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p The ideals springing spontaneously from the sense of wretchedness and evolved for it by ideologists are directed towards surmounting nihilism. But in the movement and vacillations of the bourgeois mass consciousness faith in these ideals consists only of intermediate planks. In the past, in periods when the mass could immerse itself in a state of lethargic hibernation, it took a long time to ascertain the actual significance underlying the avoidance of social practice, of revolutionary criticism, and the vulgar distortions of this criticism. However, in the epoch of capitalism’s general crisis time is being tightly compressed, brimming over with events and changes. In situations witnessing acute conflicts it is extremely difficult to safeguard one’s ideals, these secluded havens of consciousness, from extraneous influences. The sense of serenity and inner harmony vanishes quickly in these seemingly unassailable spiritual fortresses. The “quiet” happiness acquired with difficulty is not saved by either irony or impassiveness—the possibilities of auto-suggestion are limited after all! The force of tradition, either, does not help against the accelerated decay of the ideals of the sense of wretchedness.

p Understandably, this does not concern separate individuals. The latter may get stuck on intermediate planks for a long time, even for the duration of their lives, giving preference to one of the suggested ideals of the sense of wretchedness or going from one ideal to another on one and the same level. Individual deafness to the demands of the epoch is not an exclusive phenomenon. But, to use Lenin’s words, the sense of wretchedness should be regarded “not as something individual, not as a caprice or a fad”.  [191•*  The point is that regardless of how the spiritual evolution of one or another 192 individual proceeds, the sense of wretchedness does not disappear; on the contrary, it is reinforced as a result of the crisis of the sense of contentedness and has a definite functional commitment. As a mass phenomenon it is subordinated to the logic of its own development, and it is this logic and not various individual deviations that ensures the breakthrough to the end point. The consciousness of the individual is devoid of predetermination, but in the case of the mass consciousness the movement of logic is predetermined. While one wave runs through the entire cycle of movement from the sense of contentedness to the sense of wretchedness and then abandons it, new waves are generated that roll along familiar roads as though bewitched. No moratorium can be imposed on this movement.

p From what does the movement of a new wave begin? What gives the impetus to the commencement of this movement from the ideals of the sense of wretchedness and what determines its orientation? The port of destination to which the navigation lights of this sense lead is contentedness, in other words, they lead to the initial point, of the cycle. This completion of the Odyssey of the mass bourgeois consciousness is the most glaring evidence of its duality, of its mixed, contradictory wretched-contented character and the conditionality of its subdivisions. Further, it is an indication that the proponents of this mass consciousness vacillate continuously on the ideological level, and this vacillation is accompanied by changes in the frame of mind.

p Equipped with nihilistic ideas and outlet ideals, the sense of wretchedness thus finds itself at the crossroads. It is being undermined from two directions. The dogmas of nihilism are indirectly destroyed by life itself. The present course of social life inexorably leads to the crystallisation of positions, sweeping away all dual and equivocal, tight-rope positions. Every sharp turn in the epoch of crisis intensifies demarcation, diminishing the possibility for long manoeuvring. When these turns occur, class sympathies gain the upper hand over all intermediate positions.

p Besides, in the long run the ideals of nihilism reveal their inability to remove the predominance of negative emotions, tormenting anxieties, fear and alarm, in which, essentially speaking, their practical predestination lies. Having 193 preserved at least a weakened capacity for self-criticism, it despondently finds that the calculation on escaping from hated reality, after paying the tribute due to social organisation, boomerangs as a miscalculation. After all changes its thinking and perception of the world remain bourgeois-apologetic, while its outlet ideals and behaviour guided by these ideals continue to be determined from without, and its anticollectivism is used for dirty practical purposes.

p True, the orientation on self-change gives the individual some scope for development and creates the impression that there is spiritual space for the rejuvenation of individuality, but hardly more than is given by adherence to the hedonistic-consumer ideals. This development is inescapably one-sided and perverted, for it robs the individual of the main thing—social activity and association with advanced philosophical and political views, with activity in which morality and humanity are implemented not by any imagined means, while the development of the individual becomes a factor of social improvement. Taking no serious interest in anything except saving the individual, the sense of wretchedness leads the individual to destruction. Compromise becomes humiliating surrender to materialisation, regulation and amassment. No effort of the spirit and no ambitions lacking an objective base can help to endure long duality, secure a sense of integrity and balance the disagreement between ideals and reality. Although the ideals of nihilism are not devoid of momentum and possess some strength, they do not as a whole afford lasting immunity. The crowds of enchanted people are thinning. Adherence to the ideals of nihilism is beginning to be not a sign of the individual’s self-assertion but of poorly disguised evidence of stark fear of life and the cracking of the spirit. The grandiose change in the perception of the absurd world has proved to be hollow.

p In addition to this reason, which stimulates the movement away from the sense of wretchedness, there is another important circumstance. State-monopoly capitalism is experiencing a growing need for affirmative and not negative ideals for the man in the street. Steps are being taken to strengthen the apparatus of suggestion, which tries to persuade the man in the street that nihilistic conclusions spring from 194 unfounded generalisations of various distressing events and phenomena, that the organisation’s blunders and errors can be rectified, while the unhappy course of events can be reversed, that negative ideals should be left to snobs and unadapted individuals, and that the affirmative expectations of the masses should be strengthened. Without intensifying the spiritual manipulation of the masses and without cementing social consciousness on the basis of contentedness of official bourgeois optimism, communist ideals cannot be stopped from winning the masses.

p Lastly, the deluding power of consumer ideals and the fact that it is difficult for the sense of wretchedness to oppose for any length of time the pressures of consumer-acquisitory ideology and the general spirit of pursuit after success must be taken into account. The moment one yields to it even partially, trust begins to be regenerated for the bourgeois organisation and contentedness is restored.

p There is still another very important consideration. Statemonopoly capitalism needs a certain counter-balance to consumer ideals. To this counter-balance is assigned the important role of a balancing shock-absorber in the increasingly more frequent cases when the entire organisation slides into a period of crisis and the entire system of early warning, anti-crisis barriers and stimulation of economic growth does not work with the expected efficiency. That is what happened in the early 1970s, when various crises almost simultaneously shook all links of the bourgeois social organisation. If business activity diminishes and the strategy of self-preservation and survival requires a saving of energy resources and raw materials, if inflation goes out of control and the living standard of large segments of the working people drops, the consumer ideology becomes a factor of exceedingly great irritation. In this situation the reserve echelon of ideals, guidelines, symbols and the corresponding language of moderate anti-consumer asceticism come to the forefront of spiritual life. Purified in advance of anarchism, they make themselves increasingly felt in the context of fashionable demands for a slowing down of the rate of economic growth, in the context of getting society used to the idea that consumer restraint must be exercised, that the ethics of unrestraint and consumer revolutions must be 195 abandoned in view of the worsening of the quality (and higher cost) of goods and services. This demand for contentedness with little, addressed virtually only to the working people and representing only new raw material for machines and mind manipulation, is accompanied, for greater conviction, with a guard of honour from the futurological forecasts ol the end of the world,  [195•*  from the innumerable “scholarly” recommendations (for instance, that self-restriction is necessary to avoid ecological collapse, for the sake of protecting the environment), from slogans about improving the “quality of life”, from moral imperatives to save the values of labour, and from demagogic calls for replacing the “gross national product" with “gross national happiness".

p At first, the departure from the sense of wretchedness is half-hearted. This phase witnesses the formation of an ideal in life resting on partially nihilistic, semi-pessimistic and semi-optimistic premises. The reality around man continues to be pictured as hostile, as bringing crises, fear and despair. But, at the same time, it begins to seem that in some incomprehensible way this reality combines irrationality and reason, despair and hope that it is possible to realise positive expectations and emotions leading to both wretchedness and contentedness. The judgment that this world is a blessing, albeit in the long run, is regarded as quite realistic. The expression that everything is not what it actually looks like gives a good idea of the mixed opti-pessimistic view of the world. As a result of the work it does on itself in advance, the consciousness is adapted to reality, which continues to be regarded as alien to man. It would seem that links, that had seemed to be broken once and for all, are restored with history. Earlier criticised forecasts of the future seem to be acceptable. Hardly perceptible cracks and fissures appear in the monolithic wretchedness. And a sense of gratitude to the social organisation is revived. Although 196 the attacks continue, the platform from which they are launched substantially changes. Only partial flight from social links is recognised as justified.

p The new ideal of life includes some elements (mostly hiding the actual condition of the individual in capitalist society and emasculating the entire sense of nihilistic criticism of that society) of the ideals of the sense of wretchedness. Use is also made of elements of hedonistic-consumer ideals, including the anarcho-hedonistic variants of these ideals. The demand for calmness is borrowed from quietism, for courage from stoicism, for patience from asceticism,’ and for the removal of tension and for faith that it is possible to be happy from hedonism. There appears a fantastic, or rather, ugly and unstable conglomerate of guidelines that hardly fit into behaviour patterns and reflect the vacillation of the “new” state of the spirit. There appears a sense of wretchedness overshadowed by decorum and moderation, inclined towards apostasy, lessening the expansionism of its claims, and opposing a sober analysis of its own moods and feelings. The agent of the “new” state of the spirit must deflect the onrushing waves of perpetual crisis situations. It seems that this can be accomplished with nothing more than the hope implicit in man, hope that is as universal as patience, with the affirmative expectation always present in any person, with the feeling that salvation is round the corner.

p In the bourgeois world hope thus intervenes in a most miraculous way. It is transformed not by the efforts to change and humanise the social conditions of life but by bringing to light its hidden reason, the attractiveness that can triumph in social relations. This faith is only verbally distinguishable from the traditional religious hope for recompense and happiness brought by consolation that dulls the sense of fear. The suggested ways of achieving this blissful state merely bring us to a mystical cryptogram. It is as difficult to find in it indications of how to act in order to instil hope as it is to distinguish Diana or Minerva in a virgin slab of marble.

p But the path of bargains always follows an incline, leading to a further fall. For that reason in its efforts somehow to patch up its rents, the retreating sense of wretchedness is finding it difficult to gain a foothold on the given 197 springboard. The “new” ideal is much too unstable to prevent the further slide and instructive metamorphoses on the road to contentedness.

p Upon its arrival at contentedness the sense of ex-wretchedness brings “extremely unpleasant tidings”, namely, that there is no salvation without a philosophically enriched and morally rejuvenated sense of contentedness. Naturally, the new contentedness proves to be less susceptible to direct suggestion. It cannot stomach the naivete of the intentions and the crude bluntness of the myths of the sense of contentedness. At all costs it strives to consolidate its acquired ability to see the world unembellished, to preserve the inner freedom and independence of its judgments, non-manipulatability and moral seriousness in the sense it understood them. It wants to be contented by its own will, striving to ignore the unattractiveness of this “independence” in the press of ideological manipulation, where it voluntarily places itself. Further, it experiences something in the nature of pride in its independently made choice and transformation, in the critical attitude of its contentedness, and in the moderation of its optimism, which is void of an enthusiastic and elated attitude to what has become “its own" social organisation with its hedonistic-consumer ideals.

p As it parts with its former attractions and feelings, the sense of wretchedness makes noteworthy discoveries. Beneath the crust of irrationality it suddenly finds a rational continent. Understandably, the suddenness of these discoveries is only relative. In the same way as the passage from contentedness to wretchedness is accomplished step by step, so is the reverse transfer gradual. The script of the return is not necessarily followed line by line; place is left for improvisation. As a rule, the first to change is the mood guided previously by the ideals of nihilism, and explosions of irritation and anger, and spasms of hatred occur less and less frequently. Although the old attachments still bring pangs of remorse, new opinions accumulate at the same time. Then new convictions take shape and ensure a certain integrity of feeling and understanding. The discovered continent becomes the mainstay for reconciliation with hateful reality. The negation of sociality is negated.

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p Man, reasons the sense of ex-wretchedness, is not merely in the world, is not merely cast into it and lives with it at his side, and his actions are not merely a succession of senseless acts. The world is not rushing from a state of bad to very bad and terrible. The majesty of man, says the sense of wretchedness in its vision of new landmarks, lies by no means in understanding helplessness and hopelessness. No, it is not from misfortune springing from this hostile world that man should draw the sense of his superiority over it, not from cowardly tranquillity and not from self-torture and other forms of dubious heroism, but from so-called “normal activity" inspired by trust for the bourgeois organisation.

p Man, the sense of wretchedness continues to discover, does not stand on a road leading to nowhere. He is not stuck in borderline situations. No fatal crumbling of hopes awaits him. His life is not long drawn-out tedium, and the situation is by no means such as one knows that nothing comes or will come out properly and the work that has been started is nevertheless continued. It would therefore be absurd to parenthesise hope and acknowledge the aimlessness of steps designed as self-protection. Tiresome groaning is only a waste of time. The entire apologia of misfortune and evil is a peevish and bilious illusion, mass psychosis and emotional disorder. Reconciliation with the bourgeois world is allegedly the most reasonable line of action. Freedom is manifested not in conflict with this world but in concord with it, not in over-inflated responsibility but in the fulfilment of limited duties. Wisdom lies not in denying the given social order but in recognising its certain justification and reason, in the ability to see its inexorable advance towards perfection. Thus reasons the sense of ex-wretchedness.

p The framework into which the activity and thoughts of (he individual are cooped up by the state-monopoly organisation is no longer regarded by the sense of wretchedness as tormentingly narrow and systematically shattering talents. The domination of the bureaucracy in capitalist society no longer seems to be as dangerous as before. Its view now is no longer that bourgeois democracy is truncated and spectral, that control of mass behaviour is 199 despotic, that morals and culture have degenerated very much, that freedom is declarative, the language of the mass media false, and the infringement on the dignity of the individual ruthless.

p The sense of wretchedness is reshaping the familiar fables that had earlier lured it—about nature, technology, urbanisation, health, overpopulation, anthropological degeneration, and so forth. Its complex of despair, from which frightening, nerve-wracking details are being removed, is once again nothing more than the quiet complex of anxiety of the sense of contentedness. The crumbling of expectations comes to an end. In the last analysis, it is no longer so horrified as before by local wars, economic and political crises, class struggle, labour conflicts, unemployment, racial clashes, moral degradation and the disintegration of the family in capitalist society. It feels that after all it is possible to survive and find salvation.

The attacks on reformism and the illusions of liberalism are weakening and even fading. Nihilistic criticism no longer razes everything to the ground. On the grounds that the pendulum has swung too far it is becoming circumspect and is showing a willingness to curb passions, to abolish irreconcilable tendencies and to impose a fairly strict selfcensorship. It no longer feels that the myths of industrial society should be publicly stigmatised or that the lacklustre monotony of the parade of that society’s ideas should be abused. All that is needed is to renovate and re-embellish them. Everything it had formerly been saying about them must be cooled or, still better, retracted. The arguments and conclusions of the sense of contentedness, its hopes and widely-used cliches with their unconditional trust in the bourgeois social organisation no longer seem to be as nai’ve and one-dimensional as before. The sense of wretchedness believes that all that has to be done is to throw out vague notions, scientifically unsubstantiated conclusions, blunders and vague understanding, syrupy propaganda, excessive passion, and susceptibility to the patented factories of dreams, balsams and false hopes, and replace the mythological by a “genuine” apologia, and formal, poorly motivated optimism by properly “substantiated” and “free” optimism.

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p The scantiness of the sense o.f contentedness is seen only in its thoughtless attitude to theories and convictions, in the meagreness of its spiritual diet, and this defect, allegedly, can be easily remedied. The sense of wretchedness believes that this should be commenced with a struggle against the domination of ideology and the trouble-making influence exercised on the masses by irresponsible politicians, with upholding the “sober” perspectives and decisions worked out by technocratic prophets, by the intellectual mandarins of our times. The decisions and forecasts handed down by them will allegedly inspire faith that it is possible to deliver civilisation from its vices without the destruction of the great benefits it brings mankind, and yield a stunning regulating effect, making the world if not rational and entirely free of features of absurdity then at least moving towards rationalism. The sense of wretchedness is prepared to regard the present from a falsified future.

p The barrenness of the protests, rebellion or struggle for freedom in the stuffy room of the neurotic mind thereby reveals itself once again. The logic of its evolution brings the sense of wretchedness to the conclusion that it must return to the slogans of “order” as the password to entry into the bourgeois social organisation. Moreover, this reformist diligence easily finds spheres for practical application. Reformism, it will be borne in mind, is not merely an ideological school: state-monopoly capitalism’s enormous apparatus is engaged in ironing out “defects” and coordinating and giving effect to the corresponding decisions. Those desiring to participate in reformist activity in line with the prescribed ideological and business recommendations can find a sinecure in the higher or lower systems of the Establishment.

p Reformist hopes help to weaken the sense of voluntary exile. The sense of wretchedness writes off its own misdoings and receives absolution. The memory of these misdoings is pushed into the backwoods of the mind. It tries to forget the Fronde period, the itch of criticism, repenting that it had succumbed to momentary weakness. The ideals of nihilism, which were regarded only recently as the highest achievement of the human spirit, are left to the mercies of fate.

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Only some remnants of nihilistic views have survived. They are being made part of the spiritual arsenal as something in the nature of prim conventionality, i.e., reduced to how nihilism serves the sense of contentedness—as an affected pastime, proof of seriousness and respectability, an indication of independent and unorthodox thought, a supplement to new convictions that hardly tie in with actual behaviour. The past is not only something to be ashamed of; people find a certain pleasure in it as well, precisely because it is the past. Nothing has remained of the state of anxiety and alarm save ruins, emasculated dogmas, and a formal tribute. The misadventures of the bourgeois mass consciousness are approaching their logical end.