The New Society | Page 8

animated by the breath of the same atmosphere. Culture and
civilization require a rich soil.
But the richness of the soil is not sufficient; culture must be based upon,
and increased by, contrast. Wealth must have at its disposal great
numbers of men who are poor and dependent. How otherwise shall the
outlay of culture be met? One man must have many at his disposal; but
how can he, if they are all his equals? The outlay will be large, but it
must be feasible; how can it, if the labour of thousands is not cheap?
The few, the exalted, must develop power and splendour, they must
offer types for imitation: how can they do that without a retinue,
without spectators, without the herd? A land of well-being, that is to
say, of equally distributed well-being, remains petty and provincial.
When a State and its authorities, councils of solid and thrifty members
of societies for this or that, take over the office of a Mæcenas or a
Medici, with their proposals, their calculations, their objections, their
control, then we get things that look like war-memorials,
waiting-rooms, newspaper-kiosks and drinking-saloons. It was not
always so? No; but even in the most penurious times it was kings who
were the patrons.
But if culture is such a poison-flower, if it flourishes only in the swamp
of poverty and under the sun of riches, it must and ought to be
destroyed. Our sentiment will no longer endure the happiness and
brilliance of the few growing out of the misery of the many; the days of
the senses are over, and the day of conscience is beginning to dawn.
And now a timid and troubled puritanism makes itself heard: Is there
no middle way? Will not half-measures suffice? No, it will not do; let
this be said once for all as plainly as possible, you champions of the
supply of "bare necessities" who talk about "daily bread" and want to

butter it with the "noblest pleasures of art." It will not do!
No, half-measures will not do, nor quarter-measures. They might, if the
whole world, the sick, the healthy and the bloated all together were of
the same mind as ourselves. In Moscow it is said that people are
expecting the world-revolution every hour, but the world declines to
oblige. Therefore, if culture and civilization are to remain what they
were, is there nothing for it but with one wrench to tear the poisoned
garment from our body? Or--is there then an "or"? Let us see. We have
a long way before us. First of all we must know how rich or how poor
we and the world are going to be, on the day when there will be no
income without working for it and no rich people any more.
If our economic system made us self-supporting we might arrange
matters on the model of the Boer Republic which had all it needed, and
now and then traded a load of ostrich feathers for coffee and hymn
books. But we, alas! in order to find nourishment for twenty millions[5]
have to export blood and brains. And if, in order to buy phosphates, we
offer cotton stockings and night-caps as the highest products of our
artistic energies, and declare that they are all the soundest
hand-work--for in our "daily bread" economy we shall have long
forgotten how to work such devil's tools as the modern
knitting-machine--then people will reply to us: in the first place we
don't want night-caps, and if we did we can supply them for one-tenth
of the cost; and our cotton goods will be sent back to us as unsaleable.
A world-trade, even of modest dimensions, can only be carried on upon
the basis of high technical accomplishment, but this height of
accomplishment cannot be attained on the basis of any penny-wise
economy. Whoever wills the part must also will the whole, but to this
whole belongs not merely the conception of a technique, but of a
civilization, and indeed of a culture. One might as well demand of a
music-hall orchestra which plays ragtime all the year round that once in
the year, and once only, on Good Friday, it should pull itself together to
give an adequate performance of the Passion Music of Bach.
FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: By this figure the author seems to be referring to the
population of the impoverished Germany of the future if the course of
Socialism proceeds on wrong lines.]

V
For some decades Germany will be one of the poorest of countries.
How poor she will be does not depend on herself alone, but on the
power and the will for mischief of others--who hate us.
However, poverty and wealth are relative terms; Germans are still
richer on the average than their forefathers;