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It Is An Evil World. The Fires Of Hatred And Violence Burn Fiercely. Evil Is Powerful, The Devil Covers A Darkened Earth With Hisblack Wings. And Soon The End Of The World Is Expected. But Mankind Does Not Repent, The Church Struggles, And The Preachers And Poets Warn And Lament In Vain.

-Johan Huizinga

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It Is An Evil

Johan Huizinga

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It Is An Evil World. The Fires Of Hatred And Violence Burn Fiercely. Evil Is Powerful, The Devil Covers A Darkened Earth With Hisblack Wings. And Soon The End Of The World Is Expected. But Mankind Does Not Repent, The Church Struggles, And The Preachers And Poets Warn And Lament In Vain.

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Science, Unguided By A Higher Abstract Principle, Freely Hands Over Its Secrets To A Vastly Developed And Commercially Inspired Technology, And The Latter, Even Less Restrained By A Supreme Culture Saving Principle, With The Means Of Science Creates All The Instruments Of Power Demanded From It By The Organization Of Might.

We Are Living In A Demented World. And We Know It. It Would Not Come As A Surprise To Anyone If Tomorrow The Madness Gave Way To Afrenzy Which Would Leave Our Poor Europe In A State Of Distracted Stupor, With Engines Still Turning And Flags Streaming In The Breeze, But With The Spirit Gone.

Play Is A Uniquely Adaptive Act, Not Subordinate To Some Other Adaptive Act, But With A Special Function Of Its Own In Human Experience.

All Seemingly Profound Thinking Which Passes For Realism, Because It Conveniently Does Away With All Troublesome Principles, Has Agreat Attraction For The Adolescent Mind.

There Are No Instances Known To Me Of Cultures Having Forsaken Truth Or Renounced The Understanding In Its Widest Sense.

Whatever Our Creed Or Belief, We All Know That There Is No Way Back, That We Must Fight Our Way Through.

Culture Requires In The First Place A Certain Balance Of Material And Spiritual Values.

Culture Means Control Over Nature.

An Aristocratic Culture Does Not Advertise Its Emotions. In Its Forms Of Expression It Is Sober And Reserved. Its General Attitude Is Stoic.

The Repudiation Of The Primacy Of Understanding Means The Repudiation Of The Norms Of Judgment As Well, And Hence The Abandonment Of All Ethical Standards.

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Revolution As An Ideal Concept Always Preserves The Essential Content Of The Original Thought: Sudden And Lasting Betterment.

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If The Americans, In Addition To The Eagle And The Stars And Stripes And The More Unofficial Symbols Of Bison, Moose And Indian, Should Ever Need Another Emblem, One Which Is Friendly And Pleasant, Then I Think They Should Choose The Grapefruit. Or Rather The Half Grapefruit, For This Fruit Only Comes In Halves, I Believe. Practically Speaking, It Is Always Yellow, Always Just As Fresh And Well Served. And It Always Comes At The Same, Still Hopeful Hour Of The Morning.

Whether The Aim Is In Heaven Or On Earth, Wisdom Or Wealth, The Essential Condition Of Its Pursuit And Attainment Is Always Security And Order.

The Susceptibility Of The Average Modern To Pictorial Suggestion Enables Advertising To Exploit His Lessened Power Of Judgment.

You Can Deny, If You Like, Nearly All Abstractions: Justice, Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Mind, God. You Can Deny Seriousness, But Not Play.

No Other Discipline Has Its Portals So Wide Open To The General Public As History.

He Who Wishes To Maintain That The Past Of Mankind No Longer Has Any Absolute Value In Lifemust Also Be Ready To Deny His Ownlife Until The Present Moment, Indeed In Advance Until The Last Moment, As Worthless. He Who Realizes That Culture Is The Giving Of Form Will Also See That The Highest Forms That It Is Given To The Human Spirit To Recognize Have Always Been, Psychologically Considered, Such Evasions From The Present. Considerations Such As These Do Not At All Square With The Direction Of America's Mind.

Physical Nature Lies At Our Feet Shackled With A Hundred Chains. What Of The Control Of Human Nature? Do Not Point To The Triumphsof Psychiatry, Social Services Or The War Against Crime. Domination Of Human Nature Can Only Mean The Domination Of Every Man By Himself.

Do You Know Anything That In All Its Innocence Is More Humiliating Than The Funny Pages Of A Sunday Newspaper In America?

These Are Strange Times. Reason, Which Once Combatted Faith And Seemed To Have Conquered It, Now Has To Look To Faith To Save It From Dissolution.

Under Weak Government, In A Wide, Thinly Populated Country, In The Struggle Against The Raw Natural Environment And With The Freeplay Of Economic Forces, Unified Social Groups Become The Transmitters Of Culture.

People Accept A Representation In Which The Elements Of Wish And Fantasy Are Purposely Included But Which Nevertheless Proclaims To Represent "the Past" And To Serve As A Guide-rule For Life, Thereby Hopelessly Confusing The Spheres Of Knowledge And Will.

If A Serious Statement Is Defined As One That May Be Made In Terms Of Waking Life, Poetry Will Never Rise To The Level Of Seriousness. It Lies Beyond Seriousness, On That More Primitive And Original Level Where The Child, The Animal, The Savage, And The Seer Belong, In The Region Of Dream, Enchantment, Ecstasy, Laughter. To Understand Poetry We Must Be Capable Of Donning The Child's Soul Like A Magic Cloak And Of Forsaking Man's Wisdom For The Child's.

You Only Live A Short Time... And You Are Dead A Long Time.

William James Once Said: "progress Is A Terrible Thing." It Is More Than That: It Is Also A Highly Ambiguous Notion. For Who Knowsbut That A Little Further On The Way A Bridge May Not Have Collapsed Or A Crevice Split The Earth?

When The World Was Half A Thousand Years Younger All Events Had Much Sharper Outlines Than Now. The Distance Between Sadness And Joy, Between Good And Bad Fortune, Seemed To Be Much Greater Than For Us; Every Experience Had That Degree Of Directness And Absoluteness Which Joy And Sadness Still Have In The Mind Of A Child

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History Is The Interpretation Of The Significance That The Past Has For Us.

Play Is Older Than Culture, For Culture, However Inadequately Defined, Always Presupposes Human Society, And Animals Have Not Waited For Man To Teach Them Their Playing.

The Slogan Offers A Counterweight To The General Dispersion Of Thought By Holding It Fast To A Single, Utterly Succinct And Unforgettable Expression, One Which Usually Inspires Men To Immediate Action. It Abolishes Reflection: The Slogan Does Not Argue, It Asserts And Commands.

If, Then, This Civilization Is To Be Saved, If It Is Not To Be Submerged By Centuries Of Barbarism, But To Secure The Treasures Ofits Inheritance On New And More Stable Foundations, There Is Indeed Need For Those Now Living Fully To Realize How Far The Decay Has Already Progressed.

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Most Thoughtful Americans Of Today Seem To Have Forgotten How Strongly Their Own And Immediate Predecessors, Emerson, Hawthorne And Whitman, Were Still Preoccupied With The Essence Behind Things.

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It Is An Evil World. The Fires Of Hatred And Violence Burn Fiercely. Evil Is Powerful, The Devil Covers A Darkened Earth With Hisblack Wings. And Soon The End Of The World Is Expected. But Mankind Does Not Repent, The Church Struggles, And The Preachers And Poets Warn And Lament In Vain.

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The Title Of Hero Is Bestowed By The Survivors Upon The Fallen, Who Themselves Know Nothing Of Heroism.

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Culture Arises And Unfolds In And As Play... Culture Itself Bears The Character Of Play.

Educators Are Aware That They Can Reach The Youth Only By Making Use Of Gang Spirit And Guiding It, Not By Working Against It.

Life Is Made Too Easy. Mankind's Moral Fibre Is Giving Way Under The Softening Influence Of Luxury.

In Order To Begin An Analysis, There Must Already Be A Synthesis Present In The Mind.

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Systematic Philosophical And Practical Anti-intellectualism Such As We Are Witnessing Appears To Be Something Truly Novel In The History Of Human Culture.

The Awareness Of The All-surpassing Importance Of Social Groups Is Now General Property In America.

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A New Culture Can Only Grow Up In The Soil Of A Purged Humanity.

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Nelson's Famous Signal Before The Battle Of Trafalgar Was Not: "england Expects That Every Man Will Be A Hero." It Said: "englandexpects That Every Man Will Do His Duty." In 1805 That Was Enough. It Should Still Be.

The More The Specific Feelings Of Being Under Obligation Range Themselves Under A Supreme Principle Of Human Dependence The Clearer And More Fertile Will Be The Realization Of The Concept, Indispensable To All True Culture, Of Service; From The Service Of God Down To The Simple Social Relationship As Between Employer And Employee.

The Art Of Watching Has Become Mere Skill At Rapid Apperception And Understanding Of Continuously Changing Visual Images. The Younger Generation Has Acquired This Cinematic Perception To An Amazing Degree.

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