From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [201]
“Not a damn’ thin’,” he said disconsolately, and flung the glasses on the table. “Not even a bloody nude, b’ Gad.”
Neither of the others answered him. Sam Slater was still talking to Holmes. He had gone from the particular into the general, concerning junior officers.
“The thing that immediately struck me was you were not afraid. Most junior officers today are just like the EM—insanely afraid of their superiors. Their every thought and action is governed by this perpetual apprehensiveness of official disapproval. In fact, most senior officers are the same way. Its very seldom you can find a man amongst all of them with whom you can talk reasonably, which makes it hard for a man like myself, see?”
“But its always been that way, hasnt it?” Holmes said.
“Ah,” Sam Slater smiled. “Thats just where you’re wrong. And a little objective thinking will prove you are wrong. It hasnt always been that way. I’ve got quite a theory about that”
“Well, lets hear it,” Dynamite said enthusiastically. “I’m all ears. It isnt often I find a reasonable man to talk to either,” he said happily, grinning at Jake.
Jake did not grin back. He had heard this theory before and did not like it. It frightened him somehow and he could not bring himself to believe that life was really like that. Also, he considered it an injury to General Slater’s dignity and to his own for the General to discuss it with a Captain, who was not even an aide but only a company commander. He nursed his drink in silence, wondering how such a brilliant man as young Slater, of whom he had always been afraid, could so unbend himself.
“In the past,” Sam Slater said carefully, “this fear of authority was only the negative side of a positive moral code of ‘Honor, Patriotism, and Service.’ In the past, men sought to achieve the positives of the code, rather than simply to avoid its negatives.”
He was obviously choosing his words gingerly, as if worried that they would not be understood. And as he talked, he grew still more charming than before as his enthusiasm increased. Sam Slater’s enthusiasm, Holmes noticed, affected the man strangely. He did not get excited. Instead of leaning forward and talking faster, he seemed to relax and talk slower and slower, growing calmer and more cold than ever. And yet he was more charming.
“But the advent of materialism and the machine age changed all that, see? We have seen the world change,” he said, “in our time. The machine has destroyed the meaning of the old positive code. Obviously, you cannot make a man voluntarily chain himself to a machine because its ‘Honorable.’ The man knows better.”
Holmes nodded his agreement. It was an original idea.
“All that is left, then,” Sam Slater went on, “is the standardized negative side of the code as expressed in Law. The fear of authority which was once only a side issue but today is the main issue, because its the only issue left.
“You cant make a man believe it is ‘Honorable,’ so you have no choice but to make him afraid of not chaining himself to his machine. You can do it by making him afraid of his friends’ disapproval. You can shame him because he is a social drone. You can make him afraid of starving unless he works for his machine. You can threaten him with imprisonment. Or, in the highest efficiency, you can make him afraid of death by execution.
“But you cant tell him it is ‘Honorable’ any more. You have to make him afraid.”
“By god!” Holmes said. He smacked his fist down into his palm excitedly.
Sam Slater smiled indulgently. “Thats why, today, our junior officers (and our senior officers) have only this fear and nothing else. They are living by