Page:The War and the Future.djvu/21

 Why do I mention this? Because I am persuaded we must not be afraid, we must not fear word spooks like "communism." For our fear is the source of courage to our enemies. Social changes are like developments in music. For the layman's ears new music is wild, lawless cacophony, the dissolution of all restraint, the end of all things. It is rejected until the ear can catch up and becomes accustomed to the new. Today it is scarcely believable that Mozart at first seemed turgid, and harmonically extravagant, that Verdi in comparison with Donizetti was terribly difficult, Beethoven unendurably bizarre, Wagner crazily futuristic, Mahler an incomprehensible noise. In every instance, the human ear caught up slowly, for people need music, and they learn to feel as music whatever the musician produces, not deliberately, not recklessly but because he must, because the Zeitgeist and historical development prescribe it.

The same thing takes place in the social field. The education of the ear corresponds to the education of an organ which can be called the social conscience. What transformations and modifications, have taken place since the days when muraenae were fed the flesh of living slaves, and again since the beginning of the industrial epoch. Private property is undoubtedly something fundamentally human. But even within our own lifetime, how changed is the concept of property rights! It has become weakened and limited if not undermined through inheritance laws and taxations which in some cases approach confiscation. Individual freedom which is closely related to property rights was forced to adjust itself to the collective demand and, through the course of years, made this change almost imperceptibly. The idea of freedom, once revolution itself, realized in the sovereignty of national states, is experiencing certain modifications, that is a new equilibrium is being sought, between the two fundamental ideas of modern democracy, freedom and equality. The one is slowly modified by the other. The sovereignty of national states is being called upon to make sacrifices in favor of the common good. Common good, community—there you have the root of the frightening word by means of which Hitler made his conquests. I haven't the 21