352
he pastes together and illuminates
with the thesis of the "business
society"; Hitler did the same with
those horrible, materialistic Jews.
For more than a hundred years
the philosophers and sociologists
of Western civilization, of Ger–
many, France, England and Italy,
have complained that the old val–
ues have disintegrated, that new
ones have failed to arise, and that
material interests have more and
more become the measure of all
things. Matthias, like all shady in–
stigators, seizes upon a scapegoat:
the American. He sends him into
the wilderness burdened with all
the sins of his age; and this he did
in Germany, during the American
occupation. Not a bad moment for
such a book!
Whence this anti-American pas–
sion? Matthias writes in his con–
clusion of "interests which are not
mine." Which interests
are
his? He
spent ten years in the U.S. and
the one word he most thoroughly
learned here was "frustration." For
years he tried to found a European
academy for Americans but his
plan was frustrated. The Ameri–
cans had no use for it. Did they
sense, perhaps, that they were not
dealing with a peacemaker but an
instigator? The documents of these
negotiations should be published.
This book compromises all gen–
uine criticism of America, whose
great classic spokesman was de
Tocqueville.
It
shows (entirely
contrary to the author's intent)
hoWl self-critical the Americans ac–
tually are. May they not be robbed
of the will to uncover their short–
comings by this enraged propagan–
dist of the devil!
ludwig Marcuse
In coming issues of
PARTISAN REVIEW
Georg Buchner, LENZ (a long story, translated from the German)
Alberto Moravia, PORTRAIT OF MACHIAVELLI
&ic Bentley, THE DRAMA: AN EXTINCT SPECIES
Leslie A. Fiedler, PULL DOWN VANITY! (a story)
Anton Chekhov, LmERS ABOUT WRITERS AND WRITING
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