the work: arbeit macht frei

the magazine: 1907 - 1922 the editor: 1907 - 1922 the master game: 1922 - 1931 The New Age site has a pseudonyms page [which now seems either defunct or unfindable] that identifies "M.M. Cosmoi" -- the author of the quote in the right column -- as either Orage himself or Dimitri Mitrinovic. That page, in turn, says... The place of the Jews in Mitrinovic's racial plan for humanity aroused the ire of Israel Zangwill (who coined the phrase about America being a "melting-pot"). Orage defended him against this charge; see the discussion of "'Cosmoi' and Anti-Semitism" in Stuart Christie's introduction to Volume 29 of The New Age. And there we read... Anti-Semitism appears most virulently in the 'World Affairs' column of this volume, replete with racist caricature and period conspiracy theories. This column demonstrates amply that contemporary anti-Semitism, like the journal itself, was cross-disciplinary. Orage relied extensively on the supranationalist Serbian thinker, Dimitri Mitrinovic -- known by the aliases 'M. M. Cosmoi,' 'Volker' and/or 'D.' -- as weekly contributor to 'World Affairs' ... There is evidence, moreover, that Orage may have himself contributed, in both letter and spirit, to the 'Cosmoi' column.... It is not enough to say that Mitrinovic's essays and poems are bad, although they are, or that they are typically poisonous. That Orage did not find them toxic, and may even have welcomed specific aspects of the views they espouse, signals more than any latter-day criticism could the extent of the homology between nascent (pre-canonical) modernist discourses (across emergent disciplines of literature, economy and social science) and 'race' hatred. entrance to Dachau: a concentration camp from 1933 - 1945 [photo credit: copyright 1999 philg@mit.edu]

“ It is particularly in his world-aspect that the Jew creates problems; and since we believe that the Aryan mission is the functional organisation of the world, the Jewish ex-mission, as we may call it, that nevertheless remains as a living mission in the Jewish race, may clearly be said to run, if not counter to it, at least, at a conflicting angle. It is not, therefore, as anti-Semites that we write, but the case is rather, if anything, that the Jews are anti-Aryan. Theirs is the opposition, the negation, to Aryan ideals; and if Aryans are driven to appear to be anti-Semitic in the popular sense, they are only anti-Semitic because the Jewish “mission” is at cross-purposes with the Aryan mission. Moreover, it is not the case that the conflict of the living European mission with the revenant resurrected Judaic mission is alone responsible for the anti-Semiticism that exists. On the whole, indeed, it is the typical Aryans who have tolerated with the greatest magnanimity (as becomes them) the activity of the Jewish ex-mission side by side with their own . The failure of the Jewish race was a failure which the whole of the world had to bear. To put it plainly, the Jews are responsible (unconsciously, no doubt) for the delay of world-evolution by several thousands of years. The reaction to the Jews (again unconscious for the. most part) is, therefore, world-wide; and we believe it is the fact that the more unconscious the race, the greater is its revulsion from the Judaic Jew. However this may be, the fact remains that the Jew takes with him wherever he goes a world-problem. If it does not already exist, he creates it; and where it already exists, he multiplies and intensifies it. ” M.M. Cosmoi The New Age 11 November 1920

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