20
PARTISAN REVIEW
world, where it "becomes more than simply a test in matters of taste,
and pronounces upon values far beyond esthetic ones, antecedent and
fundamental to these."
Propaganda promises a total renovation of life. The declaration
EVERYTHING MUST BE-"'CHANGED flashed on Berlin electric
signs, and the gates to power opened before Hitler. But against these
lying promises of utter novelty, the artist, says Marm, asserts .a differ–
ent principle of change, a law whose characteristic it is that it does
not alter without preserving, that it forever combines the new with
the old, the original with the traditional. It is-to sum up in a phrase
Goethe's image of the new eternally emerging from the "expanded
elements" of the old-the law of revolutionary traditionalism.
Art
is
revolutionary, as any creative act is revolutionary-but the revolution
of art is the model of
conservative revolution.
Unfortunately, however, Mann continues, this jdcal of conserva–
tive· revolution, and even the phrast itself, has been perverted by the
Nazis into its opposite*-the outworn and decadent have been pre–
served through terror, while the "forces imperative to life" have been
held at bay. It is thus that the "infamous pragmatism" of totalitarian
politics triumphed in Germany. Politics subjected everything to itself,
and trampled under foot culture and the free human spirit, opposing
itself, too, to Christianity, upon which, Marm insists, all Western
values are based ...
For religion is the individual urge towards perfection. Religious
redemption lies, it is true, in the hereafter. But the religious spirit can
also seek a better life on earth. Religion, thinks Mann, is not incon–
sistent with socialism, provided socialism is not restricted to narrow
M~rxist
.doctrine with its class-dynamic interpretation of cultural
creation and its lack of understanding of the freedom from class of
great men. In contrast with the materialist interpretation of history, the
socialism of the religious humanist rests on the "broader convictions"
that the "inner life," culture, individual metaphysics and religion,
will
not scorn "the politico-social sphere" but will intervene in and bring
meaning to earthly events. Thus will political and economic forces
be
subdued and. brought into harmony with cultural progress.
On
this
"broad" program Mann hopes to unite "many people
in
many countries" in whom, he is confident, the craving for measure
• The
fudstJ do
In
filet make mud. uoe of
thJa
co~~eeptlon
of
challge:
A
Ti-s
dispatch
from Spain contains the followins: "They (the fueist Requetes) term themselves traclitioaalists ..•
although their faith
ia
oddly mingled with modern conceptions of the corporate or syndicalist
State as a substitute for both capitalism and socialism. It -ms
true
that on Generatua–
Francloco Franco's side
the
war
is
a
kind of religioua
revival,
but at
tbe
same
time it
is
or
may
become a
social
revolution
In
which
tradition is coupled
with
ref-."
