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PARTISAN REVIEW
yours remain watchful and faithful, we shall not lose confidence–
we shall not despair."
Let us rather try to understand Mann's predicament.
It is the predicament of the intellectual conscience, clinging to
the conditions of its own enslavement. Not only does Mann's program
call for no change in the existing social order, but in identifying the
European mind with European society, Mann is unable to perceive
that the structure of European society shackles the ideals of the Euro–
pean mind. Even his anti-fascism rests its hopes on the very source of
fascism, the democratic states, for Mann is unaware of the historical
continuity between the more liberal moods of the bourgeoisie and its
fascist extremity.
Defending morality without history, art without science, culture
without politics, envisioning no social action which might ensure in–
tellectual freedom, Mann's program becomes an agony of the indi–
vidual conscience-one more symptom of the tragic state of our
world.
(The June issue of
PARTISAN REVIEW
will contain an essay by William
Troy, "Thomas Mann: Myth and Reason," dealing with Mann's creative
development from his early fiction to the Joseph books.)
