LOCKE STEP
When we look back at some typical reforms in our history we see some of the strange ways we have used to try to make others think as we do. They have amounted to " very little" or"a great deal" depending on whom you ask to make an estimate of their enduring value. That's not an easy thing to do because those who believe other than the way we do, are paid hirelings and lackeys of the very ones doing the oppressing.
I read Charles Kingsley's novel about a fictional reformer named “Alton Locke” in March of l972 and I found there were people who were busy re-organizing the world even then in Victorian times. I remember reading it, because I wrote a page or two for this series concerning how I felt about what I was reading at that time.
As is so often the case it seems logical that Kingsley; as most authors tend to do, the let their hero reformers stand for the same things they espouse, but they can give their fictional; character guts to actually something rather than merely talk about it.
It is best for the reformer to be a person who is constantly, and has always s been, a bit out of step with others in almost identical circumstances, family, friends and selected enemies. It is best to make the character a Liberal in his political views so he has plenty of room to call on a strong, dominant governmental force when all else fails or merely wavers a little. Alton Locke, in the Kingsley novel, looks about him in his well-off world and he sees poverty elsewhere... .gradually he decide is is not right and he looks for someone or something on which he might blame for such evil conditions. There is another per-requisite for today's reformers, as well It is something even the reformer, himself. must not acknowledge or even admit exists.. He or she must be pretty well established financially in his right. That of his family, co-workers or some vague association of some sort which assures him of a regular income and to which he can charge any “expenses”he might incur. He must know how to keep bread on the table, gas in the car, fuel in the flying equipment or money with which to pay for the media attention needed. Alton Locke, together with people whom he ordinarily would not associate, could be, for a time, at least, as one.
He seeks improvement and re-dress for real or imagined wrongs on behalf of the blighted elements of the population as he now sees it.. It is also a part of today's reformation action that the participant have, Locke did from his creator. Kingsley's religious fervor can be seen by some readers as a bias. He was known to be ready to lambaste any work - good or bad - of the Jesuit Order. A. Conan Doyle, as he dragged Sherlock Holmes around so aptly on a literary string, had strong prejudices against the Normans. Such narrowness is valuable to reformers because they have a ready out when cornered or confused. Narrowness caused Kingsley to distrust and detract from his Alton Locke character as being true reformer. Locke blamed the conditions poor, starving underpaid worker on the usual selection of malicious individuals. With his Utopian ideas looking more chaste and pure as he hurries along: the business leaders and big merchants of his homeland were to blame. They ground the poor under their coin-studded boot heels and kept them poor and in virtual slavery creating wealth for themselves or greedy investors. As needed, bakers can be faulted for not providing bread to the needy. Ministers, of whatever faith is questioned at the moment, are also fair game. The Law and those who occupy the courts and administrative offices in all their forms, were to blame. The reformer thinks it is his God-ordained destiny to protest rather than to take an active role in specific forms of suffering. Thinking of “Soup Kitchens” or of clinics to meet health needs, were, to him or her, surrender. While posturing in this manner, a reformer with dreams of Utopian father-figure who would solve it all - a Utopian government which would have as it's ultimate function was to solve it all, but the novel's Alton Locke he gradually came to know that he did not hold the love of the common people he once thought he had. In a prize-winner downbeat ending he admits he no longer loves Lillian, his commoner girl friend.
The newest sure way to success in social action, designed to ridicule any mention of war against Iraq, is already being introduced in several Latin-American countries. It may be expected here in the United States as soon as Spring weather becomes official in just a few weeks. They will demonstrate it by “on the beaches, on the playing fields ”... come warm days. You can expect to see this latest form of protests and calls for reforms as it appears in the buff as of hundreds of totally nude men and women march out and valiantly and lie down, sit or stretch out to spell out the words “Peace!” or “No War!” as half-time entertainment.
Get your suntan lotion and be ready. The media will love it; the people will accept it as being normal... even right.
A.L.M. March 2, 2003 [c905wds]
