The pen is mightier than the sword
Most paradoxes are clever rather than true, but there is enough to be said for this one to give it at least the color of truth. Lord Lytton was a prolific and popular Victorian author, but well aware of his limited powers, not to claim originality for what is clearly an ancient aphorism. His play ‘Richelieu’ of 1839, at any rate, defines the interpretation, he himself would have put on it. Richelieu adroitly saved himself from his enemies and scored them off by his pertinent writing. Moreover, he enabled his country to sidestep an alliance with Spain. Thus, he limits the application of this borrowed paradox :-
‘Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword
……….. take away the sword
States can be saved without it.’
No doubt in his own day and age ! But there are aggressors whose swords must be met by swords. There are the Hitlers of the world who dub the Treaty of Versailles a ‘scrap of paper.’ There is the pathetic 1938 picture of Neville Chamberlain waving another scrap of paper, as he returned from the meeting at Peterburg, promising the deluded British ‘peace in our time.’
But nobody could accuse Hitler of ‘greatness’ in any true sense, or Chamberlain of ‘greatness’ in any sense, at all, so Lytton might even today maintain his argument holds good. The unilateral disarmed believes that it holds good at all times; that irrespective of the temporary triumph of the sword, whether that ‘sword’ takes the shape of the bully’s fist or the aggressor’s nuclear bomb, the triumph is ultimately gained by peaceful acceptance of tyranny, possibly without even a written protest that tyranny carried its own seeds of destruction is true, but history has many a case of such seeds taking a very long time to ripen. Meanwhile, millions suffer, and we reflect that much suffering might have been saved by a sword raised in defense.
So the paradox is at best a half-truth, but the half that is true is very true indeed, because we must define real ‘might’ as something other than military power. Man is basically a spiritual and mental rather than a physical creature. he can be more easily led by the pen than driven by the sword, and there is ample evidence in all spheres of writing to prove this.
The civilising power of world religions down the ages has been incalculable, and the perpetuation of religion has always depended on writing. The great Roman Empire was christianised by the Bible 300 years after the life of Christ; today, the purity of the Muslim way of life depends on the learning of the Koran by the followers; the Vedas still inspire millions of Indians, and the record made of the Sayings of Confucius by his disciples provided the basis of the social order of much of the Far East. Modern democratic theory owes much to the writings of Aristotle, philosophy to those of Plato, and law to those of Gaius. The law student at Oxford today, begins by studying his ‘Institutes’.
On the narrower canvas, social reformers have sees the newspaper and magazine article and especially the novel as a means of stating their case and moving public opinion to take legal action in their favor, this making valid gains for humanity. Charles Kingsly’s ‘Water Babies’ castigated the infamies of child exploitation. Harriet Beecher Stowe, those of Negro slavery, Charles Dickens, those of a harsh legal system and of a society which condemned the multitude to poverty and class oppression.
Humor and satire have a sharper point then any sword. Even in times of tyranny and oppressive laws, the lampoon and the political ‘broadsheet’ pilloried hated public figures and institutions, preserved a sense of humor in the community, and sometimes gave pause to the pressers, whereas physical attack or revolt would have been punished to the full extent of the law. ‘Punch’ castigated the crown and the lawyer in the days when no less than 200 felonies were punishable by death. In earlier days, Pope and Dryden used the barbed rhyming couplet to ridicule dominant political figures, who in the modern, ‘free’ days would have won fantastic libel damages. But the tyrant is always ‘touchy’, and the pen always finds the weak spot ! And abroad, need we do more than mention the explosive power of Voltaire and Rousseau, Marx and Engels ?
And today, the mass-molding popular press, of which modern man is becoming heartily sick. Today’s need is for independent and logical thought. Let us hope that this will supersede both the pen and the sword in the hands of others.
