Source: M. J. Olgin: Leader and Teacher, compiled and edited by the staff of the Morning Freiheit. New York, Workers Library Publishers, 1939.
Transcribed: Mitch Abidor for the Marxists Internet Archive in 2005
HTML Markup: David Walters
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2005. You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & proofreaders above.
You can find him everywhere, in editorial rooms, in business offices, in schools, in any other place where you may happen to start a casual conversation. He is displeased, to say the least. Everything is going to the dogs, he says. Everything is just growing worse and worse. The situation of the Jews? Horrible. Haven’t you heard what the Nazis are doing in Prague? Business? Why, making a living is becoming more difficult with every month, and if anybody promises you an improvement he just doesn’t know what he is talking about. America? This country is certainly doomed to fall prey to fascism; all indications are to this effect.
Before you know it, the man is pouring forth a stream of complaints, and as you listen to him you feel that a dark cloud is enveloping you and making you choke.
This type is to be found among all strata of American society today, but it seems to me it is a special blessing of the Jewish people.
The trouble with these talkers is that they consider their talk a public service. They imagine they are politically minded. They think that what they sputter at every occasion is a much needed clarification of world events. Why, things are so bad in our days, fascism is on the march, the Jews are being oppressed more and more, anti-Semitism is growing in the United States, American democracy can easily be superseded by something like fascism, the world situation is rotten, business is on the decline, and so on and so forth. . . . After our complainer has been complaining for about five or ten or sixty minutes he thinks he has done something important for society. When you try to argue with him he proudly declares he cannot be convinced by “unfounded” assertions, that in our times one has to expect the worst.
Dear friends, when you meet a fellow like this, don’t argue with him. Isolate him. Make him harmless. Treat him as a problem case, not as a normal human being who has to be persuaded. People of this type cannot be persuaded because in most cases they have no social outlook but only spleen.
Unfortunately such types are the affliction of our days. What socially-minded people have to do is to make it clear to anybody they meet that complaining is easy but fighting is much more difficult, that whining is the resort of the weak when resistance is called for, that drawing dark pictures is a destructive job at a time when a way out of difficulties is to be sought.
To counteract the degrading influence of the whiners we must always hold before our eyes that basic forces that make for progress and the ways in which these forces assert themselves. Sometimes it is necessary to go to fundamentals. The basic thing is that the people of the world, and in the first place the people of the United States, do not want either fascism or war. Public resentment against fascist and imperialist barbarities has been steadily mounting both in the democratic countries and in the countries dominated by the fascists. Public indignation against the torturing of the Jews grew to colossal proportions after Munich. In America, consciousness of the value of democratic institutions and fear of losing them has become widespread as never before. Mass insistence on the right of every man, woman and youth to a job, if not in private industry then on a government project, has become a growing feature of public sentiment in our country. Dislike of big business rule has become so widespread that even the worst reaction of the large capitalist combines disguises itself as “progressive” and caring for the interests of the people. The labor movement in this country is growing and adopting an ever more progressive program. Socialist ideas, i.e., consciousness of the necessity of replacing capitalism by a socially-owned and operated economy, is now to be found among many millions of people who not long ago worshipped at the shrine of the capitalist system. The influence of the USSR as a country where socialism has become a fact and as a great power standing guard on the international frontiers to defend peace and encourage democracy has penetrated into large masses throughout the world.
As against the complainers you must make it clear that a program of action is imperative. He who is concerned with carrying out a program has no time to whine.