Here D.H. Lawrence is deploring funk and encouraging the English to allow the future to take its natural form. Don’t press it into a shape or an off the peg solution. It is a conservative vision of hope and gradual change into a form that has a national truth.
“It is the business of men, of course, to take the same attitude towards the birth of new conditions, new ideas, new emotions. And sorry to say, most modern men don’t. They fall into a state of funk. We all of us know that ahead of us lies a great social change, a great social adjustment. A few men look it in the face and try to realise what will be best. We none of us know what will be best. There is no ready-made solution. Ready-made solutions are almost the greatest danger of all. A change is a slow flux, which must happen bit by bit. And it must happen.You can’t drive it like a steam engine. But all the time you can be alert and intelligent about it, and watch for the next step, and watch for the direction of the main trend. Patience, alertness, intelligence, and a human good will and fearlessness, that is what you want in a time of change. Not funk.”
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