Liberty or Equality Online (pdf)
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arisbeNOT without an inner emotion and a certain feeling of hesitancy am I offering these pages to the English-speaking public. The emotion is due to the fact that I lived for over ten years on the hospitable soil of the United States of America-the native land of my second child-which to me is my second home. The hesitancy, on the other hand, is the result of the grim foreboding that this volume will be the cause of several misunderstandings and, in a number of cases, of downright resentment. Yet, as Leon Bloy has insisted, it is “ later than we think,” and the time for flattery, self-delusion and cheap optimism is over.
An involved situation -a complicated problem-a complex issue cannot be dealt with in a few pages or in a simple way. This task has taxed the mental powers and the physical energies of more than one person; the author had to be assisted by an editor with a greater mastery of English than his own. Of course, as far as the material, the facts, and the views are concerned, these are entirely the author’s responsibility. The reader might conceivably ask himself why this book was written and published in this particular situation and at this particular time. Another edition, a German translation, will be published soon in Switzerland. But the author, an Austrian who will never forget his “ American decade,” and his years in Britain, believes that directly as well as indirectly he has dealt with problems which not only lie at the core of that particular internal crisis which darkens the horizons of the Occident’s future, but also form the very substance of the great and fatal misunderstanding between the Continent and the English-speaking nations.
This catastrophic lack of comprehension of the rather opaque world east of Calais, aggravated by confusion about technical terms, is largely responsible for the grave disappointments America-and Britain also-have suffered after each major war won for their ideals. Each triumph for “ democracy ” has ended, on the Continent, with a frightening set-back for the cause of liberty. The years 1917, 1918, 1922, 1933, 1938 were a chain of defeats for the cause of freedom. The Second World War resulted in military victory and political defeat.
In order to help Englishmen and Americans to distinguish more clearly between the forces of light and the forces of darkness the material for this book has been collected, arranged and annotated. It is our fervent hope that we have not altogether failed in this endeavour.
Lans, Tyrol, June 28, 1951
KUEHNELT-LEDDIHN
An involved situation -a complicated problem-a complex issue cannot be dealt with in a few pages or in a simple way. This task has taxed the mental powers and the physical energies of more than one person; the author had to be assisted by an editor with a greater mastery of English than his own. Of course, as far as the material, the facts, and the views are concerned, these are entirely the author’s responsibility. The reader might conceivably ask himself why this book was written and published in this particular situation and at this particular time. Another edition, a German translation, will be published soon in Switzerland. But the author, an Austrian who will never forget his “ American decade,” and his years in Britain, believes that directly as well as indirectly he has dealt with problems which not only lie at the core of that particular internal crisis which darkens the horizons of the Occident’s future, but also form the very substance of the great and fatal misunderstanding between the Continent and the English-speaking nations.
This catastrophic lack of comprehension of the rather opaque world east of Calais, aggravated by confusion about technical terms, is largely responsible for the grave disappointments America-and Britain also-have suffered after each major war won for their ideals. Each triumph for “ democracy ” has ended, on the Continent, with a frightening set-back for the cause of liberty. The years 1917, 1918, 1922, 1933, 1938 were a chain of defeats for the cause of freedom. The Second World War resulted in military victory and political defeat.
In order to help Englishmen and Americans to distinguish more clearly between the forces of light and the forces of darkness the material for this book has been collected, arranged and annotated. It is our fervent hope that we have not altogether failed in this endeavour.
Lans, Tyrol, June 28, 1951
KUEHNELT-LEDDIHN