E. M. Forsters What I Believe is interesting in that it reflects a moderated idealism.

Throughout the essay, Forster will make a proclamation, such as rationality is good, and subsequently retreat half a step, in this case insisting on the continued necessity of faith. It is an interesting technique and demonstrates much of the complexity of his positions, and arguably those of Bloomsbury insofar as they are a whole. Particularly interesting are his fascination with faith, which forms the bedrock of the argument, and with personal relationships. E. M. Forster says that he does not believe in belief; but there are so many around that one has to formulate a belief of ones own in self-defense. Three values are important to Forster: tolerance, good temper and sympathy.

Personal Relationships and the State

Forster argues that one should invest in personal relationships: one must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life. In order to do so, one must be reliable in ones relationships. Reliability, in turn, is impossible without natural warmth. Forster contrasts personal relationships with causes, which he hates. In an often quoted sentence he argues: If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. He goes on to explain: Such a choice may scandalize the modern reader, and he may stretch out his patriotic hand to the telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have shocked Dante, though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of Hell because they had chosen to betray their friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome.

Democracy

Forster cautiously welcomes democracy for two reasons:

It places importance on the individual (at least more than authoritarian regimes). It allows criticism.

Thus, he calls for "two cheers for democracy" (also the title of the book which contains his essay) but argues that three are not necessary.

Forster goes on to argue that, although the state ultimately rests on force, the intervals between the use of force are what makes life worth living. Some people may call the absence of force decadence; Forster prefers to call it civilization.

Great men, Forsters Aristocracy and Public Life

The author also criticises hero-worship and profoundly distrusts so-called great men. Heroes are necessary to run an authoritarian regime in order to make it seem less dull much as plums have to be put into a bad pudding to make it palatable. As a contrast Forster believes in an aristocracy, not based on rank or influence but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. For Forster it is a tragedy that no way has been found to transmit private decencies into public life: The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink; the nations of today behave to each other worse than they ever did in the past, they cheat, rob, bully and bluff, make war without notice, and kill as many women and children as possible; whereas primitive tribes were at all events restrained by taboos. It is a humiliating outlook - though the greater the darkness, the brighter shine the little lights, reassuring one another, signalling: "Well, at all events, I'm still here. I don t like it very much, but how are you?"

Individualism

Forster concludes by stating that these are the reflections of an individualist and a liberal" who has "found liberalism crumbling beneath him", taking comfort from the fact that people are born separately and die separately. Therefore, no dictator will be able to eradicate individualism.
"What I Believe" is the title of two essays espousing humanism, by Bertrand Russell (1925) and by E. M. Forster (1938), respectively. Several other authors have also written works with the same title, alluding to either or both of these essays.
Contents
[hide]

1 Forster's essay

o o o o

1.1 Personal relationships and the state 1.2 Democracy 1.3 Great men, Forsters aristocracy and public life 1.4 Individualism

2 Russell's essay

3 See also 4 References

Forster's essay[edit]
E. M. Forster says that he does not believe in creeds; but there are so many around that one has to formulate a creed of ones own in self-defence. Three values are important to Forster: tolerance, good temper and sympathy. It was first published in The Nation on July 16, 1938.

Personal relationships and the state[edit]

Forster argues that one should invest in personal relationships: one must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life. In order to do so, one must be reliable in ones relationships. Reliability, in turn, is impossible without natural warmth. Forster contrasts personal relationships with causes, which he hates. In an often quoted sentence he argues: If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. He goes on to explain: Such a choice may scandalize the modern reader, and he may stretch out his patriotic hand to the telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have shocked Dante, though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of Hell because they had chosen to betray their friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome.

Democracy[edit]
Forster cautiously welcomes democracy for two reasons:

It places importance on the individual (at least more than authoritarian regimes). It allows criticism.

Thus, he calls for "two cheers for democracy" (also the title of the book which contains his essay) but argues that this is "quite enough" and that "there is no occasion to give three." Forster goes on to argue that, although the state ultimately rests on force, the intervals between the use of force are what makes life worth living. Some people may call the absence of force decadence; Forster prefers to call it civilization.

Great men, Forsters aristocracy and public life[edit]

The author also criticises hero-worship and profoundly distrusts so-called great men. Heroes are necessary to run an authoritarian regime in order to make it seem less dull much as plums have to be put into a bad pudding to make it palatable. As a contrast Forster believes in an aristocracy, not based on rank or influence but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. For Forster it is a tragedy that no way has been found to transmit private decencies into public life: The more highly public life is organized the lower does its morality sink; the nations of today behave to each other worse than they ever did in the past, they cheat, rob, bully and bluff, make war without notice, and kill as many women and children as possible; whereas primitive tribes were at all events restrained by taboos. It is a

humiliating outlook - though the greater the darkness, the brighter shine the little lights, reassuring one another, signalling: "Well, at all events, I'm still here. I dont like it very much, but how are you?"

Individualism[edit]
Forster concludes by stating that these are the reflections of an individualist and a liberal" who has "found liberalism crumbling beneath him", taking comfort from the fact that people are born separately and die separately. Therefore, no dictator will be able to eradicate individualism.

Russell's essay[edit]
His essay may be summed in his quote: "The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge". He does not claim this is a logically necessary belief, but instead he wishes to convince the most people to believe in it by providing examples and its consequences. I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.

I have been reading EM Forsters essay What I believe, and if you dont know who EM Forster is, all I can say is Howards End. He wrote that book. Now, because of the film, you probably know who this author. He looks nothing like Jeremy Irons though. This essay was written in 1938 and was published in the American Magazine The Nation. In it Forster lays out a case for his belief in humanism, sympathy, democracy and tolerance. This brings me along to Democracy, Even love, the beloved Republic, That feeds upon freedom and lives. Democracy is not a beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent it deserves our support. It does start from the assumption that the individual is important, and that all types are needed to make a civilization. It does not divide its citizens into the bossers and the bossed as an efficiency-regime tends to do. The people I admire most are those who are sensitive and want to create something or discover something, and do not see life in terms of power, and such people get more of a chance under a democracy than elsewhere. They found religions, great or small, or they produce literature and art, or they do disinterested scientific research, or they may be what is called ordinary people, who are creative in their private lives, bring up their

children decently, for instance, or help their neighbours. All these people need to express themselves; they cannot do so unless society allows them liberty to do so, and the society which allows them most liberty is a democracy. Democracy has another merit. It allows criticism, and if there is not public criticism there are bound to be hushed-up scandals. That is why I believe in the press, despite all its lies and vulgarity, and why I believe in Parliament. Parliament is often sneered a because it is a Talking Shop. I believe in it because it is a talking shop. I believe in the Private Member who makes himself a nuisance. He gets snubbed and is told that he is cranky or illinformed, but he does expose abuses which would otherwise never have been mentioned, and very often an abuse gets put right just by being mentioned. Occasionally, too, a well-meaning public official starts losing his head in the cause of efficiency, and thinks himself God Almighty. Such officials are particularly frequent in the Home Office. Well, there will be questions about them in Parliament sooner or later, and then they will have to mind their steps. Whether Parliament is either a representative body or an efficient one is questionable, but I value it because it criticizes and talks, and because its chatter gets widely reported. So two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three. Only Love the Beloved Republic deserves that. It is an interesting, personal essay that touch a lot of issues that are relevant even today. Particularly today when it seems that democracy is sneered at by large portions of the population. It is also a powerful polemic against organised religion, and this in a time when Christianity was a powerful force in the country. His rejection of religion is much more muted, much more sympathetic and tolerant than one from Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or even Stephen Fry. The rejection is described softly, carefully, pensively but it is nevertheless there, and it is powerful The above are the reflections of an individualist and a liberal who has found liberalism crumbling beneath him and at first felt ashamed. Then, looking around, he decided there was no special reason for shame, since other people, whatever they felt, were equally insecure. And as for individualism there seems no way

of getting off this, even if one wanted to. The dictator-hero can grind down his citizens till they are all alike, but he cannot melt them into a single man. That is beyond his power. He can order them to merge, he can incite them to mass-antics, but they are obliged to be born separately, and to die separately, and, owing to these unavoidable termini, will always be running off the totalitarian rails. The memory of birth and the expectation of death always lurk within the human being, making him separate from his fellows and consequently capable of intercourse with them. Naked I came into the world, naked I shall go out of it! And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked under my shirt, whatever its colour.

Forster wrote about his Humanism in a famous essay entitled What I Believe. He was a Vice-President of the Ethical Union in the 1950s, and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association from its foundation in 1963. His work and viewpoint were summed up in a series on British Authors (Cambridge University Press) as: the voice of the humanist one seriously committed to human values while refusing to take himself too seriously. Its tone is inquiring, not dogmatic. It reflects a mind aware of the complexities confronting those who wish to live spiritually satisfying, morally responsible lives in a world that increasingly militates against individuals needs. Sensitively and often profoundly, Forsters fiction explores the problems such people encounter. E M Forster is one of the greatest of British twentieth-century novelists, his well known novels including A Passage to India, Howards End and A Room with a View. His open-minded and humanist view of life is seen in his novels in their focus on human relationships and the need for tolerance, sympathy and love between individual human beings from different parts of society and different cultures. He shared many ideas with, and was friendly with, members of the Bloomsbury Group. Several of his novels have been made into successful films which you may have seen. He wrote and spoke in favour of tolerance in many areas of life, and he vigorously opposed censorship. He was President of the National Council for Civil Liberties (now known as Liberty). Forster called himself a humanist, and was President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 to his death. He was a Vice-President of the Ethical Union in the 1950s, and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association from its foundation in 1963. In What I Believe he wrote:

I do not believe in Belief. But this is an Age of Faith, and there are so many militant creeds that, in self defence, one has to formulate a creed of ones own. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy are no longer enough in a world where ignorance rules, and Science, which ought to have ruled, plays the pimp. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long. After an unhappy conventional middle-class upbringing and public school education, Forster found the intellectual freedom of Cambridge, where he spent much of the rest of his life, liberating; he began to question religious belief while a student there. After reading Lowes Dickinsons The Meaning of Good(which replaced God with Good, an influential idea at the turn of the century) he walked down Kings Parade declaring, You shall never take away from me my meaning of Good. This underpinned his humanist view that it is possible to be good without a belief in a god. His travels in Italy were another liberating experience and are reflected in two of early novels, Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View. He wrote: Italy is a beautiful place where they say Yes and the place where things happen. This openness contrasted with the narrow-minded attitudes of the British middle-class. Another early novel was The Longest Journey. This was more personal and drew on his own experiences at school and university. The main character has a club-foot a symbol for people who are different from the norm but have the right, nevertheless, to be treated equally. Forsters two masterpieces are A Passage to India and Howards End. The latter is prefaced with the phrase Only connect. It is about the need for two parts of society the intellectual and cultural, and the commercial, to meet and understand each other. He writes not only about the need for society to be interlinked as a whole, but of the need for individuals to connect the prose and the passion, to link their rational and emotional sides. A Passage to India arose from his friendship with individual Indians and from his visits to India. During one, he became private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas but he wanted to know Indian people and life rather than the tea parties and bridge games of the British people living in India. In the main character, Dr Aziz, Forster brilliantly creates a character from a different civilisation from his own. At that time, India was ruled as a part of the British Empire. Forster felt deeply that this situation prevented the Indians and British from being true friends. The novel ends with one of the main characters, the Englishman Fielding, saying to Aziz, Why cant we be friends now? Its what I want. Its what you want. It is said that this novel played an important part in changing attitudes in Britain, and thus helped the movement towards Indian independence. Forster was gay. He fell in love with Muhammad, a bus conductor, while working for the Red Cross in Cairo during the First World War. Later, after Muhammads death from tuberculosis (TB), he fell in love

with a policeman with whom he had a close relationship for the remainder of his life. He wrote a novel,Maurice, depicting the problems of gay men at a time when homosexuality was illegal. He decided it should not be published until after his death, and he did not reveal his homosexuality publicly during his lifetime.