Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/762

 The story of the past, presented in a light favorable to the interests of the upper classes.

Suppose the light is unfavorable?

That is scandalous.

What is a scandal?

Anything offending the upper classes.

What is esthetics?

The art of praising or belittling works of art.

What works of art must be praised?

Those that glorify the upper classes.

Therefore Raphael and Michaelangelo are the most famous artists, for they glorified the religious falsehoods of the upper classes. Shakespeare magnified kings, and Goethe magnified himself, the writer for the upper classes.

But how about other works of art?

There must not be others.

The Superior Classes

(American clergyman and college professor, born 1862; resigned to become an active Socialist)

It is customary to speak of the unpreparedness of the proletary for Socialism. But I am sure that, even today, the working-class would give a vastly better organization of industrial forces, a profoundly nobler and freer society, than ever the world has had. The ignorance of the working-class and the superior intelligence of the privileged class are superstitions—are superstitions fostered by intellectual mercenaries, by universities and churches, and by all the centers of privilege. And the assumption of superior intelligence on the part of the privileged is not warranted by a single historical expe