Review: Conventional lies of our civilisation - Karl Kautsky

Max Nordau, Die conventionellen Lügen der Kulturmenschheit. Leipzig, Bernhard Schlicke, 4th edition, 1884, p. 421.

French bourgeois radicalism is an entirely peculiar phenomenon. It is has its roots in the petty bourgeoisie. The latter in France is revolutionary and republican due to its traditions, it is so however also out of hatred against big capital. The last forms of the French monarchy were nothing else than big capital on the throne, no wonder that the petty bourgeoisie of France sees its salvation not in the support of monarchism, but in republican socialism. Admittedly in an entirely particular form of it, a reactionary one, if one may put it like that, which has as its presupposition not only an individualism in consumption, but also an as a result of modern technical development long since overcome individualism in production. And this bourgeois radicalism assumes even stranger forms, when it is imparted by journalists, which indeed have at their command intellect, destructive wit and repartee, but who fear to damage their 'esprit', if they immerse themselves in such a jejune science, as e.g. political economy. Under the influence of this radicalism bourgeois democracy in Germany has arisen. From France came the stimulus for everything distinguished which German democracy has achieved. To it adhere all the errors, but to a certain degree also all the merits of French radicalism: its intellect, its poignancy, its boldness.

It has become different, since Germany's bourgeois democracy has emancipated itself from French influence. It has not won in thoroughness, its conception of history and political economy has remained as shallow as before, no doubt however it has lost in boldness and spirit. At heart the German middle class is as before a freethinker and, even though not towards the bottom, so still toward the top, a democrat – but it no longer dares to show this attitude openly. It has dropped away from democracy or ascribed it a different sense. In this manner there develops a rift between the feeling and acting of the middle class, as it is certainly more or less found in all countries of modern culture, but nowhere in that degree as in Germany. To chastise this – weakness, to put it mildly, is the purpose of the book on hand.

'This book', the author say in the preface, 'claims to be a faithful presentation of the views of the majority of educated, cultivated people of the present day. There is no doubt but what millions living in the midst of our civilization have learned by their own reflection and experience to regard and criticise the existing conditions of State and society as they are criticised in the following pages, and will coincide in the opinion expressed in them, that the present social, political and economic institutions are utterly at variance with the views and conceptions of the universe based upon natural science, and therefore untenable and doomed to destruction. Notwithstanding this fact, the author knows that many people will hold up their hands in holy horror when they read it, and not the least ostentatiously those who find their own most secret sentiments expressed in it. This is the very reason why the author believed that it was necessary, that it was imperative upon him, to write this book. The greatest evil of our times is the prevailing cowardice. We do not dare to assert our opinions, to bring our outward lives into harmony with our inward convictions; we believe it to be worldly policy to cling outwardly to relics of former ages when at heart we are completely severed from them. We do not wish to shock anyone, nor offend anyone's prejudices, and we call this "respecting the convictions of others"—those others who in return do not respect our convictions, who ridicule them, who persecute them, and who would like best to exterminate them and us at the same time. This lack of sincerity and manly courage prolongs the period of falseness, and postpones indefinitely the triumph of truth. The author at least wished to fulfill his duty to himself, to truth, and to his comrades in sentiment. He has expressed his convictions openly and without the slightest hesitation. If all those who are dissembling—acting contrary to their convictions, diplomatizing and feigning were to do the same as the author, they would find perhaps to their amazement that they formed the majority in many places, and that it would soon be to their advantage to lead sincere and consistent lives, instead of their present careers of hypocrisy and double dealing.'

These words of the author himself excellently characterise the spirit of the entire book. We have only little to still add to his characterisation.

Mister Nordau belongs to the few German democrats, who have not lost touch with French radicalism. One can even say that all errors and merits of the latter are found in him. He always stays at the surface of phenomena and avoids a thorough immersion in them. Quickly he is done with his decision in questions, towards whose answer modern science heads only with wavering. He acquiesces himself indeed in Darwinist and Spencerist phrases, speaks of natural selection and altruism, is often seekingly materialist when he e.g. treats woman as 'breeding material'; on the other hand Marxism is not a stranger to him, like many echos of one of the main representative of this direction in France, Paul Lafargue, prove; but nowhere in him has it come to a proper mastery of the subject matter. In the chapter on the 'economic lie' he holds e.g. positions which, leaning on Lafargue's 'Droit à la paresse'1 , sound completely Marxist. Finally however he sees the solution of the social question in the abolition of inheritance, under retention, or better put, return to individual production, a demand which belongs to the childhood of socialism and which has become totally meaningless for modern scientific socialism. In the same chapter he desires the sustainment of children by society until their own earning capability, in the chapter about the 'religious lie' in contrast (some 200 pages before) he envisions in the manner of David Strauss the emotional stimulations, by which in the future religion will be replaced. Besides art and science he counts thereto also welfare: 'The adoption of orphans by the community, the distribution of clothing and other presents among destitute children'. (p. 67.) Outstanding in contrast are Nordau's remarks there, where they rest on his own observation. He knows modern society through and through, skillful in the handling of the word, intelligent and bold, he knows in occasionally ravishing manners to disclose its impairments. And that the blows, which he imparts, hit home, that is attested by the cries of rage of the opponents, which masks themselves only badly behind contrived scorn.

Its purpose, to stem the rampant cowardice, the book will admittedly not achieve. This cowardice is grounded too deeply in our political and social conditions, for one individual, even if he spoke so forcefully and convincingly, to succeed in banning it. On the contrary, it will make still further progress, and the sole result of Nordau's book will be, that one all the more curse it in public, the more one agrees with it in private.

K.

source: Die Neue Zeit (1884), H. 1, pp. 40–2.

• 1Right to laziness – as opposite to 'Right to work'