I CAME NEAR BEING
A
FASCIST
25
hollow, and that the most decent of you is content to take as gods the
windmills of capitalism, which he is careful not to clog. That intellectual
elite of yours, which you defend so zealously, is no longer existent; you
are but the slaves of encrusted habit-habits like your pipe tobacco and
your seat in the cafe. Your very nationalism is a lie, since it takes in
but an infinitesimal fraction of the entire nation, which labors and suf–
fers for you, and which will soon once more be getting. itself killed for
you, if one does not look sharply.
There is possible an economic system which, freeing mankind from
want, shall lift real humanity to the plane of real power; yet you are so
blinded by self-interest, by indolence or by fear, that you see in all this
only humanity's downfall. So much the worse for you, Ladies and Gentle–
men. You are throttling us, and in return, you bring us nothing. You are
closing up your ranks on nothingness; but as you are still very strong,
you succeed in bridling and muzzling the life-urge. This guard you k.eep
about nothingness, this safeguarding of the unsavable, this negative social
short-circuiting is what goes to make up Fascism.
RAMON FERNANDEZ
(From the French
by
Samuel Putnam)
