THE ORIENTATION OF HOPE
BY ALAIN LOCKE
AS THE clouds darken over our chaotic world, all of us—even those who still cherish the dream and hope of a new world order of peace, righteousness and justice, must face the question of where to focus our expectations, where to orient our hopes. To do otherwise is merely to hug an ideal to our bosoms in childish consolation and passive fatalism—a reaction only too human, but not worthy of the possessors of a virile and truly prophetic spiritual revelation. If we fall victims to the twilight mood and the monastic flight from reality, are we not really false friends and even spiritual traitors to the universal ideal? Must we not as true Bahá’í believers in these times embrace our principles more positively, more realistically, and point everywhere possible our assertion of the teachings with a direct challenge?
In fact, for those of us who are truly dawn-minded, the present twilight hour, this dusk of disillusionment is auspicious. It is the occasion and opportunity of convincing many who were sceptical because they could not see the impending failure of the old order, but who now almost without exception are in a questioning and thoroughly disillusioned mood. Especially does it seem to me to be the opportunity to bring the Bahá’í principles again forcefully to the attention of statesmen and men of practical affairs, who now may in all likelihood be in their period of greatest receptivity, having turned to so many plans and remedies to little or no avail. Is it not reasonably clear to us that now is the time for a world-wide, confident and determined offensive of peaceful propaganda for the basic principles of the Cause brotherhood, peace and social justice?
I have one humble suggestion: that without forgetting the language in terms of which we ourselves have learned the principles, we shall take pains to learn and speak a language which the practical-minded man of affairs, and the realistic common man can and will understand. The message must be translated to terms and ideas and practical issues of the present-day world and its problems and dilemmas, or, I am afraid, much of the advantage of this marvelous seed-time will be lost.
Too often previously, we have been confronted with that characteristic and almost pardonable distrust of the average man for the "panacea type of solution,” his interest in only one segment of the problem. Today even the man in the street is becoming keenly convinced of the fundamental and widescale character of the difficulties underlying the present crisis. In a recent article, H. G. Wells has this to say: “It is becoming plain to us that the disaster of the Great War and our present social and economic disorder are not isolated misfortunes, but broad aspects of a now profound disharmony in the conditions of human life. A huge release of human energy through invention and discovery drives us on inexorably toward the establishment of a new type of society in which the production and distribution of necessities will be the easy task of a diminishing moiety of the population, while research, new enterprise, new extensions and elaborations of living, the conquest not simply of material but of moral and intellectual power and of beauty, vitality and happiness become the occupation of an ever increasing multitude. . . . We cannot go back. Retrogression to less progressive conditions seems more difficult and dangerous now than a revolutionary advance. Either we must go on to this new state of disciplined plenty or lapse into chaotic and violent barbarism.”
And of this that he calls “an imperative
new world order,” Mr. Wells has this interesting
and challenging thing to say: "I doubt
if it is in the capacity of any single human
being to lead our race around this difficult
corner. . . . The carry-over from the catastrophic
phase of today to the new world
state of freedom and abundant life must, I
believe, be the work of a gathering, growing
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number of men inspired by a common apprehension
of the needs and possibilities of
the case. I am thinking of a wide, unorganized
growth of understanding. . . . When
that understanding develops commanding
force, the new world will be made accessible,
and not before.”
I have cited this quotation as a representative sample of the drift of intelligent thought today upon the whole world situation. Its tone and trend show clearly just that groping toward universal and spiritual principles and forces which alone can save us. More clearly still, it reveals the demand for a social ideal of religious appeal and intensity, but at the same time sane, practical and progressive. This despair and disillusionment of the present, this bankruptcy of materialism must be seized upon constructively and positively as a God-given opportunity for teaching men where the true principles and hopes of a new and universal human order really can be found. And to do that powerfully, effectively, the Bahá’í teaching needs an inspired extension of that potent realism of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by which he crowned and fulfilled the basic idealism of Bahá’u’lláh.
