THE ILLUSIONS OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

By Friedrich Heer

[These chapters are translated from the German in: “Sprung uber den Schatten. Christsein ist kein Hobby,” Herder 1960, pp.34-35. Friedrich Heer, b. 1916, was an Austrian historian, critic of comfortable Christianity and editor of the Vienna weekly “Die Furche.”]

…The individual already lives in a constant cold war with himself – even if he or she represses this – and uses up great energy in hiding this misery. That is the reason for the outward flight in travels, entertainment, alcohol, drugs and stimulants… The individual is not really finished with himself. Battles and bitter conflicts rage in every village, every community, every city, every country and every state as in every party, lobby group, interest- and confessional group (understood here as an association of people). They are expressions of negative forces in persons that are not overcome because they are undeveloped and partly deformed to evil…

AN ILLUSION OF THE 19TH CENTURY

There was a certain illusion of a civil nineteenth century. People were convinced this enormous sum of suffering, self-destruction and endangerment of others could be worked out, resolved and redeemed through “culture” as a cultural enterprise. Theater, opera, concerts, music, poetry and literature should free people from the pressure of these negative forces. People escaped more and more in work when opera, concerts and “fine literature” failed again and again (because they were overstrained). “Working and not despairing” was the motto of generations. A straight path led from the battlefield of the Cold War, the domestic political conflicts and the export campaigns of the economy to the hot war. At any time, pent-up energies can erupt outwards in explosions. What exists and is reproduced daily in hatred, envy, annoyance, uneasiness, resentment, discord and unfreedom in the household of a person, family, country or people cannot be repressed, hidden and ignored in the long run. Humanity was more and more a kettle that threatened to explode because it could not change its energies or free and liberate them for everyone. The A-bomb already latently existed at least in the second half of the nineteenth century in the enormous sum of pent-up energies in people.

AN ILLUSION OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Then there was the illusion of the twentieth century, an illusion of physicians, natural scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, care providers, politicians, economists, chemists and biologists. They believe the enormously negative forces in people can be scientifically deconstructed, unraveled and transformed. Whole groups of new sciences owe their origin to these efforts like depth psychology, sociology and theories about interpersonal relations and personal hygiene. To the honor of these disciplines, it must be said few of their proponents were and are of the naïve faith like their predecessors in the nineteenth century that they could completely elaborate negative forces positively. All leading psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists and so forth are convinced they can intervene controlling, intervening and helping. But the most important thing is that the work of healing, rescue, redemption and liberation of the person to be in full command and to full opening of his or her powers in the good sense of the term depends on others, on the affected person himself, on his person and on what is called “nature,” “grace” and “God.”

The wide-awake Christian knows three facts: there is a person who will help every individual become a person in the full sense of personality, able to positively develop negative forces so he or she is healed and changed to the good: the Liberator, Redeemer, Jesus Christ, wholly God and wholly man, of flesh and blood. There are concrete means to bring about this transformation process, this conversion: penance, repentance, rethinking, sacrifice, prayer, suffering and good works. There is a cell of living life in humanity, breathing, suffering, sacrificing and loving incessantly day and night, occupied with changing negative forces positively: the one holy church.