Society: Bumbling Hive, Civilization, Commodification, Consumption, Curmudgeons, Economist, Education, Fable of the Bees, Free Trade, Ignorance is bliss, Kleenex society, Knowledge, Mandeville, One size fits all, Pedantry, Truth, Venture capitalist, Wells, Herbert George, War, Directory
In Tono Bungay , H. G. Wells takes us on a fascinating trip through the world of business and teaches what advertising is all about. It's faith, and truth, or at least it should be, but as Wells points out that's not in the real world.
"Civilization is possible only through confidence, so that we can bank our money and go unarmed about the streets. The bank reserve or a policeman keeping order in a jostling multitude of people, are only slightly less impudent bluff than my uncle's prospectuses. They couldn't for a moment "make good" if the quarter of what they guarantee was demanded of them. The whole of this modern mercantile investing civilization is indeed such as dreams are made of." pp 223
One of the more prosperous members of Brownsville, Tennessee past society was a lumber man who lived and worked for the harvesting and selling of timber that grew in the Hatchie River bottoms. There are several stories about him, surely embellished by his ancestors but nevertheless containing a grain of truth in them. One is that when in Jackson, Tennessee, the larger town to the east one day, he entered a restaurant for lunch. He was dressed as usual in his working clothes, dirty from the pine sap and muddy from the dirt that some call soil. The restaurant manager refused to serve him so he did the only thing necessary. He called the owner, had the manager fired and had lunch with the rest of his crew. Another tale has to do with one of the banks in the area. He wrote a check which was large and asked for cash. The bank clerk said that without proper identification, they would not cash the check. Mr. Powell then proceeded to ask how much money he had in his account, wrote a check for that amount and demanded cash. It is said that the bank had to send a messenger to several of the surrounding towns to accumulate enough money to meet the demand. True or not, this demonstrates the premise of H. G. Wells that civilization survives on trust.
"I call this reality Science, sometimes I call it Truth. But it is something we draw by pain and effort out of the heart of life, that we disentangle and make clear. Other men serve it, I know, in art, in literature, in social invention, and see it always as austerity, as beauty. This thing we make clear is the heart of life. It is the one enduring thing. Men and nations, epochs and civilization pass each making its contribution. I do not know what it is, this something, except it is supreme. It is a something, a quality, an element, one may find now in colours, now in forms, now in sounds, now in thoughts. It emerges from life with each year one lives and feels, and generation by generation and age by age, but the how and why are all beyond the compass of my mind ... " pp 394.
In the search for truth, the researcher sometimes forgets the relationship between, data, information, facts, knowledge and finally understanding. For it is understanding upon which truth rest, the relationship between parts of a puzzle.
H. L. Mencken said of Wells, " He began as a biologist, switched to journalism and then to literature, and finally set up shop as a prophet."
For a fascinating view of the world according to H. G. Wells (most popularly known for his War of the Worlds that threw our world into panic by its vivid radio description of the invasion by Martians), the reader is directed to his History of the World , a not too detailed and certainly selective in the recall of the march of time as we entered the twentieth century. Would that Wells be here today to greet the twenty first with genetic engineering, atomic energy, computer chips, modern(?) medicine and social progress(?) with his sharp wit and criticism.
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