LAST DITCH OF DEMOCRACY - Majority Rights

Do we want to be taken to pieces, separated into spare parts, quite spare
and utterly separable, at the rate say of 30 million a shot, functioning at a
lower level, or do we wish to maintain that complexity to which the
human organism BIOLOGICALLY, BI/O/LOG/ICALLy has evolved
during millennia, or however it did evolve?
Does the infantile disorder recognize that the homestead works better, or
even might in certain conditions work better, function better than the
kolkhoz? That is a superficial query. If the homestead displays a higher
mechanical efficiency than the kolkhoz, how far should it be opposed?
Can it be opposed as a matter of principle? In short, how protean is
materialism anyway? Can it take on so new an aspect? Are the cadres
gettin’ educated seven-leagued enough for the circumstance? And after
all, is a theory about the mutability of materialism any more binding
than a signed contract?
I ’spect if the Colonel, Col. McCormick, is listening, or if anyone is kind
enough to stenograph this discourse, the Col. is by now about all bawled
up. Mebbe he is trying to ride on a party that just AIN’T guided by an
advanced theory. What can one do with a country in which NEITHER
party is literate? All this should hook onto S. Welles’ pieties about
economic aggression. But I am at the end of my time.
#102 (June 26, 1943) U.S. (C65)
MATERIALISM
An idea is colored by what it is dipped in. Take for example the more or
less Teutonic idea of materialism. Marx and Engels get to foolin’ ’round
with Hegel’s philosophy, or something, and evolve or devolve what is
called Marxian materialism, and it gets toted off into Russia. And after
25 years, what do we have? We have these howlin’ Slavs: gone off on a
purely metaphysical, typically Russian crusade. As crazy as any excess
of the middle ages. Utterly OB/liv/i/ous of the material facts. That is to
say, I suppose anyone will admit that the German workman is