THE CAPTIVE MIND
69
think
differently. So, for Herling, moral condemnation is sufficient. But for me
there's nothing more interesting than to walk in someone else's shoes. [ recent–
ly read Rauschning's
Revoilitioll
if
NihilislII.
That book is worth reading along
with
TIle Captive Mil/.d.
Nothing is quite as interesting as trying to understand
why so many people followed Hitler. It's not enough for me to say that he was
a criminal. That
would
be sufficient were I preparing a coup against him, but
to understand the force and phenomenon of Hitler is to understand the sus–
ceptibility to nationalism. [ have to think of Hitler's values. So, in the sense that
Milosz is a decoder, Herling-Grudzinski is not. On the other hand, the aspect
of the
mind
enslaved by national ideology doesn't satisfY me in
The Captive
Mind.
Milosz
very well describes how Bolshevik fai th tempts, as if he were sen–
sitive to it. However, for the temptation of national socialism,
Milosz
only has
words of contempt, because he's deaf to it. When it comes to national funda–
mentalist ideologies, he is an inspirer but no longer a decoder. Here I rather
encourage reading Rauschning and Thomas Mann.
Edith Kurzweil:
I'm half afraid to disagree with Adam Michnik, because he
always wins. However, I did not read the book as a novel. It probably was dif–
ferent for people in the West, who did not know the earlier writings of
Milosz. I read it as his way of separating from his country or of coming to
terms with his own situation as well as that of his country, while at the same
time informing people in the West, and maybe hoping against hope that he
might enlighten them. Certainly, for open-minded intellectuals, this book
was an eye-opener. I think that is why we're still discussing it, why we see it
as a classic, and why it survives. And it's going to survive however long peo–
ple read. Milosz explained something we needed to know. Maybe he wants
to say what he reaJly thought, whether he was the narrator or a character.
Adam Michnik:
Better not now, since then our whole defense makes no
sense. At the end, but not too decidedly.
