"Olaf Stapledon - Light and the Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

inspire the majority, and particularly the young, with superb energy and devotion in the spreading of the Marxian ideals which
the regime still claimed to embody, but had in fact sadly perverted.

ii. NORTH AMERICA

I shall not pause to recount all the wars and social tumults of this age. I could not, if I would, give a clear report on them. I can
remember only that waves of fruitless agony spread hither and thither over the whole planet like seismic waves in the planet's
crust. Fruitless the agony seemed to me because time after time hope was disappointed. The door to a new world was thrust ajar,
then slammed.

Thus in India, when freedom had at last been gained, and under the stress of external danger Hindus and Mohammedans had sunk
their differences, it seemed for a while that out of these dark Aryan peoples the truth was coming which could save mankind. For
the ancient Indian wisdom, which permeated all the faiths, now came more clearly into view, stripped of the irrelevances of
particular creeds. The new India, it seemed, while armed with European science and European resolution, would teach mankind a
quietude and detachment which Europe lacked. But somehow the movement went awry, corrupted by the surviving power of the
Indian princes and capitalists. The wealthy controlled the new state for their own ends. Public servants were venal and inefficient.
And the ancient wisdom, though much advertised, became merely an excuse for tolerating gross social evils. When at last the
armies of the Russian Empire poured through the Himalayan passes, the rulers of India could not cope with the attack, and the
peoples of India were on the whole indifferent to a mere change of masters. Not until much later were the Indians to make their
great contribution to human history.

There were other hopeful movements of regeneration. Obscurely I can remember a great and promising renaissance in North
America. Adversity had purged Americans of their romantic commercialism. No longer could the millionaire, the demi-god of
money power, command admiration and flattering imitation from the humble masses. Millionaires no longer existed. And the
population was becoming conscious that personal money power had been the main cause of the perversion of the old civilization.
For a while the Americans refused to admit to themselves that their 'hundred per cent Americanism' had been a failure; but




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suddenly the mental barrier against this realization collapsed. Within a couple of years the whole mental climate of the American
people was changed. Up and down the continent men began to re-examine the principles on which American civilization had
been based, and to sort out the essential values from the false accretions. Their cherished formulation of the Rights of Man was
now supplemented by an emphatic statement of man's duties. Their insistence on freedom was balanced by a new stress on
discipline in service of the community. At the same time, in the school of adversity the former tendency to extravagance in ideas,
either in the direction of hard-baked materialism or towards sentimental new-fangled religion, was largely overcome. The Society
of Friends, who had always been a powerful sect in North America, now came into their own. They had been prominent long ago
during the earliest phase of colonization from England, and had stood not only for gentleness and reasonableness towards the
natives but also for individual courage, devotion, and initiative in all practical affairs. At their best they had always combined
hard-headed business capacity with mystical quietism. At their worst, undoubtedly, this combination resulted in self-deception of
a particularly odious kind. A ruthless though 'paternal' tyranny over employees was practised on weekdays, and on Sundays
compensation and self-indulgence was found in a dream- world of religious quietism. But changed times had now brought about
a revival and a purging. The undoctrinal mysticism of the Young Friends and their practical devotion to good works became a
notable example to a people who were by now keenly aware of the need for this very combination.