{Ideals and Motives}[17th June 1970]

[Redbook1:159-161][19700617:1800]{Ideals and Motives}[17th June 1970]

Wednesday 17th June

6pm

                If we divide the reasons for human action into motives -- basically selfish or instinctive -- and ideals -- basically charitable and not prompted by instinct:

            One of the reasons for the failure of most political movements based wholly on ideals and making no conscious or unconscious allowance for motives is that the vast majority of humans are prompted almost wholly by motives in their ‘natural’ state (of civilisation or savagery): at the best, ideals have to be taught and are easily forgotten; at the worst, people simply will not or cannot identify with the high ideals.

            To make an ideal catch on, one must usually connect it with a motive.

            Communism was pure motive pretending to be ideal: now the old motives ring hollow but have been replaced by artificially imposed motives of security.  Patriotism is ideal kept alive by motive, by a sort of transfer-process: it can be, and basically is very selfish.  Capitalism is pure motive and pretends to be nothing else; at its best, it leaves room for, co-exists with, or even (best of all) encourages ideal.

            To ‘sell’ aid to the Third World, its protagonists (or some of them, rather) often forecast the horrific conflict that will result from the Gap.  That, of course, is a superb example of pure motive being used to support ideal, and some would say it is a great hypocrisy.  It is also tactically unsound: worry people too much, and they will not want to continue to give that world the power to destroy; they will prefer to close ranks in ‘Fortress Civilisation’ and leave the Third World to its own devices -- which is exactly what the protagonists of such aid do not want.

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