which is lacking is serious.

Mr. Shaw's old and recognized philosophy was that powerfully
presented in "The Quintessence of Ibsenism." It was, in brief,
that conservative ideals were bad, not because They were conservative,
but because they were ideals. Every ideal prevented men from judging
justly the particular case; every moral generalization oppressed
the individual; the golden rule was there was no golden rule.
And the objection to this is simply that it pretends to free men,
but really restrains them from doing the only thing that men want to do.
What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty
except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what
constitutes a free people. And what is the good of telling a man
(or a philosopher) that he has every liberty except the liberty to
make generalizations. Making generalizations is what makes him a man.
In short, when Mr. Shaw forbids men to have strict moral ideals,
he is acting like one who should forbid them to have children.
The saying that "the golden rule is that there is no golden rule,"
can, indeed, be simply answered by being turned round.
That there is no golden rule is itself a golden rule, or rather
it is much worse than a golden rule. It is an iron rule;
a fetter on the first movement of a man.

But the sensation connected with Mr. Shaw in recent years has
been his sudden development of the religion of the Superman.
He who had to all appearance mocked at the faiths in the forgotten
past discovered a new god in the unimaginable future. He who had laid
all the blame on ideals set up the most impossible of all ideals,
the ideal of a new creature. But the truth, nevertheless, is that any
one who knows Mr. Shaw's mind adequately, and admires it properly,