Residues of the 1930s

The following is a discussion of

Patrick Deane, ed., History in Our Hands: A Critical Anthology of Writings on Literature, Culture and Politics from the 1930s (London & New York: Leicester University Press, 1998)

Martin Jay, Cultural Semantics: Keywords of our Time (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998)

Zellig Harris, The Transformation of Capitalist Society (Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield 1997)

and various texts published by Avukah in the 1930s.

The decade between 1930 and 1940 has left an enduring legacy, not only because of the hugely consequential events that occurred therein, but also because of the sense one has, in looking back to that period, of opportunities lost. From an Occidental perspective, this sentiment relates most strongly to those we never chose to stop: Hitler, Stalin, and their respective cronies, who were amassing and consolidating power through that decade in preparation for their murderous projects, signs of which were obvious enough for us to see today. This conveys a sense of overwhelming regret, even, strangely enough, if we weren’t among the living until decades later. This is the dream of redemption, of saving those not-yet-victims from the horrors of acts committed in the name of one totalitarian dream, one power grab, one deranged passage, one purposeful misreading, or another.