Herr Lippert recognized the man from the photographs that he had seen of him in magazines and newspapers. It was Othman Spann, a professor of political economy at the University of Vienna, and was someone who had great influence with Christian/anti-Marxist students. Herr Lippert had seen him before and had heard him speak but hadn’t known that he and his parents were acquainted. He looked exactly as he did in his photographs. The professor was preoccupied as he approached, and when he finally looked up and saw Herr Lippert’s parents, he tipped his hat and smiled. Herr Lippert never expected such a tribute from such a famous person. And then before he knew it the great man and his father were engaged in a friendly conversation.
A few weeks later, his father gave him Gesellschaftslehre, one of Spann’s books. He had never read anything by him before. Even so Herr Lippert knew that Spann was one of the most important thinkers of the day and thought that probably he wouldn’t agree with him, but he read the book anyway. Unlike his friend Frederick, his political views weren’t firmly set, which was due to the influence of his parents. Spann advocated replacing the capitalistic system with a strong authoritarian state.
Herr Lippert knew very little about Spann’s ideas. His ideas apparently had quite a following, and though Herr Lippert shared some of them like those about capitalism, he hadn’t really thought about it enough to come up with a replacement (for capitalism). He knew what he knew about Spann from a lecture he attended and from talk in the halls of the university, but he hadn’t really taken Spann seriously until he started reading his book. Up until then he hadn’t formulated his own ideas, so he’d switched from the ranks of the Christian Democrats to Social Democrats and was easily influenced. He knew the names of other thinkers whose views coincided with Spann’s and who helped whip up anti-liberal and anti-socialist fervor, and because of them he knew Spann’s reputation without really knowing much about him. Admittedly he loved his country and clung to the hope that it might one day regain the greatness that it had before the war. And seeing the progress that was being made in Vienna, represented by the construction of the monumental Karl-Marx-Hof housing project brought him hope, but that “progress” was being made by the socialists. He would’ve like to have shut out the negative results of the city government’s policies, the ones that had caused hyperinflation and food shortages, but these problems were hard to ignore. There didn’t seem to be an end in sight to inflation, as the value of money decreased and prices rose every day, and there came a point when money wasn’t worth anything. So Herr Lippert couldn’t ignore the nightmare, no one could, and this made him feel vulnerable, extremely so.
Now after running into Spann, in the Voksgarten after a concert (Strauss, of course), and amazed that his parents knew him, he asked, “The Versailles Treaty was illegal, wasn’t it dad?” He had read the treaty and knew how it placed too heavy a burden on Austria and Germany. But he knew too little about the mechanics of economics to understand fully how it all came together. So it seemed like a bad movie to him, only he couldn’t get up and leave in the middle of it. Still he could relate to much of what Spann wrote about. He liked that Spann expressed an optimistic view of the Volk (people) and saw it as transforming, and this is with the romantic tradition that placed great importance on the personal and the emotional and feelings. The more he read the more enthusiastic he became, but perhaps he didn’t pick up on what Spann meant by the Volk (“the universal use of the term appears in opposition to the individual”). In the end he rejoined the Christian nationalist without fully understanding the ramifications. It was also a move that he didn’t initially share with his friends. Herr Lippert still valued their friendship, though he now didn’t agree with them. And he remembered one of the things that his father used to tell him: that there was an epic struggle going on between Jews and socialist on one hand and Christians on the other, and that there was no common ground. And he thought, “This bias is one of the things I’ve inherited.”
Spann gave him a reasonable alternative to socialism. Herr Lippert hadn’t intended to shift his allegiance again. Though he may have been naïve and confused, and as such impressionable, he wasn’t by nature a joiner, and on the other hand he had a rebellious streak, and normally wouldn’t have listened to his father. That didn’t prevent him from reading the book or from being impressed when Spann and his father conversed in a friendly manner. He then began dropping Spann’s name in conversations with his friends. And then, out of a renewed sense of independence, he’d spout off some of the philosopher’s ideas, gauging the weight of them by the reaction he did or didn’t get. Eventually he couldn’t keep his feelings hidden. Eventually they slipped out. And then, because of the reactions he got (particularly from Frederick and Pauline), he became even more conflicted, which made him angry and feel ashamed of himself. That was when he decided to go talk to Professor Spann, for after all they now had a connection.
Randy Ford
