returned, as Karl Wittfogel proved. Wittfogel was a Marxistnwho changed his mind in the concentration camps of Hitler:nMy final thoughts go to those who, like myself, were passingnthrough that great inferno of terror. Among them, some hopednfor a great turning of the tables which would make themnguards and masters where formerly they had been inmatesnand prisoners. They objected, not to the totalitarian means,nbut to the ends for which they were being used. Others respondedndiflferendy. They asked me, if ever opportunity offered,nto explain to all who would listen the inhumanity of totalitariannrule in any form.nWittfogel survived to study the roots of totalitarianism. Henresearched the huge monuments and immense irrigation systemsnof Mesopotamia, the Orient, and Latin America, and discernednthese to be the results of total despotism. Vast nximbersntoiled to create systems that controlled ^riculture—^andnpeople. In those ancient paganisms there was no class system:neveryone lived in the service of the despot. Despots in thenWest were restrained by the nobility. The nobility was sustainednby the Christian idea that only God is sovereign, andnthat all power on earth must be limited. Wittfogel effectivelyndemolished the idea that the class struggle is the key to universalnhistory. His second contribution was to show that thenabsence of class struggle means a despotism is in place. Nevertheless,nour government schools continue to discuss Marxismnin 19th-century Utopian terms. Conservatives, while sympatheticnto the idea of elites, have Med to provide a popularndefense of why elites are necessary and how they preservenliberty.nMe Leanwhile, we gaze at the results of secularization in ourncities and countryside. Chillingly impersonal glass-hung structuresnmade livable by machinery alone, porno shops in evennremote villages. Instead of automobiles we now export dirtynmovies; where we once imported art and books we now bringnin cocaine and heroin.nThe conservative movement, although growing, remainsnlargely unfocused. It is hobbled by overintellectuality and anpersistent neglect of the arts. Its ranks contain few painters,neven fewer composers, and only a handfiil of professional actors,nwriters, musicians, playwrights. In some respects, thenconservative movement is a sort of intellectual cottage industry,nwith each cottage intent upon weaving its own patterns.nMost of the cottages produce political diatribes, though somenlean toward economics. But many of the economically mindednare not even contemporary in their observations. They evokenthe theology of a free market when no such market exists anywherenin the world. It is worth remembering that after thenBolsheviks realized the German Revolution of 1919 had failed,nthey shifted to a seduction of German artists. The results arenstill visible: The Threepenny Opera continues to play, some­n. ARTS & POWER.nnnwhere, every day. Brecht was not alone: within three yearsnafter the Comintern decided to concentrate on German artists,nnearly all had become members of the Marxist mainstream.nBut our cotiservative intellectuals seem to find an absorbingninterest in Gnosticism and anti-French Revolution Britishnstatesmen. It would seem that the situation calls for more contemporarynanalyses.nThe overall problem seems to be that conservatives are notnsure of what they want to conserve, and what changes they arenwilling to accept. We live amid changes introduced by nonconservativenforces which many resent and fear, and yet therenis no consensus about which changes are inevitable and wiiichnmust be forever resisted. By gradual, almost imperceptiblenstages, conservatism has become a political movement, a mainstreamnpolitical movement in many respects. In that process,nconservatives have apparentiy forgotten that most Americansnnow fear government, and with good reason. The governmentncan ruin an individual without bothering to take him to court.nWe are told to elect better people—but suppose there are nonbetter people? What then?nSuppose the debacles so often predicted, unless we changenour ways, actually occur? Then what? What is the conservativenplan then?nCan conservatives actually envision change at all? Can theynspeculate upon not only a new administration, but even a newngovernment? After aU, our forebears didn’t try to reform Georgenni: they replaced his government. I do not place the ReagannAdministration in that category, of course, but it is clear that itnis incapable of changing the trends that alarm us. It is now obviousnthat the President has no party, and that both Republicannand Democratic politicians no longer believe in partynprinciples: they follow the media agendanWh hat this all adds up to is that a loss of feith means a lossnof principle, and that these losses are more serious than is generallynadmitted. If we want a conservative culture, we shallnhave to think in deeper, braver, broader terms about how tonbring such a culture to life. We shall have to drop our perpetualnjudgments and criticisms of what others say and do,nstop talking mainly to each other, and—^most important of alln—start recruiting the communicators of the arts. We need thentheater, the literati, the music and painting and architecture:nwe need to cultivate what once kept our civilization strong innorder to restore its strength for today and tomorrow. We neednto stand up against the blackmail and rhetorical excesses of racialnpolitics: we need to broaden our activities beyond politicsnand economics into the whole of American life. We must, if wenwant to avert the deluge, cultivate a better conservatism thannthat which has been thus 6r expressed.n—OttoJ. ScottnMr Scott is a frequent contributor to Chronicles of Culture.nFebixiary 1984n