* * * * *
[DIGNITY OF ALL LABOUR ABSURD.]
Many of the sins against Relativity can be traced to rhetorical
exaggeration. Some remarkable instances of this can be cited.
When a system of ranks and dignities has once been established, there
are associations of dignity and of indignity with different conditions
and occupations. It is more dignified to serve in the army than to
engage in trade; to be a surgeon is more honourable than to be a
watchmaker. In this state of things a fervid rhetorician, eager to
redress the inequalities of mankind, starts forth to preach the dignity
of _all_ labour. The device is a self-contradiction. Make all labour
alike dignified, and nothing is dignified; you simply abolish dignity by
depriving it of the contrast that it subsists upon.
Pope's lines--
Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part; there all the honour lies--
cannot be exempted from the fallacy of self-contradiction. Differences
of condition are made by differences in the degree of honour thereto
attached. If every man that did his work well were put on a level, in
point of honour, with every other man that did the same; if the
gatekeeper of a mansion, by being unfailingly punctual in opening the
gate, were to be equally honoured with a great leader of the House of
Commons, then, indeed, equality of pay would be the only thing wanted to
abolish all differences of condition.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82