Un-Civilizing America

Chapter 3What Civilization Is Not

To eat your own children is a barbarian act.

—Soviet poster from the 1930s

Civilization suffered two huge setbacks in the twentieth century. The first was World War I, which called into question all the conventions and conceits of modern society. For no apparent reason, and with nothing to gain, Europe took up its most bloody war ever. After more than two years of disastrous killing, France, England, Germany, and Russia were exhausted … and ready to call it quits. Then, the United States, equipped in equal measure with money, soldiers, and illusions, joined the fight … prolonging the misery another 19 months and costing millions more lives.

It was supposed to be the war to “make the world safe for democracy,” which was never remotely plausible. It was alternatively advertised as the “war to end war,” which was disproven 20 years later.

World War I shook the world's confidence. All of a sudden, social progress did not seem like such a sure thing. Things were not necessarily getting better all the time. For four years, they had gotten noticeably worse. And what could you blame if not evolved bourgeois society, with its many pretensions, rules, and manners? Surely another form of society … more consciously designed and organized … would be an improvement.

Thus emerged the second great setback—the “isms.” Bolshevism and fascism, in Russia and Germany, respectively, were the primary strains of the disease; other varieties flourished in Italy, ...