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3. In the first place, American artists and intellectuals have
never depended "fully" on Europe as a source of vitality: one has
never heard of the period when they did. They can certainly depend
less on Europe now than in the past, but fortunately they have
always depended both on Europe and on their own culture for
"strength, renewal, and recognition," and in that sense they are
prepared for the great shift that has now thrown them back so
largely on their own resources. The resources, fortunately, are
there--in a thousand aspects of American political, social, institu–
tional, and intellectual life-and to say this is by no means to make
light of the menaces. The one certain way of insuring that the
menaces will triumph is to refuse to look at the resources. They
are mostly below the surface, and it goes without saying that they
are in essence resources of the spirit: it would be idle to specify
them further in a brief paragraph, and in the end they must be
apprehended by the imagination.
4. The tradition of critical non-conformism not only can be
maintained but must be, though certainly the difficulties in the
way of doing so are not trifling ones. The important thing is that
writers and artists must achieve enough maturity to recognize the
profound difference between creative dissidence and mere negative
self-alienation. They have failed to do this at times in the past, and
always with terrible, destructive results.
If
they can learn the lesson
in these miserable failures of wisdom and love, they can preserve
and indeed enrich the tradition of Thoreau and Melville. It is
what they are under an obligation to do.
JAMES BURNHAM
During World War I, Great Britain, France, and later
the United States were the allies of Czarist Russia. Englishmen,
Frenchmen, and Americans readily accepted military collaboration
with the Czar's government and armies. At the same time, few
Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Americans felt any need to hide their
traditional dislike of "Czarist autocracy" or to alter their belief
that
Ru~ian
culture and society were backward, even barbaric. It
was still possible, then, to make distinctions.
