APPENDIX III CHART OF “MODERN CIVILIZATION”

APPENDIX III

A Tentative Tabulation of Herdist Civilization and Culture

This is not a pedigree in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather a tabulation of different cultural and political items which influenced the European and American life during the past 100 years. The older, traditional values have been purposely excluded and the reader is invited to make a parallel tabulation with the opposite terms (supranationalism for nationalism, dualism for monism, etc.). There are naturally a series of items which do not have a term of contrary meaning. (For instance, “Luther” or “Hegelianism.”)

There are about 72 items in this table. Most of these are connected with a large number of the other items. There are only a few connecting lines drawn and the reader is encouraged to draw further connections. He will probably have to give up not because his (or her) ingenuity comes to a standstill and no new combinations will be detected, but because the sheet will be covered by such a thick net of lines that no new ones can be traced without resulting in total confusion. Our modern civilization and culture is actually a closely interwoven fabric; phenomena like democratism, communism, or national socialism are not ideologies “hanging in the air” but popular philosophies supported by the most important and poignant aspects of our present civilization and culture. Walt Whitman, Lenin, and Hitler were not bombinantes in vacuo. Catholicism has therefore to reject modern civilization almost in its totality. It is indeed difficult to see how Catholicism would live in harmony with the items listed on this tabulation except as a survival in the spirit of resignation or as an energetic negation fired by the enthusiasm of a revolutionary force. Quod erat demonstrandum. The Communists sing: “Let us make a clean slate of the past,” but they never meant honestly to break with the (immediate) past. The Catholic Church has no other alternative but to negate the Great Negation — our Modern Civilization.