Customer Reviews

Two Cheers For Democracy (Harvest Book)

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E.M. Forster is better known as a writer than as a great thinker.
This volume contains most of his nonfiction writings and thus introduces us to a different side of Forster. Some of the pieces, it is true, are on writing, but most relevant for today is probably his political thought.

Forster provides us with a window into the world of the nineteen thirties where democracy was perceived as a fragile and precious object in danger of being blown away by the forces of fascism and communism. Still, in "What I believe" and "Three Anti-Nazi broadcasts" Forster reaffirms his belief in this form of government.

Democracy is important, he argues, because it allows criticism. He argues that "parliament is often sneered at because it is a Talking Shop. I believe in it because it is a talking shop. I believe in the Private Member who makes himself a nuisance. He gets snubbed and is told that he is cranky or ill- informed, but he does expose abuses which would otherwise never have been mentioned".

Forster argues forcefully against hero worship and against the cult of "great men". Although rooted in a bygone era, much of his thinking retains some relevance today.

In times when it seems all too easy to give away our rights in exchange for largely virtual safety, the voice of E. M. Forster sounds more loud and clear than ever before. In his essays written before and after the Second World War Forster discusses the dangers that we are facing today. Forster's solution may seem naive to our cynical age but only if we don't try to get to the bottom. This book is a lesson we still have not learned - always worth another look.

I couldn't care less about the political essays -- but what he has to say about creativity and criticism is better than anything I've read in modern "how to write" books.

Skip the politics if you want (I did); if you want insight into art, specifically writing, buy this book and his ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL.

In these partially out-of-date and also contradictory comments, E.M. Forster reveals clearly his vision on society, liberalism, religion, art and the artist.

Society
He saw a huge economic movement from agriculture towards industrialization. It meant the destruction of feudalism and relations based on land, and also the transference of power from the aristocrat to the bureaucrat. (`Personally, I hate it.') (!)
He sees a class `which strangled the aristocracy, and has been haunted ever since by the ghost of its victim. It is a class of tradesmen and professional men and little Government officials, and it has come to power consequent on the Industrial Revolution. (Its) minds still hanker after the feudal stronghold which we condemned as inhabitable.'

Liberalism (economical, political, spiritual)
E.M. Forster has `no faith in the people', only in the individual.
He also has no faith in economic liberalism, which `led to the black market and the capitalist jungle.'
What he wants is political and spiritual liberalism; not an authoritarian State which tries to control men's mind and creates censorship, the secret police, the road to serfdom, the community of slaves. What he wants is real democracy which starts from the assumption that the individual is important as well as free speech.
What he also wants is tolerance and in no way force and violence. Some people call the absence of force and violence `decadence', for him it is civilization.

Christianity
Another anti-liberal power is religion (Christianity): `I cannot believe that Christianity will ever cope with the present world-wide mess, and I think that such influence that it retains in modern society is due to the money behind it, rather than to its spiritual appeal'.
On the other hand, he praises Toynbee's work, which explains `the rise and fall of civilizations in accord with a religious law.'

The artist, art, literature
The superb example of the individualist is the artist with his `power of invention' (K. Clark). His heroes are L. Tolstoy and M. Proust, not V. Woolf.
M. Proust is the eminent representative of that other strong movement in society and literature: psychology, the reinterpretation of human nature, the subconscious and the irrational.
About V. Woolf, he notes: `she does not tell a story or weave a plot, and can she create character? Did she get people to live?'

A few errors
Voltaire was not one of the greatest men of European civilization. He was a slave trader.
Also, bureaucracy is not inevitable in a technical age.

These comments (on sometimes totally forgotten people and events) by a free, courageous (during WW II), sincere and `liberal' mind are a must read for all E.M. Forster fans and scholars.

The poetic begining of the book was the best part. I especially liked the way Forrestor used the displays to describe human nature. Foresstor has tremendous insight into human nature; maybe only the pessimistic side. I thoughthe was long winded when he got into his own views. But then again that is my own opion.