You Gentiles by Samuel Maurice

Author:Samuel, Maurice [Samuel, Maurice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ostara Publications
Published: 2014-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

VII: The Reckoning

I HAVE spoken of Jews and gentiles—in mass. Certain of you will assuredly object: "You cannot deal with masses as with men. ‘You cannot indict a nation.'"

The objection is futile—not only has it been the universal practice to indict and to punish masses as if they had personality and to treat nations as such: but you are doing it to-day, everywhere. And I believe that fundamentally, the practice is just, despite the objections of the few whom I shall answer here. Particularly consonant is the practice with your gentile philosophy. Here is your nation: X. It is composed of militarists and pacifists and mobs. The government is militaristic—whether it represent a minority or a majority. And the militaristic government engages the whole country in its acts: is responsible for a war, for oppression. How shall we treat that nation? Single out the militarists and pacifists? Go into the workings of it, separate out the constituent elements? You cannot. Every member of that country is a member of the team, must take the good with the bad, must pay the debts contracted by the government. It cannot be a nation otherwise.

This from your point of view. And from the point of view of the workings of justice it happens to be no less defensible. When the whole of a nation reaps reward or punishment, a rough general justice is executed. If it is only the will of a minority which has brought on catastrophe, and the majority must pay, then it pays for having suffered the will of the minority. Had the German masses foreseen defeat and its consequences, Germany would never have gone to war, militarist minority or none. The masses which obeyed their masters, readily or sullenly, must pay for the obedience which gave their masters strength. . . . And the same is true of every other nation which is guilty.

All extenuation is irrelevant. How shall the majority learn that it must not acquiesce indolently in the will of the minority? Shall it not suffer the consequences of its indolence? A slow, almost impossible process. But assuredly a just one. For the impotent or corrupt acquiescence of the majority made the minority effective.

But if, on the other hand, a nation suffers for the will of its majority, and the minority suffers with the majority, then very clearly effective justice is being wrought, and just as clearly is the payment supposed to alter the will of the nation.

As long as there are nations and groups these laws must hold. And as soon as these laws collapse nations and groups will cease to be.

It is not meaningless to say, "This nation is parsimonious, this nation is treacherous, this nation is cruel." It is irrelevant to answer, "You must judge by the individual, not by the nation." When we say, "Scotchmen are parsimonious," we simply mean that out of a thousand Scotchmen a larger number are parsimonious than out of a thousand Englishmen. A Scotchman whom I do not know has therefore more probability of being parsimonious than an Englishman whom I do not know.

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