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TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

         Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi is perhaps one of the most influential figures in modern European history who most people have simply never heard of. His ideas influenced political leaders and thinkers of the 20^th and 21^st centuries while not being widely known to the general masses. More often his life and ideas get caught up in a swirl of intrigue and conspiracy. However well or ill- intentioned his pan-European policies, it is clear that Coudenhove-Kalergi’s vision for a united Europe has captured the imaginations of people all across the continent, whether or not they know the source.
         Richard Nikolaus Eijiro, Count of Coudenhove- Kalergi was born in 1894 to Heinrich von Coudenhove- Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of a Japanese oil merchant, antiques- dealer and major landowner. Richard spent his days with his siblings among the family estates in Ronsperg, today known as Poběžovice, in the Czech Republic. Richard received an education in a wide variety of subjects, including languages and history. Owing to his ethnically mixed heritage (his father being an Austro-Hungarian citizen of Flemish and Greek descent, and his mother being Japanese), Richard felt particularly cosmopolitan and identified with a variety of cultures across Europe. Additionally, his experiences among Austro-Hungarian elite society instilled in him aristocratic ideals. This perspective on his own identity heavily influenced his ideal of a unified European community based on cultural commonalities.
         As a young man he travelled extensively, all the while developing his ideas and writing. In 1923 he established the Paneuropean Union, an organization for European unification on which he would serve as president

 

 

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for 49 years. He published over thirty works and received numerous awards and honours. Yet, for all this accolade, few of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s works have been published in English.
         Praktischer Idealismus is a compilation of three of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s earliest works. It contains Adel (Nobility, 1920), Apologie der Technik (In Defence of Technology, 1922), and Pazifismus (Pacifism, 1924), each a fairly short treatise on distinct aspects of European society which Coudenhove-Kalergi felt required critical examination in order to address the problems he believed faced Europe after the Great War.
         The three, while separate, work well together in exploring his vision for Europe, a vision of a prosperous and peaceful European continent where all European nations work together economically, politically, and culturally to ensure mutual success.
         The book was released in 1925 and while support for his ideas was slow to grow, grow it did. Coudenhove- Kalergi, through aristocratic connections, was able to steadily garner support for his ideas. The Second World War would put a temporary halt to his work, but Coudenhove-Kalergi continued on in the post-war period.
         Various attempts at establishing a supranational committee met with little success, but these initial attempts lit the spark among supporters, and this inspiration would ultimately lead to the creation of the European Union.
         Coudenhove-Kalergi, in writing this treatise, was clearly influenced by the philosophies of Nietzsche and Hegel. In Praktischer Idealismus Coudenhove-Kalergi uses a Hegelian dialectic wherein he makes an argument by presenting two opposing viewpoints. This makes for an interesting writing style, but also has the downside of forcing him to ignore, whether intentionally or not,

 

 

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viewpoints that would break away from the dialectical framework.
         Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi passed away in 1972 at the age of 77, cementing his legacy as a pioneer in European political integration.
         Ultimately, this book, along with many of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi’s works, place themselves as required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the dynamism of European thought and history.
         More can be read on Richard von Coudenhove- Kalergi’s life in the comprehensive biography Hitler's Cosmopolitan Bastard: Count Richard Coudenhove- Kalergi and His Vision of Europe (Bond, 2021).
         This English translation of Praktischer Idealismus is the product of several months of dedicated volunteer, non-profit research and translation work to ensure as clear and complete a translation as possible. The original German edition is no longer available in stores and, as such, the document had to be sourced from a digital scan of the 1925 edition.
         Poorly translated and truncated excerpts from this work have been widely circulated across the Internet to advance the idea of a Kalergi Plan, a theory which purports a concerted effort by Coudenhove-Kalergi to bring about the destruction of European cultures and peoples. As the translator of this work, I remain intentionally neutral on the matter. Rather, it is my desire to present the book in a complete and well-translated format, containing footnotes to expand on the text and to provide useful historical context.
         I expect that many readers will have found this translation precisely because of their encounters with the Kalergi Plan narrative. I ask that everyone who reads this work go into it with a clear and open mind. While many

 

 

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may not agree with the ideas contained herein, it is important that the words be read in their proper context.
         Even if the reader has not heard of the Kalergi Plan, this work will have historical value as an influential treatise on the concept of European unification and supranational co-operation. Additionally, students of the inter-war period of European history may find this literature of interest.
         Finally, when reading footnotes, where the notes contain T/n, this denotes a note by the translator. Where an asterisk is found (*), this denotes a footnote originally placed by Coudenhove-Kalergi himself. Original pagination is included within the text, inside square brackets. Italicised words are italicised in the original. In translating this important work, I have endeavoured to relay the text as accurately as possible while maintaining readability. An effort has been made to retain the German sentence structure insofar as possible in English. As much as possible, the same word in German will be rendered consistently in English unless the context simply does not allow it. In such cases, a footnote will make note of other possible meanings.
         Should the reader find any spelling, grammar or obvious translation errors, the translator can be contacted by email.

 

Curtis White, 2024
curtis.white.translation@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

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FOREWORD

         Practical idealism is heroism; practical materialism is eudaimonism. Whoever does not believe in ideals has no grounds to act idealistically, or to fight and suffer for ideals. For he knows and recognises only a single value: desire, and recognises just one evil: pain.
         Heroism requires belief and commitment to an ideal: the conviction that there are higher values than pleasure and greater evils than pain.
         This contradiction runs through the whole of human history; it is the antithesis of the Epicureans and Stoics. This contrast is much deeper than that between theists and atheists: for there were Epicureans who believed in gods, as Epicurus himself did, and there were idealists who were atheists like Buddha.
         So this is not a question of belief in gods — but the belief in values.
         Materialism is without presupposition — but it is unimaginative and sterile. Idealism is always problematic and often becomes entangled in nonsense and madness; yet people are indebted to it for mankind’s greatest works and deeds.

*

         Heroism is aristocracy of the mind¹ . Heroism is related to the aristocratic ideal, just as materialism is related to the democratic ideal [III]. Democracy believes more in numbers than in values, and believes more in happiness than in greatness.
         Hence political democracy can only be fruitful and creative when it has smashed the pseudo-aristocracy of

 

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1	Translator’s note: [Gesinnung] mentality, mindset, attitude, conviction, character.

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birth and of gold, in order to replace it with a new aristocracy of the spirit and the mind.
         The ultimate meaning of political democracy is this: spiritual aristocracy; it wants to create pleasure ² for the materialists and power³ for the idealists.
         The leader is intended to take the place of the ruler — the noble mind in place of the noble name — the rich heart in place of the rich pocket. This is the meaning of any development that calls itself democratic. Any other meaning would be cultural suicide.
         It is therefore no coincidence that Plato was also the prophet of the spiritual aristocracy and the socialist economy, and also the father of the idealist world-view.
         Because both aristocracy and socialism are this: practical idealism. The ascetic idealism of the South revealed itself as religion; the heroic idealism of the North as technology⁴.
         For the environment of the North was a challenge to the people. Other peoples relented; the European took on the challenge and fought. He fought until he was strong enough to subdue the earth; he fought until he forced nature itself, which had challenged him, into his service.
         This struggle demanded heroism and brought forth heroism. So the hero was to Europe what the saint [IV] was to Asia; and hero worship supplements the veneration of saints.

 

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2	T/n: [Genuß] Pleasure, enjoyment, indulgence.
3	T/n: [Macht] Power, strength, authority. Derived from the verb machen, meaning to do or to make. Conveys the ability to act and effect change.
4	T/n: Here ‘North’ and ‘South’ express the Hegelian conceptual hierarchy. In this hierarchy the cold northern hemisphere, a bastion of Protestantism, forced European peoples to develop technologically while the warm southern hemisphere remained mostly undeveloped. Likewise, the East is seen as rising with the sun while the West will set with it. More can be read on this in Hegel’s work Glauben und Wissen (Faith and Knowledge)

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The practical ideal took the place of the contemplative ideal, and it was considered greater to fight for an ideal, than to suffer.
         The purpose of this heroic global mission has only completely taken hold in Europe since the modern era; because Europe’s technological age, its war of liberation against the winter, only begins with the modern era. This technological age is also the age of work. The worker is the hero of our time; the worker’s opposite is not the bourgeois but the parasite⁵. The aim of the worker is work, the aim of the parasite is enjoyment.
         Therefore technology is modern heroism and the worker a practical idealist.

*

         The political and social problem of the 20th century is this: to catch up with the technological progress of the 19th century. This demand of the time thus becomes ever more difficult that the development of technology proceeds, without ceasing, at a faster pace than the development of man and mankind. This danger can be averted either by mankind slowing technological progress or by accelerating social progress. Otherwise mankind will lose its balance and go head over heels. The World War was a warning. Thus, technology presents people with the options: suicide or mutual understanding!
         That is why the development of the world will be without precedent in the coming decades. The modern discrepancy between technological [V] and social organisation will either lead to devastating disasters — or to a political progress that leaves all historical models behind it, in terms of swiftness and thoroughness, and turns a new page in human history.

 

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5	T/n: [Schmarotzer] Parasite, freeloader.

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         Since technology opens new pathways to heroism and the human drive, war begins to play out its historical role in the consciousness of mankind. Its inheritance is work. Mankind will one day unanimously organise to wrest from the Earth everything it still withholds from them today. As soon as this idea prevails, every war will be a civil war, and every murder will be a murder. The age of war will then appear to be as barbaric as the age of cannibalism appears today.
         This development will come when we believe in it and fight for it; when we are neither so short-sighted that we lose sight of the general principles of development, nor so farsighted as to overlook the practical pathways and obstacles which lay between us and our goals; when we are so clear-sighted and that clear knowledge of the impending struggles and difficulties combines with the heroic will to overcome them.
         Only this optimism of the will will complement and defeat the pessimism of knowledge.
         Instead of remaining in the shackles of the outmoded present and idly dreaming of better opportunities, we want to take an active part in the development of the world through practical idealism.

         Vienna, November 1925. [VI]

 

 

 

 

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NOBILITY
1920

 

 

 

To the memory of my father
Dr. Heinrich Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi
with reverence and gratitude.

 

 

 

 

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PART ONE:
ON RURAL AND URBAN MAN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1. RURAL MAN — URBAN MAN

The countryside and the city are both poles of human⁶ existence. The countryside and the city each display their particular types of people: rural and urban peoples.
         The rural man and urban man are psychological opposites. Farmers of different regions often resemble each other psychologically more than the citizens of the neighbouring city. Between countryside and countryside, between city and city, there is space — between city and countryside, there is time. Among the European rural men live representatives of all ages: from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages; while only the cosmopolitan cities of the West⁷ have given rise to the extreme urban type, representatives of modern civilisation. So centuries, often millennia, separate a major city from the flat countryside that surrounds it.
         The urban man thinks differently, judges differently, feels⁸ differently, acts differently than the rural man. City life is abstract, mechanical, rational — country life is concrete, organic, irrational. The city dweller is rational, sceptical, disbelieving — the countryman is emotional, trusting⁹ , superstitious. [9]
         Each and every thought and feeling of the rural man crystallises around nature, he lives in symbiosis with the animal, the living creation of God, he is deeply rooted in his landscape, depending on the weather and season. The crystallisation point of the urban soul is, however, society;

 

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6	T/n: [Mensch] human, man. Throughout the work, Mensch will primarily be translated by “man,” but it should be kept in mind that this word is not meant to refer to the masculine sex specifically, but is used in the sense of “human.”
7	T/n: [Abendland] the Occident, Western civilisation.
8	T/n: [Empfinden] To feel, to sense, used of emotions, opinions, and instincts.
9	T/n: [Gläubig] Trusting, devout, faithful.

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it lives in symbiosis with the machine, the dead creation of man; through the machine the urban man makes himself as independent of time and space, of season and climate, as possible.
         The rural man believes in the power¹⁰ of nature over man — the urban man believes in the power of man over nature. The rural man is a natural product, the urban man a gross national product¹¹; one sees the purpose, extent and peak of the world in the cosmos, the other in humanity.
         The rural man is conservative like nature — the urban man progressive like society. All progress emerges from cities and city-dwellers. The urban man himself is mostly the product of a revolution within a rural genus¹² that broke with its rustic tradition, moved to the big city and there began a life on a new basis.
         The city robbed its residents of enjoyment of natural beauty; as compensation it offers them art. Theatre, concerts, galleries are surrogates for the eternal and varying beauty of the landscape. After a day's work full of ugliness, these art institutions offer the townspeople beauty in concentrated form. In the countryside they are easily dispensable. — Nature is the extensive manifestation of beauty, art is the intensive manifestation.
         The relationship of urban people to nature, which they [10] lack, is governed by longing; while the nature of rural people is one of steady fulfilment. Therefore the city- dweller sees nature as predominantly romantic, the rural man sees it as classical.
         The social (Christian) morality is an urban phenomenon: because it is a function of people living together, of society. The typical urbanite combines

 

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10	T/n: [Gewalt] Power, force, violence.
11	T/n: A natural product is a substance produced by a living organism, a product of the natural world. A gross national product (GNP) is a metric for measuring a nation’s economic output.
12	T/n: [Geschlecht] Genus, gender, sex, generation, family line.

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Christian morality with irreligious scepticism, rationalist materialism and mechanistic atheism. The world-view that results from this is that of socialism: the religion of the modern metropolis.
         For the rural barbarians of Europe, Christianity is little more than a repeat of paganism with a different mythology and new superstitions; — their true religion is belief in nature, in strength¹³, in fate.
         Urban and rural people do not know each other; they distrust and misunderstand each other and live in veiled or open enmity. There are many slogans under which this elementary antagonism is hidden: Red and Green International; industrialism and agrarianism; progress and reaction; Judaism and antisemitism.
         All cities draw their strength from the land; all the countryside draws its culture from the city. The countryside is the soil from which the cities are renewed; it is the source that feeds them; the root from which they blossom. Cities grow and die: the land is eternal. [11]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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13	T/n: [Kraft] Strength, force, energy.

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2. NOBLEMAN — MAN OF LETTERS

         The flower of the rural man is the landed gentry, the nobleman¹⁴. The flower of the urban man is the intellectual, the man of letters.
         The countryside and city both produced their own specific noble types: nobility of the will stands against the nobility of the intellect¹⁵, nobility of the blood¹⁶ against nobility of the brain. The typical nobleman combines maximum character with a minimum of intellect — the typical man of letters combines maximum intellect with a minimum of character.
         Not always and everywhere did the landed gentry lack intellect or the urban nobility lack character; as in modern-day England, in Germany’s minstrel-era the hereditary nobility was an outstanding cultural element; elsewhere the Catholic spiritual nobility of Jesuits, and the Chinese spiritual nobility of the Mandarins in their heyday, showed as much character as intellect.
         In the nobleman and the man of letters culminate the opposites of the rural and the urban man. The typical profession of the nobleman caste is that of the officer; the typical profession of the man of letters caste is that of the journalist. [12]
         The nobleman-officer remained, mentally and spiritually, at the stage of the knight. Hard on himself and others, dutiful, energetic, steadfast, conservative and narrow-minded, he lives in a world of dynastic, militaristic, national and social prejudices. He combines a deep mistrust of all things modern, of the city, democracy, socialism, and internationalism, with an equally deep faith in his blood,

 

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14	T/n: [Junker] Yunker, a German title for intermediate noblemen, roughly equivalent to a squire.
15	T/n: Or spirit.
16	T/n: [Blutadel] Blood nobility, aristocracy of bloodline, hereditary nobility.

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his honour and the world-view of his forefathers. He despises urbanites, especially the Jewish writers and journalists.
         The literary man runs ahead of his time; free of prejudices, he represents modern ideas in politics, art, and business. He is progressive, sceptical, witty, versatile, changeable; he is a eudaimonist, rationalist, socialist, materialist. He overvalues the mind¹⁷, undervalues the body

 

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17

T/n: [Geist] Mind, spirit, intellect.          The word Geist can convey a number of meanings, some or all of which Coudenhove-Kalergi may wish to express at once. This word can therefore present a few issues for a translation.          Geist is frequently used in this work in compound words, especially with Adel (Nobility, aristocracy) to form Geistesadel, a spiritual nobility, or nobility of spirit. Coudenhove-Kalergi uses this term to convey a contrast with the physical and the biological, at once suggesting a nobility that uses its mental faculties over physical strength and forceful rule, and also a nobility that spiritually cultivates the mentality and attributes of the nobility while not actually having inherited or been bestowed any noble titles. The best definition for the term spirit as used in this work would likely be: “of or relating to the inner character of a person” (Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press).          Although spirit can have a religious connotation, Coudenhove- Kalergi does not necessarily use the word in that sense. He acknowledges the role religion plays in building intellect and character, but he does not see his future spiritual nobility as being an explicitly religious people.          For Coudenhove-Kalergi, the spirit and the mind are often one and the same, and the man with the greatest spiritual development is the man who has developed his mental abilities, often through writing, education and deep thought. Therefore, Geistesadel could be translated as either spiritual nobility or intellectual nobility. While there are times where one term would fit the text better than the other, with a few exceptions, I have maintained the term intellectual nobility throughout the work due to later chapters where the sense of intellect becomes more prevalent.          I also translate Geist variably as intellect, mind, character or spirit as appropriate for the context. I wish for the reader to note that these concepts are often translating the same word and these different meanings should be kept in mind as you read.

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and character; and therefore despises the nobleman as a backward barbarian.
         The essence of the nobleman is rigidity of the will — the essence of the man of letters is flexibility of the mind.
         The nobleman and the man of letters are born rivals and adversaries. Wherever the nobleman caste reigns, the mind must yield to strength¹⁸; in such reactionary times the political influence of intellectuals is absent or at least limited. Where the man of letters caste reigns, strength must give way to the mind: Democracy triumphs over feudalism, and socialism triumphs over militarism.
         The hatred of the German aristocracy of the will and the aristocracy of the mind against one another is rooted in misunderstanding. Each sees only the dark side of the other and is blind to its merits. The psyche of the nobleman, of the rural man, remains closed to the superior man of letters forever; [13] while the soul of the intellectual, the urban man, remains unfamiliar to the nobleman. Instead of learning about others, the youngest lieutenant looks with contempt upon the leading minds of modern literature while the bottom-rate journalist feels nothing but the utmost contempt for first-rate officers.
         Through this double misunderstanding of unfamiliar mentalities, militaristic Germany first underestimated the powers of resistance of the urban masses against war, then revolutionary Germany underestimated the powers of resistance of the rural masses against revolution. The leaders of the countryside misjudged the psyche of the city and its inclination towards pacifism — the leaders of the cities misjudged the psyche of the country people and their

 

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18	T/n: [Gewalt] Strength, force, power, authority, violence.

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tendency to react: and so Germany first lost the war, then the revolution¹⁹.
         The antagonism of the nobleman and the man of letters is grounded in the fact that these two types are not the culminations of hereditary nobility and spiritual nobility, but extremes. Because the highest manifestation of hereditary nobility is the grand seigneur, the highest manifestation of the spiritual nobility is the genius. These two aristocrats are not only compatible: they are related. Caesar, the perfection of the grand seigneur, was the most brilliant Roman; Goethe, the peak of genius, was the most grand seigneur of all the German poets. Here, as everywhere, the intermediate stages distance themselves most markedly, while the summits brush up against each other.
         The perfect aristocrat is at once an aristocrat of the will and the mind, but is neither nobleman nor man of letters. He combines vision with willpower, powers of discernment with resourcefulness, intellect with character. Lacking such synthetic personalities, the diverging aristocrats of the will and the mind should complement one another [14] rather than fight. In Egypt, India and Chaldea priests and kings (intellectuals and warriors) once ruled together. The priests bowed before the power of the will, the kings before the power of the mind: brains revealed the destination and arms cleared the way.[15]

 

 

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19	T/n: The German Revolution of 1918-1919, also known as the November Revolution.

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3. GENTLEMAN — BOHEMIAN

         The hereditary nobility and the spiritual nobility of Europe created their own specific types: England’s hereditary nobility created the gentleman; France’s spiritual nobility created the bohemian.
         The gentleman and the bohemian meet in the endeavour to escape the dreary ugliness of petty bourgeois existence: the gentleman overcomes it through style, the bohemian through temperament. The gentleman gives form to the formlessness of life — in contrast to the bohemian who gives colour to the colourlessness of life.
         The gentleman brings order to the disorder of human relations — the bohemian brings freedom to the bondage of those relations.
         The beauty of the gentleman's ideal is based on form, style and harmony: it is static, classical, Apollonian. The beauty of the bohemian-ideal is based on temperament, freedom and vitality: it is dynamic, romantic, Dionysian.
         The gentleman idealises and stylises his wealth — the bohemian idealises and stylises his poverty.
         The gentleman is set on tradition, the bohemian on protest: the essence of the gentleman is conservative — [16] the essence of the bohemian is revolutionary. The mother of the gentleman-ideal is England, the most conservative country in Europe — the cradle of the bohemian is France, the most revolutionary country in Europe.
         The gentleman-ideal is the way of life of a caste — the bohemian-ideal is the way of life of individuals.
         The gentleman-ideal points beyond England back to the Roman stoa — the bohemian ideal points beyond France back to the Greek agora. The Roman statesmen approached the gentleman type, the Greek philosophers

 

 

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drew near the bohemian type: Caesar and Seneca were gentlemen, Socrates and Diogenes were bohemians.
         The gentleman's focus is on the physical and psychological — the bohemian’s is on the intellectual: the gentleman may be an idiot and the bohemian may be a criminal.
         Both ideals are human crystallisation phenomena: as the crystal can only form in a non-rigid environment, so these two ideals owe their existence to English and French freedom.
         In imperial Germany the atmosphere was lacking the crystallisation of personality: therefore Germany could not develop an ideal of equal rank. The German lacked the style to be a gentleman, the temperament to be a bohemian, and the grace and suppleness to be either.
         Since he could not find any suitable way of life in his reality, the German looked to his literature for ideal embodiments of the German character: and found a physical and psychological ideal in the young Siegfried²⁰, and an intellectual ideal in the old Faust²¹.
         Both ideals were romantically old-fashioned: in this distortion of reality the romantic [17] Siegfried-ideal solidified to the Prussian officer, the lieutenant — the romantic Faust-ideal solidified to the German scholar, the professor.
         Mechanical ideals stepped into the place of organic ideals: the officer represents the mechanisation of the psychological: the solidified Siegfried; the professor

 

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20	T/n: Siegfried is a character in the German epic poem, Das Nibelungenlied (The Lay of the Nibelungs). Siegfried is a young price who defeats a dragon and bathes in its blood to become invincible save for a small area on his back.
21	T/n: Faust is the protagonist of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, a scholar who makes a pact with the Devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.

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represents the mechanisation of the intellectual: the solidified Faust.
         There were no classes which Wilhelmine Germany²² was prouder of than its officers and professors. In them Germany saw the blossoming of the nation, like England saw in its political leaders and the Latin peoples²³ in their artists.
         If the German people want higher development, they must revise their ideals: their energy must go beyond militaristic one-sidedness and broaden itself to political and human many-sidedness²⁴; the German mind must go beyond purely scientific narrowness and broaden itself to the synthesis of the poet-thinker.
         The nineteenth century bestowed on the German people two men of the highest styles who embodied these demands of higher Germanness: Bismarck²⁵, the hero of action; and Goethe²⁶, the hero of the intellect.
         Bismarck renewed, deepened and revived the tacky Siegfried-ideal — Goethe renewed, deepened and revived the antiquated Faust-ideal.
         Bismarck had the good qualities of the German officer — without the faults; Goethe had the good qualities of the German scholar — without the faults. In Bismarck, the superiority of the statesman overcomes the limitations of the officer — in Goethe the superiority of the poet-thinker overcomes the limitations of the scholar: in both

 

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22	Wilhemine Germany is the period of German history under Kaiser Wilhelm II between 1890 and 1918.
23	T/n: Latin peoples refers to Latin-speaking peoples in Rome and surrounding areas of Italy.
24	T/n: [Vielseitigkeit] Many-sidedness, versatility, diversity.
25	T/n: Otto von Bismarck (1 April 1815 — 30 July 1898), a German statesman and diplomat.
26	T/n: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 — 22 March 1832), a German poet, scientist and statesman.

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[18] the organic personality-ideal overcomes the mechanical one, and the man overcomes the puppet.
         Through his exemplary personality Bismarck has done more for the development of the Germans than by his foundation of the German empire; through his Olympic existence Goethe gave the German people richer gifts than through his Faust: because Faust is, like Goetz, Werther, Meister and Tasso²⁷, just a fragment of Goethe’s humanity.
         But Germany should be careful not to
         sentimentalise and pull down its two living role models: turning Bismarck into a sergeant and Goethe into a schoolmaster.
         By emulating these two peaks of German humanity, Germany could grow and be restored; from them it can learn active and contemplative dimensions, drive and wisdom, because Bismarck and Goethe are the two focal points around which a new German lifestyle, which would be on the level of Western ideals, could form. [19]

 

 

 

 

 

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1	T/n: Faust, Goetz, Werther, Meister and Tasso are characters from Goethe’s plays and novels.

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4. INBREEDING — INTERBREEDING²⁸

         The rural man is mostly a product of inbreeding, the urban man a hybrid²⁹.
         Parents and ancestors of the farmer usually come from the same, sparsely populated region; those of the nobleman from the same small upper class. In both cases,

 

 

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T/n: This chapter has been the primary driver of the so-called “Kalergi Plan,” a theory that purports a conspiracy by Coudenhove-Kalergi to flood Europe with non-European peoples in order to destroy European civilisation. While Coudenhove- Kalergi does discuss the mixing of different peoples, including marriage, no evidence has yet been shown to conclude that such a plan ever existed. Excerpts from this chapter, typically with limited context, have advanced the notion, but a proper reading in the context of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s time should dissuade readers of this idea.          Despite arguments by proponents of the Kalergi Plan, Coudenhove-Kalergi does not here express a desire to destroy Europe. Rather, a foundational theme throughout the work is that national and ethnic identities lead to conflict and so, in order to ensure peace, Europe would need to mix across as many human dimensions as possible to increase its vitality, avoid war, and survive as a cultural force. In Coudenhove-Kalergi’s future Europe, peoples of all European and non-European backgrounds will mix culturally and genetically to increase their intellectual and spiritual strength (i.e. become a diversity of individuals, the unique individual being more dynamic and adaptable in Coudenhove- Kalergi’s mind than someone strictly tied to their national, ethnic or cultural identity) and use this strength to create a better European civilisation that is, above all else, peaceful and prosperous. However poorly devised one may find his arguments, it does not seem likely that these arguments were intended with malice towards Europeans.

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T/n: [Mischling] Hybrid, cross-breed, half-breed, mixed-race.          Before the Second World War, the word race was often used to signify both ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’. Contemporary writers often spoke of the Irish race, the German race, or the Anglo-Saxon race. In modern parlance, the term ethnicity would more likely be used instead. For this reason I have used the term hybrid to avoid the more limited connotation that the term mixed-race has today.

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the ancestors are mutually related by blood and are therefore mostly physically, mentally, and spiritually similar to one another. As a result, they pass on their common traits, tendencies of the will, passions, prejudices, and inhibitions in increased degrees to their children and descendants. The traits that result from this inbreeding are: loyalty, piety, a sense of family, a caste mentality³⁰, perseverance31, stubbornness, energy, and simple- mindedness; the power of prejudice, a lack of objectivity, a narrow mind³². Here a generation is not a variation of what came before, but simply its repetition: conservation takes the place of development.
         In the big city different peoples, races, and classes³³ meet. As a rule, the urban man is a mix of different social and national elements. In him the opposing personality traits, [20] prejudices, inhibitions, tendencies of will, and world-views cancel or at least mitigate each other. The result is that hybrids frequently combine lack of character, shamelessness, a weak will, instability, lack of reverence, and disloyalty with objectivity, versatility, mental agility, freedom from prejudice and a broad mind³⁴. Hybrids always differ from their parents and ancestors; each generation is a variation of the preceding one, either in the sense of evolution or degeneration.
         The inbred man is a man of one soul — the hybrid is a man of multiple souls³⁵. In any individual his forebears live on as elements of his soul: if they resemble one

 

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30	T/n: [Kastengeist] Caste spirit.
31	T/n: [Beständigkeit] Perseverance, stability, permanence.
32	T/n: [Enge des Horizontes] a narrowing of one’s horizons, a narrow view.
33	T/n: [Stände] Social standings, classes, professions.
34	T/n: [Weite des Horizontes] a broadening of one’s horizons, a broad view.
35	T/n: [Seele] Soul, mind.

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another, then the soul is uniform, monotonous; if they diverge, then the man is varied, complicated, differentiated.
         The greatness of a spirit³⁶ lies in its extensity³⁷, that is, in its ability to grasp³⁸ and embrace everything; the greatness of a personality lies in its intensity, that is, in its ability to be strong, focused and persevering. Thus, in a certain sense, wisdom and drive are contradictions.
         The more extreme the ability and inclination of a man to look at things from all sides as a wise man and to take an unprejudiced view of every position, the weaker is his volitional impulse to take action in a certain direction without hesitation³⁹: for each motive is opposed by a counter-motive, each belief opposed by scepticism, and each action opposed by the insight into its cosmic meaninglessness.
         Only the narrow-minded, one-sided man can be active. There is, however, not only an unconscious, [21] naive narrow-mindedness, but also a conscious, heroic narrow-mindedness. The heroic narrow-minded man — and to this type do all truly great men of action belong — voluntarily turns off, from time to time, all sides of his being, except for the one that determines his actions. He may be objective, critical, sceptical, or superior⁴⁰ before or after his action: during the action he is subjective, faithful, biased, unjust.
         Wisdom inhibits drive — drive denies wisdom. The strongest will is ineffective if it is directionless; a weak will triggers the strongest effect if it is one-sided.

 

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36	T/n: Or mind.
37	T/n: [Extensit&oaml;t] Extensity, extensiveness, bounds, capacity, ability to extend. As opposed to intensity, the quality of being extreme in strength or force, or in this context, singlemindedness.
38	T/n: [Erfassen] Grasp, collect, understand.
39	39 T/n: [Unbedenklich] Without hesitation, safely, harmlessly.
40	40 T/n: [überlegen] superior, supercilious.

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         There is no life of action without injustice, error, and fault: whoever hesitates to bear this odium will stay in the realm of thought, of contemplation, of passivity. — Truthful people are always silent: because every assertion is, in a sense, a lie; pure-hearted people are always inactive: because every act is, in a sense, unjust. But it is braver to speak at the risk of lying; to act at the risk of doing wrong.
         Inbreeding strengthens the character and weakens the mind — interbreeding weakens the character and strengthens the mind. Where inbreeding and interbreeding meet under favourable auspices, they produce the highest type of human being which combines the strongest character with the sharpest mind. Where inbreeding and interbreeding meet under unfortunate auspices, they create degenerative types of weak character and dull mind.
         Man of the distant future will be a hybrid. Today's races and castes will fall victim [22] to the growing defeat of space, time and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, outwardly similar to the ancient Egyptian, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals⁴¹. For, according to the laws of heredity, difference increases with the dissimilarity of ancestors, and the monotony of offspring increases with the uniformity of ancestors. In inbred families, one child is like another, because they all represent one common family type. In mixed families, the children differ strongly from each
         other: each forms a new type of variation of divergent parental and ancestral elements.
         Inbreeding creates characteristic types — interbreeding creates original personalities.
         The precursor of the planetary⁴² man of the future in modern Europe is the Russian as a Slavic-Tatar-Finnish hybrid; because he, among all the peoples of Europe, has

 

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41	T/n: [Persönlichkeiten] Personalities, individuals.
42	T/n: [Planetäre] Planetary, global, wandering.

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the least race⁴³,  and is the typical man of multiple souls with a broad, rich, all-encompassing soul. His strongest antipode is the insular Briton, the high-bred man of one soul, whose strength lies in character, in will, in one- sidedness, in typicality. Modern Europe is indebted to him for producing the most cohesive⁴⁴, perfect type: the gentleman. [23]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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43	T/n: [am wenigsten Rasse hat] has the least amount of racial purity, or racial spirit.
44	T/n: [Geschlossen] Closed, self-contained, well-rounded, united, uniform, complete.

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5. PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN MENTALITY

         Two soul-types struggle for world domination: Paganism and Christianity. These soul-types have only superficial relationships with the denominations that bear these names. If the focus shifts from the dogmatic to the ethical, from the mythological to the psychological, then Buddhism is transformed into ultra-Christianity, while Americanism emerges as modernised paganism. The Orient is the main carrier of the Christian mentality, the Occident the main carrier of the pagan mentality: the “pagan” Chinese are better Christians than the “Christian” Germans.
         Paganism places vigour at the forefront of the ethical value scale, Christianity places love. The Christian ideal is the loving saint, the pagan ideal the conquering hero. Christianity wants to change the Homo ferus, the feral man, into Homo domesticus, the domesticated man, while Paganism wants to transform man into an Ü bermensch⁴⁵. Christianity wants to tame tigers to cats — paganism wants to enhance cats to tigers.
         The chief herald of modern Christianity was Tolstoy; [24] the chief herald of modern paganism was Nietzsche.
         The Germanic Edda-religion was pure paganism. Under a Christian mask, it lived on: in the Middle Ages as a chivalrous world-view, and in modern times as an imperialistic and militaristic world-view. Officers, noblemen, colonisers, and captains of industry are the leading representatives of modern paganism. Vigour, courage, greatness, freedom, power, glory and honour:

 

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45	T/n: [Übermensch] A superman, “beyond-human.” A concept in Nietzschean philosophy, the Übermensch is the ultimate goal of mankind, a transcendent human who shifts away from Christian or other-worldly values to a more grounded ideal.

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these are the ideals of paganism; while love, gentleness, humility, compassion, and self-denial are Christian ideals.
         The antithesis: paganism and Christianity correspond with neither the antithesis: the rural man and urban man, nor with: inbreeding and interbreeding. Undoubtedly, however, rural barbarism and inbreeding further the development of a pagan mentality, while urban civilisation and mixing further the development of a Christian mentality.
         The generally accepted pagan individualism is only possible in thinly populated stretches of the Earth, where the individual can assert himself and develop heedlessly, without immediately falling into opposition to his fellow man. In heavily populated areas, where man bumps into man, the socialist principle of mutual support must complement the individualistic principle of the struggle for existence and, in part, supersede it.
         Christianity and socialism are international products of the city. Christianity, as a world religion, originated with the raceless metropolis of Rome; socialism originated with the nationally mixed industrial cities of the West. Both expressions of the Christian mentality are built on internationalism. Opposition to Christianity came from the rural population [25] (pagani⁴⁶); just as it is today, it is the rural population who put up the strongest resistance to the realisation of a socialist way of life.
         Sparsely-populated, northern areas were always centres of pagan volition, while densely-populated, southern areas were hotbeds of Christian feeling. Wherever the contrast between Eastern and Western spiritual life is discussed today, it is usually understood as nothing more than the contrast between the people of the South and the North. The Japanese man, as the northernmost cultural Oriental, frequently comes close to the Occidentals; while

 

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the mentality of the Southern Italians and the South Americans is oriental. For the conditions of the soul, latitude appears to be more decisive than longitude.
         Not only the geographic location but also the historical development has a determining effect on the soul of a people. The Chinese, like the Jewish people, therefore feel more Christian than the Germanic people, because their cultural past is older. The Teuton⁴⁷ is closer in time to savages than the Chinese or the Jew; these two ancient civilised peoples were able to thoroughly emancipate themselves from the pagan and natural view of life, because they had at least three millennia longer to do so. Paganism is a symptom of cultural youth, Christianity a symptom of cultural old-age.
         Three peoples: the Greeks, Romans, and Jews, have
         each in their own way, conquered the ancient civilised world. First the aesthetic and philosophical people of the Greeks: via Hellenism; then the practical and political people of the Romans: via the Imperium Romanum; finally the ethical and religious people of the Jews: via Christianity. [26]
         Christianity, prepared ethically by Jewish Essenes (John the Baptist), and spiritually by Jewish Alexandrians (Philo of Alexandria), was regenerated Judaism. As far as Europe is Christian, it is (in the ethical and spiritual sense) Jewish; as far as Europe is moral, it is Jewish. Almost all European ethics are rooted in Judaism. All champions of a religious or irreligious Christian morality, from Augustine to Rousseau, Kant and Tolstoy, were Jews by choice in the spiritual sense; Nietzsche is the only non-Jewish, the only pagan ethicist in Europe.
         The most prominent and the most convincing
         representatives of Christian ideas — which, in their modern incarnation, are called pacifism and socialism — are Jews.

 

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47	T/n: An ancient Germanic tribe.

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         To the east the Chinese are the ethical people par excellence (as opposed to the aesthetic and heroic Japanese, and the religious and speculative Indians), and the Jewish are the ethical people par excellence in the West. God was the sovereign of the ancient Jews, their moral law was their civil code, and a sin was a crime.
         Through the millennia, Judaism has remained true to the theocratic idea of the identification of politics with ethics: Christianity and socialism are both attempts to build a kingdom of God. Two thousand years ago the early Christians, not the Pharisees and Sadducees, were heirs and renovators of the Mosaic tradition; today it is neither the Zionists nor the Christians, but the Jewish leaders of socialism: because they too want, with the highest self- denial, to expunge the original sin of capitalism, rescue people from injustice, violence, and slavery, and transform the atoned world into an earthly paradise. [27]
         To these Jewish prophets of the present day, who are preparing a new world era, the ethical is primary in everything: in politics, religion, philosophy and art. From Moses to Weininger⁴⁸ ethics was the main problem of Jewish philosophy. In this basic ethical attitude to the world is a root of the unrivalled greatness of the Jewish people — at the same time, however, there is the danger that Jews who lose their faith in ethics will sink down to cynical egoists: while people of a different mentality, even after losing their ethical attitude (man of honour, gentleman, cavalier, etc.), still have a wealth of chivalrous values and prejudices left over, which protect them from falling into chaotic values.
         The thing that primarily separates the Jews from the average city dweller is that they are an inbred people. Strength of character combined with mental acuity

 

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48	T/n: Otto Weininger (3 April 1880 — 4 October 1903), an Austrian philosopher.

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predestines the Jews, in their most outstanding specimens, to be the leaders of urban humanity, to be false as well as genuine spiritual aristocrats, and to be protagonists of both capitalism and revolution. [28]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PART TWO:
CRISIS OF THE NOBILITY

 

 

 

 

 

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6. REIGN OF THE MIND INSTEAD OF REIGN OF THE SWORD

         Our democratic era is a miserable interlude between two great aristocratic epochs: the feudal aristocracy of the sword and the social aristocracy of the mind. The feudal aristocracy is in decline, the spiritual aristocracy is in the making. The intervening period calls itself democratic, but it is, in truth, dominated by the pseudo-aristocracy of money.
         In Europe in the Middle Ages the rural knight ruled over the urban citizens, pagan mentality ruled over Christian mentality, and hereditary nobility over intellectual nobility. The superiority of the knight over the citizens was based on physical strength and strength of character, on power and courage.
         Two inventions conquered the Middle Ages and inaugurated the modern age: the invention of gunpowder meant the end of the reign of the knight, the invention of the printing press meant the dawn of intellectual rule. With the introduction of firearms, physical strength and courage lost their decisive importance in the struggle for existence: intellect became the decisive weapon in the struggle for power and freedom. [31]
         The printing press gave the intellect an instrument of enforcing power of unlimited scope; it placed the writing man at the heart of the reading man’s world and so elevated the writer to the position of intellectual leader of the masses. To quills Gutenberg⁴⁹ gave power, which Schwarz⁵⁰

 

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49	T/n: Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400 — 3 February 1468), inventor of the printing press.
50	T/n: Berthold Schwarz, a legendary 14th century German alchemist, credited with the invention of gunpowder.

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took from swords. With the help of printer's ink Luther⁵¹ conquered a bigger empire than any German emperor.
         In the era of enlightened despotism rulers and statesmen obeyed the ideas that came from thinkers. The writers of that time formed a spiritual aristocracy of Europe. The victory of absolutism over feudalism meant the first victory of the town over the countryside and also the first stage in the victorious advance of the spiritual nobility, and the first stage in the fall of the nobility of the sword⁵². In place of the medieval dictatorship of the countryside over the city arose the modern dictatorship of the city over the countryside.
         With the French Revolution, which broke away from the privileges of the hereditary nobility, began the second epoch of intellectual emancipation. Democracy is based on the optimistic assumption that a spiritual nobility could be recognised and chosen by the majority of the people.
         Now we stand at the threshold of the third epoch of modern times: the epoch of socialism. It, too, relies on the urban class of industrial workers, led by the intellectual urban aristocracy of revolutionary writers.
         The influence of the hereditary nobility is decreasing, the influence of the spiritual nobility is increasing.
         This development, and with it the chaos of modern politics, will only then come to an end when an intellectual [32] aristocracy seises the means of power in society — gunpowder, gold, or printing ink — and uses them for the benefit of the general public.

 

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51	T/n: Martin Luther (10 November 1483 — 18 February 1546), German theologian and a primary figure in the Protestant Reformation.
52	T/n: [Schwertadel] Military nobility.

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         A decisive step towards this goal occurred in the form of Russian Bolshevism, where a small group of communist spiritual aristocrats ruled the country and consciously broke away from the plutocratic democracy that dominates the rest of the world today.
         The struggle between capitalism and communism over the legacy of the defeated hereditary nobility is a fratricidal war within the victorious intellectual nobility, a fight between the individualistic and the socialistic, the egoistic and the altruistic, the pagan and the Christian spirit. The general staff of both parties is recruited from the intellectual leader-race in Europe: the Jews.
         Capitalism and communism are both rationalistic, both mechanistic, both abstract, both urban.
         The nobility of the sword has finally played out. The effect of the intellect, the power of the intellect, the belief in the intellect, the hope for the intellect is growing: and with them a new nobility. [33]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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7. TWILIGHT OF THE NOBILITY
         In the course of the modern era the hereditary nobility would be poisoned by the atmosphere of the estate⁵³ and the spiritual nobility would be poisoned by capitalism.
         Since the end of the age of chivalry, the upper nobility of continental Europe is, with scant exceptions, in a state of progressive decadence. Through its urbanisation the upper nobility has lost its physical and mental advantages.
         In the era of feudalism the hereditary nobility was called to protect its country against enemy attacks and incursions by other rulers. The nobleman was free and self- confident towards subordinates, equals, superiors; a king on his own land, he was able to freely develop his personality according to chivalric principles.
         Absolutism changed this situation: the oppositional nobility who freely, proudly, and bravely, insisted on their historic rights were, as far as was possible, uprooted; the rest were dragged to court and there pressed into a shiny servitude. This court nobility was not free and depended on the whims of the ruler and his camarilla⁵⁴; so the court nobility had to lose its best [34] characteristics: character, desire for freedom, pride, leadership. In order to break the character and thus the resistance of the French nobility, Louis XIV lured them to Versailles; the completion of his work was reserved for the great revolution: it stripped the nobility, who had surrendered and lost their privileges, of their outlived privileges.
         Only in those countries of Europe where the nobility, faithful to its knightly mission, remained leaders and champions of the national opposition to monarchical

 

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53	T/n: [Hof] Farm, estate, court.
54	T/n: A group of courtiers who surround a king or ruler, a clique.

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despotism and foreign rule, did a noble type of leader survive: in England, Hungary, Poland, and Italy.
         Since the conversion of European culture from a knightly-rural to a bourgeois-urban one, the hereditary nobility lagged behind the bourgeoisie in intellectual and cultural terms. War, politics, and the administration of the nobility’s estates kept them so busy that their intellectual abilities and interests often withered away.
         These historical causes of the modern twilight of the nobility were reinforced by physiological ones. Instead of the harsh, medieval military service, the modern era brought the nobility mostly a life of luxury free of work; the nobility gradually went from the most threatened estate to the most secure through its inheritance; in addition there were the degenerative effects of excessive inbreeding, which the English nobility escaped by frequently mixing with common⁵⁵ blood. Through the interaction of these circumstances the physical, psychological and spiritual type of erstwhile nobility declined.
         The intellectual nobility could not replace the hereditary nobility, because it was also in a crisis, [35] in a state of decay. Democracy arose out of embarrassment: not because people did not want the nobility, but because they could not find any nobility. Once a new, genuine nobility is constituted, democracy will disappear by itself. Because England has genuine nobility, it remained aristocratic, despite its democratic constitution.
         The academic intellectual nobility of Germany — a century ago leaders of the opposition to absolutism and feudalism, pioneers of modern and liberal ideas — have today sunk down to be the mainstay of reaction⁵⁶, the main opponents of intellectual and political renewal. This pseudo-spiritual nobility of Germany was an advocate of

 

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55	T/n: [Bürgerlich] common, middle-class, bourgeois.
56	T/n: [Reaktion] Reaction, reactionary politics.

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militarism during the war and a defender of capitalism during the revolution. Its mottos — nationalism, militarism, antisemitism, and alcoholism — are also the passwords in the fight against the intellect. Its responsibility and mission: to replace the feudal nobility and prepare the spiritual nobility that has been misjudged, denied, and betrayed by the academic intelligentsia.
         The journalistic intelligentsia has also betrayed its guiding mission. The vast majority of the intelligentsia — who had been called to become spiritual leaders and teachers to the masses, to complement and improve that which a backward school system neglected and failed to teach — degraded themselves to be the slaves of capital, to be the spoilers⁵⁷ of political and artistic taste. Their character broke under the pressure to represent and defend others' beliefs instead of their own — their minds degenerated by the overproduction that their profession forced on them.
         As the orator of antiquity, so the modern-day journalist [36] is the focus of the state machine: the journalist moves the voters, the voters move the representatives⁵⁸, and the representatives move the ministers. Thus, the highest responsibility for all political events falls to the journalist: and he, as a typical representative of urban lack of character, mostly feels free of any obligation and responsibility.
         The school and the press are the two points from which the world could be bloodlessly renewed and ennobled without violence. The school nourishes or poisons the soul of the child; the press nourishes or poisons the soul of the adult. The school and the press are both now in the hands of an unspiritual intelligentsia: putting them

 

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57	T/n: [Verbildner] Miseducator, spoiler, deformer.
58	T/n: [Abgeordneten] Representatives, delegates, congressmen, Members of Parliament, etc.

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         back in the hands of the spirit would be the highest duty of every ideal policy, of every ideal revolution.
         The ruling dynasties of Europe have fallen due to inbreeding; the plutocratic dynasties have fallen due to luxurious living. The hereditary nobility degenerated because they became servants of the monarchy; the spiritual nobility degenerated because they became servants of capital.
         Both aristocracies had forgotten that responsibility is bound up with every privilege, with every distinction and with every position. They have forgotten the motto of all true nobility: "Noblesse oblige!" They wanted to enjoy the fruits of their privileged position without the obligations; they saw themselves as masters and superiors, not as leaders and role models to their fellow man. Instead of pointing the people towards new goals, clearing new paths, they allowed themselves to be misused by rulers and capitalists as tools of their own interests: They sold their souls, their blood⁵⁹ and their brains for a life of luxury, honorary posts, and money. [37]
         The old hereditary nobility and the old spiritual nobility have further lost the claim to be considered as the aristocracy any longer, for they lack the signs of all true nobility: character, freedom, and responsibility. They cut the threads that connected them to their peoples: through snobbery on the one hand, through intellectual conceit on the other.
         It is in the spirit of historical nemesis that the great deluge, which has its origin in Russia, in a bloody or bloodless manner, will cleanse the world of usurpers who want to maintain their privileged positions long after they have lost the prerequisites for those positions. [38]

 

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59	T/n: [Blut] Blood, life-force, heritage, familial bonds.

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8. PLUTOCRACY

         In view of the low point of the hereditary and spiritual nobility, it was not surprising that a third class of people temporarily seised power: the plutocracy.
         The constitutional form that replaced feudalism and absolutism was democratic; the plutocratic system of rule. Today democracy is the facade of plutocracy: because the people would not tolerate naked plutocracy, the nominal power is left to them, while the actual power rests in the hands of plutocrats. In republican as in monarchical democracies, the statesmen are puppets, the capitalists masterminds: they dictate the guidelines of policy, they control the voters by purchasing public opinion, and they control the ministers through business and social relationships.
         The feudal social structure has been replaced by a plutocratic one: it is no longer birth that determines social position, but income. Today's plutocracy is mightier than yesterday's aristocracy: for there is none above it but the state, which is its instrument and accomplice.
         When there was true hereditary nobility, the system of aristocracy by birth [39] was more just than that of the money-aristocracy⁶⁰ today: for then the ruling caste had a sense of responsibility, culture, and tradition — while the class that rules today is bereft of all sense of responsibility, culture and tradition. A few exceptions do not change this fact.
         While the ideology of feudalism was heroic and religious, the plutocratic society knows no higher values than money and good living: a man's worth is judged by what he has, not by what he is.

 

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60	T/n: [Geldsaristokratie] Money aristocracy, also known as timocracy, a system whereby power is derived from wealth and the wealthy participate in government.

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         Nonetheless, the leaders of the plutocracy are, in a sense, an aristocracy, an elite: for to acquire great fortune a number of excellent qualities are necessary: vigour, prudence, wisdom, level-headedness, presence of mind, initiative, boldness and generosity. By these merits the successful big businessmen prove themselves to be modern conquerors whose superior willpower and mental strength brought them victory over the mass of inferior competitors.
         This superiority of the plutocrats, however, applies only within the earning class of people⁶¹ — it immediately vanishes when these outstanding money-makers are measured against the outstanding representatives of ideal professions. Therefore it is fair that a competent industrialist or businessman rises higher, materially and socially, than his inept colleagues — but it is unfair that his social power and prestige is higher than that of an artist, scholar, politician, writer, teacher, judge, or doctor, who is just as capable in his profession as those whose abilities, however, [40] serve more ideal and social aims: so that the present social system rewards the egoistic and materialistic mentality over an altruistic and idealistic one.
         The fundamental evil of the capitalist social structure lies in this preference for egoistic efficiency over the altruistic, the materialistic over the idealistic; while the true aristocrats of heart and mind — the kind and the wise — live in poverty and powerlessness, selfish violent people usurp the position of leadership to which they were called.
         Thus plutocracy is, in an energetic and intellectual sense, aristocracy — from an ethical and spiritual point of view, it is pseudo-aristocracy; within the earning classes it

 

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61	T/n: [erwebenden Menschenklasse] The earning class, purchasing class. Those whose standing relies on their ability to exploit goods and services, such as entrepreneurs, craftsmen, farmers, and other labourers.

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is aristocracy — measured against more ideal professions it is pseudo-aristocracy.
         Like the hereditary and spiritual aristocracy, the aristocracy of money is presently in a period of decline. The sons and grandsons of those great entrepreneurs, whose will, steeled by hardship and work, had brought them up from nothing to power, mostly languish in a life of luxury and inactivity. Rarely is paternal proficiency inherited or sublimated to more spiritual and ideal work. The plutocratic lineages lack that tradition and world-view, that rural conservative spirit, which had once protected the noble families from degeneration for centuries. Inferior imitators inherit the power of their fathers without the gifts of will and understanding by which it was amassed. Power and ability come into contradiction: and so undermine the inner legitimacy of capitalism.
         Historical development has accelerated this natural [41] decline. Buoyed by the boom of war, a new profiteering plutocracy is beginning to disintegrate and displace the old entrepreneurial plutocracy. While the national wealth increases with the enrichment of the entrepreneur, it decreases with the enrichment of the profiteer. Entrepreneurs are the leaders of the economy — profiteers are its parasites: entrepreneurship is productive capitalism — profiteering is unproductive capitalism.
         The current economic boom makes it easier for unscrupulous, unrestrained and irresponsible people to earn money. Luck and ruthlessness are more indispensable for speculative gains and profiteering than excellent gifts of will and understanding. Thus the modern profiteer plutocracy represents a kakistocracy⁶² of character rather than an aristocracy of ability. As the lines between

 

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62	T/n: A kakistocracy is a government run by the least qualified or most unscrupulous people. It is the opposite of an aristocracy, aristocracy meaning governance by the best qualified of people.

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entrepreneurship and profiteering continue to blur, capitalism is being compromised and dragged down before the intellectual and public forum.
         No aristocracy can continually assert itself without moral authority. Once the ruling class ceases to be a symbol of ethical and aesthetic values, its downfall becomes inevitable.
         Compared to other aristocracies, the plutocracy is poor in aesthetic values. It fulfils the political functions of an aristocracy without offering the cultural values of a nobility. Wealth, however, is tolerable only in the guise of beauty, only justified as the bearer of an aesthetic culture. Meanwhile, the new plutocracy cloaks itself in dull tastelessness and intrusive ugliness: its wealth becomes sterile and repulsive.
         The European plutocracy — in contrast to the American plutocracy — neglects its ethical mission as much as its aesthetic one: large-scale social benefactors are as few as patrons. Instead of seeing their raison d'être in social capitalism, in the amalgamation of the squandered national wealth into generous works of creative humanity — the overwhelming majority of the plutocrats feel justified in irresponsibly building their prosperity on the misery of the masses. Instead of trustees of mankind, they are exploiters. Instead of leaders, they are misleaders.
         Through this lack of aesthetic and ethical culture, the plutocracy attracts not only the hatred but also the contempt of public opinion and its spiritual leaders: because it does not know how to be aristocratic, it must fall.
         The Russian Revolution signified the beginning of the end for the plutocratic period of history. Even if Lenin is defeated, his shadow will dominate the twentieth century just as the French Revolution, despite its collapse, determined the development of the nineteenth century:

 

 

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feudalism and absolutism would never have voluntarily abdicated in continental Europe — if not for fear of a repetition of Jacobin terror, then for fear of the end of the French nobility and kings. Thus the Damocles’ sword of Bolshevist terror will succeed in softening the hearts of the plutocrats and will make social demands accessible more quickly than in two thousand years of the Gospel of Christ. [43]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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9. HEREDITARY NOBILITY AND THE NOBILITY OF THE FUTURE

         Nobility is based on physical, mental, and spiritual beauty; beauty in perfect harmony and increased vitality: whoever towers above his contemporaries is an aristocrat.
         The old aristocratic type is dying out; the new one is not yet constituted. Our time in-between is desperately lacking in great personalities: in beautiful people, in noble people, in wise people. Meanwhile, inferior imitators of the vanished nobility are usurping the dead forms of former aristocracy and filling them with the contents of their miserable bourgeois mentality. The strong vitality of former nobility has passed to upstarts: but they lack its forms, its distinction, its beauty.
         Nevertheless, time does not need to despair of the idea of the nobility or of the future of a nobleman. If humanity wants to advance, it needs leaders, teachers, guides; fulfilments of what it wants to become; forerunners of its future elevation to higher spheres. Without nobility there is no evolution. Eudaimonistic politics can be democratic — evolutionary politics must be aristocratic. [44] In order to ascend, to advance, goals are needed; to achieve goals, people who set goals, who lead to goals, are needed: aristocrats.
         The aristocrat as a leader is a political concept; the nobleman as an example is an aesthetic ideal. The highest requirement demands that aristocracy coincide with nobility, leader with example: that leadership should fall to perfected people.
         From the quantities of European humanity, which only believes in numbers and in masses, two quality races stand out: the hereditary nobility and Jewry. Separated from each other, they both hold firmly to the belief in their higher mission, in their better blood, in human differences

 

 

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in rank. The core of the European future nobility lies in these two heterogeneous preferred races: in the feudal hereditary nobility, insofar as it does not allow itself to be corrupted by the court, and in the Jewish spiritual nobility, insofar as it does not allow itself to be corrupted by capital. As a guarantee of a better future, a small remnant of morally superior rural nobility and a small combat group of revolutionary intelligentsia remain. Here the communion between Lenin, the man from the rural gentry, and Trotsky, the Jewish man of letters grows into a symbol: here the contrasts of character and intellect, of nobleman and man of letters, of rural and urban, pagan and Christian people, are reconciled in the creative synthesis of revolutionary aristocracy.
         A step forward into the intellectual would suffice to place the best elements of the hereditary nobility, who had preserved their physical and moral health from the degrading influences of court air in the countryside, in the service of the new human liberation. For they are predestined to take this position [45] by their traditional courage, their anti-bourgeois and anti-capitalist mentality, their sense of responsibility, their contempt for material gain, their stoic training of the will, their integrity, and their idealism. Channelled into more spiritual and freer paths, the strong noble energies, which were hitherto the pillars of reaction, could regenerate into new blooms and beget natural leaders who combine inflexibility of will with greatness of soul and selflessness; and, instead of serving capitalist interests as exponents of the bourgeoisie (which is fundamentally opposed to them), line up with the representatives of the younger spiritual nobility for the liberation and ennoblement of mankind.
         For centuries, politics in Europe was the privilege of the nobility. The nobility formed an international political caste in which diplomatic talents were cultivated.

 

 

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For many generations, the European hereditary nobility had lived in a political atmosphere from which the bourgeoisie was deliberately kept away. On its estates the nobility learned the art of governing and handling people — in the leading state posts at home and abroad the nobility learned the art of handling nations⁶³. Politics is art, not science; its focus is more on instinct than on intellect, more on the subconscious than on the conscious. Political talent can be awakened and trained, never learned. Genius breaks all the rules: but the nobility is richer in political talent than the bourgeoisie. Because, to acquire knowledge, a single life is enough: to breed instincts, the cooperation of many generations is required. In the sciences and fine arts, the bourgeoisie surpasses the nobility in talent: in politics the relationship is reversed. [46] This is why the democracies of Europe often entrust their foreign policy to descendants of their high nobility, because it is in the interests of the state to make the legacy⁶⁴ of political talent, which the nobility has accumulated over the centuries, available to the general public.
         The political skills of the high nobility are not explained by their strong genetic mixture. For this national mix of races often broadens its horizons and thus paralyses the evil consequences of simultaneous caste inbreeding. The vast majority of inferior aristocrats combine the disadvantages of interbreeding with those of inbreeding: lack of character with poverty of intellect⁶⁵; while in the rare highlights of modern aristocracy the advantages of both meet: character with intellect.
         Intellectually, there is, nowadays, a huge difference in level between the extreme right (conservative hereditary nobility) and the extreme left (revolutionary spiritual

 

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63	T/n: [Völker] Nations in the sense of peoples or ethnic groups.
64	T/n: [Erbmasse] Legacy, inheritance, heritage, genetic make-up.
65	T/n: [Geist] Or spirit.

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nobility), while in character these apparent extremes meet. But everything intellectual, conscious, lies on the surface — everything characteristic, unconscious, lies in the depths of personality. Insights and opinions are easier to form and transform than character traits and tendencies of will.
         Lenin⁶⁶ and Ludendorff⁶⁷ are antagonists in their political ideals: brothers in their attitude towards the will. If Ludendorff had grown up in the revolutionary milieu of the Russian student body; had he, like Lenin, seen his brother's hanging by imperial executioners in his early youth: we would probably see him at the head of Red Russia. While [47] Lenin, brought up in a Prussian cadet school, might have become a super-Ludendorff. What separates these two related natures is their intellectual level. Lenin's limitations seem to be heroically conscious, Ludendorff's limitations seem naively unconscious. Lenin is not just a leader — he is also an intellectual; a cerebral Ludendorff, so to speak.
         The same parallel can be drawn between two other representatives of the extreme left and right: Friedrich Adler⁶⁸ and Count Arco⁶⁹. Both were murderers out of idealism, martyrs for their convictions. If Adler had grown up in the militaristic reactionary milieu of the German

 

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66	T/n: Vladimir Lenin (22 April 1870 — 21 January 1924), a Russian revolutionary and founding member of Soviet Russia.
67	T/n: Erich Ludendorff (9 April 1865 — 20 December 1937), a German general and politician who became the chief policymaker in Germany during the First World War. Ludendorff’s de facto military dictatorship assisted the Bolsheviks and allowed Lenin safe passage into Russia, likely hoping that Lenin would stir up trouble, thereby weakening Russia.
68	T/n: Friedrich Wolfgang "Fritz" Adler (9 July 1879 — 2 January 1960), an Austrian socialist politician who assassinated Minister- President Karl von StÜrgkh in 1916.
69	T/n: Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley (5 February 1897 — 29 June 1945), a German far-right activist, Bavarian nationalist and nobleman, known for assassinating the Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner in 1919.

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hereditary nobility, and Arco in the socialist revolutionary milieu of the Austrian spiritual nobility — Arco's bullet would probably have hit Prime Minister StÜrgkh, and Adler's bullet would have hit Prime Minister Eisner. Because they too are brothers, separated by the differences in prejudices that they have been brought up with, connected by a common heroic, selfless character. Here, too, the difference lies in the intellectual level (Adler is an intellectual person), not in the purity of ethos. Whoever praises the character of one must not belittle that of the other — as happens daily on both sides.
         Where there is increased vitality, there is the future. The blossoming of the peasantry, the landed gentry, (as long as they remained healthy) has gathered and stored up an abundance of vital forces in a thousand-year symbiosis with the living and life-giving nature. If modern education succeeds in sublimating part of this increased life energy into the intellectual, then perhaps the nobility of the past could take a decisive part in building up the nobility of the future. [48]

 

 

 

 

 

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10. JEWRY AND THE NOBILITY OF THE FUTURE
         The primary supports of both the corrupt and the upright intellectual nobility — of capitalism, journalism and the literary profession — are Jews*⁷⁰. The superiority of their spirit predestines them to be a major factor in the future nobility.
         A look at the history of the Jewish people explains their lead in the struggle for leadership of mankind. Two millennia ago, the Jews were a religious community composed of ethically and religiously inclined individuals from all nations of the ancient cultural world, with a national-Hebraic centre in Palestine. At that time, what was common, unifying and primary was not the nation, but religion. In the course of the first millennium of our⁷¹ era, proselytes from all peoples entered this religious community, most recently the king, nobility and people of the Mongolian Khazars, the lords of southern Russia. Only from then on did the Jewish religious community form an artificial national community and isolate itself from all other peoples*⁷².
         For a thousand years, Christian Europe has been trying to eradicate the Jewish people through unspeakable persecutions. The result was that all Jews who were weak- willed, unscrupulous, opportunistic, or sceptical were baptised, thereby escaping the torments of endless persecution. On the other hand, all Jews who were not skilful, clever and inventive enough to survive the struggle for existence in this most difficult form perished under these often difficult living conditions.

 

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70	* The following primarily relates to Central and Eastern Europe.
71	T/n: Our Christian era.
72	* See: “Das Wesen des Antisemitismus” by Dr. Heinrich Count Coudenhove-Kalergi (II. Edition, Paneuropa Verlag, Vienna). T/n: The title of this book, by Coudenhove-Kalergi’s father, translates to “The Essence of Antisemitism” in English.

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         So finally a small community emerged from all these persecutions, tempered by a heroically endured martyrdom for the idea and purified of all weak-willed and weak-minded elements. Instead of destroying the Jews, Europe reluctantly refined them through this artificial process of selection and educated them into a leading nation of the future. No wonder, then, that this people, who emerged from the prison of the ghetto, developed into a spiritual nobility of Europe. Thus, as the feudal nobility fell into decline, a benevolent providence bestowed upon Europe, through the emancipation of the Jews, a new noble race of spiritual grace⁷³.
         The first typical representative of this emerging future nobility was the revolutionary noble Jew Lassalle⁷⁴, who combined beauty of the body with gallantry of character and sharpness of mind to a high degree: an aristocrat in the highest and truest sense of the word, he was a born leader and guide of his time. [50]
         Jews are not the new nobility; rather, Jewry is the womb from which a new, spiritual nobility of Europe will emerge; the core around which a new spiritual nobility is grouped. An intellectual urban master race is forming: idealists, witty and sensitive, just and true to its convictions, brave like the feudal nobility in its best days, who gladly accept death and persecution, hatred and contempt, in order to make mankind more moral, spiritual, and happier.
         The Jewish heroes and martyrs of the Eastern and Central European revolution are in no way inferior to the non-Jewish heroes of the World War in terms of courage, perseverance and idealism — while they often surpass them

 

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73	T/n: [Geistes Gnaden] Spiritual grace, intellectual grace, mercy, goodwill, etc.
74	T/n: Ferdinand Lassalle (11 April 1825—31 August 1864), a Prussian-German jurist and socialist of German Jewish descent.

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in spirit. The nature of these men and women who seek to redeem and regenerate humanity is a peculiar synthesis of religious and political elements: of heroic martyrdom and spiritual propaganda, revolutionary energy and social love, of justice and compassion. These traits, which once made them the creators of the Christian world movement, now place them at the forefront of the socialist movement.
         With these two attempts at salvation of spiritual and moral origin, the Jews bestowed the disinherited masses of Europe more richly than any other people. How then modern Jewry surpasses all other peoples in its percentage of important men: scarcely a century after its liberation, this small people today stands with Einstein⁷⁵ at the forefront of modern science; with Mahler⁷⁶ at the forefront of modern music; with Bergson⁷⁷ at the forefront of modern philosophy; with Trotsky at the forefront [51] of modern politics. The prominent position that Jews hold today is due solely to their intellectual superiority, which enables them to triumph over an enormous superiority of privileged, hateful, envious rivals in intellectual competition.
         Modern antisemitism is one of the many manifestations of reaction of the mediocre against the excellent; it is a modern form of ostracism, used against an entire people. As a people, Jews experience the eternal struggle of quantity against quality, inferior groups against superior individuals, inferior majorities against superior minorities.
         The main roots of antisemitism are narrow-mindedness and envy: narrow-mindedness in the religious or in the scientific; envy in the intellectual or in the economic.

 

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75	T/n: Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 — 18 April 1955).
76	T/n: Gustav Mahler (7 July 1860 — 18 May 1911).
77	T/n: Henri-Louis Bergson (18 October 1859 — 4 January 1941).

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         Having emerged from an international religious community, not from a local race, the Jews are the people of the strongest interbreeding; because they have been shutting themselves off from the other peoples for a thousand years, they are the people of the strongest inbreeding. Thus, as with the high nobility, the chosen among them combine strength of will with sharpness of mind, while another part of the Jews combines the defects of inbreeding with the defects of interbreeding: lack of character with narrow-mindedness. Here we find the most sacred self-sacrifice alongside the most restricted selfishness, the purest idealism alongside the most crass materialism. Here, too, the rule is confirmed: the more mixed a people, the more dissimilar its representatives are among one another, and the more impossible it is to construct a unified type. [52]
         Where there is much light, there is much shadow. Brilliant families have a higher percentage of the insane and criminals than mediocre ones; this also applies to peoples. Not only tomorrow's revolutionary spiritual aristocracy — today's plutocratic profiteer kakistocracy is recruited primarily from among the Jews: and thus sharpens the agitational weapons of antisemitism.
         A thousand years of slavery have, with rare exceptions, stripped the Jews of the gestures of the master man. Permanent oppression inhibits personal development and thus takes away a main element of the aesthetic ideal of nobility. A large segment of the Jews suffer from this deficiency, both physically and psychologically; this deficiency is the main reason why the European instinct resists recognising Jews as a noble race.
         The resentment with which oppression has burdened the Jews gives them much vital tension; it takes away from them a lot of elegant harmony. Exaggerated inbreeding, combined with the hyper-urbanity of the ghetto-past, had

 

 

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many traits of physical and psychological decadence as a result. What the Jews' minds gained, their bodies often lost; what their brains gained, their nervous systems lost.
         Thus, Jews suffer from a hypertrophy of the brain and so stand in contrast to the aristocratic demand for harmonious personal development. The physical and nervous weakness of many spiritually excellent Jews results in a lack of physical courage (often combined with supreme moral courage) and an insecurity of demeanour: qualities [53] that still seem incompatible with the chivalrous ideal of the nobleman today.
         Thus the spiritual master race of the Jews has to suffer from the traits of slaves which their historical development has stamped on them: even today, many Jewish leaders bear the attitude and gesture of the unfree, oppressed man. In their gestures, degraded aristocrats are often more noble than outstanding Jews.
         These shortcomings of the Jews, which have arisen through development, will disappear again through development. The ruralisation of Jewry (a major goal of Zionism), combined with physical education, will liberate Jews from the ghetto remnants it still carries today. The development of American Jewry shows that this is possible. The actual freedom and power that Jews have achieved will be followed by the consciousness of those things, and the consciousness will gradually be followed by the attitude and gesture of a free and powerful people.
         Not only will Jews change in the direction of the Western ideal of nobility — the Western ideal of nobility will also undergo a change that will meet Jews halfway. In a more peaceful Europe of the future, the nobility will shed their warlike character and exchange it for a spiritual and priestly character. A pacified and socialised Occident will no longer need masters and rulers — only leaders, educators, and role models. In an oriental Europe, the

 

 

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future aristocrat will resemble a Brahmin and Mandarin more than a knight. [54]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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OUTLOOK

The noble man of the future will be neither feudal nor Jewish, neither bourgeois nor proletarian: he will be synthetic. Races and classes as we understand them today will disappear, individuals will remain.
         Only through connection with the best civil blood⁷⁸ will the viable elements of the former feudal aristocracy rise to new heights; only through union with the peaks of non-Jewish Europeanism will the Jewish element of the future nobility fully develop. A physically well-bred rural nobility may give the chosen people of the future perfect bodies and gestures, a spiritually⁷⁹ well-trained urban nobility spiritualised⁸⁰ physiognomies, soulful eyes and hands.
         The nobility of the past was based on quantity: the feudal was based on the number of ancestors; the plutocratic was based on the number of millions. The nobility of the future will be based on quality: on personal worth, personal perfection; on the perfection of body, soul, and mind.
         Today, on the threshold of a new age, a random⁸¹ nobility takes the place of the former hereditary nobility; [55] instead of aristocratic races, there will be noble individuals: people whose random blood composition elevates them to exemplary types.
         From this random nobility of today will emerge the new international and intersocial noble race of tomorrow. Everything outstanding in beauty, strength, energy and spirit will recognise and unite according to the secret laws of erotic attraction. Once the artificial barriers that

 

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78	T/n: [Bürgerblut] Blood of the bourgeois, or blood of the citizens.
79	T/n: Or intellectually.
80	T/n: [vergeistigte] spiritualised, cerebral, intellectual.
81	T/n: [zufällig] fortuitous, random, coincidental, by chance.

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         feudalism and capitalism have erected between people have come down — then the most important men will automatically go to the most beautiful women, and the most outstanding women will go to the most accomplished men. Then the more perfect a man will be physically, mentally, spiritually — the greater the number of women he will be able to choose from. Only the noblest men will be free to associate with the noblest women and vice versa — the inferior will have to content themselves with the inferior. Then the erotic way of life of the inferior and mediocre will be free love, of the chosen ones: free marriage. Thus the new breeding nobility of the future will not emerge from the artificial norms of human caste formation, but from the divine laws of erotic eugenics.
         The natural hierarchy of human perfection will take the place of the artificial hierarchy, of feudalism and capitalism.
         Socialism, which began with the abolition of the nobility and the levelling of mankind, will culminate in the breeding of nobility, in the differentiation of mankind. Here, in social eugenics, lies its highest historical mission, which it still has not realised today: to lead out of unjust inequality via equality to just inequality, over the ruins of all pseudo-aristocracy to genuine, new nobility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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IN DEFENCE OF TECHNOLOGY
1922

 

 

 

 

 

Motto: Ethics is the soul of our culture —     Technology its body: mens sana in corpore sano

 

 

 

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I. THE LOST PARADISE

 

1. THE CURSE OF CULTURE

         Culture has turned Europe into a penitentiary and the majority of its inhabitants into slave labourers. — Modern civilised man ekes out a more miserable existence than all animals of the wild: the only beings who are even more pitiable than him are his pets — because they are even less free.
         The existence of a buffalo in the jungle, a condor in the Andes, a shark in the ocean, is incomparably more beautiful, freer and happier than that of a European factory worker who, day after day, hour after hour, chained to his machine, has to perform inorganic hand movements in order to not starve.
         Man, too, was once a happy creature in ancient times: a happy animal. There he lived in freedom, as part of a tropical nature that nourished and warmed him. His life consisted in satisfying his urges; he enjoyed it until he met a natural or violent death. He was free; he lived in nature — instead of in the state; he played — instead of working: that's why he was handsome and happy. His courage and zest for life were stronger than all the pains that hit him and stronger than all the dangers that threatened him.
         Over the millennia, man has lost this delightful, free existence. The European, considering himself to be the pinnacle of civilisation, lives an unnatural, ugly, unfree, unhealthy, inorganic life in unnatural and ugly cities. With stunted instincts and weakened health, he breathes foul air in dim rooms; organised society, the state, deprives him of all freedom of movement and action, while a harsh climate forces him to work for life.

 

 

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         Man has lost the freedom he once possessed, and with it happiness. —

 

2. DEVELOPMENT⁸² AND FREEDOM

         The ultimate goal of all earthly existence is development: the rock wants to crystallise, the plant wants to grow and bloom, the animal and the human being want to live their lives to the fullest. Pleasure⁸³, which is known only to humans and animals, has no value of its own, but only symptomatic value: the animal does not satisfy its instincts because it feels pleasure in doing so — rather it feels pleasure because it satisfies its instincts.
         Development means growth according to the laws of one's own inner being: growth in freedom. Every external pressure and compulsion inhibits the freedom of development. In a definite world, freedom has no other meaning than: dependence on internal laws, while lack of freedom means: dependence on external conditions. The crystal does not have the freedom to choose any stereometric shape it likes: the bud does not have the
         freedom to unfold into any flower: but the freedom of the rock consists in that it becomes the crystal, the freedom of the bud in that it becomes the flower. The unfree rock remains amorphous or crystalline — the unfree flower withers away. In both cases the external compulsion is stronger than the internal force. The product of human freedom is the developed man; the product of human bondage: the stunted man.

 

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82	T/n: [Entfaltung] Development, unfolding, evolution, unfurling, revelation.
83	T/n: [Lust] Pleasure, desire, joy, delight.

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         Because the free man can develop, he is beautiful and happy. The free, developed man is the goal of all growth and the measure of all human values.
         Man has lost his former freedom: that was his downfall into sin. So he became an unfortunate, imperfect creature. All wild animals are beautiful — while most people are ugly⁸⁴. There are many more perfect tigers, elephants, eagles, fish, and insects than people: for man, through the loss of his freedom, has become stunted and degenerate.
         The legend of the lost paradise of old proclaims the truth that man is an exile from the realm of freedom, leisure, and natural life, in which the fauna of the jungle still lives today and in which, among today's people, some Pacific Islanders still live closest.
         The lost paradise is the time of human animal-existence in the tropics, when there were no cities, no states, and no work. — [63]

 

3. OVERPOPULATION AND MIGRATION TO THE NORTH

         Two things drove man out of his paradise: overpopulation and migration to colder zones.
         Due to overpopulation, man has lost the freedom of space: everywhere he bumps into his fellow man and their interests — thus he became a slave to society.

 

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84

T/n: [häßlich] ugly, detestable. Although typically translated by the word “ugly,” the German word häßlich derives from the verb hassen, “to hate.” Through this etymology, the word connotes not only physical ugliness, but also spiritual or psychological ugliness, things that are detestable. Man’s descent into sin, therefore, makes him ugly, while animals, who must follow their nature without deceit, are beautiful.

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         Due to emigration to the north, man has lost the freedom of time: leisure. Because the harsh climate forces him to do involuntary work to earn a living: so he became a slave to northern nature/.
         Culture has destroyed the three forms of beauty that transfigured the existence of the natural man: freedom, leisure, nature; in their place culture has put the state, work, and the city.
         The cultural European is an exile from the south, an exile from nature.

 

4. SOCIETY AND CLIMATE

The two tyrants of the cultural European are: society and climate.
         Lack of social freedom reaches its peak in the modern city, because crowds and overpopulation are at their greatest here. People there not only live side by side, but stacked on top of each other, walled in artificial blocks of stone (houses); constantly watched and suspected by the [64] authorities of society, they have to submit unquestioningly to a myriad of laws and regulations; if they violate them, they are tortured (imprisoned) or murdered (executed) by their fellow human beings for years. — Social lack of freedom is less oppressive in the countryside than in the cities, and least oppressive in sparsely populated regions such as Western America, Greenland, Mongolia and Arabia. There man can still develop in wide open spaces without immediately coming into conflict with society; in those places there are still remnants of social freedom.
         The lack of climatic freedom is most oppressive in the cultivated countries of the north. There, during the short summer months, man must wrest his nourishment from poor soil the whole year long and at the same time protect

 

 

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himself from the winter frost by acquiring clothing, housing and heating. If he resists this forced labour, he must starve or freeze to death. The Nordic climate forces him to do restless, gruelling, arduous forced labour. — Nature grants more freedom in temperate zones, where man has to serve just one oppressor: hunger, while the second: frost, is conquered by the sun. The freest people are in the tropics because fruits and nuts feed them there even without work. Only there is climatic freedom still to be found.
         Europe is an overpopulated and northern strip of earth at the same time: that is why the European is the most unfree human being, a slave to society and nature.
         Society and nature bring their victims to each other: the man who flees the city [65] into the desert to seek protection from the crowds of society — he sees himself threatened by the merciless climate, by hunger and frost. The man who flees from the forces of nature into the city and seeks protection from his fellow man — he sees himself threatened by the merciless society that exploits and crushes him underfoot.

 

5. HUMANITY’S ATTEMPTS TO LIBERATE ITSELF

         World history consists of man's attempts to free himself from the prison of society and the exile in the north.
         The four main ways by which man tried to return to the lost paradise of freedom and leisure were as follows:
         I. The way backwards (emigration): back to solitude and the sun! With this goal, people and nations have always migrated from densely populated areas to sparsely populated areas, from colder to warmer zones. Almost all migrations of peoples and a large number of wars can be

 

 

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traced back to this primal urge for freedom of movement and sun.
         II. The way up (power): up out of the crowd of people into the seclusion, freedom and leisure of the upper crust⁸⁵! This shout rang out when, as a result of overpopulation, power became a prerequisite for freedom — and as a result of climatic conditions, power became a prerequisite for leisure. Since only the powerful can develop without having to take other people [66] into consideration — only the powerful can free themselves from the compulsion to work by letting others work for them. In overpopulated countries man is faced with the choice of either climbing on the heads of his fellow man or letting his own head be stepped on: to be master or servant, robber or beggar. — This common impulse for power was the father of wars, revolutions and struggles between people. —
         III. The way inwards (ethics): away from the outer crowd into inner solitude, from outer work into inner harmony! Human liberation through self-mastery, self- restraint and selflessness: frugality as protection against neediness; reduce the demands for leisure and freedom until they correspond to the minimum that an overpopulated society and a harsh climate provide. — All religious movements go back to this urge to look for a replacement for external bondage and work in freedom and peace of mind. —
         IV. The way forward (technology): out of the era of slave labour into a new age of freedom and leisure through the victory of the human spirit over the forces of nature! Overcoming overpopulation by increasing production, overcoming human slave labour by enslaving the forces of nature. — Technological and scientific progress can be

 

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85	T/n: [die oberen Zehntausend] Literally “the upper ten thousand,” referring to the top individuals in a society; high society.

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traced back to this quest to break nature's tyranny by subjugating it. — [67]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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II. ETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY

 

1. THE SOCIAL QUESTION

         The fateful question of European culture is this: “How is it possible to protect a humanity crowded into the limited space of a cold and barren continent from hunger, cold, death and overexertion and to give it the freedom and leisure through which it can one day attain happiness and beauty?”
         The answer is: “By developing ethics and technology.” —
         Through schools, the press and religion, ethics can transform the European from a predator into a domestic animal and thereby make him ready for a free community — by increasing production and converting forced human labour into machine labour, technology can give Europeans the free time and capacity for work they need to consolidate⁸⁶ a culture.
         Ethics solves the social question from the inside — technology from the outside. —
         In Europe, only two classes of people have what it takes to be happy: the rich, who can do and have anything they want — and the saints, [68] who do not want to do or have more than their fate allows them. The rich take hold of an objective freedom through their power to transform fellow human beings and the forces of nature into organs of their will — the saints take hold of a subjective freedom through the indifference with which they regard earthly goods. The rich man can develop outwards — the saint inwards.

 

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86	T/n: [Ausbau] development, expansion, improvement, extension, alteration, consolidation.

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         All remaining Europeans are slaves to nature and society: forced labourers and prisoners. —

 

2. INADEQUACY OF POLITICS

         It is the ideal of ethics to make Europe a community of saints; it is the ideal of technology to make Europe a community of rich people.
         Ethics wants to abolish covetousness so that people no longer feel poor — technology wants to abolish need so that people no longer are poor.
         Politics is neither able to make people happy nor rich. Therefore, their arbitrary attempts to solve the social question must fail. Only in the service of ethics and technology can politics contribute to solving the social question.
         Given the current state of ethics and technology, the highest that politics could achieve would be the generalisation of slavery, poverty and forced labour. It could only compensate for these evils, not eliminate them; it could turn Europe into a prison for forced labourers with equal rights — but not a [69] paradise. The citizen of the socially ideal state would be less free and more afflicted than the South Sea Islander in his natural state: cultural history would become the history of a fatal deception in man. —

 

3. STATE AND LABOUR

         As long as ethics is too weak to protect man from his fellow man and technology too undeveloped to shift the burden of work to the forces of nature — mankind will seek

 

 

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to ward off the harms of overpopulation through the state, and the dangers of the climate through work.
         The state protects people from the arbitrariness of their fellow man — work protects people from the arbitrariness of the forces of nature.
         Under certain conditions, the organised coercive state grants people, who renounce their freedom, protection of their person and property against the murderous and rapacious desires of their fellow man — organised forced labour in northern regions grants people, who give up their time and capacity for work, protection from starvation and freezing to death. —
         These two institutions reprieve the European, who by nature would have been subject to death as superfluous, to life imprisonment; in order to eke out a living he must give up his freedom. As a citizen he is locked in the narrow cage of his rights and duties — as a forced labourer he is harnessed in the hard yoke of his productivity. If [70] he rebels against the state — he is threatened with the gallows; if he rebels against work — he is threatened with starvation. —

 

4. ANARCHY AND LEISURE

         The state and work both pretend to be ideals; they demand reverence and love from their victims. But they are not ideals: they are social and climatic necessities that are difficult to bear.
         For as long as there have been states, man's longing has been dreaming of anarchy, of the ideal conditions of statelessness — for as long as there has been work, man's longing has been dreaming of leisure, of the ideal condition of free time.

 

 

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         Anarchy and leisure are ideals — not the state and work.
         Anarchy is impracticable in a densely populated society that does not hold to a high ethical standard. Its realisation would have to destroy the last remnants of freedom and the possibility of life that the state reserves for its citizens. In the general panic of colliding egos, people would crush each other. Instead of freedom, anarchy would lead to the most terrible bondage.
         With widespread leisure, the majority of people in a northern part of the world would have to starve or freeze to death within months. Need and misery would reach their peak. —
         Recluse-anarchies reign in deserts and snowfields among Eskimos and Bedouins; Leisure prevails in sparsely populated and fertile southern countries. — [71]

 

5. OVERCOMING STATE AND LABOUR

         A coercive state and forced labour, the two protectors and tyrants of civilised man, cannot be abolished by any political revolution; only by ethics and technology.
         Until ethics has overcome the coercive state, anarchy means widespread murder and robbery — until technology has overcome forced labour, leisure means widespread starvation and death from the cold.
         Only through ethics can the inhabitants of overpopulated countries free themselves from the tyranny of society, only through technology can the inhabitants of colder regions free themselves from the tyranny of the forces of nature.
         The mission of the state is to make itself superfluous by promoting ethics and ultimately to lead to anarchy —

 

 

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the mission of work is to make itself superfluous by promoting technology and ultimately to lead to leisure.
         It is not the voluntary human community that is a curse — but only the coercive state; it is not voluntary work that is a curse — but only forced labour.
         It is not lack of restraint that is ideal — but freedom: it is not idleness that is ideal — but leisure.
         The coercive state and forced labour are things to be overcome: but they cannot be overcome by anarchy and leisure until ethics and technology are fully developed; to reach that point, man must expand the coercive state in order to promote ethics — he must expand forced labour in order to promote technology. [72]
         The way to ethical anarchy leads through state coercion — the way to technological leisure leads through the obligation to work.
         The curve of the cultural spiral, which leads from the paradise of the past to the paradise of the future, takes the following double course:
         Natural anarchy — overpopulation — a coercive state — ethics — cultural anarchy;
         Natural leisure — northward migration — forced labour — technology — cultural leisure.
         Today we find ourselves in the middle of these curves, far from both paradises: hence our misery. The modern average European is no longer a man of nature — but not yet a cultured person; no longer animal — but not yet human; no longer part of nature — but not yet master of nature.

 

6. ETHICS AND TECHNOLOGY

         Ethics and technology are sisters: ethics controls the natural forces within us, technology controls the natural

 

 

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forces around us. Both seek to conquer nature through creative spirit.
         Ethics seeks to free man through heroic negation: through resignation — technology seeks to free man through heroic affirmation: through action.
         Ethics turns the spirit's will to power⁸⁷ inward: it wants to conquer the microcosm. —
         Technology turns the spirit's will to power outwards: it wants to conquer the macrocosm.
         Neither ethics nor technology alone can free the northern man: for a starving and freezing mankind can neither be satiated [73] nor warmed by ethics — an evil and covetous mankind can neither be protected from itself nor satisfied by technology.
         What use is morality⁸⁸ to people if they starve and freeze to death? And what use is technological progress to people if they use it to slaughter and maim one another?
         Cultural Asia suffers more from overpopulation than from frost: it could therefore more easily do without technology and more easily devote itself to its ethical development than Europe, where ethics and technology must complement each other. — [74]

 

 

 

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87	T/n: [Machtwillen] Here Coudenhove-Kalergi uses the older phrase Machtwillen rather than the Nietzschean expression Wille Zur Macht (“Will to Power”).
88	T/n: [Sittlichkeit] Although translated simply as morality, Sittlichkeit is a concept of ethical living put forward by Hegel, first presented in his work Phenomenology of Spirit (1807).

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III. ASIA AND EUROPE

 

1. ASIA AND EUROPE

         

         Asia’s greatness lies in its ethics — Europe’s greatness lies in its technology.
         Asia is the world’s teacher in self-mastery. —
         Europe is the world’s teacher in mastering nature.
         In Asia the focus of the social question was overpopulation — in Europe it was the climate.
         Above all, Asia had to try to enable a peaceful coexistence between a majority of people: it could only do this by educating people to be selfless and self-controlled, through ethics.
         Above all, Europe had to try to avert the horrors of hunger and cold, which constantly threatened its inhabitants: it could only do this by work and invention, through technology. —
         There are two fundamental values in life: harmony and energy; all other values can be traced back to them.
         Asia's greatness and beauty is based on harmony.
[75]
         Europe's greatness and beauty is based on energy;
         Asia lives in space: its spirit is contemplative, withdrawn, calm and closed; it is feminine, plant-like, static, Apollonian, classic, idyllic. —
         Europe lives in time: its spirit is active, outward-looking, turbulent and purposeful; it is masculine, animalistic, dynamic, Dionysian, romantic, heroic.
         Asia's symbol is the all-embracing sea, the circle. —
         Europe's symbol is the forward-striving stream, the straight line.
         Here the deepest meaning of the cosmic symbols Alpha and Omega is revealed. In sign language, it conveys

 

 

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to us that mystical, always recurring polarity of power and form, of time and space, of man and cosmos, which is hidden behind the soul of Europe and Asia:
         The great Omega, the circle whose wide gate is open to the cosmos — is a symbol of the divine harmony of Asia;
         The great Alpha, an upward acute angle piercing the Omega — is a symbol of human activity and European determination which breaks with the eternal calm of Asia. A and Ω are also unmistakable symbols of the male and female sex in the Freudian sense: the union of these signs signifies procreation and life and reveals the eternal dualism of the world. The same symbolism likely underlies the digits 1 and 0: the finite one as a protest against the infinite zero — yes versus no. — [76]

 

2. CULTURE AND CLIMATE

         The soul of Asia and Europe emerged from the Asian and European climate.
         Asia's cultural centres are found in warm regions — Europe's cultural centres are found in cold regions. This resulted in their contrasting attitude to nature: while the southerner is allowed to feel like a child and a friend of his generously giving nature — the northerner is forced in hard struggle to wrest everything he needs to live from a miserly soil; he is faced with a choice: to become either a master or slave of nature — but in every case its opponent.
         In the south, the confrontation between man and nature was peaceful and harmonious — in the north it was warlike and heroic.
         Europe's dynamism can be explained by the fact that it is the northern cultural centre of the Earth. For tens of thousands of years, the cold and the barrenness of the soil

 

 

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have presented Europeans with a choice: “Work or die!” Those who didn't want to or couldn't work had to starve or freeze to death. Through many generations, the northern winter systematically exterminated the weak, passive, sluggish, and peaceful Europeans, and thus bred a tough, active, heroic breed of people.
         Since prehistoric times, white man, longer still the blond man, has been struggling with winter, which has bleached him but at the same time steeled him. It is thanks to this primeval hardening that Europeans have preserved their health and energy through all their cultural sins to this day.[77]
         The white man is a son of winter, the one who is far from the sun: in order to overcome the cold, he had to tighten his muscles and mind to maximum performance and create new suns himself; he had to overcome, transform, and subdue the eternally hostile wilderness.
         Under this compulsion to choose between action and death, the strongest, most heroic type of every culture arose on the northern edge: in Europe the Germanic man (the Norman/Nordmann⁸⁹), in Asia the Japanese man, and in America the Aztec man. —
         The heat forces man to limit his activity to a minimum — the cold forces him to increase his activity to a maximum.
         The active, heroic man of the north has always defeated and conquered the passive, harmonious south: in return, the more cultivated south assimilated and civilised the barbaric northern man — until he himself was finally conquered, barbarised and regenerated by a new north.

 

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89	T/n: [Nor[d]mann] Nordmann is a demonym for the Norwegians but here is used to refer to the various Scandinavian tribes. Together with the Norman tribes, they made up the ancient Germanic peoples.

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         Most military conquests in history originate from northern peoples and are directed towards the south — most spiritual and religious disturbances originate from southern peoples and are directed towards the north.
         Europe has been conquered religiously by Jews — militarily by Germanic peoples: in Asia the religions of India and Arabia were victorious — while Japan is the supreme political power.
         The active peoples of warmer zones (Arabs, Turks, Tartars, Mongols) come from deserts or steppes: here, instead of the northern winter, the aridity of the soil was their disciplinarian: but here, too, the heroic man [78] inevitably triumphed over the idyllic man, the active man over the passive man, and the hungry man over the satiated man. —

 

3. THE THREE RELIGIONS

         India's heat, which paralyses all activity, created its leisurely mentality;
         Europe's coldnes, which compels activity, created its active mentality;
         China's median temperature, which requires a harmonious alternation of activity and tranquillity, created its harmonious mentality. —
         These three temperatures produced three basic religious types: the contemplative type, the heroic type, and the harmonious type.
         The heroic religion and ethics of the north finds expression in the Edda and in the world-view of European and Japanese chivalry, and is resurrected in the teachings of Nietzsche. Its highest values are bravery and vigour, its ideal is battle and its hero: Siegfried.

 

 

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         The contemplative religion and ethics of the south finds its fulfilment in Buddhism. Its highest values are renunciation and gentleness, its ideal is peace and its saint: Buddha.
         The harmonious religion and ethics of the middle developed in the west in Hellas⁹⁰, in the east in China. It demands neither the asceticism of battle nor of renunciation. It is optimistic and worldly ⁹¹; its ideal is the noble man: the wise Confucius, the artist [79] Apollon. The Greek ideal of the Apollonian man stands midway between the Germanic hero Siegfried and the Indian saint Buddha. —
         All religious and ethical patterns are combinations of these three basic types. Every religion that spreads has to adapt to these climatic demands. Thus Oriental Christianity⁹² comes closer to the southern religion, Catholicism the middle religion, and Protestantism the northern religion. The same is true of Buddhism in Ceylon⁹³, China, and Japan. —
         Christianity has imparted the Asian values of the south to our culture;
         The Renaissance gave us the ancient values of the middle;
         Knighthood imparted to us the Germanic values of the north. —

 

4. HARMONY AND POWER

         Europe's cultural values are mixed — its spirit predominantly Nordic.

 

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90	T/n: Greek name for Greece, here referring to ancient Greece.
91	T/n: [diesseitig] worldly, secular
92	T/n: Also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity .
93	T/n: Sri Lanka.

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         The Oriental is superior to the European in goodness and wisdom — he is inferior to him in drive and cleverness.
         European honour is a heroic value — oriental dignity is a harmonious value.
         Continuous struggle hardens the heart, constant peace softens it. That is why the Oriental is milder and gentler than the European. In addition, the social past of the Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Jews is many times older than that of the Germans, who lived in anarchy 2000 years ago: thus the Asians were able to develop their social values better and longer than the Europeans. [80]
         The goodness of the heart corresponds to the wisdom of the spirit. Wisdom is based on harmony — cleverness on sharpness of mind.
         Wisdom is also a fruit of the more mature south, and is rare in the north. Even the philosophers of Europe are seldom wise, its ethicists seldom kind. Ancient culture was still richer in wise men whose overall personality bore the stamp of enlightened spirituality — while this type has almost died out in modern Europe (among Christians). That, too, has to do with the cultural youth of the Germans and with the passion of the European spirit. In addition, during the Christian Middle Ages, the monasteries, in the midst of a warlike and active world, were the only asylums for contemplative wisdom: the wise men withdrew there and died out as victims of the vow of chastity.
         The European images of Christ look serious and sad — while the Buddha statues smile. The thinkers of Europe are deeply serious — while the sages of Asia smile: for they live in harmony with themselves, society and nature, not in conflict; they begin each reform on themselves rather than on others, and thus work more by example than by books. Beyond thinking, they rediscover their childlikeness — while Europe's thinkers grow old early.

 

 

 

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         And yet, in its own way, Europe is just as big as Asia: but its greatness lies neither in goodness nor in wisdom — but in drive⁹⁴ and ingenuity⁹⁵.
         Europe is the hero of the Earth; on every battle front of mankind it stands at the apex of peoples: the European [81] has achieved more in hunting, war, and technology, than any historical civilised people before or concurrent to him. He has wiped out almost all dangerous animals in his lands; he has conquered and subjugated almost all dark- coloured peoples, and finally, through invention and work, through science and technology, he has gained such power over nature as was never and nowhere before thought possible.
         Asia's world mission is the salvation of mankind through ethics — Europe's world mission is the liberation of mankind through technology.
         Europe's symbol is neither the wise man, nor the saint, nor the martyr — but the hero, the fighter, victor and liberator. — [82]

 

 

 

 

 

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94	T/n: [Tatkraft] The power or ability to act.
95	T/n: [Erfindergeist] Literally “spirit of an inventor.” Erfinder derives from the verberfinden meaning to invent, and is related to the verb finden meaning to find or to discover.

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IV. EUROPE'S GLOBAL TECHNOLOGICAL MISSION

 

1. THE EUROPEAN SPIRIT

         The great cultural mission of Europe begins with modern times.
         The essence of Europe is the will to change and improve the world through action. Europe is consciously striving from the present to the future; it is in a state of constant emancipation, reformation, revolution; it is bent on innovation, sceptical, irreverent, and wrestles with its habits and traditions.
         In Jewish mythology, the European spirit corresponds to Lucifer — in Greek mythology it corresponds to Prometheus: the bringer of light, who carries the divine spark to Earth, who rebels against the heavenly Asiatic harmony, against the divine world order, the prince of this earth, the father of struggle, of technology, of enlightenment and of progress, the guide of man in his struggle against nature.
         The spirit of Europe has broken political despotism and the tyranny of the forces of nature. The European does not surrender to his fate, but seeks to master it through action and spirit: as an activist and as a rationalist. [83]

 

2. HELLAS AS PRE-EUROPE

         Hellas was the forerunner of Europe; it first perceived the essential difference between itself and Asia and discovered its activist-rationalist soul. Its Olympus was not a paradise of peace — but a place of struggle; its supreme god was an irreverent rebel. Hellas overthrew its

 

 

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         kings and gods — and put in their place the bourgeois state and the religion of man.
         This European period of Greece began with the overthrow of the tyrants and ended with the Asiatic despotism of Alexander and the Diadochi; it found a brief sequel in republican Rome only to finally lose itself to the Roman Empire.
         Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors were heirs to the Asian idea of great royalty. The Roman Empire did not differ in any essential respect from the oriental despotisms of China, Mesopotamia, India and Persia. —
         In the Middle Ages Europe was a spiritual and cultural province of Asia. It was dominated by the Asiatic religion of Christ. Its religious culture, its mystical mood⁹⁶, its monarchical form of government and the dualism of popes and emperors, monks and knights were Asian.
         It was only with the emancipation of Europe from Christianity — which began with the Renaissance and Reformation, continued in the Enlightenment and culminated in Nietzsche — that Europe regained consciousness and spiritually separated from Asia. — [84]
         European culture is the culture of modern times.—

 

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96

T/n: [Grundstimmung] general or basic mood. A term used by Heidegger to refer to the foundational way in which someone relates to the world. It is a mode of self-discovery. Basic moods may include things like astonishment or fear, which affect the way one navigates the world. Cultures, therefore, have their own basic moods that affect the people within that culture and affect the way the culture develops.

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3. THE TECHNOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EUROPE

         The world of Philip II⁹⁷ does not represent a cultural improvement in any essential respect compared to the world of Hammurabi⁹⁸: neither in art, nor in science, nor in politics, nor in the judiciary, nor in administration.
         In the three and a half centuries that lie between us and Philip, the world has changed more radically than in the previous three and a half millennia.
         It was technology that woke Europe from its deep Asian slumber of the Middle Ages. Europe conquered chivalry and feudalism by inventing the firearm — it conquered the papacy and superstition by inventing the printing press; with the compass and ship technology Europe opened up foreign parts of the world to the Europeans, which it then conquered with the help of gunpowder.
         The progress of modern sciences cannot be separated from the development of technology: without a telescope there would be no modern astronomy, without a microscope there would be no bacteriology.
         Modern art is also closely related to technology: modern instrumental music, modern architecture, and modern theatre are partly based on technology. The effect of photography on portrait painting will also grow stronger: for, since photography is unsurpassable in the reproduction of the forms of the face, it will force painting to withdraw into its own field and capture the essence, the soul of man. — Cinematography could have an effect on the theatre like photography has on painting.

 

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97	Philip II of Spain (21 May 1527 – 13 September 1598).
98	T/n: Hammurabi (c. 1810 – c. 1750 BC), a king of the Old

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         Modern strategy has changed radically under the influence of technology. From a psychological science standpoint, the art of war has predominantly become a technological one. Today's methods of war differ more significantly from the medieval methods of war than they do from the way primitive peoples fought.
         The whole of present-day politics is characterised by technological development: Democracy, nationalism and popular education can be traced back to the invention of the printing press: Industrialism and colonial imperialism, capitalism and socialism are consequences of technological progress and the changes in the global economy it has brought about. Just as agriculture creates a patriarchal mentality, and handicraft creates an individualistic mentality — thus collective, organised industrial work creates the socialist mentality: the technological organisation of work is reflected in the socialist organisation of the workers.
         Finally, technological progress has changed the European himself: he has become more hasty, nervous, inconstant, alert, quick-witted, rationalistic, active, practical and clever.
         Strip away from our culture all of these technological after-effects and what remains is in no respect superior to ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian culture — in some respects it is even inferior. [86]
         Europe owes its lead over all other cultures to technology. Only via technology did it become the lord and leader of the world.
         Europe is a function of technology.
         America is the greatest enhancement of Europe. —

 

 

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4. GLOBAL TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSITION

         The technological age of Europe is a global historical event, the importance of which can be compared with the discovery of fire in primeval human times. The history of human culture began with the discovery of fire, and the incarnation of the beast-man began. All subsequent intellectual and material advances of mankind build on this discovery of the primeval European Prometheus.
         Technology marks a similar turning point in human history like fire. In tens of thousands of years history will be divided into a pre-technological and a post- technological epoch. The European — who will by then have long been extinct — will be praised like a saviour by the future mankind as the father of the global technological transition.
         The possible effects of the technological age, at the beginning of which we are standing, cannot be overlooked. This age creates the material basis for all coming cultures, which will differ significantly from all previous ones due to their changed basis.
         All previous cultures, from the ancient Egyptian and Chinese cultures to those of the Middle Ages, were so similar in their course and development because [87] they were based on the same technological prerequisites. From the early days of Egypt to the end of the Middle Ages there was no significant advance in technology.
         The culture that will emerge from the technological age will stand as high above the ancient and medieval cultures as they did above the cultures of the Stone Age. —

 

 

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5. EUROPE AS CULTURAL TANGENT

         Europe is not a cultural cycle⁹⁹ — it is acultural tangent: the tangent to the great cycle of oriental cultures that arose, flourished and passed away, only to be resurrected elsewhere rejuvenated.
         Europe has burst this cultural cycle and in its path taken a direction that leads towards unknown forms of life.
         Everything had already existed within the oriental cultures of the East and the West, but the technological culture of Europe is something unprecedented, something truly new.
         Europe is a transition between the self-contained complex of all previous historical cultures and the cultural forms of the future.
         An age comparable to that of Europe in importance and dynamics, traces of which we have lost, must have preceded the ancient Babylonian, ancient Chinese and ancient Egyptian cultures. This prehistoric pre-Europe created the [88] foundation for all cultures of the last millennia; like modern Europe, it was a cultural tangent that had detached itself from the cycle of prehistoric pre- cultures.
         The course of great world history is made up of Asian cultural cycles and European cultural tangents. Without these tangents (which are only European in a spiritual sense, not in a geographical sense) there would only be unfolding, not development. After a long period of maturity, an ingenious people emerges again and again from the darkness of time, breaks through the natural course of culture and raises humanity to a higher level.
         Inventions, not poetry or religion, designate these stages of cultural development: the invention of bronze, iron, and electricity. These inventions form the eternal

 

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99	[Kulturkreis] Cultural environment/group, cultural cycle/circle.

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         legacy of an age for all cultures to come. Nothing will remain of antiquity — while modern times enrich culture via the mastery of electricity and other natural forces: these inventions will outlive Faust, the Divine Comedy and the Iliad.
         The cultural cycle of iron ended with the Middle Ages — the cultural cycle of the machine begins with modern times: here begins not a new culture, but a new age.
         The creator of this technological age is the ingenious Promethean people of the Germanised Europeans. Modern culture is based on their ingenuity as well as on the ethics of the Jews, the art of the Hellenes, and the politics of the Romans. — [89]

 

6. LEONARDO AND BACON

         At the beginning of the technological age, two great Europeans foresaw the consciousness of Europe:
         Leonardo da Vinci¹⁰⁰ and Bacon of Verulam¹⁰¹.
         Leonardo devoted himself to technological tasks with the same passion as artistic ones. His favourite problem was human flight, the solution of which our time has witnessed in amazement.
         In India there are said to be Yogis who, through ethics and asceticism, can defy gravity and levitate in the air; in Europe the inventiveness of engineers and its materialisation reigned supreme: the aeroplane conquered gravity by technological means. Levitation and flight

 

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100	T/n: Leonardo da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), famed Italian painter and polymath.
101	T/n: Francis Bacon (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam.

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         technology symbolically represent the Asian and European path to human power and freedom. —
         Bacon was the creator of the daring technological utopia “Nova Atlantis.” Its technological character distinguishes it essentially from all previous utopias; from Plato to More¹⁰².
         The transition from medieval-Asian thinking to modern-European thinking is expressed in the contrast between More's ethical-political “Utopia” and Bacon's technological-scientific “Nova Atlantis.” More still sees the lever for improving the world in socio-ethical reforms — Bacon sees it in technological inventions.
         More was still a Christian — Bacon was already a European. — [90]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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102	T/n: Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), an English philosopher, lawyer and Catholic Saint.

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V. HUNTING — WAR — WORK

1. POWER AND FREEDOM

         The contemplative man lives in peace with his environment — the active man in a constant state of war. In order to survive, assert and develop, he must constantly ward off, destroy, and enslave foreign and hostile forces.
         The struggle for life is a struggle for freedom and power. Victory means asserting one’s will. Therefore only the victor is free, only the victor is powerful. No boundary can be drawn between freedom and power: the full enjoyment of one's own freedom violates the interests of others: power is the only safeguard of uninhibited freedom.
         Humanity's struggle for freedom coincides with its struggle for power. In the course of this it has captured and conquered the globe: the animal kingdom through hunting and animal husbandry — the plant kingdom through agriculture — the mineral kingdom through mining — the forces of nature through technology. From an inconspicuous, weak animal, man has risen to become the lord of Earth. — [91]

 

2. HUNTING
         

The first phase of human struggle was the age of hunting.
         In struggles lasting hundreds of thousands of years, man has won dominion over the animal world. This victorious struggle of relatively weak man against all extinct and surviving animal species, large and fierce, is comparable in its magnificence to the conquest of the ancient world by the small Latin village of Rome.

 

 

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         Man conquered all the horns and teeth, paws and claws of his more physically armed rivals solely by the weapon of his superior mind, which he has steadily sharpened in the course of this struggle.
         The goals of human struggle against bestial foes were defensive and offensive: protection and enslavement.
         At first man contented himself with rendering hostile animals harmless by repelling them and destroying them; later he began to tame them and put them to work. He turned wolves into dogs, buffaloes into cattle, wild elephants, camels, reindeer, donkeys, horses, llamas, goats, sheep and cats into tame ones. Thus, from among the band of ancient rivals, he subjugated an army of animal slaves, an arsenal of living machines that laboured and fought in his service, increasing his freedom and his power. —

 

3. WAR

         In order to assert and increase his hard-earned power, man began to fight his fellow man [92] with the same methods as he used against the animal world. The age of hunting turned into an age of war. Man wrestled with man over the distribution of the earth that had been conquered by the animal world. The stronger fought off the weaker, and annihilated or enslaved him: war was a special form of hunting, slavery a special form of animal husbandry. In the struggle for power and freedom, the stronger, bolder, and cleverer man triumphed over the weaker, more cowardly, more stupid. War also sharpened the human spirit, and steeled human strength. —

 

 

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4. WORK

         In the long run, neither hunting nor war alone could nourish man: he had to change fronts again and take up the fight against lifeless nature. The age of work began. Wars and hunting adventures still brought fame and sensations — but the focus of life shifted to work, because it was the only thing that brought him the sustenance he needed to survive.
         Work was a special form of war — technology a special form of slavery: instead of people, the forces of nature were defeated and enslaved.
         Man fought hunger through work: he subdued the soil and the crops and reaped the produce. Man fought the winter cold through work: he built houses, wove cloth, felled wood. He protected himself from the hostile forces of nature by working. — [93]

 

5. WAR AS ANACHRONISM

         Hunting, war, and work merged into one another in so many ways that it is impossible to separate them chronologically. Formerly the age of hunting ran parallel to that of war for thousands of years — as today the age of war runs parallel to that of work; but the centre of the battlefront has shifted and is constantly shifting. While originally hunting was the focus of human activity, it was subsequently replaced by war and finally by work.
         War, which was once essential and necessary for cultural progress, has lost this importance and has become a dangerous cultural pest. Today it is not wars that mark the stages of progress — but inventions.
         Mankind's decisive battles for freedom and power are now taking place on the front lines of work.

 

 

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         In a time when the World War will only interest historians, our turn of the century will stand gloriously as the birth of human flight.
         Just as in the age of war, hunting was preserved as an anachronism — thus in the age of work, war is preserved as an anachronism. But in this epoch every war is a civil war, because it is directed against comrades-in- arms and confuses the common labour front.
         In the age of work the glorification of war is just as untimely as the glorification of the hunt in the age of war. Originally the [94] hero was the dragon slayer and lion slayer; then it was the general; ultimately, it is the inventor.
         Lavoisier¹⁰³ did more for human development than Robespierre and Bonaparte combined.
         Just as the hunter ruled in the age of hunting, in the age of war the warrior ruled — so in the age of work the worker will rule. —

 

6. TECHNOLOGY

         The age of work disintegrates into that of agriculture and technology.
         As a farmer, man is predominantly defensive towards nature — as a technician, he is offensive.
         The methods of labour correspond to those of war and hunting: protection and enslavement. The epoch of agriculture is limited to fending off hunger and cold — while technology moves to enslave the once hostile forces of nature. Today man controls steam and electricity and a slave army of machines. He not only defends himself with them against hunger and cold, natural disasters and diseases

 

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103	T/n: Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794), a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the chemical revolution.

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         — he even undertakes to challenge the barriers of space, time and gravity. His fight for freedom from the forces of nature turns into a struggle for power over the forces of nature. —
         Technology is the practical application of science for the purposes of mastering nature; technology in the broader sense also includes chemistry as atomic technology and medicine as organic technology.
         Technology spiritualises work: [95] it reduces the workload and increases the yield of work.
         Technology is based on a heroic, activist attitude to nature; it does not want to submit to the will of the forces of nature, but to dominate it. The will to power¹⁰⁴ is the motivating force of technological progress. In the forces of nature, the technician sees tyrants to be overthrown, adversaries to be defeated, beasts to be tamed. —
         Technology is a child of the European spirit. — [96]

 

 

 

 

 

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104	T/n: [Wille zur Macht] Here Coudenhove-Kalergi uses the Nietzschean phrase Wille zur Macht meaning “Will to Power,” unlike previously where he used Machtwillen. It could be that he now wishes to invoke the sense of the phrase as used by Nietzsche.

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VI. THE MILITARY CAMPAIGN OF TECHNOLOGY

1. THE MISERY OF EUROPE’S MASSES

         Due to the increase in population, the circumstances of the European become more and more desperate; despite all the advances in technology to date, he still finds himself in a very pitiful condition. He pushed back the ghosts of hunger and freezing — but at the price of his freedom and leisure.
         For the European, terrible forced labour begins at seven years old when he is forced to go to school and usually only ends with his death. His childhood is poisoned by the preparation for the struggle for life, which in the following decades devours his entire time and personality, his vitality and zest for life. Death is the penalty for leisure; the average penniless European faces a choice: either work to the point of exhaustion or starve with his children. The pangs of hunger drive him to keep working despite exhaustion, loathing and bitterness.
         The peoples of Europe have made two political attempts to improve this pitiful state of affairs: colonial politics and socialism. — [97]

2. COLONIAL POLITICS

         The first form of colonial politics is the conquest and settlement of sparsely populated continents by nations suffering from overpopulation. Emigration is actually capable of saving countries from overpopulation and of securing a free and humane existence for people who find the European crowds unbearable. Emigration still offers

 

 

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         millions of people a way out of the European hell and should therefore be encouraged in every way. —
         The second form of colonial politics is based on the exploitation of warmer areas and coloured peoples. People of the southern races are startled from their golden leisure by European cannons and rifles and forced to work in the service of Europe. The poorer but stronger northern man systematically plunders the richer but weaker southern man; he robs him of wealth, freedom and leisure and uses this robbery to increase his own wealth, freedom and leisure.
         Some European peoples owe part of their prosperity to this means of plunder, exploitation, and slavery, which enables them to improve the lot of their native workers. —
         In the long run this means must fail: for its inevitable consequence is a monstrous slave uprising, which will sweep the Europeans out of the coloured colonies and thereby overthrow Europe's tropical cultural base. — [98]
         Emigration, too, is only a temporary expedient: today some colonies are as densely populated as their mother countries and nourish the same misery. The time must come when there will be no more areas on earth which are devoid of people.
         Until then, new means must be found to resist the downfall of the European. —

 

 

 

 

 

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3. SOCIAL POLITICS

         Socialism undertakes the second attempt to alleviate the misery of the European masses.
         Socialism wants to banish the European hell by evenly distributing the workload and the income from work.
         There is no doubt that the lot of the European masses could be significantly improved through sensible reforms. But if social progress is not supported by a boom in technology, it can only alleviate social misery, not eliminate it.
         For the workload required to feed and warm the far too many Europeans is great; the output that the rough and insufficiently fertile Europe produces, even with the most intensive use, is relatively small, so that even with the fairest distribution, every European would have a lot of work and very little wages. With today's technology, life in a socialist Europe would disintegrate into a dual function: work to eat and eat to work. The ideal of equality would be achieved, but Europe would be further than ever from freedom, leisure and culture. [99] Europe is too barbaric on the one hand and too poor on the other to liberate the people. The fortunes of the few rich people, if distributed amongst everyone, would disappear without a trace: poverty would not be abolished but rather would be generalised.
         Socialism alone is not capable of leading Europe out of its bondage and misery to freedom and prosperity. Neither ballots nor stocks could compensate the coalminer for having to spend his life in caves and shafts. Most of the slaves of oriental despots are freer than this free labourer of a socialised operation.
         Socialism misjudges the European problem when it sees the fundamental evil of the European economy in

 

 

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unfair distribution instead of insufficient production. The root of European misery lies in the necessity of forced labour — not in the injustice of its distribution. Socialism errs when it sees in capitalism the ultimate cause of the terrible forced labour under which Europe is groaning; because in truth only a very small part of European productivity goes to the capitalists and their luxury: the vast majority of this work serves to transform an infertile part of the world into a fertile one, a cold part of the world into a warm one, and to maintain a number of people there which it could not feed by natural means.
         The winter and the overpopulation of Europe are harsher and crueller tyrants than all capitalists: but it is not the politicians who lead the European [100] revolution against these merciless despots — but the inventors. —

 

4. GLOBAL TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION

         Colonial imperialism as well as socialism are palliatives, not cures for the European disease; it can alleviate distress, not banish it; postpone catastrophe, not prevent it. Europe will have to choose between decimating its population and committing suicide — or to recover through generous increases in production and perfection of technology. Because only this path can lead the Europeans to prosperity, leisure and culture, while the social and colonial escape routes ultimately lead to dead ends.
         Europe must be aware that technological progress is a war of liberation of the highest order against the toughest, cruellest and most merciless tyrant: northern nature.
         It depends on the outcome of this global technological revolution whether mankind will use the opportunity that presents itself once in aeons: to become

 

 

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the master of nature, or to let this opportunity pass unused, perhaps forever. —
         About a hundred years ago, Europe opened the offence against the superior nature, against which, up to that time, it had only defended itself. Europe was no longer content to live at the mercy of the forces of nature: rather, it began to enslave its enemies. [101]
         Technology has begun to supplement the domestic slave army and replace the manual labour slave army with machines operated by the forces of nature. —

 

5. THE ARMY OF TECHNOLOGY

         Europe (and with it America) mobilised the globe for this biggest and most momentous of all wars.
         The front troops of the world-encompassing working army, which fights against the arbitrariness of the forces of nature, are the industrial workers; their officers are engineers, entrepreneurs, directors, their general staff are inventors, their train is peasants and agricultural labourers, their artillery are machines, their trenches are mines, their forts are factories.
         With this army, whose reserves he draws from all parts of the world, the white man hopes to break the tyranny of nature, to subjugate its forces to the human spirit and thus finally liberate man. —

 

6. THE ELECTRIC TRIUMPH

         The technological army has won its first decisive victory over one of the oldest adversaries of the human race: lightning.

 

 

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         Since the dawn of time, the electric spark has threatened, wounded and killed people in the form of lightning; burned their houses and killed their cattle. Man was at the mercy of this insidious enemy, who never helped him in any way, for hundreds of thousands of years: until Benjamin Franklin broke its reign of terror over man by inventing [102] the lightning conductor.
         The electric spark was thus averted as the scourge of mankind. But the white man was not satisfied with this defensive victory: he went on the offensive and managed, in a century, to turn this enemy into a slave, this most dangerous predator into his most useful pet.
         Today the electric spark that once terrified our forefathers illuminates our rooms, brews our tea, irons our laundry, heats our rooms, rings our bells, carries our letters (telegrams), pulls trains and carriages, and drives machines — it has, in a word, become our messenger, postman, porter, cook, stoker, illuminator, labourer, porter and even our executioner. What the electric spark accomplishes in Europe and America today in the service of man could not even remotely be replaced by a doubling of human working hours.
         Just as this formerly hostile force of nature was not only repelled, but transformed into man's most indispensable and useful servant — so one day the waters of the sea and the glowing sun, storms and deluges will turn from enemies into slaves of man. Poisons will become medicines, deadly germs will become vaccinations. Just as man in primeval times tamed and subjugated wild animals, modern man will tame and subjugate the wild forces of nature.
         Through such victories the northern man [103] will one day conquer freedom, leisure and culture: not through depopulation or austerity, nor through war and revolution

 

 

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— but through invention and work, through mind and action. —

 

7. THE INVENTOR AS REDEEMER

         In our European epoch of history, the inventor is a greater benefactor of mankind than the saint.
         The inventor of the automobile has done more good for horses and spared them more suffering than any animal welfare organisation in the world.
         The small car is at the point of releasing thousands of East Asian coolies from their draft animal existence.
         The inventors of the diphtheria and smallpox serums have saved more children's lives than all the nurseries.
         The galley slaves owe their liberation to modern ship technology, while modern technology, with the introduction of petroleum fuel, is beginning to release ship's stokers from their hellish job.
         The inventor who creates a practical substitute for coal, through nuclear reactions for example, will have achieved more for mankind than the most successful social reformer: because he will save the millions of coal workers from their inhumane existence and eliminate a large part of the human workload — while today no communist dictator could avoid condemning people to that underground mine life.
         The chemist who succeeds in making wood edible [104] would liberate mankind from the yoke of hunger, which oppresses man longer and more cruelly than any human tyranny.
         Neither ethics, nor art, nor religion, nor politics will erase the paradisical curse — rather technology will. It is reserved for organic technology, medicine, to banish the

 

 

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hereditary curse of woman: “In pain you shall bring forth children.” It is reserved for inorganic technology to banish the hereditary curse of man: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread.” —
         In many respects our era ranks with the beginning of the Roman Empire. At that time the world hoped for salvation through the peaceful kingdom of the Pax Romana. The hoped-for change of the world came — but from a completely different side: not from outside — but from within; not through politics — but through religion; not through Caesar Augustus — but through Jesus Christ.
         We too are facing a global turning point; humanity today awaits the dawn of the golden age of the socialist era. The hoped-for global change will, perhaps, come: not through politics — but through technology: not through a revolutionary — but through an inventor: not through Lenin — but through a man who perhaps is already living somewhere nameless and who will one day succeed in rescuing mankind from hunger, frost and forced labour by developing new, unexpected sources of energy. — [105]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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VII. FINAL OBJECTIVE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

1. CULTURE AND SLAVERY

         Every previous culture was founded on slavery: antiquity was founded on slaves, the Middle Ages were founded on serfs, and modern times on proletarians. —
         The importance of the slaves is based on the fact that through their bondage and overwork they make room for the freedom and leisure of a master caste, which is a prerequisite for any cultural formation. For it is not possible for the same people to do the tremendous physical work required to feed, clothe and house their generation — and at the same time do the tremendous mental work required to create and maintain a culture.
         There is a division of labour everywhere: in order for the brain to think, the intestines must digest; without their roots digging in the earth, no plant can bloom to the sky. Bearers of every culture are developed people. Development is impossible without an atmosphere of freedom and leisure: even rock can only crystallise in a liquid, free state; where it is enclosed, unfree, it must remain amorphous.
         The culture-forming freedom and leisure [106] of the few could only be created through the servitude and overworking of many. In northern and overcrowded regions the divine existence of thousands¹⁰⁵ was always and everywhere built upon an animal existence of hundreds of thousands.
         The modern age with its Christian, social ideas faced the alternative: either renounce culture — or maintain
         slavery. Aesthetic concerns spoke against the first

 

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105	T/n: Cf. Footnote 84.

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         eventuality, and ethical concerns against the second: the first went against taste, the second against feeling.
         Western Europe opted for the second solution: in order to preserve the remainder of its bourgeois culture, it retained slavery disguised in the form of the industrial proletariat — while Russia is preparing to resort to the first solution: it liberates its proletarians, but sacrifices its entire culture to this slave emancipation.
         Both solutions are unbearable in their consequence. The human spirit must look for a way out of this dilemma: it will find it in technology. Technology alone can break slavery and save culture at the same time.

 

2. THE MACHINE

         The ultimate goal of technology is: replacement of slave labour by machine labour; the elevation of humanity as a whole to a master caste in whose service an army of natural forces work in machine form. [107]
         We are on the way to this goal: in the past almost all technological energies had to be generated by human or animal muscles — today it is often replaced by steam power, electricity and motor power. More and more people are taking on the role of a regulator of energies — instead of that of a producer. Yesterday the worker pulled culture forward as a coolie — tomorrow he will be its chauffeur, observing, thinking and directing instead of running and sweating.
         The machine is man's liberation from the yoke of slave labour. Thanks to it, one brain can do more work and create more value than millions of poor people. The machine is materialised human spirit, frozen mathematics, the grateful creature of man, begotten of the intellectual

 

 

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power of the inventor, born of the muscular power of the worker.
         The machine has a twofold mission: to increase production and to reduce and lighten work.
         By increasing production, the machine will break poverty; by reducing work, it will abolish slavery.
         Today the worker is only allowed to be human to a very small extent — because he must be a machine for the most part: in the future the machine will take over the machine, mechanical part of work and leave the human, organic part to man. In this way, the machine opens up the prospect of intellectualisation and individualisation of human work: its free and creative components will grow in comparison to the [108] automatic and mechanical components — the spiritual components will grow in comparison to the material components. Only then will work cease to depersonalise, mechanise, and degrade people; only then will work become similar to play, sport and free creative activity. It will not be, as it is today, a hostage that suppresses everything human — but an aid against boredom, a distraction and a physical or mental exercise for the development of all abilities. This work, which man will do as the brain of his machine and which is based on domination, will stimulate instead of blunting, elevate instead of depress. —

 

3. DISMANTLING THE CITY

         In addition to these two tasks: the alleviation of poverty by increasing production and the reduction of slavery by reducing and individualising work — the machine has a third cultural mission: the dissolution of the modern city and the return of man to nature. —

 

 

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         The origin of the modern city falls into a time when the horse was the fastest means of transport and there were no telephones. At that time it was necessary for people to live in close proximity to their places of work and consequently to be crammed into a small space.

         Technology has changed these conditions: today the commuter train, car, bicycle and telephone allow the worker to live many kilometres away from his office. There is no longer any need [109] to build and accumulate tenements. In the future people will have the opportunity to live next to each other instead of on top of each other, to breathe healthy air in gardens and to lead a healthy, clean, humane life in bright, spacious rooms. Electric and gas stoves (without the trouble of heating and procuring fuel) will protect against the winter chill, electric lamps will protect against the long winter nights. The human spirit will triumph over the winter and make the northern zone as liveable as the temperate zone.
         The development of the garden city¹⁰⁶ has already begun: the rich are leaving the centres of the big cities they used to live in and settling on the outskirts or in their vicinity. The newly emerging industrial cities are expanding in width instead of expanding in height. —
         On a higher level, the cities of the future will have some resemblance in layout to those of the Middle Ages: just as the low townhouses then were grouped around a huge cathedral — so the humble houses and wide gardens of the garden city will one day expand around a gigantic skyscraper (which will contain all public and private offices and will become department stores and restaurants). In

 

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106

T/n: [Gartenstadt] The garden city was part of an early 20th century urban planning movement which sought to design satellite communities which surrounded a central city and were separated by greenbelt areas. The design was intended to combine the best of both areas by avoiding communities that were overly urban or overly rural.

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factory cities, the factory will be that central cathedral of work: man's worship in these cathedrals of the future will be work for the community.
         Those who will not be professionally tied to the city will live in the countryside, sharing in the conveniences, [110] activities, and diversions of the cities through long- distance and wireless connections.
         There will come a time when people will no longer understand how it was once possible to live in the stone labyrinths that we now know as modern cities. Their ruins will then be admired, as are the dwellings of the cave dwellers today. Doctors will rack their brains as to how, from a hygienic point of view, it would be possible for people to live and thrive in such isolation from nature, freedom, light and air, in such an atmosphere of soot, smoke, dust and dirt. —
         The coming dismantling of the big city as a result of the rise in traffic engineering is a necessary prerequisite of real culture. Because in the unnatural and unhealthy atmosphere of today's big city, people are systematically poisoned and crippled in body, soul and spirit. Big city culture is a marsh plant: because it is carried by degenerate, morbid and decadent people who have willingly or unwillingly ended up in these dead ends of life. —

 

4. THE CULTURAL PARADISE OF THE MILLIONAIRE

         Technology is able to offer modern people more opportunities for happiness and development than past times offered their princes and kings.
         Admittedly, even today, at the beginning of the global technological period, the number of those who have unlimited access to the inventions [111] of modern times is small.

 

 

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         A modern dollar millionaire can surround himself with all the luxuries, comforts, art and beauty that the earth offers. He can enjoy all the fruits of nature and culture, and live where and how he pleases without having to work. By telephone and car he can be connected with the world or separated from it as he chooses; he can live as a hermit in the city, or in company at his country estate; he does not need to suffer either from the climate or from overpopulation; hunger and cold are alien to him; he is lord of the air via his aeroplanes, lord of the seas via his yacht. In many respects he is freer and more powerful than Napoleon and Caesar. They could only rule humans — but could not fly over oceans and speak across continents. He, on the other hand, is the master of nature. Forces of nature serve him as invisible, powerful servants and spirits. With their help, he can fly faster and higher than a bird, race across the earth faster than a gazelle, and live underwater like a fish. Through these abilities and powers he is even freer than the natives of the South Seas and has overcome the paradisical curse. He has returned home to a more perfect paradise by taking a detour through culture. —
         Technology has created the basis for such a perfect life. For a select few, it has turned the Nordic primeval forests and marshes into cultural paradises. In these lucky ones man can see a promise of fortune to his children's children. They are the vanguard of humanity on its way to the future [112] Eden. What is the exception today may become the rule as technology advances. Technology has burst open the gates of paradise; so far only a few have stepped through the narrow entrance: but the way is open and through diligence and intellect all of mankind can one day follow those lucky few. Man need not despair: he has never been so close to his goal as he is today.
         A few centuries ago, owning a stained glass window, a mirror, a clock, soap or sugar was a great luxury:

 

 

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technological production has spread these once rare goods among the masses. Just as everyone today wears a watch and owns a mirror — so perhaps in a century everyone could have a car, their home and their telephone. Prosperity must increase all the faster and become all the more general, the faster the production figures increase in relation to the population figures.
         It is the cultural goal of technology to one day offer all people the opportunities in life that millionaires have at their disposal today. That is why technology fights against poverty — not against wealth; against servitude — not against domination. Its goal is the generalisation of wealth, power, leisure, beauty and happiness: not proletarianisation, but aristocratisation of mankind! — [113]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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VIII. THE SPIRIT OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE

class="center-text"> 

1. HEROIC PACIFISM

         The paradise of the future cannot be surreptitiously achieved through putsches — it can only be captured through work.
         The spirit of the technological age is heroic-pacifist: heroic because technology is war with a changed object — pacifist because its struggle is not directed against people but against the forces of nature.
         Technological heroism is bloodless: the technological hero works, thinks, acts, dares and endures, not in order to seek the life of his fellow human beings, but to rescue them from the slave yoke of hunger, cold, poverty and forced labour.
         The hero of the technological age is a peaceful hero of work and intellect. —
         The work of the technological age is asceticism: self-restraint and austerity. In its current form and extent, it is not a pleasure, but a hard sacrifice that we offer to our fellow human beings and descendants. [114]
         Asceticism means practice: it is the Greek term for what is called training in English; through this translation, the term asceticism loses its pessimistic character and becomes optimistic and heroic.
         The optimistic, life-affirming asceticism of the technological age prepares a Kingdom of God on Earth: it clears the earth, turning it into paradise; for this purpose it moves mountains, rivers and lakes, wraps the globe in cables and rails, creates plantations out of primeval forests and farmland out of steppes. Like a supernatural being, man changes the surface of the Earth according to his needs. —

 

 

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2. THE SPIRIT OF INERTIA¹⁰⁷

         In the age of work and technology there is no greater vice than inertia — just as in the age of war there was no greater vice than cowardice.
         Overcoming inertia is the main task of technological heroism.
         Where life manifests itself as energy — there stands inertia in the character of Death. The fight of life against death is a fight of drive against inertia. The victory of death over life is a victory of inertia over action. The heralds of death are old age and illness: in them, inertia gains the upper hand over vitality: features, limbs, movements become slack and sagging, vitality, courage and zest for life decrease, everything leans towards the ground, becomes tired and sluggish — until man, who can no longer advance and stand upright, [115] sinks into the grave a victim of inertia: there inertia triumphs over life.
         All young blossoms strive, against gravity, towards the sun: all ripe fruits, overpowered by gravity, fall to the earth. —
         The symbol of technological victory over gravity, of the triumphant human will and human spirit over the inertia of matter is the flying man. Few things are as sublime and as beautiful as he is. Here poetry and truth, romanticism and technology, the myths of Daedalus and Wayland¹⁰⁸ marry the visions of Leonardo and Goethe; through the deeds of engineers, the boldest poet's dreams become

 

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107	T/n: [Trägheit] inertia, sloth, laziness; an indisposition to move or change.
108	T/n: [Wieland] Wieland, or Wayland in English, is a heroic blacksmith in Germanic mythology.

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reality: on wings spread by his mind and his will, man rises above space, time and gravity, above earth and sea. —

 

3. BEAUTY AND TECHNOLOGY

         Anyone who still doubted the beauty of technology must be silent in the face of flying man. But it's not just aeroplanes that give us new beauty: automobiles, motorboats, express locomotives and dynamos also have their own specific beauty when they are active and moving. But because this beauty is dynamic, it cannot, like the static beauty of the landscape, be captured by brush, pencil and chisel: that is why it does not exist for people without an original sense of beauty, who need art to guide them in the maze¹⁰⁹ of beauty. [116]
         A thing is beautiful because of the ideals of harmony and vitality that it conveys to us and the impulses that it gives us in these directions. This is how each culture creates its own symbols of power and beauty:
         The Greek increased his own harmony in statues and temples;
         The Roman increased his strength and bravery in the circus fights with his beasts of prey and gladiators;
         The medieval Christian deepened and transfigured his soul through empathy with the Passion in the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments of the Altar;
         The modern-day citizen grew from the heroes of his
         theatres and novels;
         The Japanese man learned grace, poise and resignation to one’s fate from his flowers. —
         In a time of tireless progress, the ideal of beauty had to become dynamic — and with it its symbol. The man of the technological age is a student of the machine that he

 

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109	T/n: [Irrgarten] labyrinth, maze.

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created: from it he learns unceasing activity and concentrated strength. The machine as a creation and temple of the holy human spirit symbolises the overcoming of matter through spirit, rigidity through movement, inertia through force: exhausting oneself in the service of the idea, mankind’s liberation through action. —
         Technology has given the coming age a new form of expression: the cinema. The cinema is about to replace the theatre of today, the church of yesterday, the circus and amphitheatre of yesteryear and to play a leading cultural role in the future working state. [117]
         For all its artistic shortcomings, film is already beginning to unconsciously bring a new gospel to the masses: the gospel of power and beauty. Beyond good and evil¹¹⁰, it proclaims the victory of the strongest man and the most beautiful woman — whether the man, who surpasses his rivals in strength of body, will or spirit, is an adventurer or hero, a criminal or detective, and whether the woman, who is more charming or noble, more graceful or selfless than the others, is a hetaera or a mother. In a thousand variations, the canvas preaches to men: “Be strong!” and to women: “Be beautiful!”
         To purify and expand this mass pedagogical mission that lies dormant in the cinema is one of the greatest and most responsible tasks of today's artists: for the cinema of the future will undoubtedly have a greater influence on proletarian culture than the theatre on bourgeois culture. —

 

 

 

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110	T/n: [jenseits von Gut und Böse] Jenseits von Gut und Böse (“Beyond Good and Evil”) is the title of a book written by Nietzsche and published in 1886.

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4. EMANCIPATION

         The cult of the technological age is a cult of power. There is a lack of time and leisure for the development of harmony. They will mark the golden age of culture, which will follow the iron age of work.
         A masculine-European character is characteristic of the dynamic attitude of our epoch. The masculine-European ethics of Nietzsche forms the protest of our age against the feminine-Asian morality of Christianity.
         The emancipation of the woman¹¹¹ is also a symptom [118] of the masculinisation of our world: because it does not lead the feminine human type to power —but the masculine one. While in the past the feminine woman¹¹² participated in world domination through her influence on the man — today people of both sexes wield the sceptre of economic and political power. The emancipation of women signifies the triumph of the masculine woman¹¹³ over the real, feminine woman; it does not lead to victory — but to the abolition of woman¹¹⁴. The Lady is already dying out: the woman should follow her. — Through emancipation, the female sex, which until now has been partially deprived, is mobilised for technological warfare and enlisted in the army of work. —
         The emancipation of the Asians takes place under the same conditions as the emancipation of women; it is a

 

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111	T/n: [Frau] The term “Frau” signifies woman, but also signifies a title such as “Lady” which connotes a dignified, aristocratic role.
112	T/n: [Frau] The term “Frau” signifies woman, but also signifies a title such as “Lady” which connotes a dignified, aristocratic role.
113	T/n: [des Mannweibes] Masculine woman, man-like woman, a woman who has taken on the traditional roles of men.
114	T/n: [Weibes] The term “Weib,” similarly to “Frau,” signifies “woman,” but in contrast can be considered somewhat pejorative. It also signifies “wife” and can also be translated as “feminine.” It connotes a woman’s role as a wife and home-maker.

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symptom of the Europeanisation of our world: for it does not lead the oriental type to victory — but the European type. While in the past the oriental spirit ruled Europe through Christianity — today white and coloured Europeans share world domination. The so-called awakening of the Orient signifies the triumph of the yellow European over the true Oriental; it does not lead to victory — but to the destruction of oriental culture. Where the blood of Asia triumphs in the East, the spirit of Europe triumphs with it: the masculine, hard, dynamic, goal- oriented, energetic, rationalistic spirit. In order to participate in progress, Asia must exchange its harmonious soul and culture for the vital European one. — The emancipation of the Asians means their entry into the European-American [119] army of labour and their mobilisation for technological warfare.
         After its victorious conclusion, Asia will be Asian again, and the woman will be able to be feminine again: then Asia and the woman will educate the world to a purer harmony. Until then, however, the Asians will have to wear the European uniform — and women will have to wear the masculine one. —

 

 

 

 

 

 

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5. CHRISTIANITY AND KNIGHTHOOD

         Whoever understands culture as harmony with nature must call our epoch barbaric — anyone who understands culture as conflict with nature must appreciate the specific, masculine-European form of our culture. The Christian-Oriental origins of European ethics made them misjudge the ethical value of technological progress; only from Nietzsche's perspective does the heroic, ascetic struggle of the technological age for salvation through spirit and drive appear good and noble.
         The values of the technological age are above all: drive, perseverance, bravery, austerity, self-control and solidarity. These qualities steel the soul for the bloodless, hard struggle of social work. —
         The ethics of work ties in with the chivalrous ethics of battle: both are masculine, both are northern. But these ethics will adapt to the new conditions and replace an outdated knightly honour with a new honour of work. The new concept of honour will be based on work — the new shame [120] will be based on laziness. The lazy man will be regarded and despised as a deserter from the labour front. The objects of the new hero worship will be inventors instead of generals: value creators instead of value destroyers.
         The ethics of work will adopt the spirit of pacifism and socialism from Christian morality: because only peace is productive for technological development — war is destructive, and because only the social spirit of cooperation of all creators can lead to technological victory over nature. —

 

 

 

 

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6. THE BUDDHIST DANGER

         Any passivist and anti-life propaganda directed against technological and industrial development is high treason against the labour army of Europe: for it is a call to retreat and desert during the decisive battle. —
         Tolstoyans and Neo-Buddhists are guilty of this cultural sacrilege: they call on white mankind to capitulate to nature shortly before its final victory, to clear the terrain conquered by technology and voluntarily return to the primitiveness of agriculture and animal husbandry. Tired of the struggle, they want Europe to eke out a miserable, childlike existence in its impoverished nature — instead of creating a new world victoriously through the highest exertion of mind, will and muscles.
         Anything in Europe that is still viable and able to cope with life rejects this cultural suicide: it feels the [121] uniqueness of its situation and its responsibility to future humanity. The capitulation of technology would throw the world back into the Asian cultural cycle. Shortly before its goals are achieved, the global technological revolution, which is called Europe, would collapse and one of the greatest hopes of mankind would be buried.
         The northern land of Europe, thriving on its heroic creation, must ward off the unnerving spirit of Buddhism. Japan, the more industrialised it becomes, must inwardly distance itself from Buddhism; thus Europe, the more it devotes itself inwardly to Buddhism, would have to neglect and betray its technological mission. Buddhism is a wonderful culmination of mature cultures — but a dangerous poison for nascent cultures. Its world-view is good for old age, for autumn — like Nietzsche's religion is good for youth and spring — and like Goethe's faith is good for the blossoms of summer. —

 

 

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         Buddhism would stifle technology — and with it the spirit of Europe. —
         Europe should remain true to its mission and never deny the roots of its being: heroism and rationalism, Germanic will and Hellenic intellect. For the wonder of Europe only came about through the marriage of these two elements. The blind thirst for action of the Nordic barbarians became prescient and fruitful through contact with the intellectual culture of the Mediterranean: thus warriors became thinkers, and heroes became inventors.
         Asia's mysticism threatens Europe's spiritual clarity — Asia's passivism threatens [122] its masculine energy. Only if Europe resists these temptations and dangers and reflects on its Hellenic and Germanic ideals will it be able to fight the technological battle to the end in order to one day save itself and the world. — [123]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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IX. STINNES AND KRASIN

 

1. ECONOMIC STATES

         Stinnes¹¹⁵ is the leader of the capitalist economy of Germany — Krasin¹¹⁶ the leader of the communist economy of Russia. In the following passage, they are considered exponents of capitalist and communist production, not individuals. —
         Since the collapse of the three major European
         military monarchies, there have only been economic states in our part of the world: economic problems are at the centre of domestic and foreign politics: Mercury¹¹⁷ rules the world; as an heir of Mars¹¹⁸ — as a forerunner of Apollon¹¹⁹.
         The change from a military state to an economic state is the political expression of the fact that instead of the war front, the labour front has come to the fore in history.
         Military states corresponded to the age of war — economic states correspond to the age of work.
         The communist state as well as the capitalist state are working states: no longer [124] war states — not yet civilised states. Both are characterised by production and technological progress. Both are ruled by producers, as the military states once were by militaries: the communist state

 

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115	T/n: Hugo Stinnes (12 February 1870 – 10 April 1924) was a German industrialist and politician.
116	T/n: Leonid Krasin (15 July 1870 – 24 November 1926) was a Russian Soviet politician, engineer, Bolshevik revolutionary politician and diplomat. He was an early and close associate of Vladimir Lenin.
117	T/n: Mercury is the Roman god of commerce.
118	T/n: Mars is the Roman god of war.
119	T/n: Apollon is the Greek and Roman god of light, healing, poetry and knowledge.

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is ruled by the leaders of the industrial workers — the capitalist state by the leaders of the industrialists.
         Capitalism and communism are just as closely related in nature as Catholicism and Protestantism, which for centuries considered themselves to be extreme opposites and fought bloodily with all means. Not their difference, but their kinship is the cause of the bitter hatred with which they persecute each other.
         So long as capitalists and communists hold that it is permissible and necessary to kill or starve people because they hold different economic principles — both are practically at a very low level of ethical development. Theoretically, of course, the assumptions and goals of communism are more ethical than those of capitalism because they start from more objective and just points of view.
         For technological progress, however, ethical points of view are not decisive: here the decisive question is whether the capitalist system or the communist system is more rational and more suited to carry out the technological struggle for liberation against the forces of nature. —

 

2. THE RUSSIAN FIASCO

         Success speaks for Stinnes against Krasin: the capitalist economy is flourishing while the communist [125] economy is ailing. It would be easy — but unfair — to deduce the value of the two systems from this statement. Because one must not overlook the circumstances under which communism took over and led the Russian economy:
         after a military, political and social collapse, after the loss of important industrial areas, in the struggle against the whole world, under the pressure of years of blockades,

 

 

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continuous civil war and the passive resistance of the peasants, the bourgeois and the intelligentsia; in addition there was the catastrophic crop failure. If one takes into account all these circumstances, as well as the lower organisational talent and education of the Russian people, one can only marvel that remnants of Russian industry have survived.
         To measure the failures of five-year-old communism under these aggravating circumstances by the successes of mature capitalism would be as unfair as comparing a newborn child to a grown man and then finding the child to be an idiot — while in him, perhaps, a nascent genius sleeps. —
         Even if communism were to collapse in Russia, it would be as naïve to dismiss the social revolution as it would have been foolish after the collapse of the Hussite movement to dismiss the Reformation: for within a few decades Luther appeared and led many of the Hussite ideas to victory. — [126]

 

3. CAPITALIST AND COMMUNIST PRODUCTION

         The essential advantage of the capitalist economy lies in its experience. It has mastered all methods of organisation and production, all strategic secrets in the struggle between man and nature, and has a staff of trained industrial officers at its disposal. Communism, on the other hand, sees itself forced to draw up new war plans and to try new methods of organisation and production with an inadequate general staff and officer corps. Stinnes can advance on well-worn tracks — while Krasin has to be a pathfinder in the jungle of the economic revolution. —
         Through competition, profit, and risk, capitalism uses an unsurpassable engine that keeps the economic

 

 

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apparatus in constant motion: egoism. In the capitalist state, every entrepreneur, inventor, engineer and worker sees himself compelled to harness his energy to the maximum in order to not be overrun by competition and perish. The soldiers and officers of the labour army must keep moving to avoid being crushed.
         Another advantage of capitalism, to which technology owes much, lies in the free initiative of the corporation. One of the most difficult problems of communism lies in the avoidance of the economic bureaucracy that constantly threatens it. —
         The main technological advantage of communism is that it has the possibility [127] of combining all the productive forces and natural resources of its economic area and using them rationally according to a uniform plan. In this way it saves all the energy that capitalism wastes on fighting off competition. The fundamental suitability of the plan of the communist economy, which is now attempting to rationally electrify the gigantic Russian empire according to a unified plan, technically means an essential advantage over the capitalist anarchy of production. The communist labour army, under a unified command, is fighting as one against the hostile nature — while the fragmented labour battalions of capitalism are fighting not only against their common enemy, but also partly against each other, in order to crush competitors.
         Krasin also has his army more firmly in hand than Stinnes: for the workers of Stinnes’ army are aware that part of their work serves to enrich a foreign, enemy entrepreneur — while the workers of Krasin’s army are aware that they are working for the communist state, of which they are partners and supporters. Stinnes appears to his workers as an oppressor and opponent — Krasin appears to his as a leader and ally. Therefore Krasin can

 

 

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dare to ban strikes and introduce Sunday work — while this would be impossible for Stinnes.
         Stinnes’ army is consumed by growing dissatisfaction and mutiny (strikes) — while Krasin’s army, despite its material poverty, is sustained by an ideal goal. In short: the war against the forces of nature is a people's war in Russia — in Europe and [128] America it is a dynastic war of industrial kings. —
         The labour of the communist worker is a struggle for his state and his form of government — the labour of the capitalist worker is a struggle for his life. Here the main driving force of work is egoism — there political idealism: with the current state of ethics, unfortunately, egoism is a stronger driving force than idealism and thus the combat effectiveness of the capitalist labour army is greater than that of the communist one.
         Communism has a more rational economic plan at its disposal — capitalism has a stronger labour engine.
         Capitalism will fail not because of its technological defects, but because of its ethical defects. The dissatisfaction of Stinnes’ army will not be held down by machine guns in the long run. Pure capitalism is based on the dependence and ignorance of the workers — like the militaristic slavish obedience to the dependence and ignorance of the soldiers. The more independent, self- confident and educated the working class becomes — the more impossible it will be for private individuals to let them work for their private interests. —
         The future belongs to Krasin — the Russian experiment decides the economy of the present. That is why it is in the best interests of the whole world not only not to disturb this experiment, but to promote it to the best of our ability: because only then would its outcome provide an answer to the question of whether communism is capable

 

 

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of [129] reforming today's economy — or whether the necessary evil of capitalism is preferable to it. —

 

4. MERCENARIES AND SOLDIERS OF LABOUR

         In the age of war, the mercenary army corresponded to capitalism — the people's army to communism.
         In the days of mercenaries, every rich private individual could hire and equip a military army, which he paid a salary and commanded — just as every rich private individual today can hire and equip a working army, which he pays a salary and commands.
         Three centuries ago, Wallenstein¹²⁰ played an analogous role in Germany, as Stinnes does today: with the help of his fortune, which he had increased in the Bohemian War, and the army that he recruited and supported with the same fortune, Wallenstein became the most powerful personality of the German Reich — just as Stinnes does today through his fortune, which he had increased in the World War, as well as the press and labour army, which he recruits and supports with the same fortune, has become the most powerful man in the German Republic. —
         In the capitalist state, the worker is a mercenary, the entrepreneur is a condottiere of work — in the communist state, the worker is a soldier of a militia who is subject to contrived generals. Just as the condottieri conquered principalities and founded dynasties with the blood of their mercenaries at that time — so the modern condottieri [130] amass riches and positions of power, and found plutocratic dynasties with the sweat of their workers.

 

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120	T/n: Albrecht von Wallenstein (24 September 1583 – 25 February 1634) was a Bohemian military leader and statesman who fought on the Catholic side during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648).

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Like those mercenary leaders before — today industrial kings negotiate as equals with governments and states: they steer politics with their money, as mercenary leaders once did with their might.
         The reform of the labour army carried out by communism corresponds in every detail to the army form which all modern states have undergone.
         Army reform replaced mercenary armies with people's armies: it introduced universal conscription, nationalised the army, banned private recruitment, replaced mercenary leaders with officers employed by the state, and ethically glorified conscription.
         The labour state brings the same reforms to the labour army: it proclaims a universal obligation to work, nationalises industry, bans private enterprise, replaces private contractors with state-appointed directors, and glorifies labour as a moral duty. —
         Stinnes and Krasin are both commanders of formidable fatigue details who fight against a common enemy: northern nature. As a modern Wallenstein, Stinnes leads a mercenary army — Krasin, as the field marshal of a labour state, leads a people's army. While these two commanders consider themselves adversaries, they are allies, marching separately, striking as one¹²¹. — [131]

 

5. SOCIAL CAPITALISM — LIBERAL COMMUNISM

Just as the regeneration of Catholicism was a consequence of the Reformation, so the rivalry of capitalism and communism could stimulate both: if, instead

 

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T/n: [marschieren getrennt, schlagen vereint] This mirrors an expression that may be attributed to Prussian General Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891).

121

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of struggling against one another through murder, slander and sabotage, they would confine themselves to demonstrating their higher worth through cultural achievements.
         No theoretical justification of capitalism more strongly promotes this system than the undeniable fact that the lot of American workers (some of whom drive to the factory in their own cars) is practically better than that of the Russians, who grow hungrier and hungrier along with their fellow workers. For prosperity is more essential than equality: better for all to become wealthy and few rich than for universal, uniform misery to reign. Only envy and pedantry can resist this judgement. Of course, the best thing would be universal, widespread wealth — but that lies in the future, not in the present: only technology, not politics, can bring this about. —
         American capitalism knows that it can only survive through generous social works. It sees itself as a steward of the national wealth, which it uses to fund inventions, for cultural and humanitarian purposes.
         Only a social capitalism which attempts to reconcile itself with the working class has any prospect of enduring: only a liberal communism which attempts to reconcile itself with the intelligentsia [132] has any prospect of enduring. England is attempting the first way, and Russia, more recently, the second.
         To wage a war against the resistance of the officers is just as impossible in the long run as it is against the resistance of the enlisted men. This also applies to the labour army: it is just as dependent on expert leaders as it is on willing workers.
         Krasin recognised that it is necessary for communism to learn from capitalism. For this reason he has recently been promoting private enterprise, appointing energetic and expert engineers with the widest-possible

 

 

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powers and profit-sharing to run the state-owned enterprises, and recalling some of the expelled industrialists; finally, he supports the weak driving-force to work of idealism through egoism, ambition and coercion, and seeks to increase the productivity of the Russian proletariat through this mixed system.
         Only these capitalistic methods can save communism: for it has learned to recognise that winter and drought are more cruel despots of Russia than all the tsars and grand princes: and that the more decisive war of liberation is aimed at them. That is why today it puts the fight against famine, the electrification and reconstruction of industry and the railway system at the centre of its overall policy and even sacrifices a number of political principles to these technological plans. Communism knows that its economic success or failure will determine its political success and that whether the Russian revolution ultimately leads to global salvation — or to global disappointment — depends on it. — [133]
         Given the current state of ethics, the abolition of private property can only fail because of insurmountable psychological resistance. Nevertheless, communism remains a turning point in the economic development from the industrialists’ state to the workers' state — and it is a turning point in the political development from the sterile system of plutocratic democracy to a new social aristocracy of intellectuals. —

 

6. TRUSTS AND UNIONS

         As long as communism proves itself too immature to take the lead in the technological struggle for liberation, Krasin and Stinnes will have to come to an agreement. The fanatical idiots of capitalism, like communism, will reject

 

 

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this path which leads to cooperation instead of working against each other: only the most sane minds of both camps will meet in the knowledge that it is better to save world culture through a mutually agreed peace, than to destroy it by an annihilating victory. Then the industrial condottieri will become generals, and the industrial mercenaries will become soldiers.
         In the Red economy of tomorrow there can be no equality between leaders and followers, as in the Red Army of today: but future industrialists will no longer be irresponsible as they are today, but will feel responsible. The unproductive capitalists (racketeers) will disappear from economic life just as the decorative court generals once did from the [134] army. As is the case today, the productive capitalist will have to become the most intense worker in his factory. Through a simultaneous diminishing of his excessive profits, a fair balance will occur between his work and his income.
         Two economic power groups are beginning to share in the management of the economy in the capitalist labour states: the representatives of the entrepreneurs and the workers — trusts and unions. Their influence on politics is growing and will surpass the parliaments in importance. They will complement and control each other like the Senate and Tribunate, the Upper House and the Lower House. Trusts will manage the overcoming of the forces of nature and the taking of natural resources — the unions will control the distribution of the spoils.
         Stinnes and Krasin will meet on the common ground of increasing production and perfecting technology: because they are opponents on the question of distribution — allies on the question of production: they fight against each other over the question of economic methods — they fight side by side in humanity’s war against the forces of nature. — [135]

 

 

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X. FROM LABOUR STATE TO CULTURAL STATE

 

1. CULT OF CHILDREN

Our age is simultaneously the age of technological struggle and the age of cultural preparation. It makes two demands on us:
         1. Expansion of the labour state.
         2. Preparation of the civilised state.
         Politics places the first task in the service of
         technology — the second in the service of ethics.
         Only a look at the coming cultural age gives the suffering and struggling humanity of the technological age the strength to continue the struggle with the forces of nature to victory.
         The extra work that modern man does compared to medieval man is his legacy to the people of the future; through this extra work he accumulates a capital of knowledge, machines, and values, the interest from which his grandchildren will one day enjoy.
         The division of mankind into masters and slaves ¹²², into culture bearers and forced labourers is also acknowledged today: but these castes are beginning to shift from the social to the temporal. We are not [136] the slaves of our contemporaries — but of our grandchildren. Instead of a master and slave estate existing side by side, our conception of culture posits a slave epoch and master epoch existing one after the other. Today's working world lays the foundations for tomorrow's cultural world.
         Just as the cultural leisure of the masters was once built on the excess work of the slaves — so the cultural

 

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122	T/n: The use of the dialectic of masters and slaves may be partly influenced by Coudenhove-Kalergi’s knowledge of Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit as well as the writings of Marx.

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leisure of the future will be built on the work of the present. Present humanity is in the service of those to come; we sow so that others may reap; our time works, researches and struggles — so that a future world can arise in beauty.
         Thus a western cult of children takes the place of the eastern ancestor cult. It flourishes in the capitalist as well as in the communist labour state: in America just as in Russia. The world kneels before the child as an idol, as a promise of a more beautiful future. It has become a dogma to think of the child first in all beneficence. In the capitalist West, fathers work themselves to death in order to leave their children richer opportunities in life — in the communist East, a whole generation lives and dies in misery to secure a happier and more just future for their progeny. The piety of the European age is directed forward.
         The western cult of children is rooted in the belief in progress. The European sees the better, the more highly developed, in the future; he believes that his grandchildren will be more worthy of freedom than he and his contemporaries: he believes that the world is moving forward. While the Oriental sees the present suspended, [137] balanced between the past and the future — to the European it appears as a rolling ball that is increasingly detaching itself from its past in order to rush towards an unknown future. The Oriental stands outside time; the European moves with time: he rejects the past and embraces his future. His story is a constant reckoning with the past and a push towards the future. Because he witnesses the passage of time, for him standing still means going backwards. He lives in the Heraclitian¹²³ world of

 

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12	T/n: After Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher whose philosophy dealt with the idea of impermanence.

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becoming — the Oriental lives in the Parmenidean¹²⁴ world of being.
         As a result of this attitude, our age can only be evaluated from the perspective of the coming one. It is a time of preparation and struggle, of immaturity and transition. We are a young generation crossing the bridge between two worlds and standing at the beginning of an uncharted cultural environment: we experience our strongest feeling in pushing forward, in growing and fighting — not in the peaceful enjoyment of oriental maturity. Our goal is not pleasure — but freedom; our way is not tranquillity — but action. —

 

2. OBLIGATION TO WORK

         The expansion of the labour state is one of the cultural obligations of our age. The labour state is man's last stage on his way to the cultural paradise of the future. Expanding the labour state means arranging all available natural and human labour forces in the most rational way in the service of production and technological progress. — [138]
         In an epoch that is building the foundation for coming cultures, nobody has the right to leisure. The universal obligation to work is an ethical and technological obligation at the same time.
         Popper-Lynkeus has outlined an ideal program for the expansion of the labour state in his work: “Die allgemeine Nährpflicht.” ¹²⁵ In it he demands that military

 

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T/n: After Parmenides, the ancient Greek philosopher whose philosophy dealt with reality as a constant, in contrast to Heraclitus.

125

T/n: Josef Popper-Lynkeus (21 February 1838 – 22 December 1921) was an Austrian-Jewish scholar, writer, inventor, and uncle to philosopher Karl Popper. His work Die allgemeine Nährpflicht (1923, “The Universal Duty to Nourish”) outlines a social system wherein the state is obligated to provide citizens with a basic level of goods and services of prime necessity; food, clothing, housing, health care and education.

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service should be replaced by a universal, obligatory labour service, which would last for several years and would enable the state to guarantee each of its members a lifelong subsistence level of food, housing, clothing, heating and medical care. This program could break misery and sorrow as well as the dictatorship of the capitalists and proletarians at the same time. Class differences would end with the universal obligation to work, just as the contrast between professional soldiers and civilians would end with the implementation of universal conscription in war. — But the abolition of the proletariat is a more desirable ideal than its reign. ¹²⁶ —
         The price that Popper-Lynkeus demands for the elimination of misery and sorrow is the most widespread forced labour. Reducing this forced labour to a minimum by promoting technology and improving organisation, and finally replacing it with voluntary work — this forms the second point of the labour state program.
         The hope, expressed by Lenin in “State and Revolution,” that mankind would continue to work voluntarily even after the abolition of forced labour is not utopian for the northerner. For the restless European and American finds no satisfaction in [139] inaction; through several thousand years of compulsion, work has become second nature to him: he needs it to exercise his strength and to banish the spectre of boredom. His ideal is active, not contemplative. For this reason — not out of greed — most millionaires in the West work tirelessly instead of enjoying their wealth carefree; for the same reason, many

 

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126	T/n: Cf. The notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist philosophy.

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employees regard their retirement as a great misfortune, because they prefer their usual work to forced idleness. —
         With the current state of technology, this voluntary work would still be insufficient to eliminate poverty: a lot of overwork and forced labour are still necessary to clear the way for pleasant and voluntary work in the future.
         Inventors pave this path to the future. Their tireless and silent work is essential and more significant for culture than the loud goings-on of the politicians and artists who push themselves to the forefront in the world arena. Modern society has an obligation to support its inventors and their work in every conceivable way: it should grant them the privileged position which the Middle Ages accorded its monks and priests, and thus give them the opportunity to develop their inventions without worries.
         Just as inventors are the most important personages of our epoch, so the industrial workers are its most important class: for they form the vanguard in man's struggle for dominion over the earth and give birth to the things which are begotten by inventors. — [140]

 

3. PRODUCER STATE AND CONSUMER STATE

         Another duty of the labour state is to increase general prosperity by increasing production.
         As soon as more provisions are thrown onto the market than can be consumed — hunger stops and the blissful natural state of the lands of the breadfruit tree returns to a higher level.
         Only when a city builds more housing than it accommodates families does it eliminate the housing shortage, which it only alleviates, distributes and postpones through compulsory quartering.

 

 

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         Only when as many cars are produced as there are pocket watches will every worker own a car: not by people's commissars sitting in cars confiscated from bank directors.
         Only through production, not through confiscation, can the prosperity of a people increase over the long term. —
         In the capitalist state, production depends on price formation. When it is in the interests of price formation, the producer is as determined to destroy goods as to create them, to inhibit technology as to encourage it, to curb production as to increase it. If technological and cultural development is in line with his interests, he is ready to promote it — if they contradict each other, he decides without hesitation to win against technology, production and culture.
         It is in the continuing interest of the producers that demand always exceeds [141] supply — while it is in the interest of the consumers that supply exceeds demand.
         The producer lives off the need of the consumer: the grain producers live off the fact that people go hungry; the coal producers live off the fact that people get cold. They have an interest in perpetuating hunger and cold. Grain capital would be determined to sabotage the invention of a substitute for bread — coal capital would be determined to sabotage the invention of a substitute for coal; if necessary, they would try to buy up and destroy the invention in question. The workers in the branches of production concerned would show solidarity with their employers in order to not lose work and income.
         The industrial entrepreneurs and workers are interested in the increase in price of their manufactured goods — the farmers and farm workers in the increase in price of their agricultural products. As producers, people's desires vary — while as consumers, all people have the

 

 

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same common goal: the lowering of prices by increasing production.
         Another nuisance of the producer state is advertising. It is a necessary consequence of competition and consists of increasing demand by artificially arousing human desire. This display and intrusion of luxury, which arouses desire without ever being able to satisfy it, is today the main cause of widespread envy, general dissatisfaction and resentment. No city dweller can buy all the goods [142] on display that dazzle his eyes in the shop windows: he must therefore always feel poor compared to these riches and pleasures heaped up on display. The psychological devastation caused by advertising can only be removed by abolishing competition; the competitive struggle can only be eliminated by turning away from capitalism.
         Despite the great advancement that the technological age owes to capitalism, it must not become blind to the dangers that threaten from this side: it must implement in good time a better system that avoids the mistakes of capitalism.
         The rival and heir of the capitalist entrepreneurial state, the communist workers' state, inherits part of the mistakes of its predecessor: for it too is ruled by a group of producers, it too is a producer state.
         The cultural state of the future, on the other hand, will be a consumer state: its production will be controlled by the consumers — not, as is the case today, consumption by the producers. It will not be produced for profit — but for the sake of general welfare and culture: not for the sake of the producers, but for the sake of the consumers.
         It is the future mission of parliament to represent and defend the common interests of all consumers against the divergent interests of the producer groups, whose mouthpieces are still the Members of Parliament and parties.

 

 

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4. REVOLUTION AND TECHNOLOGY

         The economic upheaval that is supposed to create a new order for today's production anarchy in Europe [143] must never forget its productive mission and must be careful not to fall into the destructive methods of Russia. Because of its northern location and overpopulation, Europe is more dependent on organised labour and industrial production than any other continent. It cannot live even temporarily on the alms of its stingy nature; everything it has achieved it owes to the deeds of its labour army. Their radical disorganisation through war or anarchy means the cultural death of Europe: because at least a hundred million Europeans would have to starve to death if European production came to a temporary standstill; Europe, which lacks the resilience of Russia, could not survive such a catastrophe. —
         Ethics demands from the coming overthrow of Europe that it protect and sanctify human life. —
         Technology demands from the coming overthrow of Europe that it protect and sanctify human creativity.
         Anyone who wantonly kills a person — offends against the holy spirit of the community; whoever wantonly destroys a machine — offends against the holy spirit of labour. Capitalism in the World War and communism in the Russian revolution were guilty of this double crime in the highest degree. Both knew neither reverence for human life nor for human creation.
         If Europe can be taught, it can learn from the Russian revolution which methods it must not use; for in the revolution it finds a cautionary tale of the significance of technology and of the [144] vengeance it takes on those who despise it. Russia's rulers wrongly believed they could

 

 

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rescue their country and the world with ethical goals and military means alone — instead of through work and technology. They have sacrificed their country's industry and technology to politics. But while they were reaching for the stars of equality, they lost the ground of production from under their feet — and thus plunged into the abyss of misery. In order to save themselves from this abyss in which the peoples of Russia are deteriorating, the communist leaders are compelled to call on their capitalist mortal enemies for help against the overwhelming Russian natural environment, which once crushed Napoleon's great army and now threatens Bolshevism with the same fate.
         If Europe follows the destructive example of the Russian revolution, instead of reaching a new, post- capitalist order, it risks relapsing into the primitiveness of pre-capitalist barbarism and being forced to relive the capitalist epoch. Its mental clarity may protect it from this tragic fate: otherwise it will end up like a patient who dies of heart failure under anaesthesia — while an ingenious operation is being performed on it. Because the heartbeat of Europe is technology: it cannot live without technology — even under the freest constitution. Before the distribution of goods can be started, the production of goods must be secured: for what use is equality if everyone is starving? And what harm does inequality do if no one is in need?
         The European revolution would have to multiply its production instead of eliminating it — revitalise [145] its technology instead of destroying it. Only then would it have a chance of success and of a lasting realisation of its ethical ideals.
         The technological organisation and machinery of Europe form the foundation of its future culture; Europe tries to put the political roof on this cultural structure before its technological foundations are erected — the structure

 

 

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collapses and buries the thoughtless architects together with the pitiable inhabitants under its rubble. —

 

5. DANGERS OF TECHNOLOGY

         The course of the Russian revolution has shown where ethical demands lead when they are blind to technological necessities;
         The course of the World War has shown where technological advances lead when they are blind to ethical necessities.
         Technology without ethics must lead to catastrophes, just like ethics without technology. If Europe makes no progress in ethical terms, it must tumble from one world war to another: these will be all the more terrible the further technology develops in the meantime. Europe's collapse is therefore inevitable unless its ethical progress keeps pace with its technological progress. Nevertheless, it would be just as ridiculous and cowardly to fight and condemn technology as such because of the possibility of technological cultural catastrophes — just as it would be ridiculous and cowardly to avoid and frown on the railway because of the possibility of railway accidents. [146]
         As Europe expands the labour state, it must never forget to prepare the cultural state. The bearers of ethical development — teachers and priests, artists and writers — prepare man for the great feast day which is the goal of technology. Their importance is just as great as that of engineers, chemists, doctors: these form the body of the coming culture — the former form the soul. Because technology is the body of culture and ethics the soul. Here lies their contrast — here their affinity. —
         Ethics teaches people the right use of the power and freedom that technology grants them. An abuse of power

 

 

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and freedom is more fatal to man than powerlessness and a lack of freedom: human malice could make life in the future period of leisure even more terrible than in the present period of forced labour.
         It depends on ethics whether technology leads man to heaven or hell.
         The machine has a Janus face: handled intelligently, it will be the slave of the future man and secure him power, freedom, leisure and culture — handled mindlessly, the machine will enslave man and rob him of the rest of his power and culture. If it is not possible to make the machine an organ of the human being — then the human being must degenerate to a component of the machine.
         Technology without ethics is practical materialism: it leads to the destruction of human characteristics in man and to his transformation into a machine; it tempts man to become superficial and give his soul to things. But all technological [147] progress becomes harmful and worthless if man loses his soul while conquering the world: it would then be better if he had remained an animal.
         Just as armies and wars were necessary among warring peoples to preserve freedom and culture — so work and technology are necessary to preserve life and culture in poor and overpopulated parts of the world. But the army must remain subservient to political goals — technology to ethical ones. A technology that emancipates itself from ethics and considers itself an end in itself is just as disastrous for culture as an army that emancipates itself from politics and considers itself an end in itself is for a state: a leaderless industrialism must drag culture down into the abyss — just as leaderless militarism must drag down the state.
         As the body is the organ of the soul, technology must submit to ethical guidance; it must be careful not to fall into the error that art has committed by proclaiming

 

 

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l'art pour l'art¹²⁷; because neither art nor technology, nor science, nor politics are ends in themselves: they are all merely paths that lead to people — to strong, accomplished people. —

 

6. ROMANTICISM OF THE FUTURE

         In hard and difficult times longing grows and with it romanticism.
         Our time has also given birth to a romanticism: all over the world there is a yearning for different, more beautiful worlds which are supposed to help us get over the grey monotony [148] of our working days. The cultivation sites of modern romanticism: cinemas, theatres and novels are like windows from which the forced labourers of the European prison can look out into the open. —
         Modern romanticism has four main forms:
         The romanticism of the past which takes us back to more colourful and free periods of our history;
         The romanticism of distant lands, which opens up the vast Orient and the Wild West to us;
         The romanticism of the occult, which penetrates into the most secretive spheres of life and the soul and fills the dull everyday life with wonders and mysteries;
         The romanticism of the future, which helps people get over the dreariness of today with the prospect of a golden tomorrow.

 

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127	T/n: “L’art pour l’art” is a French expression meaning “art for art’s sake.”

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         Spengler¹²⁸, Kayserling¹²⁹ and Steiner¹³⁰ accommodate this modern romanticism; Spengler opens up the cultures of the past to us — Kayserling the far away cultures — Steiner the realm of the occult. The great impact these men have on German spiritual life¹³¹ is partly due to the romantic longing of the sorely tested German people who look to the past, to far-off lands, and to Heaven to find comfort there. —
         Imagination leads into the past, into distant lands and into the hereafter — action leads into the future. Therefore, it is neither historicism, nor orientalism, nor occultism which acts as the actual driving force of our time — but the romanticism of the future: it gave birth to the idea of the future state and with it the international movement of socialism: it produced the idea [149] of the Übermensch and thus initiated the revaluation of values.
         Marx, the herald of the future state, and Nietzsche, the herald of the Übermensch, are both romanticists of the future. They place paradise neither in the past — nor in the distance — nor in the hereafter: but in the future. Marx preaches the coming global labour empire — Nietzsche the coming global cultural empire. Everything that is concerned with the development of the labour state today must take a position on socialism — everything that is concerned with the preparation of the cultural state today

 

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128	T/n: Oswald Spengler (29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German polymath who wrote about human civilisations and history.
129	T/n: Meyer Kayserling (17 June 1829 – 21 April 1905) was a German rabbi and historian who wrote extensively on Jewish history.
130	T/n: Rudolf Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant who gained recognition as a literary critic and for his work The Philosophy of Freedom.
131	T/n: [Geistesleben] Can refer either to spiritual life or intellectual life. For more on this idea, cf. Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit.

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must take a position on the Übermensch. Marx is the prophet of tomorrow — Nietzsche the prophet of the day after tomorrow.
         All major social and intellectual events in today's Europe somehow tie in with the work of these two men: the social and political global revolution is marked by Marx — the ethical and intellectual global revolution is marked by Nietzsche. Without these two men, the face of Europe would be different. —
         Marx and Nietzsche, the heralds of the social and individual ideal of the future, are both Europeans, men, dynamic persons. From the fixation on their ideals in the future arise the will and necessity to realise them through deeds. Their dynamic ideals contain demands: they not only want to teach people, but to conquer them; they turn man’s gaze forward and thus act as re-creators of society and of man. The essence of the European spirit and the future of the European destiny are reflected in their polarity. —
         The highest, final ideal of European [150] romanticism of the future is: not renouncing nature — but returning to nature on a higher level. Culture, ethics and technology are at the service of this ideal. After hundreds of thousands of years of war, man should make peace with nature and return home to its kingdom; not as its creation — but as its lord. For man is about to overthrow the constitution of his planet: yesterday the constitution was anarchic, tomorrow it is to become monarchical. One among the billions of creatures is reaching for the crown of creation: the free, developed man as the royal ruler of the Earth. — [151]

 

 

 

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PACIFISM

1924

 

 

 

 

 

To the dead, living, and coming
heroes of peace!

 

 

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1. TEN YEARS OF WAR

         The peace that was shattered ten years ago¹³² has not been restored to this day.
         For Europe, the five-year war period was followed by a five-year semi-war period. This period saw the Polish- Soviet War and Greco-Turkish War, the Occupation of the Ruhr, the battles in Upper Silesia, Lithuania, West Hungary, Fiume¹³³, Corfu, the civil wars in Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Ireland, Greece, Bulgaria and Albania, the spread of political murders and incitement to hatred¹³⁴, the collapse of currencies and the impoverishment of entire peoples.
         This worst decade of European history since the Migration Period¹³⁵ forms a worse accusation against the war than pacifists could and can ever bring forward: yet this accused war has not been punished in terms of its freedom, nor its honour, nor its life, but lets itself be celebrated everywhere as the victor, dictates European politics and prepares to attack the peoples of Europe anew in order to finally destroy them.
         For there is no doubt that as a result of advances in military technology, especially toxin manufacture and aviation, the next European war would not weaken this continent, but would destroy it.
         Every European must take a position on this danger, which directly affects him personally. If it seems

 

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132	T/n: Writing in 1924, Coudenhove-Kalergi is here referring to the First World War, which began in 1914.
133	T/n: Fiume is the Italian name for the city of Rijeka in modern-day Croatia.
134	T/n: [Völkerverhetzung] incitement to (ethnic or racial) hatred, instigation of the masses, demagoguery.
135	T/n: The Migration Period (ca. 300-800 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history that saw the fall of the Roman Empire and the establishment of many kingdoms by European (especially Germanic and Slavic) tribes.

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unavoidable to him, the only logical consequence is emigration to a foreign [155] continent. If it seems to him that it can be avoided, the fight against the danger of war and its bearers remains an obligation: the obligation to pacifism.
         To remain European today is not only a destiny — but also a responsible task, on the solution of which the future of each and every individual depends.

*

         Pacifism is the only realpolitik¹³⁶ in Europe today. Whoever hopes for salvation from a war indulges in romantic illusions.
         The majority of European politicians seem to recognise this and want peace — and with them the overwhelming majority of Europeans.
         This fact does not reassure the pacifist, who remembers that this was also the case in 1914; even then, most statesmen and the majority of Europeans wanted peace: and yet, against their will, war broke out.
         This outbreak of war took place through an international coup d'etat by the pro-war minorities against the anti-war majorities of Europe.
         This coup d'etat, prepared long in advance, took advantage of a favourable occasion, and overwhelmed with lies and slogans the unsuspecting people, whose fate had been left at the mercy of those minorities for years.
         So the World War came about through the determination of the militarists and the weakness of the pacifists. As long as this relationship lasts, another European war can break out any day. For today, as then, a small but energetic war-like minority faces a large but

 

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136	T/n: [Realpolitik] Political realism. A system of politics based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations.

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shiftless peaceful majority; it plays with war instead of stamping it out; it appeases the warmongers instead of crushing them, creating the same situation as in 1914. [156]

*

         Pacifism forgets that one wolf is stronger than a thousand sheep — and that in politics, as in strategy, numbers only matter if they are well run and well organised.
         Pacifism is no more like that today than it was ten years ago: if it had been like that back then, the war would not have broken out; if it were so today, Europe would be safe from a new war.
         The impotence of pacifism today, as then, lies in the fact that, although very many wish for peace, very few
         want it; although many fear war — few fight it. [157]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2. CRITICISM OF PACIFISM

         The passive war guilt strikes at European pacifism. Their poor leadership, weakness and lack of character encouraged the warmongers to start the war.
         The supporters of the idea of peace, who did not stand up for their ideal in 1914 in a timely manner and with insufficient force, are jointly responsible for the outbreak of war.
         But if today, after this experience and knowledge, an opponent of the war persists in that passivity, then he burdens himself with an even heavier guilt by indirectly fostering the war of the future.
         A rich pacifist who doesn't finance peace today is half a warmonger.
         A pacifist-minded journalist who doesn't propagate peace today — is also half a warmonger.
         A voter who, for reasons of domestic policy, votes for a candidate whose desire for peace he is not convinced of is half signing a death sentence for himself and his children.
         The duty of every pacifist is: to prevent the looming war of the future as far as possible; if he does nothing to this end, he is either not a pacifist or is irresponsible.

*

         Pacifism learned nothing from the war: it is essentially the same today as it was in 1914. If it does not recognise its mistakes and does not [158] change, militarism will continue to step over it in the future.
         The chief mistakes of European pacifism are:
         Pacifism is apolitical: among its leaders there are too many zealots and too few politicians. That is why pacifism often builds on illusions, does not rely on obvious

 

 

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facts, nor on human weakness, irrationality and malice: so it draws false conclusions from false assumptions.
         Pacifism is boundless; it does not know how to limit its goals; it achieves nothing because it wants everything at the same time.
         Pacifism is farsighted; it is reasonable in aim — but unreasonable in means. It directs its will towards the future — and leaves the present to the intrigues of the militarists.
         Pacifism is aimless: it wants to prevent war without
         replacing it; its negative goal lacks the positive program of an active global policy.
         Pacifism is fragmented; it has sects but no church; its groups work in isolation, with no unified leadership and organisation.
         Pacifism tends to be an appendage rather than a central component of political programs; its focus is on a domestic political attitude, while its pacifism is more tactical than principled.
         Pacifism is inconsequential; it is usually ready to stand down uncritically in the face of a “higher ideal,” that is, a clever slogan, as it did in 1914 and would be willing to do in the future.

*

         Pacifists are the greatest evil of pacifism. The fact that among them are the best and most important men of our time does not change that. These are excluded from the following criticism. [159]
         Most pacifists are dreamers who despise politics and its means instead of pursuing them; that is why they are not taken seriously politically, much to the detriment of their goal.
         Many pacifists believe that they can change the world by preaching rather than by doing: they compromise

 

 

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political pacifism by infusing it with religious and metaphysical speculation.
         The fear of war is usually the mother of pacifism. If this fear of danger extends to the rest of the life of the pacifists, it prevents them from exposing themselves in favour of the idea of peace.
         The bravery and willingness of the pacifists to make sacrifices is rarer than that of the militarists; many recognise the danger of war — but few make personal or material sacrifices to avert it. Instead of fighters — they are shirkers of pacifism who let others do the fighting, the fruits of which they share.
         Many pacifists are gentle types, who not only shy away from war — but also from the struggle against war; their hearts are pure, but their wills are weak, and therefore their value in combat is illusory.
         Most pacifists lack conviction — like most people; unable to defy a mass suggestion at the crucial moment — they are pacifists in peace, militarists in war. Only a firm organisation, guided by a strong will, can force them permanently into the service of peace. [160]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3. RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL PACIFISM

         Religious pacifism fights against war because it is immoral — political pacifism fights against war because it is unprofitable.
         Religious pacifism sees war as a crime — political pacifism sees it as stupidity.
         Religious pacifism wants to abolish war by changing people — political pacifism wants to prevent war by changing conditions. —
         Both forms of pacifism are good and legitimate: separately they serve human peace and progress; only when they mix do they harm each other more than they benefit each other. On the other hand, they should consciously support each other: it is therefore self-evident that the political pacifist also uses ethical arguments in order to strengthen the advertising appeal of his propaganda; and that the religious pacifist will support the pacifist policy in the event of a decision — instead of the militaristic one.

*

 

         In its methods, however, practical pacifism must emancipate itself from ethical pacifism: otherwise it remains incapable of successfully leading the fight against militarism.
         In politics, the Machiavellian methods of militarism proved better than the Tolstoyan methods of pacifism, which consequently had to capitulate in 1914 and 1919.
         If pacifism wants to triumph in the future, it must learn from its opponents and pursue its Tolstoyan goals with Machiavellian means: it must learn from robbers how to deal with robbers. For whoever throws away his weapon among robbers in the spirit of non-violence only helps the robbers, only helps violence, only helps injustice.

 

 

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         That is why the political pacifist must recognise the fact that in day-to-day politics non-violence is no match for violence; that only he who reckons with centuries, as Christianity once did, can do without violence. But Europe cannot do that: if peace does not prevail here soon, in 300 years only Chinese archaeologists will disturb its deathly stillness. So it is not enough that European peace triumphs: if it does not triumph soon, its victory is illusory.

         *

 

         Anyone who wants to play a game successfully must submit to the rules of the game. The rules of the game in politics are: cunning and force.
         If pacifism wants to intervene practically in politics, it must use these means to combat militarism. Only after its victory could it change the rules of the game and put law in place of power.
         However, as long as power takes priority over law in politics, pacifism must be based on power. If it relinquishes power to the warmongers, while it itself only relies on its own law — then, by harping on about principles, it only fosters the war of the future.
         A politician who does not want to use force is like a surgeon who does not want to cut: here, as there, it is important to find the right balance between too much and too little: otherwise the patient dies instead of recovering. [162]
         Politics is the study of conquest and the proper use of power. The inner peace of all countries is maintained by law and force: law without force should immediately lead to chaos and anarchy, that is, to the worst form of force.
         The same fate threatens international peace — if its law finds no support in an international power organisation.

 

 

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         So pacifism as a political program must by no means reject force: it only has to use it against war — instead of for war.

*

         The lack of trust of the peace-loving masses in the political leadership of the pacifists, which seems paradoxical, can be explained by the fact that most pacifists do not know the ABCs of politics.
         For just as we would rather entrust our representation to a skilled attorney than to an inept one — no matter how kind he may be — so the people would rather place their fate in skilled hands than in kind hands.
         The pacifists will win the political confidence of the masses only when, according to the words of the Bible, they are not only innocent as doves — but also wise as serpents; when they are not only nobler in aim — but also more skilful in means than their militaristic rivals. [163]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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4. REFORM OF PACIFISM

         The new era demands a new pacifism. Statesmen, rather than dreamers, should step to the forefront; fighters, rather than grumblers, should fill the era’s ranks!
         Only a politically shrewd pacifism can convince the masses — only a heroic pacifism can enthral them!
         The new pacifists are said to be optimists of will — but pessimists of knowledge. They should neither overlook nor exaggerate the dangers that threaten peace — but fight them. To say: “A new war is impossible,” is just as wrong as to say: “A new war is inevitable.” Whether the possibility of war turns into a reality of war or not depends primarily on the drive and prudence of the pacifists. Because war and peace are not natural events — but man- made.
         Therefore the pacifist must take the following standpoint towards peace:
         “Peace is threatened;
         Peace is possible;
         Peace is desirable:
         So let's make peace!”

*

         The new pacifism must limit its goals in order to achieve them and demand only what it is determined to achieve. Because the realm of peace can only be conquered step by step and [164] one step forward in reality counts for more than a thousand steps in the imagination.
         Endless programs only lure dreamers — while they repel politicians: but one politician can do more for peace than a thousand dreamers!

*

 

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         The pacifists of all nations, parties and ideologies must form a phalanx in international politics with unified leadership and common symbols.
         A merger of so many divergent groups is impossible and inexpedient — but their cooperation is possible and necessary.
         Pacifism must demand clarity from every politician about their position on war and peace. On this vital question every voter has a right to know exactly the position of his candidate, to know under what precise circumstances he would vote for war and what means he intends to use to prevent war.
         Only if voters intervene in foreign policy in this way, instead of being fobbed off with phrases and slogans as before, could parliaments become a reflection of the will for peace that inspires the masses of workers, peasants and bourgeoisie of all nations.

*

         Above all else, the new pacifism must also reform the pacifists.
         Pacifism can only triumph if the pacifists are ready to make sacrifices of honour, money and life in the struggle for peace; when the wealthy pacifists pay — the energetic pacifists take action.
         As long as the masses see heroes [165] in the militarists, who are ready every day to lay down their lives for their ideal, and see the pacifists as weak and cowardly, the enthusiasm for war will be stronger than the enthusiasm for peace.
         Because the power of persuasion lies in things — the power of enthusiasm lies in the people.

 

 

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         This power to inspire will be all the stronger the more the pacifists become fighters, apostles, heroes and martyrs of their idea — instead of its advocates and beneficiaries. — [166]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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5. WORLD PEACE AND EUROPEAN PEACE

         The goals of religious pacifism are absolute and simple — the goals of political pacifism are relative and varied. Each political problem demands a special opinion on pacifism.
         There are three main types of war: war of aggression, defensive war, and war of liberation.
         All pacifists are opposed to the war of conquest; the way to combat it is clearly mapped out: mutual assurances of states to jointly defend against breakers of the peace. Such an organisation, as planned today by the League of Nations in the Guarantee Pact, will in future protect people from wars of conquest and at the same time spare them individual defensive actions.
         Much more difficult is the problem of the war of liberation. Because this is in the form of a war of aggression — but is in essence a defensive war against a petrified conquest. A pacifism that makes wars of liberation impossible thereby sides with the party of the oppressors. On the other hand, the international legitimation of the war of liberation would be a license for wars of conquest.
         For the liberation of oppressed peoples and classes is the most popular pretext of all wars of conquest; and since there are everywhere peoples, factions, races and classes who feel oppressed or truly are oppressed, a pacifism permitting the war of liberation would be practically illusory today. [167]

*

         Two theories are contrasted here: the conservative pacifism of well-to-do peoples, whose goal is to fight every breaker of the peace, to preserve the status quo and current power relationships — and revolutionary pacifism, the aim

 

 

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         of which is a final World War to liberate all oppressed classes, peoples and races and thus the annihilation of every future cause of war and the founding of the pacifist global republic.
         Conservative pacifism has its headquarters in the Geneva League of Nations — revolutionary pacifism has its headquarters in the Moscow International¹³⁷.

*

         Genevan pacifism wants to keep the peace today without removing the sources of conflict that threaten to lead to a future war; Muscovite pacifism wants to accelerate the international explosion in order to establish a secure kingdom of peace, at least for the future.
         It is to be feared that Geneva will be too weak to keep the peace — and Moscow will be too weak to establish it. That is why both tendencies threaten world peace in their radicalism.
         A partial way out of this dilemma is an evolutionary pacifism, the goal of which is a gradual dismantling of national and social oppression while maintaining peace. This pacifism, which leads like a narrow rope across a double abyss, requires the highest level of political skill on the part of the leaders and a great political understanding on the part of the people. Yet it must be attempted by all who sincerely want peace.

*

 

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137	T/n: [Moskauer Internationale] Refers to the Communist International, also known as Comintern or the Third International, a Soviet-controlled international organisation that advocated world communism.

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         The two most difficult problems of future peace: the Indian problem and the Australian problem. In the Indian question (which is a special case of the general colonial question) the determination of the Indian civilisation towards political independence and the determination of Great Britain to keep it in its federation of states seem to be irreconcilably opposed. This situation provokes the Asiatic (and semi-Asiatic) peoples to one day unite with India in a great struggle for liberation.
         The Australian question (which is a special case of the Pacific immigration question) revolves around the exclusion of the Mongols¹³⁸ from Anglo-Saxon settlements. The rapid increase in population of the Mongols is out of all proportion to their lack of settlement areas and threatens to one day lead to an explosion into the Pacific Ocean if no valve is opened to them. On the other hand, the white Australians know that admitting the Mongols would soon force them into a minority. What solution to this problem will be found once China is as well armed as Japan is uncertain.
         The peaceful solution of these global problems is a very difficult task for the British, Asian and Australian pacifists.
         The European pacifists, however, must clearly recognise that a military solution to these questions is more likely than a peaceful one, but that they lack the power and influence to prevent these impending wars.

*

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138

T/n: [Mongolen] Mongols, Mongolians. Here Coudenhove-Kalergi does not literally mean the Mongolian people, but rather he uses the term Mongolen to refer to the peoples of Asia, primarily the Chinese. The exclusion of Asian peoples is in reference to the Australian Immigration Restriction Act 1901 which sought to restrict peoples of non-European ethnic origin from immigrating to Australia.

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         This knowledge clarifies the mission of European pacifism: it does not have the power to pacify the globe — but it does have the power to give Europe lasting peace by solving the European question and protecting its continent from getting involved in Asian and Pacific conflicts in the future. As a result, European political pacifism must limit its goals and learn to differentiate that which it merely [169] desires — and that which it can achieve. Without exceeding its strength, it must first struggle for lasting peace in its own part of the world and leave it to the Americans, British, Russians and Asians to keep the peace in the parts of the world that have fallen to them. However, all pacifists in the world must remain in constant contact with one another, since many problems (above all disarmament) can only be solved internationally, and since international pacifism must try to avoid and settle conflicts between those global complexes.
         In relation to those East Asian war dangers, the European peace problems are relatively easy to solve. No insurmountable obstacle stands in the way of European peace. In a European war no one could gain anything but all could lose everything. The victor would emerge from this mass murder mortally wounded — the defeated would emerge annihilated.
         Therefore, a new European war could only come about through a crime by the militarists, by the carelessness of the pacifists and the stupidity of the politicians.
         It can be averted if in every country the warmongers are kept in check, the pacifists fulfil their duty and the statesmen protect the interests of their peoples.

*

 

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         Securing peace in Europe, which has now become the Balkans of the world, constitutes an essential step forward towards world peace. Just as the World War started in Europe — so perhaps world peace could also originate in Europe one day.
         Under no circumstances should world peace be considered before European peace is established in a stable system. [170]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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6. THE REALPOLITIK PEACE PROGRAM

         The threat of war in Europe is divided into two groups: the first is based on national oppression — the second on social oppression.
         Today border questions and the Russian question threaten European peace. —
         The essence of the border question is that most European states and peoples are dissatisfied with their current borders because they do not correspond to the national, economic or strategic demands of the nationalists. A peaceful amendment of today's borders is impossible with their current importance: therefore the nationalists of those dissatisfied states are preparing a violent change of borders by a new war and are forcing their neighbours to arm themselves.
         The Russian question today is rooted in the fact that on Europe's open eastern frontier stands a world power whose leaders profess their aim to overthrow the existing system in Europe by force. In order to achieve this goal, they support the social irredenta of Europe with money and hope that they will soon be in a position to be able to redirect these propaganda funds to Soviet troops when the European revolution breaks out.
         On principle, Russia is opposed to today's pacifism, professes militaristic methods and is organising a strong army in order to fundamentally change the map of the world, at least in Europe [171] and Asia. As soon as this army becomes strong enough, it will undoubtedly march west.

*

 

 

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         These two problems, which meet at individual points (Bessarabia¹³⁹, East Galicia¹⁴⁰), threaten the peace of Europe on a daily basis. Every European pacifist must confront them and try to avert them.
         The Pan-Europe Program*)¹⁴¹ is the only way to prevent these two threatening wars with realpolitik means and to secure European peace. Its goal is:
         1. To secure inner-European peace through pan- European arbitration treaties, guarantee pacts, customs unions and the protection of minorities.
         2. To secure peace with Russia through a pan-European defensive alliance, through mutual recognition, non-interference and border guarantees, joint disarmament and economic cooperation, and through the reduction of social oppression.
         3. To secure peace with Britain, America and East Asia through mandatory arbitration treaties and regional League of Nations reform.

*

         The Pan-Europe Program is the only possible solution to the European border problem. Because the incompatibility of all national aspirations, as well as the tension between the geographical-strategic, historical- economic and national borders in Europe makes just border management impossible. A change in the boundaries would [172] remove old injustices, but put new ones in their place.
         That is why a solution to the European border problem is only possible through its elimination.

 

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139	T/n: [Bessarabien] Bessarabia, a region in Eastern Europe that now constitutes parts of Moldova and Ukraine.
140	T/n: [Ostgalizien] East Galicia, a region in Eastern Europe that now constitutes parts of southeastern Poland and western Ukraine.
141	*) See: “Pan-Europe” by R. N. Coudenhove-Kalergi (Pan-Europa- Verlag, Vienna)

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         The two elements of this solution are:
         A. The conservative element of the territorial status quo, which will stabilise the existing borders and thus prevent the impending war;
         B. The revolutionary element of the gradual abolition of borders in strategic, economic and national terms, which will destroy the seeds of future wars.
         This securing of borders, coupled with their dismantling, preserves the formal organisation of Europe while changing its essence. At the same time, it secures present and future peace, as well as the economic and national development of Europe.

*

          The other threat of war in Europe is the threat of Russia.
         Russian militarisation arises on the one hand from the fear of an anti-Bolshevik invasion, which would be supported by Europe — on the other hand it arises from the will to wage a war of aggression against Europe in the name of social liberation.
         That is why the goal of European pacifism must be to simultaneously protect Russia from a European attack and to protect Europe from a Russian attack. The first is only possible through an honest desire for peace — the second is only possible through military superiority. Europe can achieve this military superiority immediately without increasing its armaments through a pan-European defensive alliance.
         However, European pacifism must not allow [173] this superior military power to degenerate into an arms race, but must make it the basis for Russian-European disarmament and compromise.

 

 

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*

         Europe does not have the opportunity to change the political attitude of the Russian rulers, whose system is expansionist. Since it cannot persuade them to make peace, it must force them to make peace. If one neighbour is peacefully oriented and the other belligerent, pacifism demands that military superiority be on the side of peace. An about-face of this relationship means war.
         It is a delusion for many pacifists to see their own arms limitation as the sure way to peace. Under certain circumstances, peace calls for disarmament — under other circumstances, however, it calls for armament. If England and Belgium, for example, had had strong armies in 1914, the British proposal for compromise immediately before the catastrophe would have had a better chance of acceptance.
         If, for example, a people, out of pacifism, profess conscientious objection today while their neighbour lies in wait for an opportunity to attack them — they are not promoting peace, but war.
         If another people increases its armaments to secure its peace and thereby provokes a peaceful neighbour to an arms race — then it does not promote peace, but war.
         Every peace problem requires individual treatment. That is why Europe cannot today apply the same methods of peace towards England and Russia.
         The peace with England, whose politics are stable and pacifist, can be based on treaties — the peace with Russia, which finds itself in the midst of a revolution and does not deny its war plans against the European system, needs military safeguards. [174]
         It would be as apolitical and unpacifist for the Soviets to rely on treaties as it would be for Britain to rely on its naval fleet. On the other hand, European pacifism

 

 

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must be ready at all times to confront a pacifist Russia, which disarms and honestly renounces its plans for intervention, as well as pacifist England.

*

         But Europe's pacifists must never forget that Russia is arming in the name of social liberation and that millions of Europeans would interpret a Russian invasion as a war of liberation. This war becomes all the more threatening the more this conviction spreads among the masses of Europe.
         Just as the dangers of national war can only be permanently averted by reducing national oppression, this social danger of war can only be averted by reducing social oppression.
         The social irredenta of Europe will fall away from the Moscow International only when it is furnished with practical evidence that the situation and the future of the labour force in the democratic countries are better than in the Soviet ones. If communism succeeds in counter- evidence, no foreign policy can protect Europe from revolution and union with Soviet Russia.

*

         This shows the close connection between domestic and foreign policy, between freedom and peace. Since all oppression, whether national or social, harbours within it the seeds of war, the struggle against oppression constitutes an essential part of the struggle for peace. [175]
         Any oppression forces the oppressors to maintain military power, but forces the oppressed and their allies to warmongering. Conversely, a war and armament policy gives the rulers of the state the strongest instrument for internal political repression: the army. That is why

 

 

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         European and world peace will only be finally secured when religions, nations and classes stop feeling oppressed.
         That is the reason why a peaceful foreign policy goes hand in hand with a free domestic policy — a policy of war outwardly but with oppression inwardly. [176]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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7. PROMOTION OF THE IDEA OF PEACE

         In addition to fighting for his foreign policy peace program, the pacifist should not miss any opportunity to foster international cooperation and understanding.
         This determines the attitude of pacifism towards the League of Nations.
         Today's League of Nations is very imperfect as a peace institution; it is, above all, heavily burdened by the legacy of the war that gave birth to it. It is weak, incoherent, unreliable; besides, it is a mere skeleton so long as the United States, Germany, and Russia stay away from it. Nevertheless, the Geneva League of Nations is the first draft of an international organisation of world states, which is to take the place of the previous anarchy of states.
         It has the immeasurable advantage of existence over all better institutions which are only projects.
         That is why every pacifist must support the weak, frail, embryonic League of Nations: he should criticise it but not fight it; work on its transformation — but not on its destruction.

*

         Every pacifist should contribute to eliminating the stupid hatred of peoples, which harms everyone and benefits no one. He can do this best by spreading the truth and by combating malicious and uneducated demagoguery. [177]
         For one of the main causes of national hatred is that the peoples do not know each other and, according to the statements of a chauvinistic press and literature, only see them in distorted images. To combat these distortions, pacifism should create an enlightening folk literature,

 

 

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promote translations, as well as the exchange of professors, teachers, students and children.
         By international agreement, chauvinistic agitation against foreign nations in schools and the press is to be ruthlessly combated.
         To promote the idea of peace and to combat warmongering, government ministries of peace should be set up in all states, which, in constant contact with each other and with all pacifist organisations at home and abroad, serve international reconciliation.

*

         One of the most important tasks of pacifism is the introduction of an international language of communication. Because, before peoples can talk to each other, it is difficult to expect them to understand each other.
         An international lingua franca would have the purpose that everyone speaks their mother tongue at home while using the language of communication when dealing with members of foreign nations. Thus every person who leaves his homeland only needs to be able to speak the one language of communication, while today he needs several languages abroad.
         Esperanto and English are the only languages to consider for use as international languages of communication. Which of these two languages is chosen for international communication is irrelevant next to the demand that the world agree on one of these two languages. [178]

*

         The English language has the great advantage over Esperanto in that it has already taken on the role of an international lingua franca in Australia, half of Asia, Africa

 

 

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and America, and much of Europe, so that in these areas its official introduction would only be the sanction of an existing practice. Then there is the fact that, in its intermediate position between the Germanic and Romance languages, it can be easily learnt by both Germanic and Romance peoples, as well as by Slavs who already know a Germanic or Romance language. In addition, English is the language of the two most powerful empires on Earth and the most common mother tongue of white mankind.
         The introduction of the international auxiliary language could take place through a proposal by the League of Nations to make it compulsory first in all middle schools and teacher training colleges in the world and after a decade also in elementary schools.

*

         The spread of education¹⁴² and the fight against human ignorance harbour more rapid prospects for the success of peace propaganda than the spread of humanity¹⁴³ and the fight against malice.
         Because human beliefs change faster than human instincts. And the peace movement, at least in Europe, would not have needed to appeal to the human heart — if it could rely to some extent on human reason.
         Just as the Enlightenment has dealt with the burning of witches, torture and slavery — so will it one day deal with war, that remnant of a barbaric age of mankind. [179]
         When this will happen is uncertain; that this will happen is certain. The pace depends on the pacifists.

 

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142	T/n: [Aufklärung] enlightenment, education, clarification, also The Enlightenment.
143	T/n: [Humanität] Humanity in the moral sense of the word, humanism.

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         That humans finally learned to fly after hundreds of thousands of years was far more wonderful and improbable than that they will one day learn to live in peace with one another. — [180]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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8. PEACE PROPAGANDA

         
         Peace propaganda is the needed complement to peace politics: because pacifist politics are short-term — pacifist propaganda is long-term.
         Peace propaganda alone is incapable of preventing the imminent war, since it requires at least two generations to have an effect; Peace politics alone are incapable of securing a lasting peace, since, with the rapid development of our age, the political sphere of activity hardly extends over two generations.
         At best, peace politics can, through great skill, create a pacifist provisional arrangement, while offering peace propaganda the opportunity to morally disarm the people and convince them that war is a barbaric, impractical, and outdated means of settling international differences.
         Because, as long as this knowledge has not gained international acceptance and as long as there are peoples who regard war as the most suitable means of achieving their political goals, peace cannot be based on disarmament, but only on the military superiority of the pacifists.
         Complete disarmament is only possible after the idea of peace has triumphed — just as the abolition of the police would only be possible after the extinction of criminality: otherwise the abolition of the police would lead to the dictatorship of crime [181] — the abolition of the army would lead to the dictatorship of war.

*

         Pacifist propaganda is directed against war instincts, war interests and war ideals.

 

 

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         The struggle against war instincts must be waged by weakening and diverting them, and by strengthening counter-instincts.
         Above all, the people must be cured of war and must let their war instincts die, just as smokers, drinkers and morphine addicts discard their proclivities by not exercising them. The means to cure people of war is peace politics.
         Sport is very apt in diverting human, in particular the masculine, fighting instincts from the war mentality. It is no coincidence that the most sports-loving peoples in Europe (English, Scandinavians) are also the most peaceful.
         Only hunting is an exception here: it preserves the most primitive form of combat and strengthens the murderous instincts instead of draining them. It has contributed much to the preservation of European
         militarism that in many European countries hunting was the main sport of the ruling castes and men: for hunting easily teaches disregard for the lives of others and dulls one to bloodshed.

*

         The condemnation of war must never degenerate into a condemnation of struggle. Such a derailment of pacifism would only play into the hands of the militarists with compelling counter-arguments and compromise pacifism ethically and biologically.
         Because fighting and the will to fight are the creators and sustainers of human culture. The end of [182] struggle and the death of human fighting instincts would be tantamount to the end and death of culture and of man.
         Struggle is good; only war is bad because it is a primitive, crude, and antiquated form of international

 

 

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struggle, just as duelling is a primitive, crude, and antiquated form of social struggle.
         The goal of pacifism, therefore, is not the abolition of struggle, but the refinement, sublimation, and modernisation of its methods.

*

         Today the economic form of struggle is about to replace the military form of struggle: boycott and blockade are taking the place of war, the political strike is taking the place of revolution. China has won several political battles against Japan with the weapon of the boycott and Gandhi tried to carry out the Indian struggle for liberation with this bloodless method.
         A time will come when national rivalry will be fought with intellectual weapons instead of knives and lead bullets. Instead of competing in an arms race, peoples will compete with each other in scientific, artistic and technological achievements, in justice and social welfare, in public health and education and in the production of great personalities¹⁴⁴.

*

         Fighting against war interests comprises the second task of peace propaganda.
         This propaganda consists in showing peoples and individuals the low odds of gain and the enormous risk of loss, with the result that the war [183] has now become a bad, risky and unprofitable business.

 

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144	T/n: [Persönlichkeiten] Personalities, individuals, figures.

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         As far as peoples are concerned, Norman Angell*)¹⁴⁵ provided this proof before the war and the World War brilliantly confirmed his thesis.
         Whether, from a national point of view, a victorious
         war of liberation in India or a conquest of Australia by the Mongols would compensate for the casualties may remain undiscussed here: what is certain, however, is that in a new European war the victor would emerge from the struggle severely damaged in political, economic and national respects, while the conquered people would be annihilated forever. The possible profit bears no relation to the certain losses.

*

         On the one hand, only ambitious politicians and military men, who hope for fame, are personally interested in war — and greedy war suppliers, who hope for business, on the other. These groups are very small but very powerful.
         The first group can be sidelined in democracies by a determined pacifism: politicians who put ambition above the welfare of their peoples are to be treated as criminals.
         It is often said of officers that their martial attitude is a professional duty. In states whose politics are pacifist, this would be a grave mistake; for there the army is not regarded as a means of conquest, but as a necessary weapon against foreign desires for war. It would therefore be necessary for the officers in particular to be trained to be pacifists, but heroic pacifists who are always ready to

 

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145*)

“The Great Illusion” by Norman Angell. T/n: Normal Angell (26 December 1872 – 7 October 1967) was an English lecturer, journalist and author whose book, “The Great Illusion,” is an influential treatise on international relations.

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         risk their lives to keep the peace and feel like crusaders in the fight against war. [184]
         The industrialists who long for war because of war profits should be reminded that Bolshevism is likely to be the outcome of the next European war. So there is a probability of over 50% that they will face expropriation at the end of the war, if not the gallows.
         With this prospect the business of war loses its charm. After all, it seems more advantageous for industry to be satisfied with the relatively small but safe peace profits instead of reaching for the large but life-threatening war profits.
         This line of argument is important because it takes the golden engine out of war propaganda and directs it towards peace propaganda.

*

         Peace propaganda must also mobilise human imagination against a future war. It must enlighten the masses about the dangers and horrors that threaten them in the event of war: about the new radiation and gases that can annihilate entire cities; about the threatening war of extermination, which would be directed less against the front than against the rear; about the political and economic consequences that such a war would have for the victors and the conquered.
         This propaganda must help weak human memories and weak human imagination: for if people had more imagination — there would be no more war. The will to live would be pacifism's strongest ally.

         
         *

 

 

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         War instincts are crude and primitive — war interests are problematic and dangerous — war ideals are hypocritical and outdated. [185]
         They live on the falsehood that identifies war with combat, warrior with hero, lack of imagination with bravery, fear with cowardice.
         They come from a bygone era, from overcome circumstances. They were once shaped by a warrior caste and uncritically adopted by free peoples.
         Once upon a time the warrior was the guardian of culture, the war hero was the hero in itself, war was the life element of the peoples whose fate was decided by their bravery in the field.
         Since then war has become unchivalrous, its methods mean, its forms ugly; personal bravery is no longer decisive: the gallant beauty of a mass tournament has been replaced by the wretched ugliness of a mass slaughterhouse. Today's mechanised warfare has forever lost its former romance.
         From an ethical standpoint, a defensive war is organised self-defence — an aggressive war is organised murder. Even worse: peaceful people are violently forced to poison and tear other peaceful people to pieces.
         The blame for this instigated mass murder does not fall on those who carried it out, but on the instigators. In democratic states, these instigators are directly the pro-war deputies and indirectly their voters.
         Anyone who shies away from committing murder should therefore think carefully about whom to send to Parliament as his representative! [186]

 

 

 

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9. NEW HEROISM

         The renewal of the heroic ideal by pacifism smashes the main weapon of militaristic propaganda. For nothing gives militarism a stronger public appeal than the monopolisation of heroism.
         Pacifism would commit suicide by fighting the heroic ideal; it would then have to lose all its valuable followers: for reverence for heroism is the measure of human magnanimity.
         Pacifism should rival militarism in hero worship
         and seek to surpass it in paganism. But at the same time it should liberate the concept of the hero from its medieval shell and fill it with the whole contents of modern ethics.
         It must be recognised that the heroism of Christ represents a higher form of development than the heroism of Achilles — and that the physical heroes of the past are only forerunners of the moral heroes of the future.

*

         No honest pacifist will try to deny the heroism of the men who, beyond being conscripted at the front, risked their lives for their ideals; who have voluntarily put aside their domestic bliss, their comfort, their security and their health in order to fulfil their duty. Their heroism is unaffected by the question of whether they started from wrong or right [187] assumptions. Nothing would be meaner than to ridicule that heroism.
         The antithesis to these heroes are those demagogues who in bureaus, assemblies, editorial offices and parliaments agitate and rush to war, in order to then commit the basest abuse with foreign heroism far from the front.
         The attempt by some militarists to monopolise heroism for the war party is as dishonest as the attempt by

 

 

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some nationalists to monopolise national sentiment for their party.
         For whoever wants to keep his people from the greatest catastrophe in world history is at least as patriotic as he who hopes to lead them to new power through a victorious war: the latter relies only on error, the former relies on truth.
         There are some countries in Europe today in which it is more dangerous to stand up for peace than for war: in these countries the apostles of peace demonstrate greater heroism than the apostles of war.

*

         But the gravest and most unjust insult for a people is when one class, namely the officer class, monopolises the heroic character for itself: for there is heroism in every profession, quiet and great heroism, without glory, without romanticism and without a glamorous facade: the heroism of work and intellect, the heroism of motherhood, the heroism of conviction.
         And whoever studies the biographies of the great artists, thinkers, researchers, inventors and physicians will learn to understand that there is heroism other than that of warriors and adventurers.

*

         Everyone who sacrifices his private interest to his ideal is a hero: the greater the sacrifice, the greater the heroism.
         Whoever is not afraid, is not heroic, only unimaginative. Only he who overcomes fear for the love of his ideals acts heroically. The greater his fear — the greater his overcoming and his heroism.

 

 

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*

         Europe has freed itself from the rule of feudalism — but not from the rule of feudal values. As a result, the heroic ideal has become just as outdated and rotten as the concept of honour. Only renewal can save them.
         The honour of a person and a people should become independent of other people's actions and be solely determined by their own deeds.
         The principle must prevail that the honour of a nation can never be injured by its flag being torn down anywhere by drunkards: but only by its judges being partisan, its officials corrupt, its statesmen not true to their word; that it banishes or murders its best sons, that it provokes weaker neighbours, oppresses minorities, neglects its obligations and breaks treaties.
         Through this new code of honour, all disputes that divide peoples and drive them into wars because of matters of honour will cease of themselves: for every people will then consider themselves duty-bound to make satisfaction to another, not for the sake of that people’s honour, but for the sake of preserving or restoring their own national honour. The form of this satisfaction will then be easily determined by arbitral tribunals. — [189]

*

         Pacifism must educate the present and the coming generation on the heroism of conviction. Lying and cowardice were partly to blame for the outbreak of the war, they nurtured and sustained it, in order to finally put their stamp on peace. That is why the fight against lies is also a fight against war.

 

 

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         The heroism of peace will be a heroism of ethos, of conviction, of self-control; only then can it triumph over the heroism of the militarists.
         The heroism of peace is more difficult and rarer than that of war. It is harder to command one's passions than one's crew; harder to discipline one's own character than an army of recruits. And many who could, without reservation, put a bayonet in an enemy's body do not find the courage to confess their convictions to a friend. This moral cowardice is the breeding ground of all demagogy, including militarism: for fear of appearing cowardly, millions today deny their inner pacifism; they would rather be cowards than be considered as cowards.
         The victory of the idea of peace is therefore deeply connected with the victory of moral heroism, which is prepared to sacrifice everything other than conviction and to keep itself pure against all attempts at persuasion, blackmail, and bribery in an impure age.

*

         Pacifism should first organise such heroes of peace into a voluntary army of peace in all European countries.
         This army of peace should be recruited from heroes who reject [190] war as a barbaric and senseless political tool and as an enemy of humanity, and are always ready to make any sacrifice for their pacifist beliefs.
         First of all, these fighters for peace, as propagandists and agitators of their idea, should gather around themselves the millions who want peace. But the army of peace must also be prepared to march against war at the decisive moment of danger and to save peace through their active intervention.

 

 

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         Men who combine statesmanlike insight with an indomitable and unshakable will for peace should step up to the head of this army of peace.
         Only when such leaders step up to the forefront of such fighters can Europe hope never again to be overrun and trampled by war. [191]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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