Henry van de Velde: Cultural Policy

I do not doubt that “cultural policy” can expedite matters. I only worry that it may lean towards excessive haste, and I would like to warn those who indulge in overly grand illusions or overlook dangers. For! The point is that cultural policy is ultimately “revolutionary”. It can only achieve its goal beyond the bounds of “re-evaluation of all values”. Hasn't Nietzsche already proclaimed this program?
Culture signifies perfection, external refinement, and sophistication in all matters. Implementing cultural policy means awakening or revitalizing a sense of perfection, refinement, and sophistication. It is inherent to this policy that it feels resistance to all inherited opinions, unwavering beliefs, and entrenched views. Blind zeal does not care for such an exposed position; and finally, my god, no price would be too great for the outcome that would elevate German culture to the level of French and English culture all at once.
However, let us observe the matter soberly. Will we succeed in using cultural policy to induce cultural crystallization through pressure, just like a chemist induces crystallization through pressure? Can we succeed if the voices of Nietzsche and Goethe fall on deaf ears? For the call for a sense of perfection has been voiced for longer than since yesterday. Goethe already said: We must learn to hate every bad work as a sin.
Here arises the question: On whose shoulders should we place the burden of this daring endeavor? On the shoulders of zealously proclaiming apostles or on the shoulders of prudent, moderate educators? Ruskin revived our confidence in the apostolic mission and in the possibilities and benefits that could arise from an appeal to the emotions of the masses; however, we must not forget that the movement he sparked was heavily tinted with the contemporary enthusiasm of romanticism, which urged the masses to seize beauty, just as in the Middle Ages, religious fervor urged the crowds to seize the Holy Land.
Ruskin had the gift of embodying beauty, and there were many followers in England who believed themselves to be Greeks, enclosed in a wooden horse, ready to embark on the abduction of Helen.
Today, such romanticism would hardly find success. We know that when we evoke a sense of perfection, we aim to achieve a concept that provides the greatest and most certain material advantages; that achieves deep mutual respect among people in the fields of morality and religion; that creates from the performance of our abilities and from our feelings and thoughts a sort of “mécanisme de tout repos”, a safety device, a protective valve that can be controlled by any child. Here, prudence and the guidance of a chosen educator must lead and consolidate efforts; and his cleverness must ensure that culture conquers through slow, uninterrupted, and relentless infiltration, that which it cannot achieve through attack.
For the calling of educators and teachers of culture in all fields of intelligence, perception, and human senses, only exceptional personalities are suitable. Let us call these leaders from wherever, even from abroad, as long as they are capable; true culture cannot develop solely on limited national ground; let us establish a number of cultural focal points in suitable places, on fertile soil.
And it would be the task of each of these educators, professors, soldiers, and merchants to choose capable instruments, to recognize elements that would be able to adapt to this new, dangerous way of thinking. For we cannot expect to systematically initiate the masses in this refinement of spirit, senses, and feelings. They would not be at all prepared for it, and it would only result in an infinite number of errors and generations of lost decadents.
However, if someone were to ask me for a magical remedy, I dare to say what I know and name the means that would instantly elevate and improve the level of our culture. Who has not noticed that each of us, regardless of our social standing, would perform much better in this or that lower profession than in the one we live in? In many cases, pronounced passions occur; how many prominent individuals have passionately devoted themselves to some craft and brought it to perfection!
If each person in all social layers were to suddenly descend a few rungs, whether voluntarily or by compulsion, then, through this general and sudden descent, the restrained culture would rise just as a dammed water would rise above the weir. Everyone would bring into their lower position and simpler employment the talent and character they had acquired in the higher social position, where they had proven inadequate, and would be in their current lower life conditions what a highly cultured society may demand of every individual.
In this way, we would achieve, by magic, or at least in a manner not yet known in history, masons, carpenters, typographers with artistic talent and taste, farmers and workers with initiative and manners of “grands seigneurs”.