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Major Barbara

Not at all. The more destructive war bec...

Overview

Gender
Male
Playing Age
Mature Adult
Style
Dramatic
Act/Scene
Act 1
Time & Place
Among the Undershaft dinner guests, Andrew Undershaft answers moral objections to his armaments business with absolute candor.
Length
Short
Time Period
Contemporary
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Youth (Y)/General Audiences (G)

Context

Text

Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it. No, Mr Lomax, I am obliged to you for making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it. I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their business in watertight compartments. All the spare money my trade rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always done so; and I always shall. Therefore your Christmas card moralities of peace on earth and goodwill among men are of no use to me. Your Christianity, which enjoins you to resist not evil, and to turn the other cheek, would make me a bankrupt. My morality—my religion—must have a place for cannons and torpedoes in it.

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