A-Infos (en) Oscar Wilde's Socialism

[News from Workers Solidarity Movement <wsm_news@geocities.com>]

________________________________________________
     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
           http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________

Oscar Wilde was also inspired by politics. He 
was not blind to the obvious early failings of 
modern day society. The poverty he wrote about 
over a century ago, in 'The Soul of Man Under 
Socialism', exists on the streets of Dublin 

You've read the poems, seen the plays or been to 
the film

       Oscar Wilde's socialism

   Yet all is well; he has but passed
   To Life's appointed bourne:
   And alien tears will fill for him
   Pity's long broken urn
   For his mourners be outcast men,
   And outcasts always mourn.

Paris has had its fair share of famous people 
die in it. Most of them have ended up in the 
Pierre Le Chase cemetery and Oscar Wilde is one 
of them. Of all the people buried there, that 
was the one grave I had to see when I entered 
that cemetery on a brisk March morning. I admire 
him because he was the master of that Irish 
pastime of extracting the Michael. 

He was at first lauded by a society which would 
later reject him; as much for what he believed 
as for what he did. He believed his mourners 
would be outcasts because he never felt part of 
a society that holds homophobia as an attribute 
rather than what it really is, a disease.

"I think I am rather more than a Socialist. I am 
something of an Anarchist, I believe..."

Oscar Wilde was also inspired by politics. He 
was not blind to the obvious early failings of 
modern day society. The poverty he wrote about 
over a century ago, in 'The Soul of Man Under 
Socialism', exists on the streets of Dublin 
today. Throughout this winter I've walked to 
work past bodies huddled under blankets in St. 
Stephen's Green, wheezing with bronchitis in the 
frosty air.

Wilde wrote about the poor in relation to 
charity "the best amongst them are never 
grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, 
disobedient and rebellious....Man should not be 
ready to show that he can live like a badly fed 
animal. He should decline to live like that, and 
should either steal or go on the rates which is 
considered a form of stealing".

Wilde was living in a time when an estimated 2 
million people were living in poverty in London. 
The solution would come under socialism, where 
property would be converted from private into 
public wealth and society would be restored to 
"its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy 
organism, and insure the well-being of each 
member of the community." In the meantime for 
the poor "why should they be grateful with the 
crumbs that fall from the rich man's table?"

"If the socialism is authoritarian; if there are 
governments armed with economic power as they 
are now with political power; if in a word, we 
are to have industrial tyrannies, then the last 
state of man will be worse than the first."

Wilde was certain of what kind of future he 
wanted for humanity. As the quote above 
indicates he did not wish to see an industrial 
tyranny rise in the name of Socialism. "All 
modes of Government are failures", he 
maintained, while social democracy is "the 
bludgeoning of people by the people for the 
people". His main obsession was with what he 
termed "individualism". I think it's fair to 
interpret this as a will for freedom. "Socialism 
itself will be of value because it will lead to 
individualism."

He opposed the locking up of people because they 
had committed crimes against property, arguing 
"a community is infinitely more brutalised by 
the habitual employment of punishment rather 
than the occasional occurrence of crime".

He aslo took up the case of possibly the most 
famous political prisoners of his era. Along 
with George Bernard Shaw, he signed a petition 
for the release of the Haymarket martyrs 
(anarchist trade unionists executed for their 
role in the 8- hour day movement). He saw 
through the lies and the rail-roading they were 
receiving in that court in Chicago.

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia 
is not even worth glancing at."

Wilde lived his life never once renouncing his 
beliefs or his choices. His politics have been 
hidden over the years since he died in 1900. He 
wrote his essay on 'The Soul of Man under 
Socialism' over one hundred years ago, yet the 
ideas expressed are still vitally relevant. He 
expressed the idea that we all exist and only 
some of us really live. Some of us live because 
we're pushing for a different world to the one 
that surrounds us. Read him and remember 
"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has 
read history, is man's original virtue."

Dermot Sreenan

This article is from Workers Solidarity No 53 
published in January 1998
-- 
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
           Workers Solidarity Movement

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/wsm.html
EMAIL: wsm_ireland@geocities.com

If you putting any of this material on a web page or reprinting it
elsewhere _please_ include the URL above

The latest Workers Solidarity is on the web at
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws98.html

     ****** A-Infos News Service *****
  News about and of interest to anarchists

Subscribe -> email MAJORDOMO@TAO.CA
             with the message SUBSCRIBE A-INFOS
Info      -> http://www.ainfos.ca/
Reproduce -> please include this section