The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1948-10-08
THE CULTURAL LAG

The group or nation having the pre-
ponderance of power has the advan
tage.
The dominant special privilege
class establishes the moral-ethicaI
codes of conduct for the exploited, il
promotes the incubation of the folk
lore, false notions, and lies without
which exploitation and social injus
tice in general could not continue
short of physical force
The proof lies in a little impartial
review of history. Who wrote or in
vented the codes of conduct for the
slave workers of Rome or Greece
Or who formulated the codes of con-
duct for the serfs, villains, or workers
in England thousand years later.
Who invented the idea of the Divine
Right of Kings which permitted the
nobility to ride rough-shod over the
masses?
Now to come to our own country
and time. Who wrote the law which
in the early part of our last century
induced a judge to fine twenty men a
large sum for not going to work for
the wage offered them? Who wrote
the Taft-Hartley law, the Sedition
laws, or the Mundt law?
If you counter with the thought that
at least since the advent of political
democracy the workers and the op-
pressed help to elect the lawmakers.
then you are right.
But the right to vote does not en-
compass total democracy or freedom.
The right to vote without complete
freedom of discussion and examina-
ton of issues is quite short of the
ideal The dominant class can win
even with the right of suffrage given
the oppressed in the following way:
Because of the advantageous power
the class held over the forces of edu-
cation in the past, it succeeded in
establishing the ideas, folk lore, mis-
and actual lies which
make the injustices seem inevitable
in accordance with the natural order
Of things, and often the will of God
When these ideas which made oppres-
sion possible became accepted by the
the road was clear. Since
then, this same dominant class has
been busy keeping alive these mis-
and making specious JUS
LITIGATION for social injustice.
The idea that all government power
however tyrannical and unjust is de-
rived from God has outlived it's pur-
pose; it is no longer acceptable. The
levine right of kings theory is COM
)letely discarded. But there are
plenty of other untruths just as ridic- |
llous and designed to serve the same |
purpose, to justify social and econom- |
C injustice.
In the newer course of misinforma- !
ion are a cluster of untruths center
ng around the relative worth of the !
Inderprivileged as compared with the
uccessful.
In the South, the whites can Justify
heir opposition to equal suffrage on
he ground that the negro is illiterate
their self-interest prevents them from
that the illiteracy is
creed upon the negro; or that the
10th, ignorance and lack of initiative
of by the whites would
likely disappear if the negro were
iven the equal opportunity for train
1g.
Then we have that hypocrisy that
he special privileges enjoyed by the
ominant class is a reward for spe-
ial services, or for a higher moral
", or rare native endowments.
Especially valuable is the teaching
nat the injustices inflicted on the |,
COR are the result of his own weak
ess. We've always had war and al
avs will; its the nature of man to
!