LITERATURE IN TWO WORLDS
19
republics,-all this serves to create a tragic or a picturesque reality, which
confers upon realism all that is necessary to enable it to outstrip itself.
•
•
•
I feel, in conclusion, that the basic consequence of the Soviet society
is the possibility of creating a new humanism; I feel that humanism well
may be man's fundamental attitude toward a civilization which he accepts,
just as individualism is his fundamental attitude toward a civilization
which he refuses; that the important thing from now on is not that which
distinguishes one man from · another, but the depth of his humanity and
his readiness to fight, not for that which separates him from his fellows,
but for that which will enable him to come to them on a terrain that
lies beyond their individualities.
It
is high time to show that the union of mankind is something other
than a first-communion souvenir. I feel that, just as Nietzsche took what
was then known as the brute attitude and elevated it into a Zarathustra,
so we should set up once again, in a realm beyond · all ridiculous senti–
mentality, those values that bring men together and restore a meaning to
the idea of manly brotherhood.
From the French
by
Samuel Putnam
