VARIETY
THE MEANING OF TERROR
I will set down a few proposi–
tions under two headings, though
the argument can be expanded in
all directions.
1.
The Main Reality
All pleasure is innocent. We, the
hedonists, are innocent, even
though we now find no pleasure in
life. Pleasure does not strike deep,
it can exist in the mere absence of
pain ; like our virtues, it is the
shadow cast by its opposite, and is
not itself the real substance. But
joy, said Nietzsche, wants "deep,
profound eternity." Pleasure is not
joy; it wants nothing of eternity,
it is modest, there is no need to be
alarmed at it. Yet most of the
world fears pleasure. How much
greater a fear we must have of
joy, how much greater an incapa–
city to experience it! Refusing
pleasure, we make pain the reality.
Incapable of joy, we have only its
opposite, which is terror.
T error is today the main reality,
because it is the model reality. The
concentration camp is the model
educational system and the model
form of government. War is the
model enterprise and the model
form of communality. These are
a:bstract propositions, but even so
107
they are obvious; when we
fill
them in with experience, they are
overwhelming. Unfortunately, there
is nothing else into which we can
fit our experience-traditions are
broken and culture is unavailable.
A culture is dead when the ex–
perience of men has no place in it.
Our culture is an empty form,
standing for a continuity of ex–
perience which is now discon–
tinued, for the reality and invio–
lability of human values that are
everywhere violated and denied.
The common premise has always
been:
still, th ere is mankind,
in
virtue of which even the lowest
of peasants and the most ignorant
could be a man of deep culture.
Today the cultured man is iso–
lated; he may still exist, but his
humanity is his own. He cannot
share it with anyone (apart from
his own exertions) because the cul–
tural form that conveyed humanity
and assured the transaction from
one man to the next has been des–
troyed.
Men of culture are the first and
the last to understand what has
taken place. We know what has
happened-and even this sets us
apart; the majority do not know,
in the sense, at least, of a know–
ledge that is more than informa–
tion. The story has been printed
in the papers- but the papers are
full of lies. There have been films
of the concentration camps, cre–
matoriums and gas chambers-but
the films are only a public dream.
