A COMMUNICATION
349
and moral agitation and their devotion to the best
(I
speak especially of
moralists and religious persons) have in fact found a worthwhile exem–
plary device in just standing out against the Goliath of social error, and
have embraced public civil disobedience, e.g. by refusing to register.
Those on the other hand who sacrifice themselves to free works, living
privately for the good of all, have sought just to go their own way, employ–
ing such possibilities as they can invent. (By "their own way" I do not
necessarily mean in isolation, tho sometimes in isolation, but in the same
hole-in-corner institutions as previously.) From both groups, in the
nature of the case, you will hear rebellious utterances, tho it is only the
first group that can have an interest in their publicity. But the main thing
is not to cooperate day by day in the extreme of activity which, when it
was more moderate, was day by day avoided.
2
It cannot be kept too firmly in mind that persons of this kind have
always lived in the society more or less as in a state of nature, accepting
the social conventions only pro tern and conditionally. And now when the
social events have so far deteriorated that life and liberty themselves are
in jeopardy, it is their duty, even in violation of social sanctions, to do
their best for themselves and their work. So Hobbes taught. But what of
the other famous philosophic decision, whereby Socrates accepted the
erroneous verdicf of the court? He was right to do so, the error was just,
in so far as he concurred in the social ideal
as proved by the fact that he
did
his work in Athens.
In such a case we could not speak of Socrates as
"alienated" from the Athenians, but rather as teaching
them.
(I
would
not refer to such fundamental cases if the issue were not so terribly
urgent.)
It
is customary to use the term "alienation" and to refer to ourselves
as "alienated," and I myself have spoken in this way. Now, however,
when the social labor and acquiescence--that prepared the war as if in
order to wage it-have so subverted the natural order of goods that one
doubts of their sanity; and have frozen into a style that is nausea to the
taste;
3
it becomes a kind of flattery to use a term that implies that these
also represent a human standpoint from which one withdraws merely to
take another human standpoint.
But disaster and intolerable disgust will
make us all brothers again.
Until that day those who are a little wiser
have an obligation to survive intact! Even if the war were indifferently
good, they would have to stand apart from it; there are plenty of others
to approve what authority approves. And what if the "total war" is a
mistake--and no one is left?
In these tight circumstances the meaning of our persistent
non-com–
mitment
becomes clearer. It is the opposite not of revolutionary faith that
holds to its position however the social temper may vary or be manipu-
2
1 hope the reader will see that this attitude is neither callous nor Olympian. Who
would dare to assume it
if
he did not see his fri ends going to die against their better
judgment! And what attitude must we take towards a society that has developed such
ID
estrangement between its grandiose policy and the interests of its members that it
Clllnot rely on their better judgment but must resort to force?
1
Let me cite a headline from the conservative
N. Y. Herald-Tribune,
June 3,
1942,
p.
2: "Bombardiers' View of Essen, No. 2 in the
RAF
Hit Parade."
