Page:The Minority of One 1961-10.pdf/9
Union. Only in America is it possible to allow nearly two thousand newspapers to exist without running the risk of any opposition of significance. In fact, the hold our plutocracy has over our press has, antithetically, produced more newspapers than we might have under conditions of true freedom. America is the first and only country in which conformity resulted in more rather than fewer newspapers.
THE AFFLICTION OF THOSE “IMMUNE”
The ruler whose message is carried on the guns of his domestic policemen inhibits the actions of those who do not wish him well; but, the ruler who finds subliminal channels to his subjects’ minds can perform that surgery which precludes desire to oppose him, or, falling short of this, can pervade even the minds of his opponents. The so-called American liberal is often a socio-political phenomenon that has no parallel in other countries. As represented in the U.S. Congress and by those portions of our monolithic press which through peculiar semantics lay claim to the label “liberal,” he shares more with the French Pujadists than with the bona fide European liberals. When he claims to be in opposition to the government, the scope of his dissension may well be limited to a few pennies of an hourly wage of the underdog. He may “even” be so “progressive” as to demand that when issues of public health are considered the profits of the drug and medical lobby are not the exclusive determining factor. When, however, you discuss with him global issues or the overall moral decay of the American system, the difference between him and the most reactionary American wing becomes less apparent. He then emerges not only as an ideological and chauvinistic comrade of hurrah-patriots, but also as one who shares their intolerance of dissension. He is a progressive only when compared with Senator Goldwater; and let us not lose sight of the fact that the European counterparts of Goldwater belong to the dark ages past. An ideological survey would put Senator Goldwater much to the right of Generalissimo Franco, and the American liberals to the right of the most conservative British Conservatives. The entire socio-political range as represented in the U.S. Congress is narrower, more conservative and chauvinistic than the ideological poles of the British Conservative Party alone. The piratical activities and political influence of such American organizations as the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Medical Association are in more enlightened countries properly prosecuted as crimes, while the program of American “liberals” seems quite reactionary even to extreme foreign reactionaries.
THE MORAL DILEMMA
It is discouraging to realize that even political critics of the American scene often do not know the true dilemma of our times. Their political and social postulates may slightly vary from the official ones, but their rebellion is not of the needed moral nature. In spite of the political differences between themselves and the targets of their criticism, they often share with the latter moral corruption and semantic confusion. A reformism thus misconceived looks bright only as long as it has no opportunity of dominating society. Adlai Stevenson provides a sad case in point. His appeal to a great portion of the American people in years past was based on the impression that here was first and foremost a restorer of moral standards and intellectual integrity. His performance in the United Nations, however, proved him as capable of distortion, deceit and camouflage as was his predecessor Henry Cabot Lodge.
Babbitt is not a monopoly of the American Legion; you can find him at the other American ideological pole as well. Picnics, “socials,” cocktail or bingo parties as substitutes for sophisticated socio-political activity are resorted to not only by reactionary organizations. The man who voluntarily places his brain on our power elite’s operation table is, morally, not very different from his mediocre “liberal” counterpart who tells you why effective peace action must be forfeited lest it invite “too much” pressure and lead to “too” difficult tasks. If political conformity has not yet reached into every last corner of the American scene, mental mediocrity certainly has. And so has a cynical, manipulalive attitude towards truth and genuineness. How would America change were such people to come to power? Certainly there would be a reshuffling of the partisan forces, but the moral atmosphere of the country would hardly alter.
HISTORY'S STUPID ORGY
What are the prospects and what is the salvation of a society whose mind has been so greatly destroyed? Two courses are possible. Only one of them can be envisaged with clarity. This is the course to the ultimate decline of our civilization. Nothing exceptional need happen for it to come about; a natural development along the path we have been treading will lead us to the ultimate disaster. We will go on being super-patriots, flattering and complimenting each other. With our conformity we will nip every great thought and ray of salvation in the bud. We will stifle our scruples and inner voice of conscience, convincing ourselves that adapting to the general scheme, gaining acceptance from others is happiness. We will do what the Germans did under Hitler: demand compliance and excommunicate the few dissenters. We will keep shrinking our human stature until mediocrity is universal — as is nearly the case now. In the name of all these Ersatz values, we will tolerate and comply with whatever our powers-that-be do or make us do. In the process we may annihilate whole nations and ourselves. The technical blueprints for this course are all charted. They are kept in the guarded safes of our military headquarters. And then we will be known to the remnants of the world as a civilization that had drunk itself to death. We will then have enjoyed the bloodiest and most stupid orgy in history.
THE NEED FOR GREATNESS
The alternative course would have to be so new, so different from any known to us, that it is virtually impossible to envisage it with any precision. Some sick civilizations have been known to recover. This might happen to us. True greatness knows no external limitations. It can be born in the suffocating mediocrity and pettiness of our generation. If it is true that historic necessities give birth to the genius, then a genius must be born in our midst. The need for him could not be more desperate.
Our need for greatness-is the more desperate because, in other parts of the world, it has emerged and it is shaping the destinies of peoples. Expedient or hypocritical as is our official hostility towards China, it will not determine the historic nature of the renascence of 600 million people. If the American Revolution has had an historic impact that could not be obliterated. by the opposition of the British Crown, certainly the assertion of dignity by the most populous nation in the world is going to survive as a still greater inspiration to mankind. We may disagree politically with certain facets of the Chinese Revolution, but its overall progressive nature, when denied, only testifies to the shortsightedness of he who denies it. Nor is China’s present greatness an exception. The Soviet society may be far and remote from our ideals or even its own, but the accomplishments of the relatively brief post-Stalin era would have been impossible without greatness of inspiration. Even illiterate peoples of Africa, for centuries held back in their development by colonial rule, surge towards greatness often before their educational level enables them to discern the practical mechanisms of application. Worldwide, ours are great times, perhaps the greatest of all times; and no nation can survive such an era unless it makes itself a part of greatness.
Among Americans who have not been afflicted by the mediocrity of the prevailing standards there is a despairing search for greatness. The post-war interest of the American reading public in the bitter writings of Franz Kafka is a manifestation of that despair. The search for a purpose in living is responsible for the sudden popularity of Jean-Paul Sartre in America. So is the renewed interest in Hegel’s idealism. Many have turned for inspiration to Mahatma Gandhi, others to Zen, Yoga and other eastern philosophies. These seekers are alert to welcome the needed genius. But even those who never rebel in any way against the prevailing standards live in such a world of falsehood that the thunder and summons of greatness would awaken them as well.
If the smallness of environment can beget an individual flash of greatness, then our times and our society are such, that virtually any idiot can be converted into a genius. Of one thing we can be certain. If this American generation produces the desperately needed genius, it will not be a fascist or evil genius. Present day America cannot possibly produce this. The fascist, uncritical frame of mind has become so universally the standard, that its cohesion is mediocrity. To be a part of it, or indeed to lead it, nothing but orthodoxy and mediocrity are required. The only genius therefore that America can produce is the enlightened, virtuous genius. When it comes, we will know it. Its truth will strike us with the force of lightning, disintegrating the mental Potemkin villages in which we have been residing. The striking power of truth is never as great as when it hits the apparent rock of falsehood which then bursts like a bubble. The effect of a light ray is greatest in the darkest of nights.
When will our genius come? Will it be in time to shock us into a realization of the truth around us? Or will its birth be a miscarriage, after hope has been extinguished? Will it be a man, or a thought, or a movement? Or will it be a spontaneous awakening of a drunkardnation? In the absence of answers to these questions, the anticipation of greatness is perhaps no more than the mysticism of desperation. But I wish it were more than that. And I wish the genius, whatever its form, would emerge before it is too late for all of us.