enthusiastic reception of Erich MarianRemarque’s All Quiet on the WesternnFront, a work that utterly captivated anninternational audience mired in despair.nSecond, into this malaise flewnCharles Lindbergh, the solitary Americannhero who was treated as a god innEurope. He was seen as the newntechnological messiah, his flight symbolicnof the idea that “Man has beennset loose. Freedom was no longer anmatter of being at liberty to do what isnmorally right and ethically responsible.nFreedom had become a personal matter,na responsibility above all to oneself.”nHE FAMIIYnBryce dirlslenscn ^Allan CarlsonnMaris V’lnovskis RicKaH’.VeddernJem Itetlikc UsHtaiii-.nThe Family Wage: Work, Gender,nand Children in the ModernnEconomy A fascinating collectionnof essays that will help Americansnbetter understand the current economicnchallenges to family life.nSend for your copy today!nDYES, please send mencopies of The Fkmily Wage: Worii,nGender, and Children in thenModem Economy at $11.50 eachn(postage and handling included).nNamenAddressnCitynState _Zip.nSend this coupon and your check madenout to The Rockford Institute to: ThenRockford Institute, 934 N. Main St.,nRockfoid, IL 61103n42/CHRONICLESnIrrationalism, despair, technology —nadd kitsch and the stage is set for thenNazi version of the dance of death. Atnthe outset of Rites of Spring, Eksteinsnintimates that “Nazi kitsch may bear anblood relationship to the highbrownreligion of art proclaimed by manynmoderns.” Later, he makes the connectionnexplicit: “Nazism was a popularnvariant of many of the impulses ofnthe avant-garde. It expressed on a morenpopular level many of the same tendenciesnand posited many of the samensolutions that the avant-garde did onnthe level of ‘high art.’ Above all, it, likenthe moderns it claimed to despise, triednto marry subjectivism and technicism.”nCertainly the futuristic emphasis —nwhich assumes a repudiation of conventions,nvalues, and ultimately historyn— of the avant-garde was shared by thenNazis. Eksteins rejects the view ofnNazism as reactionary or conservative.n”Contrary to many interpretations ofnNazism,” as he observes,nwhich tend to view it as anreactionary movement… thengeneral thmst of the movement,ndespite archaisms, was futuristic.nNazism was a headlong plungeninto the future, toward a “bravennew worid.” Of course it usednto full advantage residualnconservative and Utopiannlongings, paid its respects tonthese romantic visions . . . butnits goals were, by its own lights,ndistinctly progressive. . . . Thenintention of the movement wasnto create a new type of humannbeing from whom would springna new morality, a new socialnsystem, and eventually a newninternational order.nIn Nazism, that is, the ideals of thenavant-garde had found a home, as theynhad settled in Germany prior to thenGreat War. Hitler, of course, was at theneye of the storm, and Eksteins sees himnas “The ultimate kitsch artist, he fillednthe abyss with symbols of beauty. Thenvictim he turned into the hero, hell intonheaven, death into transfiguration.”nWhen the end came for Hitler, he wasnin his bunker, surrounded by the destructionnhe had unleashed, and in thencanteen of the chancellery a dancenbegan and continued even after wordnhad been sent from the bunker to quietndown. Eksteins’ terse final sentence isnnnarresting: “A popular German song inn1945 was entitled “Es ist ein Friihlingnohne Ende!” (“It Is Spring WithoutnEnd!”).nBut for all of Eksteins’ sophisticatedncultural and social insights, he surprisinglynneglects any extended treatmentnof Christianity—or, rather, the absencenof Christianity—in this entire tragedy.nAfter all, as Paul Johnson argues innModern Times, it is “the decline andnultimate collapse of the religious impulse”nand the ascent of moral relativismnthat is largely responsible for thenterrifying fragmentation of our century.nAlso, the modernist movement isnmore diverse than Eksteins suggests.nContinental modernists may have diabolicallynreveled in the dissolution thatnthey helped engender, but the Anglo-nAmerican version of modernism —none thinks of Eliot, Faulkner, andnDavid Jones — sought a way back tonthe center. Still, “The Great War,” asnhe says, “was to be the axis on whichnthe modern world turned,” and itsncultural causes and consequences arencomprehensively and, at times, brilliantlynexamined in Rites of Spring. Inhad not thought death had undone sonmany.nGregory J. Sullivan writes fromnTrenton, New Jersey.nLearning to Behavenby Joseph BaldacchinonThe Fatal Conceit:nThe Errors of Socialismnby F.A. HayeknChicago: University of Chicago Press;n180 pp., $24.95nWhen I heard on the radio onenmorning in 1974 that FriedrichnHayek had won the Nobel Prize inneconomics, my first thought was, “Notnour Friedrich Hayek?” A few hoursnlater, upon meeting a libertarian acquaintancenof some prominence, Inasked, “Did you hear about Hayek?”nThe reply was: “No. Did he die?”nI offer these vignettes because theynillustrate how dramatically the assessmentnof Hayek, even among his mostnardent admirers, has changed over thenlast decade and a half. It is hard ton