PARTISAN REVIEW
me to open my eyes to the revolution now in progress; its slogan is
not the abrogation of the values of past culture; on the contrary, it
wants to make them the possession of all; it is not a rebellion against cul–
ture, but a struggle for culture, and "the proletariat stands entirely on
the ground of cultural continuity." True, but what of it? What we see
now is the proletariat taking the accumulated values out of the hands
of the few into its own hands. But we do not know at all what it sees in
these values, nor for what purpose it is seizing them. Perhaps it sees
in them only the instrument of its age-old enslavement, and it needs
not to own them, but only to wrest them from the hands of the ex–
ploiters? Or perhaps, after many years of enlightenment as a result of
public education, the proletariat has come to believe in the claims of
culture and imagines that it can enrich itself with cultural values; but
who can tell? It may happen that when it takes these values in its
hands, the proletariat will realize that, apart from chains and rubbish,
there is nothing in them, and irked and disappointed, will throw them
overboard and begin to create new, different values. Or perhaps it will
trustfully lift them onto its shoulders and carry them on further, faith–
fully assuming the burden of "the cultural heritage." But in using the
old values it will unconsciously suffuse them with a new spirit, and
within a relatively short time, their molecular structure will be so re–
newed that they will be unrecognizable.
It is possible (and this is what I actually think) that at present,
in struggling for possession of the values of culture, it is being misled;
it thinks it needs them as such, while in actual fact it needs them only
as a means for new achievements. Such is the unusual self-deception of
our will. Man creates the airplane, thinking only of its technical use–
fulness-! will fly quickly or send Stock Exchange news from New York
to Chicago; and he does not know that his spirit has moved him to
build wings not at all for the sake of his earthly goals, but on the con–
trary, to enable him to wrest himself free from the earth and to soar
above it; that secretly the hope and faith concerning possible ascent to
other worlds have already matured in him, and that the air–
plane is only the weak beginning of the fulfilment of this dream that
has already taken roots and confidence in him-some day I will fly for
ever and vanish into the ether without leaving a trace!
Thus in ancient times man flashed out the first spark from a flint,
having realized that darkness is not inevitable and that he had the
power to conquer it, while today by merely pressing a button we change
night into day. The conscious design does not reveal the genuine goal;
the spirit conceives goals in itself and communicates to consciousness
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