts of its ancestors. All such efforts can succeed for a time only; they resemble the efforts of the famous Mrs. Partington to sweep back the rising tide. Man is the victim of a vicious heredity, which is, the product of the accumulated environments of the past; but he can begin to deliver himself from the influence of his deadly inheritance by resolving to create a new environment for himself, which will result in the building up of a better heredity to pass on to posterity. The powers of reaction are losing their force; their influence for evil is being seen and felt, and humanity will demand more and more changes in every sphere of life. A civilisation that merely repeats the past cannot last; it satisfies neither Nature nor man. Such is our civilisation today; a piece of tawdry patch work. Poverty, crime and war are incompatible with civilisation; they are always with us because the living have been ruled by the dead, and all the evils of the Past have been carefully fostered as if they were, essential to human life. When mankind realises the need, for change, and the possibility of making change synonymous with progress, a new leaf will begin in the history of the race, and the words of the prophet be fulfilled: "Behold old things have passed away, and all things have became new."

Thanks to the Canterbury Socialist Society and the Wellington Socialist Society for bringing this column to our attention.  The column is republished from Paper Plus, a website of the National Library of New Zealand.