THE IDEA IS THE THING • m the momeiit he shows the least dissatisfaction ? Yet the ~o~s an worker remains loyal to the government and is the first ~f;nd it against criticism. He is still the most devoted champion t~ th "grand and noble institutions of the greatest country on 0 rth ~ Why ? Because he believes that they are his institutions, : t he as sovereign and free citizen, is running them and that he co~d c'hange them if ~e so wished. I! is his .faith in th~ existin~ rd that constitutes its greatest secunty agamst revolubon. His fait~ is stupid an~ unjusti~ed! and some da)'. it will break down and with it Amencan C?-pitahsm·and d~spot1sm. ~ut as Ion&"as that faith persists, Amencan plutocracy is safe agamst revolution. As men's minds broaden and develop, as they advance to new ideas and lose faith in their former beliefs, institutions begin to change and are ultimately done away with. The people grow to understand that their former vi~~s were false, that they were not truth but prejudice and superstition. In this way many ideas, once held to be true, have come to be regarded as wrong and evil. Thus the idea o~ the divine right of kings of slavery and serfdom. There was a bme when the whole world believed those institutions to be right, just, and unchangeable. In the measure that those superstitions and false beliefs were fought by advanced thinkers, they became discredited and lost their hold upon the people, and finally the institutions that incorporated those ideas were abolished. Highbrows will tell you that they had "outlived their usefulness" and that therefore they "died." But how did they "outlive their usefulness ? " To whom were they useful, and how did they " die " ? · We know already that they were useful only to the master class, and that they were done away with by popular uprisings and revolutions. . . Why did not old and effete institutions " disappe~r " and die off m a peaceful manner ? For two reasons : first, because some people think faster than ?thers: ~o that it happens that a minority in~a given place advani:e m their ~iews quic~er th1m the rest. The more that minority will become imbued with the new ideas the more convinced of their" tr~th, and th~ stron_g~rthey will fe~l themselves, the sooner they will try to reahse their ideas; and that is usually before the majority have come to see th_enew light. So that the minority have to st rugr;!e against the majority who still cling to the old views and conditions. d.:econd, the resistance of those who hold power. It makes no 1 erence whether it is the church, the king, or kaiser, a democratic· 47 B blloteca G ro Bianco
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExMDY2NQ==