Guardini: The New Concept of the World and of Man

From Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World, “The New Concept of the World and of Man”:

To the end of time there will be no human existence that does not live with peril.

No constitutional clause, no Supreme Court or local authority, no treaty will avail unless the ordinary man feels that the fate of the res republica, the common cause of human existence in freedom and dignity, lies in his hands.

Present conditions require not the single great genius, but a whole new human structure.

The man we envision must unhesitatingly place security, utility, and welfare second; the greatness of the coming world image first.

. . . an elemental relationship to technology.

. . . profoundly aware of the dangers inherent in present-day conditions.

. . . love of the world . . . deepened by the precariousness, vulnerability, helplessness of his beloved.

The coming man is definitely un-liberal, which does not mean that he has no respect for freedom. The “liberal” attitude is that which declines to incorporate absolutes into existence because their either-or engenders struggle.

Here is the prerequisite for the greatest task he faces: that of establishing an authority which respects human dignity, of creating a social order in which the person can exist.

Guardini: The Dissolution of the Modern World
Guardini: The Birth of the Modern World