Is Civilization a Disease?

By JOHN E. STRAND

"All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

HERE is little doubt that Shakespeare understood, perhaps better than any other man of his time, not only the human heart, but the cosmic scheme of things.

"All the world is a stage." is as true today, as it was in Shakespeare's time. We live in a world of Make-Believe and Pretense. The motivation is one of conflict and moral disintegration. Today's Culture, not only interferes with, but is destroying the natural impulse. Oppression, instigated by the narrow-minded, one-sided regulations, and idiotic rules, has reduced civilization to a state bordering on chaos.

Just as one does not know, in traveling from state to state, which traffic signals to obey, and which to disregard. so it is true that one does not know, and may not be able to judge, the correct method of procedure, or behavior, in diverse and different localities, which he may be, and frequently is, called upon to enter.

The correct attitude in one part of the country is not the correct attitude in another. It is proper for women to wear "shorts" at some tennis courts, and golf courses, and improper to do so upon others. It is moral to do certain things in one part of the city, and immoral in another; men may go in bathing in Atlantic City, without anything to cover their upper anatomy, and may not do so in Cape May, a few miles remote.

The mind is constantly confused with not only resentment at the various attempts to limit human life and liberty, but also so occupied with fear. Fear that one may digress the straight and narrow path, or give offense to some, perhaps well-meaning, but nevertheless misguided, narrow-minded, moron. Our lives become confused, according to certain habit patterns; the great difficulty being, that once we have formed these habit patterns, along comes another moron to indicate that the first patterns are all incorrect, and installs another system for our living according to his conception of what is right. and what is incorrect.

What we are pleased to term "civilization," is diseased, not only in the instances previously mentioned. but in many others. This is true, by reason of the fact that the vagaries of an existence which we are, in many instances, forced to live, is not a normal one.

"Life is but an interruption to a blissful state of non-existence," said Schoepenhauer. Although Schoepenhauer may today be decried as an unmitigated pessimist. a cynic, and a misanthrope, nevertheless, the restrictions imposed upon men by reason of civilization, are such, that one may be led to believe the worthy gentleman aforementioned, may have known something about it, after all.

There is little doubt in the minds of those who are unbiased, that the more recent attempts by certain classes, to live their lives as they wish is a movement in the proper direction. There seems to be little room for argument, that a development of the individual personality to a greater extent is more to be accentuated by the nudistic movement, than has previously obtained.

There seems to be little room for conjecture as to the ultimate result, when one looks carefully into the statistics of countries where Nudism has been in vogue for a number of years. The selected bodily freedom, coupled with the acquired mental relief, has made rapid strides, for not only a betterment of the health and moral standpoints, but has accentuated a technique along other lines far in advance, and superior to, any possible individual conception.

There can be little doubt, in the minds of those who wish to be fair, that a pregnant mother. unhampered and unworried by man-made conventions, and man-made contraptions, would not be enabled to give to the world her offspring, in as good quality, as she could, if the reverse were true. In other words, life and liberty. during the pre-natal period, which is happy through being unhampered and unconfined, is certainly more apt to reproduce in kind than would be the case if this were not so. The baby must necessarily live upon the life stream of the mother and absorb the same cellular intent.

Nudism is a social evolution. As a cure for the disease of civilization, it has contributed, and will continue to contribute a greater benefit to humanity, than many may realize, or will admit.

Nudism may be said to be the doctor who will guide the way, and lead the oppressed from the iron shackles of a tyrant, to Elysian fields of idealism. Nudism not only points the way, it is the way.

Whether one believes in the nudistic movement, or the reverse, we are positive that none will deny that, at its worst, Nudism will, at least, do no harm; and this cannot be truthfully said of medicine.

There may arise the question of a lessening of the finer sensibilities of the Timid Soul, the more highly bred patrician. or the repressed individual from the Plymouth Rock era.

The answer to this, is not necessarily a matter of opinion, but may be ascertained by actual contact with the factual circumstances. An investigation will prove no diminution in the respect, regard, or high estimation of womanhood; of manhood; or of childhood!

In fact, by reason of the removal of lascivious leanings inculcated by pernicious imagination, the very nonchalance attendant upon the atmosphere created, is more than enough to satisfy the intelligent person, or even the semi-intelligent, that there is a greater respct, and a more accentuated sensibility among the Nudists at their worst, than may be discovered in civilization at its best.

Life does not stand still we either go forward or backward; and likewise with disease: we either die, or we are cured. The disease of civilization, far from getting better, steadily grows worse, and is sadly in need of a cure.

Experience has taught us that, following any war, there is always a period of moral disintegration. The World War followed precedent, and, subsequent to its cessation, the men and the women who had been forced to go through years of privation, of pillage, murder, and rape, ran amuck in their reversion to the same extreme when they got back to civilization. However the interim has been of sufficient duration since that time, for at least a partial cleaning up. But has civilization grown any better -- or has it grown steadily worse?

Prohibition also contributed its share to moral degeneracy by an abrogation of what many considered their constitutional rights. It also included in its devastating influence, a horde of those who otherwise would never have descended to such moral, mental, and social depths.

There seems to be some wonderment as to why these facts should have eventuated. The explanation however while not pathologically easy is nevertheless understandable.

Repressions, especially protracted ones, produce what are referred to by the laity, as "one track minds"; mental ruts, if you will, from which emergence is difficult. Once the chasm is navigated and the repression removed, the spirit suddenly released, we find a rapid and sudden reversion to the anti-thesis, the diametric opposite. the other extreme.

The history of mankind has been such from the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, Babylon, Rome, England, the Hapsburgs, and all the rest.

We find the brilliant lights of music, fiction, art, and other vocations, who had inherited, or temporarily acquired the "one track mind," by reason of their concentration, or in spite of it, were almost to a unit, erotic, degenerate, or otherwise, not normal.

An extended roster might be compiled, but we have only to list a comparatively few, to indicate that the concentration which produces a genius, also produces deleterious mental and physical propensities, once there is a cessation of their artistic endeavors, a let up to their vocational activities.

Wagner, Chopin, Keats, Shelley, De Maupassant, Byron, Balzac, Sands, Oscar Wilde, Beaudelaire, and other votaries, contemporary and subsequent, have been set forth in history, as of the not exactly, normal poise.

Personal observation, and medical records, both attest to the diseased and perverted youth and maiden, who have been ruined, socially. physically, mentally and in every other way, by reason of unreasonable repressions imposed upon them, especially during their adolescence. Their inhibitions and complexes, had given rise to what they considered was a necessary secrecy regarding relief of their nervous and untenable condition, further accentuated by fear of being found out, subsequent punishment, and probable disgrace.

Ignorance as to proper procedure and method, was also a contributory factor to their scheme in ignoring the normal, and embracing the abnormal. And so, instead of use, we had abuse—instead of sex, excess, and instead of intelligence insanity.

This should demonstrate that unwarranted repressions, instead of beneficial results, produce just the reverse effect.

Oh yes. civilization is sick—with no pessimism, we say it is ailing. Diseased to an extreme. Suffering from bathtub-gin, hip-pocket flasks, college-promiscuity, roadhouse-propinquity, apartment-availability symptoms. It is in dire need of mental medication. It is in especial need of physical direction and guidance. And how may these be obtained to the maximum effect with a minimum of expense and effort? Just how should we proceed?

The answer should be clear. It is obvious that rules, regulations, edicts, admonitions, and what not, will never accomplish the results desired. They have all been tried, and found wanting; not only once, but times innumerable no local applications, either in the form of counter-irritants, emoulents, or other temporary assuaging reliefs will accomplish the result.

To insure permanency, the initiative must come, not from the outside, but from the inside. From within one's self. Courage, conviction, determination, and the necessity of putting into effect religiously an unintermittent practice of the precepts, that are both part and parcel of living, will assuredly cure any correctly diagnosed case, when everything else has failed to effect alleviation.

Nudism offers the opportunity, it is but for the intelligent, broadminded disciple of advanced thought and movement, to embrace. The narrow-minded adherents to the "good old fashioned days" will always bask in the reflected supposed glory of the "good old fashioned ways" to their personal detriment, and to civilization's, otherwise, incurable malady.

Naturally, there will always be a certain percentage of non-conformists, and possibly a few non-adherents. In any radical embarkation from the "follow-the-leader" style of sheep, and those who are invariably, and inevitably, guided by mob psychology, we shall always find the sneering, the ridicule, the distrustful, the inapt, inept and impossible. There are always those who cannot if they would, and will not if they could. In any endeavor, and in any community, or in any religion, there are always the few, who are not satisfied with the beliefs of the many. It is invariably "do it my way, or do not do it at all." Of course, their technique is superior, their ideas better, their methods unquestionable, and with their lavender spats and private back stairway to God, they must be right. They will continue to be right in their own minds, to their detriment, while civilization passes them by in it's advancement toward the aesthetic Utopia, and idealistic Elysian fields of advanced superiority, and ultimate goal.