A COUNTRY WITHOUT PRE-HISTORY
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with specific facts, to repair a car or to build a bridge; the term
"realistic" refers to a much more complex situation: it is the atti–
tude of a man who is capable of making for himself an organic pic–
ture of the many aspects that compose a given situation and who
acts, taking proper account of all of them. America, mistaking prac–
ticality for realism, neglecting, that is, the often almost intangible
elements that contribute substantially to motivating individuals and
societies, has at times found herself at a complete loss where basic
human problems were concerned. America believes that war and
social unrest rise out of poverty; that poverty must therefore be re–
garded as the major obstacle to be overcome in postwar reconstruc–
tion. This, no doubt, is a practical way of looking at things. But is it
also realistic? Does it take into account that poverty is seldom an
isolated economic fact; that most of the time it is intimately
linked with other causes? That poverty, for example, can be the
consequence of an antiquated economic system which in turn may
be determined by a social structure that has no more solid founda–
tion than the claim to antiquity? In other words, the positivistic
attitude of a society like the American, its lack of historical con–
sciousness, of an understanding of the why'S and wherefore's of
such social situations, may, and actually does, prevent its idealism
and its practical ability from being truly effective in complicated
situations where realism rather than mere practicality is required.
In the foregoing, we have had, for the purpose of analysis,
to
isolate America from the great currents of history with which she
actually is in contact at this moment. In other words, we had to
neglect what evidently is one of the most decisive dramas of our
time, the contact-or, to be less euphemistic-the clash of an Ameri–
ca as described above, a society which used to live outside the con–
sciousness of history, with the historical world. What will be the
outcome of the clash? Will it be fatal to America and the world?
And if not, how will America modify the basic structure of the
historical world, how will the historical world influence the life
of America?
It is not at all impossible that the contacts with other civiHza–
tions, both those resulting from the need for collaboration with
friendly nations and those determined by a clash of interests, will
