conservative, because it was a worthy and adequate expression of the public conscience: with us, [P. 52] true Art is revolutionary, because its very existence is opposed to the ruling spirit of the community. (…) Aeschylus is the very type of this conservatism, and his loftiest work of conservative art is the ‘Oresteia’ … .” [408W-{6-8/49} Art and Revolution: PW Vol. I, p. 51-52]
[409W-{6-8/49} Art and Revolution: PW Vol. I, p. 55]
[P. 55] {FEUER} “If Culture, starting from the Christian dogma of the worthlessness of human nature, disown humanity: she has created for herself a foe who one day must inevitably destroy her, in so far as she no longer has place for man-hood; for this foe is the eternal, and only Nature. Nature, Human Nature, will proclaim this law to the twin sisters Culture and Civilisation: ‘So far as I am contained in you, shall ye live and flourish; so far as I am not in you, shall ye rot and die!’
{FEUER} In the man-destroying march of Culture, however, there looms before us this happy result: the heavy load with which she presses Nature down, will one day grow so ponderous that it lends at last to down-trod, never-dying Nature the necessary impetus to hurl the whole cramping burden from her, with one sole thrust; and this heaping up of Culture will thus have taught to Nature her own gigantic force. The releasing of this force is – Revolution .
{FEUER} In what way, then, does this revolutionary force exhibit itself in the present social crisis? Is it not in the mechanic’s pride in the moral consciousness of his labour, as opposed to the criminal passivity or immoral activity of the rich? Does he not wish, as in revenge, to elevate the principle of labour to the rank of the one and orthodox religion of society? To force the rich like him to work, -- like him, by the sweat of their brow to gain their daily bread? Must we not fear that the exercise of this compulsion, the recognition of this principle, would raise at last the man-degrading journeymanhood to an absolute and universal might, and – to keep to our chief theme – would straightway make of Art an impossibility for all time?” [409W-{6-8/49} Art and Revolution: PW Vol. I, p. 55]
[410W-{6-8/49} Art and Revolution: PW Vol. I, p. 57]
[P. 57] {FEUER} “Let us glance, then, for a moment at this future state of Man, when he shall have freed himself from his last heresy, the denial of Nature, -- that heresy which has taught him hitherto to look upon himself as a mere instrument to an end which lay outside himself. When Mankind knows, at last, that itself is the one and only object of its existence, and that only in the community of all men can this purpose be fulfilled … . (…) This Heavenly Father will then be no other than the social wisdom of mankind, taking Nature and her fulness for the common weal of all.” [410W-{6-8/49} Art and Revolution: PW Vol. I, p. 57]
[411W-{6-8/49} Art and Revolution: PW Vol. I, p. 57]
[P. 57] {FEUER} “The crime and the curse of our social intercourse have lain in this: that the mere physical maintenance of life has been till now the one object of our care, -- a real care that has devoured our souls and bodies and well nigh lamed each spiritual impulse. This Care has made man weak and slavish, dull and wretched; a creature that can neither love nor hate; a thrall of commerce, ever ready to give up the last vestige of freedom of his Will, so only that this Care might be a little lightened.” [411W-{6-8/49} Art and Revolution: PW Vol. I, p. 57]
