[484] modern art as an expression of this situation, IN JUDGING the political movements and the division of the nation between labor and upper classes, and especially the situation of the lower middle classes, who were the bearers of the Nazi revolution later on. All this could be judged ONLY from a point of view of what I called ULTIMATE concern–I didn't have this term at that time, but that's what we meant–in relg [sic.] religious socialism^a, for instance, which tried to unite all these elements of a realistic humanism^b, or a neo-huaneo-humanism, namely the understanding of the ULTIMATE foundations of every culture in the style which it develops. Now this was an attempt. Since this attempt didn't succeed–the powers of reaction, created for such a long time in German history, were stronger; the misery of the lower middle classes was greater; and so nothing could be done to prevent Nazism^c, which of course ruined ALL these attempts.

Now I come to the second point: education^d. Here again, first the problem and then the relationship to the religious answer. Learning itself IS education. It produces two things: objectivity and discipline. Without a continuous self-discipline, no learning is possible. To learn, is not a natural tendency, although learning as a matter of curiosity is certainly given to us by nature. As Heidegger^e rightly said: every human being wants to SEE–and he uses the Greek word idein, from which eidos

is derived: he wants to know the eidos, the ESSENCE, of things. He WANTS it; but if he has to DO it, the way is so hard that there is a tremendous natural resistance against it in all of us. To overcome this natural resistance is discipline, and this is done, immediately and implicitly, in terms of education.