Brook Farm and the Oneida Colony. And in the
cliques of estheticism. Attempt to avoid the unsavor-
iness of extreme competitiveness
(as the golden
"right
to sell one's services" was transformed,
by
inverse alchemy, into the dross of a
"need
to have
one's services sold").
The attempt manifested itself
with varying degrees of thoroughness in the attempt
to create an
imperium in imperio,
a society-within-a-
society, an island (often communistically inclined)
in the sea of capitalism. Such an approach gives one
further insight into the lure of the EPIC plan, which
proposes to establish an island of "self-service" in
the sea of capitalist markets.
Communist job: to make clear why the
imperium
in imperio
method cannot work. To make clear why
you can only make a good island by changing the
whole damned sea. And I don't see any obstacles to
making that thesis the core of one's "integration."
The main obstacle I see lies in the usual commu-
nist's failure to realize how dose communism comes
to the earlier modes of monasticism.
Consequently,
one may spend too much effort in attacking what
need
not be attacked, and what
should
not be attack-
ed. One need not attack religious monasticism
per se,
for instance. Give it its dues-and then proceed to
show that the fulfilment of the ideal requires com-
munism. Many of the orders were communistic. But
in arising out of the Church's wealth (like the Rock-
efeller charities out of Standard Oil dividends),
they were set for disintegration,
as the genius of the
sea finally submerged the island. The critical ter-
minology was bad, so that ~e proper admonitions
were lacking (hence: their attempt to make up for
this lack by moralistic legislation, such as the attempt
to legislate against the glandular system-thunder-
ing against
symptoms
because one did not have the
accurate names for the
causes
of the symptoms).
Similarly,
the secular monasteries of romanticism
usually lacked the right names. Marxism provides
much more accurate names. The Marxist critique of
capitalism is basic to an understanding of the whole
matter. The use of such critique can be as "Amer-
ican" as anything.
In sum: We operate here in America under a sys-
tem of property relations closely analogous to that
of Europe.
Owing to disruption of the traditional
checks maintained by bureaucratic hangovers from
feudalism,
we can exemplify the "genius" of this
property system most amply. On the other hand, we
have so much natural wealth to squander, that there
are more crumbs lying about to be picked up by the
victims of the system than is the case in Europe.
Tributes to "Fordism" as an "American solution"
can usually be traced back to this greater natural
endowment
in crumbs.
Hence,
the proposal
to
"solve" our troubles, not by a wiser distribution of
wealth, but by such a criminal squandering of our
resources, via the fabulous output of gadgets,
that
there will always be sheets of old tin lying around
10
for someone to self-assertively use in making himself
a roof for his hut in Hooverville.
The enterprising
tendency to use this offal, however, is no more ex-
clusively "American" than is the tendency of peas-
ants in France to glean their fields exclusively
"French." And of course, the Ford solution through
"scientifically stimulated wastefulness," criminal as
it is, is further spoiled as a "remedy" by the fact that
bad distribution of profits makes it impossible to
waste enough.
If one is victimized in Missouri,
it is "American"
to defend oneself by the use of whatever helpful
materials are available in Missouri. It is "American"
to use anything one feels might be of value in rem-
edying one's situation.
Be it an old piece of tin, or
be it an old piece of philosophy-its
relevance to an
American situation depends not upon its
origin
but
upon its
applica,tion.
Inasmuch as our system of prop-
erty relations came from Europe,
it will not be sur-
prising that we could borrow from European cri-
tiques of the system. The Marxist
critique,
in its
main outlines, lacks "Americanism" only to the ex-
tent that anti-capitalist
criticism in general is im-
peded by the organized opposition (as regards both
thc deliberate and the "spontaneous" aspects of such
organization).
One system of meanings tends to
close you to another system of meanings. Hence, the
avalanche of capitalist meanings tends to bury the
structure of anti-capitalist
meanings.
But there is
nothing peculiarly "American" about that. And inso-
far as capitalism in America proves itself inadequate,
a critique of capitalism (whatever the source of the
critique) becomes "American" in its relevance.
There is a tendency, at present, to overstress the
search for peculiarly "American" phenomena.
Thus,
in his recent lecture on "Our Revolutionary Herit-
age," Hicks tried to claim nearly every outstanding
American of the past for the cause of revolution.
His desire to make us feel good was laudable.
But
his way of going about it was questionable.
He mere-
ly noted the attitude of rejection that ran through
all nineteenth-century romanticism,
and called it
revolutionary.
Gannett was right in objecting that
very much of it was mere rebelliousness.
As a matter
of fact, an 2.pplication of Hicks's method to Hearst
would have Hearst for the revolution.
Particularly
during the rise of his journalistic career, Hearst put
forth a great deal in the way of negativistic rebel-
liousness; and he is still doing more kicking against
"injustice" than, let us say, Emerson did towards
the close of his life.
In turning from humanism to communism,
Hicks
dropped that humanist word "romanticism" out of
his vocabulary,
putting the word "revolutionary" in
its stead. And by this device he was able simply to
reverse the humanist attitude towards romanticism,
taking as a
good
what had formerly been a
bad.
But
romanticism is not
per se
revolutionary.
Much of it
is definitely reactionary.
All brands of it, to be sure,
APRIL,
1936
