The Reader Critic
ANARCHYAlice Groff, Philadelphia:Anarchy is scientifically a reductio ad absurdum and those who claim to be anarchists are self-deceivers,—minds that cannot complete a circuit of reason. There is no place in reason for anarchy, hence there is not and cannot be an anarchist on a basis of reason. All who call themselves so are eitherarchistsof the most rabid sort or helpless flies in the sticky syrup of laissez faire. The only professed anarchists that make any impression upon the world are of three kinds: either they are spirits of revolt of the most bitterly, materialistically tyrannical sort; or they are those who suffer with the oppressed and strive individually to set them free, even to the point ofself-martyrdom; or they are sentimentalists who maunder maudlinly on about love and justice and yet do absolutely nothing to bring about the love of justice or the justice of love, either in their preaching or their practice. But none of these are really anarchists, they are only varieties ofarchistswho wish to impose theirownsocial ideals upon the social order in place of those that already prevail.The whole story of social evolution in a nutshell is as follows: every phase of the social order at any stage of social evolution is maintained by a social ego or group sufficiently powerful to dominate the rest of the surrounding social body,—and this phase can be changed only by revolution—bloodless or otherwise,—on the part of a new social ego desiring this change and developing power to establish and maintain it.Now the only way in which such a social ego can develop such power is by obtaining control ofthe means of living,—food, clothing, shelter, and the natural and financial resources back of these means; and this control can be obtained only byarchists,—dominationists,—organized into a social ego or group that is a unit on any special social ideal. Rebellions come and rebellions go, but the only rebellion that ever reaches successful revolution is made by a social ego powerful enough to get control of the necessities of lifeby force,—force material, intellectual, or psychic. This disposes forever of the professed repudiation of force by the philosophical anarchists, so-called. As for the poetic anarchists, who draw moving pictures of the beautiful time to come, when humanity will voluntarily organize to abolish all man-made law (whichtheyconsider the only social evil, not realizing that the evil is not in law, per se, but in thekindof law), and who look to “Mother Nature” for social guidance,—these will wait and look till the crack of doom, in vain. For “Mother Nature” is an old-wife of incredible stupidity, socially considered, and must needs be pulled up by the hair of her head at every whip-stitch, by her ever-evolving offspring, in order that they may transform her social stupidity into scientific truth. Social evolution depends entirely upon the discovery of such scientific truth and its application to the social order, and such application can be made only step by step through a social ego powerful enough to compel such application.From this it may be seen that by whatever name we may call ourselves,—monarchists, democrats, anarchists,—we are reallyarchistsstriving to impose our ideals as social egos upon the social order, and succeeding—only when we can get control of the means of living—in dominating the rest of the social body with them,—until a new social ego gets the power to cry “The king is dead! Long live the king!”It, of course, goes without saying that no social dominance has ever been entirely wise or beneficent, and that until very recently in social history there has been no knowledge of sociological scientific truth to speak of upon which to base social domination. But the hope of the world lies in the ever-progressing discovery of such truth, and in its application to the social order by ever-evolving social egos that will more and more base their social ideals upon such truth, gradually dominating the whole social order with ideals so based.Anonymous:After having read your “A Deeper Music” in the February issue I wondered whether you had ever heard Mr. de Pachmann play the piano. There is nothing in the world like it—nothing more wonderful. I am not speaking of an ebony Mason and Hamlin alone on a stage, but of any piano at all, with that madman bending his head over the keys of it.I feel sure that had you heard him you would have included him in your article and would not have put words into Bauer’s mouth. You would have known that it is possible to play the piano very badly and play it more beautifully than any one else; both of these in one afternoon. The design of sound! But he, too, is becoming passé like Paderewski. But there is little likelihood of a type arising from these two.Do you know of any one who plays the piano as Casals plays the ’cello?Have you looked at any of Scriabine’s later piano pieces? I wonder if he expresses any of the moods which you prophesy will be caught by some new composer. I knew a boy in Petrograd who went to the conservatory every day with a volume of Scriabine and one of Bach under his arm. We called him the “Scriabine chap.” He probably has had thirty-second quavers punched into him by a German machine gun, for I am sure he couldn’t or didn’t dare be as loyal to both Nicholas and Wilhelm as he was to Scriabine and Johann S. B.Yes, I have heard Pachmann many times, and he was always wonderful. I meant, of course, to put him in the article, but at the last minute he slipped my mind ... perhaps because I was trying to write of a “deeper” music, and since Pachmann is “master of the small essential thing and master of absolutely nothing else” he doesn’t quite come into the realm of the new vision of the piano.Isn’t there a good deal of similarity between Casals’ playing of the ’cello and Bauer’s playing of the piano?Scriabine’s later piano things have something of what I meant, and do you remember the piano parts of “Prometheus?” Stravinsky, too—you know how he uses the piano in “Pétrouchka.” But the new vision is beyond these—something more rich and shattering.... I can’t say it. Let’s just wait and see.—The Editor.Alice Groff, Philadelphia:“Spirit can do” absolutelynothing, without body. Social spirit can do absolutely nothing without the means of life for the body. The social ego that would “start the revolution” must aim first to get control of the means of living—food, clothing, shelter, and the resources, natural and economic, back of these. Revolutions succeed only when they get such control; if they do not get it they are soap bubbles blown by a little child.Why waste time pelting with idle words the social egos that have such control, instead of going to work towrenchit from them,even with war?The social ego that has such control “can do anything.” It can stop war with a turn of its hand and establish in its stead world-wide service, kindness, brotherhood, peace, joy and beauty. And there is nothing else in the universe that can do this.It is for lack of a social ego having such control and that unity in establishing the above-mentioned principles in the social order, alone, that “men continue to support institutions they no longer believe in, that women continue to live with men they no longer love, that youth continues to submit to age it no longer respects,” and it is the only agency that can help one to be free when one wants to be free or make one a personality instead of a nonentity.All that you say about a “deeper music” is true, though I would say a more winged music—(I would not dare use to you the word spiritual)—or a subtler music, or something of that sort; but all that you deprecate in music, by critical suggestion, is also true and necessary, scientifically and fundamentally, without which your deeper or higher or subtler or more winged or more spiritual music would be nothing but soap bubbles without plenty of soapy water to make them out of. I am one of those who can appreciate this deeper music—but I know also that it cannot be created ex-nihilo.As to Ben Hecht, his power of expression is wonderful. His writing is literature par excellence, but it lacks asoul. If in his meticulous analyses of life he could suggest the vision of the swallowing up of the macrocosm in the macrocosm—could suggest what humanity as a whole could do to wipe out the evils that feed upon the individual—he might be god-like. But like all of the rest of you he is a deadfly in the sickening syrup oflaissez faire, at the mercy of Mother Nature. Now it isn’t worth while for you to resent this. Go to work and read what I have been able to get out ofThe Egoist, showing up anarchy for all that it is worth.Edgcumb Pinchon, Los Angeles:Glad to see you get into trouble—you have the Flame! May it flash on our universal dullness and faithlessness as the sun on sword blades——Do you remember Maupassant’s story: An exhausted French regiment—ten miles to go—the men mutinous, disgruntled; a broken-down carriage by the road-side—horses and driver gone—a mother and her daughter forlorn in the carriage, needing assistance to the next town. The snow is deep, their slippers are thin and they are fashionably—and uselessly—garbed. The soldiers make a sedan chair of the carriage poles, and fighting among themselves for the honor of bearing a hand at the poles they finish the march with spirit and bravado——?Do you remember Whitman’s “lithe, fierce girls?” Such are the flame-tongues of Revolution—the priestesses of social passion.If Woman only knew her power to work white magic with banality and stir up the hero-poet in man! But we who have dragged her by the hair for ten thousand years must continue to drag her enfeebled body and spirit with us for penalty—even as we are praying her to touch us to Fire!When you say that all we need at this hour is a few great spiritual leaders—you are tremendously right. And shall not one of those be some “lithe fierce girl” who knows how to wake the militant social troubadour in man?The enclosed is because you, like Margaret Sanger, belong to the new revolution—the thoroughbred thing compact of esprit, audacity, faith, and elan.
Alice Groff, Philadelphia:
Anarchy is scientifically a reductio ad absurdum and those who claim to be anarchists are self-deceivers,—minds that cannot complete a circuit of reason. There is no place in reason for anarchy, hence there is not and cannot be an anarchist on a basis of reason. All who call themselves so are eitherarchistsof the most rabid sort or helpless flies in the sticky syrup of laissez faire. The only professed anarchists that make any impression upon the world are of three kinds: either they are spirits of revolt of the most bitterly, materialistically tyrannical sort; or they are those who suffer with the oppressed and strive individually to set them free, even to the point ofself-martyrdom; or they are sentimentalists who maunder maudlinly on about love and justice and yet do absolutely nothing to bring about the love of justice or the justice of love, either in their preaching or their practice. But none of these are really anarchists, they are only varieties ofarchistswho wish to impose theirownsocial ideals upon the social order in place of those that already prevail.
The whole story of social evolution in a nutshell is as follows: every phase of the social order at any stage of social evolution is maintained by a social ego or group sufficiently powerful to dominate the rest of the surrounding social body,—and this phase can be changed only by revolution—bloodless or otherwise,—on the part of a new social ego desiring this change and developing power to establish and maintain it.
Now the only way in which such a social ego can develop such power is by obtaining control ofthe means of living,—food, clothing, shelter, and the natural and financial resources back of these means; and this control can be obtained only byarchists,—dominationists,—organized into a social ego or group that is a unit on any special social ideal. Rebellions come and rebellions go, but the only rebellion that ever reaches successful revolution is made by a social ego powerful enough to get control of the necessities of lifeby force,—force material, intellectual, or psychic. This disposes forever of the professed repudiation of force by the philosophical anarchists, so-called. As for the poetic anarchists, who draw moving pictures of the beautiful time to come, when humanity will voluntarily organize to abolish all man-made law (whichtheyconsider the only social evil, not realizing that the evil is not in law, per se, but in thekindof law), and who look to “Mother Nature” for social guidance,—these will wait and look till the crack of doom, in vain. For “Mother Nature” is an old-wife of incredible stupidity, socially considered, and must needs be pulled up by the hair of her head at every whip-stitch, by her ever-evolving offspring, in order that they may transform her social stupidity into scientific truth. Social evolution depends entirely upon the discovery of such scientific truth and its application to the social order, and such application can be made only step by step through a social ego powerful enough to compel such application.
From this it may be seen that by whatever name we may call ourselves,—monarchists, democrats, anarchists,—we are reallyarchistsstriving to impose our ideals as social egos upon the social order, and succeeding—only when we can get control of the means of living—in dominating the rest of the social body with them,—until a new social ego gets the power to cry “The king is dead! Long live the king!”
It, of course, goes without saying that no social dominance has ever been entirely wise or beneficent, and that until very recently in social history there has been no knowledge of sociological scientific truth to speak of upon which to base social domination. But the hope of the world lies in the ever-progressing discovery of such truth, and in its application to the social order by ever-evolving social egos that will more and more base their social ideals upon such truth, gradually dominating the whole social order with ideals so based.
Anonymous:
After having read your “A Deeper Music” in the February issue I wondered whether you had ever heard Mr. de Pachmann play the piano. There is nothing in the world like it—nothing more wonderful. I am not speaking of an ebony Mason and Hamlin alone on a stage, but of any piano at all, with that madman bending his head over the keys of it.
I feel sure that had you heard him you would have included him in your article and would not have put words into Bauer’s mouth. You would have known that it is possible to play the piano very badly and play it more beautifully than any one else; both of these in one afternoon. The design of sound! But he, too, is becoming passé like Paderewski. But there is little likelihood of a type arising from these two.
Do you know of any one who plays the piano as Casals plays the ’cello?
Have you looked at any of Scriabine’s later piano pieces? I wonder if he expresses any of the moods which you prophesy will be caught by some new composer. I knew a boy in Petrograd who went to the conservatory every day with a volume of Scriabine and one of Bach under his arm. We called him the “Scriabine chap.” He probably has had thirty-second quavers punched into him by a German machine gun, for I am sure he couldn’t or didn’t dare be as loyal to both Nicholas and Wilhelm as he was to Scriabine and Johann S. B.
Yes, I have heard Pachmann many times, and he was always wonderful. I meant, of course, to put him in the article, but at the last minute he slipped my mind ... perhaps because I was trying to write of a “deeper” music, and since Pachmann is “master of the small essential thing and master of absolutely nothing else” he doesn’t quite come into the realm of the new vision of the piano.Isn’t there a good deal of similarity between Casals’ playing of the ’cello and Bauer’s playing of the piano?Scriabine’s later piano things have something of what I meant, and do you remember the piano parts of “Prometheus?” Stravinsky, too—you know how he uses the piano in “Pétrouchka.” But the new vision is beyond these—something more rich and shattering.... I can’t say it. Let’s just wait and see.—The Editor.
Yes, I have heard Pachmann many times, and he was always wonderful. I meant, of course, to put him in the article, but at the last minute he slipped my mind ... perhaps because I was trying to write of a “deeper” music, and since Pachmann is “master of the small essential thing and master of absolutely nothing else” he doesn’t quite come into the realm of the new vision of the piano.
Isn’t there a good deal of similarity between Casals’ playing of the ’cello and Bauer’s playing of the piano?
Scriabine’s later piano things have something of what I meant, and do you remember the piano parts of “Prometheus?” Stravinsky, too—you know how he uses the piano in “Pétrouchka.” But the new vision is beyond these—something more rich and shattering.... I can’t say it. Let’s just wait and see.—The Editor.
Alice Groff, Philadelphia:
“Spirit can do” absolutelynothing, without body. Social spirit can do absolutely nothing without the means of life for the body. The social ego that would “start the revolution” must aim first to get control of the means of living—food, clothing, shelter, and the resources, natural and economic, back of these. Revolutions succeed only when they get such control; if they do not get it they are soap bubbles blown by a little child.
Why waste time pelting with idle words the social egos that have such control, instead of going to work towrenchit from them,even with war?
The social ego that has such control “can do anything.” It can stop war with a turn of its hand and establish in its stead world-wide service, kindness, brotherhood, peace, joy and beauty. And there is nothing else in the universe that can do this.
It is for lack of a social ego having such control and that unity in establishing the above-mentioned principles in the social order, alone, that “men continue to support institutions they no longer believe in, that women continue to live with men they no longer love, that youth continues to submit to age it no longer respects,” and it is the only agency that can help one to be free when one wants to be free or make one a personality instead of a nonentity.
All that you say about a “deeper music” is true, though I would say a more winged music—(I would not dare use to you the word spiritual)—or a subtler music, or something of that sort; but all that you deprecate in music, by critical suggestion, is also true and necessary, scientifically and fundamentally, without which your deeper or higher or subtler or more winged or more spiritual music would be nothing but soap bubbles without plenty of soapy water to make them out of. I am one of those who can appreciate this deeper music—but I know also that it cannot be created ex-nihilo.
As to Ben Hecht, his power of expression is wonderful. His writing is literature par excellence, but it lacks asoul. If in his meticulous analyses of life he could suggest the vision of the swallowing up of the macrocosm in the macrocosm—could suggest what humanity as a whole could do to wipe out the evils that feed upon the individual—he might be god-like. But like all of the rest of you he is a deadfly in the sickening syrup oflaissez faire, at the mercy of Mother Nature. Now it isn’t worth while for you to resent this. Go to work and read what I have been able to get out ofThe Egoist, showing up anarchy for all that it is worth.
Edgcumb Pinchon, Los Angeles:
Glad to see you get into trouble—you have the Flame! May it flash on our universal dullness and faithlessness as the sun on sword blades——
Do you remember Maupassant’s story: An exhausted French regiment—ten miles to go—the men mutinous, disgruntled; a broken-down carriage by the road-side—horses and driver gone—a mother and her daughter forlorn in the carriage, needing assistance to the next town. The snow is deep, their slippers are thin and they are fashionably—and uselessly—garbed. The soldiers make a sedan chair of the carriage poles, and fighting among themselves for the honor of bearing a hand at the poles they finish the march with spirit and bravado——?
Do you remember Whitman’s “lithe, fierce girls?” Such are the flame-tongues of Revolution—the priestesses of social passion.
If Woman only knew her power to work white magic with banality and stir up the hero-poet in man! But we who have dragged her by the hair for ten thousand years must continue to drag her enfeebled body and spirit with us for penalty—even as we are praying her to touch us to Fire!
When you say that all we need at this hour is a few great spiritual leaders—you are tremendously right. And shall not one of those be some “lithe fierce girl” who knows how to wake the militant social troubadour in man?
The enclosed is because you, like Margaret Sanger, belong to the new revolution—the thoroughbred thing compact of esprit, audacity, faith, and elan.