Now the only way in which such a social ego can develop such power is by obtaining control of the means of living,—food, clothing, shelter, and the natural and financial resources back of these means; and this control can be obtained only by archists,—dominationists,—organized into a social ego or group that is a unit on any special social ideal. Rebellions come and rebellions go, but the only rebellion that ever reaches successful revolution is made by a social ego powerful enough to get control of the necessities of life by force,—force material, intellectual, or psychic. This disposes forever of the professed repudiation of force by the philosophical anarchists, so-called. As for the poetic anarchists, who draw moving pictures of the beautiful time to come, when humanity will voluntarily organize to abolish all man-made law (which they consider the only social evil, not realizing that the evil is not in law, per se, but in the kind of law), and who look to “Mother Nature” for social guidance,—these will wait and look till the crack of doom, in vain. For “Mother Nature” is an old-wife of incredible stupidity, socially considered, and must needs be pulled up by the hair of her head at every whip-stitch, by her ever-evolving offspring, in order that they may transform her social stupidity into scientific truth. Social evolution depends entirely upon the discovery of such scientific truth and its application to the social order, and such application can be made only step by step through a social ego powerful enough to compel such application.
From this it may be seen that by whatever name we may call ourselves,—monarchists, democrats, anarchists,—we are really archists striving to impose our ideals as social egos upon the social order, and succeeding—only when we can get control of the means of living—in dominating the rest of the social body with them,—until a new social ego gets the power to cry “The king is dead! Long live the king!”
It, of course, goes without saying that no social dominance has ever been entirely wise or beneficent, and that until very recently in social history there has been no knowledge of sociological scientific truth to speak of upon which to base social domination. But the hope of the world lies in the ever-progressing discovery of such truth, and in its application to the social order by ever-evolving social egos that will more and more base their social ideals upon such truth, gradually dominating the whole social order with ideals so based.
After having read your “A Deeper Music” in the February issue I wondered whether you had ever heard Mr. de Pachmann play the piano. There is nothing in the world like it—nothing more wonderful. I am not speaking of an ebony Mason and Hamlin alone on a stage, but of any piano at all, with that madman bending his head over the keys of it.
I feel sure that had you heard him you would have included him in your article and would not have put words into Bauer’s mouth. You would have known that it is possible to play the piano very badly and play it more beautifully than any one else; both of these in one afternoon. The design of sound! But he, too, is becoming passé like Paderewski. But there is little likelihood of a type arising from these two.
Do you know of any one who plays the piano as Casals plays the ’cello?
Have you looked at any of Scriabine’s later piano pieces? I wonder if he expresses any of the moods which you prophesy will be caught by some new composer. I knew a boy in Petrograd who went to the conservatory every day with a volume of Scriabine and one of Bach under his arm. We called him the “Scriabine chap.” He probably has had thirty-second quavers punched into him by a German machine gun, for I am sure he couldn’t or didn’t dare be as loyal to both Nicholas and Wilhelm as he was to Scriabine and Johann S. B.
Yes, I have heard Pachmann many times, and he was always wonderful. I meant, of course, to put him in the article, but at the last minute he slipped my mind ... perhaps because I was trying to write of a “deeper” music, and since Pachmann is “master of the small essential thing and master of absolutely nothing else” he doesn’t quite come into the realm of the new vision of the piano.
Isn’t there a good deal of similarity between Casals’ playing of the ’cello and Bauer’s playing of the piano?