RIPOSTES
75
tension. The difficulties of 'proletarian
literature' are partly due to the decadence
of bourgeois culture-since practically all
'proletarian' writers are renegade members
of the bourgeoisie, which controls the only
cultural apparatus existing under capitalism
-and partly to the degeneration of a large
section of the radical movement. The one
great advantage for the future that the 'pro–
letarians'-some of them, at least-have
over the
Transition
group is that they are at
least aware that they have suffered reverses,
and are conscious of the basic causes of
their defeat. Mr. Jolas seems to think all
is well with the revolution of the word.
He may have mastered the Freudian un–
conscious, but his social unconsciousness
flourishes unchecked. At a time when the
Western world is split into rival imperial–
isms and nationalisms more ruinously than
ever before, he trumpets forth the slogan:
"Transition
is in search of the Euramerican
language of the future." It would be under–
statement, today, to call this quest Quix–
otic.
"Transition,"
he concludes his fore–
word-manifesto, "will continue to seek a
pan-symbolic, panlinguistic synthesis in the
conception of a four-dimensional universe."
The more the contradictions of capitalism
split the world into violently clashing na–
tions and classes, the more desperately do
bourgeois movements
try
to find a supra–
political means of restoring harmony and
unity. From this point of view, the
Tran–
sition
group has many interesting similar–
ities with Dr. Buchman's Oxford group,
not the least being an understandable re–
liance on vagueness. There is less difference
than one might at first think between Mr.
Jolas' "primacy of the creative spirit" and
Dr. Buchman's "God is Love."
D.M.
Lenin Next?
"In the Stalinist press in the Soviet
Union, a frantic campaign of the wildest
calumny has been initiated against Rosa
Luxemburg.
It
is now alleged that Rosa
Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches organized the
Social-Democratic Party of Poland and
Lithuania some forty years ago under in–
structions of the Czarist police. This hor–
rible slander is apparently intended to serve
the purpose of justifying the murder of
Rosa Luxemburg'S comrades-in-arms by the
G.P.U. today."-W
orkers Age,
July 9.
o
Henry!
There is Henry Seidel C.anby and Henry
Goddard Leach and Harry Emerson Fosdick
and Henry Pratt Fairchild and Henry Fair–
field Osborn and Henry Wadsworth Long–
fellow Dana, to name a few. One of our
readers has called our attention to this
particular order of bourgeois functionaries,
all of whom are respectable, s e rio u s -
minded, public-spirited, vaguely cultural,
and all of whom have
trippin~
triple
names beginning with 'Henry'.
One can detect the genuine Henry quality
by applying three tests:
(1)
One is never
quite sure whether Henry is, at the moment,
alive or recently deceased. (Who can say,
offhand, in which category Henry Fairfield
Osborn, for example, is to be placed?)
(2)
Since Henry functions as a standardized
part in the mechanism of bourgeois culture,
any two Henry's are like as two balls in a
Dearing and as t:asily interchangeable.
(!tIS
impossible to demonstrate any necessary
effect on either the
Forum
or the
Saturday
Review of literature
if
Henry Goddard
Leach were to swap editorial chairs with
Henry Seidel Canby.)
(3)
One always as–
sociates Henry with some institution-not
necessarily the right one, (Henry Pratt
Fairchild is obviously connected with the
Museum of Natural History in New York
-or is it the National Geographic Society
-or the Smithsonian Institute ?) Henry's
personality, in short, is as institutionalized
as a hospital lamb chop. Such feeble shoots
of individuality as may once have sprouted
in this infertile soil have long since been
crushed by the pressure of his civic and
cultural responsibilities,
There is a considerable body of congen–
ital Henry's, of course, whose parents were
not·foresighted enough to name them prop–
erly. We wish to rectify this error. As a
starter, we nominate for honorary member–
ship in the Henry Club the following, giv–
ing them their proper names: Henry Morss
Lovett, Henry Jay Nock, Henry Truslow
Adams, Henry Edward Wiggam, and Henry
Wilbur Cross. For international grand
commander of the Henry Club we nominate
M. Henri Rolland.
