48
MARY McCARTHY
be considered merely tactical questions, such as whether or not to
admit Communist China to the U.N. or what terms to make on
Berlin-assuming these are tactical questions and not questions of
principle, though indeed this is one of the points of division, for
there is a strain in American thaught that does not care ta distinguish
between tactics and principle and regards any mobility vis-a-vis
Communism as a "surrender" of principle Or to put it
in
ad men's
terms "assuming a posture of retreat," which may mean the same
thing.
As far as principles goes, what principle unites the West?
It
cannot be the so-called Western values, far these values, if they
include freedom and the usual democratic rights, are not prized by
Spain or Portugal or even by the De Gaulle government.
It
cannot
be a belief in God or in a transcendent power or Idea. Can it be
the Western standard of living-erected into a principle? Possibly.
Yet this consumer well-being is not enjoyed by large parts of the
Italian population, not to mention the Spanish and the Portuguese.
Khrushchev, moreover, has been promising to give the Russians a
standard of living that will equal that of the West, in terrns of cars,
television sets, frigidaires, mixers, etc., and I don't take it as an
article of faith that he will be unable to do this-his meeting with
Nixon in the model kitchen struck me as prophetic. Does it boil
down to opposition to Communism? Is this the unifying principle?
But opposition to Communism is not a principle
per se.
Anti-Com–
munism in itself is scarcely a virtue-look at Hitler or Senator
McCarthy or the average anti-Communist. Anti-Communism, to be
principled, must base itself, surely, on some moral good. Thus
it
appears that reasoning on this subject goes around in circles. We
have no
reason,
beyond mere prejudice or crude interest, to stand
together against "the East" unless we stand together for something
else-for political freedom, as well as material ease (on which
America will not always have a monopoly). But this we don't do,
and the more threatened we feel by Communism, the more we are
encouraged to seek allies (and not only in foreign lands) who have
an "interest" in opposing Cammunism, as though this "interest"–
capital investments or an international religious network or mainte–
nance of a ruling class in power-were the only human force we
could trust.
