Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Abstract

Against the inhuman forces of the universe little could be done, but society itself was already showing signs of evident decadence before the nineteenth century had even begun and the decline in morals and social purpose might be addressed. There seemed three choices for survival: there was either the nihilistic individualism of bohemians who would overcome the travails of life and the degeneration and ugliness of society by an aesthetics of doomed beauty, there were the socialists who would heal society with world revolution and there were those who kept firm to a belief in the return of the Messiah. The sacrifice of the alienated but superior artist would lead to fascism, just as that of the alienated revolutionary socialist would lead to communism and religious mania would lead to delusion and failure.