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THIS MODERN FREE AGE
(Continued from page 5)
naked. They fled—a few into a Utopian
Middle Age or Seventeenth Century, more
into communism. Instead of putting the
machine in its place, they made an idol
of it; instead of repudiating the mecha
nism of the Nineteenth Century which
helped to cause the war and increased its
brutality, they made it coextensive with
both religion and philosophy.
The psychological character of their
communism can be studied in many ways.
It can be studied, for instance, in their
amusing treatment of the arts according
to the doctrines of economic determinism.
It can be studied from the fact that,
though they are young, they are already
unteachable by experience. Although over
industrialization and over-centralization
have nearly destroyed our so-called cap
italistic society, they entertain no doubt
that monstrous industrialization and cen
tralization will save mankind in a so-
called communistic society. When a dam
is deserted in America and when one is
built in Russia they are equally trium
phant. They are not happy, so they deny
that which they are and which has not
made them happy and dream, safely afar
from the dreadful privations of the Rus
sian people, of a Utopia in which all hu
man nature, including their own, will be
capable of happiness, will be capable of
true satisfaction once more.
They and the millions like them in
Kurope and also the middle classes every
where, stopped short now for their own
good in their false progress away from
ends towards means, are all unhappy.
But their unhappiness, like the result of
the eighteenth amendment to our Consti
tution could easily have been foretold by
a disinterested mind truly at the source
and center of things. For such a mind
could have told them that the majority of
men had never been happy, but that there
was no new way of being happy and
that, since human nature had not changed,
the means by which a man could attain
happiness had not changed cither. And
that these means, barring a remedy for
either crippling poverty or ill health, were
wholly spiritual and moral in their na
ture; and that this possible happiness,
this balance between desire and fulfill
ment, between dream and day, cannot be
won without a self-discipline that not
only leads to an ultimate resignation, a
consent to permanent limitations, but must
find its satisfaction therein.
There is no Never-Never land in which
roast ducks fly into open mouths. There
is no eternal bull market with two cars
in every garage nor is there a perfect
communist society in which each man will
be happy as a functioning part of the
whole. The two cars demonstrably
brought no true contentment; men are be
coming more individualized and not less
and will not find happiness in a deper
sonalized social functioning. Are these
not the merest commonplaces and, as it
were, copy-book maxims? They are. And
they have been forgotten. And it has
been equally forgotten that they became
commonplaces and copy-book maxims be
cause they represented the age-long sum
and fruit of human experience.
The first task of thinking men and
women in this age must be a retracing
of their way to that point at which a ver
tigo seized Western man and he fan
cied that the machine and mechanical
improvements and the analogy of himself
to a mechanism had changed human na
ture and would bring Utopia of one kind
or another to our threshold. We must re
ally ourselves with the experience of
mankind, of which historic culture is the
record; we must relearn what kind of
a creature man is, what are his limita
tions, what are his possibilities of con
tentment, within what limits the evils
under the sun are remediable, however
improved the mechanical means may be.
Progress toward the permanent ends
is possible. As we no longer burn witches
we may learn to abstain from murder,
even if the murderers wear uniform. But
even then men will not be happy; those
only will have been happy who have
helped to bring this blessed end about.
There will be no Utopia; there can be
none. Man's portion is the road and not
the goal. For the goal would be static,
and what is static is dead. The very ex
istence of all philosophies and of all re
ligions, if it teaches no more, teaches that.
Historic-minded, non-Utopian thinking is
the first duty of the hour and age. By
such thinking, which is the only kind of
unprejudiced thinking, the only kind of
thinking according to the facts and not
according to sick fancies, we would un
doubtedly be able to ameliorate even our
economic ills. Sound thinking has never
yet failed wholly to bring counsel. But
we must abandon neurotic protests
against being the creatures we are in the
world as it is. We must not ask more
of people or circumstances than is in
them to give. Before improving it, we
must consent once more to what is the
essential and unchanging character of
man’s mortal lot.
WILL CIVILIZATION BE
RESTORED?
(Continued from page 9)
Who were the assassins? I defy any
one to cite a single assassination com
mitted by Communists during all these
years. But the list of National-Socialist
crimes is endless. Who attacked people
in the streets? Who conceived the in
famous idea of entering the very houses
of those who held different political opin
ions, and murdering or mutilating people
in their own homes? Not the Com
munists—not they I Like animals cor
nered and tormented, they turned at last
to defend themselves. This, and this
alone, is what brought on the guerilla
warfare of recent years between Nazis
and Communists—a war waged in the
dark, in cellars, in open-air camps at
night. But no matter how unmistakable
the evidence, the courts delayed the cases
and never made a clear pronouncement
as to who had been the aggressors, al
though every one knew their identity.
Goering, installed in his ministerial
palace, today permits himself the impu
dent statement that the Natior jI-Soqj 1
ists saved Western civilizat , n
Communism. The truth of th, mart,, |
that civilization has no worse e• r m) * I
these murderers by conviction th,„ „ I
rial fanatics, these grave-digge of
oerotic institutions. They began heir %
against the Communists with t «* exp fl
purpose of creating a state of auv*
otherwise they would never has att a it, t
power. It was their intention to r «f w
the Republic to a state of di ^
that they themselves could b (Jfnf ^
masters. It was not against the Co*
munists that they were fighting ohen ti~
invaded homes and murdered people .
was the Republic that they meant io 4.
stroy.
And finally they succeeded, though
cess was due less to their o\sn p. lWn
than to the aid of traitors. Incidenulh
that success came just in time; their vx*
were declining in number—the peak hit
been passed. Furthermore, as too in
are aware, a coalition of the :*o lit*
parties was imminent. I know this, f w
I myself worked toward that end, 1&4
because of rny activity was compelled t»
resign from the Prussian Academy rf
Arts. The Communists would have be
come reconciled with the Social-Den*-
crats: the workers wanted this, and the
leaders of both parties would have b»4
to yield. But then there would have bee*
no more Communist peril, or even 1
semblance of it, and no one could bin
used it as a pretext for gaining power
A majority would have been created fw
the Republic. The blow against it bid
to be struck before this majority could
come into being.
But what did the victorious hand d
adventurers, once enthroned in palaces
and posts of power, then do for tb«
civilization which they claimed to han
saved? For a fortnight nothing hap
pened; the new rulers, meeting with #•
resistance, found no occasion for revei
ing themselves in their true colors. The*
the occasion presented itself: the firing d
the Reichstag Building. It was announced
that an enormous number of incendiin
devices had been discovered. Actual'
the fire department found a single suck
device, lying in the corridor leading t*
the dwelling of the President of the
Reichstag—that very' Goering who prates
of Western civilization, trembling
perspiring the while.
Now they could let themselves go. N**
came the pogroms, the concentrate*
camps and all the other actions to
civilization. They are the actions **
creatures that know nothing, desire nuk
ing beyond their own hatred and grre-
To hold three highly-paid posts at oor*
to live in palaces, to force, for no
reason or purpose, the country to suit**
to their mania for power: that sitid**
their mean ambition. They can
for nothing higher than themselves-
are people who do not think and "k*
hate thought; that is why, despite
their great crimes, they always re®* -
petty failures. Us who think they h**
more than all others, incomparably nxw*
than the Communists and even more r ,v>
lently than the Jews—whom, in
they hate quite enough.
Like most stupid people they are *■'
Goering thought he was winning the ■ iy
eign journalists when he played th*
savior of Western civilization from
munism. Western civilization has * in '
inclination for Communism. But it' c 04
dition is such that it can easily tall P f -'
to unscrupulous soldiers of fort me.
was the Republic, inadequate and
though it may have been, that rep res e**^
Western civilization in Germany,
the other hand, adventurers se mm *
main successful to the end; and :i'i
tion will yet be restored.
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