CULTURAL VITALISM (A)
Culture Health
“I recognize only two nations, the Occident, and the Orient.”
— NAPOLEON
“It is want of race, and nothing else, that makes intellectuals— philosophers, doctrinaires, Utopists—
incapable of understanding the depth of this metaphysical hatred, which is the beat-difference of two
currents of being manifested as an unbearable dissonance, a hatred that may become tragic for both.”
— SPENGLER
“I wanted to prepare the fusion of the great interests of Europe, as I had accomplished that of the parties.
I concerned myself little with the passing rancor of the peoples, for I was sure that the results would lead
them irresistibly back to me. Europe would in this way have become in truth a united nation, and every
one would have been, no matter where he traveled, in the same Fatherland. This fusion will accomplish
itself sooner or later through the pressure of the facts; the impulse has been given which, since my
downfall and the disappearance of my system, will make the restoration of balance possible in Europe
only by merger and fusion of the great nations.”
NAPOLEON
Introduction
FOR THE FIRST TIME is developed here the thesis of Cultural Vitalism, the physiognomy of the
adaptation, health, or illness of a High Culture. Heretofore, a Culture has usually been looked upon as a
result, a mere sum total of collective activity of human beings and groups of human beings. To the extent
that its unity and continuity was perceived at all, this was regarded as purely materially-linked “influence”
of individuals, groups or written ideas on contemporaries or posterity. But with the advance of age of the
Western Culture, its unity began dimly to be perceived. This unity was formulated in very different ways,
with different points of origin, different laws of development, but the essential idea was the unity of the
Culture. Even in the home of Materialism, Benjamin Kidd recognized the inner unity of the West in his
work “Western Civilization.” Nietzsche, Lamprecht, Breysig, Meray, are only a few of those who sensed
this idea. In an age which starts from facts, and not from programs, which submits to realities without
trying to make them pass a rationalistic test, it has become self-evident, spiritually compulsory to think
within this new framework. If two individuals, widely separated geographically, and in no contact with
one another, develop similar inventions, similar philosophies, chose the same subject matter for drama or
lyric— this is not “influence” nor “coincidence,” but a reflection of the development of the Culture to
which both belong. From the higher Cultural standpoint the arguments about who was the first to invent
this or that device, who originated this or that idea, are quite barren. These questions are not on any
higher plane than the legal, at best. If the development in question is one of super personal force, and not
a mere personal amusement, it is the development of the Culture, and the fact that it was expressed
simultaneously by more than one person only testifies to its Destiny-quality.
The nature of the unity of the Culture is purely spiritual in its origin. The material unity that follows is
the unfolding of the precedent inner, spiritual unity. Life is the actualizing of the possible; the
development of a High Culture is the unfolding, over the predetermined organic life-span, of the inner
possibilities contained in the Culture-soul.
The one in which we live is the 8th High Culture to appear on this planet. The unity and inner
relationship of the totality of forms and creations of any one of the others is apparent to us, because we
stand completely outside it and cannot enter into the nuances of its soul, since we belong to another. This
impenetrability of an alien Culture is part of a wider organic generalization: even the spirit of another age
of our own Culture, of another nation, another individual, in the last analysis, presents difficulties to
complete understanding. The technique of comprehension of other life-forms is living into them. To
measure, time, and calculate the behavior of another organism is valueless to organic assimilation.
Materialistic “psychology,” with its heaps of results on paper, never aided one individual to understand
another. If any identity was reached, it was in spite of the abstract equipment.
Difficulty in assimilating oneself into other organic forms, understanding them, penetrating them, is a
matter of degree. A person with similar character is readily understood by us. If his character is
dissimilar, but his background is similar, he can be understood with more difficulty. Different nationality,
different race, different cultural origin, raise successively steeper barriers to mutuality. This sets out one
of the problems of Cultural Vitalism.
The question is: to what extent can a Culture impress new populations entering its area with the Cultural
idea? Subsidiary problems arise from the fact that such new populations may have one or all of various
kinds of cohesiveness, that of a people, or of a race, or of a nation, or of a State, or of another Culture.
The further problem arises of the precise relation of the Culture to the populations in its service, and to
those outside its area. It is formulated in this way because High Cultures are bound to a landscape, and
the formative impulses appear always in the original landscape, even in the last phase, that of Civilization,
in which the Culture externalizes itself completely and expands to its furthest limits. The expansive,
externalizing tendency begins already in the middle of the life span, but it only becomes dominant with the sharp caesura marked by the crisis of Civilization. For us the symbol of this break is Napoleon. Since
his time the populations of the entire Earth have been brought within the arc of the most unlimited
Imperialism known to history. They stand however in varying relationships to the Mother-Idea of this
Imperialism, and these relationships must also be examined.
The Articulation of a Culture
The nations, thought-forms, art-forms, and ideas which are the expression of the development of a
Culture are always in the custody of a comparatively small group. How large this group is, how easily it
can replenish itself, depends on the character of the Culture. In this respect, the Classical Culture is
instructive. Its Ideas were one and all exoteric: Socrates conducts his philosophizing in the agora. In our
case the picture of Leibnitz or Descartes carrying on such activity would be ludicrous in the extreme, for
Western philosophy is the possession of a very few.
But any Culture, even the exoteric Classical, is restricted for its full expression, in whatever direction, to
certain levels of the populations in its area. Culture is by its very nature selective, exclusive. The use of
the word in the personal sense— a “cultured” man— describes a man out of the ordinary, a man whose
ideas and attitudes are ordered and articulated. Cultured in the personal sense means devoted to
something beyond oneself and one’s own domestic well-being. In the 19th century world-picture, with its
atomistic mania, only individuals existed, nothing higher, therefore the word was used to describe a
practitioner or appreciator of art or literature. But patriotism, devotion to duty, ethical imperative,
heroism, self-sacrifice, are also an expression of Culture— primitive man does not evince them. A war is
just as much an expression of Culture as a poem, a factory as a cathedral, a rifle as a statue.
A high Culture in the course of its fulfillment acts in all directions of thought and action, and on every
person within its area.
The intensity of its action in a given direction depends on the Culture-soul: some of the Cultures have
been passionately historical, like the Chinese; some completely ahistoric, like the Indian; some have
developed massive Technics, like the Egyptian and our own, some have ignored Technics, like the Classical
and Mexican.
The intensity of the impression of the Culture on individuals is proportional to their receptivity to
spiritual impressions. The individual of small soul and limited horizon lives for himself because he
understands nothing else. To such a man Western music is merely an alternate up and down, loud and
soft, philosophy is mere words, history is a collection of fairy-tales, even the reality of which is not
inwardly felt, politics is the selfishness of the great, military conscription a burden which his lack of
moral courage forces him to accept. Thus even his individualism is a mere denial of anything higher, and
not an affirming of his own soul. The extraordinary man is the one who puts something else before his
own life and security. Even as he faced the firing squad, William Walker could have saved his life by
merely renouncing his claim to President of Nicaragua. To the common man, this is insane.
The common man is unjust, but not on principle; he is selfish, but is incapable of the imperative of
Ibsen’s exalted selfishness; he is the slave of his passions, but incapable of higher sexual love, for even
this is an expression of Culture— primitive man simply would not understand Western erotic if it were
explained to him, this sublimation of passion into metaphysics. He lacks any sort of honor, and will
submit to any humiliation rather than revolt— it is always leader-natures who revolt. He gambles in the
hope of winning, and if he loses, he whimpers. He would rather live on his knees than die on his feet. He
accepts the loudest voice as the true one. He follows the leader of the moment— but only so far, and
when the leader is eclipsed by a new one, he points out his record of opposition. In victory he is a bully,
in defeat he is a lackey. His talk is big, his deeds small. He likes to play, but has no sportsmanship.
Great thoughts and plans he castigates as “megalomania.” Anyone who tries to pull him up and along the
road of higher accomplishment he hates, and when the chance offers, he crucifies him, like Christ, burns
him, like Savonarola, kicks his dead body in the square in Milan. He is always laughing at the
discomfiture of another, but he has no sense of humor, and is equally incapable of true seriousness. He
denounces the crime of passion, but eagerly reads the literature of such crimes. He herds in the street to
see an accident, and enjoys seeing another sustain the blows of fate. He does not care if his countrymen are spilling their blood as long as he is secure. He is everything mean and unheroic, but he lacks the
mentality to be Iago or Richard III. He has no access to Culture, and, when he dares, he persecutes
anyone who has. Nothing delights him more than to see a great leader fall. He hated Metternich and
Wellington, the symbols of Tradition, he refused, as Reichstag, to send ex-Chancellor Bismarck a
birthday greeting. He makes up the constituency of all parliaments everywhere, and he invades all
councils-of-war to advise prudence and caution. If beliefs to which he was committed become dangerous,
he recants— they were never his anyway. He is the inner weakness of every organism, the enemy of all
greatness, the material of treason.
It is not such human stuff that an exacting High Culture can use to further its Destiny. The common
man is the material with which the great political leaders in democratic conditions work. In earlier
centuries, the common man did not attend the Cultural drama. It did not interest him, and the participants
were not yet under the Rationalistic spell, the “counting-mania,” as Nietzsche called it. When democratic
conditions proceed to their extreme, the result is that even the leaders are common men, with the jealous
and crooked soul of envy of that to which they are not equal, like Roosevelt and his coterie in America.
In his cult of “The Common Man,” he was deifying himself, like Caligula. The abolition of quality
smothers the exceptional man in his youth and turns him into a cynic.
In earlier centuries there was no suggestion anywhere that the masses of the population had a part to
play. When this idea does triumph, it turns out that the only role these masses can play is the passive one
of unwieldy building material for the articulate part of the population.
What is the physical articulation of the body of the Culture? The more exacting the nature of the
Cultural task, the higher the type of humanity required for its performance. There is in all Cultures a
spiritual level of the entire population called the Culture-bearing stratum. It is this articulation of Culture populations
alone which makes the expression of a High Culture possible. It is the Technic of living, the
habitus of the Culture. The Culture-bearing stratum is the custodian of the wealth of expression-forms of
the Culture. To it belong all the creators in the domains of religion, philosophy, science, music, literature,
the arts of form, mathematics, politics, Technics, and war, as well as the non-creators who fully understand
and themselves experience the developments in this higher world, the appreciators.
So, within itself the Culture-bearing stratum is articulated into creators and appreciators. It is in
general the latter who transmit the great creations downward, insofar as this is possible. This process
serves to recruit the higher material, wherever it appears, into the Culture-bearing stratum. The process of
replenishment is continually going on, for the Culture-bearing stratum is not hereditary in any strict sense.
The Culture-bearing stratum is a purely spiritual level of the populace of the Culture. It has no economic,
political, social, or other hallmark. Some of its most luminous creators have lived and died in want, e.g.,
Beethoven and Schubert. Other souls, equally creative, but less rugged, have been strangled by poverty—
Chatterton. Many of its creative members go through their lives entirely unnoticed— Mendel,
Kierkegaard, Copernicus. Others are mistaken for mere talents— Shakespeare, Rembrandt.
The Culture-bearing stratum is not recognized by its contemporaries in any way as a unity, nor does it
recognize itself as one. As a stratum it is invisible, like the Culture it carries. Because it is a purely
psychic stratum, it can be given no material description to satisfy the intellectuals. Even the intellectuals
would admit however that Europe or America could be thrown into a material chaos from which it would
take years to emerge if the few thousands in the higher technical ranks were removed. These technicians
are a part of the Culture-bearing stratum, although it is not merely occupational. Technicians of course,
like economic leaders, or military leaders, play purely subordinate roles in the Culture-drama. The most
important part of this stratum at any one time is the group which is the custodian of the highest Idea.
Thus in Dante’s time, Emperor and Pope were the two highest symbols of reality, and it was in the service
of either one of these symbols that the leading members of the Culture-bearing stratum were then to be
found. The highest symbolic force was then transferred to the dynasties, and dynastic politics claimed its
lives during its centuries. With the coming of Enlightenment and Rationalism, the whole West goes into a crisis of long duration, and not less does the Culture-bearing stratum. It was split even more than usual,
and only now, after two centuries, is it possible to restore its basic unity. I say more than usual, for it
must not be supposed that the Culture-bearing stratum ever was a sort of international, a freemasonry. On
the contrary, it supplied leaders on both sides of every war and every tendency.
II
Within this stratum there is constant struggle between Tradition and Innovation. The strong, vital part
naturally represents the new, forward development, affirming the next age. It is the function of Tradition
to assure continuity. Tradition is the memory of a super personal soul. It must see that the same creative
spirit of the grand past is present at each innovation.
The crisis of Rationalism places the same frightful strain on the higher stratum that it does on the entire
organism. The step forward— Democracy— is affirmative in the last analysis, because it is an historical
necessity in the life of a Culture, as we know from history. But it is a difficult step for men to take who
have given their lives to construction and creation, for to mobilize the masses is to destroy. The step from
Culture to Civilization is a fall; it is the onset of senility. For this reason, leaders whose center of gravity
was on the side of culture resisted the Revolution of Democracy with all their power— Burke, Goethe,
Hegel, Schopenhauer, Metternich, Wellington, Carlyle, Nietzsche. The Culture-bearing stratum,
articulated into creators and appreciators, is invisible as such. It corresponds to no economic class, no
social class, no nobility, no aristocracy, no occupation. Its members are not all public figures by any
means. But by its existence, this stratum actualizes a High Culture on this earth. If a process had existed
by which members of the stratum could be all selected, the extra-European forces would probably have
exterminated it in the attempt to destroy the West. The attempt would not have succeeded, for this
stratum is produced by the Culture, and after a long period of chaos— a generation or two, depending on
circumstances— this Cultural organ would have been again present, including in its numbers descendants
of the invaders, who would also succumb to the Idea. The possibilities in this direction will be more
thoroughly examined later.
In a political age, it is natural that the best brains go into politics and war. Those who are equal to
renunciation and sacrifice are the heroes of this realm. War-politics is preeminently the field of heroism,
and the sacrifices in this realm are never in vain from the Cultural standpoint, for the war itself is an
expression of Culture. Considered from the rationalistic standpoint, it is stupid to devote one’s life to an
idea, any idea whatever. But once again, Life, with its organic reality does not obey Rationalism with its
urge to mediocrity. Thus the best are culled from every generation and impelled into the service of the
Culture. The noblest of all are the heroes, who die for an idea; but everyone cannot be a hero, and the
others live for an idea.
An invariable characteristic of this level is its spiritual sensitivity, which brings it more impressions than
the others receive. This is coupled with more complex internal possibilities, which order the volume of
impressions. It can feel the new Spirit of the Age before it is articulate, before it triumphs. This also
describes all great men, and one reason so many perish violently is that they promulgated things which
were “ahead of their time.” These men lived in a world more real than that of the “realistic” people, and
these same “realists” are outraged and burn the Savonarola whom they would follow unquestioningly a
generation or two later.
This vital plane is only a psychic-Cultural unity during the long centuries of the Culture, but with the
coming of the late Civilization— mid-20th century— the dominant idea of the entire Culture is political.
Napoleon’s “Politics is destiny” is even more true now than when he said it. The two ideas of Democracy
and Authority stand opposed, and only one of them belongs to the Future. Only Authority represents a
step forward, and thus the strongest, most vital, creative elements in the Culture-bearing stratum are found
in the service of the resurgence of Authority. It has become political-Cultural.
Since the Culture-bearing stratum has its highest importance in an age like the present one, when quality reasserts itself against quantity, it must be defined now as precisely as possible. The notion of mere prominence must be dissociated strongly from the idea of belonging to this stratum. Wagner, Ibsen, Cromwell, none of whom were prominent until middle life, were nonetheless in this plane of life and thought in their previous years. The notion of prominence is related to the idea of the Culture-bearing stratum in this way: every man who is prominent in any field, and who also has inner gifts, of vision, appreciation, or creativeness, naturally belongs to this stratum. Prominence however may be the result of accident of birth or fortune, and Europeans have seen two periods in recent history— after the first two World Wars— when nearly all the ruling politicians in Europe were simply common men thrown up by chance and the distorted life of the higher organism.
The Culture-bearing stratum has its highest importance now, rather than in previous centuries, because it is a relatively tinier minority. The vast increase of numbers in Europe— it tripled in population in the 19th century— did not increase the numbers of this stratum, nor of higher natures generally. This stratum was as numerous in the time of the Crusades as it is now. It is simply the way of Culture to choose minorities for its expression. Multiplication of population is downwards. The tension between quantity and quality grows greater with the increase of numbers, and the Culture-bearing stratum acquires a mathematically higher significance. The tension can be suggested in figures: there are not more than 250,000 souls in Europe who constitute by their potentialities, their imperative, their gifts, their existence, the Culture-bearing stratum of the West. Their geographical distribution has never been entirely uniform. In that nation which the Culture chose for the expression of The Spirit of the Age as it chose Spain for the expression of Ultra-montanism in the 16th and 17th centuries, France for the Rococo in the 18th century, or England for Capitalism in the 19th, there was always a higher proportion of the culturally-significant than in countries which were not playing the leading Cultural role. This fact was known to the extra-European forces in their attempt to destroy the Western Civilization after the Second World War, and was utilized as far as it could be within the limits of expediency. The real purpose behind the mass-hangings, mass-looting, and mass-starvation, was to destroy the few by destroying the many.
The articulation of the Culture has three aspects: the Idea itself, the transmitting stratum, those to whom it is transmitted. The latter comprise the vast numbers of human beings who possess any refinement whatever, who maintain a certain standard of honor or morality, who take care of their property, who have self-respect and respect the rights of others, who aspire to improve themselves and their situation instead of pulling down those who have enriched their inner life and raised themselves in the world. They are the body of the Culture vis-à-vis the Culture-bearing stratum as its brain, and the Idea as its soul. In each person who belongs to this numerically large group there is a quantum of ambition and appreciation toward the creations of culture. They furnish the instruments by which creators can carry out their work. By this means they give significance to their own lives, a significance which the underworld would not understand. The role of a Maecenas is not the highest, but it is of Cultural value. Who knows whether we would have Wagner’s greatest works but for Ludwig II? When we read the results of a great battle, do we always realize that it was not simply a chess-game between two captains, but that hundreds of firm officers and thousands of obedient men died to write this line in history, to make this day and date forever remembered? And when a threatened sack of society is put down by the police and Army, the casualties on the side of order thus give by their deaths a higher significance to their lives also. Not everyone can play a great role, but the right to give meaning to his life cannot be taken from a man.
But beneath all this is the stratum totally incapable of cultural attainment, even the most modest: the mob, canaille, Pöbel, underworld, profanum vulgus, the “common man” of the American cult. These preside at every Terror, listen wishfully to every Bolshevik agitator, secrete venom at the sight of any manifestation of Culture or superiority. This stratum exists at all stages of every Culture as the Peasant’s Wars, the Jacquerie, Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, John Ball, Thomus Münzer, the Jacobins, the Communards, the Spanish militiamen, the mob in the square in Milan, are there to show. As soon as a creative man makes his resolve and proceeds with his work, somewhere else in a dark envious soul there rises a crooked determination to stop him, to smash the work. In his later years the Nihilist Tolstoy gave perfect expression to this basic fact with his formula that not even one stone should be on top of another. The slogan of the Bolshevik in 1918 was also illuminating: “Destroy Everything!” In our age this underworld is in the possession of the class-warriors, the rear-guard of Rationalism. It is thus working, from the larger political viewpoint, solely for the extra-European forces. Previous rebellions of this stratum were all doomed because of the unity of the Culture, the pristine vigor of the creative impulses, and the lack of external danger of such crushing proportions as exists in this age. Its history is not yet over with. Asia has use for this stratum, and plans for it.
Nevertheless they are different methods of Culture-expression, and both have importance to the 20th century world-outlook which is here formulated in its essentials.
Italian painting from 1250 to 1550 is an example of a tradition at work. The Flemish-Dutch school of the 17th century is another. It was not necessary for a painter in one of these schools to be a great master in order to express himself fully. The form was there, unquestioned, it was only required to master it and to contribute one’s personal development of its possibilities. Spanish and German painting on the other hand represent a collection of great originals, and not the sure forward progression of a tradition. The sublimest tradition of all was the Gothic architecture to c.1400. So powerful was the tradition that the idea of a work of art, which pre-supposes a personality creating it, did not even exist.
But traditions like this are not confined to arts. Scholastic philosophy represented the same super personal unity working itself out through many personalities all in the service and development of a tradition. From Roscellinus and Anselm through Thomas Aquinas to Gabriel Biel, the problems and their complete exploitation are continuous. Each thinker, regardless of his gifts, whether a man of genius, or merely a hard worker, was trained by his predecessors and himself developed into his successors. It was not the solutions, and not even always the questions which were continuous— it was the method and thoroughness of investigation and formulation which showed the presence of the tradition.
From Cromwell to Joseph Chamberlain— the beginning and the end of that high political tradition which built the great British Empire, which at its highest point exerted its control over 17/20ths of the surface of this earth— England was the example of the possibility of tradition in politics as well as in philosophy, music, and the arts of form. How many men of political genius appeared in the Premiership during these centuries? Only the two Pitts. Nevertheless, England emerged from all the general wars of those centuries with increased power— Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, Spanish Succession War, 1702- 1713, Austrian Succession Wars 1741-1763, Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815, Wars of German Unification, 1863-1871. Only one serious blunder was made during these centuries, the loss of America, 1775-1783. The essence of this tradition was nothing other than applying only political thinking to politics. Cromwell the theologian departed from this only occasionally, and more in words and expressions of sympathy than in actions. His successors in the tradition of Empire-building were not burdened with his heavy theological equipment, which they transformed into cant, a word translatable into no other European language. The Technic of cant was what enabled English diplomacy to score continued successes in the world of facts, i.e., the world of violence, of cunning, of sin, while maintaining before itself the attitude of selfless morality. To enrich the country by new possession was thus “bringing civilization” to “backward” races. And so on, through the whole gamut of political tactics.
Traditions show in this example one of their prime characteristics: they are not efficacious unless profoundly mastered by the individuals. Thus other European statesmen during the 19th century, the century of the Anglicization of Europe, attempted to utilize cant and merely made themselves ridiculous. Wilson, the American world-saver who modestly offered himself as President of the World-as-Morality, went too far. A sure tact was the prerequisite of successful employment of cant, and this required for its mastery growing up in a cant-saturated atmosphere. In the same way the Austrian officer corps— whose ethical qualities Napoleon missed in his own officers— presupposed a life-long preparation and training in a certain atmosphere, and not three months military training on the basis of an “intelligence test.”
The great thing about a tradition is that the leader of the moment is not alone— the qualities he lacks, and which the situation may need, are sure to be present somewhere in the entourage. The presence of a political tradition makes it extremely unlikely in the first place that an incompetent will be placed in a position of high political authority, and if it does happen that a weak personality arrives on the heights by chance, tradition again makes his early departure certain. It might be supposed that this is contradicted by the case of Lord North, but the initial blunders of his American policy were only seen as such in retrospect. If he could have followed them up with further strict measures, America would not have been lost, but his domestic situation vis-à-vis the Whigs on the one hand and the monarch on the other, was difficult in the extreme, and his policy was hamstrung by the same type of Rationalist elements who were preaching “Contract Social” and “Rights of Man” on the continent. On the contrary, the successful avoidance of Revolution and Terror from the Wilkes affair in mid-18th century through the horrors of ‘93, the general revolutionary waves of 1830 and 1848, was attributable to the presence of an unimpaired tradition.
Tradition is not a rigid thing, a guarantee of certain results. Not at all, for in History, it is the unexpected which happens. The imponderables make their appearance. Incident plays counterpoint to Destiny. A slight gap may appear also in a tradition, but the health of the tradition-bearing stratum shows itself by quickly closing the opening. A tradition of statesmanship is a sort of Platonic idea of excellence which molds men, as far as possible, in each case, and serves as a form for their personal expression. The results are shown by a high average of training and ability. Fortunate is the political organism with such leadership! What is missed in one place is picked up in another; individual quirks are not allowed to become political dogmas. The last result of the presence of a tradition in a political unit is that Destiny is kept on a sure path and Incident is minimized.
We no longer see genius under an aspect of causality or predestination. This was the only way Materialism could understand the word. Nietzsche pierced through this predestination idea of genius with his aphorism: the higher the type a man represents, the greater is the improbability that he will succeed, because of the increased diversity and difficulty of his life-conditions. The word genius thus has acquired through the centuries a large objective content, and has come self-evidently to contain within it the idea of fame.
If the word were to be used purely subjectively, it would describe simply a man with great creative force. There are always some of these men at work, but their creative efforts may be in any of the various directions of Culture. The test of creative force has come to be success, namely the personal success of the man in translating his personal potentialities into creation, whether of thought or deed. Not absolute success is meant, for this would exclude nearly all men. Neither Wallenstein, Cromwell, Napoleon, or the Hero that we have seen, attained absolute success. The success of each was however personal, in the sense that posterity can read his name in the skies at night.
It is the Spirit of the Age which influences greatly the direction of the creative ability of men of genius. Thus in the Gothic religious time, many men of genius became religionists, philosophers, saints and martyrs. In the Enlightenment, men of genius appeared as artists and universal men. In the time of Civilization men of genius appear mostly in the externalized pursuits of Technics, economics, politics and war. All tendencies exist in all ages, but in each age one Idea is uppermost. High politics is appropriate in every age and in the coming age it is the leading Idea. In our times, and the next times, the men of creative force will be found largely concentrated in the service of the Resurgence of Authority.
The crass stupidity of Rationalism and Materialism was nowhere more perfectly in evidence than in its attempt to make the word genius into an intelligence term. Naive “tests” were even devised to detect the presence of “genius,” which could be shown by a number. In the Age of Materialism, there was no scruple about weighing and numbering the faculties of the Soul. The fact is that intelligence is the functional opposite of Genius. Intelligence is dissection, genius is creation; one is analysis, the other is synthesis; the first is directed toward the Part, the second toward the Whole. They are related as terrestrial and astral, counting and imagining.
It must be said that while Genius is great creative force, each man has some creative force, enough to make of his own life such a work that those who come after him need never be ashamed of him.
The interest of the 20th century is in politics, and hence the significance of Genius in this sphere will be examined here. It is best understood by comparison with Tradition in politics. Tradition secures the steady fulfillment of the Idea by training up the available talent to a high average level. It is superior to Genius as a vehicle for the actualization of an Idea, for the life span of the Tradition is also the life span of the Idea, while Genius is allotted only the usual three score and ten. The passing of Genius leaves a gap, but the Tradition only passes with the fulfillment of the Idea itself. In the larger sense, Cromwell is the beginning of the English national political tradition. Yet, in a narrower, personal sense, he did not found a tradition, for after his death, it was but a matter of months before the Dynasty was back, and Cromwell’s body was exhumed and dragged through the streets of London by wild horses. But when once the English political tradition was founded in the Cromwellian spirit, it lasted right through to Joseph Chamberlain. What is Genius in politics? How does it manifest itself in this realm? In one thing simply: it represents the Idea of the Future. If one were to state the relation to the Present of the masses, a Tradition, and Genius, he would say that the masses are always behind the Present, the Tradition is alert at each moment adjusting to the Future, but the Genius represents the Promethean thrusting into the Future with unleashed force.
Genius is dependent for its actualization on the appreciation of the Culture-bearing stratum, or nation bearing stratum. Talent can understand anything that Genius can imagine or create, once it is actualized, but Genius always impresses at first as fantastic. Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, Cromwell, Napoleon, the Hero of this age, all impressed most people at the beginning of their careers, as being unworldly, out of touch with Reality. There was some justification for this, for they were in touch with a new world, the next Reality.
In this connection, the use of the word Present is only a figure of speech. Actually, there is no Present in the world of politics: the Present is simply the point of tension between Past and Future. Genius in politics belongs always on the side of the Future. Genius is great creative force; in the realm of action, creation is of deeds; deeds are the form of the actualization of the Future.
At the very beginning of the Civilization period of the Western Culture, two extraordinary men stand opposed, Napoleon and Metternich. Only the Empire-builder had genius; his opponent, though equal in political skill, in assessment of the “realities” of the time, and in force of character, was a mere conserver, a servant of the Past. The “realities” he cognized were those of the immediately previous Reality, not those of the coming Reality. It is Genius of Napoleon’s kind that occasionally appears and delivers the new Spirit of the Age, the new Reality. Talent of Metternich’s kind lacks the vision of the Genius, and it is solely accidental whether or not he opposes him. If Metternich had been a Frenchman, he would have been a Minister of Napoleon.
What precisely are the qualities of Genius in politics, which constitute its maestria and its inner imperative? First, vision. It sees the possibilities of the Future, and its mind is thereby freed from the trammels which hinder the average man in his thinking. To the prosaic mind, everything which is, represents the end of all development, the Future is to be a mere extension of the Past. Second, spiritual purity: the ordinary man is an eclectic; he carries in his head hundreds of contradictory ideas and beliefs. Not so the creative man in politics: he thinks along one line, and one line only. This gives to his enemies the opportunity of convincing many that he is mentally ill, and they have never failed to do so, from Alexander to the Hero we have seen. But political Genius and its enemies pass into two different categories of History. His name is written in bronze letters as the symbol, meaning, apotheosis, and incarnation of the Spirit of his Age; his enemies turn out on this high plane to have been merely the material with which he hewed his deeds. Third, intensity: the voice of Genius commands; it is harsh, intolerant. It demands and impels upward. Genius is inseparable from the presence of a rushing inner chaos, the prerequisite of formative work. Under a Frederick, or a Charles XII, men will overcome tactical odds of 5-to-1, strategical odds of 30-to-1. But not under Laudon, or the Archduke Charles, or a Grant. These latter need crushing superiority to make up for their inner lack.
Fourth, the sense of a Mission. This vision, purity, and intensity are all brought into an ethical focus: the things which he sees are stamped with Necessity, and he must actualize them. This accounts for the powerfully dramatic influence of a political Genius upon the facts of History. His forceful mission compels everyone to orient himself to it. Everyone is either with him or against him. He becomes the center of the world.
Lastly, an Imponderable. Genius is Life at its highest human potential, and all Life is uncanny, irrational, mysterious. There is something about Genius that makes men rise spiritually. It is the Something that gave Napoleon victory on almost every field, that sat like an eagle on the shoulder of Moltke, as he worked quietly at his task of shaping the form of the 20th and 21st centuries. It may be merely the personality accompanying these extraordinary gifts. It may be a transcendental emanation from the higher organism it is unknowable, but it is there.
The soul of each Culture is an organism, and therefore possesses the mark of individuality. This is stamped on everything connected with the Culture, including its History-style. Just as persons differ in their way of expressing themselves— one man forceful and imperious, another quiet, but equally effective— so do High Cultures. The Classical offers a strong contrast to our own in this. Its historical style, in comparison with ours, is one of Incident. Accents are not sharp, transitions are not conscious, or marked by the intensely formed turning-points of the Western history. While their men of genius were not fewer, Genius played a smaller role in the working-out. Genius was the focus of less force.
Western nations have also seen great developments which were unaccompanied by the phenomenon of direction of the whole Idea on to one man. For instance, the German Wars of Liberation, 1813-1815, England’s transition to Democracy, 1750-1800.
But in the middle of the 20th century we see about us the wreckage of the two centuries of Rationalism: the high old traditions of the West have been mostly destroyed. The horizontal war of the banker and the class-warrior against the Western Civilization have laid the old quality low. But History has not stopped, and the greatest imperative of all in the political sphere is now operative. A new quality-tradition is arising. As the philosopher of this age has said, there are no longer in the world any sacred forms of political existence whose very age is an unassailable power.
Since an effective Tradition is absent in the political realm of the Western Civilization, we may expect that the Western demand for sharp accents in History will repose gigantic forces in the hands of individual men. The Hero whom we have seen was a symbol of the Future.
History does not stop; no one man is more important than History. The relationship of political Genius to the mass was misread by 19th century Materialism, and also by Nietzsche. Materialism regarded the great politician as bound to work for the— of course— material improvement of the mass. Nietzsche regarded the masses as existing only to produce the great men. But the idea of purpose cannot describe the process as it is. Apart from all ideology, the great man and the masses are a unity, both are in the service of the Idea, and each finds his historical significance only with regard to the counter-pole. Carlyle voiced the instinctive demand of this age when the idea of authority and monarchy has once again a good conscience: find the Ablest Man, and let him be king.
Democratic ideologists, with their heads buried deep in the sand, say that maybe a bad monarch will appear. But the imperative of History is not to produce a perfect system, but to fulfill the historical mission. It was this that produced Democracy and it is this that now pays no attention to the whining of the Past, but only to be the rumble of the Future. Good or bad, the monarchs are coming.
On the front of the tottering edifice is printed in gaudy letters: Democracy. But behind it is seen to be a cash-till, and the banker sits, running his hands through the money that was the blood of the Western nations. He looks up in terror, as the sound of marching feet is heard.
The Future of the West demands the committing of great forces into the hands of great men. The erection of a Tradition of politics is a hope; from the chaos of 1950 there is no hope. Only great men can bridge the gap.
The broader subject is the adaptation, health and pathology of High Cultures. Their relationship to every type of human grouping is a prerequisite to examining the last problems of Cultural Vitalism. The nature of these groupings will therefore be looked at without preconceptions, with a view to reaching their deepest meanings, origin, life, and inter-connections.
Material inanimate objects retain their identity through the years, and thus the type of thinking suited to dealing with material things assumed that the political and other human groupings in existence in 1800 represented something a priori, something of the very essence of permanent reality. Everything was regarded as a creation of one of these “peoples.” This applied to the arts of form, literature, State, Technics, culture generally. This view is not in accordance with historical facts.
The first concept in order is Race. The materialistic race-thinking of the 19th century had particularly heavy consequences for Europe when it was coupled with one of the early 20th century movements of Resurgence of Authority.
Any excrescence of theoretical equipment on a political movement is a luxury, and the Europe of 1933- 2000 can afford none such. Europe has paid dearly for this Romantic concern with old-fashioned racial theories, and they must be destroyed.
The succession of human generations, related by blood, have the clear tendency to remain fixed in a landscape. Nomadic tribes wander within larger, but equally definite, bounds. Within this landscape the forms of plant and animal life have local characteristics, different from transplantation's of the same strains and stocks in other landscapes.
The anthropological studies of the 19th centuries uncovered a mathematically presentable fact which affords a good starting-point to show the influence of the soil. It was discovered that for any given inhabited area of the world there was an average cephalic index of the population. More important, it was learned, through measurements on immigrants to America from every part of Europe, and then on their children born in America, that this cephalic index adheres to the soil, and immediately makes itself manifest in the new generation. Thus long-headed Jews from Sicily, and short-headed ones from Germany, produced offspring with the same average head measurement, the specifically American one. Bodily size and span of growth were two other characteristics in which all types whatever in America, Indians, Negroes, white men, were found to have the same average, regardless of average size and growth-span of the countries or stocks from which they came. In the case of immigrant Irish children, coming from a country of a very long growth-span, the response to the local influence was immediate.
From these and other facts, both comparatively new and of ancient observation, it is apparent that the landscape exerts an influence on the human stocks within its bounds as well as on the plant and animal life. The Technic of this influence is beyond our ken. The source of it we do know. It is the cosmic unity of the totality of things, a unity which shows itself in the rhythmic and cyclic movement of Nature. Man does not stand out of this unity, but is submerged in it. His duality of human soul and Beast-of-prey is also a unity. We separate him thus to understand him, but this cannot disturb his unity. Nor by separating in our thoughts the aspects of Nature can we destroy its unity. The moon cycle stands in a relationship to many human phenomena, of which we can know only what, but never how. All movement whatever in Nature is rhythmic— the movement of streams and waves, of winds and currents, of appearance and disappearance of living individuals, of species, of Life itself.
Man partakes of these rhythms. His particular structure gives these rhythms their peculiarly human form. The side of his nature that expresses this connection is Race. Race in a man is the plane of his being which stands in relationship to plant and animal life, and beyond them, to the great macrocosmic rhythms. It is, so to speak, the part of Man that is generalized into, absorbed into the All, rather than his soul, which defines his species, and sets him off from all other forms of existence.
Life manifests itself in the four forms: Plant, Animal, Man, High Culture. Distinct though each is, yet it is related to all the others. The animals, subject as they are to the soil, retain thus in their being a plane of plantlike existence. Race is the expression of the plant-like and also of the animal-like in Man. The High Culture, by being fixed for its duration to a landscape, retains also a connection with the plant world, no matter how defiant and free-moving are its proud creations. Its high politics and great wars are an expression of the animal and human in its nature.
Some of the totality of human characteristics are soil-determined, others are stock-determined. Pigmentation is one of the latter, and survives transplantation to other areas. It is not possible to list all of even the physical characteristics according to such a scheme, for the data has not been gathered. But even so, it would not matter to our purpose, for the most important element also in the objective meaning of race is the spiritual.
Some stocks are undoubtedly more highly endowed than others in certain spiritual directions. Spiritual qualities are as diverse as physical qualities. Not only average height of body varies, but also average height of soul. Not only skull-shape and stature are soil-determined, but so must be some spiritual properties. It is impossible to believe that a cosmic influence which puts its mark on human bodies passes over the essence, the soul. But so thoroughly mixed have all the stocks been, or so repeatedly skimmed by History, that we can never know original soul-qualities of landscapes. Of the racial qualities of a given population on the spiritual side, we can never know which are soil-bound, and which have been produced by the amalgamation of stocks through the generations. To a practical century like this, and the next, origins and explanations are less important than facts and possibilities. Therefore our next concern must be with race as a practical reality rather than with its metaphysics.
To what race does a man belong? We know at first glance, but exactly what sign tells us this cannot be materially explained. It is accessible only to the feelings, the instincts, and does not yield itself to the scale and balance of physical science.
We have seen that race is connected with landscape and with stock. Its outer manifestation is a certain, typical expression, a play of features, a cast of countenance. There are no rigid physical indicia of this expression, but this does not affect its existence, but solely the method of understanding it. Within wide limits, a primitive population in a landscape has a similar look. But closer scrutiny will be able to find local refinements, and these again will branch down into tribes, clans, families, and finally individuals. Race, in the objective sense, is the spirituo-biological community of a group.
Thus races cannot be classified, other than arbitrarily. The materialistic 19th century produced several classifications of this arbitrary kind. The only characteristics used were, of course, purely material ones. Thus, skull-form, was the basis of one, hair and speech type of another, nose-shape and pigmentation of another. This was at best mere group anatomy, but did not approach race.
Human beings living in contact with one another influence one another, and thus approach one another. This applies to individuals, where it has been noted through the ages in the fact that an old married couple come to resemble one another physically, and it applies to groups as well. What is called the “assimilation” of one group by another is not at all merely the result of commingling of germ-plasm, as materialism thought.
It is mostly the result of spiritual influence of the assimilating group on the newcomers, which is natural and complete when there are no strong barriers between the groups. The lack of barriers leads to the disappearance of the racial boundary and thereafter a new race is present, the amalgamation of the two previous ones. The stronger one is influenced usually but slightly, but there are various possibilities here, and an examination of them belongs properly to a subsequent place.
But the face is the great visible sign of race. We do not know what it is that conveys race in the physiognomy, and attempts to reach it by statistics and measurements must fail. This fact has caused Liberals and other materialists to deny that race exists. This incredible doctrine came from America, which is veritably a large-scale racial laboratory. This doctrine really only amounts to a confession of total inability of Rationalism and scientific method to understand Race or subject it to order of the type of the physical sciences, and this inability was known before by those who have clung to facts and resisted anti-factual theories. Suppose that a man were to familiarize himself thoroughly with the measurements— length of nose, brows, chin, width of brow, jaws, mouth, etc.— of every face he knew until he could fairly well say from a new face what its measurements would be. If he were then given a set of measurements merely written down as such, does anyone think that even such a specially trained person could form any idea in his mind of the racial expression of the face from which the measurements were taken? Of course not, and the same is true of any other expression of race.
Another important objective aspect of race finds an analogy in the fashions of female physiognomy which come and go in a Late urban civilization. When a given female type is held up as an ideal, it is a fact that the kind of woman who is sensitive to this sort of thing very soon develops the facial expression of this type. In the domain of Race a similar phenomenon exists. Given a race with a certain, distinct cosmic beat, its members develop automatically an instinct for racial beauty which affects the choice of mates and also works on each individual soul from within, so that this double impetus forms the racial type pointing toward a certain ideal. This instinct for racial beauty, needless to say, has no connection with the decadent erotic-cults of the Hollywood type. Such ideals are purely individual-intellectual, and have no connection with Race. Race, being an expression of the cosmic, is informed throughout with the urge to continuity, and a racially ideal woman is always thought of, quite unconsciously, as the potential mother of strong sons. The racially ideal man is the master who will enrich the life of the woman who secures him as the father of her children. The degenerate eroticism of the Hollywood type is anti-racial: its root-idea is not Life-continuity, but pleasure, with the woman as the object of pleasure, and the man as the slave of this object.
This striving of a race towards its own physical type is one of the great facts with which one cannot tamper by trying to substitute ideals of amalgamation with types totally alien, as Liberalism and Communism tried to do during the reign of Rationalism.
Race cannot be understood if it is inwardly associated with phenomena from other planes of life, such as nationality, politics, people, State, Culture. While History in its advance may bring about for a few centuries a strong relationship between race and nation, that is not to say that a preceding racial type always forms a subsequent political unit. If that were so, none of the former nations of Europe would have been formed on the lines they were. For example, think of the racial differences between Calabrian and Lombard. What did they matter to the history of Garibaldi’s time?
This brings us to the most important phase of the objective meaning of Race in this age: History narrows or widens the limits of race-determinacy. The way this is done is through the spiritual element in Race. Thus a group with spiritual and historical community tends to acquire also a racial aspect. The community of which its higher nature partakes is transmitted downward to the lower, cosmic part of the human nature. Thus in Western history the early nobility tended to constitute itself as a race to complement its unity on the spiritual side. The extent to which this proceeded is still apparent wherever historical continuity of the early nobility has been maintained to the present day. An important example of this is the creation of the Jewish race that we now know in the millennium of ghetto-existence in Europe. Leaving to one side for the moment the different world-outlook and culture of the Jew, this sharing by a group, whatever the basis of its original formation as such, of a common fate for centuries will hammer it into a race as well as a spiritual-historical unit.
Race influences History by supplying its material, its treasures of blood, honor, and strong instincts. History in turn influences Race by giving to units of high history a racial stamp as well as their spiritual one. Race is a lower plane of existence, in the sense that it is closer to the cosmic, more in touch with the primitive yearnings and urges of Life in general. History is the higher plane of existence where the specifically human, and above that, the High Cultural, represent the differentiation of forms of Life.
The method of racialization of an historical unit, as the Western nobilities were racialized, is through the inevitable cosmic rising in such a group of an ideal physical type, and the instinct for racial beauty, which work together through the germ-plasm and inwardly in each soul to give this group its own look, that individualizes it in the stream of history. Once this community of fate departs, through the vicissitudes of History, this race vanishes also, never to appear again.
Race is not group anatomy;
Race is not independent of the soil;
Race is not independent of Spirit and History;
Races are not classifiable, except on an arbitrary basis;
Race is not a rigid, permanent, collective characterization of human beings, which remains always the same throughout history.
The 20th century outlook, based on facts, and not on the preconceptions of physics and mechanics, sees Race as fluid, gliding with History over the fixed skeletal form determined by the soil. Just as History comes and goes, so does Race with it, bound in a symbiosis of happening. The peasants now tilling the soil near Persepolis are of the same race as those who planted or roamed there a thousand years before Darius, regardless of what they were called then, or what they are called now, and in the time between, a High Culture fulfilled itself in this area, creating races now gone for ever.
This last error— the confusing of names with unities of history or race— was one of the most destructive made by 19th century materialism. Names belong to the surface of history, not to its rhythmic, cosmic side. If the present-day inhabitants of Greece have the same collective name that the population of the same area had in Aristotle’s time, is anyone deceived into thinking that there is historical continuity? Or racial continuity? Names, like languages, have their own destinies and these destinies are independent of others. Thus from the common language, it should not be inferred that the inhabitants of Haiti and those of Quebec have a common origin, but this result would occur of necessity if 19th century methods were applied to the present, which we know, as well as to interpretation of the past from left-over names and languages. The inhabitants of Yucatan to-day are racially the same as in 100 A.D., even though they now speak Spanish, and then spoke a now-vanished tongue, even though they have a different name now from then. In between occurred the rise, fulfillment and wiping out of a High Culture, but after its passing, Race became once more the primeval, simple relationship between stock and landscape. There was no high History to influence it, or for it to influence.
In the time of the Egyptian Culture, a people called the Libyans gave their name to an area. Does that mean that whoever inhabits this are from then on related to them? The Prussians in the year 1000 A.D. were an extra-European people. In 1700 the name Prussia described a nation in the Western style. Western conquerors merely acquired the name of the tribes they displaced. That which went under the various names of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Jutes, Varangians, Saxons, Vandals, Norsemen, Danes, came from the same racial material, but the names do not show it. Sometimes a group gives its name to an area, so that after it is displaced, the old name passes to the conquering group; this was the case of Prussia and Britain. Sometimes a group takes its name from an area, like the Americans.
As far as the Race-History symbiosis is concerned, names are accidental. They do not indicate any sort of inward continuity by themselves. The same is true of language.
Once the idea is grasped that what we call history really means High History, that this is the history of High Cultures, and that these High Cultures are organic unities expressing their inner possibilities in the profuse forms of thought and happening which lie before us, a deep understanding follows of the way in which History uses whatever human material lies to hand for its fulfillment. It puts its impress on this material-by creating historical units out of groups hitherto often very diverse biologically. The historical unity, in harmony with cosmic rhythms governing all Life from plant to Culture, acquires its own racial unity, a new racial unity, removed, by its spirituo-historical content from the former, primitive, simple relationship between stock and soil. But with the departure of High History the fulfillment of the Culture, the spiritual-historical content recedes forever, and the primitive harmony resumes its dominant position.
The previous, biological, history of the groups taken by a High Culture play no role in this process. Previous names of indigenous tribes, previous wanderings, linguistic equipment— none have any meaning for high History, once it sets upon its course. It starts, so to speak, from a clean slate. But it remains this way also, in its ability to take in whatever elements enter into its spirit. New elements, however, can bring nothing to the Culture— it is a higher individuality, and thus has its own unity, which cannot even be influenced, other than superficially, by an organism of equivalent rank, and a fortiori cannot be changed in the slightest in its inner nature by any human group. Thus any group coming within the area of a Culture is either within the spirit of the Culture, or without it— there is no third alternative.
Organic alternatives are always only two: Life or Death, sickness or health, forward development or distortion. When the organism is put off its true path by external influences, crisis is bound to follow, crisis which will affect the entire life of the Culture, and will often involve the destiny of millions in confusion and catastrophe. But this is an anticipation.
The objective meaning of race has other aspects important to a 20th century outlook. It has been seen that races— meaning here primitive groupings, simple relationships between soil and human stock— have different gifts for historical purposes. We have seen that Race influences History as well as the converse. We come to the hierarchy of races.
The fundamental impulse of human nature— above the instincts toward self-preservation and sex, which man shares with other Life-forms— is the will-to-power. Very seldom is there any struggle for existence among men. Such struggles as do occur are nearly always for control, for power. These take place within couples and families, clans, tribes, and among peoples, nations, States. Therefore the basing of a hierarchy of races on strength of will-to-power has a relation to historical realities.
Such a hierarchy can have, of course, no eternal validity. Thus the school of Gobineau, Chamberlain, Osbom and Grant was on the same tangent as the materialists who announced that there is no such thing as Race, because they could not discover it with their methods. The mistake of the former was to assume the permanence— backwards and forwards— of races existing in their time. They were treating races as building-blocks, original material, and ignoring the connections of Race and History, Race and Spirit, Race and Destiny. But at least they recognized the existing racial realities of their time, their sole mistake consisting in regarding these realities as rigid, existing rather than becoming. There was also in their approach a remnant of genealogical thinking, but this sort of thinking is intellectual and not historical, for History uses the human material at hand without questioning its antecedents, and in the process of using it, this human material is placed in relation to the vast, mystical force of Destiny. This remainder of genealogical thinking tended to create divisions in thought between Culture-peoples corresponding to no divisions in actuality. The further materialistic tendency developed to extend the principles of heredity which Mendel had worked out for certain plants to the subject of human Race. Such a tendency was doomed to be fruitless, and after almost a century of barren results, it must be abandoned in favor of the 20th century outlook which approaches History and its materials in the historical spirit and not in the scientific spirit of mechanics or geology.
Nevertheless the school of Gobineau at least started from a fact, and this brings it much closer to Reality than the learned fools who looked up from their rulers and charts to announce the demise of Race.
This fact was the hierarchy of races for Cultural purposes. In their day the word “culture” was used to designate literature and the fine arts as distinct from the ugly, brutal things like economics, Technics, war and politics. Hence the center of gravity of these theories was on the side of intellect rather than on the side of the soul. With the coming of the 20th century outlook, and the clearing from the air of all Materialistic-Romantic theories, the unity of Culture was perceived through all its various manifestations of arts, philosophy, religion, science, Technics, politics, State-forms, race-forms, War. Therefore the hierarchy of races in this century is one based on degree of will-to-power.
This classification of races is also arbitrary, from the intellectual standpoint, just as much as one based on physical strength. It is, however, the only one suitable for us in this age.
Nor is it rigid, for the vicissitudes of History are more important in this realm than heredity-transmitted qualities. There is to-day no Hindu race, although there once was. This name is a product of accomplished history, and corresponds to no racial group. Nor is there a Basque race, a Breton race, a Hessian race, an Andalusian race, Bavarian race, Austrian race. Similarly, races existing to-day in our Western Civilization will also disappear with the advance of history over them.
The source of a hierarchy of races is History, the forces of happening. Thus when we see a European population, with its own racial stamp, the English, hold down a population of hundreds of millions of Asiatics for two centuries with only a handful of its own troops, as the English did India, we call that race one with a high degree of will-to-power. During the 19th century, amid 300,000,000 Asiatics, England had a tiny garrison of 65,000 white troops.
The mere numbers would mislead if we did not know that England was a nation in the service of a High Culture and India a mere landscape with primitive millions teeming in it, a landscape that had been also at one time the area of a High Culture such as our own, but had long since returned to its pre-Cultural primitivity within the ruins and monuments of the past. Knowing this, we know thereby that the source of this stern will-to-power is at least partially in the force of the Destiny of the Culture of which England was an expression.
When we see a race like the Spanish send forth two bands like those of Cortez and Pizarro, and read of their accomplishments, we know we are in the presence of a race with high willpower. With a hundred odd men, Pizzaro set out to overcome an empire of millions. The project of Cortez was of a like boldness— and both achieved military success. It is not a slave race that can do such things. Aztec and Inca were no race less populations, but were themselves the vehicle of another High Culture, a fact which makes these exploits almost incredible.
The French race in the time of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was in the service of a Cultural idea, the mission of changing the whole direction from Culture to Civilization, of opening the Age of Rationalism. The enormous force which this living idea lent to the armies of France is shown by the 20- year succession of military victories over all the armies that repeated coalitions of all Europe could throw against them. Under Napoleon’s personal command, they achieved victory in more than 145 out of 150 engagements. A race equal to such a test was one of high will-power.
In each of these cases, the race was one created by History. In such a unit, the word race contains the two elements: the stock-landscape relationship, and the spiritual community of history and Cultural idea. They are, so to speak, stratified: beneath is the strong, primitive beat of the cosmic rhythm in a particular stock; above is the molding, creating, driving Destiny of a High Culture.
When Charles of Anjou beheaded Conradin, the last Hohenstaufen Emperor, in 1267 Germany disappeared from Western history, as a unit with political significance, for 500 years, reappearing in the 18th century in the double form of Austria and Prussia. During these centuries, the high history of Europe was made by other powers mostly with their own blood. This meant that— in comparison with the vast expenditure of blood over the generations of the others— Germany was spared.
To understand the significance of this fact, we must go back to the purely biological origin of races of Europe.
The primeval population-streams which came out of the North of the Eurasiatic land-mass from 2000 B.C. right down to 1000 A.D.— and after— were probably of related stock. Barbarians called Cassites conquered the remains of the Babylonian Culture, about 1700 B.C. The next century Northern barbarians called Hyksos by the Egyptians threw themselves at the ruins of the Egyptian Civilization and subjected it to their rule. In India, the Aryans, also a Northern barbarian horde conquered the Indian Culture. The populations which appeared in Europe over the millennium and a half ending 1000 A.D. under the various names. Franks, Angles, Goths, Saxons, Celts, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Belgae, Norsemen, Northmen, Vikings, Danes, Varangians, Germani, Alemani, Teutones— and other names— are all of similar stock. It is very probable that the conquerors of the older Civilizations eastward were of similar stock with the Western barbarians who threatened Rome for centuries and finally sacked it. The great sign of this stock was blondness. Wherever today blonde traits are found, elements of this Northern stock have at some past time found their way. These Northern barbarians conquered the indigenous populations of all Europe, constituting themselves an upper stratum, supplying the leadership, fighting men, and laws, wherever they went. Thus they represented the ruling-stratum in the territories now known as Spain, Italy, France, Germany, England. Their numerical proportion was greater in some places than in others, and with the arising of the Western Culture, c. 1000 A.D., it was on this strong-willed primitive stratum that the idea took hold. From having been the conqueror of fulfilled Civilizations, this stock now was itself selected to fulfill the Destiny of a High Culture.
That which distinguished this primitive biological population-stream is its strong will. It is also this strong will— and not only the inner Idea of the Culture itself— that contributes to Western history the unique forcefulness of its manifestations in all directions of thought and action. Think of the Vikings, in the gray dawn of our history reaching America from Europe in their tiny ships! This is the sort of human material which contributed its blood to the Western races, peoples and nations. It is to this treasure of being that the West owes its prowess on the battlefield— and this fact is known all over the world, whether it is theoretically denied, or not. Ask any general in any army whether he would rather have under his command a division of soldiers recruited from Pomerania, or a division of Negroes.
Unhappily for the West, the Russian populations contain also a strong strain of this Northern barbarian stock. It is not in the service of a High Culture, but stands to us as did the Gauls to Republican and Imperial Rome. Race is material for events, and it is available to the will-to-annihilate as freely as it is to the will-to-create. The Northern barbarian stock in Russia is still barbarian, and its negative mission has given it its own racial stamp. History has created a Russian race, which is steadily widening its racial boundaries by taking up into it and impressing with its historical mission of destruction the population streams of its vast territory.
Unhappily for the West, the Russian populations contain also a strong strain of this Northern barbarian stock. It is not in the service of a High Culture, but stands to us as did the Gauls to Republican and Imperial Rome. Race is material for events, and it is available to the will-to-annihilate as freely as it is to the will-to-create. The Northern barbarian stock in Russia is still barbarian, and its negative mission has given it its own racial stamp. History has created a Russian race, which is steadily widening its racial boundaries by taking up into it and impressing with its historical mission of destruction the population streams of its vast territory.
In the hierarchy of races based on will-to-power, the new Russian race stands high. This race needs no moralistic propaganda to fan its militancy. Its barbarian instincts are there, and can be relied on by its leaders.
Because of the fluid nature of Race, even the hierarchy of races based on will-to-power cannot succeed in ordering all races now existing. For instance, would the Sikhs stand above the Senghalese, or below, the American Negroes above or below the Aymara Indians? But the whole purpose of understanding the varying degrees of will-to-power in different races is a practical one, and applies in the first instance to our own Western Civilization. Can this knowledge be used? The answer is that not only it can, but it must be, if the West is to live out its life span and not to pass into slavery to Asiatic annihilation-hordes under the leadership of Russia, Japan, or some other militant race.
Before this information can be applied with full insight and with no danger of old-fashioned misunderstanding, the subjective meaning of Race must be examined, and beyond it the ideas connoted by the terms People, Nation and State.
The plant exhibits— at least, not to us— no consciousness, i.e., no tension with its environment. The plant has thus only race, so to speak, for it is totally submerged in the cosmic flow. The animal exhibits tension, consciousness, individuality. Man has in addition self-consciousness and the ability and necessity of living a higher life in the realm of symbols. All men have this, but the difference in degree between primitive man and Culture-man in this respect is so vast that it seems almost a difference in kind.
It is the racial beat which informs primitive impulses, which informs action generally. Opposed to it is the illuminated part of the mind, the rootless reason, the intellect. The stronger these things are in relation to the racial plane, the more the existence bears an intellectual instead of a racial stamp.
Each individual, as well as each higher organic unit, has these two aspects. Race impels toward self preservation, continuance of the cycle of generations, increase of power. Intellect decides the meaning of the Life, and the aim, and this may, for various reasons, deny one or all of these fundamental urges. The celibacy of the priest and the sterility of the libertine both come from intellect, but one of them is an expression of High Culture, and the other is the denial of Culture, an expression of total degeneracy. Intellect may thus be in the service of Culture, or opposed to it.
Race is, in the first instance in its subjective sense what a man feels. This influences, whether immediately or eventually, what he does. A man of race is not born to slavery. If his intellect counsel him to a temporary submission, rather than an heroic death, in the hope of future changes, it is a mere postponement of his breaking out. The man without race will submit permanently to any humiliation, any insult, any dishonor, so long as he is permitted to live. The continuance of breathing and digestion are Life to the man without race. To the man of race, Life itself represents no value, but only Life under the right conditions, affirmative Life, rich, expressive and growing.
Heroism can be motivated from either side of the soul: the martyr dies for the Truth which he knows, the fighting man who dies with weapons in his hands rather than submit to his enemies dies for the honor that he feels. But the man who dies for something higher shows that he has race, regardless of his intellectualized motives. For Race is the faculty of being true to one’s self. It is the placing of a beyond value on one’s own individual soul.
In this subjective sense, Race is not the way one talks, looks, gestures, walks, it is not a matter of stock, color, anatomy, skeletal structure, or anything else objective. Men of Race are scattered through all populations everywhere, through all races, peoples, nations. In each unit they make up the warriors, the leaders of action, the creators in the sphere of politics and war.
Thus in the subjective sense, there is also a hierarchy of race. Above the men of race, below— those without race. The first are swept up into action and events by the great cosmic rhythm of motion, the second are passed over by History. The first are the materials of high History, the second have outlasted every Culture, and when the stillness resumes its sway over the landscape after the whirlwind of events, these are the great mass. The Chinese mothers counsel their children with the ancient admonition: “Make thy heart small.” This is the wisdom of the man without race, and of the race without will. The men of race are skimmed off every population that is caught up into the course of motion of a High Culture, and this process continues through the generations of History on the heights. What is left is the fellaheen.
Race in the subjective sense is thus seen to be a matter of instinct. The man with strong instincts has race, the man with weak or bad instincts has it not. Strength of intellect has nothing to do with the existence of race— it may merely, in some cases, such as that of the man who takes a vow of celibacy— influence the expression of a part of race. Strong intellect and strong instincts can co-exist— think of the Gothic bishops who led their flocks to war— they are merely opposed directions of thought and action, but it is the instincts that furnish the driving force for great intellectual accomplishments also. The center of gravity of ascendant Life is on the side of instinct, will, race, blood. Life which places rationalistic ideals of “individualism,” “happiness,” “freedom” before the perpetuation and increase of power is decadent. Decadent means— moving toward extinction, extinction of higher Life in particular, and finally even of the life of the race. The intellectual of the great city is the type of the man without race. In every Civilization, he has been the inner ally of the outer barbarian.
This quality of having race has, obviously, no connection with which race one feels community. Race in the objective sense is a creation of history. One’s destiny must express itself within a certain framework— the framework of Fate. Thus a man of race born in Kirghizia belongs by Fate to the barbarian world of Asia with its historical mission of destruction of the Western Civilization. Rare exceptions are of course possible— Life submits to no generalization entirely. Some Poles, Ukrainians, or even Russians, might be impelled by their souls to share the spirit of the West. If so, they belong to the Western race, and every healthy, ascendant race accepts recruits who come in on its terms and who have the proper feeling. In the same way, there are numerous intellectuals in the West who feel community with the outer idea of Asiatic Nihilism. How numerous they are is indicated by the journalism, novels and plays that live from them. But the converse would not be true of men without race— they are not even acceptable to the enemy. They have nothing to contribute to an organic group— they are the human grains of sand, atoms of intellect, without cohesion upwards or downwards.
Every race, no matter how transitory it may be contemplated from the viewpoint of History, expresses a certain idea, a certain plane of existence by its life, and its idea is bound to be attractive to some individuals outside it. Thus in Western life, we are not unfamiliar with the man who, after associating with Jews, reading their literature, and adopting their viewpoint, actually becomes a Jew in the fullest sense of the word. It is not necessary that he have “Jewish blood.” The converse is also known: many Jews have adopted Western feelings and rhythms, and have thereby acquired Western race. This process— contemptuously called “assimilation” by the Jewish leaders— threatened during the 19th century the very existence of the Jewish race by ultimate absorption of its total racial body into the Western races. To halt it, the leaders of the Jews evolved the program of Zionism, which was solely an expedient for maintaining the unity of the Jewish race, and maintaining its continued existence as such. For this reason they also recognized the value of antisemitism of the social type. It was serving the same purpose of preserving the racial unity of the Jews.
The symptoms of this racial decadence in various parts of the Western Civilization are manifold. There is first the ghastly distortion of the sexual life arising from the complete dissociation of sexual love from reproduction. The great symbol of this in the Western Civilization is everything suggested by the name Hollywood. The message of Hollywood is the total significance of sexual love as an end in itself— the erotic without consequences. The sexual love of two grains of sand, two rootless individuals, not the primeval sexual love looking to the continuity of Life, the family of many children. One child is permitted, as being a more complicated toy than a dog, perhaps even two, one boy and one girl— but the family of many children is a subject for humor to this decadent outlook.
The instinct of decadence takes many forms in this realm: dissolution of Marriage by divorce laws, attempts to discard, through repeal or non-enforcement, the laws against abortion, preaching in the form of novel, drama, journalism, the identification of “happiness” with sexual love, holding it up as the great value, before which all honor, duty, patriotism, consecration of Life to a higher aim, must give way. An erotomania is abroad through our civilization, not indeed like the sexual obsession of the 13th century which was at least racially affirmative, in that it increased the Western Peoples, but always a purely rootless erotic-without-consequences. This spiritual disease is the suicide of the race.
The weakening of the will— Nietzsche called it “paralysis of will”— another symptom of dying out of racial instincts, leads to a total deterioration of public life in the afflicted races. Government leaders dare not offer a stern program to their masses of human grains of sand: they abdicate, but remain in office as private men. Government ceases; the only functions that continue are the ones that have always gone on, no new aim, no sacrifices. Keep the old going; no creation! No effort! That would be too hard. Keep the pleasures going, the panem et circenses. Never mind the necessities of life, we are willing to renounce them as long as we have the pleasures.
This weakening of the will leads to voluntary abandonment of empires conquered with the blood of millions over ten generations. It leads to abysmal hatred of whoever and whatever represents sternness, creation, the Future. One of its products is Pacifism, and the only way a racially-dissolving population can be driven to war is through conscription coupled with pacifist propaganda— “This is the last war— actually it is a war against war.” Only an intellectual could be taken in by such stark Unreality. The weak will of society manifests itself in the Bolshevism of the upper classes, the sympathy with the enemies of society. Anyone with unimpaired will however is really felt to be the enemy— even cogent reasoning is hated: ideals are so much less demanding.
Mediocrity rises over the horizon of a dying race as its last great ideal; total mediocrity, renunciation of all greatness and distinction of any kind whatever; also mediocrity of the racial blood-stream— anyone can come in now, not only on our terms, for there are no more terms, and there are no racial differences, everything is one, dull, event less, mediocre.
The weakening of the will is not hard put to find an ideology which rationalizes it as “progress,” everything desirable, the aim of all previous history. The democracy-liberalism complex lies to hand, and it acquires in such times the meaning of Death— of race, nation and Culture. There are no human differences, everyone is equal, men are women, women are men, “the individual” is everything, Life is a long holiday whose main problem is devising new and more stupid pleasures, there is no God, no State, off with the head of anyone who says there is a mission, who wishes to resurrect Authority.
These symptoms, or similar ones, will be found present at the demise of every upper stratum whose will is weakened. Thus Tocqueville has described for us how the French upper stratum of 1789 had no suspicion whatever of the impending Revolution, how nobility waxed enthusiastic over the “natural goodness of Humanity,” the “virtuous people,” the “innocence of Man” while the Terror of 1793 lay before their very feet— spectacle terrible et ridicule. Did not the Petrine nobility of Russia up until 1917 go through the same performance? The Tsar resisted pleas to leave while there was time with “My people will not hurt me.” Their picture of the Russian peasant was that of a happy, simple muzhik, basically good. Similarly the weakening of the Western will in certain countries was shown by the deluge of pro Russian propaganda spread, sometimes with official encouragement, in those countries from 1920 to 1960.
But had they been able to pierce through to a view of the facts, these materialists would have seen that the races of Europe were the creations of History and not a mere continuation of the aboriginal material that was present in 900 A.D., before the beginning of high History in this area. Viewing the process of creation of races, they would have seen the far greater significance of Race in the subjective sense than in the objective sense. For it is always men of race that create the deeds of History, and the units they are leading are of secondary importance.
The attempt to create a vertical system of races was Apollonian— it was an effort of the intellect. Actually Race has the primary meaning of presence of strong cosmic rhythm— a Dionysian meaning.
The 20th century viewpoint in this matter starts from facts, and the observed fact is that all strong minorities— both within and without a High Culture— have welcomed into their company the outsider who was attracted to it and wished to join it, regardless of his racial provenance, objectively speaking. The racial snobbery of the 19th century was intellectual, and its adoption in a too-narrow sphere by the Resurgence of Authority in Europe between the first two World Wars was a grotesquerie.
What matters to a unit engaged upon a mission is the strength of will which other groups can bring to it. To interpret the historical mission as one of “safe-guarding the purity of the race,” in a purely biological sense is sheer materialism. Race, in both its meanings, is the material of History, not the reverse. Race supplies the fruitfulness, sureness, and will-to-power to the Mission. The Mission can never be to make the race “pure” in a biological sense, however satisfying such a result would be esthetically. And with this last word is touched upon the other factor in the tragic connection of this old-fashioned outlook on Race with the strong, vital movement of Resurgence of Authority: We have seen that all the 19th century concepts in this sphere Race, People, Nation, State, Culture were of Rationalistic-Romantic derivation. Romantic— half of this misalliance of the Future and the Past is traceable to romantic-aesthetic notions. Aesthetics is however a domain of its own, and does not have sufficient vitality to supply the motivation of a political struggle. Its presence there can only be superfluous.
The stark historical value in this matter is simply this: It only matters that the Cultural Mission be accomplished, even though in the process everything else is wiped out. And after that? Did Darius ever think that lions would one day be roaming his terrace of Persepolis? And if he had, what could he have done about it? History, with its great rhythms— the widest and deepest we know— is also submerged in the Cosmos, and for Culture-man to think that he can impose his will on the millennial remote future is only a tribute to his pride of intellect, but no compliment to his wisdom. We are thinking here in centuries, not in months or years. One must oppose the attitude of aprés moi la deluge which prevails at this moment. It is not a shirking or evading of duty to say that only the historical Mission matters, but the highest possible affirmation of Duty.
To Race there is no duty. Race in the vertical sense is an abstraction, corresponding to nothing existing. If taken seriously, it leads the victim off the path of History and into an aesthetic cul-de-sac.
To the 20th century outlook, a man does not belong to a race— he either has race, or does not. If the former, he has value to History; if the latter, he is valueless, a lackey.
The attempt to interpret History in terms of Race must be abandoned. The 20th century sees it quite otherwise. That attempt was a fad, historically speaking. It had a vogue of a century. It is now quite dead. Its last formulation, and its most radical, attempted even to intervene in the sphere of action. That was the last such attempt. An Empire of a thousand years duration— yes, that has been actualized— in India, China, Egypt. But the last nations that laid the foundations of these Empires could not know whether the barbarians would come soon or never. Montezuma’s Empire would also have lasted a thousand years— but the Spaniards appeared. There is no guarantee of duration, racial or other. Actually it is Race that must be interpreted in terms of History, for that is the factual developmental-sequence. This viewpoint is not a fad, an arbitrary abstract picture, but one reflecting the facts of history.
The objective meaning of Race describes a group which shares a certain basic, instinctive rhythm. This racial stamp has been given to it by History, which narrows or widens the limits of this Race, depending on the character and magnitude of the historical Mission.
Such a race is the creation of History, and not of a text-book scheme first planned on paper and then put into actuality. It is not a creation of a man, as such— although a man may by his personality be the vehicle of History, and may be the focus of historical energy on to the creation of a race. But important is: as far as policy is concerned, one can only work with the races existing. They cannot be created or disposed of by human fiat.
Existing races are a mixture, as far as stock is concerned. There is nothing to be done about this. Such a mixture of stock is not “impurity,” in any true, factual, meaning of that word. “Purity” in racial matters means inclusiveness of the entire population within the same historical feeling and cosmic beat. “Purity” is directed to feeling, and not to anatomical derivation. This is true even in the most objective meaning of the word Race, and a fortiori is it true of Race in the subjective sense.
The hierarchy of races is a fact of which policy must take cognizance. The strength of will of the Russian race is an ominous fact which cannot be explained away by intellectualizing. This strength is reflected in physical stamina which enables the Russian soldier to recover from wounds which would be fatal to a Western soldier. The will-to-power diffused through the Japanese race places it high in the hierarchy of races. The force this gives to the body of a nation is shown by the physical performance of Japanese infantry, matched by only one of the Western races still existing. The two general physical types which make up the body of the Japanese race show perfectly the fact that purity means prevalence everywhere of the same feeling, cosmic rhythm, and not of the same physical structure, pigmentation, or shape of head, for spiritually these two physical types are both Japanese.
The lower degree of will-to-power of the populations in the areas called China, India, and Africa generally is also a fact for policy to apply. This is, of course, no attempt to contradict that some tribes in these areas have strong will-to-power, but only a general observation of these large areas. Anything that is a fact is material for policy, no matter how general, or how specific, so long as it relates to action.
Important as these general facts as to the hierarchial ordering of extra-European races are, Race has a vastly more important aspect for policy, and that is the strength of our own race.
Race is the material of History, it is the treasure which a population brings to an Idea. The stronger the racial instincts of the population, the greater its promise of victory. Consequently anything which strikes at the strength of these instincts is the enemy of the highest significance, and even of the very existence, of the race. These instincts are self-preservation, fruitfulness, increase of power. Without these there is no Idea, no History— there is only the collection of human grains of sand— and later a pyramid of skulls erected by outer barbarians.
Thus the whole liberal-democratic ideology, with its “individualism” that is a mere negation of everything superpersonal, its “happiness” ideal that encourages every weakness and self-indulgence, its erotomania which distorts the whole sexual life into a barren disease of the will, its “tolerance” which seeks to break down the cohesion of the race by denying its existence, its materialism which denies all spiritual values, all higher significance of human life, its pacifism which values weakness above virility, its ideal of Mediocrity by which it opposes every creative man and the Idea he represents in History, its cult of the proletarian as the highest element, its total renunciation of the Soul of Man— this is the great enemy of Race.
Part of this degeneration is organic— more of it is deliberately spread abroad within our Civilization by alien distorting elements which either belong to, or sympathize with, Asia in the annihilation battle for Western survival that will take up this century and the next. It is quite obvious that anything that undermines the will-to-power and the virility of the West ripens it for Asiatic slaughter. It should be equally obvious that the world-outlook that is thus eating away at the Western soul must be ruthlessly eradicated wherever it lurks by whatever means necessary. Thus even if one may have clung to his little ideal of “freedom” or “happiness” during the 19th century— the century of security, of comfort, of money-making and money-spending— he must renounce it now in the century when the very foundations of the life of our Culture are under attack from below and without— an attack in each case that means to destroy everything. To retain such ideals is to become the inner enemy of the West.
Thus Western policy must declare this outlook and its adherents to be the inner enemy. It must supplant its superannuated ideology by the strong, manly one appropriate to this Age of Absolute Politics. It must root out its ideas, its leaders, its techniques. Any groups that are committed to this outlook by their inner constitution and spiritual existence must be proscribed.
Western policy has the duty of encouraging in its education of the youth its manifestations of strong character, self-discipline, honor, ambition, renunciation of weakness, striving after perfection, superiority, leadership— in a word— Race.
The man of race disciplines himself— because he needs discipline. Strong instincts need a strong will. Race is also a residue of inner chaos, for only out of chaos can come creation, whether of thought or deed. Strong instincts are the prerequisite of every outstanding performance even the creation of a work for the intellect. The race less, rootless-intellectual attitude has no inner imperative— it shrugs its shoulders and says “So what?” Such an attitude is that of finished men— they are used up before they start. They can insist on nothing, compel nothing, perform nothing. A hundred men of race without particular intellectual qualifications can accomplish more under the same leader than a thousand intellectuals from the pavements of the great cities. A man of race is not yet finished— he offers material for performance.
An intellectual cannot be inspired— enthusiasm he regards, quite seriously, as pathological, as mania. He prefers to sit in his cocktail lounge or his sidewalk cafe, sipping his alcohol and preserving the degagé manner. The talk is of pathetic ideals of social and sexual atomism, of “new artistic tendencies,” of “the subconscious,” of “democracy”— but over it all is the perfume of decay. It is a world of boredom, a blase degeneration, the casual bumping's and connections of grains of sand— in one word, the sarcophagus of the race. Baudelaire, with his preoccupation with corpses, is its perfect expression: the world of the intellectual is the putrescence of the super personal soul. Where this sort of material has influence, the barbarian has easy conquests.
Western policy must recognize these facts. Education policy, propaganda, public life, must form the race away from this charnel outlook. To keep away from all these forms of decadence is to safeguard the strength of the race. To allow them is to promote the death of the race.
We have seen this sort of thing throughout all history. Thus the Romans accepted into their racial body whoever was capable of Romanness, and wished to be able to say with the same inner pride as the dwellers on the Seven Hills— Civis Romanus sum. Up until 1933, America had thus taken up into its race many millions of immigrants from Europe and from the Balkans. The Russians have been thus increasing their numbers steadily through the past three centuries.
In each of these cases, the essence of the ingress of the alien into the proper racial body is his total absorption into the new idea, his complete adoption of the new plane of existence, his total loss of the old existence. With human beings, the word “total” refers to the soul. If his soul can assimilate, his body can. Thus Frenchmen settled in Brandenburg en masse during the 18th century. Thousands upon thousands of Germans have settled in France. Frenchmen settled in America in great numbers. So did Englishmen. Italians have moved to France in enormous numbers. The examples are almost endless. In each case, the newcomers disappeared as a group. As individuals, their blood-stream continued in the new landscape, but it now had a new cosmic beat. French Huguenots in Brandenburg became Prussians, in Ireland they became Irish. Spaniards in Ireland became Irish. English in America became Americans. Germans in France became Frenchmen; in Argentina, Argentine's; in America, Americans. The newcomer in this process, as individual or as group can contribute nothing on the super personal level. His contribution is limited to his personal qualities of instinct or talent as individual, of healthy instincts as group. Cultural things he cannot contribute, because they cannot be received.
A unit itself under the impress of a High Culture cannot assimilate anything on the cultural level from a group under the impress of another High Culture.
This explains why the various European races were so easily assimilated one in the other, how they disappeared in a generation into the new pulse and feeling— they shared the same Culture. Although they belonged to separate races, nevertheless there was a higher stratum of Life that included all these races as manifestations of its super personal Life. Thus these vertical divisions of mere race did not separate Western men.
Nor did they separate non-Westerners from Westerners when the incoming non-Westerners sought to preserve no barrier of their own: during the youth of our Culture, on the Eastern Marches of Europe, many thousands of Slavs were assimilated into the European races, disappeared into them and became completely European. Western policy of the future must remember facts of this kind.
Actually, this is no blending, no amalgamation; it is simply the increasing of the receiving race. They bring only their blood and numbers; they can bring no Idea, for it already is an Idea. Only a superficial view could attach importance to words, phrases, even vocabularies, or to quaint social customs that the receiving race may adopt from the newcomers in the process of assimilating them. These things are merely the traces by which one can trace the influx after the passage of generations. Thus some Irish family names are “de la” this or that, Spaniards “di,” Frenchmen and Americans “von,” Germans “de.” It is no sign of any continuity other than that of the germ-plasm, this of foreign family names, after assimilation has occurred. In fact it is noticeable, and is part of old European wisdom that— in the beginning, at least— this new element has a higher radar potential than the absorbing race generally. Hence the old expressions: Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores, päpstlicher als der Papst. The man who comes from the periphery to the center of an Idea has an enthusiasm that the older members do not feel. What they take for granted is to him inspiring in its excellence. It is the zeal of the convert.
But there are cases where this assimilation does not occur. They are the cases where there is a cultural bar between the two populations. Either they are each under the impress of a Culture, or else one group is and the other is not, and is negative.
Thus, during the reign of Catherine the Great, and at her invitation, thousands of German farmers and craftsmen came to Russia. Land on the Volga river was given to them, and there they remained until very recent history. By the 20th century, their numbers were about 350,000. But— during the generations of their residence in Russia, they had retained their orientation to Europe. Their Russian environment, culture-less and primitive, had been unable to deprive them in any way of their character as a fragment of a High Culture. The Bolshevik regime did what time never could have done: it exterminated them by starvation and dispersal through Asia. Other German colonies preserved their European Culture along the Baltic shores of Russia, and in the primitive Balkan area. The new Asiatic will to annihilate the West has now exterminated them all whether in Romania, Serbia, Bohemia, Poland, Bulgaria.
The best-known example of this organic regularity, and the most Fate-laden for all concerned, was the contact between the group called Jews and the Western Culture. Until the discovery of the organic unity of a High Culture, and its inner articulation, no final understanding of what has come to be called “the Jewish problem” was possible. At this point, only the racial aspect of this problem is touched on, and it is only necessary to explain the origin of the Jewish race now existing.
The Jew is a product of another Culture. When the Western Culture arose, the Jews were distributed through a part of its area, mostly in Spain and Italy. The Arabian Culture, then in its very last stage, had created the Jews as a unity, and they were in the form of this expiring Culture. Hence the stirrings of the Western Idea could not touch them inwardly at all. They held themselves entirely aloof from anything Western. They had an entire world-outlook and world-feeling of their own, which needed no impulse from without, that could only resist any other Culture. This basic fact kept the Jew entirely separate from the West spiritually and racially— the West rejected his world-feeling, he rejected its. Mutual hatred and mutual persecution only strengthened the Jewish race, sharpened its cunning, and increased its resentment.
Thus we see that while mere race cannot prevent assimilation of new stock from outside, Cultural barriers will. Certain numbers must of course be present for an alien group to maintain its identity within the body of a culturally-alien host. A tiny group could not so preserve itself.
That there is nothing about the Jewish race physically that is unassimilable is shown by what happened in Spain. There late in the 15th century the monarch compelled them either to adopt Christianity or leave the country. Most Jews left, but the descendants of those who adopted Christianity and raised their children among Westerners disappeared into the Spanish race.
Another example of a Cultural barrier is the relation of Russia and the West. There it is the purely negative will to destroy Culture that has prevented assimilation of Russia by the West, despite the fact that Peter the Great and his dynasty after him tried by every means to Westernize Russia for three centuries. The outburst of 1918 was primarily an expression of the great fact of the failure of the Petrine effort— it had been only superficially successful and had not penetrated to the depths of this powerful negative soul. The Western Culture is the great barrier that also prevents racial assimilation either way in large numbers.
For this same reason, Chinese and Japanese, who have behind them and in their souls the Chinese Culture that was fulfilled by 1000 B.C., cannot be assimilated by Westerners racially in numbers. The converse is also true: if a colony of Westerners were planted in the middle of China, 1000 years hence it would be still Western surrounded by the totally alien Chinese. This is the explanation of the anti Chinese and anti-Japanese laws and activity of the Americans from the middle of the 19th century to the present.
It is the numbers that create these racial questions. If a tiny group is involved, it will disappear; if a group of significant numbers is present, separated by a Cultural barrier from the surrounding population, it will not.
Race in the subjective sense influences the choice of a mate. If racial instincts are strong, they prevent the taking of a mate belonging to a race of totally alien characteristics, even physically. Thus the Negro in general rejects the white race, and the white generally rejects the Negro. The Culture barrier is also present, for the Negro is below our Culture, even though he has lived within its area for centuries. It is those whose racial instincts are attenuated in both cases who accept the totally alien physically.
The case of America shows the limits of racial assimilation between populations totally alien physically. There the liberal-democratic-communist-ideology has openly sought by all possible means to promote a blending of these two races. The only result it has had is to arouse racial bitterness that finds expression in bloody riots which proceed to mass-killings on both sides.
The only reason the subject of the Negro is touched here— its political significance is treated with America— is that it seems to be the extreme case of race-difference preventing assimilation. How much of this is due to the primitivity of the Negro, and how much to his total physical difference, we do not know.
The touching of this racial-frontier case of the Negro however, shows to Europe a very important fact— that race-difference between white men, which means Western men, is vanishingly small in view of their common mission of actualizing a High Culture. In Europe, where hitherto the race difference between, say, Frenchman and Italian has been magnified to great dimensions, there has been no sufficient reminder of the race-differences outside the Western Civilization. Adequate instruction along this line would apparently have to take the form of occupation of all Europe, instead of only part of it, by Negroes from America and Africa, by Mongols and Turkestani from the Russian Empire.
We have reached now the last and deepest relationships between Race and Policy:
Policy is charged with actualizing an historical Mission, the saving of the Western Civilization from decadence within, and from the barbarian without.
Whether this is to succeed will depend on the strength of racial instinct left, by which is meant the instincts of self-preservation, fruitfulness, and will-to-power.
Any man who shares the feeling of this Mission, and any group which shares it, belong to us in this greatest of all battles in 5,000 years of history, regardless of the derivation of the man or group.
Any group or idea which does not share this feeling, and wishes to further its own aims within the West is an inner enemy. Any group or idea which weakens in any way the racial strength of the West is an inner enemy.
Policy has the great double task of eradicating the inner enemy in order to salvage the racial instincts of the West, and of training this race into a sure and firm unit for a century of warfare.
The two great mistakes of materialism in the field of Race must be a cast into the dead past of Materialism: on the one hand the denial of Race, on the other hand the primacy of Race before Culture.
The aim of Policy is to actualize our Western Imperium— whoever introduces racial theories of materialistic provenance, whether in the name of “tolerance,” which means we should abandon our instincts, or in the name of “racial purity,” which means we should abandon our Cultural unity, is prolonging the crisis and division of the West.
One result of the coming warfare for the liberation of the West and the creation of the Empire of the West will be the creation— in the long and desperate fight— of a new race, the Western race, which will embrace the populations which made up the 19th century nations or England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia.
Those populations of the West which have the least impaired racial bodies and racial instincts will respond most intensely to the demands of the coming century of warfare, and will play the largest formative role in this greatest of all struggles, but the new race will be a unity, not a collection of dead races, but a new and grander creation from the human streams now existing.
The races of 19th century Europe are, as such, dead. Policy starts from this. Provincial patriotism of the 19th century type can evoke no response. The unity of the West which the barbarian has always recognized is recognized at the last hour by the West itself.
The barbarian is astride the prostrate West. This is not the end, but the beginning of Western unity.
People is a word on a different plane of thinking from this. We are familiar with its polemical use by the democratic mob to deny existence to qualitative elements and assert pure and simple quantity as “the People.” We seek, however, facts. What is a people? What is its articulation?
Two French thinkers contributed to the 19th century valuable insight into the nature of all human groups whatever. Gustave le Bon and René Worms both saw and set forth with Cartesian clarity the organic nature of human groups, the super personal unity which was the custodian of the Destiny of the group. Worms applied it upward— to the State. Le Bon applied it downwards— to the crowd. Their presentation was not entirely free of materialistic tendencies— “Truth belongs to the individual, Error belongs to the Age,” said Goethe— but they gave to the West a glimpse along the path of History. Their contribution was ignored by the Age of Rationalism. The pure materialism of William Paley was preferred: a people is “only a collection of the citizens who compose it.” Again: “The happiness of a people is made up of the happiness of single persons.” This stupid anti-factual picture could not be refuted, for it was a faith. The picture reflected the Spirit of the Age, and could only pass away with the expiration of that spirit. It was a picture that sprang from a certain soul, and even though it denied the soul, yet it was tied to the existence of that one certain soul.
The new age is one of Resurgence of Authority, both spiritual and political. This Age bases its political formula on facts, on the actualizing of the possible. It does not dream up an ideal picture, and then try to change the vocabulary of the world-of-action. It does not wish to delude itself into thinking that changing words will transform fact. It wishes to orient itself to facts, and above all to the repository of facts, History, and the driving force of facts, Destiny.
To understand what a people is, one must begin with the smallest human group, the crowd. It strikes one immediately that there are two types of crowds. There is the crowd assembled on an intellectual basis— the attendance at a lecture, at a drama, at a social function. Then there is the crowd assembled on a spiritual basis— a political meeting, a religious agitation, a protest, a riot.
The first type is a mere collection. The individuals repel one another, figuratively and literally. These crowds have as many viewpoints as there are individuals in them. They are not unities, but only potential unities. The outbreak of fire in a theater immediately turns such a collection of independent individuals into one soul, with one thought, a thought directed downwards, it is true, but it is a unity. The unity of panic is a fact which political and military leaders must know how to exploit. It is one way of inspiriting when other methods may fail.
The second type is not a collection, but a unity. The first is unarticulated— all the human atoms are on the same level. The second is articulated— it has a leader. If there is no leader, there is no unity, and a few mounted police may disperse it. No individual will risk anything for a mere gathering, because his individuality is uppermost. The unity of the crowd submerges the personalities of the components; the unity is a super-personal soul. The unity must be on the basis of an idea, a wordless feeling strong enough to cause individuality to subside. When this idea is present, the human beings present become mere cells, as it were, of the higher organic unity. Men of strong intelligence who have been in crowds united for action have described how their own faculties were transformed and how the detachment that intelligence gives was suddenly in abeyance, overcome by a force as mystic in its power as in its origin.
This crowd is a people. It is a higher organism, it is informed by a super personal soul. The individuals will sacrifice themselves in the process of this higher soul actualizing itself, what they would never do alone.
The technique of this process is quite invisible, mystical, but its results are just as visible. Not only do crowds arise by themselves in conditions of great super-personal excitement when a leader appears, as Camille Desmoulins did to the gathering in the Palais Royal in 1789, to activate the mere sum into a unity— but they can be created. Thus, anyone so situated as to be able to bring a mass into one place can transform the mass into a unity by leadership.
As far as the individuals are concerned, the crowd is an attitude of mind. The man in a crowd would not dream of thinking for himself— the results of thinking are presented to him by the leader, and thenceforth these thoughts are his.
With this emerges a very important fact about crowd unity. It only reached expression with the results of the new propaganda Technics of the First World War. It is this: Through constant, unremitting propaganda of all possible types, and with unbroken continuity, the unity of the crowd can be maintained even though the members are physically separated. Mass propaganda converts the population of a continent into a crowd. Individual thought occurs very rarely under such conditions. Constant bombardment with cinema, press and radio-wireless removes all individuality from the units of vast populations.
The crowd thus presents the articulation of leader-led. This is existential: without it there is no unity, with it any gathering becomes a unity. But the decisive part of the articulation is the leader, and not the led. All understanding is transferred to him. All decision is with him. This is totally independent of any theory or ideal in the name of which the crowd may be mobilized, even the theory of individualism. The crowd is a higher unity; the leader represents it.
Where a High Culture is present, any crowd whatever is affected by it, even though only negatively. By that is meant that even a protest against Culture, such as the Peasant’s Wars, Jack Cade’s rebellion, Marxian class-war, and the like, only gain their unity from their desire to annihilate Culture. Whether the crowd is in the service of Culture or not depends on the leadership. Crowds as masses are neutral. Leadership is decisive: creative leaders like Napoleon lead a crowd upward and forward; leaders of the negative and devious type, like Roosevelt, lead a crowd downward and backward.
The crowd is a soul-unit. Its significance and potentialities belong to its articulation, its leader. This is true both of street-crowds within the range of one eye and one voice, and also to crowds on a continental scale, like America.
The leader has a dual significance: he is part of the crowd, he must also be against the crowd. It has no individuality save his; if he also becomes lost in the crowd mind, there is no individuality present, no will, no brain. He is part of the super personal unity as the brain is part of the body. The brain serves the soul, the body serves the brain.
This smallest super personal unit, the crowd, shows the polarity of instinct and intellect that extends up through all ascendant organisms to the highest, High Culture. Instinct is the content of the Life, Intellect is the Technic of actualizing it. Instinct tells what, Intellect tells how. Instinct says: Preserve! Multiply! Increase power! Intellect seeks methods of preserving Life and increasing power. Intellect is charged with the mission of actualizing Life, of expressing the instinctive imperatives of Life.
They can only be understood in relation to one another. Their separation is distortion and illness. They increase together in healthy man. That is why the intellectuals in Late Civilizations exhibit such egregious stupidity— they have attenuated instincts, and hence no intellects. Instinct is the ship bound for a destination, intellect is the rudder that steers it; another figure: instinct is the passengers who are to be transported, intellect is the master of the vessel, who must deliver them.
Their relationship can be formulated from the negative side: Instinct furnishes the will-to-power, but must not decide the moment for attack. Instinct cannot decide on the policy by which Life is to actualize its inner imperative. It is blind— it always counsels attack. Thus General Hood threw away the Army of Tennessee in the American War of Secession. Intellect must decide between the posture of defense and the movement of attack. Instinct may succumb to defeat, Intellect can still discern the elements of hope. Instinct sees everything else and everyone else as enemy, Intellect coldly decides from the situation who is the enemy, and seeks to make all the others friends. Instinct is subject to intoxication, the function of Intelligence is to remain sober. Instinct loves and hates, Intellect, neither.
In Gothic times, the Empire and Papacy were formulated as the two perfect bodies. Each was supposed to exhibit absolute balance and harmony in its inner unity, as distinct from Man, who is imperfect and contains the inner struggle of Instinct and Intellect. In those times, the problem for the man of action seeking to actualize a great idea was to keep instinct within its bounds. Thus Henry the Lion acted instinctively in his defection from Barbarossa and destroyed the Hohenstaufen Empire, from which destruction the West has suffered ever since. In this time of transition, the problem is the reverse: now it is intellect which must be firmly held in place. In the pride of Rationalism, Intellect announced that it was Life— all else was retrograde, aberrant. The result of Western Intellect denying Western Instinct was the division of the World between Washington and Moscow.
The street-crowd is the smallest people. A people is a unity for action. Whenever, in its great rhythmic swirls, History pulls a group into its vortex, the group immediately articulates itself as a people, or disappears. The group may be religious in origin, economic in origin, cultural in origin. But when it becomes an object of happening, it must respond by constituting itself as a people, or simply vanish from the pages of history. Peoples may be tiny, or they may be vast. The population living in the area between the Adige and the Kurisches Haff felt itself a people at the dawn of our Culture. This vastness of landscape at its origin was unique to the Western Culture. The same feeling was abroad then that in its maturity, in the custody of Spain, made the whole world into the object of Western politics. Or a people may be tiny— the Mormons in America, a mere group of converts to a religionist, asserted themselves strongly and were opposed from without. They responded by becoming a people. Their unity persisted until their leadership decided in favor of Intellect and compromised the doctrines of the religion, whereupon the Mormon people disappeared.
What is it that creates a people? It is first a difference between a group and its human environment, and secondly a tension worked up by this difference. A tension is a frontier. The frontier sharpens the feelings on both sides, and results in a new action-unit, a People.
Just as this tension may arise out of religion, economics, culture, race, so may the new unit contain all kinds of people, if the population affected is heterogeneous. Language is no bar to the formation of a people; in fact all existing Western languages came after the formation of their respective peoples.
A People is a spiritual unit. It is created by History, and if it is able to survive its first tests, it becomes a unit which carries History further. Just as the excited street-crowd only becomes a unit by virtue of the leader-led articulation, so a people is only such by virtue of leadership.
The distinction between crowd and people is only one of duration and magnitude, and not one of kind. Thus one man can exercise, for the few hours necessary, the entire leadership functions of a crowd. A people is more elaborately articulated than a crowd, has a more complex existence, a larger Life-task, and hence, a stratum of leaders. Any absolute monarchy or dictatorship also has a leader-stratum.
A people may be weak, or it may be strong. During the recent centuries of Western history, since the Peace of Westphalia, a handful of weak peoples have managed to maintain a nominal independence, politically speaking, by virtue of the tense situation between larger powers. But weak peoples, like weak individuals, cannot create great deeds or great thoughts. A strong people, by the intensity of its imperative, maintains the frontier between it and other populations, refuses to compromise its unique idea. By frontier is meant here of course, spiritual frontier. Whether this develops into a territorial frontier is for events to show, and is also a matter of what Culture we are talking about.
Thus, in neither the Arabian Culture, nor the Classical Culture, was the idea of a people bound up with a land area. In neither of these Cultures was it repugnant to the spiritual feeling of unity of a people to have a strange people living in the same area, having its own government and laws. Imperial Rome administered foreign laws in cases involving foreigners. In the Arabian Culture, the independence was even more marked. Thus Nestorians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side, but belonged to different nations, and did not intermarry. Foreign meant: of a different belief. These peoples and nations would have regarded the Western doctrine of the Reformation-times cuius regio, eius religio as the most Satanic possible inversion of the natural order. To make belief dependent upon the land of residence would have seemed monstrous to them. The Jew brought this feeling with him from this alien Culture. He regarded his next-door Western neighbor as foreign. The public life of his Western host-nation was a matter of indifference to him, and he had his own public-life, unnoticed by the West. Their laws were not his, nor their religion, nor their ethics, customs, thoughts, or habits, and above all, their political life did not touch him with its ideas of Fatherland, patriotism, military service, self-sacrifice.
In Turkey and China it was not felt as a humiliation that by the “Capitulations” Westerners were under the jurisdiction of their own consular representatives, and not under local courts.
Thus the relation of a people to other peoples is a matter determined by the symbolic inner-life of the High Culture in which it may arise. This is not to say that a People can only arise in a High Culture. For phenomena like Tamerlane and Gengis Khan are also people-creating.
As concepts, Race and People are quite separate; in life they are not so separate. We have seen the formation of a Race. It begins with the formation of a People. Every people with a strong idea and good leadership will develop also into a racial unity if it lasts long enough. The converse is also true: a race— using the word now with its maximum of anatomical content, e.g., the Negro— may be the focus of happenings that will force it to assume the form of a people.
A People is a unit of the soul. Wherever there is a soul-unity gestating, a people is forming. The entire 20th century West can now see what Nietzsche discerned in the 80’s of the 19th century— the arising of a Western People. His expression “We good Europeans” was understood by few of his time. They were too busy with their petty games: in the Cabinets they were playing national-atomism; in the salons they were talking social-atomism and “happiness”; in the cellars they were plotting in class-atomism.
The strength and health of a People depends upon the definiteness of its articulation. We have seen how in a street-crowd, all will and intellect mystically devolve upon the leader. If this breaks up, through mistakes by the leader, or crushing by external force, the crowd is dead, and reverts to a sum of individuals.
The decentralization of will and intellect in the West generally is thus seen to be a grave Cultural sickness. The Authority and Unity of the West was gradually undermined for centuries by the slow increase of the intellectual content of the Culture. Nevertheless this Culture preserved its unity before the world, generally speaking, until the cataclysm of 1789, which Napoleon, and after him the Vienna Congress, were unable permanently to undo. The Concert of Europe was replaced by a progressing Discord of Europe.
The more will and intellect that passed downwards and outwards in the Culture, the greater was the decline in the Cultural health. Nationalism was the disease of the Culture; Class War was the disease of the Nation; Parliamentarism was the disease of the State; the Rule of Money was the disease of Society; sterile Pleasure was the disease of the Race; the new selfishness was the disease of the Family; Divorce was the disease of Marriage.
Every Culture has gone through this terrible crisis, and each has stood where the West now stands in 1948. This means, of course, inwardly, for never before at the height of its crisis has an entire Culture been occupied by barbarians and distorter. The previous seven Cultures surmounted this critical time: the creative forces of Instinct and Intellect, working in harmony brought about the Resurgence of Authority, and formed, in each case, the Empire of the Culture.
The beginning of this resurgence of synthesis and creation after the long orgy of Intellect-run-wild manifests itself in diverse phenomena. Nietzsche and Carlyle were symbols of the resurgence. Characteristically both were Europeans, and despised the petty-statism of their times. Their lives and ideas were an expression of organic necessity. Both were heralds of the next Age. The appearance of a spate of cultural histories was another sign. The appearance of State-Socialism was another. The biological theories of de Vries and Driesch, the abandonment of the materialistic cliches by a whole group of physicists was another. For political purposes, the most important was the beginning of the formation of a People of the West.
A nation is a people— and something more. It is more highly articulated. A people can arise outside of a Culture; a nation cannot. A people may be a unit of short duration, or inwardly weak. A nation has a life span and belongs to the strongest organic unities within a Culture. With the word Culture, we touch upon the hall-mark of the Nation: a nation is a people containing a Cultural Idea.
When a High Culture is born into a landscape, after a gestation period of several generations, it works with mysterious effect upon the populations in its area. Previous names and groupings vanish into new spiritual unities. In the West, around 1000 A.D., the names Swabian, Frank, Lombard, Visigoth, Saxon, become dead terms for practical purposes, and men begin to feel themselves as Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards. Each of these groups is an Idea— it is the vehicle of a certain part of the soul of the Culture, it is a plane of existence, an aspect of the Culture-spirit. This is the basis of their differences. Their similarity is that they are the creations of the same Culture.
Their differences beget different racial rhythms and styles of thinking and doing. A different inner accent shapes the same general linguistic material into various tongues, each one the expression of a different soul. The separate souls react in distinct fashions to similar outer experiences, and thus events also contribute their part to shaping the character of the nations that arise.
To understand what a nation is, one must first entirely dissociate in his mind the connection— so self evident to the 19th century— between nation, political unity, and language. To the era of Rationalism and Capitalism, these units were the very primordial material of history. But these nations were only expressions of a certain stage of the Nation-Idea in Western history.
In the dawn of our Culture, language had no relation to nation, nor had politics. A Nation in those days was a spiritual unity which expressed itself as such in the Spirit of the Age. That Spirit was one of religious feeling, Scholastic philosophy, Gothic architecture, Imperial-Papal politics, Crusades. There was a sharp and distinct feeling of the foreigner, but the word did not relate exclusively to politics, or language. In the 11th and 12th centuries, English, German, French methods of thinking appear in the various Scholastics. Varying honor-imperatives, varying moral-feelings, different ways of manifesting religious feelings, variations in the Gothic cathedrals, degrees of attachment to Empire or Pope— all show the different national ideas.
Vis-à-vis the foreigner— the Moor, the Slav, the Turk, the Saracen— these nations unconsciously, self evidently, were one People. However strong their feelings of separation toward one another, instinct welded them into a unity for assertion against the Cultural alien. Thus when the Crusaders established a Western State in the Levant, it was not English, French, German— but simply Western. The instinct of the Culture is strong, its rhythms compel virtually, its super personal unity is felt in the blood, and hence recognized by the intellect.
All Cultures express themselves in the form of nations, as well as art-forms, religions, languages, Technics, knowledge-systems and the other Culture-forms. Just as all the other forms are distinct within each Culture, so is the style of the Nation. In the Arabian Culture, just as its conception of History was the actualization of a World-Plan by God beginning with a Creation and ending with a Cataclysm, so the Nation-style was one of belief. Members of a belief were constituted as nations. The notion of territory, Fatherland, was not present. The nation had a spiritual, and not a physical, extent. This Nation-idea created in this alien Culture the Jewish nation, which in that Culture was one among others of a similar structure. In our Culture, it was so completely alien that no one realized what its essence was until we reached our period of Late Civilization with its historical sensitivity.
In the Classical Culture, the Nation-idea was expressed in the form of a City-state. The Nation was not an area, but only the City and its population. Any further territorial control was negative in origin; e.g., to control was to deny possession of the area to a potential enemy in war. To these nations, our idea of a Fatherland with distant frontiers that one never sees during his whole life would have been a fantastic and repellent hallucination.
Under it is the minority which embodies the Idea at high potential, the nation-bearing stratum. It represents the Idea in History. For practical purposes it is the nation. It is, as actuality, what the mass of the population, the body of the nation, is as possibility.
The lowest stratum is the mass. It widens out toward the base, becoming ever less differentiated as one goes down. Finally one reaches the level where an eternal stratum is reached, that takes no part whatever in the national Idea, which does not experience the History which is playing its drama higher up on top.
Just as, in a crowd, the leader is the decisive part of the unity, so is the nation-bearing minority in the national unity. Both minority and mass are in the service of the Idea, just as both leader and led are of the crowd-idea. If the leader is killed or removed, another will arise, if the idea is strong. Similarly in a nation, the mass contains, in most of its individuals, a spark of the national feeling. Those who are more moved by this inner quality than others are a part of the minority, the nation-bearing stratum.
Dissociate nation-bearing stratum and mere political leadership. In organic health the political leadership contains only members of the nation-bearing stratum— but not all of them, by any means, for nation-bearing stratum is much wider than political administration. But the political leadership may contain, owing to weakness of the national idea and aggressiveness of an inner alien group, few or even no members of the nation-bearing stratum. The members of the nation-bearing stratum are those who by the strength of their national feelings and their willingness to sacrifice for this Idea are the custodians of the Idea before the world and against inner alien and anti-national elements.
If this stratum were to be removed from a healthy nation with a future, after a period of spiritual chaos in the body of the nation, a new one would arise from the mass. If the mass were totally devoid of national feelings, the minority could not accomplish the Idea.
That there is nothing whatever abstract about this is shown by the case of Russia. There the Romanov dynasty and its upper stratum tried to make Russia into a Western people, a Western nation. But the mass was quite devoid of possibilities in this direction. They did succeed in making Russia into a Western nation, for appearances, and for political purposes, and this shows that the minority is decisive. But when the Bolsheviks exterminated or drove out this entire minority, there was nothing to replace it, for the mass did not even contain a spark of this idea.
Thus from the standpoint of History, the nation serves the Culture, the minority serves the nation, the mass serves the minority. The quaint transposition of thought known as Rationalism saw it otherwise: there is no Idea, there is only mass, anything else must serve the mass. But Rationalism only affected terminology in this matter, for even those nations most heavily undermined by Rationalism still appeared in History in the custody of a minority, and the mass was only called upon to obey, to think a certain way, to vote a certain way. It is important in the 20th century to know that denying facts does not remove them, nor does changing their names change their nature. In the 19th century the Nation was still an Idea, even though it was supposed to be merely a huge collection of individuals. It was an Idea that infected even the most rationalistic of the Rationalists, the Communists. Thus French Communism was entirely different from German Communism— the difference between Paris in 1871 and Berlin in 1918. They may have read from the same book, but the pulse in the blood was different.
Within this framework of its own subjection to the Culture, the Nation-Idea compels everything in its realm to submit to its force. Thus each Western nation had its own type of social behavior, its own articulation of society, sharp and clear in England, Prussia, Spain, vague and nebulous in France and Italy. The religiousness of England differed from that of Spain, both from Germany. The orientation to economics is different in each place, strongest in England. Even in the field of erotic, the nations are differentiated, and France is the nation that developed the most elaborate culture of sexual love. Literature is distinctly national, so is drama, so is architecture, so is even music. Philosophy did not escape nationalization: the two greatest Western schools are the English Sensualist school, 1600-1900, and the German Idealist school, 1650-1950. Orientation to religious doctrines is different: Spain has been the stronghold of Catholicity, England of Protestantism. The great men that have arisen in the various nations have expressed national qualities at high potential: Think of Richelieu, Cromwell, Alva, Wallenstein. An oil painting discloses the nationality of its painter during the great era of Western painting, 1550-1850.
It is thus easy to understand how Materialism could convince itself that nations were the creators of Culture, instead of seeing the fact that it is the reverse.
A Culture begins in Faith and Mysticism, with its thought-world and its action-world both subject to self-evident order and authority. It develops along the path of increasing intellectuality until it reaches the caesura of Rationalism, when intellect frees itself entirely from faith and instinct, analyzes, disintegrates, and mobilizes everything. In its very last stage, that of Late Civilization, it gathers itself once more together, asserts its unity by impressing all forms of its life with a final form which returns once more to the symbolic Authority and Mysticism of its origins.
This biography of the Culture is traceable in every life-form, including its nations.
The Culture created its nations through dynasties. The idea of a dynasty is repulsive to the Classical Culture, unknown to the Arabian.
But Western nations, imbued with the unique force and intensity of expression of the Western Culture are dynastic, even when they abolish a dynasty. They either want another dynasty, or else they wish the dynastic feeling to be freed from the personality of the sovereign. Dynasty is the affirmation of political continuity from Past to Future. The political history of the West from its origins is the history of dynasties.
The diverse tribes of Swabians, Franks, Saxons, Bavarians, and Thüringians became united into the
German nation through the dynastic Empire-Idea, the creation of Karl der Grosse. Similarly the French
people and nation were formed by dynasties. Out of diverse Frankish and Visigothic elements, the
Capetian dynasty created a nation and a language. If Dynasty had followed speech, there would have
been two Frances: Frankish-Romance France in the North, Provencal France in the South.
The Dynasties created the nations, by focusing these mystic feelings onto a passionate symbol. The
nations created Race and Language. The Italian written language is attributable chiefly to Frederick II[L] of
the Hohenstaufen dynasty, a German Emperor who preferred the South, and caused this language to be
used officially and socially in the Empire. The Portugese people and language are the result of the fact
that Alfonso VI of Castile[R] gave that territory as the marriage portion of his daughter to Henry of Besancon
in 1095. To this creation of a dynasty is due the fact that Brazil speaks Portugese to-day. The House and
kingdom of Lorraine came to an end with the childlessness of Lothar II in the 9th century. Had his
dynasty continued, there probably had been a nation, people, language, kingdom and State of Lotharingen
in Western history. The English people, nation and language are all the result of the Norman Conquest
with its founding of the House of Normandy which continues to this time. The Prussian nation is the
creation of the Hohenzollern dynasty, and the Austrian was that of the Hapsburg.
The form of Western politics was always dynastic, and increasingly so as the Culture attained to greater heights. The rhythmic cycles of great wars took a dynastic form: a vacant throne somewhere called forth a Succession-War. Even in 1870 the pretext which Napoleon III adopted for his war against Prussia was a dynastic one. And the great Napoleon too, was brought down by a millennium of dynastic tradition that he roused against him by driving out old dynasties and putting his brothers and Marshals on thrones as new dynasts.
In this stage of Western history the idea of the dynasty is only apparently gone. A thousand-year Empire is itself a dynastic idea. The genealogical continuity of the ruling house is merely a powerful symbol of continuity. This symbol satisfies instinct. Western intellect demands this same continuity during its reign, 1750-1950, but merely changes the symbol: instead of a blood-stream of a royal House, it puts up a piece of paper, a Constitution.
Readers in 2050 can see about them the final form of the expression of Western dynastic feeling. In Rationalist times the symbol of the Royal House became unsatisfactory, and was merely tolerated, if not abolished altogether. The piece of paper was much more real to a Rationalist. Now the piece of paper has become unsatisfactory, as History quietly submerges Rationalism. We stand at the next epoch, that of Resurgence of Authority.
Reason is the form of thought adopted to solving mechanical problems, and cannot be applied to organic things, in its free, rootless form. Thus to every organism there is a birth, and a death. For what reason? The question is senseless from the organic standpoint. Why must an organism die? No one can give a reason. This refers, of course, to emancipated, inorganic, reason. Religion employs reason, but within the framework of Faith. Emancipated reason— Rationalism— recognizes no superior discipline, neither that of organic regularities, nor beyond them, of Faith or Religion. But yet, the organism dies, even though Rationalism loudly insists that it is not necessary. The human life span of 70 years represents no logical necessity. It would not offend logic if organisms were perpetual. This same non adaptability of logic and reason to organic rhythms affects fundamentally the Nation-Idea during the period of Rationalism.
The laboratory-logic which denied God and the human soul was certainly not going to allow the NationIdea. The most it was willing to concede was the existence of a great number of individuals. Actually this pose was impossible for even the most intransigent rationalists to maintain, and in their writings, they continually slip into figures of speech which betray that they are thinking in terms of a higher Idea which is imminent in each of these individuals.
Thus to Rationalism, Nation means— Mass. There must be no articulation— no nobility, no clergy, no monarch, no group raised above the others by virtue of its higher Idea-content. There is also no Idea which forms all the individuals, even though there is the mechanico-logical concept of the totality.
The concept of Nation-as-Mass is coeval with Democracy and Class War. The three notions are merely different aspects of Rationalism. If the nation is the mass, there should be no social stratification, and if the old-traditional structure does not give way, one must make class-war against it.
Rationalism is born at the same time also as the decisive turn of Culture toward Civilization, the fulfillment of the inner form-world, and the unequivocal turning to activity as the prime content of Life. This means the vast increase in the public power available to political leaders, larger wars, more intense economics, more physical energy, enormous development of Technics. No Western thinker ever had a better technical brain than Roger Bacon, or Leonardo da Vinci, but the technical works of these men came in an age of inner activity, which regarded Technics as a branch of knowledge, not as a form of unleashing power for industrial and war purposes. The Civilization expanded in power and in extent. Anything opposing this organic rhythm was doomed to frustration and defeat. The old traditions could only survive if they would take up the new tendencies and lead them onward. This was done in England, but the feat was not so remarkable as has been generally supposed, for the English national-Idea was actually the vehicle of this change of direction from Culture to Civilization. The Rationalist Idea was born in England. English Sensualist philosophers enunciated its basic doctrines, English parliamentarians applied them to theory of government, English technicians invented the new power-unleashing machines, English merchants created the forms of 19th century Capitalism, English thinkers first announced the idea that the nation was the mass. The French Encyclopedists were all under English influence, and many of them lived for years in England. Thus there were plenty of persons in high places who were in contact with the new ideas and felt the necessity of adopting them verbally.
The doom of Napoleon symbolizes the deep fact that he was both representing and opposing this idea at the same time.
Rationalism could only say: the nation is the mass; it only denied the articulation of the Nation. These nations were not yet dead, and could not be denied. The emphasis passed to the external differences between the nations, which means, political differences. Nation becomes for the first time in Western history, primarily a political idea. The word “nationalism” acquires an exclusively political meaning.
Nation had not been, even in Frederick the Great’s Wars, a purely political thing. Under Frederick had fought Russians against Russia, Frenchmen against France, Swedes against Sweden, Saxons fought both for and against him. An early acquaintance of Frederick tendered to him his military services. Frederick offered him a majority. Reluctantly the man took service with an enemy army, because a colonelcy was available there. Such conduct was not considered monstrous at that time. 19th century interpretation of history— ignoring the soul and following the surface continuity of names— merely took current politics and applied it backwards. The foreigner was not liked during previous Western history, but politics was not oriented to this one fact alone. Politics was a thing of dynasty— or as in the case of the microscopic nations, revolt against dynasty. German condottieri like Froberger, and English like Sir John Hawkwood led foreign mercenaries in the wars in Italy. The German Emperor Frederick II was more Italian than German, and found no difficulty in being both politically. Allegiance was not a thing of geography of birthplace, but of attachment, common destiny, oath, honor. Thus, treason in those days did not refer to birthplace, but to obligation of honor. Not until allegiance was given was honor involved. The great Emperor Charles V had a German father, a Spanish mother, grew up in the Netherlands, was educated by a Flemish churchman, whom he later appointed Pope Adrian VI, spoke French as a native tongue, was King of Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor. Spaniards had dukedoms in England, an English queen was married to the King of Spain, the English King was Elector of Hanover. Armies consisted of men of mixed nationality, and commands changed often among generals of different nationality. It suffices to mention Maurice de Saxe, Prinz Eugen, Marshal Conde, Montecuculi. Dynastic-politics cut straight across nations, just as nationalistic politics cut clean across dynasties.
But the old spiritual significance of Western nations was replaced by a purely political one after the triumph of Rationalism. The linkage in those days between the new idea of the nation-as-mass and nation-as-political instead of dynastic, caused nationalism to be looked on in 1815 as Communism was in 1915— the height of radical destruction.
Napoleon represented both ideas to Europe. He was anti-dynastic, and thus unlocked everywhere the new feeling of political nationalism. But to countries occupied by French armies, political nationalism meant revolt, and it was the Prussian rising of 1813 that destroyed Napoleon.
Rationalism saw a nation thus as a political mass. But why just this mass and not another? There had to be some visible, mechanical, determinant of nationality. This was found in— Language. If a man spoke French, he was French; Italian, Italian. What determines this? Where he was born. It does, or it should. Allegiance became something owed to a language and a piece of ground, not to an Idea or the dynastic symbol of the Idea.
This concept triumphed, publicly and privately. It determined a man’s national feelings, and changed the nature of wars. Instead of the Succession-Wars, which arose from dynastic-politics, came now wars for a territory and population which one could assimilate by language policy in the schools.
The populations of the Balkan countries were a reflection of the school-policies of the preceding generation. It reached a grotesque height when it was employed in theory at the Versailles conference, 1919. Language was supposed to be the indication of the presence of a nation. The principle was of course only used where it suited the political purpose, but nevertheless everyone paid lip-service to this materialistic stupidity.
This concept of the Nation-Idea had many important consequences. The Italian Wars of linguistic Unification created what never had existed before, a political unit Italy. The Austrian nation was annihilated by this concept, and the attempt by extra-European forces to resurrect it as a nation after the Second World War as a part of the general plan to Balkanize Europe was doubly ludicrous, for a new Nation-Idea was coming. The linguistic idea of Nation also enabled England to bring about the entry of America into the First World War on its side, because the written language was more or less common to both. Suppose that— as narrowly missed by vote— the American Constitutional Convention in 1787 had adopted the resolution to make German the official language of America. Western history, 1914-1918 had been quite different. Instead of Europe controlling in 1950 no part of the globe, not even its own area, it would have controlled the entire globe.
But the Nation is always an Idea, it can be nothing other. Only one’s concept of the Nation can change, but the Idea is something in the blood and soul, and not merely in the mind. It permeates a man’s way of understanding what a Nation is, and what everything else is. Even though, say, French and English Rationalists had agreed precisely on what the Nation is, each would have behaved in his distinct national way.
Rationalism looked at the nation from within and said: it is mass. It looked at it from without and said: it is language. Both were materialistic stupidities. Nation is, first, the Idea; second, the nation-bearing stratum; lastly, the mass who are the object, the mere body of the Nation. From without, the Nation is a different soul from other souls. It is contact with the foreign that develops the sense of the proper.
Rationalism liberated the Nation-Idea from the Dynasty-Idea. Dynasties changed their names to try and cover up their connections with other nations. In most countries the dynasty was dethroned as being anti national, since nation was mass, and Dynasty was symbol. Above all, Rationalism accomplished the identification of nation and politics. Nationalism became primarily a political term.
Readers in the 20th century find it difficult, those in the 21st century more difficult, to believe that even in the 50’s of the 19th century nationalism was considered a radically destructive force by the traditional elements in European Nations. In Germany, it took a man of political genius, Bismarck, to transform the idea of nationalism from a destructive, class-war idea into a conserving, creating idea, serviceable to Tradition and forward development.
This changing of the meaning of the word nationalism from destructive and leveling to creative conservative and hierarchical showed that despite their surface-victory, the Dynastic at Vienna had lost their contest against Destiny. Whether or not they continued, the dynasties were politically dead. They became, more in some places than elsewhere, mere pageantry. The force of the dynastic idea— the passionate affirmation of eternal duration— was transferred on to the Nation. The dynasty became merely a part of the general public property of the Nation— like the public buildings, and the national museums. At one time the monarch owned the nation— in the 19th century the nation owned the monarch. If the monarch did take part in politics, he was subject to the same inner limitations as any Premier.
The question will be asked: how did nationalism change its significance from Tradition-destroying to Tradition-conserving? It was another development of the Rationalist stock of ideas that brought this about, namely the transference of class-war from the political-social sphere to the economic sphere. Nationalism had done its work on the destructive side: it had destroyed Dynasty and Estates. Now its place in the center of History was challenged by Economics. Economics— Money— is hostile to politics generally, whether dynastic or nationalistic. Authority is the prime enemy of Money. Authority means responsibility, and Money means irresponsibility. Authority means Public; Money means Private.
The Master of Money is the second of the class-warriors. First was the ideologue on the barricade with a copy of Contrat Social in his hand. He cleared the stage for the Master of Money. The third in this succession of Culture-termites is the Master of Labor.
Vis-à-vis all three of them, any form of political nationalism is conservative, and contains possibilities of creativeness if the responsible stratum has sufficient vision and energy. But it takes Genius to see the obvious, and a Bismarck was necessary to show the conserving value of nationalism, and its creative possibilities. Metternich stood with his feet in the old Europe of Dynasty, and had thus seen the struggle of Nationalism against Dynasty as one of Chaos against Order. The year of his passing, 1848, was the epoch of Nationalism from its old meaning to its new one. Had he lived to see the economic class war of the forces of Money and Proletariat against Politics, he also would have chosen nationalism as the alternative.
In the field of politics, Rationalism accentuated the differences between the nations. In the field of economics its effect was even more disintegrating. It wished to break up the nation into classes, and the classes into individuals. Liberals, financiers, Communists, Anarchists were the coalition against the remnants of Authority embodied in the nationalistic State. In its first century, Rationalism affirmed the nations as the ultimate units of history and warred against the subjection of the nations to the dynastic. In its second, more radical, century, Rationalism denies the nations altogether. The professors and “political economists” conceived of the nation as a mere economic convenience in a world-wide “division of labor.” Thus one nation could grow crops, another could make machines. It was to be solely economic differentiation. This idea was the darling of the financier, for in the flow of trade in such a world— there must be no autarchy— he would be the great gainer, for it would all flow through him.
On the other side, the Communists said that nations were only a capitalist trick to separate the “workers of the world.” Only classes were real— all else is illusion— and there are only two of them, bourgeois and proletaire.
These two world-pictures point to total chaos, the dissolution of the Civilization, and submission to the barbarian. Hence Nationalism, from having been destructive became conservative, and even, in the right hands, creative.
The 20th century Nation-Idea can be understood by applying the Hegelian-Fichtean Triadic Law of Thought. The thesis of Nation as Dynastic-Unit, and the antithesis of Nation-as-Linguistic-Unit are both submerged into the creator of them both, and become Nation-as-Culture-Unit, the gigantic synthesis whose irresistible actualization is the inner motive force of History in this century. We who live in the middle of the 20th century cannot understand the excitement of 1848, for we only know the hither side of it. Those in 2050, living in the Western Nation-Idea of the 20th century style, will not be able to understand how anyone could have opposed the obvious Destiny of the Western Nation-Idea. Yet the opposition was as effective as that of Metternich and the Fürstenbund was to the entry of the 19th century Nation-Idea.
One great difference exists however. The Russia that the Western Nations called in to help against Napoleon and the new Nation-Idea he represented considered itself a Western Nation, and so conducted itself. The Russia that the party-politicians called in against the 20th century Nation-Idea was the primitive barbarian in all his vigor and will-to-annihilate. The America that intervened in Western politics was entirely in the grip of Culture-distorters, and thus removed by such a regime temporarily from the areas of Western influence. The only difference between them to the Europe they divided after the Second World War, 1939-1945, was that no Western possibilities existed in Russia, and America did present a possibility— in the future— of a revolution which would restore America to the West. Both were completely alien, both could only destroy.
The 20th century sees the end of Rationalism. Even now— 1948— it is pale and emaciated. Scientists and philosophers are falling away. Mysticism is reappearing, both in its authoritative-religious form, and in the form of theosophistic fads. Mechanism in biology has yielded to Vitalism. Materialism fights desperately, hopelessly against the resurgence of the Soul of Culture-Man. Relativity has placed the determination of phenomena with man, precisely where German Idealistic philosophy had put it in the 18th century. Even matter has been liberated from Causality— we now allow the “electrons” and their relatives to dance freely about, no longer in subjection to the strict Culture-physics of Western tradition. That which would have been regarded with horror a generation before quietly asserts itself in defiance of Rationalism— clairvoyance, disguised as “extra-sensory perception.” The Psyche intrudes even into physiology.
But in this year 1948 the world of action remains, chained by its stupidity, in the dead past. Synthesis replaces analysis in Western thought, but Western action remains disintegratory: classes, tiny “nations,” division of powers, economic obsessions, parties, trade-unions, “rights,” parliaments, elections, frontiers every few miles in Europe, opposition, hatred of authority, lack of respect and dignity, mutual economic strangulation by customs boundaries. This while the extra-European world agglomerates itself into great, world-embracing masses of territory and population. The Cultural impetus of Imperialism is carried forward by the non-Culture peoples, the barbarians, while the sick, backward-looking West thinks in ever smaller space-terms. While the barbarians build empires, Europe abandons old conquests. While the barbarians proclaim their superiority, voices in Europe are raised saying that Western Imperialism— that mighty inner imperative of the most passionate, intense High Culture the world has yet seen— only existed in order to prepare the under-races of the world for “self-government.” They continue to say it as the extra-Europeans divide the Mother-soil of European Culture between them, and loot and starve European populations on a mass-scale.
It might be thought that the 20th century Idea of the Nation is disintegration, when one hears fools in Bavaria announce that the solution for them is to constitute themselves a “little Switzerland.” One wonders that is it possible for extra-Europeans to find such people down below the Western Culture.
But this atomizing of the Soul of the West is not the 20th century Idea. These voices of submission to the barbarian, and abandonment of Culture, of disintegration into ever-smaller particles of territory and population are the illness of the West, not its Future, its crisis, not its health. They are the pseudo-victory of 18th and 19th century Rationalism over the Resurgence of Authority of the 20th and 21st centuries. They are the extrapolation of the Rationalistic twins, finance-Capitalism and snarling Communism, the desire to extend into the Future old diseases of the European will, to perpetuate feelings that are dead and can no longer inspirit the soul of the West.
It is known however that the life of a Culture has its own rhythm, its own inner law of development, its own imperative. This cannot be changed by the will or rationalistic ideal of human beings. These ideals are themselves the expression of a great Culture-crisis, and with the disappearance of the crisis, the ideals are suddenly entirely empty. No one is willing to die for them. The crisis is now coming to an end, as is manifest by the developments in other Culture-directions. The history of previous Cultures shows the duration of this great crisis, through which they all had to go, and from their history, we know at what point we stand.
That point is the transition to the new idea of the Nation, the Nation as Empire, Nation as Culture-unit. The tests of race, people, and language have no validity, for the 20th century will shape its own race and people exactly as the 19th century races, peoples, and nations were the products of History. It sounds much more fantastic to 1950 ears than to the ears of 2150 to say that the creation of a new language by the 20th century Nation in process of arising is not impossible. It may be one of the old languages, modified by the new spirit; it may be a new language, containing elements of pre-existing languages.
The Second World War represented the surface victory of the Past over the Future. Metternich, Burke, Wellington, would have read this situation correctly, but would have cast in their lot with the Future, for the Future is Order, and the Rationalistic Past is Chaos and Disintegration. They fought Rationalism in its inception, and their heirs who fight it to-day fight a Rationalism stricken with rigor mortis, for which no one will mount the barricade, and which only sits leering upon its throne by virtue of its serviceability to the Barbarian. It divides Europe, and Europe divided is Europe conquered.
The fight against the Past is thus seen to be the fight against the extra-European forces, for it is they who are perpetuating the atomizing of Europe, the Balkanization of a Culture, the Switzerland of the West.
It is characteristic of any phase of development of a Culture that it is historically necessary. It is precisely the same force that causes one Culture phase to succeed to another that makes the youth inevitably into a man. To attempt to interfere with the one process is the same as interfering with the other. So far no way has been discovered to stop the development of an organism, except killing it. The caterpillar must become a butterfly, the bud must become a flower, the youth must become a man, the man must express his mature possibilities. This force which impels this forward development is called Destiny. It is operative at every moment from conception to death in every organism. It is the hall-mark of the organic which distinguishes it from the inorganic, the permanent, the history less. Every organism has its own life-task, and the fulfillment of this task is inwardly necessary. The extent to which an outer force can affect the process is different for various organisms. The phenomena of outer forces attempting to warp a High Culture from its Life-path come under the heading of Culture-distortion.
The subject of the State must precede a treatment of Culture-distortion. Race, People, Nation, State are manifestations of Cultural health. Distortion is the illness of the Culture.
The State is the form of a nation for action. The content of this form changes, and each change is a crisis in the Culture-development. In the earliest time of the Culture, the time of the Crusades, of the conflict of Empire and Papacy, from 1000 to 1300, the Culture-unity is so strong that the Culture itself is constituted more or less as a nation, with all the lesser sovereigns holding of the Emperor. Vis-à-vis the barbarian, all Westerners are of one nation, and are welded into one State.
The first social articulation of the Culture is into Estates. The two Estates, Nobility and Priesthood, represent the two aspects of the Culture-soul with the highest possible symbolic purity. Nobility represents war, politics, law, race. Priesthood represents religion, knowledge, science, philosophy, the world of thought. The rest of the population is just that— the rest. Seen from above, it has only an economic function. Out of it develop the beginnings of trade-organization, free cities, and merchant princes.
The meaningful idea of life is, however, represented by the Estates and the symbols of Empire and Papacy. This political form is known as the feudal-State, the first State-idea of the West.
The first great political form-crisis of the West occurs when this idea loses its self-evident power, and there appears in the feelings of men the idea that there is something higher, to which even the noble blood and the feudal organization is subordinate. It is the dim beginning of the State-idea. The dissolution of the feudal State occurs in the 13th and 14th centuries. It takes the form of breaking down the over-lordship of the highest lords, the Pope, Emperor, Kings. The Papacy, on the temporal side, was organized as a feudal hierarchy, with the great spiritual dignitaries holding their investitures of the Pope as overlord. After the death of Innocent III, under whom for a short time, the whole Western Culture had acknowledged the feudal supremacy of the Pope, the great archbishops and bishops forced through representative institutions for themselves, and reduced the temporal power of the Papacy gradually to a mere shadow power by 1400.
The greater German Princes made the Imperial throne dependent upon them as Electors, and this idea was formally constituted in the Golden Bull of 1356, although actually long before that. Magna Carta, 1215, the General Privilege of Saragossa, 1283, the Estates-General, 1302, have corresponding significance in England, Spain and France. In each case it is the breakup of the feudal concept of the State, and the arising of the pure State-Idea. It is the beginning of the Dynasty-Idea. The highest feeling heretofore was that of Life as deriving its significance from noble blood, but henceforth the idea is one of a task, a labor for the Future. The Dynasty is the symbol of this new idea.
From this crisis, we in the 20th century learn first of all that State-crises in a High Culture are not things of a few years duration, but of a century or more. We learn further that the surface of History does not reflect at once the underlying idea-forces at work which provide the impetus of History.
The end of the crisis finds the State-idea established everywhere in Europe. Even though everywhere the State remained entirely aristocratic, nevertheless Sovereignty did not reside with the Estates, but with the higher idea, the State. The word treason changes its meaning and becomes more absolute, more heinous. Henry the Lion had received but mild punishment for his defiance of the feudal Emperor. The Emperor was after all but primus inter pares, and the relationship between him and his vassals was personal. With the triumph of the State-idea, the obligation of loyalty to the State becomes super personal, once it is undertaken. It is loyalty to an Idea, not to the person of the monarch.
The State progresses in its development from the aristocratic State to the Absolute State. Absolute means: independent of any other form. As applied to the State, this means independent of the Estates who had everywhere asserted their independence of the dying feudal power of Emperor and Kings. This development brings forth the second great State-crisis of the West, the transition to the Absolute State. It lasts a century in its severest form and dominates all political events from 1550 to 1660.
Feudal politics had been the struggle for power among families, lords and vassals, factions. The dynasties had to rely on their political talent, for none of them rested so strongly that it could not be challenged by a powerful duke with a claim to kingship. It was the time of Lancaster and York, of the German Princes, of Renaissance city-politics and condottieri.
But the Absolute State-Idea was at work in the depths, and by about 1500 it becomes articulate, and engages everywhere in a struggle with the idea of the aristocratic State. Two ideas of the State are at war: the aristocratic State and the Absolute State. Since the Absolute State is the one which attained in history to identify with the State generally, we may call this second State-crisis of the West the battle of State against Estate, for, indeed, the form of this crisis was a defensive fight by the Nobility against the encroachments of Absolutism. The new idea is the State, it represents the Future in 1500, and therefore it prevails. The generic name of the wars entailed by this crisis is the Wars of the Fronde. The Fronde is the collective name of the noble Estates. This crisis lasts a century, and ends in France and Spain in the victory of the State over the Estates. The great names associated with this historical development are Richelieu and Olivarez. In England the State was represented by Charles, the Fronde by Cromwell. The defeat of the State-Idea was final in 1688, and thereafter England had no State in the sense of the State of Louis XIV, of the Spanish Phillips, of the Saxon, Würtembergian, Bavarian, or Prussian Kings. The aristocratic Parliament was the Nation, not the State.
In the Empire, the greater Princes overcame the State-idea in the Thirty-Years War. The name Wallenstein and its tragedy symbolize the defeat of the Imperial State-idea by the German Princes. After the Thirty Years War, Germany developed a whole collection of petty States, each modeled on the Versailles State. The defeat of the State-idea in Germany meant that Germany was out of condition for the great political contest.
The Absolute State idea represented the Future. It was a centralizing of politics, and therewith of power. It enlarged the arena of politics, and increased the amount of public power, and meant consequently that powers not adopting the new idea would drop out of the great combinations and become mere battlefields, objects of the great politics of the States. This is precisely what happened to Germany. Since there were 300 Germany's, there was no Germany, and the other powers fought their wars in German territory. Only Austria was a power, and it was constituted as a State. The other German States were too small to be able to play an independent role in Western politics, and thus were not true political units.
England is the only power in which the Fronde triumphed but which nevertheless was able to stay in condition for the greater political battles introduced by the State-idea. This was owing solely to England’s island situation. The geopolitical security conferred on England by its insular existence enabled it to dispense with the strict centralization of inner power demanded by the State-idea, without at the same time ceasing to exist as a political unit, as did Germany. When Wallenstein and the Imperial State-idea lost, all was lost for Germany for two centuries. But Cromwell’s victory, which destroyed the State-Idea in England, substituting for it the Idea of “Society,” did not spell ruin for England, simply because other better-organized States were not able to invade it as long as it maintained an adequate naval establishment. To keep up a sufficiently large fleet did not require political centralization, and thus England survived the era of Absolutism without an Absolute State.
England, because of this island situation, did not become acquainted with the Slavic border-barbarian. It experienced, for instance, no Hussite Wars as did Germany. For 16 years, 1420-1436, the Hussite armies, first under the blind Ziska, and later divided, flooded over half Germany, burning, ravaging, killing. This destruction was vandalism, unconnected with any constructive political idea. It was 15th century Bolshevism— annihilation of everything Western.
The situation of Germany, on the border against Asia, was one of constant danger of invasion by barbarian Slavic, Turkish, Mongolian and Tartaric armies. Fighting against these armies was not colonial warfare, in the meaning of one-sided warfare that the expression acquired in the later centuries. These border barbarians were in contact with the West and adopted its purposefulness, its higher organization, and its centralized will.
While Germany in the East, and Spain in the South, were protecting the body of the Western Culture from the Barbarian, England was forming a national feeling based purely on contrast with other Western nations, and without feeling for the deep, total contrast between the Culture-peoples and the Barbarian. This exaggerated national feeling was to have fateful consequences for the entire West, including England, in the era of World Wars.
But the Absolute State represented the Future, and the Estates went down. In the main body of the West, after 1650, the State rules in politics. Its expression is dynastic, but the monarch derives his significance from the fact that he is the prime symbol of the State. When his entourage arrived at the formula that Louis XIV was the State, they were clothing him with the highest formula to which their thought could attain. In England, where there was no Absolute State, the substitute idea of the Nation was the leading idea, and the noble order ceased gradually to be an aristocracy, and finally even a nobility, and became finally the Peerage, a stratum whose significance was purely social. Its political possibilities were greater by reason of its social ascendancy, but it was still politically subordinate, and not sovereign as in the days of Magna Charta.
The political form-world of the Culture moves onward, and the next great political form-crisis is that of the transition from the Absolute State to Democracy. The crisis begins around 1750 and lasts a century in intense form. It broke out violently in France in 1789, and rapidly progressed to the Terror of 1793. The Rationalistic provenance of the ideas of the democrats showed that the Democracy-Idea is only politically-applied Rationalism.
The Absolute State-versus-Democracy crisis is different from the others in several ways. The decisive externalization of the soul of the West, brought about by the epochal change of Culture into Civilization, generated an amount of power for political purposes that dwarfed anything previous. Armies are numbered no longer in thousands or tens of thousands, but within decades pass to hundreds of thousands, and their numbers on both sides total millions. Instead of decisions being made by a few ambassadors or ministers, new leaders appear with the might of mobs at their backs. The form of the Absolute State had been unquestioned for more than a century, and now suddenly the new idea is in the air that Reason will examine all things anew and re-form the world. Since it is an organic fact that living things must obey their own inner laws or become sick, the attempt to subject the world of action to Reason could never succeed in its aim. Success merely meant the putting of the State out of condition. But actually Reason simply turned into a political weapon, and political leaders obeyed the dictates of the situation without regard to Reason. The pretense of logic had to be maintained, and the extreme divergence between conduct and principle equates Democracy with Hypocrisy. The type of the party-politician is of necessity a charlatan-type. Lincoln, the American party-leader masquerading as a saint, is the new idea of a politician. His pretense was humanitarianism, his result was unlimited finance-capitalism over a continent, his Technic was the spoils-system.
Reason is a product of Life, and the attempt to turn the tables and make Life into a creature of Reason was doomed in practice. In theory, however, it lasts two centuries in all High Cultures. The sole effect is to destroy. It destroys culture, in the narrower sense of art forms and literature, it destroys traditions of service, dignity, loyalty, honor. It destroys the State-idea as embodied in its last refined form, the Absolute State. It lays the Civilization waste from within, politically speaking. Having leveled all the political and social powers, Rationalism can now look upon the monster of its own creation, the absolute power of Money. This new power is unformulated, anonymous, irresponsible. The most powerful money-magnates are not well-known to the masses, nor do they wish to be. Fame, responsibility, and sanctions go together. The Master of Money desires no limelight, no risk of life, but only money and ever more money. Party politicians exist only to protect him and his operations. The courts are there to enforce his usury. The remnants of the State are there to do him service. Armies march when his trade system is challenged. He is subject to nothing, he is the new Sovereign. He is above nations, and his banking operations transcend national laws. It is during his tenure of power over the Western Civilization that the phrase “power behind the throne” acquires its sinister and private meaning. His is action without risk. To him a hero is a fool, a patriot an idiot. They may bleed, but he will profit. If his system is threatened, he mobilizes the masses of continents, supplementing nationalistic slogans with universal conscription which is more effective than the slogans.
This new creation shows what the great catchword “Freedom” means. Freedom was attractive to two great groups, the intellectuals and the trading-class. To both of them, the State was a burden. For its one pulse, one imperative, which impressed the life of everyone with its majesty, the pavement-intellectuals wish to substitute universal criticism, and the traders introduce universal trade without any restriction whatever. These two new orders are the old nobility and priesthood in caricature. The intellectual with his atheist pamphlet and the trader in his counting-house are respectively the masters in the democratic world of thought and action.
Form of the State-Idea Duration of Form Duration of Crisis in
Transition to Next Form Feudal State 1000-1300 1200-1300
Aristocratic State 1250-1660 1550-1660
Absolute State 1600-1815 1750-1850
Democracy 1750-1950 1900-19—
The table shows the State-forms overlapping one another, and the crises overlapping the forms, because the facts do exhibit this phenomenon in actuality. In one place the idea has already triumphed, in another this does not occur for fifty years. Or the new idea may appear and lose on the surface of history, and decades may be necessary before it again contends for power. We living in the middle of the 20th century know well what a transition period means. The old idea is quite dead, but party-leaders continue to repeat the old catch-words, like senseless parrots doing something for its own sake.
The last entry in the paradigm has been left blank. Succeeding the Democracy-idea of the State comes the last State-form of the Culture.
The old traditions of the Culture and their highest political expression, the Absolute State, have been swept away by two centuries of destruction under pressure from below. The class-war of mob-leading doctrinaires attacked and defeated the old social powers in the first century of Rationalism, 1750-1850, and finance-capitalists and labor-leaders defeated the productive economic leaders in its second century, 1850-1950, dissolving the whole collective life into a miserable, soulless, endless battle for money.
The entire population of the Western Culture is weary to death of this vile scramble, of this chaotic lack of leadership, of authority, or a strong, commanding voice. A deep yearning is going through the Western world to be free from the dirt and uncleanness of party-politics, class-war, financial usury, and complete absence of the heroic spirit. This yearning is the current form— 1948— of the State-idea of the Future. It has already expressed itself in the body of Europe. Its form for the immediate Future is the Resurgence of Authority. It attains finally to Caesarism, in which authority is free from all defensiveness and is once more self-evident, as in the pre-Rationalist millennium. In its first stages the new State-idea is antidemocratic, anti-Rationalistic, but the further these ideas sink into the past, the less is it concerned with them.
The new State-form, corresponding to the slowly rising European race, European nation, European people, and European language, is also universal. It is a State whose home-soil is co-terminous with the boundaries of the West: Scandinavia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. The details of whether this State in its first phase drags along some of the outdated Rationalistic forms with it— such as written pieces of constitution paper purporting to have something to do with government, parliaments, elections— are unimportant to its great inner meaning.
This State ends the inner anarchy of the West, which has become self-evident from long usage. Public power can no longer be held by individuals; public enterprises pass under public control and ownership; the money-monopoly of the few individuals is transferred to the State. Capitalism vanishes, in both of its aspects, the finance-capitalism of the supra-national usurer, and the capitalism of the labor-dictator. The emphasis on inner-politics passes away with the undertaking of the greatest wars the world has ever seen against the Barbarian for the survival of the Western Civilization. The heroic spirit replaces the spirit of profiteering. Honor replaces cant, and the trader gives way to the soldier. Unlimited Imperialism is the task of this State, not the Crusading Imperialism which vanished with feudalism, nor the Ultramontane Imperialism of Spain in its glory, nor the economic Imperialism of England, 1600-1900, but a new, total, political, organizatory, authoritarian Imperialism, which will plant the Western banner on the highest peaks and the most remote peninsulas. The new State will not have the party-leader’s horizon of the next election but will think in centuries, and will build for a millennium. It will dissolve the selfishness of individualism in a new Socialism, not the old-fashioned class-war Socialism of “rights,” but a stern Socialism oriented to the outer danger. The old attempts to tamper with Reality by means of theories are forgotten in the new unity of Culture, Nation, People, Race, State. Since the new State negates Rationalism, the enemy of the soul of Culture-man, it has an affirmative attitude toward the spiritual development, the Rebirth of Religion, which accompanies the arising of the new State.
The last entry on the paradigm illustrating the biography of the State-idea in the Western Culture thus is:—
Authoritarian State 1900-2— None, final Western State-form.
To everything living belongs sickness as well as health. In his classification of the sciences, Bacon provided a place for the science of deviations, and after him D’Alembert, in his classification for the Encyclopedia listed “Prodigies, or deviations from the usual course of Nature.” Life is regular in its phenomena, and when it deviates, it is regular in its deviations. Illness of whatever sort, exopathic or autopathic, comes under Pathology. Plants have their pathology, as have animals and man. High Cultures also have their pathology, which is only being realized for the first time by the new Age, with its incorruptible eye for facts, and its freedom from the prejudice of Materialism. Pathology follows the organism, and thus plants cannot suffer from liver trouble, nor dogs from psychosis. But the process works upward, just as the planes of life are stratified, one above the other, as life increases in complexity. Thus parasitism, a form of plant pathology, exists as well for all the higher life-forms. The growth of a plant can be thwarted by unfavorable conditions, just as the development of an animal can be stunted by outside interference. Weaker human organisms can be spiritually retarded and stultified by complete domination of their souls by stronger-willed humans.
Human pathology is a science of the becoming, not a science of the become, like physics. It can never succeed in its program of organizing the field of life-deviations, for Life defies all classification whatever. The invisible components dominate the visible. The soul, the will, the intellect, the emotions, are all uncanny in their effects, and cannot be treated in the systematic fashion appropriate to the data of physics or geology.
The pathology of High Cultures was naturally a blank to a scientific method which asserted as a basic dogma that Life was mechanics, man was soulless, that there must be a chemical formula for consciousness. To this outlook which denied God and Soul, High Culture was an abstract name for the collective efforts of single men. A nation was a collection of individuals with only mechanical connections, economics and “happiness” were the entire content of Life, everything which put spiritual content or meaning into Life was the prime enemy. This view simply could not understand Life. It produced a psychology hardly complex enough even for animals, and called it human psychology. It placed the barren intelligence in the center of the inner world, and denied the mystical nature of human creativeness.
This viewpoint was itself a product of a certain Age, the Age of Rationalism, and with the passing of this prejudice, we stand before a whole new world of soul-relationships, entry into which was forbidden during the last two centuries. We are liberated from the oppressive drabness of Materialism, free to step forth once more into the multi-colored and infinitely varied realm of the Soul. In its final phase, the Age of Rationalism turned its knife on itself: with its refusal to recognize psychic phenomena proved by its own methods, it showed its own nature as a Faith, an irrationality, and moved into History’s collection of temples, legends, and memories.
Materialism approached Life from its under side. In actuality, the Soul uses the material as the vehicle of its expression. Materialism, seeing only the results, and not the invisible Destiny which was bringing them about, said that the results were primary, the Soul a null. Failing to grasp the invisible Necessity which rules the organic and its relationship to the Cosmos, it reached the conclusion from a hundred different directions that Life is an accident. Not to catalog these interesting reasons, take for example, the presence of dust in the air. The laboratory-thinkers discovered that if dust were not present in the air, all Life would be impossible. It never occurred to them that Life and all the other phenomena were connected by mystical necessity. By treating everything separately, by ever-finer analysis of ever-smaller things, they lost all connection with Reality, and were surprised when connections among things did appear. It could only be an accident, said these profound thinkers.
Each variety of life-form has its own ideal conditions. Some plants require much water, others little. Some grow in salt water, others need fresh water. Animals have a habitat, each species has its own area or areas which furnish the conditions of its health and survival. Human beings as a whole have certain areas, and various types of human beings have their respective landscapes which further their life-needs.
Corresponding to the ideal life-conditions of the various life-forms, each form of life, and each organism, possesses power of adaptation. A plant can continue to live— at a lower potential— if given less than the ideal amount of water. But a point is reached at which the amount of water is minimal, and if less is given, life ceases entirely. This is the limit of adaptation. Both animals and man have adaptivity and a limit thereto. Men can live in the dense air of valleys and in the rare air of high mountains. The human body adapts itself to mountain conditions by increasing the size of the chest and the lung-surface. But this ability to adapt is not indefinite, and a rarity of air is reached to which men cannot become adapted because of inherent bounds of the human life-form.
The treatment of this subject in this work is not meant to be anything more than the minimum presentation of fundamentals necessary to understanding the nature of Culture-phenomena generally, as the basis for action. This is politics, not philosophy of history, nor yet natural philosophy of organisms. The whole subject of Culture-pathology is comparatively new. What in 2100 will be a completed discipline is now only an outline, and this is even less than an outline. But politics cannot be separated from Culture, and any effort which lights its necessary path forward for Western politics at this critical juncture is justified culturally and historically.
A High Culture is different from other organisms in that it actualizes its material manifestations through lower organisms, namely through Culture-man. Its body is a huge aggregate of many millions of human bodies in a certain landscape. The question of whether the prime symbol of the Culture is spiritually adapted to the particular landscape is outside our scope.
It is apparent that the question of physical adaptation does not exist for a Culture. Its only adaptation is spiritual. Nor can it have a physical disease like men can. Disease to a Culture can only be a spiritual phenomenon.
Life itself is a mystery, that is, something which is not fully understandable. Perhaps this is because the faculty of understanding is only one manifestation of one type of Life, in other words a part of a part, and is thus unadapted to assimilating the Whole. Every manifestation of Life is a mystery, including disease. Some men, when brought in contact with certain microorganisms, develop a definite disease. Other men do not react at all to these micro-organisms. The serum that may be beneficial to one man may kill another. It is possible to discuss disease-phenomena like these in terms of adaptation and inability to adapt. The last reason why a species, or an individual, finds its limits of adaptability precisely here and not at a further point, will always be unknown.
And so with Cultures. Just why the soul of a Culture retains its purity and individuality is hidden. Nevertheless inwardly it follows its own life-course, and cannot follow the life course that an alien life feeling, deriving its motivation from extra-Cultural sources, might wish to have it.
Just why Destiny impels an organism to actualize its possibilities, compels continuous transition from one phase into the next, is also a mystery. Nevertheless it does. The materialistic 19th century, having completely lost touch with the real world of the spirit in its obsession with the sub-real world of the material, felt in consequence a nameless terror of death, and rationalistic medicine announced its intention of doing away with Death. This sort of thing reflects credit on the intellectual courage of the rationalists, but shows their rootless intelligence to be synonymous with stupidity. We cannot do away with Destiny, since even our protest against it is a phase of development.
The entire subject of Culture-pathology is too wide to be treated here, and it will be the subject of many volumes in the coming centuries. All that is necessary for the 20th century action-outlook is to understand three phenomena within this larger field of Culture-pathology, namely, Culture-parasitism, Culture-Retardation, and Culture-distortion. All of these Culture-illnesses exist in the West in the middle of the 20th century, and have existed for some time. It is only this sick condition of the Western Civilization that makes the current grotesque world-situation possible. Current refers to the first two World Wars and their hideous aftermath. The home soil of the Western Civilization is the site of the strongest brains and characters, the most intense moral force, the highest technical creativeness, the only positive high Destiny, in the world, but yet despite the fact that all these spell the world’s greatest power concentration, the Western Civilization today is simply an object of world-politics. It is spoils, booty, for marauding powers from without. This situation did not come about by military means, but by critical Culture-disease.
A nation is an Idea, but it is a mere part of the greater Idea of the Culture which creates it in the process of its own actualization. But precisely as a nation can be the host to groups and powerful individuals who think in complete independence of the fulfillment of the national Idea, so can a Culture.
Everyone is familiar with parasite politics in a nation, and everyone understands it when he becomes aware of it. When the Greek Capodistria was Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Russia, he was not expected to execute an anti-Greek policy. During the Boxer Rebellion in China, no Western power thought of giving a command to a Chinese general. In the American war against Japan, 1941-1945, the Americans did not use their Japanese conscripts, just as Europe discovered in the first two World Wars that it could not use Slavic Bohemians against Russia. American generals would not dare to use their Mexicans against Mexico, or their Negroes against Abyssinia. Nor in a period of war preparation against Russia would a known Russian sympathizer be given public power in America. Much less would the Americans turn over the entire government to known Russian immigrants.
Phenomena of this type reflect the general fact that a man or group remains what it is even though taken into another group unless assimilated. Assimilation is the demise of a group qua group. The bloodstream of the individuals comprising it continues, but the group is gone. As long as it was a group, it was foreign.
In our examination of race we saw that physical differences are no barrier to assimilation, but that a Cultural barrier is. Examples are the Baltic Germans and the Volga Germans, cut off in primitive Russia, Chinese and Japanese in America, Negroes in America and in South Africa, the British in India, the Parsees in India, the Jews in the Western Civilization and in Russia, the Hindus in Natal.
Culture-parasitism arises in the same way that parasitism arises in politics. A parasite is simply a life form which lives in or on the body of another life-form at its expense. It involves thus the direction of part of the energy of the host into a direction alien to its interest. This is quite inevitable: if the energy of an organism is being spent for something other than its own development, it is being wasted. Parasitism is inevitably harmful to the host. The harm increases in proportion to the growth and spreading of the parasite.
Any group which takes no part in the Culture-feeling, but which lives within the Culture-body, necessarily involves a loss to the Culture. Such groups form areas of anesthetic tissue, as it were, in the Culture body. Such a group, by standing outside the historical necessity, the Destiny of the Culture, inevitably militates against that Destiny. This phenomenon is in no way dependent on human will. The parasite is spiritually without, but physically within. The effects on the host-organism are deleterious both physically and spiritually.
The first physical effect of non-participating groups within the body of a Culture is that the numbers of the Culture-population are thereby reduced. The members of the alien group take the place of individuals belonging to the Culture, who thus never come to be born. It reduces artificially the numbers of the Culture-populations by the numbers of the parasitic group. In animal and human parasitism, one of the numerous effects on the host is the loss of nourishment, and Cultural parasitism is analogous. By reducing the numbers of Culture individuals, a Culture-parasite is depriving the Cultural Idea of the only form of physical nourishment it needs— a constant supply of human material adequate to its life-task.
It is only in the light of recent studies of population trends that this anti-reproductive effect of immigrating groups is established. Thus from comparative study of American population trends, it emerged that the 40,000,000 immigrants to America from other continents from 1790 up to now— did not serve to increase the population of America at all, but only to change the quality of it. A super personal Idea, clothed as it is with the force of Destiny, must fulfill its life-task, and if this involves populations of a certain size, increasing at a certain rate, these externals will come into existence.
Materialism found itself with the data of population trends on its hands but no explanation for them. These data showed for the Western nations gradual increases, rising rapidly to a peak, and then a stabilizing and slow falling off. The curve that describes this population movement of nations— it is the same curve, roughly speaking, in each case— will be found also to describe the population movement of a High Culture. At the stage where a High Culture passes over into Civilization— the stage marked for us by Napoleon— the increase of numbers is rapid and rises to figures which dwarf anything previous. The same Spirit of the Age which externalized the whole energy of the Culture into massive industrialism and Technics, great revolutions, gigantic wars, and unlimited Imperialism, also called these numbers into being. The life-task of the Western Civilization is the mightiest the world has ever seen, and it needs these numbers in order to accomplish it.
Culturally parasitical groups are not available to the Idea. They use the energy of the Culture inwards and downwards. Such groups constitute weak spots in the body of the Culture. The danger of this internal weakness increases in direct proportion as the Culture is threatened from without. In the 16th century when the existence of the West was threatened by the Turks, it would have been perfectly evident to every Westerner that large inner groups of Turks— had there been such— were a serious menace.
A second way that Culture-parasitism wastes the substance of the Culture is through the inner friction that their presence necessarily creates. In the body of the Arabian Culture around the time of Christ, a large number of Romans was present. Their cultural-stage was that of Late Civilization, complete externalization, and the cultural stage of the Aramaean population which was there at home was that of the earliest Culture. The tension which was naturally engendered— racial, national and cultural, finally culminated in the massacre, in 88 B.C., of 80,000 Romans. This brought on the Mithradatic Wars, in which more hundreds of thousands perished in 22 years of fighting.
Another phenomenon closer to our times is that of the Chinese in California. The racial tension between the white and Chinese populations there during the 19th and 20th centuries resulted in mutual persecution, hatred, riots, and bloody excesses.
The Negro population both in America and South Africa has been the occasion of similar outbreaks of hatred and violence on both sides.
All these incidents are manifestations of Culture-parasitism, the presence of a group which is outside the Culture totally. These phenomena have no connection whatever, as the analytic approach of Rationalism thought, with hatred or malice on either side. Rationalism always looks downward: it saw merely a group of individuals on both sides. If these individuals were massacring one another, it was the desire of these particular individuals at this particular time to kill one another. Rationalism did not understand even the simple organic phenomenon of a crowd, much less the higher forms of people, race, nation, Culture. It never occurred to the Liberals that since these tensions throughout 5,000 years of history had always manifested themselves thus, that there was any necessity at work. Liberals could not understand instinct, cosmic rhythm, racial beat. To them a race riot was a manifestation of lack of “education,” of “tolerance.” A bird flying over a street-disturbance would understand it better than the materialists, for they voluntarily adopted the viewpoint of the earthworm and held to it with determination.
So far from these excesses being the result of malice or hatred, the contrary is true— demonstrations of good-will and “tolerance” actually increase the tension between totally alien groups, and render it more deadly. Focusing attention onto the differences between utterly alien groups works these differences up into contrasts, and hastens outbreaks. The closer the two groups are brought into contact, the more insidious and dangerous grows the mutual hatred.
Theoretically it sounds perfect to say that if each individual is “educated” to “tolerance” there can be no racial or cultural tension. But— individuals are not the units of this type of happening; individuals do not bring these things about, higher organic unities do this, and impel the mere individuals. The process has nothing to do with consciousness, intellect, will, or even emotions, in its inception. All these come into play only as a manifestation of defense on the part of the Culture against the alien life-form. Hatred does not begin the process, nor does “tolerance” stop it. This sort of talk is applying the logic of the billiard table to super personal organisms. But logic is out of place here. Life is irrational, and so is every one of its manifestations: birth, growth, illness, resistance, self-expression, Destiny, History, Death. If we wish to keep the word logic we must distinguish inorganic logic from organic logic. Inorganic logic is causality thinking; organic logic is destiny-thinking. The first is aware, illuminated, conscious; the second is rhythmic and unconscious. The first is the laboratory-logic of physical experimentation; the second is the living-logic of the human beings who carry on this activity, and who are in no way amenable, in their lives, to the logic which they apply in their workshops.
Into the tiny hamlets— there were no cities— of the awakening West, these finished cosmopolitans built their ghettos. Money-thinking, which seemed evil to the deeply religious West, was the forte of this highly civilized alien people. Interest-taking was forbidden by the Church to Christians, and this conferred a monopoly of money on the strangers. The Judengasse was a millennium ahead in Cultural development of its surroundings.
The legend of the Wandering Jew arose at this time, expressing the feeling of uncanniness that the Westerner felt in the presence of this landless stranger who was everywhere at home, although it seemed to the West that he was nowhere at home. The West understood as little of his Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, Kabbalism, and Yesirah, as he of its Christianity and Scholastic philosophy. This mutual inability to understand generated feelings of alienness, fear and hatred.
The hatred of the Westerner for the Jew was of religious motivation, not racial. The Jew was the heathen, and with his civilized and intellectualized life, he seemed Mephistophelean, Satanic to the Westerner. The chronicles of the time record the horrors which the contact of these two utterly alien groups begot. Jews were massacred in London on the day of coronation of Richard I in 1189. The next year 500 Jews were besieged in York castle by a mob, and to avoid its fury, resorted to cutting each other’s throats. King John had Jews imprisoned, their eyes or teeth plucked out, and hundreds butchered in 1204. When a Jew in London forced a Christian to pay him more than 2s. a week on a loan of 20s., mob action killed 700 Jews. Crusaders, for centuries, massacred whole Jewish populations of towns, when they stopped on their way to the wars in Asia Minor. In 1278, 267 Jews were hanged in London, accused of clipping coins. The outbreak, in 1348, of the Black Death, was attributed to the Jews, and massacres were the result all over Europe. For 370 years, the Jews were banished from England, until readmitted by Cromwell.
Although the motivation of these excesses was not racial, it was race-creating. What did not destroy the Jews made them stronger, and separated them further than ever from the host-peoples, physically and spiritually.
During the centuries of our Western history, the problems and developments which roused fundamental excitement in the West did not touch the problem less Jew, whose inner life had passed into fixity with the completion of the Culture which created this Jewish Church-State-People-Nation. Empty for him were the conflict of Empire and Papacy, the Reformation, the Age of Discovery. He looked upon them purely as a spectator. His only question was what they might mean to him. The idea of his taking part in them, or making sacrifices for one side or another, never came up. The British in India looked upon disturbances among the indigenous populations with the same eye.
In his ghettos distributed over Europe, all was uniform: the food-prohibitions, the Talmudic dualistic ethics, one for the goyim and another for the Jew, the legal system, the runes, the phylacteries, the ritual, the feeling. His Sufism, his Hasidim sect, his Kabbalism, his religious leaders like Baal Shem, his Zaddikism, are equally unintelligible to Westerners. Not only unintelligible, but uninteresting. The Westerner was absorbed in the intense conflicts of his own Culture, and did not observe, except in relation to himself, the life of the Jew in his midst.
Not until the externalized, fact-sensitive 20th century, did the Western Culture notice the Jew as a Cultural phenomenon. In Gothic times, until the Reformation, it saw him as a heathen and usurer, in the Counter-Reformation as a shrewd businessman, in the Enlightenment as a civilized man of the world, in the Age of Rationalism as a fighter in the van of intellectual liberation from the bonds of the Culture and its traditions.
The 20th century saw for the first time that he had his own public life, his own world down to the details. It realized that the comprehensiveness of his outlook was the equivalent of its own in breadth and depth, and therefore alien in a total sense which was never before suspected. In its previous centuries, the viewpoint of the West toward the Jew was limited by its stage of development at the time, but with the 20th century and its universal outlook, the entirety of what has been called “the Jewish problem” is seen for the first time. Not race, not religion, not ethics, not nationality, not political allegiance— but something which includes them all, separates the Jew from the West— Culture.
Culture embraces the totality of world-outlook: science, art, philosophy, religion, Technics, economics, erotic, law, society, politics.
In every branch of the Western Culture, the Jew has developed his own taste and preference, and when he intervenes in the public life of the Western peoples, he conducts himself in a distinct fashion, namely in the style of the public life of the Jewish Church-State-Nation-People-Race. This public life was invisible to the inward West until the 20th century.
Like all nations at the end of their Civilization, e.g., Hindus, Chinese, Arabs, the Jewish nation passed into a caste system. The Brahmin's in India, the Mandarins in China, the Rabbinate in Jewry, are three corresponding phenomena. The Rabbinate were the custodians of the Destiny of the Jewish unity. When freethinkers appeared among the Jews, it was the duty of the local Rabbinate to prevent a schism. In the case of Uriel da Costa, a freethinking Jew of Amsterdam, the local Synagogue had him imprisoned, and subjected him to such persecution that he finally took his own life. Spinoza was excommunicated by the same Synagogue, and an unsuccessful attempt was made on his life. Large bribes were offered him to return to Judaism, and when he refused he was cursed and pronounced anathema. In 1799, the Hasidim leader in Eastern Jewry, Senior Salman, was handed over by the Rabbinate to the Romanov Government after a trial by his own people, much as the Western Inquisition turned over convicted heretics to the State for disposal.
The contemporary West did not even see these phenomena, and would not have understood them if it had. It looked at everything Jewish with its own preconceptions, just as the Jews looked at the West in terms of its advanced outlook.
The Parsee in India is another fragment of the Arabian Culture strewn abroad among aliens. The Parsee possessed vis-à-vis his human surroundings the same superior business acumen as the Jew in the early West. His inner life was entirely apart from the aliens around him. His interests were different in every way. In the disturbances and revolts during the centuries of the British Raj, the Parsee took no part.
In the same way, the Thirty Years’ War, the Succession Wars, the conflict of Bourbon and Hapsburg, did not in any way touch the Jew. Difference of Culture-phase creates complete spiritual insulation. The attitude of the Jew toward Western tensions was that of Pilate at the trial of Jesus. To Pilate the religious issue there involved was utterly hidden— he belonged to a Civilization in its last phase, a thousand years away from the religious excitement of his own Culture.
With the stirrings of Rationalism in the West, however, a caesura is marked in the collective life of that part of Jewry cut off in the Western Culture.
The Culture-crisis of Rationalism was a part of the Destiny of the West. All previous Cultures have gone through it. It marks the turning-point from the inwardness of Culture to the externalized soul-life of Civilization. The focal idea of Rationalism is liberty— which means liberty from the bonds of Culture. Napoleon liberated war from the style of Fontenoy, 1745, where each side courteously invited the other to fire the first shot. Beethoven liberated music from the form-perfection of Bach and Mozart. The Terror of ‘93 liberated the West from the idea of the sacredness of Dynasty. Materialistic philosophy liberated it from the spirit of religion, and ultra-Rationalism then proceeded to liberate science from philosophy. Waves of revolution liberated the Civilization from the dignity of the State and its high traditions into the dirt of party-politics. Class war was liberation from social order and hierarchy. The new idea of “humanity” and “The Rights of Man” liberated the Culture from its old pride of exclusiveness and feeling of unconscious superiority. Feminism liberated women from the natural dignity of their sex and turned them into inferior men.
Anacharsis Cloots organized a deputation of “representatives of the human race” which presented its respects to the Revolutionary Terror in France. There were pig-tailed China men, black Ethiopians, Turks, Jews, Greeks, Tartars, Mongols, Indians, bearded Chaldean's. Actually however, they were Parisians in disguise. This parade had thus at the very beginning of Rationalism a double symbolic significance. First, it symbolized the idea of the West that it now wished to embrace all “humanity,” and secondly, the fact these were disguised Westerners showed the exact amount of success that this intellectualizing enthusiasm would have.
The Jew had of course seen these things coming. Persecution does not diminish intelligence and awareness of one’s surroundings. As early as 1723 the Jews had acquired the right to possess land in England, and in 1753 they acquired English citizenship, only to have it revoked the next year on the petition of all the cities. In 1791 they were emancipated in France, and in 1806 the Great Sanhedrin was summoned by the Emperor Napoleon, thus giving official recognition to the existence within the West of the Jewish Nation-State-People.
Only one thing prevented the new situation from being as idyllic as the new liberal sentiment would have it. Eight hundred years, of robbery, hatred, massacre, and persecution on both sides had roused within the Jew traditions of hatred of the West even stronger than the old Western hatred of the Jew. In its new outburst of generosity and forgiveness, the West renounced its old feelings, but the Jew was unable to reciprocate. Eight hundred years of resentment were not to be removed by a New Year’s Resolution on the part of the alien West. Superpersonal organic unities were here opposed, and these higher unities do not share with human beings things like reason and sentiment. Their life-task is hard and colossal, and excludes feelings of “tolerance” except as a symptom of crisis. In a great battle of this kind, human beings are in the last analysis mere spectators, even though they play an active role. Human malice and desire for revenge play only the smallest, most superficial part in such conflicts, and when they appear, they are the mere expression in the individual of the higher incompatibility, deep and total, between the super personal Ideas.
The new movements— capitalism, industrial revolution, democracy, materialism— all were tremendously exciting to the Jew. In the middle of the 18th century already, he had sensed their potentialities and had fostered their growth in every way. His position as the outsider forced him to act secretly, and the secret societies of the Illuminati and its offspring were his creations, as their Kabbalistic terminology and ritualistic equipment show. More than two thirds of the Estates-General which paved the way to the French Revolution in 1789 consisted of members of these secret societies, committed to undermine the authority of the State and introduce the idea of Democracy. The Jew responded to the invitation of the West to participate in his public life, but it was impossible for him to lose his identity overnight, and so he had from now on two public lives, one before the West and one before his own Nation-State-People-Church-Race.
With the crumbling of the old Western traditions before the onslaught of the new ideas, the Jew forged ahead. The Rothschild's became— what would have been simply fantastic to both sides a century before— barons of the Austrian empire in 1822. Jews penetrated the English bar in 1833, and a Jew was knighted by the Queen— the first one— in 1837. The West acceded to the duality of the Jew and a statute of Victoria relieved Jews elected to municipal office from taking oaths. Jewish Members of Parliament appeared from the forties onward, and a Jew became Lord Mayor of London in 1855. All of these things were resisted by traditional elements of the West, and on each occasion the Jew gained a triumph. The experiment of “tolerance” was visibly failing on both sides.
The amount of power and importance the Jew was gaining was shown by the incident of the boy Mortara. This child was forcibly taken from his Jewish parents, ordinary private persons, by the archbishop of Bologna in 1858, on the plea that he had been baptized by a serving maid. In the same year the French government officially urged restoration of the boy to its parents. The next year, the Archbishop of Canterbury, bishops, noblemen and gentlemen of England signed a petition presented by Lord John Russell asking return of custody of the child.
The persecution continued— there were outbreaks in Bucharest, 1866, Rome, 1864, Berlin, 1880, Russia through the whole century and into the 20th century. This persecution in Russia was an index of the strength of the Jew in the Western nations. Protests, petitions, committees, sought to alleviate the lot of the Jews in Russia and to obstruct the government of Russia. The pogrom in the Ukraine after the Russo-Japanese War, 1905, caused the American government to break off diplomatic relations with Russia.
Hatred or intolerance in no wise explains the numerous unfortunate results attendant upon the Jewish dispersion through the Western nations. The hatred on both sides was a mere result. The more tolerance was talked about, the more attention was focused onto the differences, sharpening them into contrasts. The contrasts led to opposition and action, either covert or open, on both sides.
Nor is it an explanation to blame the Jew for failing to assimilate. This is blaming a man for being himself, and the notion of ethics does not extend to what one is, but only to what one does. The “Jewish problem” is not to be explained ethically, racially, nationally, religiously, socially— but only totally, culturally. From having seen at each phase only that aspect of the Jew which his own development permitted him to, Western man now sees the whole relationship, for his own Cultural unity is uppermost in Western man. In Gothic times, he saw the Jew as different only in religion, because the West was then in a religious phase. In the Enlightenment with its ideas of “humanity,” the Jew was seen merely to be socially different. In the materialistic 19th century with its vertical racism, the Jew was regarded as merely racially different. In this century, with the West passing into a unit of Culture, nation, race, society, economics, State, the Jew appears clearly in his own total unity, a complete inner stranger to the soul of the West.
Antisemitism is precisely analogous in Culture pathology to the formation of anti-bodies in the bloodstream in human pathology. In both cases, the organism is resisting the alien life. Both are inevitable, organically necessary, expressions of Destiny. In fulfilling the proper, Destiny combats the alien. It cannot be said too often that hatred and malice, tolerance and goodwill, have nothing whatever to do with this fundamental process. A Culture is an organism, an organism of a different class from man, just as man is an organism of a different class from animals. But the fundamental regularities of organic life are present in all organisms, of whatever class, plant, animal, man, Culture. This hierarchy of organisms is obviously part of the divine plan, and it cannot be changed by a process of propaganda, no matter how continuous, “tolerance,” no matter how self-renouncing, or self-deception, no matter how complete.
A treatment of Antisemitism raises questions which belong with Culture-distortion, rather than Culture parasitism, and so it may suffice to say here that Antisemitism— again, precisely like the human pathological phenomenon of formation of antibodies in the blood— is the other side of the existence of Culture-parasitism, and is only to be understood as one of its effects. Antisemitism is completely organic and irrational, just as is reaction to human disease. Culture-parasitism is the phenomenon of the totally alien in co-existence with a host, and is also entirely irrational. There is no reason for Culture parasitism.
On the contrary, Reason would seem to dictate that the alien group dissolve and flow into the surrounding life. This would end all the bitter persecution, the sterile hatred, the wasted fighting. But Life is irrational, also during the Age of Rationalism. In fact the only way Rationalism can come onto the stage is in the form of a religion, a Faith, an Irrationality.
The phenomenon of Culture-parasitism is not confined in a High Culture, to the mother-soil of the Culture. This is well shown by the history of America.
America originated as a colony of the Western Culture. This one sentence contains the whole Fate of America. It sets in advance the limit to the potentialities of America. The idea of the Colony must be examined. What is a Colony? It is a creation of a Culture, it is a work, by its mere successful plantation it is something spiritually completed. This is another way of saying it has no inner necessity, no mission. It is thus dependent for its spiritual nourishment on the Mother-Culture. This is as true of America in the Western Culture as it was of Syracuse and Alexandria in the Classical, of Granada and Seville in the Arabian. While fruitful impulses can, albeit rarely, come from the periphery of the Cultural Body, they find their significance in their development in the Culture-center. This spiritual dependence of colonies is weakness. This weakness is expressed by lack of resistance to the Culturally alien, and one would expect to find less organic resistance to the Culturally alien in a colony, for the sense of Cultural mission is not generally present at all, but exists only in isolated individuals or tiny groups at best. The history of Colonies shows us— Syracuse is one example— that Culture-crises, even autopathic ones like the appearance of Rationalism, produce greater effects in them. A colony can be more easily disintegrated, because it lacks the articulation that the Culture has. There is not, cannot be, a Culture-bearing stratum in a Colony. This stratum is an organ of the land-bound High Culture. The Culture cannot be transplanted, even though its populations migrate and remain in contact with the body of the Culture. Colonies are products of a Culture, and represent Life at a less complex and articulate level than the creating Culture.
The comprehension of this elementary fact has always been unconsciously quite complete in America, and in the 20th century has been just as vehemently consciously denied. American men of letters in the 19th century, assimilated Western Culture inwardly, and were assimilated by it. The phenomenon of Edgar Poe has always generated wonder by reason of his complete mastery of Culture-thinking and total independence of his colonial environment. In its higher branches, American belles-lettres has figured as a part of English literature, and quite correctly, as regards most of it. The poverty and meagerness of American letters is attributable to the colonial fate, while its few great names are expressions of Western Culture.
Americans of all callings through the past two centuries, insofar as they were, or wished to be, men of significance, have had their center of gravity in Europe— Irving, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whistler, Frank Harris, Henry James, the finance-plutocracy, Wilson, Ezra Pound. A tradition in America makes a European tour a part of education. Europe continued to possess spiritually those American elements with Culture feelings or Culture ambitions.
In every generalization of organic subject matter, it is sought only to state the great regularity. The deviations always exist in living matter, but find their place only with respect to the larger rhythms. Rationalist thought attempted to disintegrate organic thinking by concentrating on the deviating incidents, in the attempt to destroy the great, sweeping, organic rhythm. It had not even the depth sufficient to grasp the wisdom contained in the saw “the exception proves the rule.”
Even though it became the fashion in America, after its appearance as a world-power, following the Spanish war, 1898-1899, to deny its spiritual dependence upon Europe, the fact continued to exist. By this time we are not surprised when a Culture-fact shows its disregard of human wishes, intentions, demands, statements. America is a subject that needs to be treated separately, as the Culture-disease of the West has given it a new significance in world-politics. In this place, the presence of Culture parasitism in America is the only aspect under consideration.
The first result of the presence of such a Culture-parasitic body is known. He displaced unborn white men in America. By performing part of the life task, he made unborn millions unnecessary, and therefore this great mass of Africans has reduced the population of America by ten per cent, for at the present moment— 1948— the African makes up 14,000,000 out of a total of 140,000,000. The fashionable, materialistic way of explaining this displacement in America is to say that white people will not bring children into the world to compete economically with the blacks and their lower living-standard. Naturally economic obsession explains everything economically, but the facts of population trends show that the population of an organic unity follows a life-path that may even be described mathematically. It is entirely independent of immigration, of the wishes of individuals, and of non-organic explanations given for it. The displacement is Cultural, i.e., total, and is not to be fully explained by economics.
The Colonial mentality, more thoroughly disintegrated by the Rationalist crisis, has been able to oppose no effective defense to the increasing displacement of the white population, the vehicle of America’s attachment to the West, by the African. With equal inability either to comprehend, or to oppose, America has not resisted while the rear-guard of the Arabian Culture, which was strewn throughout the West even at its Cultural origins, has assumed larger numerical proportions and a vastly larger role than it ever had in Europe.
Beginning around 1880, the Jews embarked upon what Hilaire Belloc aptly termed an invasion of the United States. The numbers alone would justify the figure. While they cannot be exactly given, because of the fact that American immigration statistics reflect only legal origins, i.e., nation of legal allegiance, nevertheless they can be approximated from a study of current American population figures, and study of the Jewish birth-rate. How typical this is, of the total incongruence between two different Cultures, that a mass movement of the members of one can occur within the other Culture, and leave no statistical trace. The immigrant was asked where he was born. This was determining of everything for 19th century materialism. It was supposed to fix his language, which then was supposed to govern his nationality. And nationality was supposed to pre-ordain everything else. Such things as petrifaction of dead Cultures— India, China, Islam, Jewry— were regarded as “nations” in the Western sense of the word. In form, Rationalism was definitely a religion, but a bloodless, materialistic caricature of true religion. Religion is properly directed toward the great, higher, things of man’s spirituality, but Rationalism tried to turn things like economics, State, society, nation, into the object of its own religious concern.
America began its independent political existence as a creature of Rationalism. Its politicians agreed to the proposition— externally— that “all men are created equal,” and even said this was “self-evident.” To call it self-evident, and thus dispense with proof, was easier, and perhaps wiser, than to prove it. Proof would have spoiled what is actually a tenet of a Faith, and thus above Reason. The religion of Rationalism dominated America in a way that it was never able to dominate Europe. Europe always had resistance against Rationalism— based on tradition until the middle of the 19th century, and after that based on anticipation of the coming anti-rationalist spirit of the 20th century— as exemplified in Carlyle and Nietzsche. But America did not possess the first because it had no tradition, and had not the second, because Cultural impulses and Culture-forwarding phenomena come from the Mother-soil and are thence radiated outward, as the Rationalistic religion of America came from England, through France.
America acquired even its section of Jewry from Europe, whence it had acquired its materialistic philosophy, to both of which it succumbed. This was no coincidence. The word spread rapidly through the Jewish population of Europe that Antisemitism was less of a threat in America, and that other opportunities, such as the economic, were equal to those Europe offered to the Jew. This was perfectly sound, and was a tribute to the collective Jewish instinct. America did undoubtedly represent in the late 19th century a country with the greatest possibilities for the Jew. From 1880 to 1950, approximately— remember, no exact figures exist— five to seven million Jews arrived in America. They came mostly from the Eastern, or Askkenazic, section of Jewry.
At the present time, the Jews in America number approximately eight to twelve millions. An exact figure cannot be given, because the number is not reflected in any statistics, but must be approximated from religious statistics and study of the birth-rate. At any rate, it is a considerable number, and displaces its own number of Americans from existence. The American writer, Madison Grant, in 1916, described how the American of the old stock was being driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Jews. He calls them “Polish” Jews, as the older custom was to give the Jews a Western nationality.Westerners thus used to differentiate between English Jews, German Jews, and so forth. It was a compulsion of the Western Civilization at that stage to see all other people outside the Civilization in its own image.
America, as the country most completely disintegrated by Rationalism, exhibited the least understanding of the nature of the Jew, while there were always some people in Europe— for instance, Carlyle— even during the 19th century who realized the total, and not merely political, alienness of the Jew. But in America, with its complete lack of tradition, there were no Carlyles, no de Lagardes. Thus America decided, in the middle of the 19th century, that a Chinaman born in the United States thereby acquired exactly the same American citizenship as the white native population of European derivation. Characteristically, the decision was not made in a responsible fashion, but as the result of a lawsuit. This was in pursuance of an American custom of deciding political questions in a pseudo-legal form. Obviously a regime which did not differentiate between Chinese and native American would oppose no political barrier to the Jew. And so, by 1928, the French writer on historical and world-political topics, Andre Siegfried, could say that New York City had a Semitic countenance. By the middle of the 20th century, this development had gone further, and New York City, the largest city in America, perhaps in the world, was almost half Jewish in population.
In examining the nature of race, we saw that Slavs could be, and have been, assimilated by European Culture-populations. Two features distinguish the American relationship to the Slav, and explain why the Slavs have retained their group existence, even though surrounded by an American population under the influence of Western Civilization. First, the fact of its colonial style of existence meant that America could not transmit to entering populations the forceful impress of the Cultural idea that the Western nations on the Mother-soil could. Secondly, the enormous masses, numbering many millions, created, by their mere bulk a pathological condition in the American organism. Even if these millions had been of Western antecedents, such as French, or Spanish, they would have created a politically parasitic group. Naturally such a group would have dissolved eventually, but in the process it would have had a distorting effect on policy in America. Slavic groups, on the other hand, in masses of millions, whose leaders are allowed facilities of welding the group into a firm unity, will only slowly, if ever, dissolve into the American host population, under such conditions.
America has other smaller parasitic groups, each of which displaces unborn Americans, and calls forth the unfortunate displays of hatred and bitterness which waste and twist the super personal life. There is a Japanese group, various Levantine groups, and the Russian group.
Superficially it might seem that the case of America militates against the 20th century view of Race, set forth above, but actually it does not. The American example is no criterion for Europe, for being a colony, it is an area of low Cultural sensitivity, with correspondingly less Cultural force and assimilate power. In other words, its power of adaptation is slighter than that of the Mother-soil.
The case of America is not a case of assimilating too much— it is a case of not assimilating enough. Alien groups— whether merely politically alien, such as a Western group in another Western nation, or totally alien, like the Jew in a Western host— are parasitic only so long as they are groups. When they dissolve, the totality of the assimilating population has increased. The fact that this has come from immigration rather than from increase by birth-surpluses of the native population is not important. The mere fact that they could assimilate shows that they were not alien in a parasitic sense.
Nor must this be ignored in examining Culture-parasitism in America: this American population during the 19th century assimilated many millions of Germans, Irish, English and Scandinavians into its own bloodstream. The 20th century immigration did not come mainly from these European countries, but to the extent that it did, complete assimilation occurred. In the case of the immigrant Germans and Irish, the Yankee armies in the War of Secession employed them in great numbers, and with good success— what never could have been done with Culturally alien groups, e.g., Jews, or Slavs.
America has been called a melting-pot. This it is not, for the massive groups of Culturally-alien provenance have not “melted,” but have remained distinct. Groups not Culturally alien have assimilated at once— which means, in one generation— and thus the 20th century view of Race applies also to the facts of the American scene.
These unassimilated groups in America comprise between one-third and one-half of the population of America. The Slavic groups are apparently slowly being assimilated, but even if they disappeared entirely, the remaining Culturally-parasitic groups would comprise a pathological condition of the utmost seriousness for America.
The old-fashioned view of vertical racism can derive no instruction from the case of America, for what we see there is not the mixture of races, but their non-mixture. All of the parasitic groups have been torn loose from old landscapes, but have no new spiritual connections. Only the landless Jew, who carries Nation, Church, State, People, Race and Culture within him, has preserved his ancient roots.
The phenomenon of Culture-parasitism, even though divorced from ethics, is not outside the realm of policy. It does no good whatever to talk about Culturally alien groups in terms of praise and blame, hatred or “tolerance.”
Wars, riots, massacres, destruction, the entire waste of senseless domestic conflict— all the phenomena which inevitably rise when a host entertains a Culture-parasite, remain as long as the pathological condition lasts.
Culture-parasitism, by calling forth resistant phenomena, has a doubly injurious effect on the body of the Culture and its nations. A fever is a sign of resistance to a disease in a human, but this does not confer a positive health-value on the fever. Its sole value is negative, and the fever itself is a part of the disease, even though the saving part. Resistant phenomena like the anti-Japanese-ism and antisemitism and anti Negro-ism of America are as undesirable as the conditions they are combating. Similarly, European antisemitism has no positive value and moreover it can, if exaggerated, easily develop into another type of Culture-pathology, that aggravated condition which may proceed also from Culture-parasitism under certain conditions, namely, Culture-distortion.
Life is the process of actualizing the possible. But Life is multiform, and organisms, by actualizing their own possibilities, destroy other organisms. Animals devour plants, plants destroy one another, human beings lay waste entire species and slaughter millions of animals. High Cultures by their existence evoke negative impulses from outside populations. Those who do not share this Culture-feeling, which confers such unquestioned superiority on its possessors, instinctively determine to annihilate it. The more powerful the pressure of the High Culture on the outer populations, the more nihilistic is the negative feeling which forms in the under-populations. The more extensive the Culture-expansion geographically, the wider is spread through the world the external will-to-annihilate among the extra-Cultural peoples. Life forms are hostile to one another; the fulfillment of one is the demise of a thousand others. This is another way of saying that Life is war.
A High Culture is no exception to this great Life-regularity. Its existence destroys other forms, and on the other hand, throughout its entire existence, it is engaged in an existential battle against the outsider. On this high plane of contemplation, the attempt to distinguish between offensive and defensive, aggressive and resisting, is seen dearly to be nonsense. It is a pseudo-legal trick of Rationalist conjurers, lost in hyper-intellectualism, and hostile to Life. Defense is aggression, aggression is defense. The question of who strikes first in a war is on the same level as who strikes first in a boxing contest. The 20th century leaves all this cant, stupidity, hypocrisy, and legalistic legerdemain behind it as it strides forward to a century of warfare, the most powerful and unrelenting of all wars hitherto.
But as it faces its most trying period, the period that will demand every fiber of its spiritual reserves, and every atom of its physical resources— it is gravely ill. It is suffering from Culture-distortion.
Culture-distortion is the condition in which outer life-forms are warping the Culture from its true Life path. Just as a human illness may render a man hors de combat so may a Culture illness, and this is precisely what happened to the West, after the turn of the 20th century. Culture-distortion must be clearly understood by the Western Civilization.
It has already been seen that the word outer does not have a geographic meaning when used in the domain of the organic. The phenomenon of Culture-distortion is the result of outer forces at work within the body of the Culture, participating in its public life and policy, directing its energies to problems that have no relation to its inner task, turning its forces, physical and spiritual, to alien problems.
A moment’s thought shows the impossibility of such a Culture-illness arising during the time of the strict Culture, before the turn of Civilization. During those days, the forms of the Culture— in all directions of Life— were so highly developed that they not only required highly gifted souls to master them, but they mastered these souls in the same process. No European thinker, artist, or man of action, could, in the 17th century, have tried to focus European energy onto Asiatic thought, art, or action-forms.
Such a thing might have existed as an imaginative possibility, but it is doubtful whether it was possible in actuality. At any rate, it did not occur for 800 years in the West, except in its rudimentary beginnings. We cannot see Cromwell, Oxenstierna, or Oldenbarneveldt concerning himself with the restoration of the Abassid dynasty in Asia Minor, or the driving out of the usurping Manchus from the ruins of the Chinese petrifact. But if a European statesman had successfully directed Western energy into such a totally alien, sterile enterprise, it would have been Culture-distortion. If an artist had managed to turn Western oil painting into the style of Egyptian linear painting, or of Classical sculpture, that would also have been Culture-distortion. Future volumes of Western history-philosophy in the 20th and 21st centuries will trace out fully the superficially distorting effects in architecture, literature, and economic theorizing, of the Classicist mania introduced by Wincklemann in the 18th century.
They will also list the innumerable distortions arising from Culture-parasitism, during the Rationalist period 1750-1950, of the various life-aspects of the West, artistic, religious, philosophical, scientific, and in the realm of action. This work is concerned with actions, and directs itself mainly to the phenomena of distortion of the Present and the immediate Future, that is the next hundred years.
In the presentation of the articulation of a High Culture, it was seen that not all of the population in the Culture area is available to the Idea. This is quite exclusive of parasitic phenomena. The higher, psychically more sensitive stratum which bears the Culture-Idea, and translates it into progressive actuality, is completely available to the Idea, but the availability is progressively less as one moves downward in the body of the Culture. Downward means, of course, not economically or socially, but spiritually. Thus a man from the lowest possible spiritual stratum may be found in a high position, like the monster Marat. Such individuals belong to no other Culture, even a dead one of the past, and apparently are members of the Culture, but in their souls they wish to destroy all formative Life. Their motives do not matter, for their orientation is obvious.
Such individuals— who make up a whole, large stratum during these centuries— are simply below the Culture. They are only physically within the body of the Culture. They expressed themselves in England in the phenomena of the order of Wat Tyler’s Rebellion and Jack Cade’s Rebellion; in the 16th century Peasant’s Wars in Germany; in the French Terror of 1793 and the Commune of 1871. When Germany existed as a 19th century nation, this stratum below the Culture was known as der deutsche Michel. Phenomena of this type must not be confused with Culture-parasitism. Things like the Michel element— which exists all through Europe, and not alone in the former German nation— are simply below, but they are not per se alien. They are an organic part of every Culture, but parasitism occurs only fortuitously, and not with necessity. The Michel element of a Culture is not a pathology, and is not a Cultural menace in itself. Its sole danger is that it is serviceable to the will-to-annihilate, whether this springs up autopathically, as in Liberalism, democracy, Communism, or exopathically as in the case of the extra-European forces which brought about, during the Age of World Wars, the nadir of the Western Civilization.
In that very situation, the European Michel showed its potentialities for destruction. One section of it worshiped the primitivity of Russian vandalism, the other the spiritually-putrefying disease of Hollywoodism. It was solely by virtue of this European Michel-stratum that the extra-European forces were able to split Europe between them, physically and spiritually. This European Michel, with its attachment to the formless, brought Europe down before the Barbarian and the distorter. In its supreme hatred of grandeur and creativeness, it even allowed itself to be formed into military movements within Europe to sabotage Europe and work for the military victory of the barbarian during the Second World War.
After the War, it learned that its fate was after all bound up with the creative forces of the Culture, for this element was starved, frozen, and looted along with the collective body of Europe in the gruesome aftermath of the victory of the barbarians and distorter.
At the beginning of this treatment of the subject of Cultural Vitalism, it was said that if the extra Cultural forces had succeeded after the Second World War in destroying the entire Culture-bearing stratum of Europe, this stratum would have once again been present in thirty to sixty years. The statement was of course, hypothetical, for this did not occur. The mere fact that someone is writing and someone is reading this is proof that they did not succeed.
The basis of that statement was the tremendous, ever-youthful, vigor of a High Culture. The West has a Future, and this Future must be inwardly fulfilled. Inwardly is distinguished from outwardly, for whether or not the West fulfills its outward potentialities is as much a matter of Incident as it is of Destiny.
The inner Future of the West contains many necessary developments, such as the Rebirth of Religion, the attainment of new heights in Technics and chemistry, perfection of legal and administrative thinking, and others. These could all be fulfilled under a permanent occupation by barbarians from other continents. The grandest, mightiest side of Life, that of action, of war and politics, would express itself in such a regime in inexorable, continuing, bitter revolt against the Barbarian. Instead of planting the flag of the West at the antipodes, it would be reduced to trying to free the sacred soil of the West from the heel of the primitive. It was therefore no causal-predestination thought when it was said that the Culture-bearing stratum would reconstitute itself even though every one of its contemporary members were entirely wiped out by scaffold-trials.
Contained in that statement was this: either the West will fulfill its tremendous, world-embracing Destiny of unlimited, Absolute Imperialism, or else— all this energy will go into warfare on European soil against the alien, and whatever European elements he finds serviceable to him. As is true of all wars, hatred is dissociated from the necessity of this process. Wars do not come from hatred, but from organic rhythms. The choice is not between War and Peace, but between a Culture-forwarding war, or a Culture distorting war.
If Europe remains under the outer forces, they will be sending their soldiers into a graveyard, for the might of the West is not to be annulled by a mountain of propaganda, mass-armies of occupying “soldiers,” nor by millions of traitors in the Michel stratum. For two centuries the streams of blood will flow, irrespective of the wish of any human being. It is the nature of super personal organisms to express their possibilities. If it cannot be done in one way, it will be done in another. This idea conscripts men, and it discharges them only by their individual deaths. It has no legal hold on them, no formal allegiance, no threat of court-martial: its claim on them is total. It is a selective conscription: the higher a man’s gifts, the stronger is the bond which the Idea lays on him. What have the barbarians and distorter's to oppose this? Against their murderous Russian slaves, their savage Negroes, their hapless, go-home conscripts from North America, Europe pits its unconquerable super personal superiority. Europe stands at the beginning of a world-historical process; the end is not in sight. When— or even whether— complete success will come is not visible. Perhaps before it is over, the outer forces will have mobilized the swarming, polluting masses of China and India against the body of the Western Civilization. This kind of thing does not affect the continuation of the conflict, but only its size.
It is absolutely necessary to the continuance of the subjugation of Europe that the outsiders have large numbers— whole societies, groups, strata, remnants of dead 19th century nations— of domestic European populations available for their purposes. Against a united Europe, they could never have made their way in, and only against a divided Europe can they maintain themselves. Split! divide! distinguish!— this is the technique of conquest. Resurrect old ideas, old slogans, now quite dead, in the battle to turn European against European. But work always with the weak, Culture-less stratum against the strong bearers and appreciators of Culture. These must be “tried” and hanged.
This availability of the under-strata of the Culture to outside forces is one type, and the most dangerous, of that form of Culture-pathology called Culture-distortion. It is closely related however to another type called Culture-retardation.
It only came about because certain elements in the West preferred to ruin all Europe rather than allow Europe to pass into the next Cultural stage, the Resurgence of Authority.
Any such historical phenomenon as this does not appear in a moment. The beginnings of this terrible division of the West are found in the origins of Rationalism. Even in the Wars of the Austrian Succession, there is a new ferocity which presaged the coming split. In that war, the Allies actually planned completely to partition the territory of the Culture-nation of Prussia. Participating were to be Sweden, Austria, France— and Russia. It is true that during the Romanov regime, from the 17th to the 20th centuries, Russia figured as a State and Nation of the Western style. Nevertheless, there were open misgivings on both sides, and there was a difference between partitioning of Asiatic border-land like Poland between Western powers and Russia, and the sharing of the Mother-soil of Europe with Russia.
In the battle of the Dynasts and Traditionalists against Napoleon, the tendency went further, and in 1815 at the Vienna Congress, the Czar with his troops occupying half Europe— a fact of which he frequently reminded the European monarchs— was able to pose as the savior of the West. Thus the Fürstenbund and England were actually on the verge of the Culturally pathological when they pushed their battle against a Western sovereign, Napoleon, to the point where they admitted Russian troops to European capitals. It is however quite certain that the Western veneer of Russia was determining in the matter: the Fürstenbund and Pitt’s England would not have admitted a nihilistic Russia or the Turk to Europe as a means of defeating Napoleon and therewith themselves.
But the tendency did not stop there— in the First World War, between the two European nations, both in 19th century style, England and Germany, England again embraced Russia as an ally, and painted the Romanov despotism as a “democracy” before Europe and America. Fortunately for the West there was a counter-tendency, and when the Bolshevik started his westward march after the war, he was thrown back by a Western coalition before Warsaw in 1920. In the armies against Bolshevism were Germans, French, English, but yesterday enemies, today united against the barbarian. Even the Americans sent two expeditions against the Bolshevik, one to Archangel, and one to Eastern Siberia. [yes but they were there as allies of the Bolshevik's against the Whites DC]
During the period of preparation of the Second World War, 1919-1939, it appeared at several moments as though the coming war could take the form of a struggle by certain of the powers of the West— for the West was still divided at that time into a collection of tiny States— against Russia, while others of these petty States would remain neutral, giving economic assistance. Such a moment occurred in June, 1936, when the leading four among these petty States signed a protocol embodying a general understanding among themselves. This protocol was never ratified. No less than twenty separate efforts were made between 1933 and 1939 by the bearers of the 20th century Idea to effect a general understanding with those of the petty States still in the grip of the 19th century Idea, which was already by then manifesting rigor mortis. Naturally, the leading elements of the Culture-bearing stratum in these latter petty States were in contact with the new Idea, but certain elements were opposed by reason of their spiritual insensitivity, their materialistic shallowness, their negativistic jealousy, their firm roots in the Past, and— to put the most important reason last— by reason of their material interests in the perpetuation of the 19th century type of international and domestic economy, from which they alone were profiting, and from which the entire Western Civilization was suffering.
These latter elements decided to allow the division of Europe between Asia and America rather than to embrace the Future of the West.
When the struggle between Tradition and Innovation, the Old and the New, natural and normal in every Culture, reaches this degree, it is Culture-pathology. This form of Culture-pathology is definable by the intensity of the hatred of the Future of the Culture it shows. It reaches the point of self-destruction rather than giving up the rigid Past to the vigorous Future. When the conservative elements come to hate the creative elements so intensely that they will do anything to encompass their military defeat, including self-destruction, it becomes Culture-treason, and is classified as an acute form of Culture-pathology.
The hallmark of this Culture-disease is solely the question of degree. Every new Idea in the Culture has been opposed— in architecture, music, literature, economics, war, and statecraft. But until this horrible outbreak of Culture-sickness in the 20th century, the opposition to the creative had never attained to a totality that can only be adequately described as maniacal.
Culture-pathological also was the base and servile buckling throughout the Second World War of this sub-Western element to the parasitic forces and barbarian forces to which it had voluntarily submitted in its hatred of Europe and its Future. With unforgettable dishonor it threw millions of Western soldiers to the Russian savages, to disappear forever into the unmarked graves of Siberia. This Michel element cooperated with and aided the Barbarian enthusiastically, and naively gave him all its secrets, but this same Barbarian accepted all the aid without thanks and returned for it suspicion, sabotage, and hatred.
The Michel element of the West went down with the defeat of the West and its passing under the Barbarian and the distorter. The pathology of Culture-retardation had in this case tragic consequences for the representatives of the Past as well as for those of the Future. Actually they are more tragic, for in the battle of the Past against the Future, the Past is doomed. Eventually the Idea of the Future will triumph inwardly even if its external Destiny is frustrated. Mechanism in politics will give way to the Future just as mechanism in biology has long since yielded. The idea of individuals having power over the gigantic economies of superpersonal organisms is doomed, and this is one of the things the sub-Western, Futurehating elements wished to save for themselves. Materialism, their world-outlook, has given way almost everywhere in the West to historical skepticism, which will make way for mysticism and the Rebirth of Religion. The most they have salvaged from the general destruction is an accumulation of small personal advantages for themselves. To show their appreciation, the Barbarian and the distorter have appointed them their deputies in Europe. How symbolic it was that the puppets who were placed in the formerly important positions in Europe after the Second World War were old men! They were even old, biologically speaking, but spiritually they were two centuries old, rooted in the dead parliamentaristic past. It did not matter to the new rulers of Europe that these superannuated appointees lacked vigor and creativeness— that is in fact precisely why they were chosen. Anyone with vigor of any sort was carefully scrutinized by the new rulers. Lethargy coupled with oratory was preferred to the will-to accomplishment sans the stream of 19th century patriotic verbiage.
This is the result of Culture-Retardation. Without it, the outer forces could never have succeeded in grinding the flower of Western Culture under the heel of their primitivity and stupidity. It played, however, only a subordinate role. The study of pathology of other organic life-forms, plant, animal, and human, offer numerous examples of simultaneity of disease, in which the damage done by one promotes the spread of another. The simultaneity of pneumonia and tuberculosis in the human organism is but one case. The more serious disease which was running its course contemporaneously with the Culture retardation illness, and which was promoted by the latter condition was an aggravation of Culture parasitism, which becomes Culture-distorting when the parasite takes an active part in the life of the Culture.
During the American occupation of England, 1942-1946, several large race battles occurred, with both sides using automatic weapons, between American troops and Negro troops, both of whom were there on a mission against England and Europe. The limited utility of Culturally-parasitic groups for purposes of military conscription is shown by this example. Actually, these Negro troops were a part of an American command engaged in the destruction of Europe, but a slight social incident in a public-house was enough to cause a flaming-up of the racial hatred developed by the sharing of the same life by parasite and host. Troops from parasitic groups have little value if they are always two steps away from a race riot, and the Rationalists and Liberals discovered this by experimentation, rather than by looking at the chronicles of 5,000 years of the history of High Cultures. These Negro troops showed their willingness to destroy America as well as Europe. These examples of heightened tension between host and parasite are but the simpler form of the disease of Culture-distortion arising from parasitic activity. They differ only in degree from the resistance to Culture-parasitism. Much more serious is that form in which the parasite moves squarely into the public life of the Culture, or the Culture-nations, and directs their policy into his own channels. Neither in America nor in South Africa has the Negro attained to this significance. Nor yet have the Japanese, Chinese, Levantine, or Indian groups in America.
One group, however, has brought about a major Culture-distortion throughout the entire Western Civilization and its colonies on every continent, and that is the rear-guard in the West of the fulfilled Arabian Culture, the Church-State-Nation-People-Race of the Jew.
From the Arabian Culture, which was inwardly fulfilled by about 1100 A.D., the Jew derived his world outlook, his religion, State-form, Nation-Idea, People-feeling, and unity. From the West however he has derived his race and his Life-mission. We saw the developing of this race in the ghetto-existence during the first 800 years of our Western Culture. As Rationalism became more articulate— from 1750 on— and the Jew sensed the wider possibilities for him of the new Life-phase of the West, he began to agitate against the ghetto which he had created for himself in the early days as symbol of his unity, spiritual and physical. This race had a different ideal type from the Western, and this influenced the material which passed into the collective blood-stream of the ghetto-race. In the middle of the 20th century one sees Jews with Nordic pigmentation, but the racial purity has adapted the new material to the old racial look. To 19th century vertical racism, these phenomena were uncanny, but the 20th century has seen the primacy of the spiritual in race-formation. When it is said, therefore, that the Jew derived his race from the West, it is not meant that he drew entirely on the stock of the Western peoples to recruit his own— although this did, and does, go on to some extent— but that by serving, through its own Cultural imperative, as a totally alien mass around the Jew, the West prevented the dilution and disappearance of the Jewish unity.
For, it must be said, that while contact with the foreign is harmful to an organism when the foreign is within the organism, it is the opposite when the foreign is without— such contact strengthens the organism. That generates war, and war is strengthening to an organism. The Crusades, the birth-cry of the West, made the new organism firm, proved its viability. The wars of Castile and Aragon war against the Barbarian gave Spain the inner strength to bear its grand Ultramontane mission. England’s victories on colonial battlefields all over the world gave it the compelling sense of a mission. Rome’s wars in its national infancy gave it the inner firmness which enabled it to undertake the Punic Wars which gave it mastery of the Classical Civilization at last.
Thus it is obvious that the mutual contact of the West and the Jew had an opposite signification for the two organisms. To the Jew, it was a source of strength, and informing; to the West it was a drain of strength, and deforming. The Jew was within the West, but the West was not within him. Persecution strengthens, if it stops short of extermination. The quotation which stands at the beginning of this work is as true for the West now as it was for the Jew in the early days.
When the subject of persecution is touched upon, the source of the Life-mission of the Jew has been named. A millennium of massacres, robbery, cheating, burning, insults, mistreatment's, expulsions, exploitation— these were the gift of the West to the Jew. They not only strengthened him, made him race-hard, but gave him a mission, the mission of revenge and destruction. The Western peoples and monarchs were storing up explosives in the soul of the alien in their midst.
The great organic regularity of war governs Life: even primitive tribes in Africa engage in war, when they have, as far as a Culture-people can see, nothing whatever to fight about. The appearance of a High Culture on the earth, and the concentration of power which its high organization and articulation give to it, bring about in the human surroundings a counter-will to destroy, balancing the will-to-create of the High Culture. In Life, not-to-belong is the same as to oppose. The opposition may be in abeyance long or forever because of other, stronger oppositions, but it remains, latent and potential. The contact of two super personal organisms can only engender opposition and war. The West and the Jewish organism were engaged during the millennium of their contact in constant, unremitting war. It was not the warfare of the battlefield, of the clash of ships-of-the-line, but a different form of war.
The total alien-ness of the Jew made him politically invisible to the West. It did not regard him as a nation, for he had no dynasty, no territory. He spoke the prevailing language of whatever landscape he was in. He had no visible State in the Western style. It seemed that Jewry was simply a religion, and as such not a political unit, for even in the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648, religion played a subordinate role to dynastic politics, and Fronde politics. Therefore, even though the West itself had given the Jew his political mission of revenge and destruction, it could not see him as a political unit.
And so the war between the Western Culture and the Jew was a subterranean one. The Jew could not emerge in his unity and fight the West openly, for the reason of the odds involved. The West would at once have united against an open Jewish attack, and destroyed him utterly. The Jew had perforce to carry on his politics by the method of penetrating the conflicts among Western forces, ideas, States, and trying to influence the out come in his favor. He favored always the side pointing toward materialism, triumph of economics, opposition to absolutism, opposition to the religious unity of the West, freedom of trade and usury.
The tactics of this Jewish warfare was employment of money. His dispersion, his materialism, his finished cosmopolitanism, all precluded him from taking part in the heroic form of combat on the field, and he was thus confined to the war of lending, or refusing to lend, of bribing, of gaining legally enforcible power over important individuals. Since the early days when the Western Popes had forbade Christians to take interest, the Jew had enjoyed a favored economic position. Cromwell brought them back to England when he decided there was “not enough money in the land.” Theirs were the largest banking houses in the West in the 17th century. The Bank of England itself was founded on concessions granted to Ali-ben-Israel by Cromwell. This bank proceeded to give 4 1/2 per cent on deposits and re-lent to the Government at 8 per cent.
This tactic had not been freely available to him before the middle of the millennium. Scholastic philosophy, the laws of the Church, the Spirit of the Age, the power of the feudal barons to rob him— all were against the Jew. St. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, in the 13th century, taught that trade was to be despised, as being the creature of desire for gain, which tends to become measureless, that the taking of interest was injustice, that the Jews should be deprived of the money they had taken through usury, and forced to work and give up their lust for gain. Various Popes directed bulls against the economic practices, the materialism, the rising influence, of the Jew.
But the Soul of the West itself was slowly externalizing. The decisive turning-point of 1789 was prepared for by centuries of slow changes. The old inwardness of the West, which gave to the feudal centuries their self-evident spiritual cohesion, gradually was undermined by new conflicts especially those of town versus country, of trade-nobility versus land-nobility, of materialism against the spirit of religion. The Reformation was a schism in the whole soul of the West. In it appeared as a symbol of the coming triumph of materialism the system of Calvinism. Calvin taught the sanctity of economic activity; he sanctioned usury; he interpreted wealth as a sign of Election to salvation. This spirit was abroad; Henry VIII legalized usury in England in 1545. The old Western doctrine of the sinfulness of usury was rejected.
This represented liberation for the Jew, accessibility to power, even if disguised, invisible power. In the Reformation time, the Jew was found everywhere fighting against the Church, and, as between Luther and Calvin, supporting Calvin, for Luther also rejected usury. The victory of Puritanism in England, an adaptation of Calvinism, gave the Jew favorable conditions. The Puritan writer Baxter even recognized a religious duty to choose the more gainful of two economic choices. To choose the less gainful was to disregard the will of God. This atmosphere protected and increased the Jew in his possessions, so that none of the old robbery by monarchs and barons could occur again.
The distorting effects of the presence of the Jew on Western economic life from the very beginning have been comprehensively set forth by the outstanding European economic thinker Werner Sombart in his Jews and Modern Capitalism. After the awakening within the Western soul of a stronger interest in the material world, the Jew became more secure, more indispensable, and more powerful. Even if he had wished to go into callings other than usury, they were closed to him, for the Western guilds admitted only Christians. His original economic superiority was thus maintained, and highly-placed Westerners in many cases became dependent on him. They in turn could not attack him, for the new commercial laws, reflecting the growing spirit of trade, protected him in his possessions, his bonds, and his contracts. The story of Shylock shows the dual picture of the Jew— socially cringing on the Rialto, but emerging as a lion in the courtroom. It was the West that cast him into these two roles. It expected him to play a purely subordinate part, and at the same time it gave him a path to a leading part.
The more materialistic the Culture became, the more it approached the Jew, and the greater was his advantage. The West gradually abandoned its exclusiveness, but he retained his, invisible to the West.
The epoch is the appearance of Rationalism, the radical affirmation of Materialism. Around 1750, the new ideas are ascendant in the West: “freedom,” “humanity,” Deism, opposition to religion and to absolutism, “democracy,” enthusiasm for “the people,” belief in the goodness of human nature, “Return to Nature.” Reason challenges tradition, and slowly the old, highly-refined Western structures of thought and statecraft go down. Lessing, in this period, put the Jew into a leading role in his play Nathan der Weise, what a century before would have been ridiculous. The intellectuals became enthusiastic for the ghetto man with his highly refined caste system, his private religion existing side by side with his external materialism. He was the cosmopolitan and, as such, seemed to the Western intellectuals to be pointing toward the Western future. For the first and last time, Westerners and Jews worked together on Cultural tasks— the spreading of the new ideas. The Cultural distortion now spread to the political life. The form of the French Revolution was due to Culture-distortion. The particular epoch that this great episode marks is, of course, an organic Western development. The distortion is manifest in these particular facts, occurring in this particular way, in this particular time and place. Otherwise put— the distortion occurred on the surface of history, not in its depths, for there distortion cannot occur. A human analogy is offered in incarceration: it distorts the surface of a man’s life, by changing all the facts of it, but it does not touch his inner development, physical or spiritual. Distortion is twisting, warping, frustration; it is not killing, nor can it kill. It is a chronic illness, a running sore, a waste, an impurity in the Cultural life-stream.
The philosopher has treated in full outline the best known example of Culture-distortion in the Arabian Culture. There it was the old, civilized, Romans who permeated the new upspringing life of the Aramaean world. This new Culture had to force its way through the entire corpus of life-forms of the Roman world in order to express itself. Its early centuries are a progressive emancipation from Culturedistortion, a fight against Culture-distortion. The Mithradatic Wars are an early outbreak of this fight. The Romans were the “Jews” of that world, i.e., the finished economic thinkers, with complete Cultural unity, in the midst of an area of awakening religion. The distortion extended into every direction of Life— law, philosophy, economics, politics, literature, war. Its occurrence was at the very inception of the Culture, which slowly freed itself from the completely alien world of the Roman. But the inmost soul of this new Culture was not touched by the distortion— it was its actualization, its surface, its expression, its facts, that were distorted.
Similarly, it is only the facts of the period 1775-1815, the period of the French Revolution, that were distorted. The great transition which was symbolized by this horrible event— the change of direction of the soul of the West from Culture to Civilization— could have happened in innumerable other ways.
It was the policy of the distorter's to make the French public finance dependent on debts and interests, as
they had long since made the English government. An absolute monarchy, however, with its
centralization of power, militates against the subservience of the State to the power of Money. Therefore
the idea was to introduce constitutional monarchy into France, and for this purpose, the distorter's and
their instrument, Necker, forced the summoning of the Estates-General. Its membership was also
determined by the distorter's to a large extent, and a constitutional monarchy was instituted.
Necker immediately tried to raise two large loans, without success. A solution of the financial crisis
was suggested by Talleyrand in the form of confiscation of the real property of the Church. Mirabeau
supported this and further suggested the issue of currency against the confiscated property. Necker
refused, since such money, non-interest bearing and unconnected with debt, would not serve the
distorter's.
In the financial crisis, Necker was exiled, and Mirabeau became dictator. He immediately issued land money to save the country from the panic the distorter's were trying to bring about. But outside France, Necker, representing the power of Money and the distorter's, then launched a continental war against France, exciting it from both within and without. The idea was that a war would necessitate large foreign purchases by France in England, Spain, and elsewhere; that the land-money, the assignats, would be refused by the Money powers outside of France, and that France would be forced to succumb to the gold monopolists. From this war a straight line led to the Terror.
At the very beginning of the Civilization we see the same gigantic conflict between Authority and Money that lasts for generations into the Future. It is the battle of Napoleon against six coalitions. Napoleon has been painted by a distorted history-writing as a mere conqueror; his State-philosophy is ignored. But his autarchic economic ideas were dearly outlined by him to Las Casas and to Caulaincourt. He saw economy as production, not trade, and based primarily on agriculture, secondarily on industry, and lastly on foreign trade. He was opposed to interest-bearing money. [Interesting and definitely true on the distortion of just who Napoleon was,we have been steered in a direction,but just how many have actually looked at the man instead of listening to the history we have been fed? DC]
The battle of the distorter's against these ideas contributes much to the form of the facts of Western history from Napoleon’s assumption of the Consulate to 1815. Regardless of what these facts would have been otherwise, it was a distortion of Western history that a Culture-parasite engaged actively and decisively in the expression of the Western soul. In the battle between Western forces, the outcome of which is organically shaped by the progressive development of our Culture-soul, the casting of totally foreign power into the balance is a warping and frustration.
We do not know what Western history had otherwise been, but it is quite obvious that the power of Money never would have enjoyed its absolute sway during the 19th century if it had not been for the disease of Culture-distortion. There would have been two poles in the Western soul— reaching down into every individual— the pole of money-thinking, and the pole of authority and tradition. The absolute triumph of Money exacted a horrible toll of Western lives and health. It sacrificed the agricultural class of whole countries to the selfish interest of Trade. It let loose wars for private interests with the blood of patriots. The Opium War is enough to name— a war in which English soldiers and sailors had to die in order to force upon the Chinese Emperor recognition and protection of the opium monopoly enjoyed by distorter's based in the Western Civilization.
The debt system was forced onto every European State. Prussia borrowed from Nathan Rothschild in 1818. Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, followed in order. But the shallow materialistic Spirit of the Age, hostile as it was to deep thinking and probing beneath the surface remained blind, Philosophy, which had produced Berkeley and Leibnitz, was contented now with Mill and Spencer. Economic thinking was satisfied with Adam Smith, who taught— in the face of the ruin and destitution of millions— that the pursuit of his own selfish economic interests by each man would advance the collective life. When amazing propositions like these were accepted generally, it is not surprising that but few Westerners were conscious of the distortion of the Cultural life of the West. Byron was one of these few, as The Age of Bronze, and lines in Don Juan and other poems, show us. Charles Lamb and Carlyle were also aware, but for the most part Westerners were bent upon execution of the command of Louis-Phillipe: Enrichissezvous!
But that was the effect of the distorter's from two sides. The masters of money worked solely for the spread of the Sovereignty of Money over the old traditions of the West. From the under side, the distortion of Marxism denied everything else in the world except economics, and said that the proletariat must exploit the Western Civilization for its own benefit.
From the examination of the articulation of a High Culture, the Cultural importance of the “proletariat” is known. In one word, it is— nihil. This is a plain fact, not an expression of an ideology, and because it is a fact, the distorter Marx, with his abysmal, snarling hatred of the Western Civilization, chose it as an instrument of destruction. From above and below, the distorter's sought to employ the only techniques they understood, economic ones, in an instinctive attempt to destroy the body of the hated West. This, it cannot be said too often, is outside praise and blame: the distorter's were acting from compulsion, their conduct was irrational, unconscious, springing from organic necessity.
The idea of Money, and the idea of class-war on an economic basis, both appear in other Cultures at a corresponding time. The distortion of our life was not manifest in the mere existence of these phenomena, but in their universality, their absolute form, and the bitterness with which they confused and divided the entire West. The presence of the distorter, a sort of organic catalyst, is interwoven into all these disintegrating, shattering ideas and developments.
The West only succumbed to this Culture-distortion because of its own externalization. Once the West began to dabble with Materialism, the distorter's aggravated it. The breaking down of some barriers led the distorter to work for the removal of all distinctions. He turned Deism into atheism— but kept his own runes and phylacteries. In the battle of Rationalism against Tradition, he enhanced the division of the West by ever more absolute demands.
The very status of the distorter was the occasion of bitter discord in the Western nations. In England, public life was distorted over the question, which continually came up, of Jewish status. This question had nothing whatever to do with the English organism, but in battle after battle, Englishmen wasted themselves fighting for or against things like Jewish citizenship, membership in Parliament, in the Bar, the professions, government offices. Similar struggles divided Western society every where. The result of the steady financialization of the economic life, substituting the idea of Money for the idea of goods, was the steady ruination of the material and spiritual life of the working people and farmers in all the Western lands. The death of millions through the 19th and 20th centuries from conditions of dirt, malnutrition and sub-human living conditions, through typhus, hunger, and tuberculosis, is traceable to the transformation of the economy of production into a battlefield of the Master of Money against the entrepreneur and the industrialist. The Master of Money was the one who brought about the triumph of the corporate form of business ownership. This forced every business owner into interest servitude to the Master of Money, for it was the latter who bought the shares and then proceeded to grind the employees of the enterprises by turning the proceeds of the industry entirely into dividends. To a banker, wages paid to living human beings as the economic basis of their lives are merely a “cost of production.” To lower this “cost” was to increase his own profits. It did not matter whether rachitic children, starvation of families, debased national life, was the result— the aim was Profit.
The ideology was that each working-man could, if he wished, become a Master of Money. If he did not, it was his own fault. The Money Masters owed no duty to anyone, for they had made themselves. Not the converse, however, for if their foreign holdings were attacked, it was the patriotic duty of the starvelings to rescue the Money Masters.
The terrible results of the ascendancy of Money in throwing whole sections of the population into existence on the margin of starvation, had, as was to be expected, a counter-effect. The resultant seething discontent of these masses was also rendered into an instrument of the policy of the distorter's.
In between was the enemy— the body of the Western Civilization. Above was the financial technique of mastery over this body. Below was the trade-union technique. The millions of the others were the spoils of this war on two fronts. The role of the distorter was to increase the division, render it sharper, make it work for his advantage. No historian has ever presented the policy and effect of the Culture distorter's better than Baruch Levy presented it in his famous letter to Marx:
“The Jewish people, taken collectively, will be its own Messiah. It will attain to mastery of the world through the union of all other human races, through abolition of boundaries and monarchies, which are the bulwarks of Particularism, and through the erection of a universal Republic, in which the Jews will everywhere enjoy universal rights.
“In this new organization of mankind the sons of Israel will spread themselves over the whole inhabited world, and they, since they belong all to the same race and culture-tradition, without at the same time having a definite nationality, will form the leading element without finding opposition.
“The government of the nations, which will make up this universal Republic, will pass without effort into the hands of the Israelite's, by the very fact of the victory of the proletariat. The Jewish race can then do away with private property, and after that everywhere administer the public funds.
“Then shall the promises of the Talmud be fulfilled. When the time of the Messiah has come, the Jews will hold in their hands the key to the wealth of the world.”
This was the expression of the foreign body in the Western organism. There is nothing sinister about it to the distorter— to him the West is a brutish monster of pride, selfishness, and cruelty. The life conditions of the two organisms, or any two organisms of this rank, are simply different. For the distorter to promote the economic obsession within the West, which undermines its soul and opens a path for him, is only obedience to the obvious. It is the eternal relationship of host and parasite, which is found in the plant world, the world of animals, and the world of human beings. For the West to be itself is to stifle the expression of the distorter and restrict his soul: for him to be himself is to frustrate the expression of the Western soul.
It must be clearly understood that Culture-distortion cannot kill the host, for it cannot reach to the Soul, but can only affect the expressions of that Soul, as they reach the phase of actualization. If distortion could reach into the Soul, it would no longer be felt as such, for the Soul would be changed. But the Soul continues in its purity and intensity, and its externalizing only is distorted. Here is the source of the tension: the dis-junction between that which was possible and that which has become actual is visible. Reaction begins: with each victory of Culture-distortion, the feeling of frustration grows, and the more determined is the hostility of the Culture-bearing elements. Propaganda cannot touch this process, for it is organic, and must occur, while Life is present.
The simplest illustration would be hypothetical. The Chinese parasitic group in America was never able to attain to the level of Culture-distortion, but let us suppose it had. If it had possessed public power in America at a time when, let us say, England was marking out spheres of influence for itself in China, the Chinese element in America would have inevitably worked for a war by America against England. If its degree of public power had been sufficient, it would have succeeded. This would have been distortion of the international life of the Western Civilization. It would have been an intra-Western war on a Chinese issue. This hypothetical case did occur, repeatedly, with other participants, throughout the 19th century. Whatever country was engaged in persecution of the Culture-distorter in Europe, or whatever country was slow in granting him the civil rights, legal protection, and financial possibilities that he needed, found itself the object of the policy of the Culture-distorter. The distortion was never absolute, for the public power of the distorter was never that. It was always a mere twisting, not a transformation; an influence, not a command; hidden, not visible; a deviation, not a straight line. The distorter never appeared as himself, for so to do would have been to destroy himself, a tiny parasite in a gigantic host. Distortion was always masked by Western ideals— freedom, democracy, liberty, and the like. This, again, was not sinister, for it was a life-necessity of the distorter thus to conduct his policy. His small numbers precluded a challenge of the entire West on the battlefield.
During the entire 19th and early 20th centuries there was, in addition to the surface history of Western politics and Western economics, another history— that of the advance of the Culture-parasite through his own politics, with consequent distortion of Western politics and economics. The contemporary Europe could only catch glimpses of this second history. Because of its political nationalism, it could not conceive of a political unit without a definite territory, a definite language, a “Constitution,” an army, a navy, a Cabinet, and the rest of the Western political equipment. It was not acquainted with the history of the Arabian Culture and its Nation-idea, nor with the unity of its remnant that was strewn through the West.
Within each nation it worked for the adoption of constitutions, the attenuation of the old aristocratic forms, the spread of “democracy,” the rule of parties, the extension of the franchise, the breaking down of the old exclusiveness of the West. All of these transformations are quantitative, the negation of quality. The democratization of a land was a prerequisite to the conquest of power therein. If the resistance was too great within, other nations where power had already been gained were mobilized against the recalcitrant nation, and war was the result.
Throughout the 19th century Russia— which still figured then as a member of the Western State system— Austria, and Prussia resisted Culture-distortion. The Church of Rome also stood out, and was marked down as an enemy.
By 1858 the point had been reached where the Culture-distorter could mobilize the government of France and the public sentiment of England in the case of the Mortara child. When an international incident among Western nations could be created by the case of one private Jewish child, it is not surprising that much larger Jewish affairs could bring about much greater international results in the Western political system.
The greatest enemy of all was Russia, the land of the pogrom. It has been seen that when there was a large pogrom in Kiev in 1906, the Roosevelt government in America broke off diplomatic relations with the Russian government. No Americans were concerned in any way in the pogrom, and so the case is indicative of the strength of the distorter. If the victims of the pogrom had been Laplander's, Cossack's, Balt's, or Ukrainians, it would have passed unnoticed by Washington.
The First World War, both in its original form, and in its development, was not at all indicative of the Western problems of the time. The treatment of this great turning-point belongs to another place, but here the result for Russia, the great enemy of the distorter, can be shown. The connection of the Culturedistorter with Bolshevism was the subject of loud boasting in his press in the early days of Bolshevism. Romanov Russia was paid back a thousandfold for the pogroms of three centuries. The Czar and his family were shot against a wall in Ekaterinburg, and a Kabbalistic symbol was scrawled above their bodies. The entire stratum which had been the vehicle of the Western Civilization in Russia was massacred or driven out. Russia was lost to Europe, and became the greatest threat to the Western body.
In the Bolshevist wars, plagues, and famines, immediately following the Revolution, a number between ten and twenty millions perished. The slogan was: Destroy everything!— which meant— everything Western. Among other changes in Russia, antisemitism was made a crime.
This example shows the magnitude to which Culture-distortion can attain. The tremendous formative power of the Western Culture had pulled Russia into its spiritual orbit. The instrument of this development was Peter the Great. The Romanov dynasty he founded in the 17th century had been the great symbol of the ascendancy of the Western spirit in the vast subcontinent called Russia, with its teeming millions of primitive populations. The transformation was, of course, not complete. It could not have been, since a High Culture has a situs, and does not move about. Nevertheless the Romanov dynasty and the Western stratum it represented in Russia gave Europe for three centuries comparative security in the East. Bolshevism removed this security.
When the armies of Alexander occupied Paris in 1814, they were compelled by the Western veneer of their leaders to behave as Western troops. It was somewhat as though Western troops were occupying a foreign Western capital. But the Bolshevist troops which planted the red flag in the heart of Europe in 1945 had nothing in common with the West whatever. In their primitive blood and instincts was the wordless imperative: destroy everything!
The high refinement of our Western arts, and their esoteric nature, which made them accessible only to a few, made their distortion by Cultural outsiders impossible. Westerners themselves occasionally— for instance Chippendale, the Classicists in belles lettres, philosophy, and the arts of form— sought to introduce extra-Cultural motives in Western things, but they transformed them in their very using of them, adapting them to our feeling. But there are no Culture-distorter's in a great Western art during its period of highest development. Calderon, Rembrandt, Meister Erwin von Steinbach, Gottfried von Strasburg, Shakespeare, Bach, Leonardo, Mozart, have no counterparts with extra-Cultural backgrounds. Oil painting and music remained entirely Western as long as they were in process of fulfillment. When, with the end of the 19th century, both of these great arts had become history, the distorter's emerged with atrociousness in the pictorial realm, and clangor in the world of music.
Because of the extent of their public power, they were able to hold up these horrors as worthy successors to Rembrandt and Wagner. Any minor artist continuing to work in the old traditions was smothered, while a Culture-distorter was praised as a great artist. The tendency in the middle of the 20th century finally became simply to take old works of art and distort them, without any pretense as to the process. A form of “music” taken from the primitive culture of African aborigines was adopted, and the works of Western masters were forced into this form. The pretense of originality was given up. When a Culture-distorter produced a drama, it was often simply a Shakespearean play, distorted, twisted, and made to convey the social propaganda of the distorter. Any other drama was stifled by the total ascendancy of the Cultural outsider, and his control of the channels of publicity.
In this realm, as in the realm of action, it was exclusiveness that kept the Western soul pure in its expressions, and it was the victory of quantitative ideas, methods, and feelings that laid the life of the West open to the entrance of the Culture-distorter.
In the domain of action, Money, Democracy and Economics— all quantitative, none of them exclusive— had admitted the outsider to public power. Without Western materialism, money-thinking,and liberalism, the entry of the outsider into Western public life had been as impossible as the mastery of Talmudic casuistry would have been to a Westerner.
And with this, we come to the Future.
The coming developments of the Western Soul are known. Authority is re-appearing, the old Western pride and exclusiveness are back. The spirit of Money is giving way to Authority; parliamentarism is yielding to order. Social dis-articulation will be replaced by cohesion and hierarchy. Politics is destined to move into a new realm: the Western nations are gone, and the Western nation is coming. The consciousness of the unity of the West supplants the petty-stateism of the 19th century.
Sternness and discipline are the characteristics of the Western soul in the 20th century. Gone are the pathological individualism and feebleness of will of 19th century Europe. Respect for the mystery of Life, and for the symbolic significance of living Ideas take the place of 19th century Materialism. Vitalism has triumphed over mechanism, the soul over Rationalism.
Ever since the appearance of Calvin the West has been steadily moving toward more absolute Materialism. The apogee of the curve was reached by the First World War, and this powerful epoch into a new world marked also the reappearance of the Western soul in its unimpaired purity. It had come through the long Cultural crisis of Rationalism, and its ever youthful Destiny produced the Resurgence of Authority and the unification of Europe in such a self-evident form that no force in Europe save retarders and distorter's— both pathological— even opposed it.
This movement toward Materialism was a movement toward the Culture-distorter in the sense that it made his entry into Western affairs possible. When men were counted, naturally he too was included. But the counting-mania has ceased, and the old exclusiveness is coming back. The phenomenon of Disraeli, a Culture-distorter as prime minister of a Western State, would have been simply unthinkable a century previous, in Pitt’s time, and it is just as unthinkable now and for the Western Future.
The movement away from Materialism is a progression away from the Culture-distorter. In the realm of thought, Materialism is fighting a desperate rear-guard action. It is vanquished in every realm: physics, cosmogony, biology, psychology, philosophy, belles lettres. This irresistible trend simply makes distortion impossible to him, for it makes the affairs of the West inaccessible to him. The Western was always esoteric: when Goethe’s Collected Works were published in 1790, only 600 copies were subscribed. Yet this public was enough for his fame over all Europe. Buxtehude, Orlando Gibbons, Bach and Mozart wrote for a small public, including no Culture-distorters. Napoleon’s policy was understood in its last ramifications by few persons in his contemporary Europe. The distorters could only see so much as touched them. The Culture-bearing stratum of the West is drawing together over the crumbled walls of vertical nationalism. The West is shedding the skin of Materialism, returning to the purity of its own soul for its last great inner task, the creation of the Culture-State-Nation-People-Race-Empire unity of the West, as the basis for the fulfillment of the Inner Imperative of Absolute Imperialism.
The problem of Culture-distortion is therewith fundamentally altered. The very possibility of a parasite being admitted to the public life of the West is fast passing away. With a sound instinct, the distorter has given up Europe, and bases himself henceforth outside Europe.
The old tools of finance-capitalism and class war have lost their efficacy in the presence of the Resurgence of Authority, and only armies matter now. From without, he carries on his same compulsory revenge-mission. In one Western colony, America, Culture-diseases are still present which from there have exerted and continue to exert a decisive influence on world-happening.
Next
America
Since the Culture-bearing stratum has its highest importance in an age like the present one, when quality reasserts itself against quantity, it must be defined now as precisely as possible. The notion of mere prominence must be dissociated strongly from the idea of belonging to this stratum. Wagner, Ibsen, Cromwell, none of whom were prominent until middle life, were nonetheless in this plane of life and thought in their previous years. The notion of prominence is related to the idea of the Culture-bearing stratum in this way: every man who is prominent in any field, and who also has inner gifts, of vision, appreciation, or creativeness, naturally belongs to this stratum. Prominence however may be the result of accident of birth or fortune, and Europeans have seen two periods in recent history— after the first two World Wars— when nearly all the ruling politicians in Europe were simply common men thrown up by chance and the distorted life of the higher organism.
The Culture-bearing stratum has its highest importance now, rather than in previous centuries, because it is a relatively tinier minority. The vast increase of numbers in Europe— it tripled in population in the 19th century— did not increase the numbers of this stratum, nor of higher natures generally. This stratum was as numerous in the time of the Crusades as it is now. It is simply the way of Culture to choose minorities for its expression. Multiplication of population is downwards. The tension between quantity and quality grows greater with the increase of numbers, and the Culture-bearing stratum acquires a mathematically higher significance. The tension can be suggested in figures: there are not more than 250,000 souls in Europe who constitute by their potentialities, their imperative, their gifts, their existence, the Culture-bearing stratum of the West. Their geographical distribution has never been entirely uniform. In that nation which the Culture chose for the expression of The Spirit of the Age as it chose Spain for the expression of Ultra-montanism in the 16th and 17th centuries, France for the Rococo in the 18th century, or England for Capitalism in the 19th, there was always a higher proportion of the culturally-significant than in countries which were not playing the leading Cultural role. This fact was known to the extra-European forces in their attempt to destroy the Western Civilization after the Second World War, and was utilized as far as it could be within the limits of expediency. The real purpose behind the mass-hangings, mass-looting, and mass-starvation, was to destroy the few by destroying the many.
The articulation of the Culture has three aspects: the Idea itself, the transmitting stratum, those to whom it is transmitted. The latter comprise the vast numbers of human beings who possess any refinement whatever, who maintain a certain standard of honor or morality, who take care of their property, who have self-respect and respect the rights of others, who aspire to improve themselves and their situation instead of pulling down those who have enriched their inner life and raised themselves in the world. They are the body of the Culture vis-à-vis the Culture-bearing stratum as its brain, and the Idea as its soul. In each person who belongs to this numerically large group there is a quantum of ambition and appreciation toward the creations of culture. They furnish the instruments by which creators can carry out their work. By this means they give significance to their own lives, a significance which the underworld would not understand. The role of a Maecenas is not the highest, but it is of Cultural value. Who knows whether we would have Wagner’s greatest works but for Ludwig II? When we read the results of a great battle, do we always realize that it was not simply a chess-game between two captains, but that hundreds of firm officers and thousands of obedient men died to write this line in history, to make this day and date forever remembered? And when a threatened sack of society is put down by the police and Army, the casualties on the side of order thus give by their deaths a higher significance to their lives also. Not everyone can play a great role, but the right to give meaning to his life cannot be taken from a man.
But beneath all this is the stratum totally incapable of cultural attainment, even the most modest: the mob, canaille, Pöbel, underworld, profanum vulgus, the “common man” of the American cult. These preside at every Terror, listen wishfully to every Bolshevik agitator, secrete venom at the sight of any manifestation of Culture or superiority. This stratum exists at all stages of every Culture as the Peasant’s Wars, the Jacquerie, Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, John Ball, Thomus Münzer, the Jacobins, the Communards, the Spanish militiamen, the mob in the square in Milan, are there to show. As soon as a creative man makes his resolve and proceeds with his work, somewhere else in a dark envious soul there rises a crooked determination to stop him, to smash the work. In his later years the Nihilist Tolstoy gave perfect expression to this basic fact with his formula that not even one stone should be on top of another. The slogan of the Bolshevik in 1918 was also illuminating: “Destroy Everything!” In our age this underworld is in the possession of the class-warriors, the rear-guard of Rationalism. It is thus working, from the larger political viewpoint, solely for the extra-European forces. Previous rebellions of this stratum were all doomed because of the unity of the Culture, the pristine vigor of the creative impulses, and the lack of external danger of such crushing proportions as exists in this age. Its history is not yet over with. Asia has use for this stratum, and plans for it.
Tradition and Genius
THERE ARE TWO different ways in which the Culture-bearing stratum can perform its function. The first
is through the presence of a high tradition of accomplishment along a given line, a “school”; the second is
through the instrumentality of occasional genius. They can combine, in fact they are never completely
separated, for individual genius is always present at the formation of a tradition in the first instance, and
the presence of the tradition is not hostile to genius when it does appear. Nevertheless they are different methods of Culture-expression, and both have importance to the 20th century world-outlook which is here formulated in its essentials.
Italian painting from 1250 to 1550 is an example of a tradition at work. The Flemish-Dutch school of the 17th century is another. It was not necessary for a painter in one of these schools to be a great master in order to express himself fully. The form was there, unquestioned, it was only required to master it and to contribute one’s personal development of its possibilities. Spanish and German painting on the other hand represent a collection of great originals, and not the sure forward progression of a tradition. The sublimest tradition of all was the Gothic architecture to c.1400. So powerful was the tradition that the idea of a work of art, which pre-supposes a personality creating it, did not even exist.
But traditions like this are not confined to arts. Scholastic philosophy represented the same super personal unity working itself out through many personalities all in the service and development of a tradition. From Roscellinus and Anselm through Thomas Aquinas to Gabriel Biel, the problems and their complete exploitation are continuous. Each thinker, regardless of his gifts, whether a man of genius, or merely a hard worker, was trained by his predecessors and himself developed into his successors. It was not the solutions, and not even always the questions which were continuous— it was the method and thoroughness of investigation and formulation which showed the presence of the tradition.
From Cromwell to Joseph Chamberlain— the beginning and the end of that high political tradition which built the great British Empire, which at its highest point exerted its control over 17/20ths of the surface of this earth— England was the example of the possibility of tradition in politics as well as in philosophy, music, and the arts of form. How many men of political genius appeared in the Premiership during these centuries? Only the two Pitts. Nevertheless, England emerged from all the general wars of those centuries with increased power— Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, Spanish Succession War, 1702- 1713, Austrian Succession Wars 1741-1763, Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815, Wars of German Unification, 1863-1871. Only one serious blunder was made during these centuries, the loss of America, 1775-1783. The essence of this tradition was nothing other than applying only political thinking to politics. Cromwell the theologian departed from this only occasionally, and more in words and expressions of sympathy than in actions. His successors in the tradition of Empire-building were not burdened with his heavy theological equipment, which they transformed into cant, a word translatable into no other European language. The Technic of cant was what enabled English diplomacy to score continued successes in the world of facts, i.e., the world of violence, of cunning, of sin, while maintaining before itself the attitude of selfless morality. To enrich the country by new possession was thus “bringing civilization” to “backward” races. And so on, through the whole gamut of political tactics.
Traditions show in this example one of their prime characteristics: they are not efficacious unless profoundly mastered by the individuals. Thus other European statesmen during the 19th century, the century of the Anglicization of Europe, attempted to utilize cant and merely made themselves ridiculous. Wilson, the American world-saver who modestly offered himself as President of the World-as-Morality, went too far. A sure tact was the prerequisite of successful employment of cant, and this required for its mastery growing up in a cant-saturated atmosphere. In the same way the Austrian officer corps— whose ethical qualities Napoleon missed in his own officers— presupposed a life-long preparation and training in a certain atmosphere, and not three months military training on the basis of an “intelligence test.”
The great thing about a tradition is that the leader of the moment is not alone— the qualities he lacks, and which the situation may need, are sure to be present somewhere in the entourage. The presence of a political tradition makes it extremely unlikely in the first place that an incompetent will be placed in a position of high political authority, and if it does happen that a weak personality arrives on the heights by chance, tradition again makes his early departure certain. It might be supposed that this is contradicted by the case of Lord North, but the initial blunders of his American policy were only seen as such in retrospect. If he could have followed them up with further strict measures, America would not have been lost, but his domestic situation vis-à-vis the Whigs on the one hand and the monarch on the other, was difficult in the extreme, and his policy was hamstrung by the same type of Rationalist elements who were preaching “Contract Social” and “Rights of Man” on the continent. On the contrary, the successful avoidance of Revolution and Terror from the Wilkes affair in mid-18th century through the horrors of ‘93, the general revolutionary waves of 1830 and 1848, was attributable to the presence of an unimpaired tradition.
Tradition is not a rigid thing, a guarantee of certain results. Not at all, for in History, it is the unexpected which happens. The imponderables make their appearance. Incident plays counterpoint to Destiny. A slight gap may appear also in a tradition, but the health of the tradition-bearing stratum shows itself by quickly closing the opening. A tradition of statesmanship is a sort of Platonic idea of excellence which molds men, as far as possible, in each case, and serves as a form for their personal expression. The results are shown by a high average of training and ability. Fortunate is the political organism with such leadership! What is missed in one place is picked up in another; individual quirks are not allowed to become political dogmas. The last result of the presence of a tradition in a political unit is that Destiny is kept on a sure path and Incident is minimized.
Genius
THE NAME genius, describing a certain small stratum of humanity, came into the effective vocabulary of
the Western Culture only with the advent of Humanism. The 20th century means by this word what
Emerson meant by “Representative Man,” or Carlyle by “Hero.” The comprehensive delineation of the
subject of Genius by Lange-Eichbaum, the distinguished European scholar, has given the word its content
for this age. We no longer see genius under an aspect of causality or predestination. This was the only way Materialism could understand the word. Nietzsche pierced through this predestination idea of genius with his aphorism: the higher the type a man represents, the greater is the improbability that he will succeed, because of the increased diversity and difficulty of his life-conditions. The word genius thus has acquired through the centuries a large objective content, and has come self-evidently to contain within it the idea of fame.
If the word were to be used purely subjectively, it would describe simply a man with great creative force. There are always some of these men at work, but their creative efforts may be in any of the various directions of Culture. The test of creative force has come to be success, namely the personal success of the man in translating his personal potentialities into creation, whether of thought or deed. Not absolute success is meant, for this would exclude nearly all men. Neither Wallenstein, Cromwell, Napoleon, or the Hero that we have seen, attained absolute success. The success of each was however personal, in the sense that posterity can read his name in the skies at night.
It is the Spirit of the Age which influences greatly the direction of the creative ability of men of genius. Thus in the Gothic religious time, many men of genius became religionists, philosophers, saints and martyrs. In the Enlightenment, men of genius appeared as artists and universal men. In the time of Civilization men of genius appear mostly in the externalized pursuits of Technics, economics, politics and war. All tendencies exist in all ages, but in each age one Idea is uppermost. High politics is appropriate in every age and in the coming age it is the leading Idea. In our times, and the next times, the men of creative force will be found largely concentrated in the service of the Resurgence of Authority.
The crass stupidity of Rationalism and Materialism was nowhere more perfectly in evidence than in its attempt to make the word genius into an intelligence term. Naive “tests” were even devised to detect the presence of “genius,” which could be shown by a number. In the Age of Materialism, there was no scruple about weighing and numbering the faculties of the Soul. The fact is that intelligence is the functional opposite of Genius. Intelligence is dissection, genius is creation; one is analysis, the other is synthesis; the first is directed toward the Part, the second toward the Whole. They are related as terrestrial and astral, counting and imagining.
It must be said that while Genius is great creative force, each man has some creative force, enough to make of his own life such a work that those who come after him need never be ashamed of him.
The interest of the 20th century is in politics, and hence the significance of Genius in this sphere will be examined here. It is best understood by comparison with Tradition in politics. Tradition secures the steady fulfillment of the Idea by training up the available talent to a high average level. It is superior to Genius as a vehicle for the actualization of an Idea, for the life span of the Tradition is also the life span of the Idea, while Genius is allotted only the usual three score and ten. The passing of Genius leaves a gap, but the Tradition only passes with the fulfillment of the Idea itself. In the larger sense, Cromwell is the beginning of the English national political tradition. Yet, in a narrower, personal sense, he did not found a tradition, for after his death, it was but a matter of months before the Dynasty was back, and Cromwell’s body was exhumed and dragged through the streets of London by wild horses. But when once the English political tradition was founded in the Cromwellian spirit, it lasted right through to Joseph Chamberlain. What is Genius in politics? How does it manifest itself in this realm? In one thing simply: it represents the Idea of the Future. If one were to state the relation to the Present of the masses, a Tradition, and Genius, he would say that the masses are always behind the Present, the Tradition is alert at each moment adjusting to the Future, but the Genius represents the Promethean thrusting into the Future with unleashed force.
Genius is dependent for its actualization on the appreciation of the Culture-bearing stratum, or nation bearing stratum. Talent can understand anything that Genius can imagine or create, once it is actualized, but Genius always impresses at first as fantastic. Alexander the Great, Frederick the Great, Cromwell, Napoleon, the Hero of this age, all impressed most people at the beginning of their careers, as being unworldly, out of touch with Reality. There was some justification for this, for they were in touch with a new world, the next Reality.
In this connection, the use of the word Present is only a figure of speech. Actually, there is no Present in the world of politics: the Present is simply the point of tension between Past and Future. Genius in politics belongs always on the side of the Future. Genius is great creative force; in the realm of action, creation is of deeds; deeds are the form of the actualization of the Future.
At the very beginning of the Civilization period of the Western Culture, two extraordinary men stand opposed, Napoleon and Metternich. Only the Empire-builder had genius; his opponent, though equal in political skill, in assessment of the “realities” of the time, and in force of character, was a mere conserver, a servant of the Past. The “realities” he cognized were those of the immediately previous Reality, not those of the coming Reality. It is Genius of Napoleon’s kind that occasionally appears and delivers the new Spirit of the Age, the new Reality. Talent of Metternich’s kind lacks the vision of the Genius, and it is solely accidental whether or not he opposes him. If Metternich had been a Frenchman, he would have been a Minister of Napoleon.
What precisely are the qualities of Genius in politics, which constitute its maestria and its inner imperative? First, vision. It sees the possibilities of the Future, and its mind is thereby freed from the trammels which hinder the average man in his thinking. To the prosaic mind, everything which is, represents the end of all development, the Future is to be a mere extension of the Past. Second, spiritual purity: the ordinary man is an eclectic; he carries in his head hundreds of contradictory ideas and beliefs. Not so the creative man in politics: he thinks along one line, and one line only. This gives to his enemies the opportunity of convincing many that he is mentally ill, and they have never failed to do so, from Alexander to the Hero we have seen. But political Genius and its enemies pass into two different categories of History. His name is written in bronze letters as the symbol, meaning, apotheosis, and incarnation of the Spirit of his Age; his enemies turn out on this high plane to have been merely the material with which he hewed his deeds. Third, intensity: the voice of Genius commands; it is harsh, intolerant. It demands and impels upward. Genius is inseparable from the presence of a rushing inner chaos, the prerequisite of formative work. Under a Frederick, or a Charles XII, men will overcome tactical odds of 5-to-1, strategical odds of 30-to-1. But not under Laudon, or the Archduke Charles, or a Grant. These latter need crushing superiority to make up for their inner lack.
Fourth, the sense of a Mission. This vision, purity, and intensity are all brought into an ethical focus: the things which he sees are stamped with Necessity, and he must actualize them. This accounts for the powerfully dramatic influence of a political Genius upon the facts of History. His forceful mission compels everyone to orient himself to it. Everyone is either with him or against him. He becomes the center of the world.
Lastly, an Imponderable. Genius is Life at its highest human potential, and all Life is uncanny, irrational, mysterious. There is something about Genius that makes men rise spiritually. It is the Something that gave Napoleon victory on almost every field, that sat like an eagle on the shoulder of Moltke, as he worked quietly at his task of shaping the form of the 20th and 21st centuries. It may be merely the personality accompanying these extraordinary gifts. It may be a transcendental emanation from the higher organism it is unknowable, but it is there.
Genius and the Age
of Absolute Politics
THERE CAN BE NO QUESTION that a Tradition, which makes use of the ever-present talent of the
successive generations, is superior to Genius for the purpose of actualizing an Idea in its perfection. But
the Idea will be actualized without either of them; their presence, together or separate, affects only the
rhythmic sureness and external purity of the Life-process. The soul of each Culture is an organism, and therefore possesses the mark of individuality. This is stamped on everything connected with the Culture, including its History-style. Just as persons differ in their way of expressing themselves— one man forceful and imperious, another quiet, but equally effective— so do High Cultures. The Classical offers a strong contrast to our own in this. Its historical style, in comparison with ours, is one of Incident. Accents are not sharp, transitions are not conscious, or marked by the intensely formed turning-points of the Western history. While their men of genius were not fewer, Genius played a smaller role in the working-out. Genius was the focus of less force.
Western nations have also seen great developments which were unaccompanied by the phenomenon of direction of the whole Idea on to one man. For instance, the German Wars of Liberation, 1813-1815, England’s transition to Democracy, 1750-1800.
But in the middle of the 20th century we see about us the wreckage of the two centuries of Rationalism: the high old traditions of the West have been mostly destroyed. The horizontal war of the banker and the class-warrior against the Western Civilization have laid the old quality low. But History has not stopped, and the greatest imperative of all in the political sphere is now operative. A new quality-tradition is arising. As the philosopher of this age has said, there are no longer in the world any sacred forms of political existence whose very age is an unassailable power.
Since an effective Tradition is absent in the political realm of the Western Civilization, we may expect that the Western demand for sharp accents in History will repose gigantic forces in the hands of individual men. The Hero whom we have seen was a symbol of the Future.
History does not stop; no one man is more important than History. The relationship of political Genius to the mass was misread by 19th century Materialism, and also by Nietzsche. Materialism regarded the great politician as bound to work for the— of course— material improvement of the mass. Nietzsche regarded the masses as existing only to produce the great men. But the idea of purpose cannot describe the process as it is. Apart from all ideology, the great man and the masses are a unity, both are in the service of the Idea, and each finds his historical significance only with regard to the counter-pole. Carlyle voiced the instinctive demand of this age when the idea of authority and monarchy has once again a good conscience: find the Ablest Man, and let him be king.
Democratic ideologists, with their heads buried deep in the sand, say that maybe a bad monarch will appear. But the imperative of History is not to produce a perfect system, but to fulfill the historical mission. It was this that produced Democracy and it is this that now pays no attention to the whining of the Past, but only to be the rumble of the Future. Good or bad, the monarchs are coming.
On the front of the tottering edifice is printed in gaudy letters: Democracy. But behind it is seen to be a cash-till, and the banker sits, running his hands through the money that was the blood of the Western nations. He looks up in terror, as the sound of marching feet is heard.
The Future of the West demands the committing of great forces into the hands of great men. The erection of a Tradition of politics is a hope; from the chaos of 1950 there is no hope. Only great men can bridge the gap.
Race, People, Nation, State
THE 19TH CENTURY concepts of race, people, nation, and State are exclusively of Rationalistic-Romantic
provenance. They are the result of imposing a thought method adapted to material problems on to living
things, and thus they are materialistic Materialistic means shallow as applied to living things, for with all
Life, the spirit is primary, and the material is the mere vehicle of spiritual expression. Since these 19th
century concepts were rationalistic, they were basically nonfactual, for Life is irrational, unamenable to
inorganic logic and systematization. The Age upon which we are entering, and of which this is a
formulation, is an Age of Politics, and hence an age of facts. The broader subject is the adaptation, health and pathology of High Cultures. Their relationship to every type of human grouping is a prerequisite to examining the last problems of Cultural Vitalism. The nature of these groupings will therefore be looked at without preconceptions, with a view to reaching their deepest meanings, origin, life, and inter-connections.
Material inanimate objects retain their identity through the years, and thus the type of thinking suited to dealing with material things assumed that the political and other human groupings in existence in 1800 represented something a priori, something of the very essence of permanent reality. Everything was regarded as a creation of one of these “peoples.” This applied to the arts of form, literature, State, Technics, culture generally. This view is not in accordance with historical facts.
The first concept in order is Race. The materialistic race-thinking of the 19th century had particularly heavy consequences for Europe when it was coupled with one of the early 20th century movements of Resurgence of Authority.
Any excrescence of theoretical equipment on a political movement is a luxury, and the Europe of 1933- 2000 can afford none such. Europe has paid dearly for this Romantic concern with old-fashioned racial theories, and they must be destroyed.
II
Race has two meanings, which will be taken in order, and then their relative importance in an Age of
Absolute Politics will be shown. The first meaning is an objective one, the second subjective. The succession of human generations, related by blood, have the clear tendency to remain fixed in a landscape. Nomadic tribes wander within larger, but equally definite, bounds. Within this landscape the forms of plant and animal life have local characteristics, different from transplantation's of the same strains and stocks in other landscapes.
The anthropological studies of the 19th centuries uncovered a mathematically presentable fact which affords a good starting-point to show the influence of the soil. It was discovered that for any given inhabited area of the world there was an average cephalic index of the population. More important, it was learned, through measurements on immigrants to America from every part of Europe, and then on their children born in America, that this cephalic index adheres to the soil, and immediately makes itself manifest in the new generation. Thus long-headed Jews from Sicily, and short-headed ones from Germany, produced offspring with the same average head measurement, the specifically American one. Bodily size and span of growth were two other characteristics in which all types whatever in America, Indians, Negroes, white men, were found to have the same average, regardless of average size and growth-span of the countries or stocks from which they came. In the case of immigrant Irish children, coming from a country of a very long growth-span, the response to the local influence was immediate.
From these and other facts, both comparatively new and of ancient observation, it is apparent that the landscape exerts an influence on the human stocks within its bounds as well as on the plant and animal life. The Technic of this influence is beyond our ken. The source of it we do know. It is the cosmic unity of the totality of things, a unity which shows itself in the rhythmic and cyclic movement of Nature. Man does not stand out of this unity, but is submerged in it. His duality of human soul and Beast-of-prey is also a unity. We separate him thus to understand him, but this cannot disturb his unity. Nor by separating in our thoughts the aspects of Nature can we destroy its unity. The moon cycle stands in a relationship to many human phenomena, of which we can know only what, but never how. All movement whatever in Nature is rhythmic— the movement of streams and waves, of winds and currents, of appearance and disappearance of living individuals, of species, of Life itself.
Man partakes of these rhythms. His particular structure gives these rhythms their peculiarly human form. The side of his nature that expresses this connection is Race. Race in a man is the plane of his being which stands in relationship to plant and animal life, and beyond them, to the great macrocosmic rhythms. It is, so to speak, the part of Man that is generalized into, absorbed into the All, rather than his soul, which defines his species, and sets him off from all other forms of existence.
Life manifests itself in the four forms: Plant, Animal, Man, High Culture. Distinct though each is, yet it is related to all the others. The animals, subject as they are to the soil, retain thus in their being a plane of plantlike existence. Race is the expression of the plant-like and also of the animal-like in Man. The High Culture, by being fixed for its duration to a landscape, retains also a connection with the plant world, no matter how defiant and free-moving are its proud creations. Its high politics and great wars are an expression of the animal and human in its nature.
Some of the totality of human characteristics are soil-determined, others are stock-determined. Pigmentation is one of the latter, and survives transplantation to other areas. It is not possible to list all of even the physical characteristics according to such a scheme, for the data has not been gathered. But even so, it would not matter to our purpose, for the most important element also in the objective meaning of race is the spiritual.
Some stocks are undoubtedly more highly endowed than others in certain spiritual directions. Spiritual qualities are as diverse as physical qualities. Not only average height of body varies, but also average height of soul. Not only skull-shape and stature are soil-determined, but so must be some spiritual properties. It is impossible to believe that a cosmic influence which puts its mark on human bodies passes over the essence, the soul. But so thoroughly mixed have all the stocks been, or so repeatedly skimmed by History, that we can never know original soul-qualities of landscapes. Of the racial qualities of a given population on the spiritual side, we can never know which are soil-bound, and which have been produced by the amalgamation of stocks through the generations. To a practical century like this, and the next, origins and explanations are less important than facts and possibilities. Therefore our next concern must be with race as a practical reality rather than with its metaphysics.
To what race does a man belong? We know at first glance, but exactly what sign tells us this cannot be materially explained. It is accessible only to the feelings, the instincts, and does not yield itself to the scale and balance of physical science.
We have seen that race is connected with landscape and with stock. Its outer manifestation is a certain, typical expression, a play of features, a cast of countenance. There are no rigid physical indicia of this expression, but this does not affect its existence, but solely the method of understanding it. Within wide limits, a primitive population in a landscape has a similar look. But closer scrutiny will be able to find local refinements, and these again will branch down into tribes, clans, families, and finally individuals. Race, in the objective sense, is the spirituo-biological community of a group.
Thus races cannot be classified, other than arbitrarily. The materialistic 19th century produced several classifications of this arbitrary kind. The only characteristics used were, of course, purely material ones. Thus, skull-form, was the basis of one, hair and speech type of another, nose-shape and pigmentation of another. This was at best mere group anatomy, but did not approach race.
Human beings living in contact with one another influence one another, and thus approach one another. This applies to individuals, where it has been noted through the ages in the fact that an old married couple come to resemble one another physically, and it applies to groups as well. What is called the “assimilation” of one group by another is not at all merely the result of commingling of germ-plasm, as materialism thought.
It is mostly the result of spiritual influence of the assimilating group on the newcomers, which is natural and complete when there are no strong barriers between the groups. The lack of barriers leads to the disappearance of the racial boundary and thereafter a new race is present, the amalgamation of the two previous ones. The stronger one is influenced usually but slightly, but there are various possibilities here, and an examination of them belongs properly to a subsequent place.
III
We have seen that race, objectively used, describes a relationship between a population and a landscape,
and is essentially an expression of cosmic beat. Its prime visible manifestation is the look, but this
invisible reality expresses itself in other ways. To the Chinese, for instance, smell is a hall-mark of race.
Certainly audible things, speech, song, laughter, also have racial significance. Susceptibility to disease is
another racially-differentiated phenomenon. The Japanese, Americans, and Negroes have three different
degrees of resistance to tuberculosis. American medical statistics show that Jews have more nervous
disease, more diabetes, and less tuberculosis than the Americans, and that in fact the incidence of any one
disease shows a different figure for the Jews. Gesture, gait, dress, are not without racial significance. But the face is the great visible sign of race. We do not know what it is that conveys race in the physiognomy, and attempts to reach it by statistics and measurements must fail. This fact has caused Liberals and other materialists to deny that race exists. This incredible doctrine came from America, which is veritably a large-scale racial laboratory. This doctrine really only amounts to a confession of total inability of Rationalism and scientific method to understand Race or subject it to order of the type of the physical sciences, and this inability was known before by those who have clung to facts and resisted anti-factual theories. Suppose that a man were to familiarize himself thoroughly with the measurements— length of nose, brows, chin, width of brow, jaws, mouth, etc.— of every face he knew until he could fairly well say from a new face what its measurements would be. If he were then given a set of measurements merely written down as such, does anyone think that even such a specially trained person could form any idea in his mind of the racial expression of the face from which the measurements were taken? Of course not, and the same is true of any other expression of race.
Another important objective aspect of race finds an analogy in the fashions of female physiognomy which come and go in a Late urban civilization. When a given female type is held up as an ideal, it is a fact that the kind of woman who is sensitive to this sort of thing very soon develops the facial expression of this type. In the domain of Race a similar phenomenon exists. Given a race with a certain, distinct cosmic beat, its members develop automatically an instinct for racial beauty which affects the choice of mates and also works on each individual soul from within, so that this double impetus forms the racial type pointing toward a certain ideal. This instinct for racial beauty, needless to say, has no connection with the decadent erotic-cults of the Hollywood type. Such ideals are purely individual-intellectual, and have no connection with Race. Race, being an expression of the cosmic, is informed throughout with the urge to continuity, and a racially ideal woman is always thought of, quite unconsciously, as the potential mother of strong sons. The racially ideal man is the master who will enrich the life of the woman who secures him as the father of her children. The degenerate eroticism of the Hollywood type is anti-racial: its root-idea is not Life-continuity, but pleasure, with the woman as the object of pleasure, and the man as the slave of this object.
This striving of a race towards its own physical type is one of the great facts with which one cannot tamper by trying to substitute ideals of amalgamation with types totally alien, as Liberalism and Communism tried to do during the reign of Rationalism.
Race cannot be understood if it is inwardly associated with phenomena from other planes of life, such as nationality, politics, people, State, Culture. While History in its advance may bring about for a few centuries a strong relationship between race and nation, that is not to say that a preceding racial type always forms a subsequent political unit. If that were so, none of the former nations of Europe would have been formed on the lines they were. For example, think of the racial differences between Calabrian and Lombard. What did they matter to the history of Garibaldi’s time?
This brings us to the most important phase of the objective meaning of Race in this age: History narrows or widens the limits of race-determinacy. The way this is done is through the spiritual element in Race. Thus a group with spiritual and historical community tends to acquire also a racial aspect. The community of which its higher nature partakes is transmitted downward to the lower, cosmic part of the human nature. Thus in Western history the early nobility tended to constitute itself as a race to complement its unity on the spiritual side. The extent to which this proceeded is still apparent wherever historical continuity of the early nobility has been maintained to the present day. An important example of this is the creation of the Jewish race that we now know in the millennium of ghetto-existence in Europe. Leaving to one side for the moment the different world-outlook and culture of the Jew, this sharing by a group, whatever the basis of its original formation as such, of a common fate for centuries will hammer it into a race as well as a spiritual-historical unit.
Race influences History by supplying its material, its treasures of blood, honor, and strong instincts. History in turn influences Race by giving to units of high history a racial stamp as well as their spiritual one. Race is a lower plane of existence, in the sense that it is closer to the cosmic, more in touch with the primitive yearnings and urges of Life in general. History is the higher plane of existence where the specifically human, and above that, the High Cultural, represent the differentiation of forms of Life.
The method of racialization of an historical unit, as the Western nobilities were racialized, is through the inevitable cosmic rising in such a group of an ideal physical type, and the instinct for racial beauty, which work together through the germ-plasm and inwardly in each soul to give this group its own look, that individualizes it in the stream of history. Once this community of fate departs, through the vicissitudes of History, this race vanishes also, never to appear again.
IV
From this point the fundamental misunderstanding of the 19th century materialistic interpretation of
race appears clear and distinct: Race is not group anatomy;
Race is not independent of the soil;
Race is not independent of Spirit and History;
Races are not classifiable, except on an arbitrary basis;
Race is not a rigid, permanent, collective characterization of human beings, which remains always the same throughout history.
The 20th century outlook, based on facts, and not on the preconceptions of physics and mechanics, sees Race as fluid, gliding with History over the fixed skeletal form determined by the soil. Just as History comes and goes, so does Race with it, bound in a symbiosis of happening. The peasants now tilling the soil near Persepolis are of the same race as those who planted or roamed there a thousand years before Darius, regardless of what they were called then, or what they are called now, and in the time between, a High Culture fulfilled itself in this area, creating races now gone for ever.
This last error— the confusing of names with unities of history or race— was one of the most destructive made by 19th century materialism. Names belong to the surface of history, not to its rhythmic, cosmic side. If the present-day inhabitants of Greece have the same collective name that the population of the same area had in Aristotle’s time, is anyone deceived into thinking that there is historical continuity? Or racial continuity? Names, like languages, have their own destinies and these destinies are independent of others. Thus from the common language, it should not be inferred that the inhabitants of Haiti and those of Quebec have a common origin, but this result would occur of necessity if 19th century methods were applied to the present, which we know, as well as to interpretation of the past from left-over names and languages. The inhabitants of Yucatan to-day are racially the same as in 100 A.D., even though they now speak Spanish, and then spoke a now-vanished tongue, even though they have a different name now from then. In between occurred the rise, fulfillment and wiping out of a High Culture, but after its passing, Race became once more the primeval, simple relationship between stock and landscape. There was no high History to influence it, or for it to influence.
In the time of the Egyptian Culture, a people called the Libyans gave their name to an area. Does that mean that whoever inhabits this are from then on related to them? The Prussians in the year 1000 A.D. were an extra-European people. In 1700 the name Prussia described a nation in the Western style. Western conquerors merely acquired the name of the tribes they displaced. That which went under the various names of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Jutes, Varangians, Saxons, Vandals, Norsemen, Danes, came from the same racial material, but the names do not show it. Sometimes a group gives its name to an area, so that after it is displaced, the old name passes to the conquering group; this was the case of Prussia and Britain. Sometimes a group takes its name from an area, like the Americans.
As far as the Race-History symbiosis is concerned, names are accidental. They do not indicate any sort of inward continuity by themselves. The same is true of language.
Once the idea is grasped that what we call history really means High History, that this is the history of High Cultures, and that these High Cultures are organic unities expressing their inner possibilities in the profuse forms of thought and happening which lie before us, a deep understanding follows of the way in which History uses whatever human material lies to hand for its fulfillment. It puts its impress on this material-by creating historical units out of groups hitherto often very diverse biologically. The historical unity, in harmony with cosmic rhythms governing all Life from plant to Culture, acquires its own racial unity, a new racial unity, removed, by its spirituo-historical content from the former, primitive, simple relationship between stock and soil. But with the departure of High History the fulfillment of the Culture, the spiritual-historical content recedes forever, and the primitive harmony resumes its dominant position.
The previous, biological, history of the groups taken by a High Culture play no role in this process. Previous names of indigenous tribes, previous wanderings, linguistic equipment— none have any meaning for high History, once it sets upon its course. It starts, so to speak, from a clean slate. But it remains this way also, in its ability to take in whatever elements enter into its spirit. New elements, however, can bring nothing to the Culture— it is a higher individuality, and thus has its own unity, which cannot even be influenced, other than superficially, by an organism of equivalent rank, and a fortiori cannot be changed in the slightest in its inner nature by any human group. Thus any group coming within the area of a Culture is either within the spirit of the Culture, or without it— there is no third alternative.
Organic alternatives are always only two: Life or Death, sickness or health, forward development or distortion. When the organism is put off its true path by external influences, crisis is bound to follow, crisis which will affect the entire life of the Culture, and will often involve the destiny of millions in confusion and catastrophe. But this is an anticipation.
The objective meaning of race has other aspects important to a 20th century outlook. It has been seen that races— meaning here primitive groupings, simple relationships between soil and human stock— have different gifts for historical purposes. We have seen that Race influences History as well as the converse. We come to the hierarchy of races.
V
The materialists could, of course, not succeed with all their attempts to make an anatomical
classification of races. But races can be classified according to functional abilities, starting from any
given function whatever. Thus a hierarchy of races can be based on physical strength, and there is little
doubt that the Negro would stand at the top of such a hierarchy. There would however be no point in
such a hierarchy, because physical strength is not the essence of human nature in general, and even less of
Culture-man in particular. The fundamental impulse of human nature— above the instincts toward self-preservation and sex, which man shares with other Life-forms— is the will-to-power. Very seldom is there any struggle for existence among men. Such struggles as do occur are nearly always for control, for power. These take place within couples and families, clans, tribes, and among peoples, nations, States. Therefore the basing of a hierarchy of races on strength of will-to-power has a relation to historical realities.
Such a hierarchy can have, of course, no eternal validity. Thus the school of Gobineau, Chamberlain, Osbom and Grant was on the same tangent as the materialists who announced that there is no such thing as Race, because they could not discover it with their methods. The mistake of the former was to assume the permanence— backwards and forwards— of races existing in their time. They were treating races as building-blocks, original material, and ignoring the connections of Race and History, Race and Spirit, Race and Destiny. But at least they recognized the existing racial realities of their time, their sole mistake consisting in regarding these realities as rigid, existing rather than becoming. There was also in their approach a remnant of genealogical thinking, but this sort of thinking is intellectual and not historical, for History uses the human material at hand without questioning its antecedents, and in the process of using it, this human material is placed in relation to the vast, mystical force of Destiny. This remainder of genealogical thinking tended to create divisions in thought between Culture-peoples corresponding to no divisions in actuality. The further materialistic tendency developed to extend the principles of heredity which Mendel had worked out for certain plants to the subject of human Race. Such a tendency was doomed to be fruitless, and after almost a century of barren results, it must be abandoned in favor of the 20th century outlook which approaches History and its materials in the historical spirit and not in the scientific spirit of mechanics or geology.
Nevertheless the school of Gobineau at least started from a fact, and this brings it much closer to Reality than the learned fools who looked up from their rulers and charts to announce the demise of Race.
This fact was the hierarchy of races for Cultural purposes. In their day the word “culture” was used to designate literature and the fine arts as distinct from the ugly, brutal things like economics, Technics, war and politics. Hence the center of gravity of these theories was on the side of intellect rather than on the side of the soul. With the coming of the 20th century outlook, and the clearing from the air of all Materialistic-Romantic theories, the unity of Culture was perceived through all its various manifestations of arts, philosophy, religion, science, Technics, politics, State-forms, race-forms, War. Therefore the hierarchy of races in this century is one based on degree of will-to-power.
This classification of races is also arbitrary, from the intellectual standpoint, just as much as one based on physical strength. It is, however, the only one suitable for us in this age.
Nor is it rigid, for the vicissitudes of History are more important in this realm than heredity-transmitted qualities. There is to-day no Hindu race, although there once was. This name is a product of accomplished history, and corresponds to no racial group. Nor is there a Basque race, a Breton race, a Hessian race, an Andalusian race, Bavarian race, Austrian race. Similarly, races existing to-day in our Western Civilization will also disappear with the advance of history over them.
The source of a hierarchy of races is History, the forces of happening. Thus when we see a European population, with its own racial stamp, the English, hold down a population of hundreds of millions of Asiatics for two centuries with only a handful of its own troops, as the English did India, we call that race one with a high degree of will-to-power. During the 19th century, amid 300,000,000 Asiatics, England had a tiny garrison of 65,000 white troops.
The mere numbers would mislead if we did not know that England was a nation in the service of a High Culture and India a mere landscape with primitive millions teeming in it, a landscape that had been also at one time the area of a High Culture such as our own, but had long since returned to its pre-Cultural primitivity within the ruins and monuments of the past. Knowing this, we know thereby that the source of this stern will-to-power is at least partially in the force of the Destiny of the Culture of which England was an expression.
When we see a race like the Spanish send forth two bands like those of Cortez and Pizarro, and read of their accomplishments, we know we are in the presence of a race with high willpower. With a hundred odd men, Pizzaro set out to overcome an empire of millions. The project of Cortez was of a like boldness— and both achieved military success. It is not a slave race that can do such things. Aztec and Inca were no race less populations, but were themselves the vehicle of another High Culture, a fact which makes these exploits almost incredible.
The French race in the time of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was in the service of a Cultural idea, the mission of changing the whole direction from Culture to Civilization, of opening the Age of Rationalism. The enormous force which this living idea lent to the armies of France is shown by the 20- year succession of military victories over all the armies that repeated coalitions of all Europe could throw against them. Under Napoleon’s personal command, they achieved victory in more than 145 out of 150 engagements. A race equal to such a test was one of high will-power.
In each of these cases, the race was one created by History. In such a unit, the word race contains the two elements: the stock-landscape relationship, and the spiritual community of history and Cultural idea. They are, so to speak, stratified: beneath is the strong, primitive beat of the cosmic rhythm in a particular stock; above is the molding, creating, driving Destiny of a High Culture.
When Charles of Anjou beheaded Conradin, the last Hohenstaufen Emperor, in 1267 Germany disappeared from Western history, as a unit with political significance, for 500 years, reappearing in the 18th century in the double form of Austria and Prussia. During these centuries, the high history of Europe was made by other powers mostly with their own blood. This meant that— in comparison with the vast expenditure of blood over the generations of the others— Germany was spared.
To understand the significance of this fact, we must go back to the purely biological origin of races of Europe.
VI
The primeval population-streams which came out of the North of the Eurasiatic land-mass from 2000 B.C. right down to 1000 A.D.— and after— were probably of related stock. Barbarians called Cassites conquered the remains of the Babylonian Culture, about 1700 B.C. The next century Northern barbarians called Hyksos by the Egyptians threw themselves at the ruins of the Egyptian Civilization and subjected it to their rule. In India, the Aryans, also a Northern barbarian horde conquered the Indian Culture. The populations which appeared in Europe over the millennium and a half ending 1000 A.D. under the various names. Franks, Angles, Goths, Saxons, Celts, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Lombards, Belgae, Norsemen, Northmen, Vikings, Danes, Varangians, Germani, Alemani, Teutones— and other names— are all of similar stock. It is very probable that the conquerors of the older Civilizations eastward were of similar stock with the Western barbarians who threatened Rome for centuries and finally sacked it. The great sign of this stock was blondness. Wherever today blonde traits are found, elements of this Northern stock have at some past time found their way. These Northern barbarians conquered the indigenous populations of all Europe, constituting themselves an upper stratum, supplying the leadership, fighting men, and laws, wherever they went. Thus they represented the ruling-stratum in the territories now known as Spain, Italy, France, Germany, England. Their numerical proportion was greater in some places than in others, and with the arising of the Western Culture, c. 1000 A.D., it was on this strong-willed primitive stratum that the idea took hold. From having been the conqueror of fulfilled Civilizations, this stock now was itself selected to fulfill the Destiny of a High Culture.
That which distinguished this primitive biological population-stream is its strong will. It is also this strong will— and not only the inner Idea of the Culture itself— that contributes to Western history the unique forcefulness of its manifestations in all directions of thought and action. Think of the Vikings, in the gray dawn of our history reaching America from Europe in their tiny ships! This is the sort of human material which contributed its blood to the Western races, peoples and nations. It is to this treasure of being that the West owes its prowess on the battlefield— and this fact is known all over the world, whether it is theoretically denied, or not. Ask any general in any army whether he would rather have under his command a division of soldiers recruited from Pomerania, or a division of Negroes.
Unhappily for the West, the Russian populations contain also a strong strain of this Northern barbarian stock. It is not in the service of a High Culture, but stands to us as did the Gauls to Republican and Imperial Rome. Race is material for events, and it is available to the will-to-annihilate as freely as it is to the will-to-create. The Northern barbarian stock in Russia is still barbarian, and its negative mission has given it its own racial stamp. History has created a Russian race, which is steadily widening its racial boundaries by taking up into it and impressing with its historical mission of destruction the population streams of its vast territory.
Unhappily for the West, the Russian populations contain also a strong strain of this Northern barbarian stock. It is not in the service of a High Culture, but stands to us as did the Gauls to Republican and Imperial Rome. Race is material for events, and it is available to the will-to-annihilate as freely as it is to the will-to-create. The Northern barbarian stock in Russia is still barbarian, and its negative mission has given it its own racial stamp. History has created a Russian race, which is steadily widening its racial boundaries by taking up into it and impressing with its historical mission of destruction the population streams of its vast territory.
In the hierarchy of races based on will-to-power, the new Russian race stands high. This race needs no moralistic propaganda to fan its militancy. Its barbarian instincts are there, and can be relied on by its leaders.
Because of the fluid nature of Race, even the hierarchy of races based on will-to-power cannot succeed in ordering all races now existing. For instance, would the Sikhs stand above the Senghalese, or below, the American Negroes above or below the Aymara Indians? But the whole purpose of understanding the varying degrees of will-to-power in different races is a practical one, and applies in the first instance to our own Western Civilization. Can this knowledge be used? The answer is that not only it can, but it must be, if the West is to live out its life span and not to pass into slavery to Asiatic annihilation-hordes under the leadership of Russia, Japan, or some other militant race.
Before this information can be applied with full insight and with no danger of old-fashioned misunderstanding, the subjective meaning of Race must be examined, and beyond it the ideas connoted by the terms People, Nation and State.
Subjective Meaning of Race
RACE, as has been shown, is not a unit of existence, but is an aspect of existence. Specifically it is the
aspect of existence in which the relation of the human being to the great cosmic rhythms is revealed. It is
thus the non-individual aspect of Life, whether it be the life of a plant, animal, or human being. The plant exhibits— at least, not to us— no consciousness, i.e., no tension with its environment. The plant has thus only race, so to speak, for it is totally submerged in the cosmic flow. The animal exhibits tension, consciousness, individuality. Man has in addition self-consciousness and the ability and necessity of living a higher life in the realm of symbols. All men have this, but the difference in degree between primitive man and Culture-man in this respect is so vast that it seems almost a difference in kind.
It is the racial beat which informs primitive impulses, which informs action generally. Opposed to it is the illuminated part of the mind, the rootless reason, the intellect. The stronger these things are in relation to the racial plane, the more the existence bears an intellectual instead of a racial stamp.
Each individual, as well as each higher organic unit, has these two aspects. Race impels toward self preservation, continuance of the cycle of generations, increase of power. Intellect decides the meaning of the Life, and the aim, and this may, for various reasons, deny one or all of these fundamental urges. The celibacy of the priest and the sterility of the libertine both come from intellect, but one of them is an expression of High Culture, and the other is the denial of Culture, an expression of total degeneracy. Intellect may thus be in the service of Culture, or opposed to it.
Race is, in the first instance in its subjective sense what a man feels. This influences, whether immediately or eventually, what he does. A man of race is not born to slavery. If his intellect counsel him to a temporary submission, rather than an heroic death, in the hope of future changes, it is a mere postponement of his breaking out. The man without race will submit permanently to any humiliation, any insult, any dishonor, so long as he is permitted to live. The continuance of breathing and digestion are Life to the man without race. To the man of race, Life itself represents no value, but only Life under the right conditions, affirmative Life, rich, expressive and growing.
Heroism can be motivated from either side of the soul: the martyr dies for the Truth which he knows, the fighting man who dies with weapons in his hands rather than submit to his enemies dies for the honor that he feels. But the man who dies for something higher shows that he has race, regardless of his intellectualized motives. For Race is the faculty of being true to one’s self. It is the placing of a beyond value on one’s own individual soul.
In this subjective sense, Race is not the way one talks, looks, gestures, walks, it is not a matter of stock, color, anatomy, skeletal structure, or anything else objective. Men of Race are scattered through all populations everywhere, through all races, peoples, nations. In each unit they make up the warriors, the leaders of action, the creators in the sphere of politics and war.
Thus in the subjective sense, there is also a hierarchy of race. Above the men of race, below— those without race. The first are swept up into action and events by the great cosmic rhythm of motion, the second are passed over by History. The first are the materials of high History, the second have outlasted every Culture, and when the stillness resumes its sway over the landscape after the whirlwind of events, these are the great mass. The Chinese mothers counsel their children with the ancient admonition: “Make thy heart small.” This is the wisdom of the man without race, and of the race without will. The men of race are skimmed off every population that is caught up into the course of motion of a High Culture, and this process continues through the generations of History on the heights. What is left is the fellaheen.
Race in the subjective sense is thus seen to be a matter of instinct. The man with strong instincts has race, the man with weak or bad instincts has it not. Strength of intellect has nothing to do with the existence of race— it may merely, in some cases, such as that of the man who takes a vow of celibacy— influence the expression of a part of race. Strong intellect and strong instincts can co-exist— think of the Gothic bishops who led their flocks to war— they are merely opposed directions of thought and action, but it is the instincts that furnish the driving force for great intellectual accomplishments also. The center of gravity of ascendant Life is on the side of instinct, will, race, blood. Life which places rationalistic ideals of “individualism,” “happiness,” “freedom” before the perpetuation and increase of power is decadent. Decadent means— moving toward extinction, extinction of higher Life in particular, and finally even of the life of the race. The intellectual of the great city is the type of the man without race. In every Civilization, he has been the inner ally of the outer barbarian.
This quality of having race has, obviously, no connection with which race one feels community. Race in the objective sense is a creation of history. One’s destiny must express itself within a certain framework— the framework of Fate. Thus a man of race born in Kirghizia belongs by Fate to the barbarian world of Asia with its historical mission of destruction of the Western Civilization. Rare exceptions are of course possible— Life submits to no generalization entirely. Some Poles, Ukrainians, or even Russians, might be impelled by their souls to share the spirit of the West. If so, they belong to the Western race, and every healthy, ascendant race accepts recruits who come in on its terms and who have the proper feeling. In the same way, there are numerous intellectuals in the West who feel community with the outer idea of Asiatic Nihilism. How numerous they are is indicated by the journalism, novels and plays that live from them. But the converse would not be true of men without race— they are not even acceptable to the enemy. They have nothing to contribute to an organic group— they are the human grains of sand, atoms of intellect, without cohesion upwards or downwards.
Every race, no matter how transitory it may be contemplated from the viewpoint of History, expresses a certain idea, a certain plane of existence by its life, and its idea is bound to be attractive to some individuals outside it. Thus in Western life, we are not unfamiliar with the man who, after associating with Jews, reading their literature, and adopting their viewpoint, actually becomes a Jew in the fullest sense of the word. It is not necessary that he have “Jewish blood.” The converse is also known: many Jews have adopted Western feelings and rhythms, and have thereby acquired Western race. This process— contemptuously called “assimilation” by the Jewish leaders— threatened during the 19th century the very existence of the Jewish race by ultimate absorption of its total racial body into the Western races. To halt it, the leaders of the Jews evolved the program of Zionism, which was solely an expedient for maintaining the unity of the Jewish race, and maintaining its continued existence as such. For this reason they also recognized the value of antisemitism of the social type. It was serving the same purpose of preserving the racial unity of the Jews.
II
The dying out of racial instincts means the same thing to an individual as it does to a race, people,
nation, State, Culture: unfruitfulness, lack of will-to-power, lack of ability to believe in or follow great
aims, lack of inner discipline, desire for a life of ease and pleasure. The symptoms of this racial decadence in various parts of the Western Civilization are manifold. There is first the ghastly distortion of the sexual life arising from the complete dissociation of sexual love from reproduction. The great symbol of this in the Western Civilization is everything suggested by the name Hollywood. The message of Hollywood is the total significance of sexual love as an end in itself— the erotic without consequences. The sexual love of two grains of sand, two rootless individuals, not the primeval sexual love looking to the continuity of Life, the family of many children. One child is permitted, as being a more complicated toy than a dog, perhaps even two, one boy and one girl— but the family of many children is a subject for humor to this decadent outlook.
The instinct of decadence takes many forms in this realm: dissolution of Marriage by divorce laws, attempts to discard, through repeal or non-enforcement, the laws against abortion, preaching in the form of novel, drama, journalism, the identification of “happiness” with sexual love, holding it up as the great value, before which all honor, duty, patriotism, consecration of Life to a higher aim, must give way. An erotomania is abroad through our civilization, not indeed like the sexual obsession of the 13th century which was at least racially affirmative, in that it increased the Western Peoples, but always a purely rootless erotic-without-consequences. This spiritual disease is the suicide of the race.
The weakening of the will— Nietzsche called it “paralysis of will”— another symptom of dying out of racial instincts, leads to a total deterioration of public life in the afflicted races. Government leaders dare not offer a stern program to their masses of human grains of sand: they abdicate, but remain in office as private men. Government ceases; the only functions that continue are the ones that have always gone on, no new aim, no sacrifices. Keep the old going; no creation! No effort! That would be too hard. Keep the pleasures going, the panem et circenses. Never mind the necessities of life, we are willing to renounce them as long as we have the pleasures.
This weakening of the will leads to voluntary abandonment of empires conquered with the blood of millions over ten generations. It leads to abysmal hatred of whoever and whatever represents sternness, creation, the Future. One of its products is Pacifism, and the only way a racially-dissolving population can be driven to war is through conscription coupled with pacifist propaganda— “This is the last war— actually it is a war against war.” Only an intellectual could be taken in by such stark Unreality. The weak will of society manifests itself in the Bolshevism of the upper classes, the sympathy with the enemies of society. Anyone with unimpaired will however is really felt to be the enemy— even cogent reasoning is hated: ideals are so much less demanding.
Mediocrity rises over the horizon of a dying race as its last great ideal; total mediocrity, renunciation of all greatness and distinction of any kind whatever; also mediocrity of the racial blood-stream— anyone can come in now, not only on our terms, for there are no more terms, and there are no racial differences, everything is one, dull, event less, mediocre.
The weakening of the will is not hard put to find an ideology which rationalizes it as “progress,” everything desirable, the aim of all previous history. The democracy-liberalism complex lies to hand, and it acquires in such times the meaning of Death— of race, nation and Culture. There are no human differences, everyone is equal, men are women, women are men, “the individual” is everything, Life is a long holiday whose main problem is devising new and more stupid pleasures, there is no God, no State, off with the head of anyone who says there is a mission, who wishes to resurrect Authority.
These symptoms, or similar ones, will be found present at the demise of every upper stratum whose will is weakened. Thus Tocqueville has described for us how the French upper stratum of 1789 had no suspicion whatever of the impending Revolution, how nobility waxed enthusiastic over the “natural goodness of Humanity,” the “virtuous people,” the “innocence of Man” while the Terror of 1793 lay before their very feet— spectacle terrible et ridicule. Did not the Petrine nobility of Russia up until 1917 go through the same performance? The Tsar resisted pleas to leave while there was time with “My people will not hurt me.” Their picture of the Russian peasant was that of a happy, simple muzhik, basically good. Similarly the weakening of the Western will in certain countries was shown by the deluge of pro Russian propaganda spread, sometimes with official encouragement, in those countries from 1920 to 1960.
Horizontal Race vs. Vertical Race
WE ATTAIN NOW to the grand formula of the 20th century outlook on Race: Race is a horizontal
differentiation of men. The materialism of the 19th century, confusing race with anatomy, regarded Race
as a vertical differentiation of men. It was “abstract”— away from Reality— and started from the will-to systematize,
rather than from quiet contemplation of the living facts. Such contemplation was made
difficult for them by the existence of political nationalism, which tried to build walls of all kinds between
the Western races and peoples. But had they been able to pierce through to a view of the facts, these materialists would have seen that the races of Europe were the creations of History and not a mere continuation of the aboriginal material that was present in 900 A.D., before the beginning of high History in this area. Viewing the process of creation of races, they would have seen the far greater significance of Race in the subjective sense than in the objective sense. For it is always men of race that create the deeds of History, and the units they are leading are of secondary importance.
The attempt to create a vertical system of races was Apollonian— it was an effort of the intellect. Actually Race has the primary meaning of presence of strong cosmic rhythm— a Dionysian meaning.
The 20th century viewpoint in this matter starts from facts, and the observed fact is that all strong minorities— both within and without a High Culture— have welcomed into their company the outsider who was attracted to it and wished to join it, regardless of his racial provenance, objectively speaking. The racial snobbery of the 19th century was intellectual, and its adoption in a too-narrow sphere by the Resurgence of Authority in Europe between the first two World Wars was a grotesquerie.
What matters to a unit engaged upon a mission is the strength of will which other groups can bring to it. To interpret the historical mission as one of “safe-guarding the purity of the race,” in a purely biological sense is sheer materialism. Race, in both its meanings, is the material of History, not the reverse. Race supplies the fruitfulness, sureness, and will-to-power to the Mission. The Mission can never be to make the race “pure” in a biological sense, however satisfying such a result would be esthetically. And with this last word is touched upon the other factor in the tragic connection of this old-fashioned outlook on Race with the strong, vital movement of Resurgence of Authority: We have seen that all the 19th century concepts in this sphere Race, People, Nation, State, Culture were of Rationalistic-Romantic derivation. Romantic— half of this misalliance of the Future and the Past is traceable to romantic-aesthetic notions. Aesthetics is however a domain of its own, and does not have sufficient vitality to supply the motivation of a political struggle. Its presence there can only be superfluous.
The stark historical value in this matter is simply this: It only matters that the Cultural Mission be accomplished, even though in the process everything else is wiped out. And after that? Did Darius ever think that lions would one day be roaming his terrace of Persepolis? And if he had, what could he have done about it? History, with its great rhythms— the widest and deepest we know— is also submerged in the Cosmos, and for Culture-man to think that he can impose his will on the millennial remote future is only a tribute to his pride of intellect, but no compliment to his wisdom. We are thinking here in centuries, not in months or years. One must oppose the attitude of aprés moi la deluge which prevails at this moment. It is not a shirking or evading of duty to say that only the historical Mission matters, but the highest possible affirmation of Duty.
To Race there is no duty. Race in the vertical sense is an abstraction, corresponding to nothing existing. If taken seriously, it leads the victim off the path of History and into an aesthetic cul-de-sac.
To the 20th century outlook, a man does not belong to a race— he either has race, or does not. If the former, he has value to History; if the latter, he is valueless, a lackey.
The attempt to interpret History in terms of Race must be abandoned. The 20th century sees it quite otherwise. That attempt was a fad, historically speaking. It had a vogue of a century. It is now quite dead. Its last formulation, and its most radical, attempted even to intervene in the sphere of action. That was the last such attempt. An Empire of a thousand years duration— yes, that has been actualized— in India, China, Egypt. But the last nations that laid the foundations of these Empires could not know whether the barbarians would come soon or never. Montezuma’s Empire would also have lasted a thousand years— but the Spaniards appeared. There is no guarantee of duration, racial or other. Actually it is Race that must be interpreted in terms of History, for that is the factual developmental-sequence. This viewpoint is not a fad, an arbitrary abstract picture, but one reflecting the facts of history.
Race and Policy
BOTH MEANINGS of Race, the objective and the subjective, have a meaning for policy in the 20th
century. The objective meaning of Race describes a group which shares a certain basic, instinctive rhythm. This racial stamp has been given to it by History, which narrows or widens the limits of this Race, depending on the character and magnitude of the historical Mission.
Such a race is the creation of History, and not of a text-book scheme first planned on paper and then put into actuality. It is not a creation of a man, as such— although a man may by his personality be the vehicle of History, and may be the focus of historical energy on to the creation of a race. But important is: as far as policy is concerned, one can only work with the races existing. They cannot be created or disposed of by human fiat.
Existing races are a mixture, as far as stock is concerned. There is nothing to be done about this. Such a mixture of stock is not “impurity,” in any true, factual, meaning of that word. “Purity” in racial matters means inclusiveness of the entire population within the same historical feeling and cosmic beat. “Purity” is directed to feeling, and not to anatomical derivation. This is true even in the most objective meaning of the word Race, and a fortiori is it true of Race in the subjective sense.
The hierarchy of races is a fact of which policy must take cognizance. The strength of will of the Russian race is an ominous fact which cannot be explained away by intellectualizing. This strength is reflected in physical stamina which enables the Russian soldier to recover from wounds which would be fatal to a Western soldier. The will-to-power diffused through the Japanese race places it high in the hierarchy of races. The force this gives to the body of a nation is shown by the physical performance of Japanese infantry, matched by only one of the Western races still existing. The two general physical types which make up the body of the Japanese race show perfectly the fact that purity means prevalence everywhere of the same feeling, cosmic rhythm, and not of the same physical structure, pigmentation, or shape of head, for spiritually these two physical types are both Japanese.
The lower degree of will-to-power of the populations in the areas called China, India, and Africa generally is also a fact for policy to apply. This is, of course, no attempt to contradict that some tribes in these areas have strong will-to-power, but only a general observation of these large areas. Anything that is a fact is material for policy, no matter how general, or how specific, so long as it relates to action.
Important as these general facts as to the hierarchial ordering of extra-European races are, Race has a vastly more important aspect for policy, and that is the strength of our own race.
Race is the material of History, it is the treasure which a population brings to an Idea. The stronger the racial instincts of the population, the greater its promise of victory. Consequently anything which strikes at the strength of these instincts is the enemy of the highest significance, and even of the very existence, of the race. These instincts are self-preservation, fruitfulness, increase of power. Without these there is no Idea, no History— there is only the collection of human grains of sand— and later a pyramid of skulls erected by outer barbarians.
Thus the whole liberal-democratic ideology, with its “individualism” that is a mere negation of everything superpersonal, its “happiness” ideal that encourages every weakness and self-indulgence, its erotomania which distorts the whole sexual life into a barren disease of the will, its “tolerance” which seeks to break down the cohesion of the race by denying its existence, its materialism which denies all spiritual values, all higher significance of human life, its pacifism which values weakness above virility, its ideal of Mediocrity by which it opposes every creative man and the Idea he represents in History, its cult of the proletarian as the highest element, its total renunciation of the Soul of Man— this is the great enemy of Race.
Part of this degeneration is organic— more of it is deliberately spread abroad within our Civilization by alien distorting elements which either belong to, or sympathize with, Asia in the annihilation battle for Western survival that will take up this century and the next. It is quite obvious that anything that undermines the will-to-power and the virility of the West ripens it for Asiatic slaughter. It should be equally obvious that the world-outlook that is thus eating away at the Western soul must be ruthlessly eradicated wherever it lurks by whatever means necessary. Thus even if one may have clung to his little ideal of “freedom” or “happiness” during the 19th century— the century of security, of comfort, of money-making and money-spending— he must renounce it now in the century when the very foundations of the life of our Culture are under attack from below and without— an attack in each case that means to destroy everything. To retain such ideals is to become the inner enemy of the West.
Thus Western policy must declare this outlook and its adherents to be the inner enemy. It must supplant its superannuated ideology by the strong, manly one appropriate to this Age of Absolute Politics. It must root out its ideas, its leaders, its techniques. Any groups that are committed to this outlook by their inner constitution and spiritual existence must be proscribed.
Western policy has the duty of encouraging in its education of the youth its manifestations of strong character, self-discipline, honor, ambition, renunciation of weakness, striving after perfection, superiority, leadership— in a word— Race.
The man of race disciplines himself— because he needs discipline. Strong instincts need a strong will. Race is also a residue of inner chaos, for only out of chaos can come creation, whether of thought or deed. Strong instincts are the prerequisite of every outstanding performance even the creation of a work for the intellect. The race less, rootless-intellectual attitude has no inner imperative— it shrugs its shoulders and says “So what?” Such an attitude is that of finished men— they are used up before they start. They can insist on nothing, compel nothing, perform nothing. A hundred men of race without particular intellectual qualifications can accomplish more under the same leader than a thousand intellectuals from the pavements of the great cities. A man of race is not yet finished— he offers material for performance.
An intellectual cannot be inspired— enthusiasm he regards, quite seriously, as pathological, as mania. He prefers to sit in his cocktail lounge or his sidewalk cafe, sipping his alcohol and preserving the degagé manner. The talk is of pathetic ideals of social and sexual atomism, of “new artistic tendencies,” of “the subconscious,” of “democracy”— but over it all is the perfume of decay. It is a world of boredom, a blase degeneration, the casual bumping's and connections of grains of sand— in one word, the sarcophagus of the race. Baudelaire, with his preoccupation with corpses, is its perfect expression: the world of the intellectual is the putrescence of the super personal soul. Where this sort of material has influence, the barbarian has easy conquests.
Western policy must recognize these facts. Education policy, propaganda, public life, must form the race away from this charnel outlook. To keep away from all these forms of decadence is to safeguard the strength of the race. To allow them is to promote the death of the race.
II
We have seen the power of a race imbued with an historical idea to take up alien human material into it,
and imbue it with its own rhythm. This phenomenon must be more closely examined. We have seen this sort of thing throughout all history. Thus the Romans accepted into their racial body whoever was capable of Romanness, and wished to be able to say with the same inner pride as the dwellers on the Seven Hills— Civis Romanus sum. Up until 1933, America had thus taken up into its race many millions of immigrants from Europe and from the Balkans. The Russians have been thus increasing their numbers steadily through the past three centuries.
In each of these cases, the essence of the ingress of the alien into the proper racial body is his total absorption into the new idea, his complete adoption of the new plane of existence, his total loss of the old existence. With human beings, the word “total” refers to the soul. If his soul can assimilate, his body can. Thus Frenchmen settled in Brandenburg en masse during the 18th century. Thousands upon thousands of Germans have settled in France. Frenchmen settled in America in great numbers. So did Englishmen. Italians have moved to France in enormous numbers. The examples are almost endless. In each case, the newcomers disappeared as a group. As individuals, their blood-stream continued in the new landscape, but it now had a new cosmic beat. French Huguenots in Brandenburg became Prussians, in Ireland they became Irish. Spaniards in Ireland became Irish. English in America became Americans. Germans in France became Frenchmen; in Argentina, Argentine's; in America, Americans. The newcomer in this process, as individual or as group can contribute nothing on the super personal level. His contribution is limited to his personal qualities of instinct or talent as individual, of healthy instincts as group. Cultural things he cannot contribute, because they cannot be received.
A unit itself under the impress of a High Culture cannot assimilate anything on the cultural level from a group under the impress of another High Culture.
This explains why the various European races were so easily assimilated one in the other, how they disappeared in a generation into the new pulse and feeling— they shared the same Culture. Although they belonged to separate races, nevertheless there was a higher stratum of Life that included all these races as manifestations of its super personal Life. Thus these vertical divisions of mere race did not separate Western men.
Nor did they separate non-Westerners from Westerners when the incoming non-Westerners sought to preserve no barrier of their own: during the youth of our Culture, on the Eastern Marches of Europe, many thousands of Slavs were assimilated into the European races, disappeared into them and became completely European. Western policy of the future must remember facts of this kind.
Actually, this is no blending, no amalgamation; it is simply the increasing of the receiving race. They bring only their blood and numbers; they can bring no Idea, for it already is an Idea. Only a superficial view could attach importance to words, phrases, even vocabularies, or to quaint social customs that the receiving race may adopt from the newcomers in the process of assimilating them. These things are merely the traces by which one can trace the influx after the passage of generations. Thus some Irish family names are “de la” this or that, Spaniards “di,” Frenchmen and Americans “von,” Germans “de.” It is no sign of any continuity other than that of the germ-plasm, this of foreign family names, after assimilation has occurred. In fact it is noticeable, and is part of old European wisdom that— in the beginning, at least— this new element has a higher radar potential than the absorbing race generally. Hence the old expressions: Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores, päpstlicher als der Papst. The man who comes from the periphery to the center of an Idea has an enthusiasm that the older members do not feel. What they take for granted is to him inspiring in its excellence. It is the zeal of the convert.
But there are cases where this assimilation does not occur. They are the cases where there is a cultural bar between the two populations. Either they are each under the impress of a Culture, or else one group is and the other is not, and is negative.
Thus, during the reign of Catherine the Great, and at her invitation, thousands of German farmers and craftsmen came to Russia. Land on the Volga river was given to them, and there they remained until very recent history. By the 20th century, their numbers were about 350,000. But— during the generations of their residence in Russia, they had retained their orientation to Europe. Their Russian environment, culture-less and primitive, had been unable to deprive them in any way of their character as a fragment of a High Culture. The Bolshevik regime did what time never could have done: it exterminated them by starvation and dispersal through Asia. Other German colonies preserved their European Culture along the Baltic shores of Russia, and in the primitive Balkan area. The new Asiatic will to annihilate the West has now exterminated them all whether in Romania, Serbia, Bohemia, Poland, Bulgaria.
The best-known example of this organic regularity, and the most Fate-laden for all concerned, was the contact between the group called Jews and the Western Culture. Until the discovery of the organic unity of a High Culture, and its inner articulation, no final understanding of what has come to be called “the Jewish problem” was possible. At this point, only the racial aspect of this problem is touched on, and it is only necessary to explain the origin of the Jewish race now existing.
The Jew is a product of another Culture. When the Western Culture arose, the Jews were distributed through a part of its area, mostly in Spain and Italy. The Arabian Culture, then in its very last stage, had created the Jews as a unity, and they were in the form of this expiring Culture. Hence the stirrings of the Western Idea could not touch them inwardly at all. They held themselves entirely aloof from anything Western. They had an entire world-outlook and world-feeling of their own, which needed no impulse from without, that could only resist any other Culture. This basic fact kept the Jew entirely separate from the West spiritually and racially— the West rejected his world-feeling, he rejected its. Mutual hatred and mutual persecution only strengthened the Jewish race, sharpened its cunning, and increased its resentment.
Thus we see that while mere race cannot prevent assimilation of new stock from outside, Cultural barriers will. Certain numbers must of course be present for an alien group to maintain its identity within the body of a culturally-alien host. A tiny group could not so preserve itself.
That there is nothing about the Jewish race physically that is unassimilable is shown by what happened in Spain. There late in the 15th century the monarch compelled them either to adopt Christianity or leave the country. Most Jews left, but the descendants of those who adopted Christianity and raised their children among Westerners disappeared into the Spanish race.
Another example of a Cultural barrier is the relation of Russia and the West. There it is the purely negative will to destroy Culture that has prevented assimilation of Russia by the West, despite the fact that Peter the Great and his dynasty after him tried by every means to Westernize Russia for three centuries. The outburst of 1918 was primarily an expression of the great fact of the failure of the Petrine effort— it had been only superficially successful and had not penetrated to the depths of this powerful negative soul. The Western Culture is the great barrier that also prevents racial assimilation either way in large numbers.
For this same reason, Chinese and Japanese, who have behind them and in their souls the Chinese Culture that was fulfilled by 1000 B.C., cannot be assimilated by Westerners racially in numbers. The converse is also true: if a colony of Westerners were planted in the middle of China, 1000 years hence it would be still Western surrounded by the totally alien Chinese. This is the explanation of the anti Chinese and anti-Japanese laws and activity of the Americans from the middle of the 19th century to the present.
It is the numbers that create these racial questions. If a tiny group is involved, it will disappear; if a group of significant numbers is present, separated by a Cultural barrier from the surrounding population, it will not.
III
To think is to exaggerate; to separate a thing into elements is to give a picture that is bound to disturb
the natural order of the relationships. And yet it is a necessity of thought and presentation to examine and
set forth things serially. Thus constant precedence has been given to Culture as a barrier to assimilation
of populations, because it is an immensely more important one, since it is race-creating. Cases exist,
however, where race-difference in the physical sense is so vast that assimilation seems to be impossible.
There are no such problems in Europe, but they occur in various Western colonies, such as America and
South Africa. Race in the subjective sense influences the choice of a mate. If racial instincts are strong, they prevent the taking of a mate belonging to a race of totally alien characteristics, even physically. Thus the Negro in general rejects the white race, and the white generally rejects the Negro. The Culture barrier is also present, for the Negro is below our Culture, even though he has lived within its area for centuries. It is those whose racial instincts are attenuated in both cases who accept the totally alien physically.
The case of America shows the limits of racial assimilation between populations totally alien physically. There the liberal-democratic-communist-ideology has openly sought by all possible means to promote a blending of these two races. The only result it has had is to arouse racial bitterness that finds expression in bloody riots which proceed to mass-killings on both sides.
The only reason the subject of the Negro is touched here— its political significance is treated with America— is that it seems to be the extreme case of race-difference preventing assimilation. How much of this is due to the primitivity of the Negro, and how much to his total physical difference, we do not know.
The touching of this racial-frontier case of the Negro however, shows to Europe a very important fact— that race-difference between white men, which means Western men, is vanishingly small in view of their common mission of actualizing a High Culture. In Europe, where hitherto the race difference between, say, Frenchman and Italian has been magnified to great dimensions, there has been no sufficient reminder of the race-differences outside the Western Civilization. Adequate instruction along this line would apparently have to take the form of occupation of all Europe, instead of only part of it, by Negroes from America and Africa, by Mongols and Turkestani from the Russian Empire.
We have reached now the last and deepest relationships between Race and Policy:
Policy is charged with actualizing an historical Mission, the saving of the Western Civilization from decadence within, and from the barbarian without.
Whether this is to succeed will depend on the strength of racial instinct left, by which is meant the instincts of self-preservation, fruitfulness, and will-to-power.
Any man who shares the feeling of this Mission, and any group which shares it, belong to us in this greatest of all battles in 5,000 years of history, regardless of the derivation of the man or group.
Any group or idea which does not share this feeling, and wishes to further its own aims within the West is an inner enemy. Any group or idea which weakens in any way the racial strength of the West is an inner enemy.
Policy has the great double task of eradicating the inner enemy in order to salvage the racial instincts of the West, and of training this race into a sure and firm unit for a century of warfare.
The two great mistakes of materialism in the field of Race must be a cast into the dead past of Materialism: on the one hand the denial of Race, on the other hand the primacy of Race before Culture.
The aim of Policy is to actualize our Western Imperium— whoever introduces racial theories of materialistic provenance, whether in the name of “tolerance,” which means we should abandon our instincts, or in the name of “racial purity,” which means we should abandon our Cultural unity, is prolonging the crisis and division of the West.
One result of the coming warfare for the liberation of the West and the creation of the Empire of the West will be the creation— in the long and desperate fight— of a new race, the Western race, which will embrace the populations which made up the 19th century nations or England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia.
Those populations of the West which have the least impaired racial bodies and racial instincts will respond most intensely to the demands of the coming century of warfare, and will play the largest formative role in this greatest of all struggles, but the new race will be a unity, not a collection of dead races, but a new and grander creation from the human streams now existing.
The races of 19th century Europe are, as such, dead. Policy starts from this. Provincial patriotism of the 19th century type can evoke no response. The unity of the West which the barbarian has always recognized is recognized at the last hour by the West itself.
The barbarian is astride the prostrate West. This is not the end, but the beginning of Western unity.
People
THE CREATION of a race by History is clear. It is an example of the biological following the spiritual.
For this process to reach its highest potential a certain time is necessary— two or three generations are
needed for the type of the racial ideal to fasten on to a population-stream and give it its own distinct outer
look, corresponding to its inner unique super personal soul. People is a word on a different plane of thinking from this. We are familiar with its polemical use by the democratic mob to deny existence to qualitative elements and assert pure and simple quantity as “the People.” We seek, however, facts. What is a people? What is its articulation?
Two French thinkers contributed to the 19th century valuable insight into the nature of all human groups whatever. Gustave le Bon and René Worms both saw and set forth with Cartesian clarity the organic nature of human groups, the super personal unity which was the custodian of the Destiny of the group. Worms applied it upward— to the State. Le Bon applied it downwards— to the crowd. Their presentation was not entirely free of materialistic tendencies— “Truth belongs to the individual, Error belongs to the Age,” said Goethe— but they gave to the West a glimpse along the path of History. Their contribution was ignored by the Age of Rationalism. The pure materialism of William Paley was preferred: a people is “only a collection of the citizens who compose it.” Again: “The happiness of a people is made up of the happiness of single persons.” This stupid anti-factual picture could not be refuted, for it was a faith. The picture reflected the Spirit of the Age, and could only pass away with the expiration of that spirit. It was a picture that sprang from a certain soul, and even though it denied the soul, yet it was tied to the existence of that one certain soul.
The new age is one of Resurgence of Authority, both spiritual and political. This Age bases its political formula on facts, on the actualizing of the possible. It does not dream up an ideal picture, and then try to change the vocabulary of the world-of-action. It does not wish to delude itself into thinking that changing words will transform fact. It wishes to orient itself to facts, and above all to the repository of facts, History, and the driving force of facts, Destiny.
To understand what a people is, one must begin with the smallest human group, the crowd. It strikes one immediately that there are two types of crowds. There is the crowd assembled on an intellectual basis— the attendance at a lecture, at a drama, at a social function. Then there is the crowd assembled on a spiritual basis— a political meeting, a religious agitation, a protest, a riot.
The first type is a mere collection. The individuals repel one another, figuratively and literally. These crowds have as many viewpoints as there are individuals in them. They are not unities, but only potential unities. The outbreak of fire in a theater immediately turns such a collection of independent individuals into one soul, with one thought, a thought directed downwards, it is true, but it is a unity. The unity of panic is a fact which political and military leaders must know how to exploit. It is one way of inspiriting when other methods may fail.
The second type is not a collection, but a unity. The first is unarticulated— all the human atoms are on the same level. The second is articulated— it has a leader. If there is no leader, there is no unity, and a few mounted police may disperse it. No individual will risk anything for a mere gathering, because his individuality is uppermost. The unity of the crowd submerges the personalities of the components; the unity is a super-personal soul. The unity must be on the basis of an idea, a wordless feeling strong enough to cause individuality to subside. When this idea is present, the human beings present become mere cells, as it were, of the higher organic unity. Men of strong intelligence who have been in crowds united for action have described how their own faculties were transformed and how the detachment that intelligence gives was suddenly in abeyance, overcome by a force as mystic in its power as in its origin.
This crowd is a people. It is a higher organism, it is informed by a super personal soul. The individuals will sacrifice themselves in the process of this higher soul actualizing itself, what they would never do alone.
The technique of this process is quite invisible, mystical, but its results are just as visible. Not only do crowds arise by themselves in conditions of great super-personal excitement when a leader appears, as Camille Desmoulins did to the gathering in the Palais Royal in 1789, to activate the mere sum into a unity— but they can be created. Thus, anyone so situated as to be able to bring a mass into one place can transform the mass into a unity by leadership.
As far as the individuals are concerned, the crowd is an attitude of mind. The man in a crowd would not dream of thinking for himself— the results of thinking are presented to him by the leader, and thenceforth these thoughts are his.
With this emerges a very important fact about crowd unity. It only reached expression with the results of the new propaganda Technics of the First World War. It is this: Through constant, unremitting propaganda of all possible types, and with unbroken continuity, the unity of the crowd can be maintained even though the members are physically separated. Mass propaganda converts the population of a continent into a crowd. Individual thought occurs very rarely under such conditions. Constant bombardment with cinema, press and radio-wireless removes all individuality from the units of vast populations.
The crowd thus presents the articulation of leader-led. This is existential: without it there is no unity, with it any gathering becomes a unity. But the decisive part of the articulation is the leader, and not the led. All understanding is transferred to him. All decision is with him. This is totally independent of any theory or ideal in the name of which the crowd may be mobilized, even the theory of individualism. The crowd is a higher unity; the leader represents it.
Where a High Culture is present, any crowd whatever is affected by it, even though only negatively. By that is meant that even a protest against Culture, such as the Peasant’s Wars, Jack Cade’s rebellion, Marxian class-war, and the like, only gain their unity from their desire to annihilate Culture. Whether the crowd is in the service of Culture or not depends on the leadership. Crowds as masses are neutral. Leadership is decisive: creative leaders like Napoleon lead a crowd upward and forward; leaders of the negative and devious type, like Roosevelt, lead a crowd downward and backward.
The crowd is a soul-unit. Its significance and potentialities belong to its articulation, its leader. This is true both of street-crowds within the range of one eye and one voice, and also to crowds on a continental scale, like America.
The leader has a dual significance: he is part of the crowd, he must also be against the crowd. It has no individuality save his; if he also becomes lost in the crowd mind, there is no individuality present, no will, no brain. He is part of the super personal unity as the brain is part of the body. The brain serves the soul, the body serves the brain.
This smallest super personal unit, the crowd, shows the polarity of instinct and intellect that extends up through all ascendant organisms to the highest, High Culture. Instinct is the content of the Life, Intellect is the Technic of actualizing it. Instinct tells what, Intellect tells how. Instinct says: Preserve! Multiply! Increase power! Intellect seeks methods of preserving Life and increasing power. Intellect is charged with the mission of actualizing Life, of expressing the instinctive imperatives of Life.
They can only be understood in relation to one another. Their separation is distortion and illness. They increase together in healthy man. That is why the intellectuals in Late Civilizations exhibit such egregious stupidity— they have attenuated instincts, and hence no intellects. Instinct is the ship bound for a destination, intellect is the rudder that steers it; another figure: instinct is the passengers who are to be transported, intellect is the master of the vessel, who must deliver them.
Their relationship can be formulated from the negative side: Instinct furnishes the will-to-power, but must not decide the moment for attack. Instinct cannot decide on the policy by which Life is to actualize its inner imperative. It is blind— it always counsels attack. Thus General Hood threw away the Army of Tennessee in the American War of Secession. Intellect must decide between the posture of defense and the movement of attack. Instinct may succumb to defeat, Intellect can still discern the elements of hope. Instinct sees everything else and everyone else as enemy, Intellect coldly decides from the situation who is the enemy, and seeks to make all the others friends. Instinct is subject to intoxication, the function of Intelligence is to remain sober. Instinct loves and hates, Intellect, neither.
In Gothic times, the Empire and Papacy were formulated as the two perfect bodies. Each was supposed to exhibit absolute balance and harmony in its inner unity, as distinct from Man, who is imperfect and contains the inner struggle of Instinct and Intellect. In those times, the problem for the man of action seeking to actualize a great idea was to keep instinct within its bounds. Thus Henry the Lion acted instinctively in his defection from Barbarossa and destroyed the Hohenstaufen Empire, from which destruction the West has suffered ever since. In this time of transition, the problem is the reverse: now it is intellect which must be firmly held in place. In the pride of Rationalism, Intellect announced that it was Life— all else was retrograde, aberrant. The result of Western Intellect denying Western Instinct was the division of the World between Washington and Moscow.
II
The crowd has been seen to be a submerging of individual souls into a super personal soul. It is the
creation of a unity out of a sum. In the process intellect moves out of the components and becomes vested
in the articulation, the leader. The street-crowd is the smallest people. A people is a unity for action. Whenever, in its great rhythmic swirls, History pulls a group into its vortex, the group immediately articulates itself as a people, or disappears. The group may be religious in origin, economic in origin, cultural in origin. But when it becomes an object of happening, it must respond by constituting itself as a people, or simply vanish from the pages of history. Peoples may be tiny, or they may be vast. The population living in the area between the Adige and the Kurisches Haff felt itself a people at the dawn of our Culture. This vastness of landscape at its origin was unique to the Western Culture. The same feeling was abroad then that in its maturity, in the custody of Spain, made the whole world into the object of Western politics. Or a people may be tiny— the Mormons in America, a mere group of converts to a religionist, asserted themselves strongly and were opposed from without. They responded by becoming a people. Their unity persisted until their leadership decided in favor of Intellect and compromised the doctrines of the religion, whereupon the Mormon people disappeared.
What is it that creates a people? It is first a difference between a group and its human environment, and secondly a tension worked up by this difference. A tension is a frontier. The frontier sharpens the feelings on both sides, and results in a new action-unit, a People.
Just as this tension may arise out of religion, economics, culture, race, so may the new unit contain all kinds of people, if the population affected is heterogeneous. Language is no bar to the formation of a people; in fact all existing Western languages came after the formation of their respective peoples.
A People is a spiritual unit. It is created by History, and if it is able to survive its first tests, it becomes a unit which carries History further. Just as the excited street-crowd only becomes a unit by virtue of the leader-led articulation, so a people is only such by virtue of leadership.
The distinction between crowd and people is only one of duration and magnitude, and not one of kind. Thus one man can exercise, for the few hours necessary, the entire leadership functions of a crowd. A people is more elaborately articulated than a crowd, has a more complex existence, a larger Life-task, and hence, a stratum of leaders. Any absolute monarchy or dictatorship also has a leader-stratum.
A people may be weak, or it may be strong. During the recent centuries of Western history, since the Peace of Westphalia, a handful of weak peoples have managed to maintain a nominal independence, politically speaking, by virtue of the tense situation between larger powers. But weak peoples, like weak individuals, cannot create great deeds or great thoughts. A strong people, by the intensity of its imperative, maintains the frontier between it and other populations, refuses to compromise its unique idea. By frontier is meant here of course, spiritual frontier. Whether this develops into a territorial frontier is for events to show, and is also a matter of what Culture we are talking about.
Thus, in neither the Arabian Culture, nor the Classical Culture, was the idea of a people bound up with a land area. In neither of these Cultures was it repugnant to the spiritual feeling of unity of a people to have a strange people living in the same area, having its own government and laws. Imperial Rome administered foreign laws in cases involving foreigners. In the Arabian Culture, the independence was even more marked. Thus Nestorians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side, but belonged to different nations, and did not intermarry. Foreign meant: of a different belief. These peoples and nations would have regarded the Western doctrine of the Reformation-times cuius regio, eius religio as the most Satanic possible inversion of the natural order. To make belief dependent upon the land of residence would have seemed monstrous to them. The Jew brought this feeling with him from this alien Culture. He regarded his next-door Western neighbor as foreign. The public life of his Western host-nation was a matter of indifference to him, and he had his own public-life, unnoticed by the West. Their laws were not his, nor their religion, nor their ethics, customs, thoughts, or habits, and above all, their political life did not touch him with its ideas of Fatherland, patriotism, military service, self-sacrifice.
In Turkey and China it was not felt as a humiliation that by the “Capitulations” Westerners were under the jurisdiction of their own consular representatives, and not under local courts.
Thus the relation of a people to other peoples is a matter determined by the symbolic inner-life of the High Culture in which it may arise. This is not to say that a People can only arise in a High Culture. For phenomena like Tamerlane and Gengis Khan are also people-creating.
As concepts, Race and People are quite separate; in life they are not so separate. We have seen the formation of a Race. It begins with the formation of a People. Every people with a strong idea and good leadership will develop also into a racial unity if it lasts long enough. The converse is also true: a race— using the word now with its maximum of anatomical content, e.g., the Negro— may be the focus of happenings that will force it to assume the form of a people.
A People is a unit of the soul. Wherever there is a soul-unity gestating, a people is forming. The entire 20th century West can now see what Nietzsche discerned in the 80’s of the 19th century— the arising of a Western People. His expression “We good Europeans” was understood by few of his time. They were too busy with their petty games: in the Cabinets they were playing national-atomism; in the salons they were talking social-atomism and “happiness”; in the cellars they were plotting in class-atomism.
The strength and health of a People depends upon the definiteness of its articulation. We have seen how in a street-crowd, all will and intellect mystically devolve upon the leader. If this breaks up, through mistakes by the leader, or crushing by external force, the crowd is dead, and reverts to a sum of individuals.
The decentralization of will and intellect in the West generally is thus seen to be a grave Cultural sickness. The Authority and Unity of the West was gradually undermined for centuries by the slow increase of the intellectual content of the Culture. Nevertheless this Culture preserved its unity before the world, generally speaking, until the cataclysm of 1789, which Napoleon, and after him the Vienna Congress, were unable permanently to undo. The Concert of Europe was replaced by a progressing Discord of Europe.
The more will and intellect that passed downwards and outwards in the Culture, the greater was the decline in the Cultural health. Nationalism was the disease of the Culture; Class War was the disease of the Nation; Parliamentarism was the disease of the State; the Rule of Money was the disease of Society; sterile Pleasure was the disease of the Race; the new selfishness was the disease of the Family; Divorce was the disease of Marriage.
Every Culture has gone through this terrible crisis, and each has stood where the West now stands in 1948. This means, of course, inwardly, for never before at the height of its crisis has an entire Culture been occupied by barbarians and distorter. The previous seven Cultures surmounted this critical time: the creative forces of Instinct and Intellect, working in harmony brought about the Resurgence of Authority, and formed, in each case, the Empire of the Culture.
The beginning of this resurgence of synthesis and creation after the long orgy of Intellect-run-wild manifests itself in diverse phenomena. Nietzsche and Carlyle were symbols of the resurgence. Characteristically both were Europeans, and despised the petty-statism of their times. Their lives and ideas were an expression of organic necessity. Both were heralds of the next Age. The appearance of a spate of cultural histories was another sign. The appearance of State-Socialism was another. The biological theories of de Vries and Driesch, the abandonment of the materialistic cliches by a whole group of physicists was another. For political purposes, the most important was the beginning of the formation of a People of the West.
Nation
THE WORD People describes a group which has become a soul-unit, through an idea and the presence of
the polarity of leader and led. The word is neutral as to the duration of such a group, its inner strength, its
intensity, or the magnitude of its mission in life.A nation is a people— and something more. It is more highly articulated. A people can arise outside of a Culture; a nation cannot. A people may be a unit of short duration, or inwardly weak. A nation has a life span and belongs to the strongest organic unities within a Culture. With the word Culture, we touch upon the hall-mark of the Nation: a nation is a people containing a Cultural Idea.
When a High Culture is born into a landscape, after a gestation period of several generations, it works with mysterious effect upon the populations in its area. Previous names and groupings vanish into new spiritual unities. In the West, around 1000 A.D., the names Swabian, Frank, Lombard, Visigoth, Saxon, become dead terms for practical purposes, and men begin to feel themselves as Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards. Each of these groups is an Idea— it is the vehicle of a certain part of the soul of the Culture, it is a plane of existence, an aspect of the Culture-spirit. This is the basis of their differences. Their similarity is that they are the creations of the same Culture.
Their differences beget different racial rhythms and styles of thinking and doing. A different inner accent shapes the same general linguistic material into various tongues, each one the expression of a different soul. The separate souls react in distinct fashions to similar outer experiences, and thus events also contribute their part to shaping the character of the nations that arise.
To understand what a nation is, one must first entirely dissociate in his mind the connection— so self evident to the 19th century— between nation, political unity, and language. To the era of Rationalism and Capitalism, these units were the very primordial material of history. But these nations were only expressions of a certain stage of the Nation-Idea in Western history.
In the dawn of our Culture, language had no relation to nation, nor had politics. A Nation in those days was a spiritual unity which expressed itself as such in the Spirit of the Age. That Spirit was one of religious feeling, Scholastic philosophy, Gothic architecture, Imperial-Papal politics, Crusades. There was a sharp and distinct feeling of the foreigner, but the word did not relate exclusively to politics, or language. In the 11th and 12th centuries, English, German, French methods of thinking appear in the various Scholastics. Varying honor-imperatives, varying moral-feelings, different ways of manifesting religious feelings, variations in the Gothic cathedrals, degrees of attachment to Empire or Pope— all show the different national ideas.
Vis-à-vis the foreigner— the Moor, the Slav, the Turk, the Saracen— these nations unconsciously, self evidently, were one People. However strong their feelings of separation toward one another, instinct welded them into a unity for assertion against the Cultural alien. Thus when the Crusaders established a Western State in the Levant, it was not English, French, German— but simply Western. The instinct of the Culture is strong, its rhythms compel virtually, its super personal unity is felt in the blood, and hence recognized by the intellect.
All Cultures express themselves in the form of nations, as well as art-forms, religions, languages, Technics, knowledge-systems and the other Culture-forms. Just as all the other forms are distinct within each Culture, so is the style of the Nation. In the Arabian Culture, just as its conception of History was the actualization of a World-Plan by God beginning with a Creation and ending with a Cataclysm, so the Nation-style was one of belief. Members of a belief were constituted as nations. The notion of territory, Fatherland, was not present. The nation had a spiritual, and not a physical, extent. This Nation-idea created in this alien Culture the Jewish nation, which in that Culture was one among others of a similar structure. In our Culture, it was so completely alien that no one realized what its essence was until we reached our period of Late Civilization with its historical sensitivity.
In the Classical Culture, the Nation-idea was expressed in the form of a City-state. The Nation was not an area, but only the City and its population. Any further territorial control was negative in origin; e.g., to control was to deny possession of the area to a potential enemy in war. To these nations, our idea of a Fatherland with distant frontiers that one never sees during his whole life would have been a fantastic and repellent hallucination.
II
The Nation is an Idea. Its material manifestations are the actualization's of this Idea as it fulfills itself.
We can, for purposes of understanding, divide the Nation into three strata. On top is the Idea itself. It is
incapable of expression in words, for it is not an abstraction, not a concept, but is a soul. It can only be
expressed in lives, deeds, thoughts, events. Under it is the minority which embodies the Idea at high potential, the nation-bearing stratum. It represents the Idea in History. For practical purposes it is the nation. It is, as actuality, what the mass of the population, the body of the nation, is as possibility.
The lowest stratum is the mass. It widens out toward the base, becoming ever less differentiated as one goes down. Finally one reaches the level where an eternal stratum is reached, that takes no part whatever in the national Idea, which does not experience the History which is playing its drama higher up on top.
Just as, in a crowd, the leader is the decisive part of the unity, so is the nation-bearing minority in the national unity. Both minority and mass are in the service of the Idea, just as both leader and led are of the crowd-idea. If the leader is killed or removed, another will arise, if the idea is strong. Similarly in a nation, the mass contains, in most of its individuals, a spark of the national feeling. Those who are more moved by this inner quality than others are a part of the minority, the nation-bearing stratum.
Dissociate nation-bearing stratum and mere political leadership. In organic health the political leadership contains only members of the nation-bearing stratum— but not all of them, by any means, for nation-bearing stratum is much wider than political administration. But the political leadership may contain, owing to weakness of the national idea and aggressiveness of an inner alien group, few or even no members of the nation-bearing stratum. The members of the nation-bearing stratum are those who by the strength of their national feelings and their willingness to sacrifice for this Idea are the custodians of the Idea before the world and against inner alien and anti-national elements.
If this stratum were to be removed from a healthy nation with a future, after a period of spiritual chaos in the body of the nation, a new one would arise from the mass. If the mass were totally devoid of national feelings, the minority could not accomplish the Idea.
That there is nothing whatever abstract about this is shown by the case of Russia. There the Romanov dynasty and its upper stratum tried to make Russia into a Western people, a Western nation. But the mass was quite devoid of possibilities in this direction. They did succeed in making Russia into a Western nation, for appearances, and for political purposes, and this shows that the minority is decisive. But when the Bolsheviks exterminated or drove out this entire minority, there was nothing to replace it, for the mass did not even contain a spark of this idea.
Thus from the standpoint of History, the nation serves the Culture, the minority serves the nation, the mass serves the minority. The quaint transposition of thought known as Rationalism saw it otherwise: there is no Idea, there is only mass, anything else must serve the mass. But Rationalism only affected terminology in this matter, for even those nations most heavily undermined by Rationalism still appeared in History in the custody of a minority, and the mass was only called upon to obey, to think a certain way, to vote a certain way. It is important in the 20th century to know that denying facts does not remove them, nor does changing their names change their nature. In the 19th century the Nation was still an Idea, even though it was supposed to be merely a huge collection of individuals. It was an Idea that infected even the most rationalistic of the Rationalists, the Communists. Thus French Communism was entirely different from German Communism— the difference between Paris in 1871 and Berlin in 1918. They may have read from the same book, but the pulse in the blood was different.
Nation and History
A NATION IS an organic part of a Culture, it expresses by its life and development a certain inner
possibility of the Culture-soul. It is never independent of the Culture, and this condition of dependence is
shown by the expression Spirit of the Age. It has long been recognized by thinkers and men of action that
there are certain things which simply must be done, others which simply cannot be done, during a certain
age. One may, or may not, agree with these things with his intellect, but he must observe them. The
Spirit of the Age is the phase of development of the Culture. It subjects all nations to it. Since each nation
has its own character, and since each Age has its own stamp, it follows that one nation may be more
adapted to one given Age than another. This is the explanation of why we have the Age of “The Holy
Roman Empire, German by nation,” 1050-1250, the Spanish Age, 1500-1650, the French Rococo, 1650-
1750, the English Age, 1750-1900. Within this framework of its own subjection to the Culture, the Nation-Idea compels everything in its realm to submit to its force. Thus each Western nation had its own type of social behavior, its own articulation of society, sharp and clear in England, Prussia, Spain, vague and nebulous in France and Italy. The religiousness of England differed from that of Spain, both from Germany. The orientation to economics is different in each place, strongest in England. Even in the field of erotic, the nations are differentiated, and France is the nation that developed the most elaborate culture of sexual love. Literature is distinctly national, so is drama, so is architecture, so is even music. Philosophy did not escape nationalization: the two greatest Western schools are the English Sensualist school, 1600-1900, and the German Idealist school, 1650-1950. Orientation to religious doctrines is different: Spain has been the stronghold of Catholicity, England of Protestantism. The great men that have arisen in the various nations have expressed national qualities at high potential: Think of Richelieu, Cromwell, Alva, Wallenstein. An oil painting discloses the nationality of its painter during the great era of Western painting, 1550-1850.
It is thus easy to understand how Materialism could convince itself that nations were the creators of Culture, instead of seeing the fact that it is the reverse.
A Culture begins in Faith and Mysticism, with its thought-world and its action-world both subject to self-evident order and authority. It develops along the path of increasing intellectuality until it reaches the caesura of Rationalism, when intellect frees itself entirely from faith and instinct, analyzes, disintegrates, and mobilizes everything. In its very last stage, that of Late Civilization, it gathers itself once more together, asserts its unity by impressing all forms of its life with a final form which returns once more to the symbolic Authority and Mysticism of its origins.
This biography of the Culture is traceable in every life-form, including its nations.
The Culture created its nations through dynasties. The idea of a dynasty is repulsive to the Classical Culture, unknown to the Arabian.
But Western nations, imbued with the unique force and intensity of expression of the Western Culture are dynastic, even when they abolish a dynasty. They either want another dynasty, or else they wish the dynastic feeling to be freed from the personality of the sovereign. Dynasty is the affirmation of political continuity from Past to Future. The political history of the West from its origins is the history of dynasties.
The form of Western politics was always dynastic, and increasingly so as the Culture attained to greater heights. The rhythmic cycles of great wars took a dynastic form: a vacant throne somewhere called forth a Succession-War. Even in 1870 the pretext which Napoleon III adopted for his war against Prussia was a dynastic one. And the great Napoleon too, was brought down by a millennium of dynastic tradition that he roused against him by driving out old dynasties and putting his brothers and Marshals on thrones as new dynasts.
In this stage of Western history the idea of the dynasty is only apparently gone. A thousand-year Empire is itself a dynastic idea. The genealogical continuity of the ruling house is merely a powerful symbol of continuity. This symbol satisfies instinct. Western intellect demands this same continuity during its reign, 1750-1950, but merely changes the symbol: instead of a blood-stream of a royal House, it puts up a piece of paper, a Constitution.
Readers in 2050 can see about them the final form of the expression of Western dynastic feeling. In Rationalist times the symbol of the Royal House became unsatisfactory, and was merely tolerated, if not abolished altogether. The piece of paper was much more real to a Rationalist. Now the piece of paper has become unsatisfactory, as History quietly submerges Rationalism. We stand at the next epoch, that of Resurgence of Authority.
Nation and Rationalism
THE NATIONAL STYLE of a High Culture is so strong that it pulls even neighboring populations into its
form. Examples of outer populations that adopted the Western national style because of their
geographical proximity are the Balkans, Poland, Bohemia and Russia. This adoption is quite enough to
deceive certain elements in the Culture that these border-streams are within the Culture-organism. This is
strongly reinforced in the minds of superficial people if, for instance, one or two highly gifted men from
beyond the border come under the spirit of the Culture and produce works of thought, or deeds, in the
Culture-style. The year 2050 will hardly believe that Russia was referred to as a Western nation as late as
the middle of the 20th century. This mistake was merely one of the results of the impact of Rationalism
on the Nation-style of the Culture. Reason is the form of thought adopted to solving mechanical problems, and cannot be applied to organic things, in its free, rootless form. Thus to every organism there is a birth, and a death. For what reason? The question is senseless from the organic standpoint. Why must an organism die? No one can give a reason. This refers, of course, to emancipated, inorganic, reason. Religion employs reason, but within the framework of Faith. Emancipated reason— Rationalism— recognizes no superior discipline, neither that of organic regularities, nor beyond them, of Faith or Religion. But yet, the organism dies, even though Rationalism loudly insists that it is not necessary. The human life span of 70 years represents no logical necessity. It would not offend logic if organisms were perpetual. This same non adaptability of logic and reason to organic rhythms affects fundamentally the Nation-Idea during the period of Rationalism.
The laboratory-logic which denied God and the human soul was certainly not going to allow the NationIdea. The most it was willing to concede was the existence of a great number of individuals. Actually this pose was impossible for even the most intransigent rationalists to maintain, and in their writings, they continually slip into figures of speech which betray that they are thinking in terms of a higher Idea which is imminent in each of these individuals.
Thus to Rationalism, Nation means— Mass. There must be no articulation— no nobility, no clergy, no monarch, no group raised above the others by virtue of its higher Idea-content. There is also no Idea which forms all the individuals, even though there is the mechanico-logical concept of the totality.
The concept of Nation-as-Mass is coeval with Democracy and Class War. The three notions are merely different aspects of Rationalism. If the nation is the mass, there should be no social stratification, and if the old-traditional structure does not give way, one must make class-war against it.
Rationalism is born at the same time also as the decisive turn of Culture toward Civilization, the fulfillment of the inner form-world, and the unequivocal turning to activity as the prime content of Life. This means the vast increase in the public power available to political leaders, larger wars, more intense economics, more physical energy, enormous development of Technics. No Western thinker ever had a better technical brain than Roger Bacon, or Leonardo da Vinci, but the technical works of these men came in an age of inner activity, which regarded Technics as a branch of knowledge, not as a form of unleashing power for industrial and war purposes. The Civilization expanded in power and in extent. Anything opposing this organic rhythm was doomed to frustration and defeat. The old traditions could only survive if they would take up the new tendencies and lead them onward. This was done in England, but the feat was not so remarkable as has been generally supposed, for the English national-Idea was actually the vehicle of this change of direction from Culture to Civilization. The Rationalist Idea was born in England. English Sensualist philosophers enunciated its basic doctrines, English parliamentarians applied them to theory of government, English technicians invented the new power-unleashing machines, English merchants created the forms of 19th century Capitalism, English thinkers first announced the idea that the nation was the mass. The French Encyclopedists were all under English influence, and many of them lived for years in England. Thus there were plenty of persons in high places who were in contact with the new ideas and felt the necessity of adopting them verbally.
The doom of Napoleon symbolizes the deep fact that he was both representing and opposing this idea at the same time.
Rationalism could only say: the nation is the mass; it only denied the articulation of the Nation. These nations were not yet dead, and could not be denied. The emphasis passed to the external differences between the nations, which means, political differences. Nation becomes for the first time in Western history, primarily a political idea. The word “nationalism” acquires an exclusively political meaning.
Nation had not been, even in Frederick the Great’s Wars, a purely political thing. Under Frederick had fought Russians against Russia, Frenchmen against France, Swedes against Sweden, Saxons fought both for and against him. An early acquaintance of Frederick tendered to him his military services. Frederick offered him a majority. Reluctantly the man took service with an enemy army, because a colonelcy was available there. Such conduct was not considered monstrous at that time. 19th century interpretation of history— ignoring the soul and following the surface continuity of names— merely took current politics and applied it backwards. The foreigner was not liked during previous Western history, but politics was not oriented to this one fact alone. Politics was a thing of dynasty— or as in the case of the microscopic nations, revolt against dynasty. German condottieri like Froberger, and English like Sir John Hawkwood led foreign mercenaries in the wars in Italy. The German Emperor Frederick II was more Italian than German, and found no difficulty in being both politically. Allegiance was not a thing of geography of birthplace, but of attachment, common destiny, oath, honor. Thus, treason in those days did not refer to birthplace, but to obligation of honor. Not until allegiance was given was honor involved. The great Emperor Charles V had a German father, a Spanish mother, grew up in the Netherlands, was educated by a Flemish churchman, whom he later appointed Pope Adrian VI, spoke French as a native tongue, was King of Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor. Spaniards had dukedoms in England, an English queen was married to the King of Spain, the English King was Elector of Hanover. Armies consisted of men of mixed nationality, and commands changed often among generals of different nationality. It suffices to mention Maurice de Saxe, Prinz Eugen, Marshal Conde, Montecuculi. Dynastic-politics cut straight across nations, just as nationalistic politics cut clean across dynasties.
But the old spiritual significance of Western nations was replaced by a purely political one after the triumph of Rationalism. The linkage in those days between the new idea of the nation-as-mass and nation-as-political instead of dynastic, caused nationalism to be looked on in 1815 as Communism was in 1915— the height of radical destruction.
Napoleon represented both ideas to Europe. He was anti-dynastic, and thus unlocked everywhere the new feeling of political nationalism. But to countries occupied by French armies, political nationalism meant revolt, and it was the Prussian rising of 1813 that destroyed Napoleon.
Rationalism saw a nation thus as a political mass. But why just this mass and not another? There had to be some visible, mechanical, determinant of nationality. This was found in— Language. If a man spoke French, he was French; Italian, Italian. What determines this? Where he was born. It does, or it should. Allegiance became something owed to a language and a piece of ground, not to an Idea or the dynastic symbol of the Idea.
This concept triumphed, publicly and privately. It determined a man’s national feelings, and changed the nature of wars. Instead of the Succession-Wars, which arose from dynastic-politics, came now wars for a territory and population which one could assimilate by language policy in the schools.
The populations of the Balkan countries were a reflection of the school-policies of the preceding generation. It reached a grotesque height when it was employed in theory at the Versailles conference, 1919. Language was supposed to be the indication of the presence of a nation. The principle was of course only used where it suited the political purpose, but nevertheless everyone paid lip-service to this materialistic stupidity.
This concept of the Nation-Idea had many important consequences. The Italian Wars of linguistic Unification created what never had existed before, a political unit Italy. The Austrian nation was annihilated by this concept, and the attempt by extra-European forces to resurrect it as a nation after the Second World War as a part of the general plan to Balkanize Europe was doubly ludicrous, for a new Nation-Idea was coming. The linguistic idea of Nation also enabled England to bring about the entry of America into the First World War on its side, because the written language was more or less common to both. Suppose that— as narrowly missed by vote— the American Constitutional Convention in 1787 had adopted the resolution to make German the official language of America. Western history, 1914-1918 had been quite different. Instead of Europe controlling in 1950 no part of the globe, not even its own area, it would have controlled the entire globe.
But the Nation is always an Idea, it can be nothing other. Only one’s concept of the Nation can change, but the Idea is something in the blood and soul, and not merely in the mind. It permeates a man’s way of understanding what a Nation is, and what everything else is. Even though, say, French and English Rationalists had agreed precisely on what the Nation is, each would have behaved in his distinct national way.
Rationalism looked at the nation from within and said: it is mass. It looked at it from without and said: it is language. Both were materialistic stupidities. Nation is, first, the Idea; second, the nation-bearing stratum; lastly, the mass who are the object, the mere body of the Nation. From without, the Nation is a different soul from other souls. It is contact with the foreign that develops the sense of the proper.
Rationalism liberated the Nation-Idea from the Dynasty-Idea. Dynasties changed their names to try and cover up their connections with other nations. In most countries the dynasty was dethroned as being anti national, since nation was mass, and Dynasty was symbol. Above all, Rationalism accomplished the identification of nation and politics. Nationalism became primarily a political term.
II
The Dynasties reacted as a group to the new concept of the nation, both in its politicization of the Idea,
and its identification of Nation and Mass. The making of Nation into the unit of politics was an attack on
every dynasty. Dynasties hitherto had exercised a monopoly of politics— were they now to be supplanted
by mob-leaders who wished to tear up everything and set it in motion? At the Vienna Congress, 1815,
and in the Holy Alliance, the Dynastic Idea of Politics gained its last great victory on the surface. But
only on the surface, for repression of the Spirit of the Age only dams it up, as it were, and a dam cannot
be built against Destiny. This is the tragedy of every aging woman, and of every effete, backward looking,
ruling class. Talleyrand— alone at the Congress in his political superiority— was however
working with the 19th century Nation-Idea, and not that of the 18th century, like the Kings. He
stimulated their conservatism, and brought out of a total French military defeat a stronger France.
Boundaries were secondary to the Dynastic, primary to Talleyrand. Readers in the 20th century find it difficult, those in the 21st century more difficult, to believe that even in the 50’s of the 19th century nationalism was considered a radically destructive force by the traditional elements in European Nations. In Germany, it took a man of political genius, Bismarck, to transform the idea of nationalism from a destructive, class-war idea into a conserving, creating idea, serviceable to Tradition and forward development.
This changing of the meaning of the word nationalism from destructive and leveling to creative conservative and hierarchical showed that despite their surface-victory, the Dynastic at Vienna had lost their contest against Destiny. Whether or not they continued, the dynasties were politically dead. They became, more in some places than elsewhere, mere pageantry. The force of the dynastic idea— the passionate affirmation of eternal duration— was transferred on to the Nation. The dynasty became merely a part of the general public property of the Nation— like the public buildings, and the national museums. At one time the monarch owned the nation— in the 19th century the nation owned the monarch. If the monarch did take part in politics, he was subject to the same inner limitations as any Premier.
The question will be asked: how did nationalism change its significance from Tradition-destroying to Tradition-conserving? It was another development of the Rationalist stock of ideas that brought this about, namely the transference of class-war from the political-social sphere to the economic sphere. Nationalism had done its work on the destructive side: it had destroyed Dynasty and Estates. Now its place in the center of History was challenged by Economics. Economics— Money— is hostile to politics generally, whether dynastic or nationalistic. Authority is the prime enemy of Money. Authority means responsibility, and Money means irresponsibility. Authority means Public; Money means Private.
The Master of Money is the second of the class-warriors. First was the ideologue on the barricade with a copy of Contrat Social in his hand. He cleared the stage for the Master of Money. The third in this succession of Culture-termites is the Master of Labor.
Vis-à-vis all three of them, any form of political nationalism is conservative, and contains possibilities of creativeness if the responsible stratum has sufficient vision and energy. But it takes Genius to see the obvious, and a Bismarck was necessary to show the conserving value of nationalism, and its creative possibilities. Metternich stood with his feet in the old Europe of Dynasty, and had thus seen the struggle of Nationalism against Dynasty as one of Chaos against Order. The year of his passing, 1848, was the epoch of Nationalism from its old meaning to its new one. Had he lived to see the economic class war of the forces of Money and Proletariat against Politics, he also would have chosen nationalism as the alternative.
In the field of politics, Rationalism accentuated the differences between the nations. In the field of economics its effect was even more disintegrating. It wished to break up the nation into classes, and the classes into individuals. Liberals, financiers, Communists, Anarchists were the coalition against the remnants of Authority embodied in the nationalistic State. In its first century, Rationalism affirmed the nations as the ultimate units of history and warred against the subjection of the nations to the dynastic. In its second, more radical, century, Rationalism denies the nations altogether. The professors and “political economists” conceived of the nation as a mere economic convenience in a world-wide “division of labor.” Thus one nation could grow crops, another could make machines. It was to be solely economic differentiation. This idea was the darling of the financier, for in the flow of trade in such a world— there must be no autarchy— he would be the great gainer, for it would all flow through him.
On the other side, the Communists said that nations were only a capitalist trick to separate the “workers of the world.” Only classes were real— all else is illusion— and there are only two of them, bourgeois and proletaire.
These two world-pictures point to total chaos, the dissolution of the Civilization, and submission to the barbarian. Hence Nationalism, from having been destructive became conservative, and even, in the right hands, creative.
Nation in the 20th Century
EACH AGE passes into the succeeding Age gradually in the depths. On the surface the transition may be
gradual, or it may be sudden. This is only another way of saying that there is struggle between Young
and Old. The old try to preserve that which is familiar to them, the young wish to actualize the new
which is beating in the pulse. A tradition bridges the gap and maintains surface gradualness
corresponding to the gradualness beneath. If the tradition has decayed— France, 1789— the break opens,
and becomes a front for fighting. England was ready sooner than France— the Wilkes agitation contained
the possibility of a Terror in London in the 60’s— but the ruling class was not decadent and knew what to
take over and when to be firm. The 20th century Nation-Idea can be understood by applying the Hegelian-Fichtean Triadic Law of Thought. The thesis of Nation as Dynastic-Unit, and the antithesis of Nation-as-Linguistic-Unit are both submerged into the creator of them both, and become Nation-as-Culture-Unit, the gigantic synthesis whose irresistible actualization is the inner motive force of History in this century. We who live in the middle of the 20th century cannot understand the excitement of 1848, for we only know the hither side of it. Those in 2050, living in the Western Nation-Idea of the 20th century style, will not be able to understand how anyone could have opposed the obvious Destiny of the Western Nation-Idea. Yet the opposition was as effective as that of Metternich and the Fürstenbund was to the entry of the 19th century Nation-Idea.
One great difference exists however. The Russia that the Western Nations called in to help against Napoleon and the new Nation-Idea he represented considered itself a Western Nation, and so conducted itself. The Russia that the party-politicians called in against the 20th century Nation-Idea was the primitive barbarian in all his vigor and will-to-annihilate. The America that intervened in Western politics was entirely in the grip of Culture-distorters, and thus removed by such a regime temporarily from the areas of Western influence. The only difference between them to the Europe they divided after the Second World War, 1939-1945, was that no Western possibilities existed in Russia, and America did present a possibility— in the future— of a revolution which would restore America to the West. Both were completely alien, both could only destroy.
The 20th century sees the end of Rationalism. Even now— 1948— it is pale and emaciated. Scientists and philosophers are falling away. Mysticism is reappearing, both in its authoritative-religious form, and in the form of theosophistic fads. Mechanism in biology has yielded to Vitalism. Materialism fights desperately, hopelessly against the resurgence of the Soul of Culture-Man. Relativity has placed the determination of phenomena with man, precisely where German Idealistic philosophy had put it in the 18th century. Even matter has been liberated from Causality— we now allow the “electrons” and their relatives to dance freely about, no longer in subjection to the strict Culture-physics of Western tradition. That which would have been regarded with horror a generation before quietly asserts itself in defiance of Rationalism— clairvoyance, disguised as “extra-sensory perception.” The Psyche intrudes even into physiology.
But in this year 1948 the world of action remains, chained by its stupidity, in the dead past. Synthesis replaces analysis in Western thought, but Western action remains disintegratory: classes, tiny “nations,” division of powers, economic obsessions, parties, trade-unions, “rights,” parliaments, elections, frontiers every few miles in Europe, opposition, hatred of authority, lack of respect and dignity, mutual economic strangulation by customs boundaries. This while the extra-European world agglomerates itself into great, world-embracing masses of territory and population. The Cultural impetus of Imperialism is carried forward by the non-Culture peoples, the barbarians, while the sick, backward-looking West thinks in ever smaller space-terms. While the barbarians build empires, Europe abandons old conquests. While the barbarians proclaim their superiority, voices in Europe are raised saying that Western Imperialism— that mighty inner imperative of the most passionate, intense High Culture the world has yet seen— only existed in order to prepare the under-races of the world for “self-government.” They continue to say it as the extra-Europeans divide the Mother-soil of European Culture between them, and loot and starve European populations on a mass-scale.
It might be thought that the 20th century Idea of the Nation is disintegration, when one hears fools in Bavaria announce that the solution for them is to constitute themselves a “little Switzerland.” One wonders that is it possible for extra-Europeans to find such people down below the Western Culture.
But this atomizing of the Soul of the West is not the 20th century Idea. These voices of submission to the barbarian, and abandonment of Culture, of disintegration into ever-smaller particles of territory and population are the illness of the West, not its Future, its crisis, not its health. They are the pseudo-victory of 18th and 19th century Rationalism over the Resurgence of Authority of the 20th and 21st centuries. They are the extrapolation of the Rationalistic twins, finance-Capitalism and snarling Communism, the desire to extend into the Future old diseases of the European will, to perpetuate feelings that are dead and can no longer inspirit the soul of the West.
It is known however that the life of a Culture has its own rhythm, its own inner law of development, its own imperative. This cannot be changed by the will or rationalistic ideal of human beings. These ideals are themselves the expression of a great Culture-crisis, and with the disappearance of the crisis, the ideals are suddenly entirely empty. No one is willing to die for them. The crisis is now coming to an end, as is manifest by the developments in other Culture-directions. The history of previous Cultures shows the duration of this great crisis, through which they all had to go, and from their history, we know at what point we stand.
That point is the transition to the new idea of the Nation, the Nation as Empire, Nation as Culture-unit. The tests of race, people, and language have no validity, for the 20th century will shape its own race and people exactly as the 19th century races, peoples, and nations were the products of History. It sounds much more fantastic to 1950 ears than to the ears of 2150 to say that the creation of a new language by the 20th century Nation in process of arising is not impossible. It may be one of the old languages, modified by the new spirit; it may be a new language, containing elements of pre-existing languages.
The Second World War represented the surface victory of the Past over the Future. Metternich, Burke, Wellington, would have read this situation correctly, but would have cast in their lot with the Future, for the Future is Order, and the Rationalistic Past is Chaos and Disintegration. They fought Rationalism in its inception, and their heirs who fight it to-day fight a Rationalism stricken with rigor mortis, for which no one will mount the barricade, and which only sits leering upon its throne by virtue of its serviceability to the Barbarian. It divides Europe, and Europe divided is Europe conquered.
The fight against the Past is thus seen to be the fight against the extra-European forces, for it is they who are perpetuating the atomizing of Europe, the Balkanization of a Culture, the Switzerland of the West.
It is characteristic of any phase of development of a Culture that it is historically necessary. It is precisely the same force that causes one Culture phase to succeed to another that makes the youth inevitably into a man. To attempt to interfere with the one process is the same as interfering with the other. So far no way has been discovered to stop the development of an organism, except killing it. The caterpillar must become a butterfly, the bud must become a flower, the youth must become a man, the man must express his mature possibilities. This force which impels this forward development is called Destiny. It is operative at every moment from conception to death in every organism. It is the hall-mark of the organic which distinguishes it from the inorganic, the permanent, the history less. Every organism has its own life-task, and the fulfillment of this task is inwardly necessary. The extent to which an outer force can affect the process is different for various organisms. The phenomena of outer forces attempting to warp a High Culture from its Life-path come under the heading of Culture-distortion.
The subject of the State must precede a treatment of Culture-distortion. Race, People, Nation, State are manifestations of Cultural health. Distortion is the illness of the Culture.
State
WITH THE STATE we come to the first purely political Idea in the life of the High Culture. Race, People,
Nation have all of them political potentialities, deep connections with politics, but State is a political term.
It is a word whose content changes quite completely during the development of a Culture. The States
which philosophers, scholars, and theoreticians project are not States for the purposes of this work. These
things belong to literature, whereas this is concerned with the actualized and the possible. Plato and
Campanella, More and Fourier, Rousseau and Marx, all designed Utopias which should exist, and it is this
moral imperative, this should, which shows that the center of gravity of these States lies in thought and
not in action. The State as an actuality is a manifestation of the development of a High Culture. Outside
of a High Culture there is no State, but only leadership of more or less permanence. The content of the
State-Idea is a reflection of the stage of development of the High Culture, and thus the State can only be
comprehended organically. It cannot be made the object of logical operations, for being living, it is
irrational, unamenable to logic. If such attempts reach the level of politics, of actuality, they throw the
State into crisis, since the State, like every phase of the Culture, can only be itself, or be sick and
distorted. The State is the form of a nation for action. The content of this form changes, and each change is a crisis in the Culture-development. In the earliest time of the Culture, the time of the Crusades, of the conflict of Empire and Papacy, from 1000 to 1300, the Culture-unity is so strong that the Culture itself is constituted more or less as a nation, with all the lesser sovereigns holding of the Emperor. Vis-à-vis the barbarian, all Westerners are of one nation, and are welded into one State.
The first social articulation of the Culture is into Estates. The two Estates, Nobility and Priesthood, represent the two aspects of the Culture-soul with the highest possible symbolic purity. Nobility represents war, politics, law, race. Priesthood represents religion, knowledge, science, philosophy, the world of thought. The rest of the population is just that— the rest. Seen from above, it has only an economic function. Out of it develop the beginnings of trade-organization, free cities, and merchant princes.
The meaningful idea of life is, however, represented by the Estates and the symbols of Empire and Papacy. This political form is known as the feudal-State, the first State-idea of the West.
The first great political form-crisis of the West occurs when this idea loses its self-evident power, and there appears in the feelings of men the idea that there is something higher, to which even the noble blood and the feudal organization is subordinate. It is the dim beginning of the State-idea. The dissolution of the feudal State occurs in the 13th and 14th centuries. It takes the form of breaking down the over-lordship of the highest lords, the Pope, Emperor, Kings. The Papacy, on the temporal side, was organized as a feudal hierarchy, with the great spiritual dignitaries holding their investitures of the Pope as overlord. After the death of Innocent III, under whom for a short time, the whole Western Culture had acknowledged the feudal supremacy of the Pope, the great archbishops and bishops forced through representative institutions for themselves, and reduced the temporal power of the Papacy gradually to a mere shadow power by 1400.
The greater German Princes made the Imperial throne dependent upon them as Electors, and this idea was formally constituted in the Golden Bull of 1356, although actually long before that. Magna Carta, 1215, the General Privilege of Saragossa, 1283, the Estates-General, 1302, have corresponding significance in England, Spain and France. In each case it is the breakup of the feudal concept of the State, and the arising of the pure State-Idea. It is the beginning of the Dynasty-Idea. The highest feeling heretofore was that of Life as deriving its significance from noble blood, but henceforth the idea is one of a task, a labor for the Future. The Dynasty is the symbol of this new idea.
From this crisis, we in the 20th century learn first of all that State-crises in a High Culture are not things of a few years duration, but of a century or more. We learn further that the surface of History does not reflect at once the underlying idea-forces at work which provide the impetus of History.
The end of the crisis finds the State-idea established everywhere in Europe. Even though everywhere the State remained entirely aristocratic, nevertheless Sovereignty did not reside with the Estates, but with the higher idea, the State. The word treason changes its meaning and becomes more absolute, more heinous. Henry the Lion had received but mild punishment for his defiance of the feudal Emperor. The Emperor was after all but primus inter pares, and the relationship between him and his vassals was personal. With the triumph of the State-idea, the obligation of loyalty to the State becomes super personal, once it is undertaken. It is loyalty to an Idea, not to the person of the monarch.
The State progresses in its development from the aristocratic State to the Absolute State. Absolute means: independent of any other form. As applied to the State, this means independent of the Estates who had everywhere asserted their independence of the dying feudal power of Emperor and Kings. This development brings forth the second great State-crisis of the West, the transition to the Absolute State. It lasts a century in its severest form and dominates all political events from 1550 to 1660.
Feudal politics had been the struggle for power among families, lords and vassals, factions. The dynasties had to rely on their political talent, for none of them rested so strongly that it could not be challenged by a powerful duke with a claim to kingship. It was the time of Lancaster and York, of the German Princes, of Renaissance city-politics and condottieri.
But the Absolute State-Idea was at work in the depths, and by about 1500 it becomes articulate, and engages everywhere in a struggle with the idea of the aristocratic State. Two ideas of the State are at war: the aristocratic State and the Absolute State. Since the Absolute State is the one which attained in history to identify with the State generally, we may call this second State-crisis of the West the battle of State against Estate, for, indeed, the form of this crisis was a defensive fight by the Nobility against the encroachments of Absolutism. The new idea is the State, it represents the Future in 1500, and therefore it prevails. The generic name of the wars entailed by this crisis is the Wars of the Fronde. The Fronde is the collective name of the noble Estates. This crisis lasts a century, and ends in France and Spain in the victory of the State over the Estates. The great names associated with this historical development are Richelieu and Olivarez. In England the State was represented by Charles, the Fronde by Cromwell. The defeat of the State-Idea was final in 1688, and thereafter England had no State in the sense of the State of Louis XIV, of the Spanish Phillips, of the Saxon, Würtembergian, Bavarian, or Prussian Kings. The aristocratic Parliament was the Nation, not the State.
In the Empire, the greater Princes overcame the State-idea in the Thirty-Years War. The name Wallenstein and its tragedy symbolize the defeat of the Imperial State-idea by the German Princes. After the Thirty Years War, Germany developed a whole collection of petty States, each modeled on the Versailles State. The defeat of the State-idea in Germany meant that Germany was out of condition for the great political contest.
II
The experience of England and of Germany in the Wars of the Fronde is of high importance for the
surface of subsequent European history and must be examined. The Absolute State idea represented the Future. It was a centralizing of politics, and therewith of power. It enlarged the arena of politics, and increased the amount of public power, and meant consequently that powers not adopting the new idea would drop out of the great combinations and become mere battlefields, objects of the great politics of the States. This is precisely what happened to Germany. Since there were 300 Germany's, there was no Germany, and the other powers fought their wars in German territory. Only Austria was a power, and it was constituted as a State. The other German States were too small to be able to play an independent role in Western politics, and thus were not true political units.
England is the only power in which the Fronde triumphed but which nevertheless was able to stay in condition for the greater political battles introduced by the State-idea. This was owing solely to England’s island situation. The geopolitical security conferred on England by its insular existence enabled it to dispense with the strict centralization of inner power demanded by the State-idea, without at the same time ceasing to exist as a political unit, as did Germany. When Wallenstein and the Imperial State-idea lost, all was lost for Germany for two centuries. But Cromwell’s victory, which destroyed the State-Idea in England, substituting for it the Idea of “Society,” did not spell ruin for England, simply because other better-organized States were not able to invade it as long as it maintained an adequate naval establishment. To keep up a sufficiently large fleet did not require political centralization, and thus England survived the era of Absolutism without an Absolute State.
England, because of this island situation, did not become acquainted with the Slavic border-barbarian. It experienced, for instance, no Hussite Wars as did Germany. For 16 years, 1420-1436, the Hussite armies, first under the blind Ziska, and later divided, flooded over half Germany, burning, ravaging, killing. This destruction was vandalism, unconnected with any constructive political idea. It was 15th century Bolshevism— annihilation of everything Western.
The situation of Germany, on the border against Asia, was one of constant danger of invasion by barbarian Slavic, Turkish, Mongolian and Tartaric armies. Fighting against these armies was not colonial warfare, in the meaning of one-sided warfare that the expression acquired in the later centuries. These border barbarians were in contact with the West and adopted its purposefulness, its higher organization, and its centralized will.
While Germany in the East, and Spain in the South, were protecting the body of the Western Culture from the Barbarian, England was forming a national feeling based purely on contrast with other Western nations, and without feeling for the deep, total contrast between the Culture-peoples and the Barbarian. This exaggerated national feeling was to have fateful consequences for the entire West, including England, in the era of World Wars.
III
The great formula for the transition from the feudal union to the aristocratic State is that in the former
the State existed only with reference to the Estates, and in the latter the Estates exist only with reference
to the State. The slow externalizing of the Western soul— shown by things like gunpowder and printing,
voyages of exploration, increasing elaboration of the economic life, demise of Scholastic philosophy
through the triumph of Nominal-ism, growth of cities, growing strength of the idea of the Nation—
progressively weakens the States, and the Wars of the Fronde were their last great assertion against the
growing power of the Absolute State. But the Absolute State represented the Future, and the Estates went down. In the main body of the West, after 1650, the State rules in politics. Its expression is dynastic, but the monarch derives his significance from the fact that he is the prime symbol of the State. When his entourage arrived at the formula that Louis XIV was the State, they were clothing him with the highest formula to which their thought could attain. In England, where there was no Absolute State, the substitute idea of the Nation was the leading idea, and the noble order ceased gradually to be an aristocracy, and finally even a nobility, and became finally the Peerage, a stratum whose significance was purely social. Its political possibilities were greater by reason of its social ascendancy, but it was still politically subordinate, and not sovereign as in the days of Magna Charta.
The political form-world of the Culture moves onward, and the next great political form-crisis is that of the transition from the Absolute State to Democracy. The crisis begins around 1750 and lasts a century in intense form. It broke out violently in France in 1789, and rapidly progressed to the Terror of 1793. The Rationalistic provenance of the ideas of the democrats showed that the Democracy-Idea is only politically-applied Rationalism.
The Absolute State-versus-Democracy crisis is different from the others in several ways. The decisive externalization of the soul of the West, brought about by the epochal change of Culture into Civilization, generated an amount of power for political purposes that dwarfed anything previous. Armies are numbered no longer in thousands or tens of thousands, but within decades pass to hundreds of thousands, and their numbers on both sides total millions. Instead of decisions being made by a few ambassadors or ministers, new leaders appear with the might of mobs at their backs. The form of the Absolute State had been unquestioned for more than a century, and now suddenly the new idea is in the air that Reason will examine all things anew and re-form the world. Since it is an organic fact that living things must obey their own inner laws or become sick, the attempt to subject the world of action to Reason could never succeed in its aim. Success merely meant the putting of the State out of condition. But actually Reason simply turned into a political weapon, and political leaders obeyed the dictates of the situation without regard to Reason. The pretense of logic had to be maintained, and the extreme divergence between conduct and principle equates Democracy with Hypocrisy. The type of the party-politician is of necessity a charlatan-type. Lincoln, the American party-leader masquerading as a saint, is the new idea of a politician. His pretense was humanitarianism, his result was unlimited finance-capitalism over a continent, his Technic was the spoils-system.
Reason is a product of Life, and the attempt to turn the tables and make Life into a creature of Reason was doomed in practice. In theory, however, it lasts two centuries in all High Cultures. The sole effect is to destroy. It destroys culture, in the narrower sense of art forms and literature, it destroys traditions of service, dignity, loyalty, honor. It destroys the State-idea as embodied in its last refined form, the Absolute State. It lays the Civilization waste from within, politically speaking. Having leveled all the political and social powers, Rationalism can now look upon the monster of its own creation, the absolute power of Money. This new power is unformulated, anonymous, irresponsible. The most powerful money-magnates are not well-known to the masses, nor do they wish to be. Fame, responsibility, and sanctions go together. The Master of Money desires no limelight, no risk of life, but only money and ever more money. Party politicians exist only to protect him and his operations. The courts are there to enforce his usury. The remnants of the State are there to do him service. Armies march when his trade system is challenged. He is subject to nothing, he is the new Sovereign. He is above nations, and his banking operations transcend national laws. It is during his tenure of power over the Western Civilization that the phrase “power behind the throne” acquires its sinister and private meaning. His is action without risk. To him a hero is a fool, a patriot an idiot. They may bleed, but he will profit. If his system is threatened, he mobilizes the masses of continents, supplementing nationalistic slogans with universal conscription which is more effective than the slogans.
This new creation shows what the great catchword “Freedom” means. Freedom was attractive to two great groups, the intellectuals and the trading-class. To both of them, the State was a burden. For its one pulse, one imperative, which impressed the life of everyone with its majesty, the pavement-intellectuals wish to substitute universal criticism, and the traders introduce universal trade without any restriction whatever. These two new orders are the old nobility and priesthood in caricature. The intellectual with his atheist pamphlet and the trader in his counting-house are respectively the masters in the democratic world of thought and action.
IV
For the purpose of recapitulating with the utmost clarity the biography of the State-Idea in the Western
Culture, I append here a paradigm. The dates given must of course be taken as approximate. The exact
year given is arbitrary. Historical transitions are gradual in their depths. An idea is born, slowly grows,perceptible, but the beginnings of the slow developments toward, and away from, a crisis, can have no
exact date assigned them. Even in the life of a man, there is no date at which he becomes mature,
nevertheless 21 has been selected as the ideal age of this transition. Form of the State-Idea Duration of Form Duration of Crisis in
Transition to Next Form Feudal State 1000-1300 1200-1300
Aristocratic State 1250-1660 1550-1660
Absolute State 1600-1815 1750-1850
Democracy 1750-1950 1900-19—
The table shows the State-forms overlapping one another, and the crises overlapping the forms, because the facts do exhibit this phenomenon in actuality. In one place the idea has already triumphed, in another this does not occur for fifty years. Or the new idea may appear and lose on the surface of history, and decades may be necessary before it again contends for power. We living in the middle of the 20th century know well what a transition period means. The old idea is quite dead, but party-leaders continue to repeat the old catch-words, like senseless parrots doing something for its own sake.
The last entry in the paradigm has been left blank. Succeeding the Democracy-idea of the State comes the last State-form of the Culture.
The old traditions of the Culture and their highest political expression, the Absolute State, have been swept away by two centuries of destruction under pressure from below. The class-war of mob-leading doctrinaires attacked and defeated the old social powers in the first century of Rationalism, 1750-1850, and finance-capitalists and labor-leaders defeated the productive economic leaders in its second century, 1850-1950, dissolving the whole collective life into a miserable, soulless, endless battle for money.
The entire population of the Western Culture is weary to death of this vile scramble, of this chaotic lack of leadership, of authority, or a strong, commanding voice. A deep yearning is going through the Western world to be free from the dirt and uncleanness of party-politics, class-war, financial usury, and complete absence of the heroic spirit. This yearning is the current form— 1948— of the State-idea of the Future. It has already expressed itself in the body of Europe. Its form for the immediate Future is the Resurgence of Authority. It attains finally to Caesarism, in which authority is free from all defensiveness and is once more self-evident, as in the pre-Rationalist millennium. In its first stages the new State-idea is antidemocratic, anti-Rationalistic, but the further these ideas sink into the past, the less is it concerned with them.
The new State-form, corresponding to the slowly rising European race, European nation, European people, and European language, is also universal. It is a State whose home-soil is co-terminous with the boundaries of the West: Scandinavia, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. The details of whether this State in its first phase drags along some of the outdated Rationalistic forms with it— such as written pieces of constitution paper purporting to have something to do with government, parliaments, elections— are unimportant to its great inner meaning.
This State ends the inner anarchy of the West, which has become self-evident from long usage. Public power can no longer be held by individuals; public enterprises pass under public control and ownership; the money-monopoly of the few individuals is transferred to the State. Capitalism vanishes, in both of its aspects, the finance-capitalism of the supra-national usurer, and the capitalism of the labor-dictator. The emphasis on inner-politics passes away with the undertaking of the greatest wars the world has ever seen against the Barbarian for the survival of the Western Civilization. The heroic spirit replaces the spirit of profiteering. Honor replaces cant, and the trader gives way to the soldier. Unlimited Imperialism is the task of this State, not the Crusading Imperialism which vanished with feudalism, nor the Ultramontane Imperialism of Spain in its glory, nor the economic Imperialism of England, 1600-1900, but a new, total, political, organizatory, authoritarian Imperialism, which will plant the Western banner on the highest peaks and the most remote peninsulas. The new State will not have the party-leader’s horizon of the next election but will think in centuries, and will build for a millennium. It will dissolve the selfishness of individualism in a new Socialism, not the old-fashioned class-war Socialism of “rights,” but a stern Socialism oriented to the outer danger. The old attempts to tamper with Reality by means of theories are forgotten in the new unity of Culture, Nation, People, Race, State. Since the new State negates Rationalism, the enemy of the soul of Culture-man, it has an affirmative attitude toward the spiritual development, the Rebirth of Religion, which accompanies the arising of the new State.
The last entry on the paradigm illustrating the biography of the State-idea in the Western Culture thus is:—
Authoritarian State 1900-2— None, final Western State-form.
CULTURAL VITALISM
(B) Culture Pathology
Culture Pathology
ALL OF THE four forms of life— plant, animal, man, High Culture— exhibit the organic regularities of
birth, growth, maturity, fulfillment, death. Each form contains within it the essence of the less elaborate,
less articulate forms and the new soul is a superstructure, as it were, on the general foundation. Thus the
plant exhibits a close connection with the cosmic rhythms, the animal has geographic distribution over a
certain landscape, large or small, and shows also immediacy of instinct coming from its close connections
with cosmic rhythms. Man has attachment to the soil, both spiritually and materially, possesses beast-of prey
instincts, and shows in his rhythm of sleep and waking the alternating supremacy of the tension less
plant-element in him. A High-Culture is plant-like in its attachment to its original soil, which lasts from its
beginning to its latest period; animal-like in its ruthless devouring of other life-forms; man-like in its
spirituality, and original in its power to transform human life, its great life span, and the forcefulness of
its destiny. To everything living belongs sickness as well as health. In his classification of the sciences, Bacon provided a place for the science of deviations, and after him D’Alembert, in his classification for the Encyclopedia listed “Prodigies, or deviations from the usual course of Nature.” Life is regular in its phenomena, and when it deviates, it is regular in its deviations. Illness of whatever sort, exopathic or autopathic, comes under Pathology. Plants have their pathology, as have animals and man. High Cultures also have their pathology, which is only being realized for the first time by the new Age, with its incorruptible eye for facts, and its freedom from the prejudice of Materialism. Pathology follows the organism, and thus plants cannot suffer from liver trouble, nor dogs from psychosis. But the process works upward, just as the planes of life are stratified, one above the other, as life increases in complexity. Thus parasitism, a form of plant pathology, exists as well for all the higher life-forms. The growth of a plant can be thwarted by unfavorable conditions, just as the development of an animal can be stunted by outside interference. Weaker human organisms can be spiritually retarded and stultified by complete domination of their souls by stronger-willed humans.
Human pathology is a science of the becoming, not a science of the become, like physics. It can never succeed in its program of organizing the field of life-deviations, for Life defies all classification whatever. The invisible components dominate the visible. The soul, the will, the intellect, the emotions, are all uncanny in their effects, and cannot be treated in the systematic fashion appropriate to the data of physics or geology.
The pathology of High Cultures was naturally a blank to a scientific method which asserted as a basic dogma that Life was mechanics, man was soulless, that there must be a chemical formula for consciousness. To this outlook which denied God and Soul, High Culture was an abstract name for the collective efforts of single men. A nation was a collection of individuals with only mechanical connections, economics and “happiness” were the entire content of Life, everything which put spiritual content or meaning into Life was the prime enemy. This view simply could not understand Life. It produced a psychology hardly complex enough even for animals, and called it human psychology. It placed the barren intelligence in the center of the inner world, and denied the mystical nature of human creativeness.
This viewpoint was itself a product of a certain Age, the Age of Rationalism, and with the passing of this prejudice, we stand before a whole new world of soul-relationships, entry into which was forbidden during the last two centuries. We are liberated from the oppressive drabness of Materialism, free to step forth once more into the multi-colored and infinitely varied realm of the Soul. In its final phase, the Age of Rationalism turned its knife on itself: with its refusal to recognize psychic phenomena proved by its own methods, it showed its own nature as a Faith, an irrationality, and moved into History’s collection of temples, legends, and memories.
Materialism approached Life from its under side. In actuality, the Soul uses the material as the vehicle of its expression. Materialism, seeing only the results, and not the invisible Destiny which was bringing them about, said that the results were primary, the Soul a null. Failing to grasp the invisible Necessity which rules the organic and its relationship to the Cosmos, it reached the conclusion from a hundred different directions that Life is an accident. Not to catalog these interesting reasons, take for example, the presence of dust in the air. The laboratory-thinkers discovered that if dust were not present in the air, all Life would be impossible. It never occurred to them that Life and all the other phenomena were connected by mystical necessity. By treating everything separately, by ever-finer analysis of ever-smaller things, they lost all connection with Reality, and were surprised when connections among things did appear. It could only be an accident, said these profound thinkers.
II
The conditions of Life form a starting point for us. Not the conditions of all Life, but only that
particular form of Life called High Culture. Each variety of life-form has its own ideal conditions. Some plants require much water, others little. Some grow in salt water, others need fresh water. Animals have a habitat, each species has its own area or areas which furnish the conditions of its health and survival. Human beings as a whole have certain areas, and various types of human beings have their respective landscapes which further their life-needs.
Corresponding to the ideal life-conditions of the various life-forms, each form of life, and each organism, possesses power of adaptation. A plant can continue to live— at a lower potential— if given less than the ideal amount of water. But a point is reached at which the amount of water is minimal, and if less is given, life ceases entirely. This is the limit of adaptation. Both animals and man have adaptivity and a limit thereto. Men can live in the dense air of valleys and in the rare air of high mountains. The human body adapts itself to mountain conditions by increasing the size of the chest and the lung-surface. But this ability to adapt is not indefinite, and a rarity of air is reached to which men cannot become adapted because of inherent bounds of the human life-form.
The treatment of this subject in this work is not meant to be anything more than the minimum presentation of fundamentals necessary to understanding the nature of Culture-phenomena generally, as the basis for action. This is politics, not philosophy of history, nor yet natural philosophy of organisms. The whole subject of Culture-pathology is comparatively new. What in 2100 will be a completed discipline is now only an outline, and this is even less than an outline. But politics cannot be separated from Culture, and any effort which lights its necessary path forward for Western politics at this critical juncture is justified culturally and historically.
A High Culture is different from other organisms in that it actualizes its material manifestations through lower organisms, namely through Culture-man. Its body is a huge aggregate of many millions of human bodies in a certain landscape. The question of whether the prime symbol of the Culture is spiritually adapted to the particular landscape is outside our scope.
It is apparent that the question of physical adaptation does not exist for a Culture. Its only adaptation is spiritual. Nor can it have a physical disease like men can. Disease to a Culture can only be a spiritual phenomenon.
Life itself is a mystery, that is, something which is not fully understandable. Perhaps this is because the faculty of understanding is only one manifestation of one type of Life, in other words a part of a part, and is thus unadapted to assimilating the Whole. Every manifestation of Life is a mystery, including disease. Some men, when brought in contact with certain microorganisms, develop a definite disease. Other men do not react at all to these micro-organisms. The serum that may be beneficial to one man may kill another. It is possible to discuss disease-phenomena like these in terms of adaptation and inability to adapt. The last reason why a species, or an individual, finds its limits of adaptability precisely here and not at a further point, will always be unknown.
And so with Cultures. Just why the soul of a Culture retains its purity and individuality is hidden. Nevertheless inwardly it follows its own life-course, and cannot follow the life course that an alien life feeling, deriving its motivation from extra-Cultural sources, might wish to have it.
Just why Destiny impels an organism to actualize its possibilities, compels continuous transition from one phase into the next, is also a mystery. Nevertheless it does. The materialistic 19th century, having completely lost touch with the real world of the spirit in its obsession with the sub-real world of the material, felt in consequence a nameless terror of death, and rationalistic medicine announced its intention of doing away with Death. This sort of thing reflects credit on the intellectual courage of the rationalists, but shows their rootless intelligence to be synonymous with stupidity. We cannot do away with Destiny, since even our protest against it is a phase of development.
The entire subject of Culture-pathology is too wide to be treated here, and it will be the subject of many volumes in the coming centuries. All that is necessary for the 20th century action-outlook is to understand three phenomena within this larger field of Culture-pathology, namely, Culture-parasitism, Culture-Retardation, and Culture-distortion. All of these Culture-illnesses exist in the West in the middle of the 20th century, and have existed for some time. It is only this sick condition of the Western Civilization that makes the current grotesque world-situation possible. Current refers to the first two World Wars and their hideous aftermath. The home soil of the Western Civilization is the site of the strongest brains and characters, the most intense moral force, the highest technical creativeness, the only positive high Destiny, in the world, but yet despite the fact that all these spell the world’s greatest power concentration, the Western Civilization today is simply an object of world-politics. It is spoils, booty, for marauding powers from without. This situation did not come about by military means, but by critical Culture-disease.
Culture Parasitism
IN THE chapter on the outlook on politics, the condition in which persons thinking privately affect public
affairs was called parasite-politics. The example was given of La Pompadour throwing France into a war
against the great Frederick because he had dubbed her with an uncomplimentary name before all Europe.
In this war, France lost its overseas empire to England, because it was fighting in Europe, and devoting
less effort to the great imperial war than to the local European war. This is the usual result of parasite politics. A nation is an Idea, but it is a mere part of the greater Idea of the Culture which creates it in the process of its own actualization. But precisely as a nation can be the host to groups and powerful individuals who think in complete independence of the fulfillment of the national Idea, so can a Culture.
Everyone is familiar with parasite politics in a nation, and everyone understands it when he becomes aware of it. When the Greek Capodistria was Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Russia, he was not expected to execute an anti-Greek policy. During the Boxer Rebellion in China, no Western power thought of giving a command to a Chinese general. In the American war against Japan, 1941-1945, the Americans did not use their Japanese conscripts, just as Europe discovered in the first two World Wars that it could not use Slavic Bohemians against Russia. American generals would not dare to use their Mexicans against Mexico, or their Negroes against Abyssinia. Nor in a period of war preparation against Russia would a known Russian sympathizer be given public power in America. Much less would the Americans turn over the entire government to known Russian immigrants.
Phenomena of this type reflect the general fact that a man or group remains what it is even though taken into another group unless assimilated. Assimilation is the demise of a group qua group. The bloodstream of the individuals comprising it continues, but the group is gone. As long as it was a group, it was foreign.
In our examination of race we saw that physical differences are no barrier to assimilation, but that a Cultural barrier is. Examples are the Baltic Germans and the Volga Germans, cut off in primitive Russia, Chinese and Japanese in America, Negroes in America and in South Africa, the British in India, the Parsees in India, the Jews in the Western Civilization and in Russia, the Hindus in Natal.
Culture-parasitism arises in the same way that parasitism arises in politics. A parasite is simply a life form which lives in or on the body of another life-form at its expense. It involves thus the direction of part of the energy of the host into a direction alien to its interest. This is quite inevitable: if the energy of an organism is being spent for something other than its own development, it is being wasted. Parasitism is inevitably harmful to the host. The harm increases in proportion to the growth and spreading of the parasite.
Any group which takes no part in the Culture-feeling, but which lives within the Culture-body, necessarily involves a loss to the Culture. Such groups form areas of anesthetic tissue, as it were, in the Culture body. Such a group, by standing outside the historical necessity, the Destiny of the Culture, inevitably militates against that Destiny. This phenomenon is in no way dependent on human will. The parasite is spiritually without, but physically within. The effects on the host-organism are deleterious both physically and spiritually.
The first physical effect of non-participating groups within the body of a Culture is that the numbers of the Culture-population are thereby reduced. The members of the alien group take the place of individuals belonging to the Culture, who thus never come to be born. It reduces artificially the numbers of the Culture-populations by the numbers of the parasitic group. In animal and human parasitism, one of the numerous effects on the host is the loss of nourishment, and Cultural parasitism is analogous. By reducing the numbers of Culture individuals, a Culture-parasite is depriving the Cultural Idea of the only form of physical nourishment it needs— a constant supply of human material adequate to its life-task.
It is only in the light of recent studies of population trends that this anti-reproductive effect of immigrating groups is established. Thus from comparative study of American population trends, it emerged that the 40,000,000 immigrants to America from other continents from 1790 up to now— did not serve to increase the population of America at all, but only to change the quality of it. A super personal Idea, clothed as it is with the force of Destiny, must fulfill its life-task, and if this involves populations of a certain size, increasing at a certain rate, these externals will come into existence.
Materialism found itself with the data of population trends on its hands but no explanation for them. These data showed for the Western nations gradual increases, rising rapidly to a peak, and then a stabilizing and slow falling off. The curve that describes this population movement of nations— it is the same curve, roughly speaking, in each case— will be found also to describe the population movement of a High Culture. At the stage where a High Culture passes over into Civilization— the stage marked for us by Napoleon— the increase of numbers is rapid and rises to figures which dwarf anything previous. The same Spirit of the Age which externalized the whole energy of the Culture into massive industrialism and Technics, great revolutions, gigantic wars, and unlimited Imperialism, also called these numbers into being. The life-task of the Western Civilization is the mightiest the world has ever seen, and it needs these numbers in order to accomplish it.
Culturally parasitical groups are not available to the Idea. They use the energy of the Culture inwards and downwards. Such groups constitute weak spots in the body of the Culture. The danger of this internal weakness increases in direct proportion as the Culture is threatened from without. In the 16th century when the existence of the West was threatened by the Turks, it would have been perfectly evident to every Westerner that large inner groups of Turks— had there been such— were a serious menace.
A second way that Culture-parasitism wastes the substance of the Culture is through the inner friction that their presence necessarily creates. In the body of the Arabian Culture around the time of Christ, a large number of Romans was present. Their cultural-stage was that of Late Civilization, complete externalization, and the cultural stage of the Aramaean population which was there at home was that of the earliest Culture. The tension which was naturally engendered— racial, national and cultural, finally culminated in the massacre, in 88 B.C., of 80,000 Romans. This brought on the Mithradatic Wars, in which more hundreds of thousands perished in 22 years of fighting.
Another phenomenon closer to our times is that of the Chinese in California. The racial tension between the white and Chinese populations there during the 19th and 20th centuries resulted in mutual persecution, hatred, riots, and bloody excesses.
The Negro population both in America and South Africa has been the occasion of similar outbreaks of hatred and violence on both sides.
All these incidents are manifestations of Culture-parasitism, the presence of a group which is outside the Culture totally. These phenomena have no connection whatever, as the analytic approach of Rationalism thought, with hatred or malice on either side. Rationalism always looks downward: it saw merely a group of individuals on both sides. If these individuals were massacring one another, it was the desire of these particular individuals at this particular time to kill one another. Rationalism did not understand even the simple organic phenomenon of a crowd, much less the higher forms of people, race, nation, Culture. It never occurred to the Liberals that since these tensions throughout 5,000 years of history had always manifested themselves thus, that there was any necessity at work. Liberals could not understand instinct, cosmic rhythm, racial beat. To them a race riot was a manifestation of lack of “education,” of “tolerance.” A bird flying over a street-disturbance would understand it better than the materialists, for they voluntarily adopted the viewpoint of the earthworm and held to it with determination.
So far from these excesses being the result of malice or hatred, the contrary is true— demonstrations of good-will and “tolerance” actually increase the tension between totally alien groups, and render it more deadly. Focusing attention onto the differences between utterly alien groups works these differences up into contrasts, and hastens outbreaks. The closer the two groups are brought into contact, the more insidious and dangerous grows the mutual hatred.
Theoretically it sounds perfect to say that if each individual is “educated” to “tolerance” there can be no racial or cultural tension. But— individuals are not the units of this type of happening; individuals do not bring these things about, higher organic unities do this, and impel the mere individuals. The process has nothing to do with consciousness, intellect, will, or even emotions, in its inception. All these come into play only as a manifestation of defense on the part of the Culture against the alien life-form. Hatred does not begin the process, nor does “tolerance” stop it. This sort of talk is applying the logic of the billiard table to super personal organisms. But logic is out of place here. Life is irrational, and so is every one of its manifestations: birth, growth, illness, resistance, self-expression, Destiny, History, Death. If we wish to keep the word logic we must distinguish inorganic logic from organic logic. Inorganic logic is causality thinking; organic logic is destiny-thinking. The first is aware, illuminated, conscious; the second is rhythmic and unconscious. The first is the laboratory-logic of physical experimentation; the second is the living-logic of the human beings who carry on this activity, and who are in no way amenable, in their lives, to the logic which they apply in their workshops.
II
The most tragic example of Culture-parasitism for the West has been the presence of a part of a nation
from the Arabian Culture scattered through the entire body of the West. We have already seen the
entirely different content of the nation-idea in that other Culture— nations there were State, Church, and
People all in one. The idea of a territorial home was unknown. Home was wherever the believers were.
Belonger and believer were interchangeable ideas. This Culture had attained to its Late Civilization phase
while our Gothic West was barely emerging from the primitive. Into the tiny hamlets— there were no cities— of the awakening West, these finished cosmopolitans built their ghettos. Money-thinking, which seemed evil to the deeply religious West, was the forte of this highly civilized alien people. Interest-taking was forbidden by the Church to Christians, and this conferred a monopoly of money on the strangers. The Judengasse was a millennium ahead in Cultural development of its surroundings.
The legend of the Wandering Jew arose at this time, expressing the feeling of uncanniness that the Westerner felt in the presence of this landless stranger who was everywhere at home, although it seemed to the West that he was nowhere at home. The West understood as little of his Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, Kabbalism, and Yesirah, as he of its Christianity and Scholastic philosophy. This mutual inability to understand generated feelings of alienness, fear and hatred.
The hatred of the Westerner for the Jew was of religious motivation, not racial. The Jew was the heathen, and with his civilized and intellectualized life, he seemed Mephistophelean, Satanic to the Westerner. The chronicles of the time record the horrors which the contact of these two utterly alien groups begot. Jews were massacred in London on the day of coronation of Richard I in 1189. The next year 500 Jews were besieged in York castle by a mob, and to avoid its fury, resorted to cutting each other’s throats. King John had Jews imprisoned, their eyes or teeth plucked out, and hundreds butchered in 1204. When a Jew in London forced a Christian to pay him more than 2s. a week on a loan of 20s., mob action killed 700 Jews. Crusaders, for centuries, massacred whole Jewish populations of towns, when they stopped on their way to the wars in Asia Minor. In 1278, 267 Jews were hanged in London, accused of clipping coins. The outbreak, in 1348, of the Black Death, was attributed to the Jews, and massacres were the result all over Europe. For 370 years, the Jews were banished from England, until readmitted by Cromwell.
Although the motivation of these excesses was not racial, it was race-creating. What did not destroy the Jews made them stronger, and separated them further than ever from the host-peoples, physically and spiritually.
During the centuries of our Western history, the problems and developments which roused fundamental excitement in the West did not touch the problem less Jew, whose inner life had passed into fixity with the completion of the Culture which created this Jewish Church-State-People-Nation. Empty for him were the conflict of Empire and Papacy, the Reformation, the Age of Discovery. He looked upon them purely as a spectator. His only question was what they might mean to him. The idea of his taking part in them, or making sacrifices for one side or another, never came up. The British in India looked upon disturbances among the indigenous populations with the same eye.
In his ghettos distributed over Europe, all was uniform: the food-prohibitions, the Talmudic dualistic ethics, one for the goyim and another for the Jew, the legal system, the runes, the phylacteries, the ritual, the feeling. His Sufism, his Hasidim sect, his Kabbalism, his religious leaders like Baal Shem, his Zaddikism, are equally unintelligible to Westerners. Not only unintelligible, but uninteresting. The Westerner was absorbed in the intense conflicts of his own Culture, and did not observe, except in relation to himself, the life of the Jew in his midst.
Not until the externalized, fact-sensitive 20th century, did the Western Culture notice the Jew as a Cultural phenomenon. In Gothic times, until the Reformation, it saw him as a heathen and usurer, in the Counter-Reformation as a shrewd businessman, in the Enlightenment as a civilized man of the world, in the Age of Rationalism as a fighter in the van of intellectual liberation from the bonds of the Culture and its traditions.
The 20th century saw for the first time that he had his own public life, his own world down to the details. It realized that the comprehensiveness of his outlook was the equivalent of its own in breadth and depth, and therefore alien in a total sense which was never before suspected. In its previous centuries, the viewpoint of the West toward the Jew was limited by its stage of development at the time, but with the 20th century and its universal outlook, the entirety of what has been called “the Jewish problem” is seen for the first time. Not race, not religion, not ethics, not nationality, not political allegiance— but something which includes them all, separates the Jew from the West— Culture.
Culture embraces the totality of world-outlook: science, art, philosophy, religion, Technics, economics, erotic, law, society, politics.
In every branch of the Western Culture, the Jew has developed his own taste and preference, and when he intervenes in the public life of the Western peoples, he conducts himself in a distinct fashion, namely in the style of the public life of the Jewish Church-State-Nation-People-Race. This public life was invisible to the inward West until the 20th century.
Like all nations at the end of their Civilization, e.g., Hindus, Chinese, Arabs, the Jewish nation passed into a caste system. The Brahmin's in India, the Mandarins in China, the Rabbinate in Jewry, are three corresponding phenomena. The Rabbinate were the custodians of the Destiny of the Jewish unity. When freethinkers appeared among the Jews, it was the duty of the local Rabbinate to prevent a schism. In the case of Uriel da Costa, a freethinking Jew of Amsterdam, the local Synagogue had him imprisoned, and subjected him to such persecution that he finally took his own life. Spinoza was excommunicated by the same Synagogue, and an unsuccessful attempt was made on his life. Large bribes were offered him to return to Judaism, and when he refused he was cursed and pronounced anathema. In 1799, the Hasidim leader in Eastern Jewry, Senior Salman, was handed over by the Rabbinate to the Romanov Government after a trial by his own people, much as the Western Inquisition turned over convicted heretics to the State for disposal.
The contemporary West did not even see these phenomena, and would not have understood them if it had. It looked at everything Jewish with its own preconceptions, just as the Jews looked at the West in terms of its advanced outlook.
The Parsee in India is another fragment of the Arabian Culture strewn abroad among aliens. The Parsee possessed vis-à-vis his human surroundings the same superior business acumen as the Jew in the early West. His inner life was entirely apart from the aliens around him. His interests were different in every way. In the disturbances and revolts during the centuries of the British Raj, the Parsee took no part.
In the same way, the Thirty Years’ War, the Succession Wars, the conflict of Bourbon and Hapsburg, did not in any way touch the Jew. Difference of Culture-phase creates complete spiritual insulation. The attitude of the Jew toward Western tensions was that of Pilate at the trial of Jesus. To Pilate the religious issue there involved was utterly hidden— he belonged to a Civilization in its last phase, a thousand years away from the religious excitement of his own Culture.
With the stirrings of Rationalism in the West, however, a caesura is marked in the collective life of that part of Jewry cut off in the Western Culture.
III
Around 1750, new spiritual currents begin to move in the West. English Sensualist philosophy assumes
the ascendancy over the European soul. Reason, empiricism, analysis, induction— this is the new spirit.
But everything becomes folly when examined in the light of reason unleavened by faith and instinct—
Erasmus had demonstrated in his malicious work In Praise of Folly that everything is folly, not only
greed, ambition, pride, and war, but Church, State, marriage, child-bearing and philosophy. The
supremacy of Reason is hostile to Life, and brings about a crisis in any organism which succumbs to it. The Culture-crisis of Rationalism was a part of the Destiny of the West. All previous Cultures have gone through it. It marks the turning-point from the inwardness of Culture to the externalized soul-life of Civilization. The focal idea of Rationalism is liberty— which means liberty from the bonds of Culture. Napoleon liberated war from the style of Fontenoy, 1745, where each side courteously invited the other to fire the first shot. Beethoven liberated music from the form-perfection of Bach and Mozart. The Terror of ‘93 liberated the West from the idea of the sacredness of Dynasty. Materialistic philosophy liberated it from the spirit of religion, and ultra-Rationalism then proceeded to liberate science from philosophy. Waves of revolution liberated the Civilization from the dignity of the State and its high traditions into the dirt of party-politics. Class war was liberation from social order and hierarchy. The new idea of “humanity” and “The Rights of Man” liberated the Culture from its old pride of exclusiveness and feeling of unconscious superiority. Feminism liberated women from the natural dignity of their sex and turned them into inferior men.
Anacharsis Cloots organized a deputation of “representatives of the human race” which presented its respects to the Revolutionary Terror in France. There were pig-tailed China men, black Ethiopians, Turks, Jews, Greeks, Tartars, Mongols, Indians, bearded Chaldean's. Actually however, they were Parisians in disguise. This parade had thus at the very beginning of Rationalism a double symbolic significance. First, it symbolized the idea of the West that it now wished to embrace all “humanity,” and secondly, the fact these were disguised Westerners showed the exact amount of success that this intellectualizing enthusiasm would have.
The Jew had of course seen these things coming. Persecution does not diminish intelligence and awareness of one’s surroundings. As early as 1723 the Jews had acquired the right to possess land in England, and in 1753 they acquired English citizenship, only to have it revoked the next year on the petition of all the cities. In 1791 they were emancipated in France, and in 1806 the Great Sanhedrin was summoned by the Emperor Napoleon, thus giving official recognition to the existence within the West of the Jewish Nation-State-People.
Only one thing prevented the new situation from being as idyllic as the new liberal sentiment would have it. Eight hundred years, of robbery, hatred, massacre, and persecution on both sides had roused within the Jew traditions of hatred of the West even stronger than the old Western hatred of the Jew. In its new outburst of generosity and forgiveness, the West renounced its old feelings, but the Jew was unable to reciprocate. Eight hundred years of resentment were not to be removed by a New Year’s Resolution on the part of the alien West. Superpersonal organic unities were here opposed, and these higher unities do not share with human beings things like reason and sentiment. Their life-task is hard and colossal, and excludes feelings of “tolerance” except as a symptom of crisis. In a great battle of this kind, human beings are in the last analysis mere spectators, even though they play an active role. Human malice and desire for revenge play only the smallest, most superficial part in such conflicts, and when they appear, they are the mere expression in the individual of the higher incompatibility, deep and total, between the super personal Ideas.
The new movements— capitalism, industrial revolution, democracy, materialism— all were tremendously exciting to the Jew. In the middle of the 18th century already, he had sensed their potentialities and had fostered their growth in every way. His position as the outsider forced him to act secretly, and the secret societies of the Illuminati and its offspring were his creations, as their Kabbalistic terminology and ritualistic equipment show. More than two thirds of the Estates-General which paved the way to the French Revolution in 1789 consisted of members of these secret societies, committed to undermine the authority of the State and introduce the idea of Democracy. The Jew responded to the invitation of the West to participate in his public life, but it was impossible for him to lose his identity overnight, and so he had from now on two public lives, one before the West and one before his own Nation-State-People-Church-Race.
With the crumbling of the old Western traditions before the onslaught of the new ideas, the Jew forged ahead. The Rothschild's became— what would have been simply fantastic to both sides a century before— barons of the Austrian empire in 1822. Jews penetrated the English bar in 1833, and a Jew was knighted by the Queen— the first one— in 1837. The West acceded to the duality of the Jew and a statute of Victoria relieved Jews elected to municipal office from taking oaths. Jewish Members of Parliament appeared from the forties onward, and a Jew became Lord Mayor of London in 1855. All of these things were resisted by traditional elements of the West, and on each occasion the Jew gained a triumph. The experiment of “tolerance” was visibly failing on both sides.
The amount of power and importance the Jew was gaining was shown by the incident of the boy Mortara. This child was forcibly taken from his Jewish parents, ordinary private persons, by the archbishop of Bologna in 1858, on the plea that he had been baptized by a serving maid. In the same year the French government officially urged restoration of the boy to its parents. The next year, the Archbishop of Canterbury, bishops, noblemen and gentlemen of England signed a petition presented by Lord John Russell asking return of custody of the child.
The persecution continued— there were outbreaks in Bucharest, 1866, Rome, 1864, Berlin, 1880, Russia through the whole century and into the 20th century. This persecution in Russia was an index of the strength of the Jew in the Western nations. Protests, petitions, committees, sought to alleviate the lot of the Jews in Russia and to obstruct the government of Russia. The pogrom in the Ukraine after the Russo-Japanese War, 1905, caused the American government to break off diplomatic relations with Russia.
Hatred or intolerance in no wise explains the numerous unfortunate results attendant upon the Jewish dispersion through the Western nations. The hatred on both sides was a mere result. The more tolerance was talked about, the more attention was focused onto the differences, sharpening them into contrasts. The contrasts led to opposition and action, either covert or open, on both sides.
Nor is it an explanation to blame the Jew for failing to assimilate. This is blaming a man for being himself, and the notion of ethics does not extend to what one is, but only to what one does. The “Jewish problem” is not to be explained ethically, racially, nationally, religiously, socially— but only totally, culturally. From having seen at each phase only that aspect of the Jew which his own development permitted him to, Western man now sees the whole relationship, for his own Cultural unity is uppermost in Western man. In Gothic times, he saw the Jew as different only in religion, because the West was then in a religious phase. In the Enlightenment with its ideas of “humanity,” the Jew was seen merely to be socially different. In the materialistic 19th century with its vertical racism, the Jew was regarded as merely racially different. In this century, with the West passing into a unit of Culture, nation, race, society, economics, State, the Jew appears clearly in his own total unity, a complete inner stranger to the soul of the West.
IV
The materialistic 19th century saw this phenomenon of Culture-parasitism only as nation-parasitism,
and thus it was misunderstood in each nation as merely a local condition. For this reason, the
phenomenon in each country called Antisemitism was only a partial reaction to what was a Cultural, and
not merely a national, condition. Antisemitism is precisely analogous in Culture pathology to the formation of anti-bodies in the bloodstream in human pathology. In both cases, the organism is resisting the alien life. Both are inevitable, organically necessary, expressions of Destiny. In fulfilling the proper, Destiny combats the alien. It cannot be said too often that hatred and malice, tolerance and goodwill, have nothing whatever to do with this fundamental process. A Culture is an organism, an organism of a different class from man, just as man is an organism of a different class from animals. But the fundamental regularities of organic life are present in all organisms, of whatever class, plant, animal, man, Culture. This hierarchy of organisms is obviously part of the divine plan, and it cannot be changed by a process of propaganda, no matter how continuous, “tolerance,” no matter how self-renouncing, or self-deception, no matter how complete.
A treatment of Antisemitism raises questions which belong with Culture-distortion, rather than Culture parasitism, and so it may suffice to say here that Antisemitism— again, precisely like the human pathological phenomenon of formation of antibodies in the blood— is the other side of the existence of Culture-parasitism, and is only to be understood as one of its effects. Antisemitism is completely organic and irrational, just as is reaction to human disease. Culture-parasitism is the phenomenon of the totally alien in co-existence with a host, and is also entirely irrational. There is no reason for Culture parasitism.
On the contrary, Reason would seem to dictate that the alien group dissolve and flow into the surrounding life. This would end all the bitter persecution, the sterile hatred, the wasted fighting. But Life is irrational, also during the Age of Rationalism. In fact the only way Rationalism can come onto the stage is in the form of a religion, a Faith, an Irrationality.
The phenomenon of Culture-parasitism is not confined in a High Culture, to the mother-soil of the Culture. This is well shown by the history of America.
America originated as a colony of the Western Culture. This one sentence contains the whole Fate of America. It sets in advance the limit to the potentialities of America. The idea of the Colony must be examined. What is a Colony? It is a creation of a Culture, it is a work, by its mere successful plantation it is something spiritually completed. This is another way of saying it has no inner necessity, no mission. It is thus dependent for its spiritual nourishment on the Mother-Culture. This is as true of America in the Western Culture as it was of Syracuse and Alexandria in the Classical, of Granada and Seville in the Arabian. While fruitful impulses can, albeit rarely, come from the periphery of the Cultural Body, they find their significance in their development in the Culture-center. This spiritual dependence of colonies is weakness. This weakness is expressed by lack of resistance to the Culturally alien, and one would expect to find less organic resistance to the Culturally alien in a colony, for the sense of Cultural mission is not generally present at all, but exists only in isolated individuals or tiny groups at best. The history of Colonies shows us— Syracuse is one example— that Culture-crises, even autopathic ones like the appearance of Rationalism, produce greater effects in them. A colony can be more easily disintegrated, because it lacks the articulation that the Culture has. There is not, cannot be, a Culture-bearing stratum in a Colony. This stratum is an organ of the land-bound High Culture. The Culture cannot be transplanted, even though its populations migrate and remain in contact with the body of the Culture. Colonies are products of a Culture, and represent Life at a less complex and articulate level than the creating Culture.
The comprehension of this elementary fact has always been unconsciously quite complete in America, and in the 20th century has been just as vehemently consciously denied. American men of letters in the 19th century, assimilated Western Culture inwardly, and were assimilated by it. The phenomenon of Edgar Poe has always generated wonder by reason of his complete mastery of Culture-thinking and total independence of his colonial environment. In its higher branches, American belles-lettres has figured as a part of English literature, and quite correctly, as regards most of it. The poverty and meagerness of American letters is attributable to the colonial fate, while its few great names are expressions of Western Culture.
Americans of all callings through the past two centuries, insofar as they were, or wished to be, men of significance, have had their center of gravity in Europe— Irving, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whistler, Frank Harris, Henry James, the finance-plutocracy, Wilson, Ezra Pound. A tradition in America makes a European tour a part of education. Europe continued to possess spiritually those American elements with Culture feelings or Culture ambitions.
In every generalization of organic subject matter, it is sought only to state the great regularity. The deviations always exist in living matter, but find their place only with respect to the larger rhythms. Rationalist thought attempted to disintegrate organic thinking by concentrating on the deviating incidents, in the attempt to destroy the great, sweeping, organic rhythm. It had not even the depth sufficient to grasp the wisdom contained in the saw “the exception proves the rule.”
Even though it became the fashion in America, after its appearance as a world-power, following the Spanish war, 1898-1899, to deny its spiritual dependence upon Europe, the fact continued to exist. By this time we are not surprised when a Culture-fact shows its disregard of human wishes, intentions, demands, statements. America is a subject that needs to be treated separately, as the Culture-disease of the West has given it a new significance in world-politics. In this place, the presence of Culture parasitism in America is the only aspect under consideration.
V
From the early 17th century onward, continuing to the early 19th century, slave-trading brought millions
of African aborigines to America. These formed, during the 18th and first half of the 19th century, a
large, prolific, and totally alien parasitic body. It is a good example of the Cultural meaning of the term
parasite that it has no reference to work, in the economic sense. Thus the Africans in America were
economically important, and, after an economy was built on them, necessary, in a practical sense. Class war
made it the mode to refer to all persons other than manual workers as “parasites.” This was a
polemical term, and has no community of any kind with the phenomenon of Culture-parasitism. The
Negro in America was the expression of Culture-parasitism despite economic utility. The first result of the presence of such a Culture-parasitic body is known. He displaced unborn white men in America. By performing part of the life task, he made unborn millions unnecessary, and therefore this great mass of Africans has reduced the population of America by ten per cent, for at the present moment— 1948— the African makes up 14,000,000 out of a total of 140,000,000. The fashionable, materialistic way of explaining this displacement in America is to say that white people will not bring children into the world to compete economically with the blacks and their lower living-standard. Naturally economic obsession explains everything economically, but the facts of population trends show that the population of an organic unity follows a life-path that may even be described mathematically. It is entirely independent of immigration, of the wishes of individuals, and of non-organic explanations given for it. The displacement is Cultural, i.e., total, and is not to be fully explained by economics.
The Colonial mentality, more thoroughly disintegrated by the Rationalist crisis, has been able to oppose no effective defense to the increasing displacement of the white population, the vehicle of America’s attachment to the West, by the African. With equal inability either to comprehend, or to oppose, America has not resisted while the rear-guard of the Arabian Culture, which was strewn throughout the West even at its Cultural origins, has assumed larger numerical proportions and a vastly larger role than it ever had in Europe.
Beginning around 1880, the Jews embarked upon what Hilaire Belloc aptly termed an invasion of the United States. The numbers alone would justify the figure. While they cannot be exactly given, because of the fact that American immigration statistics reflect only legal origins, i.e., nation of legal allegiance, nevertheless they can be approximated from a study of current American population figures, and study of the Jewish birth-rate. How typical this is, of the total incongruence between two different Cultures, that a mass movement of the members of one can occur within the other Culture, and leave no statistical trace. The immigrant was asked where he was born. This was determining of everything for 19th century materialism. It was supposed to fix his language, which then was supposed to govern his nationality. And nationality was supposed to pre-ordain everything else. Such things as petrifaction of dead Cultures— India, China, Islam, Jewry— were regarded as “nations” in the Western sense of the word. In form, Rationalism was definitely a religion, but a bloodless, materialistic caricature of true religion. Religion is properly directed toward the great, higher, things of man’s spirituality, but Rationalism tried to turn things like economics, State, society, nation, into the object of its own religious concern.
America began its independent political existence as a creature of Rationalism. Its politicians agreed to the proposition— externally— that “all men are created equal,” and even said this was “self-evident.” To call it self-evident, and thus dispense with proof, was easier, and perhaps wiser, than to prove it. Proof would have spoiled what is actually a tenet of a Faith, and thus above Reason. The religion of Rationalism dominated America in a way that it was never able to dominate Europe. Europe always had resistance against Rationalism— based on tradition until the middle of the 19th century, and after that based on anticipation of the coming anti-rationalist spirit of the 20th century— as exemplified in Carlyle and Nietzsche. But America did not possess the first because it had no tradition, and had not the second, because Cultural impulses and Culture-forwarding phenomena come from the Mother-soil and are thence radiated outward, as the Rationalistic religion of America came from England, through France.
America acquired even its section of Jewry from Europe, whence it had acquired its materialistic philosophy, to both of which it succumbed. This was no coincidence. The word spread rapidly through the Jewish population of Europe that Antisemitism was less of a threat in America, and that other opportunities, such as the economic, were equal to those Europe offered to the Jew. This was perfectly sound, and was a tribute to the collective Jewish instinct. America did undoubtedly represent in the late 19th century a country with the greatest possibilities for the Jew. From 1880 to 1950, approximately— remember, no exact figures exist— five to seven million Jews arrived in America. They came mostly from the Eastern, or Askkenazic, section of Jewry.
At the present time, the Jews in America number approximately eight to twelve millions. An exact figure cannot be given, because the number is not reflected in any statistics, but must be approximated from religious statistics and study of the birth-rate. At any rate, it is a considerable number, and displaces its own number of Americans from existence. The American writer, Madison Grant, in 1916, described how the American of the old stock was being driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Jews. He calls them “Polish” Jews, as the older custom was to give the Jews a Western nationality.Westerners thus used to differentiate between English Jews, German Jews, and so forth. It was a compulsion of the Western Civilization at that stage to see all other people outside the Civilization in its own image.
America, as the country most completely disintegrated by Rationalism, exhibited the least understanding of the nature of the Jew, while there were always some people in Europe— for instance, Carlyle— even during the 19th century who realized the total, and not merely political, alienness of the Jew. But in America, with its complete lack of tradition, there were no Carlyles, no de Lagardes. Thus America decided, in the middle of the 19th century, that a Chinaman born in the United States thereby acquired exactly the same American citizenship as the white native population of European derivation. Characteristically, the decision was not made in a responsible fashion, but as the result of a lawsuit. This was in pursuance of an American custom of deciding political questions in a pseudo-legal form. Obviously a regime which did not differentiate between Chinese and native American would oppose no political barrier to the Jew. And so, by 1928, the French writer on historical and world-political topics, Andre Siegfried, could say that New York City had a Semitic countenance. By the middle of the 20th century, this development had gone further, and New York City, the largest city in America, perhaps in the world, was almost half Jewish in population.
VI
America, with its total lack of spiritual resistance, springing from the inherent soul-weakness of a
Colony, became the host to other large Culturally-parasitic groups. The period of dense immigration
which had begun before the turn of the 20th century, and in which the Jews came, brought in also many
millions of Balkan Slavs. Between 1900 and 1915 alone, 15,000,000 immigrants came to America from
Asia, Africa and Europe. They came mostly from Russia, the Levant, and the Balkan countries. From the
Western Civilization came a fair number of Italians, but the rest of the human material was from outside
the West. These millions, by their very numbers, created phenomena of Culture-parasitism. On the edge
of each group, individuals passed into the American feeling, but the groups continued to exist as such.
This was shown by the existence of a newspaper-press for each group in its own language, unity of the
groups for political purposes, geographical centralization of the various groups, and social exclusiveness
of the groups. In examining the nature of race, we saw that Slavs could be, and have been, assimilated by European Culture-populations. Two features distinguish the American relationship to the Slav, and explain why the Slavs have retained their group existence, even though surrounded by an American population under the influence of Western Civilization. First, the fact of its colonial style of existence meant that America could not transmit to entering populations the forceful impress of the Cultural idea that the Western nations on the Mother-soil could. Secondly, the enormous masses, numbering many millions, created, by their mere bulk a pathological condition in the American organism. Even if these millions had been of Western antecedents, such as French, or Spanish, they would have created a politically parasitic group. Naturally such a group would have dissolved eventually, but in the process it would have had a distorting effect on policy in America. Slavic groups, on the other hand, in masses of millions, whose leaders are allowed facilities of welding the group into a firm unity, will only slowly, if ever, dissolve into the American host population, under such conditions.
America has other smaller parasitic groups, each of which displaces unborn Americans, and calls forth the unfortunate displays of hatred and bitterness which waste and twist the super personal life. There is a Japanese group, various Levantine groups, and the Russian group.
Superficially it might seem that the case of America militates against the 20th century view of Race, set forth above, but actually it does not. The American example is no criterion for Europe, for being a colony, it is an area of low Cultural sensitivity, with correspondingly less Cultural force and assimilate power. In other words, its power of adaptation is slighter than that of the Mother-soil.
The case of America is not a case of assimilating too much— it is a case of not assimilating enough. Alien groups— whether merely politically alien, such as a Western group in another Western nation, or totally alien, like the Jew in a Western host— are parasitic only so long as they are groups. When they dissolve, the totality of the assimilating population has increased. The fact that this has come from immigration rather than from increase by birth-surpluses of the native population is not important. The mere fact that they could assimilate shows that they were not alien in a parasitic sense.
Nor must this be ignored in examining Culture-parasitism in America: this American population during the 19th century assimilated many millions of Germans, Irish, English and Scandinavians into its own bloodstream. The 20th century immigration did not come mainly from these European countries, but to the extent that it did, complete assimilation occurred. In the case of the immigrant Germans and Irish, the Yankee armies in the War of Secession employed them in great numbers, and with good success— what never could have been done with Culturally alien groups, e.g., Jews, or Slavs.
America has been called a melting-pot. This it is not, for the massive groups of Culturally-alien provenance have not “melted,” but have remained distinct. Groups not Culturally alien have assimilated at once— which means, in one generation— and thus the 20th century view of Race applies also to the facts of the American scene.
These unassimilated groups in America comprise between one-third and one-half of the population of America. The Slavic groups are apparently slowly being assimilated, but even if they disappeared entirely, the remaining Culturally-parasitic groups would comprise a pathological condition of the utmost seriousness for America.
The old-fashioned view of vertical racism can derive no instruction from the case of America, for what we see there is not the mixture of races, but their non-mixture. All of the parasitic groups have been torn loose from old landscapes, but have no new spiritual connections. Only the landless Jew, who carries Nation, Church, State, People, Race and Culture within him, has preserved his ancient roots.
The phenomenon of Culture-parasitism, even though divorced from ethics, is not outside the realm of policy. It does no good whatever to talk about Culturally alien groups in terms of praise and blame, hatred or “tolerance.”
Wars, riots, massacres, destruction, the entire waste of senseless domestic conflict— all the phenomena which inevitably rise when a host entertains a Culture-parasite, remain as long as the pathological condition lasts.
Culture-parasitism, by calling forth resistant phenomena, has a doubly injurious effect on the body of the Culture and its nations. A fever is a sign of resistance to a disease in a human, but this does not confer a positive health-value on the fever. Its sole value is negative, and the fever itself is a part of the disease, even though the saving part. Resistant phenomena like the anti-Japanese-ism and antisemitism and anti Negro-ism of America are as undesirable as the conditions they are combating. Similarly, European antisemitism has no positive value and moreover it can, if exaggerated, easily develop into another type of Culture-pathology, that aggravated condition which may proceed also from Culture-parasitism under certain conditions, namely, Culture-distortion.
Culture-Distortion
THE MIGHTY DESTINY of a High Culture has the same power over the Culture organism as the plant destiny
over the plant, the human-destiny over a human being. This power, vast and inwardly undeniable
though it be, nevertheless is not absolute. It is organic, and an organism is a relationship of an inner to an
outer, a microcosm to a macrocosm. While no inner force can prevail against the destiny of the organism,
outer forces sometimes can— on all planes of Life— bring about disease and death of the organism. The
micro-organisms that penetrate into the body of a man bring about illness by reason of the fact that their
life-conditions are entirely different from those of the man. Their welfare means his doom. They are an
outer force, even though they are working from the inside of the human organism. Outer is thus seen to
be a spiritual, and not a spatial term. That is outside which has separate existence, no matter how it may
happen to be physically. Everything with one Destiny is one; anything with another Destiny is other. It is
not geography which determines, but spirituality. In war a traitor within the fortress may be as valuable to
the besieging army as half of its numbers. He is outer, even though he is within. Life is the process of actualizing the possible. But Life is multiform, and organisms, by actualizing their own possibilities, destroy other organisms. Animals devour plants, plants destroy one another, human beings lay waste entire species and slaughter millions of animals. High Cultures by their existence evoke negative impulses from outside populations. Those who do not share this Culture-feeling, which confers such unquestioned superiority on its possessors, instinctively determine to annihilate it. The more powerful the pressure of the High Culture on the outer populations, the more nihilistic is the negative feeling which forms in the under-populations. The more extensive the Culture-expansion geographically, the wider is spread through the world the external will-to-annihilate among the extra-Cultural peoples. Life forms are hostile to one another; the fulfillment of one is the demise of a thousand others. This is another way of saying that Life is war.
A High Culture is no exception to this great Life-regularity. Its existence destroys other forms, and on the other hand, throughout its entire existence, it is engaged in an existential battle against the outsider. On this high plane of contemplation, the attempt to distinguish between offensive and defensive, aggressive and resisting, is seen dearly to be nonsense. It is a pseudo-legal trick of Rationalist conjurers, lost in hyper-intellectualism, and hostile to Life. Defense is aggression, aggression is defense. The question of who strikes first in a war is on the same level as who strikes first in a boxing contest. The 20th century leaves all this cant, stupidity, hypocrisy, and legalistic legerdemain behind it as it strides forward to a century of warfare, the most powerful and unrelenting of all wars hitherto.
But as it faces its most trying period, the period that will demand every fiber of its spiritual reserves, and every atom of its physical resources— it is gravely ill. It is suffering from Culture-distortion.
Culture-distortion is the condition in which outer life-forms are warping the Culture from its true Life path. Just as a human illness may render a man hors de combat so may a Culture illness, and this is precisely what happened to the West, after the turn of the 20th century. Culture-distortion must be clearly understood by the Western Civilization.
It has already been seen that the word outer does not have a geographic meaning when used in the domain of the organic. The phenomenon of Culture-distortion is the result of outer forces at work within the body of the Culture, participating in its public life and policy, directing its energies to problems that have no relation to its inner task, turning its forces, physical and spiritual, to alien problems.
A moment’s thought shows the impossibility of such a Culture-illness arising during the time of the strict Culture, before the turn of Civilization. During those days, the forms of the Culture— in all directions of Life— were so highly developed that they not only required highly gifted souls to master them, but they mastered these souls in the same process. No European thinker, artist, or man of action, could, in the 17th century, have tried to focus European energy onto Asiatic thought, art, or action-forms.
Such a thing might have existed as an imaginative possibility, but it is doubtful whether it was possible in actuality. At any rate, it did not occur for 800 years in the West, except in its rudimentary beginnings. We cannot see Cromwell, Oxenstierna, or Oldenbarneveldt concerning himself with the restoration of the Abassid dynasty in Asia Minor, or the driving out of the usurping Manchus from the ruins of the Chinese petrifact. But if a European statesman had successfully directed Western energy into such a totally alien, sterile enterprise, it would have been Culture-distortion. If an artist had managed to turn Western oil painting into the style of Egyptian linear painting, or of Classical sculpture, that would also have been Culture-distortion. Future volumes of Western history-philosophy in the 20th and 21st centuries will trace out fully the superficially distorting effects in architecture, literature, and economic theorizing, of the Classicist mania introduced by Wincklemann in the 18th century.
They will also list the innumerable distortions arising from Culture-parasitism, during the Rationalist period 1750-1950, of the various life-aspects of the West, artistic, religious, philosophical, scientific, and in the realm of action. This work is concerned with actions, and directs itself mainly to the phenomena of distortion of the Present and the immediate Future, that is the next hundred years.
In the presentation of the articulation of a High Culture, it was seen that not all of the population in the Culture area is available to the Idea. This is quite exclusive of parasitic phenomena. The higher, psychically more sensitive stratum which bears the Culture-Idea, and translates it into progressive actuality, is completely available to the Idea, but the availability is progressively less as one moves downward in the body of the Culture. Downward means, of course, not economically or socially, but spiritually. Thus a man from the lowest possible spiritual stratum may be found in a high position, like the monster Marat. Such individuals belong to no other Culture, even a dead one of the past, and apparently are members of the Culture, but in their souls they wish to destroy all formative Life. Their motives do not matter, for their orientation is obvious.
Such individuals— who make up a whole, large stratum during these centuries— are simply below the Culture. They are only physically within the body of the Culture. They expressed themselves in England in the phenomena of the order of Wat Tyler’s Rebellion and Jack Cade’s Rebellion; in the 16th century Peasant’s Wars in Germany; in the French Terror of 1793 and the Commune of 1871. When Germany existed as a 19th century nation, this stratum below the Culture was known as der deutsche Michel. Phenomena of this type must not be confused with Culture-parasitism. Things like the Michel element— which exists all through Europe, and not alone in the former German nation— are simply below, but they are not per se alien. They are an organic part of every Culture, but parasitism occurs only fortuitously, and not with necessity. The Michel element of a Culture is not a pathology, and is not a Cultural menace in itself. Its sole danger is that it is serviceable to the will-to-annihilate, whether this springs up autopathically, as in Liberalism, democracy, Communism, or exopathically as in the case of the extra-European forces which brought about, during the Age of World Wars, the nadir of the Western Civilization.
In that very situation, the European Michel showed its potentialities for destruction. One section of it worshiped the primitivity of Russian vandalism, the other the spiritually-putrefying disease of Hollywoodism. It was solely by virtue of this European Michel-stratum that the extra-European forces were able to split Europe between them, physically and spiritually. This European Michel, with its attachment to the formless, brought Europe down before the Barbarian and the distorter. In its supreme hatred of grandeur and creativeness, it even allowed itself to be formed into military movements within Europe to sabotage Europe and work for the military victory of the barbarian during the Second World War.
After the War, it learned that its fate was after all bound up with the creative forces of the Culture, for this element was starved, frozen, and looted along with the collective body of Europe in the gruesome aftermath of the victory of the barbarians and distorter.
II
The Destiny of a living organism must not be confused with the entirely opposite idea of predestination.
The latter is a causal idea, both in its religious form of Calvinism, or in its materialist form of mechanism
and determinism. Destiny is not causal, but organic, necessity. Causality is a form of thought, but
Destiny is the form of the living. Causality claims absolute necessity, but Destiny is only inner necessity,
and every child who is accidentally killed at play shows that Destiny is subject to outer incident. Destiny
merely says: if it is to be, it will be this way, and no other. Every man is destined to grow old, but many
will not fulfill this destiny. Let no one claim to understand the Destiny-idea if he regards it as a sort of
hidden causality, a form of predestination. At the beginning of this treatment of the subject of Cultural Vitalism, it was said that if the extra Cultural forces had succeeded after the Second World War in destroying the entire Culture-bearing stratum of Europe, this stratum would have once again been present in thirty to sixty years. The statement was of course, hypothetical, for this did not occur. The mere fact that someone is writing and someone is reading this is proof that they did not succeed.
The basis of that statement was the tremendous, ever-youthful, vigor of a High Culture. The West has a Future, and this Future must be inwardly fulfilled. Inwardly is distinguished from outwardly, for whether or not the West fulfills its outward potentialities is as much a matter of Incident as it is of Destiny.
The inner Future of the West contains many necessary developments, such as the Rebirth of Religion, the attainment of new heights in Technics and chemistry, perfection of legal and administrative thinking, and others. These could all be fulfilled under a permanent occupation by barbarians from other continents. The grandest, mightiest side of Life, that of action, of war and politics, would express itself in such a regime in inexorable, continuing, bitter revolt against the Barbarian. Instead of planting the flag of the West at the antipodes, it would be reduced to trying to free the sacred soil of the West from the heel of the primitive. It was therefore no causal-predestination thought when it was said that the Culture-bearing stratum would reconstitute itself even though every one of its contemporary members were entirely wiped out by scaffold-trials.
Contained in that statement was this: either the West will fulfill its tremendous, world-embracing Destiny of unlimited, Absolute Imperialism, or else— all this energy will go into warfare on European soil against the alien, and whatever European elements he finds serviceable to him. As is true of all wars, hatred is dissociated from the necessity of this process. Wars do not come from hatred, but from organic rhythms. The choice is not between War and Peace, but between a Culture-forwarding war, or a Culture distorting war.
If Europe remains under the outer forces, they will be sending their soldiers into a graveyard, for the might of the West is not to be annulled by a mountain of propaganda, mass-armies of occupying “soldiers,” nor by millions of traitors in the Michel stratum. For two centuries the streams of blood will flow, irrespective of the wish of any human being. It is the nature of super personal organisms to express their possibilities. If it cannot be done in one way, it will be done in another. This idea conscripts men, and it discharges them only by their individual deaths. It has no legal hold on them, no formal allegiance, no threat of court-martial: its claim on them is total. It is a selective conscription: the higher a man’s gifts, the stronger is the bond which the Idea lays on him. What have the barbarians and distorter's to oppose this? Against their murderous Russian slaves, their savage Negroes, their hapless, go-home conscripts from North America, Europe pits its unconquerable super personal superiority. Europe stands at the beginning of a world-historical process; the end is not in sight. When— or even whether— complete success will come is not visible. Perhaps before it is over, the outer forces will have mobilized the swarming, polluting masses of China and India against the body of the Western Civilization. This kind of thing does not affect the continuation of the conflict, but only its size.
It is absolutely necessary to the continuance of the subjugation of Europe that the outsiders have large numbers— whole societies, groups, strata, remnants of dead 19th century nations— of domestic European populations available for their purposes. Against a united Europe, they could never have made their way in, and only against a divided Europe can they maintain themselves. Split! divide! distinguish!— this is the technique of conquest. Resurrect old ideas, old slogans, now quite dead, in the battle to turn European against European. But work always with the weak, Culture-less stratum against the strong bearers and appreciators of Culture. These must be “tried” and hanged.
This availability of the under-strata of the Culture to outside forces is one type, and the most dangerous, of that form of Culture-pathology called Culture-distortion. It is closely related however to another type called Culture-retardation.
Culture Retardation as a
Form of Culture Distortion
IN THE STUDY of the articulation of a Culture, the ceaseless battle between Tradition and Innovation
appeared. This is normal and accompanies the Culture from the feudal union to Caesarism, from Gothic
cathedral to skyscraper, from Anselm to the philosopher of this age, from Schütz to Wagner. The
unending struggle takes place within the form of the Culture and is thus not a disease-form, for even the
conflict itself in each case is strictly cast in the Culture-mold. It occurred to no one during the period
1000-1800 when engaged in a battle against another Western idea that he must prevent it from realization
even at the cost of destruction of the Culture. To be specific, no European power and no European
statesman would have delivered all Europe to the Barbarian merely in order to defeat another power or
statesman. On the contrary, when the Barbarian appeared at the gates, all Europe opposed him, as it
finally united against the Turk at the moment of greatest danger. After the defeat of the European army at
Nicopolis at the turn of the 15th century, the Osmanli Sultan Bayazid swore an oath that he would not rest
until he had turned St. Peter’s into a stable for his horse. At that period of Western history that was not to
be. This total domination of the West by the outer forces of annihilation had to wait until almost the
middle of the 20th century. It only came about because certain elements in the West preferred to ruin all Europe rather than allow Europe to pass into the next Cultural stage, the Resurgence of Authority.
Any such historical phenomenon as this does not appear in a moment. The beginnings of this terrible division of the West are found in the origins of Rationalism. Even in the Wars of the Austrian Succession, there is a new ferocity which presaged the coming split. In that war, the Allies actually planned completely to partition the territory of the Culture-nation of Prussia. Participating were to be Sweden, Austria, France— and Russia. It is true that during the Romanov regime, from the 17th to the 20th centuries, Russia figured as a State and Nation of the Western style. Nevertheless, there were open misgivings on both sides, and there was a difference between partitioning of Asiatic border-land like Poland between Western powers and Russia, and the sharing of the Mother-soil of Europe with Russia.
In the battle of the Dynasts and Traditionalists against Napoleon, the tendency went further, and in 1815 at the Vienna Congress, the Czar with his troops occupying half Europe— a fact of which he frequently reminded the European monarchs— was able to pose as the savior of the West. Thus the Fürstenbund and England were actually on the verge of the Culturally pathological when they pushed their battle against a Western sovereign, Napoleon, to the point where they admitted Russian troops to European capitals. It is however quite certain that the Western veneer of Russia was determining in the matter: the Fürstenbund and Pitt’s England would not have admitted a nihilistic Russia or the Turk to Europe as a means of defeating Napoleon and therewith themselves.
But the tendency did not stop there— in the First World War, between the two European nations, both in 19th century style, England and Germany, England again embraced Russia as an ally, and painted the Romanov despotism as a “democracy” before Europe and America. Fortunately for the West there was a counter-tendency, and when the Bolshevik started his westward march after the war, he was thrown back by a Western coalition before Warsaw in 1920. In the armies against Bolshevism were Germans, French, English, but yesterday enemies, today united against the barbarian. Even the Americans sent two expeditions against the Bolshevik, one to Archangel, and one to Eastern Siberia. [yes but they were there as allies of the Bolshevik's against the Whites DC]
During the period of preparation of the Second World War, 1919-1939, it appeared at several moments as though the coming war could take the form of a struggle by certain of the powers of the West— for the West was still divided at that time into a collection of tiny States— against Russia, while others of these petty States would remain neutral, giving economic assistance. Such a moment occurred in June, 1936, when the leading four among these petty States signed a protocol embodying a general understanding among themselves. This protocol was never ratified. No less than twenty separate efforts were made between 1933 and 1939 by the bearers of the 20th century Idea to effect a general understanding with those of the petty States still in the grip of the 19th century Idea, which was already by then manifesting rigor mortis. Naturally, the leading elements of the Culture-bearing stratum in these latter petty States were in contact with the new Idea, but certain elements were opposed by reason of their spiritual insensitivity, their materialistic shallowness, their negativistic jealousy, their firm roots in the Past, and— to put the most important reason last— by reason of their material interests in the perpetuation of the 19th century type of international and domestic economy, from which they alone were profiting, and from which the entire Western Civilization was suffering.
These latter elements decided to allow the division of Europe between Asia and America rather than to embrace the Future of the West.
When the struggle between Tradition and Innovation, the Old and the New, natural and normal in every Culture, reaches this degree, it is Culture-pathology. This form of Culture-pathology is definable by the intensity of the hatred of the Future of the Culture it shows. It reaches the point of self-destruction rather than giving up the rigid Past to the vigorous Future. When the conservative elements come to hate the creative elements so intensely that they will do anything to encompass their military defeat, including self-destruction, it becomes Culture-treason, and is classified as an acute form of Culture-pathology.
The hallmark of this Culture-disease is solely the question of degree. Every new Idea in the Culture has been opposed— in architecture, music, literature, economics, war, and statecraft. But until this horrible outbreak of Culture-sickness in the 20th century, the opposition to the creative had never attained to a totality that can only be adequately described as maniacal.
Culture-pathological also was the base and servile buckling throughout the Second World War of this sub-Western element to the parasitic forces and barbarian forces to which it had voluntarily submitted in its hatred of Europe and its Future. With unforgettable dishonor it threw millions of Western soldiers to the Russian savages, to disappear forever into the unmarked graves of Siberia. This Michel element cooperated with and aided the Barbarian enthusiastically, and naively gave him all its secrets, but this same Barbarian accepted all the aid without thanks and returned for it suspicion, sabotage, and hatred.
The Michel element of the West went down with the defeat of the West and its passing under the Barbarian and the distorter. The pathology of Culture-retardation had in this case tragic consequences for the representatives of the Past as well as for those of the Future. Actually they are more tragic, for in the battle of the Past against the Future, the Past is doomed. Eventually the Idea of the Future will triumph inwardly even if its external Destiny is frustrated. Mechanism in politics will give way to the Future just as mechanism in biology has long since yielded. The idea of individuals having power over the gigantic economies of superpersonal organisms is doomed, and this is one of the things the sub-Western, Futurehating elements wished to save for themselves. Materialism, their world-outlook, has given way almost everywhere in the West to historical skepticism, which will make way for mysticism and the Rebirth of Religion. The most they have salvaged from the general destruction is an accumulation of small personal advantages for themselves. To show their appreciation, the Barbarian and the distorter have appointed them their deputies in Europe. How symbolic it was that the puppets who were placed in the formerly important positions in Europe after the Second World War were old men! They were even old, biologically speaking, but spiritually they were two centuries old, rooted in the dead parliamentaristic past. It did not matter to the new rulers of Europe that these superannuated appointees lacked vigor and creativeness— that is in fact precisely why they were chosen. Anyone with vigor of any sort was carefully scrutinized by the new rulers. Lethargy coupled with oratory was preferred to the will-to accomplishment sans the stream of 19th century patriotic verbiage.
This is the result of Culture-Retardation. Without it, the outer forces could never have succeeded in grinding the flower of Western Culture under the heel of their primitivity and stupidity. It played, however, only a subordinate role. The study of pathology of other organic life-forms, plant, animal, and human, offer numerous examples of simultaneity of disease, in which the damage done by one promotes the spread of another. The simultaneity of pneumonia and tuberculosis in the human organism is but one case. The more serious disease which was running its course contemporaneously with the Culture retardation illness, and which was promoted by the latter condition was an aggravation of Culture parasitism, which becomes Culture-distorting when the parasite takes an active part in the life of the Culture.
Culture Distortion Arising
from Parasitic Activity
THE ELEMENTARY EFFECTS on the Culture-body of Culture-parasitism have already been seen: reduction
of the Culture-population by displacement, loss of Culture-energy in friction. These effects arise from the
mere existence of the parasite, however passive it may be. Far more deadly to the healthy realization of
the Culture is the mingling in the Cultural life of parasitic elements, the activity of the Culture-parasite,
his participation in creation and formation of Culture-tasks, ideas, and policy. The activity of the parasite
generates at a higher level of intensity the repetition of the frictional phenomena which accompany the
passive presence of the parasite. In California, every accretion of economic strength, every public display
of collective energy on the part of the Chinese called forth new outbreaks of anti-Chinese activity among
the Americans. The same applied to the Japanese group. The worst riots have been those attendant on the
progressive advance of the Negro into American public life. As long as the Negro was passive, there was
a minimum of bitterness between the races. The year 1865 marked the beginning of a transition from
passivity of the Negro to his activity. It was naturally not spontaneous; white Rationalist elements,
Liberals, “tolerance” enthusiasts; Communists, created the movement to ignore the distinction between
the races, and under their direction it grew to dimensions where recurrent race riots caused temporary
cessation of public life in the largest cities of America. Tulsa, Beaumont, Jersey City, Chicago, Detroit,
New York— these are only a few of the scenes of mass riots during the past quarter of a century. Each
riot is preceded by a deluge of “tolerance” propaganda and sentimentalizing, and afterwards a public
investigation is held which decides that the cause was lack of “tolerance” and “education.” During the American occupation of England, 1942-1946, several large race battles occurred, with both sides using automatic weapons, between American troops and Negro troops, both of whom were there on a mission against England and Europe. The limited utility of Culturally-parasitic groups for purposes of military conscription is shown by this example. Actually, these Negro troops were a part of an American command engaged in the destruction of Europe, but a slight social incident in a public-house was enough to cause a flaming-up of the racial hatred developed by the sharing of the same life by parasite and host. Troops from parasitic groups have little value if they are always two steps away from a race riot, and the Rationalists and Liberals discovered this by experimentation, rather than by looking at the chronicles of 5,000 years of the history of High Cultures. These Negro troops showed their willingness to destroy America as well as Europe. These examples of heightened tension between host and parasite are but the simpler form of the disease of Culture-distortion arising from parasitic activity. They differ only in degree from the resistance to Culture-parasitism. Much more serious is that form in which the parasite moves squarely into the public life of the Culture, or the Culture-nations, and directs their policy into his own channels. Neither in America nor in South Africa has the Negro attained to this significance. Nor yet have the Japanese, Chinese, Levantine, or Indian groups in America.
One group, however, has brought about a major Culture-distortion throughout the entire Western Civilization and its colonies on every continent, and that is the rear-guard in the West of the fulfilled Arabian Culture, the Church-State-Nation-People-Race of the Jew.
From the Arabian Culture, which was inwardly fulfilled by about 1100 A.D., the Jew derived his world outlook, his religion, State-form, Nation-Idea, People-feeling, and unity. From the West however he has derived his race and his Life-mission. We saw the developing of this race in the ghetto-existence during the first 800 years of our Western Culture. As Rationalism became more articulate— from 1750 on— and the Jew sensed the wider possibilities for him of the new Life-phase of the West, he began to agitate against the ghetto which he had created for himself in the early days as symbol of his unity, spiritual and physical. This race had a different ideal type from the Western, and this influenced the material which passed into the collective blood-stream of the ghetto-race. In the middle of the 20th century one sees Jews with Nordic pigmentation, but the racial purity has adapted the new material to the old racial look. To 19th century vertical racism, these phenomena were uncanny, but the 20th century has seen the primacy of the spiritual in race-formation. When it is said, therefore, that the Jew derived his race from the West, it is not meant that he drew entirely on the stock of the Western peoples to recruit his own— although this did, and does, go on to some extent— but that by serving, through its own Cultural imperative, as a totally alien mass around the Jew, the West prevented the dilution and disappearance of the Jewish unity.
For, it must be said, that while contact with the foreign is harmful to an organism when the foreign is within the organism, it is the opposite when the foreign is without— such contact strengthens the organism. That generates war, and war is strengthening to an organism. The Crusades, the birth-cry of the West, made the new organism firm, proved its viability. The wars of Castile and Aragon war against the Barbarian gave Spain the inner strength to bear its grand Ultramontane mission. England’s victories on colonial battlefields all over the world gave it the compelling sense of a mission. Rome’s wars in its national infancy gave it the inner firmness which enabled it to undertake the Punic Wars which gave it mastery of the Classical Civilization at last.
Thus it is obvious that the mutual contact of the West and the Jew had an opposite signification for the two organisms. To the Jew, it was a source of strength, and informing; to the West it was a drain of strength, and deforming. The Jew was within the West, but the West was not within him. Persecution strengthens, if it stops short of extermination. The quotation which stands at the beginning of this work is as true for the West now as it was for the Jew in the early days.
When the subject of persecution is touched upon, the source of the Life-mission of the Jew has been named. A millennium of massacres, robbery, cheating, burning, insults, mistreatment's, expulsions, exploitation— these were the gift of the West to the Jew. They not only strengthened him, made him race-hard, but gave him a mission, the mission of revenge and destruction. The Western peoples and monarchs were storing up explosives in the soul of the alien in their midst.
The great organic regularity of war governs Life: even primitive tribes in Africa engage in war, when they have, as far as a Culture-people can see, nothing whatever to fight about. The appearance of a High Culture on the earth, and the concentration of power which its high organization and articulation give to it, bring about in the human surroundings a counter-will to destroy, balancing the will-to-create of the High Culture. In Life, not-to-belong is the same as to oppose. The opposition may be in abeyance long or forever because of other, stronger oppositions, but it remains, latent and potential. The contact of two super personal organisms can only engender opposition and war. The West and the Jewish organism were engaged during the millennium of their contact in constant, unremitting war. It was not the warfare of the battlefield, of the clash of ships-of-the-line, but a different form of war.
The total alien-ness of the Jew made him politically invisible to the West. It did not regard him as a nation, for he had no dynasty, no territory. He spoke the prevailing language of whatever landscape he was in. He had no visible State in the Western style. It seemed that Jewry was simply a religion, and as such not a political unit, for even in the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648, religion played a subordinate role to dynastic politics, and Fronde politics. Therefore, even though the West itself had given the Jew his political mission of revenge and destruction, it could not see him as a political unit.
And so the war between the Western Culture and the Jew was a subterranean one. The Jew could not emerge in his unity and fight the West openly, for the reason of the odds involved. The West would at once have united against an open Jewish attack, and destroyed him utterly. The Jew had perforce to carry on his politics by the method of penetrating the conflicts among Western forces, ideas, States, and trying to influence the out come in his favor. He favored always the side pointing toward materialism, triumph of economics, opposition to absolutism, opposition to the religious unity of the West, freedom of trade and usury.
The tactics of this Jewish warfare was employment of money. His dispersion, his materialism, his finished cosmopolitanism, all precluded him from taking part in the heroic form of combat on the field, and he was thus confined to the war of lending, or refusing to lend, of bribing, of gaining legally enforcible power over important individuals. Since the early days when the Western Popes had forbade Christians to take interest, the Jew had enjoyed a favored economic position. Cromwell brought them back to England when he decided there was “not enough money in the land.” Theirs were the largest banking houses in the West in the 17th century. The Bank of England itself was founded on concessions granted to Ali-ben-Israel by Cromwell. This bank proceeded to give 4 1/2 per cent on deposits and re-lent to the Government at 8 per cent.
This tactic had not been freely available to him before the middle of the millennium. Scholastic philosophy, the laws of the Church, the Spirit of the Age, the power of the feudal barons to rob him— all were against the Jew. St. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, in the 13th century, taught that trade was to be despised, as being the creature of desire for gain, which tends to become measureless, that the taking of interest was injustice, that the Jews should be deprived of the money they had taken through usury, and forced to work and give up their lust for gain. Various Popes directed bulls against the economic practices, the materialism, the rising influence, of the Jew.
But the Soul of the West itself was slowly externalizing. The decisive turning-point of 1789 was prepared for by centuries of slow changes. The old inwardness of the West, which gave to the feudal centuries their self-evident spiritual cohesion, gradually was undermined by new conflicts especially those of town versus country, of trade-nobility versus land-nobility, of materialism against the spirit of religion. The Reformation was a schism in the whole soul of the West. In it appeared as a symbol of the coming triumph of materialism the system of Calvinism. Calvin taught the sanctity of economic activity; he sanctioned usury; he interpreted wealth as a sign of Election to salvation. This spirit was abroad; Henry VIII legalized usury in England in 1545. The old Western doctrine of the sinfulness of usury was rejected.
This represented liberation for the Jew, accessibility to power, even if disguised, invisible power. In the Reformation time, the Jew was found everywhere fighting against the Church, and, as between Luther and Calvin, supporting Calvin, for Luther also rejected usury. The victory of Puritanism in England, an adaptation of Calvinism, gave the Jew favorable conditions. The Puritan writer Baxter even recognized a religious duty to choose the more gainful of two economic choices. To choose the less gainful was to disregard the will of God. This atmosphere protected and increased the Jew in his possessions, so that none of the old robbery by monarchs and barons could occur again.
II
From the beginning of the 17th century, an undercurrent appears in Western history, a twist, a
distortion. It had its greatest effect in England, and there in the economic life. Many of the most
rapacious aspects of the ascendancy of usury and finance-capitalism were not English at all, but ascribable
to the rising influence of the Jew. Again, these effects do not redound to the blame of the Jew. The
religious side of the Jewish unity permitted the taking of interest, and prescribed a different ethic as
between Jews and goyim from that between Jews. It was meritorious according to the religion of the Jew
to inflict injury on the goy. This religious tenet might have remained a dead letter, but for the life-mission
of the Jew, whose formation in the centuries of persecution has been seen. The Jew was merely being
himself, but his influence was not Western, and was a distortion of Western Culture. Even in the 19th
century, after this sanctification of greed had been firmly established, Carlyle, a high representative of the
Western soul, cried out in horror at the spectacle of universal thievery and throat-cutting with cunning
economico-legal weapons, at the utter lack of social conscience which sacrificed whole strata of nations to
want and misery. The distorting effects of the presence of the Jew on Western economic life from the very beginning have been comprehensively set forth by the outstanding European economic thinker Werner Sombart in his Jews and Modern Capitalism. After the awakening within the Western soul of a stronger interest in the material world, the Jew became more secure, more indispensable, and more powerful. Even if he had wished to go into callings other than usury, they were closed to him, for the Western guilds admitted only Christians. His original economic superiority was thus maintained, and highly-placed Westerners in many cases became dependent on him. They in turn could not attack him, for the new commercial laws, reflecting the growing spirit of trade, protected him in his possessions, his bonds, and his contracts. The story of Shylock shows the dual picture of the Jew— socially cringing on the Rialto, but emerging as a lion in the courtroom. It was the West that cast him into these two roles. It expected him to play a purely subordinate part, and at the same time it gave him a path to a leading part.
The more materialistic the Culture became, the more it approached the Jew, and the greater was his advantage. The West gradually abandoned its exclusiveness, but he retained his, invisible to the West.
The epoch is the appearance of Rationalism, the radical affirmation of Materialism. Around 1750, the new ideas are ascendant in the West: “freedom,” “humanity,” Deism, opposition to religion and to absolutism, “democracy,” enthusiasm for “the people,” belief in the goodness of human nature, “Return to Nature.” Reason challenges tradition, and slowly the old, highly-refined Western structures of thought and statecraft go down. Lessing, in this period, put the Jew into a leading role in his play Nathan der Weise, what a century before would have been ridiculous. The intellectuals became enthusiastic for the ghetto man with his highly refined caste system, his private religion existing side by side with his external materialism. He was the cosmopolitan and, as such, seemed to the Western intellectuals to be pointing toward the Western future. For the first and last time, Westerners and Jews worked together on Cultural tasks— the spreading of the new ideas. The Cultural distortion now spread to the political life. The form of the French Revolution was due to Culture-distortion. The particular epoch that this great episode marks is, of course, an organic Western development. The distortion is manifest in these particular facts, occurring in this particular way, in this particular time and place. Otherwise put— the distortion occurred on the surface of history, not in its depths, for there distortion cannot occur. A human analogy is offered in incarceration: it distorts the surface of a man’s life, by changing all the facts of it, but it does not touch his inner development, physical or spiritual. Distortion is twisting, warping, frustration; it is not killing, nor can it kill. It is a chronic illness, a running sore, a waste, an impurity in the Cultural life-stream.
The philosopher has treated in full outline the best known example of Culture-distortion in the Arabian Culture. There it was the old, civilized, Romans who permeated the new upspringing life of the Aramaean world. This new Culture had to force its way through the entire corpus of life-forms of the Roman world in order to express itself. Its early centuries are a progressive emancipation from Culturedistortion, a fight against Culture-distortion. The Mithradatic Wars are an early outbreak of this fight. The Romans were the “Jews” of that world, i.e., the finished economic thinkers, with complete Cultural unity, in the midst of an area of awakening religion. The distortion extended into every direction of Life— law, philosophy, economics, politics, literature, war. Its occurrence was at the very inception of the Culture, which slowly freed itself from the completely alien world of the Roman. But the inmost soul of this new Culture was not touched by the distortion— it was its actualization, its surface, its expression, its facts, that were distorted.
Similarly, it is only the facts of the period 1775-1815, the period of the French Revolution, that were distorted. The great transition which was symbolized by this horrible event— the change of direction of the soul of the West from Culture to Civilization— could have happened in innumerable other ways.
In the financial crisis, Necker was exiled, and Mirabeau became dictator. He immediately issued land money to save the country from the panic the distorter's were trying to bring about. But outside France, Necker, representing the power of Money and the distorter's, then launched a continental war against France, exciting it from both within and without. The idea was that a war would necessitate large foreign purchases by France in England, Spain, and elsewhere; that the land-money, the assignats, would be refused by the Money powers outside of France, and that France would be forced to succumb to the gold monopolists. From this war a straight line led to the Terror.
At the very beginning of the Civilization we see the same gigantic conflict between Authority and Money that lasts for generations into the Future. It is the battle of Napoleon against six coalitions. Napoleon has been painted by a distorted history-writing as a mere conqueror; his State-philosophy is ignored. But his autarchic economic ideas were dearly outlined by him to Las Casas and to Caulaincourt. He saw economy as production, not trade, and based primarily on agriculture, secondarily on industry, and lastly on foreign trade. He was opposed to interest-bearing money. [Interesting and definitely true on the distortion of just who Napoleon was,we have been steered in a direction,but just how many have actually looked at the man instead of listening to the history we have been fed? DC]
The battle of the distorter's against these ideas contributes much to the form of the facts of Western history from Napoleon’s assumption of the Consulate to 1815. Regardless of what these facts would have been otherwise, it was a distortion of Western history that a Culture-parasite engaged actively and decisively in the expression of the Western soul. In the battle between Western forces, the outcome of which is organically shaped by the progressive development of our Culture-soul, the casting of totally foreign power into the balance is a warping and frustration.
We do not know what Western history had otherwise been, but it is quite obvious that the power of Money never would have enjoyed its absolute sway during the 19th century if it had not been for the disease of Culture-distortion. There would have been two poles in the Western soul— reaching down into every individual— the pole of money-thinking, and the pole of authority and tradition. The absolute triumph of Money exacted a horrible toll of Western lives and health. It sacrificed the agricultural class of whole countries to the selfish interest of Trade. It let loose wars for private interests with the blood of patriots. The Opium War is enough to name— a war in which English soldiers and sailors had to die in order to force upon the Chinese Emperor recognition and protection of the opium monopoly enjoyed by distorter's based in the Western Civilization.
The debt system was forced onto every European State. Prussia borrowed from Nathan Rothschild in 1818. Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, followed in order. But the shallow materialistic Spirit of the Age, hostile as it was to deep thinking and probing beneath the surface remained blind, Philosophy, which had produced Berkeley and Leibnitz, was contented now with Mill and Spencer. Economic thinking was satisfied with Adam Smith, who taught— in the face of the ruin and destitution of millions— that the pursuit of his own selfish economic interests by each man would advance the collective life. When amazing propositions like these were accepted generally, it is not surprising that but few Westerners were conscious of the distortion of the Cultural life of the West. Byron was one of these few, as The Age of Bronze, and lines in Don Juan and other poems, show us. Charles Lamb and Carlyle were also aware, but for the most part Westerners were bent upon execution of the command of Louis-Phillipe: Enrichissezvous!
III
The economic life, although influenced in its forms by Culture, is really only the raw material of
Culture, a preliminary condition of the higher life. The role of economy in a High Culture is precisely
analogous to its part in the life of a creative man, like Cervantes, Dante, or Goethe. For such a man to be
tied to a bench is a distortion of his life. Every High Culture is creative— its whole life is a continuous
super personal creating. Thus to place the economic life in the center, and to say that it is Life, and all else
is secondary, is a distortion of Culture. But that was the effect of the distorter's from two sides. The masters of money worked solely for the spread of the Sovereignty of Money over the old traditions of the West. From the under side, the distortion of Marxism denied everything else in the world except economics, and said that the proletariat must exploit the Western Civilization for its own benefit.
From the examination of the articulation of a High Culture, the Cultural importance of the “proletariat” is known. In one word, it is— nihil. This is a plain fact, not an expression of an ideology, and because it is a fact, the distorter Marx, with his abysmal, snarling hatred of the Western Civilization, chose it as an instrument of destruction. From above and below, the distorter's sought to employ the only techniques they understood, economic ones, in an instinctive attempt to destroy the body of the hated West. This, it cannot be said too often, is outside praise and blame: the distorter's were acting from compulsion, their conduct was irrational, unconscious, springing from organic necessity.
The idea of Money, and the idea of class-war on an economic basis, both appear in other Cultures at a corresponding time. The distortion of our life was not manifest in the mere existence of these phenomena, but in their universality, their absolute form, and the bitterness with which they confused and divided the entire West. The presence of the distorter, a sort of organic catalyst, is interwoven into all these disintegrating, shattering ideas and developments.
The West only succumbed to this Culture-distortion because of its own externalization. Once the West began to dabble with Materialism, the distorter's aggravated it. The breaking down of some barriers led the distorter to work for the removal of all distinctions. He turned Deism into atheism— but kept his own runes and phylacteries. In the battle of Rationalism against Tradition, he enhanced the division of the West by ever more absolute demands.
The very status of the distorter was the occasion of bitter discord in the Western nations. In England, public life was distorted over the question, which continually came up, of Jewish status. This question had nothing whatever to do with the English organism, but in battle after battle, Englishmen wasted themselves fighting for or against things like Jewish citizenship, membership in Parliament, in the Bar, the professions, government offices. Similar struggles divided Western society every where. The result of the steady financialization of the economic life, substituting the idea of Money for the idea of goods, was the steady ruination of the material and spiritual life of the working people and farmers in all the Western lands. The death of millions through the 19th and 20th centuries from conditions of dirt, malnutrition and sub-human living conditions, through typhus, hunger, and tuberculosis, is traceable to the transformation of the economy of production into a battlefield of the Master of Money against the entrepreneur and the industrialist. The Master of Money was the one who brought about the triumph of the corporate form of business ownership. This forced every business owner into interest servitude to the Master of Money, for it was the latter who bought the shares and then proceeded to grind the employees of the enterprises by turning the proceeds of the industry entirely into dividends. To a banker, wages paid to living human beings as the economic basis of their lives are merely a “cost of production.” To lower this “cost” was to increase his own profits. It did not matter whether rachitic children, starvation of families, debased national life, was the result— the aim was Profit.
The ideology was that each working-man could, if he wished, become a Master of Money. If he did not, it was his own fault. The Money Masters owed no duty to anyone, for they had made themselves. Not the converse, however, for if their foreign holdings were attacked, it was the patriotic duty of the starvelings to rescue the Money Masters.
The terrible results of the ascendancy of Money in throwing whole sections of the population into existence on the margin of starvation, had, as was to be expected, a counter-effect. The resultant seething discontent of these masses was also rendered into an instrument of the policy of the distorter's.
In between was the enemy— the body of the Western Civilization. Above was the financial technique of mastery over this body. Below was the trade-union technique. The millions of the others were the spoils of this war on two fronts. The role of the distorter was to increase the division, render it sharper, make it work for his advantage. No historian has ever presented the policy and effect of the Culture distorter's better than Baruch Levy presented it in his famous letter to Marx:
“The Jewish people, taken collectively, will be its own Messiah. It will attain to mastery of the world through the union of all other human races, through abolition of boundaries and monarchies, which are the bulwarks of Particularism, and through the erection of a universal Republic, in which the Jews will everywhere enjoy universal rights.
“In this new organization of mankind the sons of Israel will spread themselves over the whole inhabited world, and they, since they belong all to the same race and culture-tradition, without at the same time having a definite nationality, will form the leading element without finding opposition.
“The government of the nations, which will make up this universal Republic, will pass without effort into the hands of the Israelite's, by the very fact of the victory of the proletariat. The Jewish race can then do away with private property, and after that everywhere administer the public funds.
“Then shall the promises of the Talmud be fulfilled. When the time of the Messiah has come, the Jews will hold in their hands the key to the wealth of the world.”
This was the expression of the foreign body in the Western organism. There is nothing sinister about it to the distorter— to him the West is a brutish monster of pride, selfishness, and cruelty. The life conditions of the two organisms, or any two organisms of this rank, are simply different. For the distorter to promote the economic obsession within the West, which undermines its soul and opens a path for him, is only obedience to the obvious. It is the eternal relationship of host and parasite, which is found in the plant world, the world of animals, and the world of human beings. For the West to be itself is to stifle the expression of the distorter and restrict his soul: for him to be himself is to frustrate the expression of the Western soul.
It must be clearly understood that Culture-distortion cannot kill the host, for it cannot reach to the Soul, but can only affect the expressions of that Soul, as they reach the phase of actualization. If distortion could reach into the Soul, it would no longer be felt as such, for the Soul would be changed. But the Soul continues in its purity and intensity, and its externalizing only is distorted. Here is the source of the tension: the dis-junction between that which was possible and that which has become actual is visible. Reaction begins: with each victory of Culture-distortion, the feeling of frustration grows, and the more determined is the hostility of the Culture-bearing elements. Propaganda cannot touch this process, for it is organic, and must occur, while Life is present.
IV
Culture-distortion affects the Culture life on every plane. When the Culture is in a politically
nationalistic stage, as the West was during the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century, not only
the life of each nation may be distorted, but also the relations between the nations themselves. The simplest illustration would be hypothetical. The Chinese parasitic group in America was never able to attain to the level of Culture-distortion, but let us suppose it had. If it had possessed public power in America at a time when, let us say, England was marking out spheres of influence for itself in China, the Chinese element in America would have inevitably worked for a war by America against England. If its degree of public power had been sufficient, it would have succeeded. This would have been distortion of the international life of the Western Civilization. It would have been an intra-Western war on a Chinese issue. This hypothetical case did occur, repeatedly, with other participants, throughout the 19th century. Whatever country was engaged in persecution of the Culture-distorter in Europe, or whatever country was slow in granting him the civil rights, legal protection, and financial possibilities that he needed, found itself the object of the policy of the Culture-distorter. The distortion was never absolute, for the public power of the distorter was never that. It was always a mere twisting, not a transformation; an influence, not a command; hidden, not visible; a deviation, not a straight line. The distorter never appeared as himself, for so to do would have been to destroy himself, a tiny parasite in a gigantic host. Distortion was always masked by Western ideals— freedom, democracy, liberty, and the like. This, again, was not sinister, for it was a life-necessity of the distorter thus to conduct his policy. His small numbers precluded a challenge of the entire West on the battlefield.
During the entire 19th and early 20th centuries there was, in addition to the surface history of Western politics and Western economics, another history— that of the advance of the Culture-parasite through his own politics, with consequent distortion of Western politics and economics. The contemporary Europe could only catch glimpses of this second history. Because of its political nationalism, it could not conceive of a political unit without a definite territory, a definite language, a “Constitution,” an army, a navy, a Cabinet, and the rest of the Western political equipment. It was not acquainted with the history of the Arabian Culture and its Nation-idea, nor with the unity of its remnant that was strewn through the West.
Within each nation it worked for the adoption of constitutions, the attenuation of the old aristocratic forms, the spread of “democracy,” the rule of parties, the extension of the franchise, the breaking down of the old exclusiveness of the West. All of these transformations are quantitative, the negation of quality. The democratization of a land was a prerequisite to the conquest of power therein. If the resistance was too great within, other nations where power had already been gained were mobilized against the recalcitrant nation, and war was the result.
Throughout the 19th century Russia— which still figured then as a member of the Western State system— Austria, and Prussia resisted Culture-distortion. The Church of Rome also stood out, and was marked down as an enemy.
By 1858 the point had been reached where the Culture-distorter could mobilize the government of France and the public sentiment of England in the case of the Mortara child. When an international incident among Western nations could be created by the case of one private Jewish child, it is not surprising that much larger Jewish affairs could bring about much greater international results in the Western political system.
The greatest enemy of all was Russia, the land of the pogrom. It has been seen that when there was a large pogrom in Kiev in 1906, the Roosevelt government in America broke off diplomatic relations with the Russian government. No Americans were concerned in any way in the pogrom, and so the case is indicative of the strength of the distorter. If the victims of the pogrom had been Laplander's, Cossack's, Balt's, or Ukrainians, it would have passed unnoticed by Washington.
The First World War, both in its original form, and in its development, was not at all indicative of the Western problems of the time. The treatment of this great turning-point belongs to another place, but here the result for Russia, the great enemy of the distorter, can be shown. The connection of the Culturedistorter with Bolshevism was the subject of loud boasting in his press in the early days of Bolshevism. Romanov Russia was paid back a thousandfold for the pogroms of three centuries. The Czar and his family were shot against a wall in Ekaterinburg, and a Kabbalistic symbol was scrawled above their bodies. The entire stratum which had been the vehicle of the Western Civilization in Russia was massacred or driven out. Russia was lost to Europe, and became the greatest threat to the Western body.
In the Bolshevist wars, plagues, and famines, immediately following the Revolution, a number between ten and twenty millions perished. The slogan was: Destroy everything!— which meant— everything Western. Among other changes in Russia, antisemitism was made a crime.
This example shows the magnitude to which Culture-distortion can attain. The tremendous formative power of the Western Culture had pulled Russia into its spiritual orbit. The instrument of this development was Peter the Great. The Romanov dynasty he founded in the 17th century had been the great symbol of the ascendancy of the Western spirit in the vast subcontinent called Russia, with its teeming millions of primitive populations. The transformation was, of course, not complete. It could not have been, since a High Culture has a situs, and does not move about. Nevertheless the Romanov dynasty and the Western stratum it represented in Russia gave Europe for three centuries comparative security in the East. Bolshevism removed this security.
When the armies of Alexander occupied Paris in 1814, they were compelled by the Western veneer of their leaders to behave as Western troops. It was somewhat as though Western troops were occupying a foreign Western capital. But the Bolshevist troops which planted the red flag in the heart of Europe in 1945 had nothing in common with the West whatever. In their primitive blood and instincts was the wordless imperative: destroy everything!
V
The phenomenon of Culture-distortion is not confined to the sphere of action. The ascendancy of the
Classical Civilization over the early Arabian Culture, up to about 300 A.D., showed a complete distortion
of the expressions of the new, rising, Culture. The philosopher has described the situation— which lasted
for centuries— as a “Pseudo morphosis,” a “false-forming” of all the manifestations of the new Culture soul. The high refinement of our Western arts, and their esoteric nature, which made them accessible only to a few, made their distortion by Cultural outsiders impossible. Westerners themselves occasionally— for instance Chippendale, the Classicists in belles lettres, philosophy, and the arts of form— sought to introduce extra-Cultural motives in Western things, but they transformed them in their very using of them, adapting them to our feeling. But there are no Culture-distorter's in a great Western art during its period of highest development. Calderon, Rembrandt, Meister Erwin von Steinbach, Gottfried von Strasburg, Shakespeare, Bach, Leonardo, Mozart, have no counterparts with extra-Cultural backgrounds. Oil painting and music remained entirely Western as long as they were in process of fulfillment. When, with the end of the 19th century, both of these great arts had become history, the distorter's emerged with atrociousness in the pictorial realm, and clangor in the world of music.
Because of the extent of their public power, they were able to hold up these horrors as worthy successors to Rembrandt and Wagner. Any minor artist continuing to work in the old traditions was smothered, while a Culture-distorter was praised as a great artist. The tendency in the middle of the 20th century finally became simply to take old works of art and distort them, without any pretense as to the process. A form of “music” taken from the primitive culture of African aborigines was adopted, and the works of Western masters were forced into this form. The pretense of originality was given up. When a Culture-distorter produced a drama, it was often simply a Shakespearean play, distorted, twisted, and made to convey the social propaganda of the distorter. Any other drama was stifled by the total ascendancy of the Cultural outsider, and his control of the channels of publicity.
In this realm, as in the realm of action, it was exclusiveness that kept the Western soul pure in its expressions, and it was the victory of quantitative ideas, methods, and feelings that laid the life of the West open to the entrance of the Culture-distorter.
In the domain of action, Money, Democracy and Economics— all quantitative, none of them exclusive— had admitted the outsider to public power. Without Western materialism, money-thinking,and liberalism, the entry of the outsider into Western public life had been as impossible as the mastery of Talmudic casuistry would have been to a Westerner.
And with this, we come to the Future.
The coming developments of the Western Soul are known. Authority is re-appearing, the old Western pride and exclusiveness are back. The spirit of Money is giving way to Authority; parliamentarism is yielding to order. Social dis-articulation will be replaced by cohesion and hierarchy. Politics is destined to move into a new realm: the Western nations are gone, and the Western nation is coming. The consciousness of the unity of the West supplants the petty-stateism of the 19th century.
Sternness and discipline are the characteristics of the Western soul in the 20th century. Gone are the pathological individualism and feebleness of will of 19th century Europe. Respect for the mystery of Life, and for the symbolic significance of living Ideas take the place of 19th century Materialism. Vitalism has triumphed over mechanism, the soul over Rationalism.
Ever since the appearance of Calvin the West has been steadily moving toward more absolute Materialism. The apogee of the curve was reached by the First World War, and this powerful epoch into a new world marked also the reappearance of the Western soul in its unimpaired purity. It had come through the long Cultural crisis of Rationalism, and its ever youthful Destiny produced the Resurgence of Authority and the unification of Europe in such a self-evident form that no force in Europe save retarders and distorter's— both pathological— even opposed it.
This movement toward Materialism was a movement toward the Culture-distorter in the sense that it made his entry into Western affairs possible. When men were counted, naturally he too was included. But the counting-mania has ceased, and the old exclusiveness is coming back. The phenomenon of Disraeli, a Culture-distorter as prime minister of a Western State, would have been simply unthinkable a century previous, in Pitt’s time, and it is just as unthinkable now and for the Western Future.
The movement away from Materialism is a progression away from the Culture-distorter. In the realm of thought, Materialism is fighting a desperate rear-guard action. It is vanquished in every realm: physics, cosmogony, biology, psychology, philosophy, belles lettres. This irresistible trend simply makes distortion impossible to him, for it makes the affairs of the West inaccessible to him. The Western was always esoteric: when Goethe’s Collected Works were published in 1790, only 600 copies were subscribed. Yet this public was enough for his fame over all Europe. Buxtehude, Orlando Gibbons, Bach and Mozart wrote for a small public, including no Culture-distorters. Napoleon’s policy was understood in its last ramifications by few persons in his contemporary Europe. The distorters could only see so much as touched them. The Culture-bearing stratum of the West is drawing together over the crumbled walls of vertical nationalism. The West is shedding the skin of Materialism, returning to the purity of its own soul for its last great inner task, the creation of the Culture-State-Nation-People-Race-Empire unity of the West, as the basis for the fulfillment of the Inner Imperative of Absolute Imperialism.
The problem of Culture-distortion is therewith fundamentally altered. The very possibility of a parasite being admitted to the public life of the West is fast passing away. With a sound instinct, the distorter has given up Europe, and bases himself henceforth outside Europe.
The old tools of finance-capitalism and class war have lost their efficacy in the presence of the Resurgence of Authority, and only armies matter now. From without, he carries on his same compulsory revenge-mission. In one Western colony, America, Culture-diseases are still present which from there have exerted and continue to exert a decisive influence on world-happening.
Next
America
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