Magick Without Tears

"MONSTERS" 443 corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science on a jury; all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, reinforced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to bestow. It is peculiarly noticeable that when a class is a ruling minority, it acquires a detestation as well as a contempt for the surrounding "mob." In the Northern States of U.S.A., where the whites are overwhelming in number, the 'nigger' can be more or less a "regular fellow"; in the South, where fear is a factor , Lynch Law prevails. (Should it? The reason for 'no' is that it is a confession of weakness.) But in the North , there is very strong feeling about certain other classes: the Irish, the Italians , the Jews. Why? Fear again; the Irish in politics, the Italians in crime, the Jews in finance . But none of these phobias prevent friendship between individuals of hostile classes. I think that perhaps I have already written enough-at least enough to start you thinking on the right lines. And mark well this! The submergence of the individual in his class means the end of all true human relations between men. Socialism means war. When the class moves as a class, there can be no exceptions . This is no original thought of mine ; Stalin and Hitler both saw it crystal-clear ; both , the one adroitly, the other clumsily, but with equally consummate hypocrisy , acted it out. They picked individuals to rule under their autocracy , killed off those that wouldn't fit, destroyed the power of the Trades Unions or Soviets while pretending to make them powerful and prosperous , and settled down to the serious business of preparing for the war which both knew to be inevitable. It is this fundamental fact which ensures that every democracy shall end with an upstart autocrat; the stability of peace depends upon the original idea which aggrandized America in a century from four millions to a hundred: extreme individualism with opportunity . Our own longest