Germany -- Social conditions; Reconstruction (1914-1939) -- Germany; Socialism
When the current conception of intellectual culture so much prized in
family, society and business life, and tricked out with criticisms of
style, with historical data and incidents of travel is justly
ridiculed, then the will to complete cultivation of the body, the
intellect and the soul of the people must be so strong that all
questions of convenience, of enjoyment, of prestige and of material
interests must sink far into the background. This word must sound so
that all who hear it can look in each other's eyes with a full mutual
understanding and without the slightest sense of ambiguity; just as
they do in Japan when the name of the common head of all families, the
Mikado, is named. There must be one thing in Germany and it must be
this thing, which is altogether out of reach of the yawning, blinking
and grinning scepticism of the coffee-house, and of the belching and
growling of the tavern. Any man who puts this thing aside in favour of
his class-ideas, or his speculations in lard, or his dividends, or the
demands of his Union, must understand that he is doing something as
offensive as if he went out in public without washing himself.
The conception of Culture as our true and unique faculty must be so
profoundly grasped that in public life and legislation it must have
the first word and the last. Though we become as poor as church-mice
we must stake our last penny on this, and tune up our education and
instruction, our models and outlook, our motives and claims, our
achievement and our atmosphere, to so high a point that any one coming
into Germany shall feel that he is entering into a new age.
Society must be penetrated by this conception. Those classes which
already possess something resembling it--such as training, education,
experience, tradition, outlook, good breeding--must pour out with both
hands what they have to dispense; not in the way of endowments,
conventicles, lectures and patronizing visits, but in quiet,
self-sacrificing, personal service.
All this, of course, cannot be done without the free response of the
other side. The devoted attempts which have been made, especially in
England, and for some years with us too, to win this response by long
and unselfish solicitation were destined to remain merely the mission
of individual lives, for they were not supported by the will of the
community as a whole; it rather ran counter to them. A Peace of God
must be proclaimed, not as between the Haves and the Have-nots, not
between the proletariat and the capitalists, not between the so-called
cultured classes and the uncultured, but between those who are ready
for a mutual exchange of experience, a give-and-take of their
tradition on both sides. Not an exchange on business principles, such
as propaganda in satisfaction of demands, or curiosity on one side for
a new pastime on the other, but a covenant. This, however, is only
practicable if the class-war, as an end in itself, is put a stop to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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