Devil's Share

The Devil's Share by Denis de Rougemont, translated by Haakon Chevalier, 189 pages

"Over dessert we agreed: what democracies in general, and America in particular, most lack is belief in the Devil."  This is, according to Denis de Rougemont, a serious problem, since the Devil is the Prince of Lies and therefore Lord of Unreality, and he begins his seduction by making himself seem unreal.  De Rougemont observes that in the modern West sin, like everything else, is mass-produced.  The gigantism of modern society allows for the efficient escape of the individual from responsibility.  Thus, by careful gradualism, Satan reduces persons to damned things.

As the book was written in France in the 1940s, it is not surprising that Hitler features prominently - it is more surprising that de Rougemont recognizes the peril in using Hitler's evil to deny our own.  Indeed, it is precisely in his recognition of the connection between the Germans' "necessary" desire for Lebensraum and the romantic's surrender to the "vital" demands of his own passions that he has proven most prescient.