Full Stop, Engineer: Perspectives (Conclusion)

CHAPTER ELEVEN Perspectives The author having said everything he wanted to say, this chapter appears to be somewhat superfluous. On the other hand, taking leave from my readers so soon, and on such a sad note, almost amounts to betraying them. I would therefore stay with them a little longer to share my ideas about our perspectives which can be read in the way of a conclusion. A covert civil war in the West has already started. We do not know yet how much it will take for ‘the other party’—the party of the Narrative—to win completely. We members of the old Faustian culture still may have local victories (and I wish we’d better have them). However, the importance of those victories should not be overestimated. The life force of our civilisation is exhausted; the ten preceding chapters show, if perhaps not very convincingly, why it is. What can we do in the light of it? It appears that any responsible member of any Western nation is now presented with exactly four alternatives. 1. We can try to go on with our lives, pretending that nothing has happened. I believe it is exactly this type of behaviour that is called ‘ostrich policy’ in some Western languages. To pretend in 2024 that we still live in, let us say, 1913 takes an extremely strenuous effort—an effort which is not worth taking, since the fall from an ivory tower of our wishful thinking will be quick and painful. 2. We also can emigrate: leave our country for good and go to other countries which are parts of other high cultures, being at another stage of their cultural development. This is a hard decision. And, apart from its being hard, what difference does this type of behaviour have from that of the rats leaving a sinking ship? I know perfectly well that it is only rational to leave a sinking ship. But then, rats and mice, too, behave rationally. I believe we’d better avoid doing 82 anything that could make a border between a fully responsible human being and a Mrs Montag dangerously indiscernible. And, anyway, why should we leave what had been ours for centuries without even an attempt at the last struggle? (I wonder if the last sentence sounds too martial and thus ‘too German.’ Well, as I already said in the preface, I am not really ashamed of my German accent.) 3. The so-called inner emigration provides itself as yet another option. Innere Emigration is of course a specifically German term, coined perhaps by Frank Thiess (1890—1977), a German author who opposed Thomas Mann by saying that inner emigrants at the time of the Nazi regime in Germany had shown even more courage than those who, like Thomas Mann himself, had observed the events from a safe distance. In practical terms, inner emigration supposes our social mimicry, combined with our inner disagreement with what is said and done around us which, however, we keep for ourselves. My readers should excuse my saying that, unfortunately, I do not believe in this kind of spiritual effort—if spiritual effort it is, indeed. Thinking ‘no’ and saying ‘yes’ does not serve our fellow humans. It is also a way to quickly become schizophrenic. It appears that the concept of inner emigration was also known to the Soviet intelligentsia. Given this, I cannot help quoting a passage from The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn which is a piece of advice he gives to his readers and which at one time struck me as a heavy blow. [Y]ou must say to yourself: ‘My life is over, a little early to be sure, but there is nothing to be done about it. (...) I am condemned to die—now or a little later. (...) I no longer have any property whatsoever. For me those I love have died, and for them I have died. From today on, my body is useless and alien to me. Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious and important to me.’62 Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (auth.), Thomas P. Whitney (transl.), The Gulag Archipelago, 1918—1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London: Harper & Row, 1985), 130. 62 The italics are my own—L. R. 83 One can stumble upon specimens of true moral teaching where he least expects to find them. The teaching of Solzhenitsyn is, to be certain, incredibly heavy to follow. However, Solzhenitsyn’s ascetic attitude to life has a clear advantage, namely, the advantage of bestowing upon us true freedom no inner emigration is ever able to give us. 4. The last alternative was already mentioned. Whatever the circumstances are, we can try to do what our higher Self says we ought to do. We can create new meaningful jobs if we are in a position to do so. We can marry or engage in a chaste betrothal if we are young—and ignore what our friends or relatives are going to say about that. We certainly can and should ignore the contemporary entertainment industry. We still can look for our personal masters and teachers if we are dissatisfied with what is offered to us by today’s educational institutions. We can collect and preserve what we think to be pieces of meaningful art. Being a teacher, we can try to create alternative educational projects. Being a religious believer, we might attempt to establish new places of worship. In whatever situation we are, we definitely can make a solemn decision to scornfully reject all attempts at converting us into simplified versions of human beings, to never yield to whatever falsehoods we hear and recognise as falsehoods, to never lie, both to others and to ourselves, to never sacrifice one single iota of what is dear and valuable to us. Wouldn’t such attempts turn our life into a nightmare? Can this idealistic approach still be carried out in the Western world of today? We never know before we try. Behold him, the Nutcracker who lieth there with his jaw broken, exhausted by his tiresome battle with the race of Hoffmannian mice! Lo, his jaw is healed, and he, a wooden puppet as he is, is turning into a handsome young man, worthy of love of his beautiful Mary—an almost impossible thing to believe. What may not happen to us, provided we do not surrender? Miracles do happen even today. The End 84 The author kindly requests his readers to please send their comments, ideas, or observations at roemer.ludwig@gmail.com or at ludwigroemer@freenet.de. 85