BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
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II
Assuming that the West somehow pulls itself together and
achieves a common consciousness, what attitude can or should it
adopt toward the Communist world, the Ellstern bloc, the Moscow–
Peking Axis, or whatever one chooses to call it? Or is there no sense
in .asking this question? Are we engaging in parlor games at a time
when the final line-up has already taken place? And in any case,
what do the opinions of a few intellectuals matter?
The last question is perhaps the easiest to answer: the intellectual
climate matters so much-.at any rate in some crucial areas of Asia
and Europe-that the Cold War can be won or lost quite suddenly
through a change of attitude ampng relatively small numbers of
people: one need only think of India, but there are examples nearer
home. This may be a misfortune (the more backward and miserable
a country, the more influential its intelligentsia), but it is certainly
a fact. There
is
no need to be unduly impressed by the fashionable
cult of "realism" which rationalizes the businessman's or the bureau–
crat's fear and dislike of anything beyond his own mental horizon.
Professional politicians know why they distrust the "egg-head": the
cult of stupidity is part of their defense mechanism. And though the
spy mania has been overdone it is undeniable that one absconding
physics professor can in certain circumstances do more damage
than an army of demonstrators. Intellectuals matter-unfortunately,
one is sometimes tempted to add. They matter even in societies
which normally pride themselves on their ability to put the intellectual
in his place. Perhaps they matter most in countries which from the
West's point of view are uncertain allies in the Cold War. All the
more reason why they should be taken seriously.
Part of the answer to the larger question is implied in this,
for the line-up is not final as long as important sections of the opin–
ion-forming minority are neutral or uncertain in their attitude. Else
why all the expenditure on propaganda, open or camouflaged? Why
the endless exchange of Notes calculated to demonstrate that one's
own government is ready and willing to scrap atomic weapons, and
that it is the other side which blocks all progress? Why the solemn
pronouncements by ecclesiastical bodies justifying the use of such
weapons under certain hypothetical conditions not irrelevant from
