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At The End of An Age
By John Lukacs
Yale University Press
$22.95
230 Pages
“A civilization disappears with the kind of man, the type humanity, that has issued from it.”
--George Bernanos
By Khalil Abdel Alim
John Lukcas is the prolific author of more than 20 books on history. In this essay on the end of the “Modern Age,” he discredits the term “Modern Age.” A period that he describes as white, European, and Christian.
“In any event: until about five hundred years ago ‘Christian,’ and ‘European’ and ‘white’ were almost synonymous, nearly coterminous.” Their world domination lasted until Europe “grievously wounded each other and themselves” during the Second World War. After which there were no white settlements on other continents-“One exception is the state of Israel.”
According to Professor Lukacs, “the European Age”, the “Modern Age” of white Christian domination, ended in 1945-if not by 1917- when the two superpowers, the United States and Russia, met in the middle of conquered Europe. He points out that the United States is in a sense European because its origins, laws, and institutions-and for almost a century the majority of its population- was of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic origin. Which he says is changing and becoming less and less European. He makes the demographic observation that the composition of the American people changing to the point that whites will eventually be a minority; as they are now in California and according to demographers will also be in the entire nation early in this century. America is a product of the “Modern Age,” according to Lukacs.
He also challenges, ”We are at the end of an age: but how few people know this.” He says that his book is about thinking and that we must begin thinking about thinking itself.
Lukacs says man continues to make the same historical mistakes because man only acquired a consciousness of his own history about three or four hundred years ago. During which man acquired the science of nature. But the knowledge of man’s own history is far more important especially today. He debunks the popular definition of history as the cataloging of certain worthy facts, matters, and actions. Rather he quotes Shakespeares observation, “There is a history in all men’s lives.” He adds, ”Every event is a historical event, every source is a historical source; every person is a historical person.” This in part explains the racist selectivity of contemporary reports of history. He quotes Ortega y Gasset who said of man, ”He does not exist because he thinks, but on the contrary, he thinks because he exists.”
He chides man for his intellectual arrogance, ”it is not given to human beings to explain or to know everything, including the universe.”
He takes on four icons of Western intellectualism, Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Einstein.
He finds fault with Darwin’s thesis that human characteristics are acquired and cannot be inherited.
Of Marx, he faults him for his belief in “the Economic Man” and his failure to recognize the power of human thought motivated nationalism.
He rejects Freud’s ideas of the “prime sexual motivation” of human life. Lukacs discounts theories of the subconcious. According to professor Lukacs, man acts on conscious thinking.
He questioned Einstein’s science and said that he disagreed with him being proclaimed “The Greatest Man of the Twentieth Century” by Time Magazine in 1999. And said no man who could not free his mind from the four hundred year old ideas of Spinoza and Descartes should be called “The Greatest Man (or mind) of the Twentieth Century.” He says of the four great men that they made great contributions but that they were neither prophets nor the greatest of minds.
Lukacs devotes almost an entire chapter to an interesting analysis of Hitler in which he takes a dispassionate objective (not laudatory) view of him and his great impact on modern history. He points out that German historians and other intellectuals have not been able to come to grips with Hitler. There is still too much emotionalism surrounding him and National Socialism. As with Americans and slavery.
He also warns that this is a time, ”when puerility (demonstrating a gaping void of maturity) marks the expressions and behavior of more and more people-including some of the recent presidents of the United States. (The similarity of the phenomena of lingering puerility and of premature senility ought to be obvious.)”
He concludes his essay with a surprisingly spiritual discussion of God and religion. He expresses a sentiment of interfaith tolerance and understanding not heard from many religious leaders of the major faiths in this country. He says as a Christian, ”Christians may become-in many countries they already are-a small minority.” He adds, ”All of us have known many non-Christians who have acted in Christian ways…“ and ”many sincerely believing Christians whose expressions may show alarmingly non-Christian thoughts in their minds.” Likewise this could be said of Jews and Muslims in relation to non-Jews and non-Muslims.
This book is deeply philosophical and spiritual- the work of a profound thinker who will challenge your mind and require the re-reading of many paragraphs-if not the entire book. Not a casual easy read. The author is a historical thinker with no apparent political ax to grind.
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© Copyright 2002 by Khalil Abdel Alim. All Rights Reserved.
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