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PARTISAN REVIEW
brutalized reality that surrounded us made a mockery of noble works
and confirmed the brutalized France of the first half of the nineteenth
century that we found in Balzac. Obviously, his writing is a model of the
realistic novel, etc. Thanks to him we are able to understand a lot about
the day-to-day arrangements among people at that time. But, in fact,
the
ComMie humaine
is a great fantasy, like Theodore Dreiser's America.
True? Or false?
Is hunting and devouring each other the very essence of Nature? It
is, and that is why I dislike Nature. Still, I try to keep a distance from
our, from my, imaginings. I would prefer not to place an equals sIgn
between our fantasies (even if they are scientific ones) and reality.
September
26, 1987. A recurring nightmare about being late for a train.
The city seems to be Paris. The tickets are for nine in the morning. My
watch shows five minutes till nine as I ride in the taxi. The next train is
at eleven at night. Many suitcases, Janka, our sons, mobilizing all this
crowd to get there in time, and once again - too late.
I recall Soviet discussions about Darwinism from the era of the
greatest ideological frenzies, when the inheritance of acquired traits
(Lysenko) was opposed to natural selection through genetic mutations ,
and cooperation between animals (based on Kropotkin's theories) to the
blind struggle for existence. It may well be that the main goals of that
discussion were pedagogical, to ensure a happy childhood
(schastlilloe det–
S(IIO)
for the new generation, thanks to the most cheering indoctrination,
the furthest removed from reality. Darwinism is too gloomy for that.
I am afraid that I share the views of the most extreme behaviorists.
Totalitarian education turned out to be not only possible in this cen–
tury, but productive. The Pioneers, the Komsomol, the Hitlerjugend, are
amazingly similar in their uniforms, their ties, and their inculcation of a
deep faith. I am not convinced by assertions that they will never succeed
because eternal man will have the last word , because he requires truth,
etc. Quite simply, this education responds to real needs of the youthful
heart. Children require a harmonious world, one that is painted in
bright colors; they love discipline and clearly-given instructions on how
to behave....
Higher, or written, culture and lower, or oral. I elaborate on this
distinction, which I have borrowed from Gellner's paper at Castel
Gandolfo, in the lecture on nationalism that I'm preparing for a confer–
ence in Ann Arbor. The impetus for this is AJain Finkelkraut's book,
La
Difaite de la pensee,
which I bought in Paris this year. I have also read
Isaiah Berlin's essay on nationalism. Political romanticism as the moment
