Conventional Lies of our Civilization

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THE CONVENTIONAL LIES OF OUR CIVILIZATION

FROM THE GERMAN

OF

MAX NORDAU

Author of "Paradoxes" "Paris Sketches" Etc.

Chicago

Laird & Lee Publishers

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886. by LOUIS SCHICK. in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, by LAIRD & LEE, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Note by the Translator.

The success of this work, which from its very nature, can only appeal to a limited circle of readers, is something entirely without precedent, and can indeed be regarded as the literary event of this decade. Seven editions in as many months show the excitement and eagerness with which it was welcomed by the press and public in Germany—an eagerness that was only increased by the action of the Austrian government in prohibiting it and confiscating all copies of it to be found.

It touches upon all the problems of the day in its arraignment of the Lies of our Civilization, and discusses them with a liberality and audacity which are both fascinating and refreshing. Although it was written originally for German readers, and views the world through Teutonic spectacles, yet we find that human nature is the same the world over, and that the existing social, political and economic institutions are nearly if not quite so much of a lie in America as in Europe, although we can congratulate ourselves upon the fact that their restraints are not so irksome in this land of comparative liberty and plenty.

The contents of the book can be briefly summarized as follows:

Chapter I. Mene, Tekel, Upharsin (Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.).—A review of the different countries of the civilized world, art, literature, etc., with a description of the inherently false and dismal tone and tendencies of our age.

II. The Lie of Religion.—A criticism of religious worship, which at the same time expresses respect for all genuine convictions.

III. The Lie of a Monarchy And Aristocracy.—A scathing but amusing criticism of these worn-out and decayed relics of the past.

IV. The Political Lie.—A revelation of the lack of power possessed by the will of the people in republics as well as in countries with other forms of government. A timely and entertaining study of politics in all their phases.

V. The Economic Lie.—We find here abundant material for thought. The author traverses the entire field of political economy in its theory and practice, advancing many startling paradoxes and propositions.

VI. The Matrimonial Lie.—In this chapter the author expresses many of our own unavowed thoughts. His original treatment and his courage in calling things by their right names, render this chapter one of exceptional interest.

VII. Discusses the importance and abuse of the power of the press, the duel and the lies of our social intercourse.

CONTENTS.

Page.

Preface. | |Pre

Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. | |1

The Lie of Religion. | |31

The Lie of a Monarchy and Aristocracy. | |70

The Political Lie. | |146

The Economic Lie. | |193

The Matrimonial Lie. | |269

Advertisements. | |Adv

Preface

Preface of the First Edition.

This book 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.

In the summer of 1883, | |The Author.

Preface to the Sixth Edition.

The Imperial Council of Vienna has prohibited the further sale of this book in Austria and confiscated all copies of it to be found. The official decree condemns the book on account of the "Crime of insulting the members of the imperial family," the "Crime of disturbing the public peace by attempting to arouse contempt or hatred for the person of the Emperor, etc.," the "Crime of denouncing religion," the "Crime of inciting hostility against religious communities, etc.," and in conclusion,, the "Crime of insulting a church and sect recognized by the State." Every word of these indictments is a calumny from first to last. It is not true that I have "insulted any member of the imperial family;" it is not true that I have attempted to "arouse contempt or hatred for the person of the Emperor." I do not attack persons, neither high nor low, but ideas. Further it is not true that I have disturbed any one in the exercise of his religion (how could a book do this?) nor incited hostility against religious communities at the most I have only attempted to arouse compassion for them.

I wish to warn those people who would never read this book from any interest in the questions of which it treats, but who may perhaps infer from its suppression, that it contains all sorts of piquant and scandalous things. This class of readers is hereby warned that this is not the case. If they spend their money upon this supposition they will be disappointed. The Vienna committee thus commits an intentional or unconscious fraud upon the public. I, at least, will have no share in it.

| Feb. 10, 1884 | |The Author

Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

I.

"Man never is, but always to be blest," and perhaps at no time was he so far removed from the actual attainment of happiness as at present. Culture and civilization are spreading and conquering even the most benighted regions of the globe. Those countries where darkness reigned but yesterday, are to-day basking in a glorious sunshine. Each day witnesses the birth of some new, wonderful invention, destined to make the world pleasanter to live in, the adversities of life more endurable, and to increase the variety and intensity of the enjoyments possible to humanity. But yet, notwithstanding the growth and increase of all conditions to promote comfort, the human race is to-day more discontented, more irritated and more restless than ever before. The world of civilization is an immense hospital-ward, the air is filled with groans and lamentations, and every form of suffering is to be seen twisting and turning on the beds. Go through the world, and ask each country you come to: "Does contentment dwell here? Have you peace and happiness?" From each you will hear the same reply: "Pass on, we have not that which you are seeking." Pause and listen at the borders, and the breeze will bring to your ears from each one, the same confused echoes of contention and tumult, of revolt and of oppression.

In Germany Socialism with myriads of tiny teeth, is stealthily gnawing at the columns that uphold the structures of State and society, and nothing, not even the allurements of State and Christian Socialism, nor the countless traps set for it by the laws and the police, nor the state of siege in the capital, can disturb for a single instant, the secret, noiseless, untiring work of this insatiable subterranean destroyer. The Antisemitic movement was merely a convenient pretext for the gratification of passions which do not venture to show themselves under their true names—among the poor and ignorant it cloaked their hatred of property owners, among those who enjoy privileges inherited from mediæval times—among the aristocratic classes, it disguised their jealous fear of gifted rivals in the race for influence and power, and the romantic idealizing youth saw in it a means of satisfying a certain extravagant and false ideal of patriotism that longs not only for the political unity of the German Fatherland, but also for an ethnological unity of the German people. A secret longing that has been hinted at a thousand times but never fully explained, drives thousands upon thousands away from their homes to cross the ocean. The stream of emigrants pours forth from the German sea-ports like the life-stream from a deadly wound in the body of the nation, jet after jet, in constantly increasing volume, and the Government is powerless to arrest or control it. The political parties are waging a barbaric war of extermination upon each other; the prizes for which they are contending are the conditions of the Middle Ages and an absolute monarchy on one side, and on the other, the Nineteenth Century and the right of popular suffrage.

In Austria we see ten nationalities arrayed against each other, each seeking to injure the others by all the means at its command. In every state, even in every village, the majority are trampling the minority under foot. The minority succumbs when resistance is no longer possible, and counterfeits a submission which conceals a secret intensity of rage that makes them long to compass the destruction of the Empire, as the only possibility of relief. In Russia there is such a condition of affairs that we can almost describe it as primitive barbarism. The Government is deaf to every suggestion of mutual rights and advantages; the public official has no care for the interests of the country and of the people that are confided to him, but thinks only of his own, which he shamelessly promotes by robbery or theft, and by corruptibility and prostitution of the laws. The cultivated classes in their despair have grasped Nihilism as their weapon against the present insupportable state of things, and risk their lives again and again, with dynamite and revolver, with the dagger and the torch of the incendiary, to precipitate the country into that bloody chaos, which, in their delirium, they imagine must precede the establishment of a new system of society. The statesmen who are called upon to devise a cure for this horrible disease propose the most astonishing remedies. One guarantees a cure if the Russian people be declared of age and invested with the right of legislative representation; another has confidence alone in a decisive leap backwards into the slough of Asiatic intolerance, and demands the eradication of all European innovations, with an extension of the power of the sacred and inherited despotism of the Czar; a third believes in the efficacy of a counter-irritant, and recommends a brisk, merry war against Germany, Austria, Turkey, or the whole world combined, if need be. The dark mass of the people however, entertains itself by plundering and killing the Jews, during these tedious consultations of its physicians casting greedy glances at the castles of the nobility, while it is destroying the taverns and synagogues of the Hebrews.

In England the ground appears solid and the structure of State firm, to a superficial observer. But if he lay his ear to the ground, and listen to the muffled strokes of the subterranean giants as they hammer away at the weak points in their dungeons; and if he examine the walls closer, he will see that underneath the varnish and gold plating, dangerous cracks extend from top to bottom. The Church and the Aristocracy of rank and wealth, are well organized and firmly allied to uphold each other, with a true appreciation of the identity of their interests. The middle classes bow submissively to the written and unwritten laws of the dominant caste, are outwardly eminently respectable, show reverence to titles, and swear that those things only are seemly which the upper ten thousand approve, every thing else being low and vulgar. But the laborer, the tenant, stand outside the bonds of this conspiracy; they demand their share of capital and land; they form clubs of free-thinkers and republicans; they shake their fists at royalty and aristocracy, and he who seeks to read the future of England, not in the tea-grounds, but in the eyes of the English working-man, will find it dark and threatening. Of Ireland I need not speak. The revolution against landlordism is in full swing there, murder rules the highways, and if the English Government does not succeed in drowning out the inhabitants in a sea of blood, it will be obliged to witness the forcible depossession of the land-owners in favor of the landless class, which will present an example that would speedily be imitated in England, and afterwards in many other countries.

In Italy a feebly rooted monarchy holds its own with difficulty against the rising flood of Republicanism. The sets before the young men of the country, a new ideal to long and work for, to take the place of the old ideal of Italian unity which has now become a reality. The secret sufferings of the masses are revealed by isolated but dangerous symptoms, such as the and in the south, while in Tuscany, they assume the form of religious fanaticism, and of the communistic principles of primitive Christianity.

France at the present moment can congratulate herself upon the best condition of political health of any European country; but how many incipient symptoms of disease are to be seen even there,—the germs of coming evils. On every street corner in the large cities, excited orators are preaching the gospel of Communism and violence; the masses are preparing to get possession of the government and drive the ruling bourgeoisie out of the snug offices and sinecures which they have enjoyed since 1789, and to take their places in the legislative assemblies. The parties of the old regime see the day of this inevitable conflict approaching, and strive to prepare for it by half-hearted plots and counterplots, jesuitical, monarchical and military, but without energy, without hope and without combination in which alone there is strength.

There is no need to speak of the smaller countries in detail. The name of Spain brings up before us a vision of and petty insurrections. In Norway every one is absorbed in the conflict between the present Government and representative legislation, within which lurks a future republic like the stone in a peach. Denmark has its Peasant Party and chronic ministerial crisis, Belgium its armed . All countries, the weak as well as the strong, have their own special ailments for which they vainly hope to find relief, by sacrificing countless millions year after year upon the altar of the military, like those persons in mediæval times who hoped to ensure their recovery from some dangerous disease by presenting their wealth to the church.

II.

The lack of harmony between government and people, the deadly animosity between different political parties, the fermentation going on in certain classes of society, are only manifestations of the universal disease of the age, which is the same in all countries, although its symptoms are characterized by various local names in different places, such as , , Socialism and the or Irredenta movements. Another and by far more dangerous form is the depression, uneasiness and breaking away, which characterize the mental attitude of every fully developed man who has attained to the heights of modern culture, irrespective of his nation and allegiance or non-allegiance to party or state. This pessimism is the keynote of our age as a delight in mere existence was of the classic ages, and ultra piety of the mediaeval period. Every man of culture feels this sense of irritating discomfort which he ascribes to some slight, casual cause, inevitably the wrong one, unless he analyzes his feelings with unusual care—it leads him to criticise and harshly condemn the varying phases of our modern social life. This impatience upon which all outside influences seem to exert an exciting and even exasperating effect, is called by some nervousness, by others pessimism, and by a third class, skepticism. The multiplicity of names describes but one and the same disease. This disease is visible in every manifestation of modern culture. Literature and art, philosophy and positive knowledge, politics and economy, all are infected by its taint. We discover the very first traces of its existence in the literature of the latter part of the last century, as any disturbances or changes in the conditions of mankind are detected first by the delicate perceptions of a poetic temperament. While the upper classes were following an uninterrupted round of corrupt gayeties, making their lives one prolonged orgy while the self-sufficient bourgeoisie saw nothing beyond the length of their own noses and were stupidly content with the way things were going, of a sudden Jean Jacques Rousseau lifted his voice in a ringing appeal for deliverance from his surroundings which yet had so many attractions. He preached to the world with enthusiasm, of a return to a state of primeval nature, by which he was far from meaning a return to primitive barbarism, but only a change to something diametrically opposed to the actual state of things. His cry awoke an echo in the hearts of all his contemporaries, as when a certain note is struck, all the chords in the instrument which are attuned to it, are set vibrating—a proof that Rousseau's longings pre-existed unconsciously in those around him. Rakes and Philistines alike began to cultivate their yearnings for primeval nature and life in the wilderness; they formed a comical contrast to the ardor with which they still sought and enjoyed all the super-refinements and gilded vices of the civilization they professed to despise. German Romanticism is descended in a direct line from Rousseau's longings for primeval nature. It is however a feeble Rousseauism, which did not have the courage to go to the end of the path upon which it had entered. Romanticism does not go as far back as the prehistoric epoch, but stops at a more accessible point, the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages as painted by the Romantic School in such glowing colors, are however, as far removed from the actual Middle Ages of history, as Rousseau's primeval nature was from the actual times of prehistoric man. In both cases their ideal world was to be constructed in the same way, with everything now existing replaced by its opposite; in both cases their ideas betrayed a conscious or instinctive fundamental conviction that any change from the present must prove an improvement upon the present condition of affairs. By tracing further the genealogical line of this literary tendency, we arrive at French Romanticism, which is a daughter of the German school; and later we come to the Byronic disgust with the world, which forms a separate branch of the same family. From the Byronic line are descended the German pessimistic poets, the Russian Puschkin, the French Musset, and the Italian Leopardi. The family trait in their mental physiognomies is their tragic discontent with the realities of life, which one vents in pathetic moans, another in bitter scorn of self, and a third in enraptured yearnings for different and more perfect conditions of life.

And does not the literature of our own generation, the literary productions of the two last decades, betray an attempt at escape from our age and its disappointments? The public demands novels and poems that treat of the most distant countries and epochs. It devours Freytag's and Dahn's sketches of life among the ancient Germanic races, the mediæval poems of Scheffel and his imitators, and the novels of Egyptian, Corinthian and Roman times by Ebers and Eckstein, or if it bestows its favor upon a book that announces its subject as modern, it must recommend itself by a certain false, sickly, sentimental idealism; it must be an attempt to clothe human beings like ourselves, with certain attributes that make them as our imagination delights to picture them, but as no one ever saw them in reality. The light literature of England has long since ceased to be a faithful mirror of real life. When it is not describing with gusto, crimes and scandals of all kinds, murders, burglaries, seductions or testamentary frauds, it portrays a model society, in which the members of the nobility are all handsome, dignified, cultivated and wealthy; while the lower classes are honest God-fearing people, devoted to their superiors, the virtuous among them being graciously praised and rewarded by Sir This or Sir That, while the wicked are locked up by the police—in short, a society which is in all respects an absurd idealization of the dilapidated, tottering structure of society as it exists in England at the present day.

The literature of France does not seem to fit into this frame at the first glance; but a second convinces us of our error. It is true, it limits its field of observation to the present and real in life. It denies itself any suggestions or longings for the past or the future, for any better or any different ideal. It is founded upon a principle of Art, that is called Realism or Naturalism. But let us examine closer: is Naturalism a proof of satisfaction with the present, and in this sense, in opposition to the pseudo historical and fanciful idealization which I have just described to be a powerful manifestation of disgust with the actualities of life, and of longing for their improvement? What are the themes which Naturalism portrays with a partiality for which it has been reproached so often? Does it ever depict any lovely or pleasing phases of this mortal life? No. It describes exclusively the most loathsome and hideous traits of civilization, such as are found mainly in the large cities. It takes especial pains to portray corruption, suffering and moral weakness, human beings sick unto death and a society at its last gasp, and as we finish a work belonging to this school, a plaintive voice seems to murmur with monotonous repetition. "You see, tormented reader, that this life which is here described with an inexorable fidelity to nature, is really not worth living." This is the fundamental conviction which every production of the Realistic school in literature silently proclaims; it is the starting point, it underlies the whole and forms the closing moral of each work, and is identical with the convictions upon which the false Idealism of England and Germany is based. The two paths, far from leading in opposite directions, conduct the wayfarers to the same goal. Naturalism lays down the premises, Idealism draws the conclusion from them. The former says: "The present conditions of life are intolerable," the latter adds: "Therefore away with them; let us forget them for one brief moment, and fancy ourselves in that ideal, perfect world which I can call up before my readers by my magic." The poet who sings in inspired verse of Arcadian simplicity, whose maidens are all beautiful and gay, with love in their hearts and lilies in their hands, living in romantic castles perched upon picturesque mountain peaks tipped with gold by the rising sun, who is called "a noble poet," by the admiring public, is only the brilliant co-worker of that other author who dips his pen like a shovel, into the mire, and for whom the public can not find language strong enough to express its disgust.

I have lingered upon this subject because the literature of a country is the most complete and many-sided form in which the intellectual activity of any age reveals itself. But all the other manifestations of human thought of the present time allow us also to discern the same traits as those in the physiognomy of modern literature. All around us we notice a general sense of uneasiness and a mental irritation, which assumes in one mind the form of grief or anger at the unbearable state of affairs in this world, and in another, produces a decided longing for a change in all the conditions of modern life.

The aim of the creative arts in former ages was the reproduction of the beautiful. The painter and the sculptor seized and perpetuated only the pleasing scenes that life and the world offered them. When Phidias was at work upon his Zeus, and Raphael was painting his Madonna, their hands were guided by a naive admiration of the human form per se. They experienced a delight and satisfaction in reproducing nature and when their delicate artistic taste recognized some slight imperfection in her, they hastily and discreetly toned it down, with an apologetic and idealizing touch. The art of to-day knows neither their satisfaction nor their naive admiration. It examines nature with a frowning brow and a keen, malicious eye, skilled in discovering faults and blemishes; it portrays under the pretext of fidelity to truth, all the imperfections in the visible form, involuntarily exaggerating them and giving them undue prominence. I repeat, under the pretext of truth, for truth itself does not lie within such means. The artist naturally reproduces his model as he sees and feels it himself; Courbet's ugly Stonebreaker is as far removed from absolute truth, as Lionardi's lovely Mona Lisa, from which Vasari drew his inspiration on account of its supposed fidelity to nature. And even when modern art is compelled to recognize the beautiful and pay unwilling tribute to it by perpetuating it, the artist contrives to suggest a flaw in it, by smuggling in a hint that the noble and glorious form is used for base purposes and is consequently contaminated. The majesty of the nude female figure is destroyed by a vague insinuation of sensuality and wantonness, which mars every modern painting of this class. It is sure to exert upon the susceptible observer the same kind of influence as the "If you only knew what I know!" whispered by some malicious, old scandal-monger into the ear of her neighbor, when the virtues of some acquaintance are being praised. Ancient art is characterized by a pleased enjoyment of nature; modern art by a self-tormenting dissatisfaction with her. One glorifies her, the other complains of her. One is a constant ode in her honor, the other an incessant, harsh and unfounded criticism. The point of view of the former was that we are living in the most beautiful of all possible worlds, and of the latter, that our world could hardly be more hideous than it is.

Pessimism is also the fashionable coloring of thought now in philosophy, not only in the established philosophies taught in the universities, but also in the private systems of philosophical thought and enquiry, which every person of culture has built up for himself around the important problems of the day. In Germany, Schopenhauer is God and Hartmann is his prophet. The Positivism of Auguste Comte is making no progress either as doctrine or sect, for even its followers have acknowledged that its methods were too circumscribed and its aims not sufficiently high. The philosophers of France are confining their investigations to psychology, or, to be more exact, to psycho-physiology. English philosophy has lost its right to the title of metaphysics, as it has abandoned its higher task, that of seeking a satisfactory view of the world, and is only occupied by questions of secondary importance, John Stuart Mill is studying logic alone, that is to say, the doctrine of forms for human thought; Herbert Spencer is busy with social science—that is, the mental and moral problems which arise in social life; Bain is devoting his time to theories of education, which include the study of psychology and moral philosophy. Germany alone has a living school of metaphysics, but it is dismal and hopeless. Good Dr Pangloss is dead and he has left no heirs behind him. , which provided a sufficient cause for every thing and allowed its followers to convince themselves that whatever is, is logical and necessary, has followed its predecessors to the store-room for old and worn-out systems of philosophy, and the world is now attracted by that philosophy which proclaims that this intolerable universe will finally sink again into nothing, owing to the wish of all created beings and things for complete annihilation.

This same disease of the age shows itself in the realms of political economy in a different but no less significant form. We seek in vain among the rich a feeling of security in regard to their wealth and of simple enjoyment of it; neither do we find among the poor that patient acquiescence in the poverty which appears so inevitable and unchangeable to human eyes. An undefined fear of approaching danger haunts the man of wealth; he sees a menace in the present condition of men and affairs, indistinct but none the less real, so that he has come to look upon his possessions as a loan that can be demanded from him, without reprieve,, from one moment to another. The poor man in consumed by envy and greed for the wealth of the privileged few; neither in himself nor in the existing arrangement of the world and society, as he has learned to understand it, does he discover any convincing reason for the fact that he is poor, and hence excluded from the table of life's pleasures. He listens with fierce impatience to a voice within him which whispers that his rights to the blessings of this life are as good as any man's. The rich man is dreading; the poor man is hoping and working to bring about a change in the present condition of property ownership. The faith in a continuance of its present state has been rudely shaken in the minds of all, even in those who will not acknowledge their secret doubts and anxieties.