HIGHLIGHTS FROM EDMUND WILSON’S “TO THE FINLAND STATION,” THE ROOTS OF MARXIST THEORY, AND THE DISTANT RELATIONSHIP OF THIS TOPIC TO ELLEN G. WHITE

The image of Fletcher Park Inn shown above is an example of a “Utopian” community that works, and is similar to residential development for retirees and enthusiasts around Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, TN. The development in Fletcher is in the idyllic area I grew up in, and it enjoys the advantage of being situated next door to an Adventist hospital, Park Ridge Health. The hospital address is listed as being in Hendersonville NC, my hometown, but it is actually in tiny Fletcher. It is accessed directly from Interstate 26.. It represents the latest evolution of an Adventist institution originally known as “Mountain Sanitarium.” There once was a time when “sanitariums” littered the Western Carolina landscape. F. Scott. Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda died when she was locked inside one of them during a fire.

My family was not Adventist, but the family accountant, Robert Hansen, was. I think it was his good influence that sparked my mom’s involvement in the fundraising drive for the relatively new 98 bed Park Ridge Health facility shown below. She had some kind of grudge against the monopolization of Hendersonville hospital care by the Pardee gang, who appear to be associated with the University of North Carolina these days (Local health care in my new hometown, Atlanta, is currently dominated by groups associated with Emory University. The last Atlanta area Adventist hospital is no longer in business).

Pardee and it’s confederates are attempting to ride the coattails of the success of Park Ridge by teaming with the Asheville-based Mission system in creating a rival hospital very close to the Adventist endeavor. There is phenomenal growth in this area, as it is an island of flat land surrounded by a sea of hills, so the population, and it’s attendant health care needs, will provide plenty of patients to local providers. But Park Ridge is a little worried about the competition, as is evident in this LINK. However crowded the buildable land in this area may become, it is a comfort to know that escape is never more than ten miles away, there in the hard-to-develop mountains. But Fletcher itself is a little beehive of activity. If I were a retired Adventist with money, I think I would prefer the more uncrowded environs of Collegedale to the growth-fueled cauldron that Fletcher stews in. The “whole world has gone after” this circumscribed district.

My adventure in Adventism was foreshadowed, in an indirect way, while I was living close to the Park Ridge Health complex. When I would donate blood, the Red Cross would inform me that my pressure was high. This was a natural consequence of smoking, drinking, and job-related stress. I sought treatment from some Adventist cardiologists at Park Ridge, expecting that they would prescribe some pills. Instead, the doctor advised me to modify my lifestyle. At that time, nicotine and caffeine were the power source for my overwork, and alcohol the pressure release valve. I thank God for the recession, which freed me from an addiction to workaholism. I subsequently no longer needed the destructive support of harmful substances. “Lifestyle modification” was the happy aftermath of catastrophic events. I followed the doctor’s advice in a very roundabout manner.

THIS SABBATH SCHOOL INTRO GREW TOO BIG TO USE!

This week’s lesson from the quarterly study guide “Rebellion and Redemption” covers the Book of Judges and the beginning of First Samuel, and is entitled “Conflict and Crises: The Judges.” Author David Tasker’s primary intention is to try to relate the great controversy to this book. Conflict between the forces of good (God, His people, His anointed ones) and evil (Satan, his demons, his “legion” of human devotees) are easy to spot, lending credence to the main premise of “The Great Controversy,” by Ellen G. White. The link is to a Wikipedia article on the book. It informs us that the original edition was written in the “first person,” just like Revelation. The 1884 edition modified this intimate style, serving to present the material to the public in a more objective-sounding manner. The 1911 edition honed the scholarship, and toned down some strong anti-Catholic sentiment (based on their errant dogma; nothing personal). Here is a White Estate LINK, once again, to the book itself. The “controversy” is a theme that pervades history, and offers a good explanation for a lot of past and present chaos that may have formerly been attributed to either providence, or chance, or an esoteric “philosophy of history” like the one featured below: “Marxism.”

In yet another case of syncretism, I have just begun looking into a copy of “To the Finland Station,” by Edmund Wilson (trivia: he was attracted to female authors, and proposed to Anais Nin, but after two previous marriages, he finally got hitched to Mary McCarthy). The subtitle to this book is “A Study in the Writing and Acting of History.” History has been written since the dawn of, well, history. Early attempts to explain why events happen the way they do tended to either cite capricious gods or strong and willful men (the “Great Man” approach, as is evident in Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives‘). The Enlightenment, and the roughly contemporary start of the “scientific revolution,” saw the beginning of efforts to try to explain the forces that shape history with scholastic rigor. A cold analysis of the past might yield insights that could improve the human condition. A thinker who could convince a whole lot of people that his insights were the correct ones would wield enormous influence. Karl Marx was one of these thinkers, and he, his influences, and the dastardly crew who made political hay out of Marxism, are the subject of “To the Finland Station.”

Edmund Wilson’s book looks upon the Russian Revolution with rose-tinted glasses. It was published in 1940, and served a good purpose by trying to humanize the Russians to an American reading public, and in that day before TV everybody was a reader. We were about to join with the Soviet Union to take down the poster-boy for Satanic possession, Adolph Hitler. In a 1971 preface to this book, author Wilson admits that he did not foresee the post-war degeneration of Stalin into a demonic state that nearly rivaled that of Hitler. Stalin’s short-lived non-aggression pact with Hitler, however, presaged his subsequent infamy. This pact caused a lot of Jewish intellectuals to rethink their infatuation with communism. When heretofore “good” Napoleon anointed himself Emperor, the ranks of his fan club were similarly thinned out.

Forgive this quote, but it is blocking forward progress, and must be cited: “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” It is attributed to Edmund Burke, and a later variant of it to George Santayana. I greatly admire Santayana, and enjoyed reading his 1935 novel “The Last Puritan,” a warning about engaging in excessively Calvinistic asceticism. Santayana made money on this work during the Depression, and characteristically used some of it to help out struggling atheist (and master logician) Bertrand Russell, despite his strong distaste for Russell’s philosophy.

A knowledge of the secret machinery of history, and the ability to use this knowledge to shape the future, is the theme of Isaac Asimov‘s science-fiction series “Foundation.” I have only read the first three books of the “Foundation” series. It was conceived as a trilogy. The brainy keepers of powerful secret knowledge in the books are “good” guys. Asimov was a card-carrying Humanist (good intentioned people who just can’t seem to accept what Jesus is giving away), and the “Foundation” books display the utopian optimism (Futurian inflected) of a person who may have flirted with Marxism (this statement makes me sound like I am on a “witch-hunt,” but being associated with communism was socially acceptable in Depression-era NYC). It is admirable to wish that the world were better than it is. It is permissible to “think globally” about this issue. But results (at least in my case) come about when you “act locally.”

Ted N.C. Wilson is a good example of someone who is operating globally, but he would say that he is not trying to fix the world, as it is resistant to being fixed. He is mainly trying to fix you! I can now drag “The Great Controversy” back into this. There will indeed exists a perfect Utopia, and a description of may be read on page 674 of the following LINK to the final chapter, “The Controversy Ended.” It is a poetic gloss on conditions foretold in Revelation.

The Edmund Wilson book “To the Finland Station” includes information on several “philosophers of history,” commencing with eighteenth-century Italian Vico, and culminating with nineteenth-century Marx. The first featured historian is Frenchman Jules Michelet (1798-1874). The author relates Michelet’s joy upon discovering the works of Giambattista Vico (1688-1744: the first “philosopher of history”), a joy that motivated him to learn Italian just so he could read him. Disaffection with Jesuitical education techniques caused Vico to be “home-schooled.” Vico’s masterpiece, “The New Science,” describes the progress of history as an “organic” manifestation of diverse cultural influences, and is cyclical (a good time to mention Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, or the Great Folk-Rock Song based on it). The notion of “progress” did not enter into Vico’s thought, but was anticipated much earlier by one of Vico’s influences, Francis Bacon. (the empiricist, not the artist).

The cycles of Vico’s history are:

“Divine” (metaphor as a linguistic analog is preeminent).

“Heroic” (akin to metonymy, and it’s relation to idealized feudal and monarchical institutions).

“Human” (etymologically associated with irony, and institutionalized in popular democracy).

Wilson states that Vico had absorbed Francis Bacon, father of the empirical method (another Bacon, Roger, was an empiricist hundreds of years before Francis was one). Vico was also influenced by rhetorical studies, and wrote that each of his three distinct phases of history featured it’s own distinctive way of speaking. The linguistic focus evolves from (A) an individual one (Divine epochs), to (B) a corporate one (Heroic epochs), into (C), a final, all-encompassing focus (Human epoch). This complicated sounding technique allowed Vico to shed new light into some dark corners of the past. It was a cohesive and comprehensive approach, and proved to be very influential (on Marx, for example). It was indeed a “new” science. It dominated academia for quite a spell, but it is no longer alone in the universe of historical interpretation techniques.

I know nothing about current academic trends in this discipline, but I do know that E.G. White’s universal key to history, the great controversy, works like a charm. I inhabit what Vico would describe as a “Divine” era, with a heavy emphasis on the individual (me, myself, and I). My worldview is rudimentary, and the only law I require can be found in scripture. I am as independent from terrestrial authority as some character in the era of the Book of Judges, but rather than going about doing “that which is right in my own eyes,” I am attempting to do “that which is right in the Lord’s eyes.” This transports me from the realm of the “individual,” (with it’s emphasis on personal salvation, and a personal relationship with Jesus) into the realm of the “corporate,” Vico’s “Heroic” stage. This has been tied linguistically with “metonymy,” in which a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept (and my new vocabulary word of the day). I will employ a little “metonymy” by citing the locus of my corporate life: “the Church.”

“To the Finland Station” is tripartite, the first section being devoted primarily to historian Jules Michelet. His father was a member of the “Fourth Estate” (as was mine), but his newspaper was suppressed by Napoleon. Michelet wound up a tutor to King Louis Philippe‘s daughter, and was also appointed head of the French national archives, giving him free access to a vast expanse of primary source material. This fact reminded me of Malcolm X in prison, who had unlimited access to the most amazing prison library that ever existed. An uprising of workers in Paris in 1830, known as the July Revolution, enflamed the ardor of Michelet, and he quickly wrote “Introduction to Universal History” as a reaction, hopeful that the world would soon take a turn for the better. (Aside: the history of revolt in Paris, one often utilizing cobblestones as improvised weapons, motivated the city fathers to pave over the streets during the immense makeover supervised by Baron Haussmann, thus rendering this weapon unavailable. The new, wide boulevards, such as the “Champs-Elysees,” gave a clear field of fire for anti-riot artillery. And now you know……..the rest of the story!)

I have not forgotten the “great controversy.” Here is a longish quote from Michelet’s “Introduction to Universal History”

“With the world began a war which will end only with the world: the war of man against nature, of spirit against matter, of liberty against fatality. History is nothing other than the record of this interminable struggle.”

It is a great relief to know that the struggle is not “interminable.” It should be wrapping up any day now, thank God!

Michelet employed Vico’s insights into the “organic” nature of history in order to take an inclusive look at the past. He noted that particular instances of a past time (a statue, a picture, a law, or even one of the “Great Men) display attributes of the general spirit of the age. Michelet tried to absorb every detail about an era before making any generalizations. He felt that issues such as the technology of weaponry were more important than individuals, however “Great” they may be. A few months ago I read in an article in “Adventist World” wherein the author expressed the idea that we tended to pay way too much respect to “persons.” Celebrity-worship is the modern equivalent of Romantic-era “Hero-worship.” Michelet is no respecter of persons. Events are bigger than any particular individual who participants in them.

Author Edmund Wilson describes Michelet’s adventures in historical analysis, which culminate in the 1867 publication of “Histoire de France.” Michelet emerges as a defender of the revolutionary ideal against the forces of reaction. He delivers a series of lectures criticizing the Jesuits at the College de France. After having delved deeply into the Middle Ages for the purposes of writing his “Histoire,” Michelet is now forced to turn against them. This period was being adopted by the forced of reaction (like the Jesuits) as a model of perfection (in England John Ruskin was championing the Middle Ages as a model of design perfection).

The passions of Michelet paralleled Europe itself as events came to a head in the Revolutions of 1848. In the reactionary aftermath of these abortive episodes, Michelet lost his livelihood. This did not slow him down too badly. Wilson furnishes the following quote from Michelet: “He who knows how to be poor knows everything.” The “Histoire” continued to occupy the scholar’s attention. A typical, perceptive, and influential instance of his insight is this one: what holds true in every historical situation is “that the people were usually more important than the leaders.” Michelet managed to complete his “Histoire” up to the Battle of Waterloo (an event I can no longer read or hear about without thinking of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair) before he expired.

The second section of “To the Finland Station” deals with early socialists like Englishman Robert Owen, a pioneer in the art of good management-worker relations, and the instigator of utopian New Harmony, Indiana. This place is still influential. As an architectural digression, here is a LINK to a Wikipedia article on Richard Meier’s “Antheneum,” a visitor’s center for New Harmony. There was plenty of utopianism floating around in the last half of the nineteenth century. The novel Erehwon (“Nowhere” spelled backwards, an English translation of “utopia,” or “not place”) describes a perfected society, and was a bestseller. The American countryside was littered with Victorian era “EPCOT’s” (Disney’s “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). In order to prove that I am still somewhat on topic, I will note that Battle Creek, Michigan displayed some utopian attributes, but based on Christian, as opposed to socialist values. The contemporary Mormons in Utah were pretty utopian, but were not socialists, and were not Christians either.

Also in the second section of Wilson’s book are sketches of some homegrown American socialists like Horace Greeley, who is “immortal” as a result of just one saying: “Go West, young man, and grow with the country!” One armed explorer John Wesley Powell had been sent West by the government in 1869 to check out the scene. Powell reported that the West was a useless, waterless wasteland that would be best left alone. Absolutely no one listened to this really good advice. I have to drag in, out of a slightly later era, committed American socialist Upton Sinclair, who was pegged as a muckraker for his novel “The Jungle” due to it’s graphic descriptions of the unsanitary conditions at meat-packing facilities. This was not Sinclair’s primary intention. He was focused, instead, on the plight of immigrant laborers. This is another case of a literary realist pointing out the some of the horrors of early twentieth-century life, at least in this country (Sabbath School lesson-book author David Tasker referred to this as an age of “optimism,” and I am still trying to get over my astonished reaction to his statement).

Sinclair sunk a fortune into his own version of a utopian community, one which failed. During and just after WWII, he wrote a series of 11 fictional works based on real people and events which is known as the “Lanny Budd” series. They were popular at the time, but the Wikipedia article notes that they are now out of print, and largely forgotten. I happened across one of them, Dragon’s Teeth, set in Europe during the war. The hero, Lanny Budd, affects to be an apolitical dandy, heir to an arms and aircraft manufacturer, and thus with personal access to all the Nazis up to and including Hitler. In truth, he is dedicated socialist and a a secret agent working directly for Roosevelt (another socialist, and a real one; the initiator of “Social” Security. Even Republicans love Social Security). A contemporary “Time ” review describes this novel as “fun to read,” and I would agree. Some future time (maybe when we are in Heaven) will rediscover these entertaining books.

The last part of the second section of “To the Finland Station” covers the book’s third and last “deep thinker” about historical matters, Karl Marx, whose influence (for better or worse) is still with us. Vico was “thinker” one. Michelet, with access to the French archive, was the second. The third, Karl Marx, gleaned most of his raw data while parked in the British Museum Reading Room, information assimilated and processed while he was living in poverty in London. With the assistance of well-heeled Fredrich Engels, he produced “The Communist Manifesto,” in that ill-stared year of abortive proto-revolution, 1848. This was like the “Declaration of Independence” prelude to the more comprehensive “Das Kapital” (1867-1894), the “Constitution” of communism. The “Manifesto” is memorable for it’s opening and closing lines. Opener: “There is a specter haunting Europe; the specter of communism!” Closer: “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” Marx thought that the new order he envisioned would be birthed in his native Germany, and not in exotic Russia. If you seek further information about Marxism, it is easy to find, as there are 100,000+ academics still carrying around the Marxist torch. If the world lasts much longer, perhaps their view will prevail in the political realm, as well as the academic. But it is based on theoretical whimsies, and not human nature. For the present, the rich keep getting richer. Bums still holler “Buddy! Have you got a dime?”

Marx’s version of history focuses upon the notion of “private property,” an institution he correctly discerns to have it’s roots in conquest, pillage, and plunder. The main emphasis of civil law is the protection of property. An enlightening verse from the Bible is Isaiah 5:8: “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!” This is as harsh an indictment of plutocrats as the fifth chapter of James, and a favorite of folk who want to put a leftist spin on scripture.

The Bible recognizes private property only insofar as we are responsible stewards for the true owner, God. First Chronicles 29:16 is just one citation of many: “O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.” I have yet to discover any moneyed people who are not fully convinced that they are the most virtuous of stewards. Ellen White writes that is reasonable for us to dwell in modest comfort, but that any surplus should be expended on good works. This advice usually falls on deaf ears. Consumption must be conspicuous, most believe. I have spent a large percentage of my life drawing the plans for houses that are three or four times larger than they need to be. It is mildly offensive, but not so offensive as to motivate me to advocate bloody insurrection in the way those excitable Russians did.

The key personalities of the Russian Revolution are featured in the third, and final section of “To the Finland Station,” namely Lenin and Trotsky. The revolution had been brewing for some time, with disaffection assuming several philosophical guises. Communism was the successful banner, but was unable to remain pure when subjected to the hard-to-kill Russian character and tradition. A pack of hopeful revolutionaries are the subject of Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s novel “Demons ,” a title translated as “The Possessed” in the edition I read. Dostoyevsky found religion while incarcerated, just like Malcom X did. “Demons” is about Nihilism, and not Communism, but is a very great work of art, and illustrative of the Russian propensity to go overboard in everything they do.

Lenin was not an original thinker like the “philosophers of history,” but he was a man of action. Edmund Wilson’s reassessment of his book, indicated in the 1971 preface, reveals that even though Lenin had a hypnotic ability to bend men to his will, he was a most unpleasant person to be around. Everybody seems to love Leon Trotsky, however. He was a man who was just too good for this world, so Stalin’s goons tracked him down in Mexico, his place of exile, and assassinated him. This incident forms a big part of the plot of Saul Bellow’s early novel “The Adventures of Augie March.”

The balance of “To the Finland Station ” is a about the consequences of attempting to build a world order on the back of a questionable philosophy (Marxism). The techniques introduced by Vico and Michelet are useful and predominately valid. Marx just took them down a road to nowhere. I will facetiously dispose of Lenin (the bad guy) and Trotsky (the good guy) with yet another literary reference, this time to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” The elementary school system I attended was very progressive, and they required us to read this allegory when we were just whippersnappers. I was not very bright, so the historical allusions were wasted on me. But the moral of the story was clear: the bad guys seem to have won the day! The truth of “the great controversy” approach supplies a much happier outcome. But to experience this happy outcome you need to “get with the program.”

I am not entirely apolitical, but the kingdom I seek is “not of this earth.” I am no great fan of many in temporal authority, even though Paul writes that these people are agents of God’s will, and will use their sword on me if I don’t do what they tell me to do. This is referred to as the “Divine Right of Kings.” First Samuel 12:12 states, in part, “…ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us: when the Lord your God was your king.” There are not too many “good” kings in scripture. Jesus has instructed us to “render unto Caesar.” I can do that. Here is all of Romans 13:7: “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.” Honor is not every ruler’s natural due, as my extensive acquaintanceship with injustice has taught me. Regarding “fear,” I will cite Paul again (out of context, I am sure, as he is speaking of bondage to “sin,” and not “authority”) from Romans 8:15: “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Fear God, but tolerate mankind. We should love mean and pushy people. Some would prefer fear, but they by no means deserve the gratification of their preferences. Authority is not a “terror to good works,” but this is because they don’t perceive it as a threat to their power.



Ellen G. White expresses a much healthier and more balanced attitude than mine on the issue of “temporal authority.” We would do well to heed her advice, but if I lived in a part of the world where believers were persecuted by the state, I might find it necessary to adopt a less complaisant attitude. Paul seemed to be very well disposed toward the empire that executed him. The “Pax Romana” proved to be a nurturing environment (intermittently, at least) for the dissemination of the Christian faith. The United States of America is similarly “church friendly,” and is in the process of carrying an evangelical torch that Europe has now dropped (there being a few notable exceptions to this, however: a “remnant”).

In “Acts of the Apostles,” Ellen White writes this in Chapter 6, “At the Temple Gate ” (page 69): “We are not required to defy authorities. Our words, whether spoken or written, should be carefully considered, lest we place ourselves on record as uttering that which would make us appear antagonistic to law and order. We are not to say or do anything that would unnecessarily close up our way. We are to go forward in Christ’s name, advocating the truths committed to us. If we are forbidden by men to do this work, then we may say, as did the apostles, ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.'”

The last sentence in the above quote seems to leave the door ajar in the case of some irreconcilable conflict between spiritual and temporal obligations. If it ain’t broke, do not feel obliged to fix it. But when it does break (and it shall), I hope that I can summon the gumption to be like the enthusiasts mentioned in Revelation 12:11: “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” Despite it’s many virtues, I still feel as if I am living in Babylon. I am grateful to be out of the lion’s den, but Darius is not the one who preserved my life when I was down there. As I recall, he was the one who threw me in!

Adventist apologists laud the theological utility of “the great controversy” approach. The hand of God, and the opposing machinations of His adversary Satan are not only discernable in scripture, but in the entirety of human history after the Fall of man. There exists no steady improvement in the human condition, as Michelet (and Hegel , another influence on Marx) propose, but there exists a divinely appointed limit on the duration of our unpleasant current circumstances. Comfort comes from knowing that God is with us in the midst of trials and adversity. The lifestyle that our Creator intended for us, lost in Eden, will be restored in Heaven. In the meantime, take heart from Christ’s promise that concludes Luke 21:28: “…look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” This is the invariable verse that Dr. David R. Reagan uses to sign off his informative TV program “Christ in Prophecy.” The enthusiastic presentation style of Dr. Reagan reminds me of the ebullient good nature of Adventist Dr. Elizabeth Talbot, as displayed in her series “Jesus 101.”

