THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 22, 1940
CHINA MAIL How The
WINDSOR HOUSE LO
A BETTER WORLD
What ought you to do when a
fire breaks out in your neighbour's
Will
"Page 7
Nazis
Fail
try we heard then in the earliest fundamental changes running thr- mental German, devoted to pum- days of the republic. Should we ough the gamut of human activit-pernickel. Schubert, and Kantian help extinguish Napoleon, or les, high and low.
metaphysics. should we let him burn up, thef
form all the details of his
at study. attitude is, however,
life.
looks to the serene eye of the his- torian, no matter how true it is house? Go to his help, or keep
that "the more things change, the your own roof doused. with water? Americans are giving wars and revolutions, and es
more they are the same,” · such simple philosophical determinism rightly goes against our grain. serious thought to their pecially the combination of war with revolution, have for a long
Even though the grand' aims of extreme révolutionists are never part in world affairs. They time brought such metaphors into political argument. In this coun-
achieved, what they do achieve is are pondering what might
at least some slight alteration in human habits, institutions, valua~ have been had the United
tions. And that alteration, if the Nazis have, even as much success States cast the weight of world, or at any rate Great Brit To judge from revolutions in Such reflections may, seem to as the Jacobins had, we Ameri- its influence into the bal-ain? Even then, there were those the past, which is all anyone can invite us to the task, pleasant even cans must feel is likely to be a who urged that there ought to be sensibly judge from, they will not to such energetic people as our most undesirable alteration. The succeed. Whatever metaphor or selves, of doing nothing about the Nazis will not make men Nietzs- ance of international jus- some sort of international fire de- conceptual scheme you wish
partment. Unfortunately, it was
to present crisis; Lat the Nazis alone.chean Supermen. But, apart from tice through the League not until after the fire had burn-use in an attempt to understand Time will take care of them it the fact that in trying to do so.
the course of revolution in our always has taken care of such re-they have already brought suff of Nations. They are eval- ed out that men tried to organist Western society, one thing comes volutionists: No such Laodicean ering to millions, the limited suc-
for common protection against with impartial such fires. And, fortunately or Especially at their height, in their justified.
inevitably out of such a uating
present cess they may attain will create eyes
and perpetuate human types, the aftermath of unfortunately, we Americans have crisis periods, revolutions ask too
refused to have anything to do
human ways of living, profound- non-cooperation, isola-with these very imperfect fire de- much of the ordinary, human be-
In the first ing. They demand from him the.
place, the actually distasteful to us. We do not tionism, and high tariffs partments the Holy Alliance, the impossible energy needed to trans-
process of revolution. is a harshi want a world of Hitlers, Goer- League of Nations. in United States foreign
and cruel one, which, in spite of ings, Rosenbergs and Mussolinis our own revolutionary origins; not even of quiet and "appeased" Annoying though such metaph-
most of us feel is an undesirable Hitlers, Goerings, Rosenbergs and policy. They are thinking
method of effecting social chan-Mussolinis. We do not want that perhaps America will adequate and inaccurate though
ges. We are dedicated,
world of Aryan-worship, even if, in this country, to a belief' in the not be held entirely guilt-they may be for the purpose of
pos by a kind of fiction not unknown understanding the phenomena in-
sibility of ordered change, slow- to older religions, the worship gets less of responsibility for volved in war and revolution,
ly and perhaps erratically produc- softened by the invention of all the present war in the in their use to the purposes of they are not necessarily limited
ed by discussion and vote. To sorts of "honourary Aryans." revert to the metaphor with which analyses by future histor-blind partisan debate. In the still
this article began: We do not In the meantime, the least we the undeveloped state of lans.
want our house burned down, can do is to take measures to keep sciences such metaphors are per-
even if the burning does give us our own roof wet, to prevent the haps the nearest we can get to
a chance to build new one. spread, of the fire to this country. the sort of conceptual scheme the
What seems good in the profess- We must keep the revolution from natural scientist uses so profitably. to routine. Almost with certainty, ed aims of the totalitarians-not- our shores. This is a hard task,
his responses, limited in
de- time ably the complex measures sug- and one which makes full Great social revolutions do seem and space, return to something gested by such words as "order" mands on our wisdom and initia- to lend themselves to a predict- like their usual course. The Jaco and "security"--we shall hope to tive. It means military defence, able trend. There are the "causes" bin gives up trying to be "always work out for ourselves without and perhaps even more, it means of the revolution; the outbreak; a at the height of revolutionary cir- recourse to revolutionary violence, recognising signs of totalitarian series of ups and downs culminat- cumstance," and becomes a con- We should be strengthened in revolution among ourselves, and ing in the crisis, the violence of ventional French bourgeois. The such a hope by the obvious fact, doing something to correct them. the Reign of Terror; a period of Bolshevik ceases to live as if in that revolutions are poor ways to And there is always the possibility gradual return to
do more stable a "classless society" and adapts attain security. The current. lot that we may have to conditions, and finally, a new, himself to the tradition of Russian of the Germans looks far from thing about the original focus of equilibrium, perhaps 3 formal bureaucracy. The Nazi will pro- secure.
̈inflammability. Revolutionary fire no, doubt ultimately yields to the
process of to judge from the past, yield to action and reaction in revolution' appeasement.
Although not fully agreed upon how far the United States ought to go, American public opinion evidently has. concluded that American moral and material support, short of participation with man- power in the war, should be liberally afforded to Great Britain. Meanwhile many are earnestly pon- dering what form of or- ganisation shall follow the
war,
Two possible worlds rise in vision before us. One is the world of hate which Hitlerism is even now forging. The pattern is already cut; and the machinery for fashioning it is grinding out its pro- duct. That would be a world without peace an butward semblance of peace perhaps, dictated by fear of death and worse-but no. peace in the breasts of men.
ors are to the literal-minded, in-
social
They permit him no healing pri- vacy, no laziness, no attachment
By Crane Brinton
(Author of "The Anatomy of Revolution")
a
some-
"restoration," at any rate a society, bably some day give up trying to compounded of old elements and be the hard, clear. Superman of In the second, place, no matter fire hose. But it does not, again. new, but with the new elements Nietzschean tradition, and become how automatic the ing the most violent period of the vastly less important than dur- again the gemütlich and senti- revolution, and very different from what the extreme revolu-
tionists had planned. As for the inflammability, the great French revolution, the Russian revolution of our own time, certainly caught well beyond the borders of old. France and old Russia. There are signs that the current Fascist re- volutions in Germany and Italy. are also highly inflammable.
That what is happening in the totalitarian states is a real revolu to those of us who don't like tion ought now to be clear even what is going on there. Heirs of the English Puritan, the Amori- can and French revolutions, most of us Americans have come →→→ at a safe distance, in time to think of revolutions as A Good Thing. But what Herr Rauschning made clear in the abstract in his "The Revolution of Nihilism," recent
events, and pronunciamentos of totalitarian leaders, have made only too concrete. The Nazis and the Fascists are trying to. make over the world in their own im- age, to supplant democratic sacie- societies that is, in specific ties everywhere with totalitarian terms, to supplant the Boy Scouts
P
The grimmest facts must be faced squarely At best, a victorious Ger many would turn America
with the Balilla and the Sons of into an armed camp. the Wolf, Labour Unions with Standards of living would Labour Fronts, policemen with the shrink to undreamed-of trips with Kraft
Gestapo, random outings and. auto durch Freude depths.
and Dopo Lavoro, Christianity with worship of race and state marriage for love, or even con- There is another world venience, with marriage for breed- that may be to-morrow's ed to the pursuit of learning: (and ing soldiers, universities dedicat- a better one, brightened also, no doubt, innocent tribal by peace, permanent pleasures) with universities
dicated to the pursuit of totalitar- beace and good will. ian efficiency, Rotary, Kiwanis, 'horticultural societies, Christian ideals have the Masons,
women's clubs-all the incredible
de-
bower to build: such a profusion of democratic group world: Paganism must be life with properly supervised and carefully regimented organs lispelled if this better of the "corporative state." The ife is to be. There can be totalitarians
revolution,
world of freedom, of bundance for all man-
mean
ind, of light-hearted joy. must be shattered.
illusion of ruthless might
What is the price? The If not, Hitler and Mus- price is international co-solini, and perhaps Stalin, peration, some kind of a will dictate the peace inion of nations, perhaps treaty with no help want
n entirely new structure ed. The world of to-mor- f international justice row will be their kind of nd organisation far world, Americans must eace. But before that can decide which of two pos ome about the forces of sible worlds, they want in ggression must be com- the to-morrows which lie letely stopped and the ahead...
IT ALL RIGHT NOW, HENRY ?" YES, NOT EVEN SCRATCHED."