Books and Writers
FIESS, EDWARD
Books and Writers Towards a Philosophy of Man By EDWARD FIESS fltthlxi F*ri9tt0% and Remembered. By Helmut kuhn Ckmpel Hill, I'm, ««..fV •/ Hortk Carolina free* W pages. 12,60. X***...
...When, on another psge, Mr...
...Th* rustling river, hobbling over broken stones, wishful, wishful...
...II Lying at the bank of th* river alone The dreams, the hopea, the terrors That befell early settlers and the first explorera Seem nigh, yet Drones of automobiles, and trailers snd Airplanes on and over II...
...I eo is and Clark halted thereabouts—a roaring fire...
...From Lincoln's Message to Congress, December, 1861...
...Kuhn...
...X*** LtdACY OF TJiE LIBERAL SPIRIT...
...Let / the workers beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely he used to close the dour of advancement againat such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdena upon them, till all liberty shall be last...
...speaking as a lay philosopher, be counsels a jet urn not merely to religion but to the "right" kind of religion...
...be must caricature this "positivism" in order to attack it...
...Although such a series of essays could easily become superficial, the author everywhere does justice to the complexity of his subject...
...Bratton's Mew Erasmus, Voltaire, Paine, and Theodore Parker have all contributed, among others mentioned, to the bioad stieam of liberalism, humanism, and enlightened religion...
...THIS is a wordy, frequently-repetitious symposium * edited by Frsnk Luther Mott, desn of the University of M-hnwrwV-School of Journalism, it's a. more or less clinical discussion of the problems faced by newspapers in wartime, and none of its thirtytwo contributors—publishers, news service executives and editors, mostly—has anything startling to say...
...Some great leaps are taken here...
...Bratti n is Minister of the Congregational Church ol Aguwam and presumably as much concerned as Mr...
...and both of them are concerned to derive freedom from philosophical and religious concepts...
...Having fought with Pastor Niemoeller against the nasifiration of Christianity, he has bad the sad advantage of first-hand contact with Nazi thinking and with the kind of thinking powerless to reject Nazism...
...The morrow "another ten miles advanced up the Missouri" No crowds, no tyranny, no shrill urban grating— Nature provides enough noise to prevent I Mailer from diainlegrating...
...Paper edition, $2.50...
...In Dr...
...I. is never clear how much of Augustine's world We niirst scrept ' along with Augustine's thinking...
...Bat they go into the same large, many-chambered bouse by different entrances and issue by different exits...
...And Mr...
...AruaJn bends sad turns " Narrowing ap from where It tuVbulcutly wsshss into the Mississippi, "Ufe>leod of America" Up from the middle of the continent Through flat-lands, rolling country, Uadnlating PacMc-like, Edged in green, shouldered in brown, Crowned Anally in high majestic purple...
...His best contributions are found in his treatment of Origen (he thinks it unfortunate that Augustine's thinking, and not Origen's, dominated official Christianity), of emly Christian radicalism, and of nineteenth century religious criticism as essential parts of liberal thought, from which they are often thoughtlessly excluded...
...HI The endless winding of fNe cTlafty riier...
...Kuhn first discusses the Naxi mentality and the modern "mind in uniform," of which it is a part...
...Whether he wrote the piece before or after his own attempt to block the distribution of "Under Cover"- because of John Roy Carlson's decidedly tincomplimentary references to him, Mr...
...American Council on Public Affairs...
...But to what extent shall we accept a system on paper, carefully separating it from the defects of the system in operation...
...I Away with Rationalization, Industry, Technocracy—(a little voice asks, "Can machines construct the Missouri, or the summer's night...
...Bratton and Mr...
...As we haTe massacres, sham trials, and the vicious secrecy of a powerful political police, we will abhor and condemn the terror of the Hussion revolution and of the blood-purges But since cruelty and disregard of human life is not a part of the Communist system as it is of the Nazi system, we may hopefully believe we witness the pangs and convulsions of a birth which must be judged by its fruits, not by the atrocities of the delivery...
...therefore, his comments on this phase have the wisdom ' that comes from mature reflection and concrete experience...
...where it isn't, it's weighted down with quavering'v-utcries against purported efforts to abridge the pre/«' Sacred treedoin...
...There are no intellectual bridges here serosa the gsps...
...One of these lilasts—an essay by Frank* E. Gannett, rabidly reactionary chain-publisher from upstate New York—has an ironically amusing aspect...
...Kuhn opposes...
...Gannett tells of a trip he made to Germany, Italy and Russia in 1935, and records with considerable honor the effects of government-control of the newspapers in those countries...
...Kuhn are concerned with that important element in the good societyfreedom...
...Do not theory and practice form a whole...
...Courage, go forward alone...
...Freedom from the presentMemories of Bison (huff a bras we've alwaya railed them...
...When is theory viable and when it is mere official pretense...
...Kuha takes many another...
...Nowhere today does this frontier exist...
...By Fred G. Bratton...
...Again like Hutchins and Adler...
...Ho silent, so quiet, so peaceful, so calm— This then is freedom—is peace...
...But Dr...
...Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves stark the higher* rsaaidetaluiit...
...Biatton is one of the positivists that Mr...
...The point is that Mr...
...Broiling fish, the diary, the watch—and sleep...
...The Legacy of the Liberal Spirit consists of a series of essays on gieat liberals in the contexts of their times, from Origen to John Dewey...
...And escape from the monotony of Mass materialism...
...f«.76...
...rTH Dr...
...Indians, Sioux...
...Here in the middle of Montana in summer's longest dsys, Selfless blue skies, Crsgged snd sullied lime-atones Mate with the Missouri ss it glides downstream...
...I ABOR is prior to, and independent of, capital Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed...
...such lsrge philosophical theses sa he advances cannot be discussed in a vacuum...
...The book has a serviceable index...
...When, however, he searches for Uful finds the Weak philosophy, the unsound system of thinking which is ultimately responsible for fascism, he takes a broad )eap to join that increasingly articulate band, the opponents of "positivism...
...Kuhn tells us seriously that Communists believe the State is evil, we wonder whether he knows thst this item is s dead letter in the official Marxist credo...
...Freedom of earth, freedom of water, freedom of sky— Political scavenging for God's bounty to man...
...y Cl.word Part tar I Far into the State of Montana Flows/the long, gray, muddy Missouri...
...Kuhn it seems that modern man must rehabilitate theology ami accept,anew certain fundamental tiuths uttered by Aristotle and Augustine...
...Kubn's analysis bieaks down when we begin to ask for concrete details on the growth and birth of fascism and on what the semanticisti would call the "referents" of his kind of freedom...
...Sagebrush snd bushes, clump* of trees, Sky, sky and more aky, until The distant West ia ridged—here it ia flat...
...Cries of hungry hawks, popping heads of fish, I A scurry now and then, | The rising full-blooded moon, A shower of stars canopies Ihe night, rich, i Black as loam...
...To Mr...
...Gannett doesn't say...
...S 404 have mechanised these fanries...
...Positivism is true: hence totalitarianism does not exist...
...Their paths seldom lie close together...
...It is merely an Italian and German affair, and the war is one of these endless broils which Europe apparently is unable to dispense with...
...Such questions, though, may suggest a repugnant "positivism...
...Facts were suppressed,," he reports, registering loud disapproval...
...Kuhn with the abiding values of religion...
...Like Hutchins and Adler, Kuhn makes the Word "positivism" cover a multitude of sins and philosophical positions, among which he singles out instrumentalism without mentioning John Dewey by name...
...Totalitarianism does not exist, means: it does not exist for us...
...Ntw York, Chariest Seribner's Sow...
...This conclusion was drawn in good earnest not so much by the philosophers as by thousands and tbo isands who had imbibed the current positivism which forms an element of the contemporary intellectual atmosphere...
...Washington, D. C. 218 pages...
...The book is largely concerned with the newspapers' internal prwidems...
...Words, Words, Words fly PAUL SLADi JOVRSALISM IX WARTIME...
...they need the documentation of specific detail and incident...
...Pswnee, Blsckfeet, (And General Custer) Lewis and Clark, two rsnoes psddled across a continent By a dozen white men snd a few Indian guides, Moved by an ideal—Freedom...
...Hoping for similar figures in the future, he sees no threat to true religion in such a trend, unlike Mr...
Vol. 27 • February 1944 • No. 8
