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Schiller long ago formulated the idealist conception of history, which secs in man a free moral agent, controlling nature. The materialists never got… - Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
" "Schiller long ago formulated the idealist conception of history, which secs in man a free moral agent, controlling nature. The materialists never got beyond the positivist point of view which confines history to an attempt to understand conditions, describe their phenomena and analyse their components. There is, however, another point of view possible: a metaphysical, which includes the physical, an intellectual, which includes the scientific: a point of view which recognizes the sublimity and rises above the degradation of man: the only point of view from which an answer is possible to the question: Who created the circumstances? It is no answer to reply that the circumstances created themselves. Marx never allowed himself to speculate whether perhaps materialism might not be merely a transition to some greater principle behind. He clung to the assertion that men make their own history, not as free agents, but under the compulsion of given circumstances. Again we ask: but who created the circumstances? There can only be one answer: Man himself is the datum.
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About Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
Arthur Wilhelm Ernst Victor Moeller van den Bruck (23 April 1876 – 30 May 1925) was a German cultural historian, philosopher, reactionary, and writer best known for his controversial 1923 book Das Dritte Reich ("The Third Reich"), which promoted German nationalism and strongly influenced the Conservative Revolutionary movement and then the Nazi Party, despite his open opposition and numerous criticisms of theirs.
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Arthur Wilhelm Ernst Victor Moeller van den Bruck
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Additional quotes by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
The liberal professes to do all he does for the sake of the people; but he dl'stroys the sense of community that should bind outstanding men to the people from which they spring. The prnple should J1aturally regard the outstanding man, not as an enemy bul as a representative sample of themselves. Liberalism is the party of upstarts who have insinuated Liberalism is the party of upstarts who have insinuated themselves IJclwecn the people and its big men. Liberals feel themselves as isolated individuals, responsible to nobody. They do not share the nation's traditions, they are indifferent to its pasl and have no ambition for its future. They seek only their own personal advantage in the present. Their dream is the great International, in which the differences of peoples and languages, races and cultures will be obliterated. To promote this they are willing to make use, now of nationalism, now of pacificism, now of militarism, according to the expediency of the moment. Sceptically they ask: "What are we living for?" Cynically they answer: Just for the sake of living!
The morning's dollar level became the substitute for morning prayer. We are still thinking of nothing but the miseries of to-day: the capitalist and proletarian think of nothing else. We have sunk to a depth which man never reached before: the materialist conception of history has reached its zenith<p>Can this last for ever? We know that it cannot. Disgust at materialism, at ourselves, has seized us. Reaction has set in, a reaction against socialism itself. Socialism can only help if it can purge itself of its materialism, its rationalism andwhat has been the most fatal thing of all-its liberalism.
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