History and the Human Condition by Lukacs John;

Author:Lukacs, John;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

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Nationalism and militarism are popular sentiments. That does not minimize, it maximizes their importance, since the most powerful element in the history of a democracy is the accumulation not of materials but of opinions and sentiments. But that condition, in America, is not simple. There is the split-mindedness of so many Americans. (Split-mindedness, not schizophrenia: not a vertical division between what is conscious and less conscious; rather, the tendency to profess contradictory values within the same mind.) Americans tend to believe not only that they are a Chosen People21 but also that what is good for America is good for the world: Yet at the same time they are not much interested in the world outside the United States. Many Americans admire their military unreservedly, they are willing to pay taxes for it at any time; yet they are not eager to be drafted for military service. Something of a split-mindedness prevails about their—so-called—materialism, too. Americans think that matter and money are most important, and that money is what most people most want,22 but there are many kinds of evidences suggesting that for many Americans what matters is less their possession of money than their ability to spend it. Americans may be the least materialistic people in the world: there is enough evidence to argue this. However—there is now a fairly new condition, which is the spiritualization of matter: the intrusion of mind into matter, into the very structure of it.23 The great and profound danger in America is not materialism but a false spiritualism running rampant.24

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