WILLIAM TROY'S MYTHS
67
assembled baggage of laboratory and telescope, of carefully elaborated
and ever-revised hypotheses, of plans rationally analyzed and predictions
precisely made and verified, of theories called ever to account, publicly,
before the eyes of all who wish to see, by the marshaled evidence. From
this Troy beckons us once more to-re-baptizing it as Myth-the dark
religion of the blood.
(3) By raising Mann to the pinnacle he achieves in Troy's two final
paragraphs, Troy does equal disservice to the artist and his art, on the
---
one side, to science and politics on the other. Troy is, in effect, asking
us to
substitute
the artist for the scientist and politician, the works of art
for science and politics. In no other way can the final paragraphs be under–
stood. Mann, we are told, goes beyond Hegel and Marx. He tells us about
"the dialectic process working itself out on the
whole
ground of human
reality." He portrays in Joseph the "guide to 'a free and enlightened human–
ity.' " In short he tells us the truth and the ideal.
But if we judge Mann in such terms, we must take him in his entirety:
we must consider not merely the novels and stories but the essays, speeches
and actions as well.
If
we judge him from the standard of truth, we must
conclude that he has failed us; if we look upon him as prophet, we must
decide that he is a false prophet.
It was in the midst of Mann's American -lecture tour that there took
place the third and foulest of the Moscow trials. As he nightly summoned
his audiences to join him in aspiration toward Democracy and Truth,
not one word of protest, not one suggestion, came from him against his–
tory's most degraded and perverted assault on democracy and truth. Doubt–
less, in the pure realm of the myth-imagtnation it is not necessary to soil
one's ideals with actuality. But that realm is not too pure to prevent the
profitable circulation of Mann's books within the Soviet Union, his well–
paid articles in the Stalinist-controlled press, his audiences packed with
cash-paying Stalinist sympathizers, and his present large and very concrete
part in the campaign to enlist the peoples of the democratic-imperialist
countries in an imperialist holy war against the fascist nations.
This is nothing new for Mann. In the years preceding Hitler in Ger–
many, he left the pure realm of the imagination long enough to make
speeches and write articles advocating the policies of bourgeois-democratic
centrism which played so vital a role in making Hitler's victory possible.
Nor was his exile the burning martyrdom for principle that popular fancy
now pictures it. It was the Nazis, not he, who compelled his exile. He made
clear, by word and act, that he was prepared to make peace with Nazism ;
but the Nazis spurned his offers. And now in this country he begins with
the same part. Through his lovely myth of Democracy and Truth he helps
strengthen the chains of a rotted society, helps bind. the people to a reality
