Precis of Wilde's Socialism

Oscar Wilde’s Attempt to Protect Individual Expression
By Eddie Burns

What begins as a seemingly valiant effort to combat poverty in Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of Man under Socialism becomes a plea for Laissez-faire of artistic expression, figuratively named Individualism. His argument for individualism (spelled capitalized) is evident throughout the text but is hidden under the title and initial argument of the essay. However, by the conclusion of the text, Wilde clearly demonstrates his desire that artistic expression be excluded from governance for the betterment of the masses.
The basic idea of Wilde’s argument for Individualism is expressed through a comparison of the oppression of art to the oppression of people. He begins by showing that people advocate for social change from what appears to be a capitalistic society to a socialist one to help the poor. He does this by providing evidence that figures the poor for slaves and gives examples as to how this is accomplished in the economic system. He also appeals to the reader as an advocate for change, empowering his audience with perspective and perhaps eliciting a guilty conscience. Wilde calls assumptions into question in his argument and even uses concessions to preempt rebuttal from those who would support the current economic system (or as the evidence shows, attack the ideas that socialist views drift into an authoritarian ideology). But the focus of his argument, while in appearance is social/economic change, is always the push for individualism
It is very interesting that Wilde first begins his argument with an apparent concession – that there are exceptional people who are able to live for themselves, such as Flaubert, Darwin, Keats and Renan – because it accomplishes several feats. By beginning his argument in this way, Wilde’s essay seems to suggest that his audience is someone who would be against his argument. By conceding the success of these famous people, Wilde attempts to show his understanding of the opposition’s viewpoint that change is not necessary. Second, it introduces artists (even artists of science) who Wilde believes kept out of public scrutiny which allowed them to “…realize the perfection of what was in him” (1). Third, this list of successful people allows the argument to bridge from economic success to individualism, a point made later in the essay.
In order to build pathos for his argument, Wilde cleverly (and even logically) equates the oppression of poverty to slavery. The essay notes that the altruistic have tried to solve the problem of poverty by being kind and then quickly discredits this rationale. Wilde says that it was because of the kindness of some slave holders that prevent the horrific reality of slavery to come to light (1). In stating this, the text accomplishes several things. It introduces the idea of slavery into the argument and draws an emotional response from the oppression of slavery and maps it onto the oppression of poverty. The essay now has the reader recall the idea of slavery every time they are told about oppression, figuratively mapping an emotional response that seemingly would not have been there in the first place. Under the disguise of this first line of argument, the idea of oppressed people will shift from the poor to those who are not allowed to be individuals, namely artists.
There is a long extended metaphor of slave to poverty to artist that will continue through the essay and is crucial Wilde’s argument. Wilde shows that those who do not own private property are bitterly oppressed poverty stricken people. He states, “there are a great many people who, having no private property of their own, and being always on the brink of sheer starvation, are compelled to do the work of beasts of burden…” (2) using words associated with slavery for added force. Injecting phrases like “beasts of burden” and “starvation,” Wilde’s argument feeds off of the pathos generated through the link to slavery to enhance the idea that the oppressed cannot help themselves and must rely on outside forces for their liberation.
As a means of social change, Wilde suggests that rebellion is necessary. He tries to alter the norms of conduct, saying that it is foolish for people to continue to acquiesce to a system that is the cause of their ruin. He then shows that it is necessary to disobey in order for change to occur. In a call to rebellion, Wilde states, “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue” (3). He mentions this statement, which the Royal Society would use as a basis for human advancement though science and experiment, to posit the story of Adam and Eve and equates Eve’s disobedience of eating the apple to liberation. Wilde justifies rebellion against the system of oppression as a means of liberty and advancement of mankind.
The strongest evidence to support who is Wilde’s audience is evidenced through the extended slavery/poverty/oppressed artist metaphor. Having shown the poor to be oppressed people who are no better off than slaves, Wilde calls upon those who are free from the burdens of poverty to set the social revolution into motion, showing that it was the illegal acts of the Abolitionists who were the instruments of change that ended slavery (5). The oppressed people would be less likely to read an essay than someone who is not under such constraints. Wilde demonstrates that the oppressed people are not able to help themselves and that it is the oppressed who are dependent on the conscience of others – such as the reader – to liberate them.
Wilde’s concession that some socialists sound like they have adopted an Authoritarian tone reveals an awareness of the audience, placing Wilde in a position of empathy with his readers, and introduces the shift from economic tyranny to the oppression of freedom and expression. Wilde says, “… that no Authoritarian Socialism will do” (5), seemingly anticipating his audience’s rebuttal for a reform to Socialism and distancing himself from it. He continues, saying, “… I confess that many of the socialistic views that I have come across seem to me to be tainted with ideas of authority…” (5). This concession seems to anticipate the reader’s objection to socialism, but it also uses emotionally charged words like “Authoritarian” and “tyranny,” placing these words in opposition to “freedom and expression and happiness” (4). These emotionally charged words help the essay create pathos onto anything that can be seen as authoritarian and in contradiction to freedom, expression, and happiness. This shift from economic oppression to the oppression of the spirit is the start of a more clear focus of the text on the preservation, sanctification, and justification of Individualism.
It is interesting the Wilde uses a metaphor of individualism to financial independence but it seems to fit with his logos of the poor losing their identity to the oppression of the economic system. To Wilde, the poor are nothing more than the vehicle that delivers the rich their wealth. They do not have private property, and therefore must live in service to those who do. The idea that every man was his own head versus the old idea that every man was one part of the body politic lead the British people to accept the idea of individualism. But Wilde insists that the oppressed have lost that individualism to the system that will not allow them private property. It seems that he wants to allow people to regain that individualism in a way that circumvents the ownership of private property. An even broader argument, however, is that he wants the people to be allowed to express their individualism in public.
It seems that the main goal of Wilde’s essay is that people are allowed to live and that the economic governance, possession of private property, and the accumulation of wealth will thwart this end. Yet the economic system is just one way of governance of which Wilde rejects. To Wilde, being an individual is the movement away from existence and into life (6). Taking the contrapositive, Wilde’s argument says that not being an individual is not living, and therefore it is necessary to life to be an individual. This, to Wilde, is not possible “… in the present condition of things” (1). The metaphor of private property (or economic independence) to individual freedom is extended to being alive, suggesting that if one does not need to worry about their economic status then they do not have to fear oppression of their individual freedom. By expressing oppression from slavery, mapping it onto the oppression of individual freedom, and further mapping this onto a life that is more than mere existence, Wilde attempts to garner sympathy and change the convictions of his audience.
He then moves into what he calls, “the perfect personality” which is a person who is at peace. This peace has not yet been achieved, seemingly because the individual suffers under the burdens that strip individualism. He anticipates that people will be at peace because they won’t succumb to vice and discord created by the necessity of accumulating wealth (6). This seems to be a pipe dream and it seems to be a stretch for Wilde to imagine that there is such a thing as a “true personality” which mankind has yet to discover and that humans have failed to live as Wilde suggests.
The religious aspect of the essay seems to add another layer onto his argument by asking the reader to equate the oppressed with a fully developed personality and the rich to those who are not ready to receive Christ. This line of argument suggests to the rich that they are inferior in the eyes of Christ. His argument gains more credibility is in the recount of the woman who perfumes Jesus’ hair. He relates that the woman is spiritually rich, willing to give her money in pursuit of spiritual gains (8). Certainly, the audience, wealthy as they may be, would be aware of this biblical lesson. Wilde attempts to build up a guilty conscience in his reader in order to persuade the audience into his justification for Individualism by equating the oppression of the poor to the oppression of Individualism.
Wilde’s use of the perfume parable allows him to completely switch from a denunciation of economic oppression to an argument in support of personal expression. He says that Jesus, “… pointed out … that the spiritual needs of man were [great], and that in one divine moment … by selecting its own mode of expression, a personality might make itself perfect” (8). Wilde contends that personal expression was the means that the woman makes her personality perfect and even expresses the idea that the world sanctifies this expression of personality. It seems fitting that an artist such as Wilde will make this assertion because it serves to protect his interest in the freedom of personal expression.
Moving through his desire for laisse-faire governance of Individualism, Wilde attacks authority and the idea of government. He does this by equating the idea of government to the idea of “the public” and then discredits the public. In a tongue-in-cheek attack, Wilde says that “All modes of government are failures,” where “High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people” (9). If the government is just an extension of the people, then it is the people who oppress the individual. Wilde is shows that all modes are a failure, suggesting even religious governance as a mode that fails the individual.
Wilde defines Individualism through figurative language by stating that art is an expression of Individualism which must be defended. Wilde states that “art is the most intense mode of Individualism…” and essentially figures the idea of art to an individual. Coupled with Wilde’s idea that to be an Individual is to be alive (and conversely to die is to conform), Wilde claims that Art is a mode of life that expresses itself without conforming and must be allowed to exist without the governance that will oppress it into conformation.
Wilde illustrates his ideas for how art has escaped the oppression of governance by the people’s lack of interest in poetry and how poetry has thus been allowed to grow. He shows that the people, a word that Wilde figures for governance, generally do not take an interest in poetry and it is because of this that it has been allowed to grow. He says, “We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it” (12). Clearly, Wilde believes that for the art of poetry to be “fine” it must not be influenced by people other than the artist. The text seems extremely preoccupied with this idea when one notes the length of the paragraph dedicated to this discussion.
In a strong defense of art, Wilde shows that art is necessary to humans because it is an expression of the Individual and not controlled by the masses. Wilde says about art that “… it seeks to disturb … monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine,” and “Art is Individualism and Individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force” (13). Wilde feels that it is because art is the result of individualism that it allows people to differentiate themselves and avoid monotony. It is the creation art that separates humans from machines.
Wilde argues against the prohibitions of Individualism, chiefly the mode of individual expression that is art. He uses metaphors which, though may change, flow logically through figurative language. He uses words such as slavery and oppression to figure for the oppression individual expression and freedom. He uses concessions to identify with his audience but turns the concessions into points of contention in order to convince his audience that it is right to allow Individualism. Throughout the essay, the audience seems to be a person who must be persuaded, suggesting that the audience is an authority figure (religious or political) who either contributes to the oppression of Individualism or is someone who does not but may be persuaded to take up the cause of liberating Individualism.