THE OPEN CONSPIRACY
by H. G. Wells
Summary: 'The Open Conspiracy' was Wells' 'Blue print for a world revolution'; he regarded this book as his finished statement on the way the world ought to be ordered. Possibly he underestimated, or ignored, the fact that it is often in the interest of subsets of the human race to act against other subsets. Moreover the emphasis on religion seems odd, from a rationalist.
Wells changed publishers rather freely, and I've found it impossible to locate the copyright holder(s) of this title. However, there are more than a dozen other Wells titles scanned in on Internet. I would ask interested readers not to download this book, however, at least pro tem. - Rae West
Introduction: H. G. Wells (1866-1946) entirely by
chance came across an application form to study under T. H. Huxley;
after his education in London, and writing a biology textbook, he
became a prolific writer of fiction, first gaining widespread fame
with 'The Time Machine' in 1895; he wrote humorous novels based on his
own life (The Wheels of Chance, Kipps..) and in 1900 published
'Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress
on Human Life and Thought' based on lectures at the Royal Institution,
where Faraday and others had lectured.
After the First World War, observing the lack of
knowledge of most people about most things, he turned to history,
starting, in 1918, his 'Outline of History' first published in parts
with 'gorgeous' covers, then in 1920 as a two-volume work including
colour plates of a lavish nature for the time. In effect it was
jointly authored - his chapters were sent to collaborators, and the
resulting multiple corrections reassembled by the duly-chastened
Wells. A 'popular' one volume edition appeared in 1930. By the
standards of its time this was a best-seller. It was praised decades
later by A J P Taylor as 'still the best introduction to
history'. Toynbee had a favourable opinion of it. During the 1920s it
sparked a controversy with Hilaire Belloc, who believed in such things
as the 'Fall of Man'. It was also attacked by a teacher of
Greek. Wells' hopes that school history could be taught in an
international sense still, of course, have not come to fruition.
He planned and collaborated a hefty set of volumes on
biology, The Science of Life, with his own son, and with Julian
Huxley; the theme was largely evolutionary ('The Origin of Species'
was published only a few years before his birth). Huxley, a descendant
of T H Huxley, regarded Wells as something of a Cockney upstart.
And he wrote a descriptive, rather than analytical, book
on economics, which includes many ingenious observations but was
eclipsed by Keynes' General Theory of four years later.
Some of his books were filmed; his 'Invisible Man' was
turned into a filmscript by Preston Sturges, who however regarded his
books as not very filmable and infuriated Wells by making the
invisible man mad. Another media incident was Orson Welles' radio
broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' in 1938, involving aggressive
Martians landing in a location Americanised from its original Surrey,
and which was reported to have cause mass panic among less educated
Americans on the eastern seaboard.
C.P. Snow wrote of Wells that he could 'throw out a
phrase that crystallised a whole argument', and that he 'never heard
anyone remotely in the same class.' Among these phrases were 'the War
that will end War', coined when he worked with the Ministry of
Propaganda under Northcliffe during the First World War, which he
supported, and 'the New World Order', which he seemed to be the first
to use, or popularise, in a 1940 book of that title. His less
successful phrases included the 'competent receiver'. He said of
himself that he 'worked all the time'.
He was a socialist of an empirical, rather vague,
rationalist type, disliking Marx and unenthusiastic about the
managerial socialism of the Webbs.
His book 'The Open Conspiracy' was published in 1928,
subtitled 'Blue Prints for a World Revolution'. Bertrand Russell said
of this book '.. I do not know of anything with which I agree more
entirely' though since this was in a begging letter perhaps he was
just being polite. It was revised and republished as 'What Are We to
Do with Our Lives?' in 1931.
In this short book, Wells attempts to answer the
question: What should socialists actually do? - to which he confessed
several times to having no very clear idea. It's a counter to Marx:
why shouldn't non-proletarians unite to change the world?
Quotations:
'This book states as plainly and clearly as possibly the
essential ideas of my life, the perspective of my world. ... the
subject of this book is the whole destiny of man..'
'If I could, I would put this book before every mind in
the world. I would say, tell me where this is wrong, or tell me why
you do not live after these principles. .. My idiom of thought may not
be his. Will he forgive that for the sake of the substance I am
putting before him? .. Will the reader at least try to understand
before he refutes?'
'... a movement to realize the conceivable better state of
the world must deny itself the advantages of secret methods and
tactical insincerities. It must leave that to its adversaries. We must
declare our end plainly from the outset and risk no misunderstandings
of our procedure.'
'A time will come when men will sit with history before
them or with some old newspaper before them and ask incredulously,
"Was there ever such a world?"'
- Above Notes by Rae West (Information from:
Wells's Experiment in Autobiography, The Outline of History, The New
Teaching of History, and e.g. 'The Fate of Homo Sapiens': '.. far from
being "Mr. Know-all", I am helpless ignorance, in a sea of unconscious
ignorance'; Michael Foot remark on A J P Taylor; Toynbee's Study of
History; Martin Gardner's 'Fads and Fallacies..' has one account of
the Orson Welles incident; Julian Huxley, Memories; Bertrand Russell,
Autobiography vol II; C P Snow, Variety of Men; Preston Sturges.., ed
Anne Sturges. The 'infuriated' comment is however from TV)
CONTENTS
I - THE PRESENT CRISIS IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 15K
II - THE IDEA OF THE OPEN CONSPIRACY 5K
III - WE HAVE TO CLEAR AND CLEAN UP OUR MINDS 16K
IV - THE REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION 3K
V - RELIGION IN THE NEW WORLD 15K
VI - MODERN RELIGION IS OBJECTIVE 8K
VII - WHAT MANKIND HAS TO DO 11k
VIII - BROAD CHARACTERISTICS OF A SCIENTIFIC WORLD COMMONWEAL 27K
IX - NO STABLE UTOPIA IS NOW CONCEIVABLE 2K
X - THE OPEN CONSPIRACY IS NOT TO BE THOUGHT OF AS A SINGLE ORGANIZATION; IT IS A CONCEPTION OF LIFE OUT OF WHICH EFFORTS, ORGANIZATIONS, AND NEW ORIENTATIONS WILL ARISE 13K
XI - FORCES AND RESISTANCES IN THE GREAT MODERN COMMUNITIES NOW PREVALENT, WHICH ARE ANTAGONISTIC TO THE OPEN CONSPIRACY. THE WAR WITH TRADITION 31k
XII - THE RESISTANCES OF THE LESS INDUSTRIALIZED PEOPLES TO THE DRIVE OF THE OPEN CONSPIRACY 19K
XIII - RESISTANCES AND ANTAGONISTIC FORCES IN OUR CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS SELVES 16K
XIV - THE OPEN CONSPIRACY BEGINS AS A MOVEMENT OF DISCUSSION, EXPLANATION, AND PROPAGANDA 13K
XV - EARLY CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF THE OPEN CONSPIRACY 23K
XVI - EXISTING AND DEVELOPING MOVEMENTS WHICH ARE CONTRIBUTORY TO THE OPEN CONSPIRACY AND WHICH MUST DEVELOP A COMMON CONSCIOUSNESS. THE PARABLE OF PROVINDER ISLAND 16K
XVII - THE CREATIVE HOME, SOCIAL GROUP, AND SCHOOL: THE PRESENT WASTE OF IDEALISTIC WILL 7K
XVIII - PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE OPEN CONSPIRACY INTO A WORLD CONTROL AND COMMONWEAL: THE HAZARDS OF THE ATTEMPT 10K
XIX - HUMAN LIFE IN THE COMING WORLD COMMUNITY 4K
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