Studies In A Dying Culture

About the Author Christopher Caudwell was born- in 1907. His _ -- real name is Christopher St John Sprigg, he wrote __no less than-seven detective stories, five books on aviation; and a great number of short stories and poems. And these- were merely his pot-boilers.

For the work he really cared about he reserved the pseudonym of Caudwell-Above this name wrote a serious novel called This My Hand (which in majority’s view, is a failure) and four major works ,namely, illusion and Reality The Crisis in Physics, Studies in A Dying Culture, Further Studies in A Dying Culture.

He was a young man who not only warmed his bands before, but gave great hearty pokes at the fire of life; a young man so interested in everything, from aviation to poetry, to detective stories, to quantum mechanics, Hegel’s philosophy, to love, to psycho-analysis, that he felt that he had simply got to say something about them all.

He was killed in February 1937 when fighting with the International Brigade in Spain.

Foreword `We are living in a very singular moment of history. It is a moment of crisis, in the literal sense of that Word. In every branch of our spiritual and material civilisation we seem to have arrived at a critical turning-point. This spirit shows itself not only in the actual state of public affairs but also in the general attitude towards fundamental values in personal and social life.

...Formerly it was only religion, especially in its doctrinal and moral systems, that was the object of sceptical attack. Then the iconoclast began to shatter the ideals and principles that had hitherto been accepted in the province of art. Now he has invaded the temple of science. There is scarcely a scientific axiom that is not nowadays denied by somebody. And at the same time almost any nonsensical theory that may be put forward in the name of science would be almost sure to find believers and disciples some-where or other.'

Max Planck: ' Where Is Science Going?' 1933

As the above quotation shows, one does not have to be a Marxist to declare that bourgeois culture is seriously ill. In art, science, religion, economics and ethics, there is dissension, and a thousand confessions of bewilderment and pessimism could be drawn from the writings of the acknowledged leaders of contemporary culture from Einstein to Freud. All the old easy confidence of a century ago has evaporated. The only consolation religion has is that science disavows causality; and scientists draw comfort from the fact that `practical' men are unable to run the ship of state anywhere but on the rocks.

Introduction You know how I feel about the importance of democratic of freedom. The Spanish People's Army needs help badly; their struggle, if they fail, will certainly be ours tomorrow, and, believing as I do, it seems clear where my duty lies.'

The author of this book gave the above explanation for enlisting in the British Battalion of the International Brigade, which he did on December 11th, 1936.

On February 12th, 1937, he was holding a hill above the Jarama River, as one of a machine-gun section under the command of a Dalston busman. That afternoon he was killed.

What I feel about the importance of democratic freedom.' Now Caudwell was a Communist. And many people sincerely suppose that Communists are the dangerous enemies of democratic freedom; they believe that if Communists declare their attachment to democracy, or to freedom, they are only doing so in order to deceive. Yet here we have a Communist, not merely declaring his attachment to democracy and freedom; not merely declaring, as Mr. Neville Chamberlain has recently done, for example his readiness to die in defence of democracy, but, in actual fact, dying for democracy.

Surely there is something to puzzle over here? Do men fight and die for a political manoeuvre? Do they face the Fascist assault; do they face the onrush of the new barbarism armed with every device of infernal science; do they face that charge, made by war maddened Moorish Tribesmen, supported by the perfected products of German and Italian aviation which killed Caudwell; do they leave home to face all that, for the sake of a democratic freedom in which they do not really believe?' And yet Caudwell was a Communist for democratic freedom.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages