.
Page Two
'PERSPECTIVES
GERMAN, FRENCH. and ENGLISH
CULTURES IN CONFLICT
(Condensed from the Original)
,.. By Spencer B. King, Jr.
In the present war in Europe there is
a conflict of politics and a conflict of
economic interests; both are causes of
the war. Another cause can be added:
a conflict between the national cultures
of the Germans, the French, and the
English.
In social customs and in cultural in-
terests, in political and economic activ-
ity, and in intellectual pursuits one can
find enough differences to enable him
to conclude that there is a national
character in France which marks
France as a nation unlike Germany, and
this is also true in the case of England.
All will agree that where the beer-
drinking German loves his music, the
tea-drinking Englishman loves his neat
little garden, and the wine-drinking
Frenchman loves ....
L German Dualism
Considered over the whole period of
their history-which is the only way
one can study them fairly-the Ger-
mans are a great and cultured nation.
Their contributions to western civiliza-
tion serve as ample proof of this fact.
A heritage is theirs which is the envy
of all who know of it. Rather than stir
one's hatred of them as they follow, in
blind hope, their power-drunk Fuehrer
who, to them, is their economic, social,
and political savior, they deserve one's
sympathy, one's respect, and even one's
admiration for their many fine quali-
ties and their great cultural contribu-
tions to the world. A study of German
character is not only a study of the
present Nazi regime, its leaders, its con-
formists, and its victims, but also the
study of the whole of the German people
throughout their entire history. There
is one thing they have never learned,
however, that is to govern themselves.
Democracy is foreign to their nature.
Among the characteristics of the Teu-
tonic people are a melancholic and sub-
jective way of looking at life, and a
passion for music. The German love
.for music is well known. One finds
clearly expressed in the German songs
a war-like character; the religious and
romantic strain is very noticeable too.
Their music is indicative of vigor, hardi-
ness, bravery.
The Germans both dream and work.
One thinks of the Englishman as a man
of action and of the Frenchman as a
man of doctrines, but the German-one
thinks of him as a man of dreams.
Sometimes his dreams reach upward,
toward the infinite; sometimes they be-
come worldly, showing him to be selfish
and materialistic. That is his dualism.
If one can ascribe a soul to the German
nation he must admit two souls. Goethe
found two souls in the German breast.
The German himself, in his melancholic
way, ponders at great length over the
mystery of these two conflicting na-
tures. There is a story which illus-
trates the profound and deep thinking
of the German. A cosmopolitan class in
Which sat a German, a Russian, an
American, a Frenchman, and an Eng-
lishman was given the subject "ele-
phants" as an essay assignment. The
essays were submitted. The title of the
Englishman's essay was, "Elephants
That I Have Hunted and Killed"; the
Frenchman wrote, "Elephants: Their
Love Life"; the American, "Elephants:
An Investment." The subject of the
Russian's essay was "Elephants-Do
They Exist?" But the metaphysical Ger-
man wrote, "Elephants, an Introduction
In Twelve Volumes."
The dualism of the German mind
makes it possible to understand how the
people can be so materialistic and ag-
gressive. Dr. Kuno Franche, one-time
professor of the history of German cul-
ture at Harvard, illustrates the dual
character of the Germans by a descrip-
tion of Nietzsche. He says, "Here we
see, on the one hand, a most delicate
perception of the finest operations of
the mind, a penetrating analysis of the
most tender instincts and longings of
the human soul, a reveling in artistic
enjoyment, a glorification of the most
sublime culture-and on the other hand,
a savage delight in the underlying sel-
fishness and brutality of all life, a ruth-
less exaltation of might over right, a
T10t W-101
O4 £ord
I have bruised my heart
On cruel stone:
My Father's loaves
Have rock-hard grown;
My Father's eyes
Pass me unknown.
I have scorched my mouth
With bitter wine-
Blood of a Lamb
Once divine:
Envy and fear,
These are mine.
I have vainly prayed
To Jesus' throne:
Pled for friendship,
Heard hate's tone;
Pled for peace.
Lost my own.
I have torn my faith,
Vouchsafed no sign
That God's own teachings
God's rule confine:
Love should reign, -
Force resign.
Yet I cling to God-
To God alone:
I know a Father
Would give no stone.
To hate and war
His priests have flown,
But for hate and war
Must his priests atone.
-.rtis Dah.
fierce contempt for the Christian vir-
;ues of meekness and faith."
When Humanism awoke from slumber
in the fourteenth century in Italy and
began to woo all who would listen to his
love-call, the pious Germans, then un-
der the mood of spirit, thought him dis-
gusting and, under the leadership of
Martin Luther, reacted against 'that
pagan, but they have not remained con-
stant in their loyalty to Luther's ideals.
This conflict between materialism and
the upward reach is greater among the
Germans than among the French or the
English.
H. German Totalitarianism
"Totalitarianism" is a much used
word. To attempt a definition: it is the
complete subjugation of the individual
to the will of a strong leader for the
sake of oneness, or unity, and conse-
quently for the sake of efficiency in the
'control of land and people. Organiza-
tion, discipline, and efficiency are fun-
damental in the German character. One
finds this true at the very center of
German life-in the home. The Ger-
man loves his home as he loves the soil.
There is love, music, and respect in the
German home-and there is obedience.
Discipline begins in the home. Disci-
pline becomes stronger in the schools,
The master strikes the pupil not only
for disrespect but also for failure to be
perfect. Disciplinetbecomes strongest in
the army and in the state. 'Simplicity
is a German trait, and through it one
finds a reason for the desire of the Ger-
man to reduce the complexities of so-
cial and political organization to the
very simple matter of having one man
lead while the members of the state
follow.
Definitions are very hard to make.
Perhaps the real meaning of "Totali-
tarianism" can be understood best
through seeing it at work. One may
observe the totalitarian drive in Ger-
many during various stages in the his-
tory of the people-from the time when
they first appeared upon the stage of
western civilization in barbaric hordes
in the second century before Christ to
the present day. That first restless
wave of invasion was a premature ex-
pression of the totalitarian impulse.
Wave after wave of invasion came, until
the Teutons overran the Latin world
and the Eternal City became their prey.
These invasions continued to the sixth
century after Christ.
Their inborn love of the infinite fi-
nally overcame their worldly desire for
possession, and pillage, and plunder;
and they accepted the God of Christian
Rome as their God. From the sixth to
the ninth centuries they were quiet po-
litically and militarily-that is, quiet in
comparison with previous and subse-
quent epochs when their "Totalitarian-
ism" rode roughshod over their univer-
salism and humanitarianism.
An eastward and southward move-
ment of the Germans began in the tenth
century. Die Drang nach Osten carried
them beyond the Danube into Poland,
and die Drang nach Suden was a push
across the Alps and down the Italian
peninsula all the way to Sicily. This
second totalitarian period saw the build-
ing of the Holy Roman Empire which
began with Otto I in 962, the empire of
the Hohenstaufens and, later, of the
Hapsburgs.
Then Medieval culture burst into full
flower in Italy and, with the Renais-
sance popes enjoying all the fruits
thereof, the Germans broke with Rome,
and, themselves experiencing an awak-
ening under Christian humanists such
as Erasmus, started a great religious
reform movement.
The rise of Prussia under Frederick
the Great was the prelude of the Ger-
man Empire, built by Bismarck in 1871.
It was the Hohenzollern, Wilhelm II,
who, demanding a "place in the sun,"
found the sun turn to blood in 1914.
With the collapse of the German Em-
pire in 1918 it would seem that this
third period of German "Totalitarian-
ism" had ended; but a crushed and
humiliated Germany turned to an emo-
tional leader who promised them, even
in the hour of shame and defeat, a way
out. Thus Germany, weighted down
with political and economic miseries,
gave complete power to one man, a man
who hated as they hated, a man who
represented in his philosophy the sim-
plicity that the Germans could under-
stand, that is oneness: one race, one
hate, one purpose, one leader. Today an
emotional leader again stirs an emo-
tional people with visions of imperial-
ism and power.
The philosophy behind the present
program of German "Totalitarianism"
as carried out by the Nazis belongs to
the leaders of German thought of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Much of the responsibility for the pres-
ent phase of "Totalitarianism" can be
placed upon them. The Nazi program
is based upon the totalitarian philoso-
phy of the pagan Nietzsche.
The totalitarian impulse which is
driving the German nation into such a
program of aggrandisement now since
she has regained her lost strength pro-
duces an extreme patriotism, a rabid
nationalism which is the manifestation
of the spirit of "political mysticism."
The epitome of that spirit is, of course,
Hitler himself.
III. The Emotional French
The emotionalism of the French is
seen by the casual observer, but closer
scrutiny reveals the much deeper trait
of rationalism. Emotion is only an out-
ward demonstration with them. and if
one looks into the inner recesses of the
French mind he will find high intellect
and clear logic there. The French them-
selves have an idiom which helps ex-
plain the seeming conflict between the
surface trait, emotionalism, and the
inner nature, rationalism, it is "du bout
des dents"-that is, they speak from
the teeth out.
To know the real Frenchman, one
must know his loves. There are three
loves of the Frenchman. He loves life,
he loves society, and he loves his coun-
try.
Would one call the French frivolous?
Hardly. Gaiety is the better word. The
French speak of their gaiety as never
being exuberant, but as being amiable
and gentle. One could hardly call the
French frivolous after studying the
French Revolutions of 1789, 1830, and
1848 where, upon each occasion, they
shed blood for an idea which they called
"Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite."
There is a certain sensuousness in
their joy of living. Italian humanism
played an influential part in making
modern France.
The Frenchman loves society. It is
more possible to draw a composite pic-
ture of the French than any other ma-
jor nation, for they are less individual
than the English or the Germans. The
success of the Counter Reformation dur-
ing the reign of Louis XIV had some-
thing to do with preserving the Medie-
val social consciousness in France.
The social instinct of the French is
as old as France itself. Brownell, a stu-
dent of French life at the end of the
past century, quotes Voltaire as saying,
"Nothing is so disagreeable as to be
obscurely hanged," and adds that "to-
gether with its obvious vanity it is im-
possible not to see in the remark a feel-
ing of fraternity as well." Fraternity
was one of the notes struck in 1789;
and that note still sounds today in a
nation where liberty has been silenced.
The French love of society is demon-
strated by the high degree to which they
have developed the art of conversation.
There are two chief elements in the
fine French art of conversation; they
are the keen, quick, and sparkling wit
of the French mind and the politeness
of manner.
The constant practice which the
French give the art of conversation in
their little lively groups and in the
cafes leads to eloquence in public life.
A visitor to the Revolutionary Assembly
in 1789 observed that Mirabeau "spoke
without notes for near an hour, with a
warmth, animation, and eloquence that
(Costinued on Page 8)