be the outcome of these broils
between materialists . . . ?" I
quote. Now that we've persua–
ded ourselves that our Amer–
ican necks are finally in mortal
danger, we're off on a crusade
to save "Western Man," loosely
defined as one of you editors
just down from Yale. Man of
the Renaissance!
If
you people
only had some of even Machia–
velli's spirit!
A. All right, if we are to talk his–
tory, you may call us the offi–
cial organ of the trading-manu–
facturing class. No other class
wants or needs such an organ.
We have our affiliates, of course,
the journals of science, philoso–
phy, literature, and religion.
We tap them for a specialist
and out he p<;>ps, all rhetoric
and smiles.
B. Let me get at it this way. Once
we had what you might call
"men of spirit," men whose fav–
orite element was moral and
spiritual danger. The attitude
is one,
if
the possible predica–
ments are many. All I see now
are "liberators," kindly old Vi–
ennese doctors and nuclear phys–
icists whose political remarks
sound like bad
PM.
We have
"artists" and "idea-men." Ideas
make things work, solve prob–
lems, and art gets along on
what it can scrape up around
the edges. So the modern wri–
ter must adopt the myth of
1252
total alienation, when he is only
suffering from alienation from
the minimum respect the non–
professional man of spirit de–
serves in the community.
A.
If
we are discussing journal–
ism, let's stay within the given.
No warmed-over Henry Adams
or Waldo Frank, please. You're
romanticizing; the question is
bigger than this. Your "man of
spirit" is dead. At best he was
an uneasy equilibrium looking
for a way out. Kafka is perhaps
his last unmistakable voice,
grown almost too faint to be
heard. They all said roughly
the same
thing-better not to
have been born--too
expensive
a kind of wisdom, don't you
think, ultimately? The author
of Job (that wonderfully blas–
phemous Pharisee), Sophocles,
Plato, Shakespeare.... Socrates
looked for a way out through
education but didn't find it.
There was no structure of hu–
man happiness written into
things. Socrates only prepared
his part of the world for Christ,
and Christ was the final, the
"secure torment,"
to
quote Miss
Barnes whom you admire.
Christ was too much-Nietz–
sche's only example of the Su–
perman, as a matter of fact.
We like to forget that. God
may not be mocked, but he
mocked us. So what comes next
in our capsule Pageant of the
Ages?
