Non-classical philosophy and the lost generation literature

Key words: absurd, being, existence, freedom, happiness, Lost Generation literature, moral values, non- classical philosophy, peace, resistance, war.

We believe that the first half of the XX-th century's men's both social and spiritual problems are consonant with the disturbing symptoms of nowadays. In the modern era of globalization, digitalization, hybrid wars and terrorism the research paper's actuality is in a philosophical comprehension of the 1920-1960 years' novels. It should be mentioned that a person is still a problem for himself [26, p. 146]. As for the system of spiritual values, they are losing its obvious imperativeness, which leads to a life desorientation [26, p. 155-156]. Finally, certain problems in communication between an individual and a consumer society are in the loss of faith in once reliable religious and civil ideals in terms of social-political instability and environmental disasters.

The Lost Generation works are interpreted mainly from the standpoint of literary analysis. Researching E. M. Remarque's “All Quiet On the Western Front” the author emphasizes justifiably that both artistic and philosophical space of the literary work should be learnt more thoroughly. Also, “strengthening readers' receptive immune system against violence, devaluation of life and other heavy moral losses” [2] (here and further the translation is mine - O. N.) is urgently required. While discovering Hemingway's works another Ukrainian scientist defines the American writer as a bright representative of the Western world's mood of the XX-th century first half. The researcher points out that Hemingway considers man's life to be much more valuable than civic duty [25].

The analysis of a heroic individual's philosophy in the XX-th century literature allows to define the person mentioned above as “. a loner who does not accept stereotypes of the social life and who under any circumstances strives for defending the own identity” [7, p.3]. Studuing the irrational aspects of the Philosophy of Life's representatives allows to make a conclusion that “. the only one understands life really who finds a life output point and follows the way of a versatile live man's self's live holistic comprehension” [20, p. 69]. We completely agree that people's lives are “an eternal longing for making sense” [20, p. 67].

In the modern era of technostress civilization the Lost Generation literature reminds us of some key challenges we face dealing with a choice in the “borderline” situations of an uncertain and often threatening being. A XXI-st century reader pulled out of the current realities returns to the fullness of being joining in the dialogue of times [6, p. 95]. The incomplete list of concepts that are comprehended by the Lost Generation authors includes being and consciousness, ideology and authority, labour and nature, life and death, illusion and reality, freedom and loneliness, war and peace, despair and resistance, absurd and dream, hope and happiness. These notions have been meaningful for personal and social consciousness in the hostile world since the beginning of the XX-th century.

The research methods include discourse-analysis and dialectical method actualizing such philosophical categories as being, consciousness, development, time, cause and effect, form and content, phenomenon and essence. Discourse-analysis allows the researcher to interpret a text as a social practice revealing the certain epoch's cultural senses among which human problems are the most essential ones. The article's purpose is to determine the interrelation between the non-classical philosophical ideas and those represented in the Lost Generation fiction works.

The XX-th century marks a new era “which has been discovered and announced by two great prophets” - J. W. Goethe and F. Nietzsche [26, p. 155]. On the one hand, there has come the age of nuclear physics, cybernetics, quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Scientists penetrate the mysteries of genetic inheritance and the human brain, develop means of communication and space exploration. On the other hand, a man whose nature was considered to be creative [3, p. 13] degrades morally with coming of the technological advances' era. The age of romantics has disappeared. During the wartime and unemployment conscience and honor become unclaimed. Since money rules the world people have more easily sacrificed ethical standards for justification of violence and deception.

Pop-art (especially cinema) of 1920-1930-s promotes the cult of youth which is still in fashion. Courageous and honorable deeds are replaced by a mindless pastime when “rum embodies life itself' [18, p. 26, 58]. “These days the soul of a man loosens, everything is unsteady . for a man, he lives in seductions and temptations, in the eternal danger of substitution” [1]. Life “seems to be all about painful struggle for a miserable existence” [18, p. 274]. “Everything becomes petty! Everywhere I see low gates ... you should bend down” [10, p. 172]. In the progressive XX-th century anyone can unexpectedly and easily die from a bullet, an illness, hunger, denunciation or because of despair. However, people's maturity occurs quite rapidly [12, p. 289].

In 1832 J. Goethe speaking of relationship between life and creativity underlined the necessity of joyful selfrenunciation, psychic harmony and humility of sufferings for a writer to follow [3, p. 420]. A hundred years later A. Camus declares a writer's job to be a dangerous and extremely responsible profession because “any publication ... is a public act” [8, p. 363]. Into the writer's perception the desperate plight of the nation enters [8, p. 364]. Some irresponsible detachment as well as an aesthetic contemplation change for a writer's personal opinion because a man becomes a questioning and a riot [8, p. 133]. There comes the nihilistic age of dehumanization and desacralization when a man is powerless to believe losing the faith's initial foundation [8, p. 169]. The epoch of a social and spiritual slavery is the result of a too rational and an inhuman attitude to a man as an object.

During the first half of the XX-th century the notion of progress born in the Enlightment is associated with a labyrinth where “a person is in a rush to enter like a blind man but ... leaves to run wild” [23, p. 240]. The scientific and technological progress does not relieve people of anxiety, sense of guilt or disappointment. As a philosophy of life's representative notices, the perception of depth is lost: “Everything is going with the flow, nothing is deeply immersed in its sources” [10, p. 191]. The greatness of the human mind glorified by J. W. Goethe is in knowledge of the world and in the protest against dogmatism. However, the hopes of the XVIIIth century person are not fully justified: “I understand that we are not given the knowledge” or “I cannot comprehend the Nature's greatness” [4, p. 39]. The end of the XIXth and the beginning of the XX-th centuries illustrate “a nervous life rhythm, psychic strain due to a steady flow of information and the environmental pollution” [4, p. 26]. In the industrial society even the devil becomes civilized - evil transforms not being reduced in size and influence. Mephistopheles lives not only in the titles and privileges but in the peoples' souls as well.

Feelings' manipulation, corruption and apathy of spirit result in some illusory reality in which depersonalized words and dead meanings - “. the sinister God of abstraction's victims” [10, p. 354] - destroy the objective reality. In the Nietzsche's works God as not a natural causality is the anti-natural one and its morality denies life [10, p. 372, 373]. F. Nietzsche finds “the dead God in the epoch's soul” [8, p. 170]. Consequently, the philosopher has the right to claim that the Kingdom of Heaven is in people's hearts instead of being in the Heavens and the Kingdom of God is not in some abstract future but in an existing man's soul. We assume the Nietzsche's Overman does not represent a cruel and destructive world but a symbol of a courageous self-creation, a holistic approach to self-knowledge, an honest nobility, justice and kindness. Nietzsche's ideal of a man is incompatible with voluptuousness, lust after power, selfishness, envy and revenge. The philosopher's unhappy person is the one who is always satisfied with the state of things, is not able to recognize good and evil in his own heart and is not aware of his personal choice.

Like some Philosophy of Life or Existentialism's representatives the Lost Generation writers do not trust in either Christianity or Protestantism. The authors suggest that the Christian non-resistance to evil by violence harms a man because the faith like this worships “the exhausted and tormented God” [11, p. 114]. Protestantism is believed to be dry and restrictive [11, p. 115]. However, “if a rebel blasphemes he hopes for a new God” [8, p. 196] and the nature of It is the very essence of that God. An inhuman mind conquers the world by means of arms and hatred creating demons of dogmatism, total justice, formal morals and general rationality. “The era without transcendence” [8, p. 228] generates violence and terror. A human mind occupies faith's place, intellect takes the Bible's place, religion turns into politics and a prayer is replaced by labor [8, p. 230]. Still, “nothing can shake thirst for the divine in a man's heart” [8, p. 232]. This realized demand makes it possible for a person to feel the belonging to being in full. As J. W. Goethe writes, “Fill all your heart with the feeling. If you feel happiness then, you can call the feeling either love or bliss or God! There is no name for it as everything is in the feeling!” [4, p. 157].

Appealing to men to respect themselves both F. Nietzsche and A. Camus protest against a spirit of slavery, injustice and senselessness of people's being. As Camus says, the point of a reliable and moral person's being is in the conclusive evidence's power which outweighs tyrants and gods [8, p. 108]. A man is the only creature that claims to fully comprehend the essence of life [Camus, p. 116] and the only creature that refuses to be the one he is [8, p. 126]. People try to make the world meaningful transforming the way they exist. The XX-th century man's loneliness is the rejection of God. Therefore, “as a person's salvation is incomprehensible in God it has to be done on the earth” [8, p. 178]. Thus, some men take themselves as vicars of Christ overpowering their own abilities. Not the God-man but a man-god of the XX-th century targeting at the own ambitions' selfishness (like Goethe's Mephistopheles) is able to benefit greatly from both war and peace [4, p. 267]. Such a man who cannot satisfy the criteria of good and evil F. Nietzsche tries to overcome as “shame and disgrace” [10].

War is shown as an unambiguous evil in the works of the XX-th century Lost Generation writers. The notion of war if linked to a man who is either a tormentor or a victim. Any war rises a deep distrust of words. The initial sacredness becomes a profanity which is ridiculed scornfully. The words like sacred, victim, glorious, victory, accomplished lose their propagandist pathos in a soldier's consciousness: “The things that considered to be glorious do not deserve to be honorable and the victims reminded us of the Chicago slaughter.” [24, p. 131]. The name of Adolf Hitler as an ideological icon of Nazism does not protect people against bombings [15, p. 182]. Pagan by nature the public consciousness' faith in some infallible divinity of a leader is destroyed under the war circumstances where the words (not to mention actions) have to bring the huge sense of responsibility. The language that does not create a reality is not needed because any language itself is not only a sign but a rhythm and a landscape, space and time, body and spirit [6, p. 199]. The words of Camus are still true: “Words must not be prostituted in an unpunished way” [8, p. 365].

On the one hand, a soldier at war discovers a real value of friendship: “The nearer to the front line, the more wonderful people you meet” [24, p. 186]. On the other hand, a man of war has to restrict himself to some vital needs. The views that a polished button is more important than Schopenhauer's works and that Plato or Goethe do not have such power over men's minds as a sergeant does are imposing on a soldier [16, p. 20]. Any war destroys an individual being bringing rudeness, cruelty and incredulity into a character's structure. The primitive forms of trench living is similar in some way to African Bushmen's way of life. However, the prehistoric times can be developed technically while the XX-th century degrades morally because of the technical advance. The physiological needs' satisfaction is definitely imperative but a man desperately needs a personal growth and both intellectual and spiritual needs' realization [26, p. 186].

A war brings leveling of the national peculiarities: “...we used to be the coins of various countries, then they were melted down to be the same nowadays” [16, p. 176]. The notion of a national dignity is blurred as a war demands not minds but ability to sacrifice lives for victory [11, p. 93]. “Some frightening feeling of alienation” [16, p. 116] corrodes a personality in the post-war years. Depersonalization, indifference and lifelessness are the disastrous consequences of the souls' deformation scorched by war. The Lost Generation works researched in the article contain quite a number of irony and metaphors' examples. Irony like humor “always holds the ascension over its own existence” [26, p. 151]. A. Camus's words about irony as “a desperate hope” [8, p. 111] apply to sometimes the ironical style of the Lost Generation authors. For instance, robots not people are proposed to fight among themselves. However, “people cost cheaper.” [11, p. 221]. The war in which “even gods are mobilized” [8, p. 110] reduces any person to the level of loss of life's dry figure.

The Lost Generation writers analyze the reasons leading to the outbreak of war. As J. W. Goethe claims, “A wordsmith does not feel the results only, he digs up the causes of the thing” [3, p. 17]. Wars are necessary for a military dictator to strengthen his power otherwise there will not be his worship [16, p. 136]. Any political and military doctrines divide nations into Their Own and Others artificially. Murder is oficially allowed with respect to the latter: “Someone's command has made these silent figures [war prisoners - O. N.] our enemies. . Some people ... have signed a document and . we are aiming to do the thing the human race usually despises for and punishes in the most severe way” [16, p. 127]. An absolute dictatorship sets to enslave and exterminate “wrong” nations as its hostile target.

There are some ideological, social and economic reasons among the ones that lead to a war:

“Overpopulation leads to war along with a mercenary greed, a diplomatic cheating and a dumb patriotism” [11, p. 133]. The aggressor country's illegal territorial claims are among the war reasons, too. “The world is rather small to hold Germany which requires more place under the sun as well as the British Empire which does not want to get smaller” [11, p. 181]. During the first three decades of the XX-th century the illusion of moral progress rests on both the scientific and technological advances' achievements and the financial strength. “. A war is impossible between highly developed countries. . With the help of the united efforts Wall Street and Thread needle Street are able to stop even the stars in the sky” [11, p. 181]. Such things as treachery, venality and lie are also the reasons of a war. It was hypocrisy that helps to easily dissemble the state of things before the war and during it [11, p. 186].

The natural consequence of an ideological brainwashing is the world picture which contains quite a definite image of enemy. Under both Stalin and Hitler's regime the propaganda had the purpose of a total unification and a dazed “exclusivity”. “We were announced the Master race which all the rest ones had to serve like slaves to” [13, p. 33]. Among the spiritual reasons of war are intolerance, selfishness and a smug ignorance: “.if a person did not try to convince the other to accept his views as the only argument men would fight more rarely” [13, p. 113]. The Party meetings in which those present have the absent sleepy facial expression with some fata morgana of a great fulfillment [18, p. 340] create the image of public government management. The ideas of a racial superiority or a communism building in a particular country are historically and socially puerile. Such ideas are a political and economic bluff and a lifeless irrationality.

On the eve of war “the strong countries always blame the weaker ones for their aggressiveness” [17, p. 82]. The deliberate substitution of the concepts as an influential leverage against the mass consciousness is a manifestation of some reckless courage of the powers recognizing the opponent's weakness [19, p. 88]. For instance, the Hitler's government fighting against unemployment through the military development faces the alternative. The regime has to either declare a war or accept the country's economic disaster. Hitler chooses a war consciously [19, p. 219]. Violence, craftiness and massacre of the unarmed are not the discoveries of the XX-th century. “Demagogues, tricksters, . egotists intoxicated with some unlimited power, fanatica and prophets . instilled love of a neighbor . for the sake of an emperor or some crowned madmen. “ [19, p. 218].

The Nazi ideology disfigures Italy and “the lovely people who have not won any victories for centuries get utterly mad with rage” after they attack Abyssinia and Spain demanding to destroy England as well as planning to seize Nice, Corsica and Savoy” [19, p. 245]. The cynical ideology of a totalitarian regime means murders of the dissenters to be protected of thoughts. The concentration camps' necessity is explained by defending the country's honor [17, p. 115]. The conclusion that any tyranny needs is violence is fair.

The reverse is also true - a tyranny which is based on coercion fails inevitably [15, p. 252, 253]. The causes of the “brown plague's spread are absence of the organized resistance and a political shortsightedness: a man is strangely one-sided; he admits his own experience and only the danger which threatens him personally [14, p. 94-95]. Despotism is fed by fear: “The Neanderthals were killed by clubs, the Romans were killed by swords, medieval men used to die of plague. We can be won with a useless piece of paper” [12, p. 288]. The absolutely ruthless form which eliminates the content is in taste for denouncement, the illegal sentencing of the Soviet “three” and the nationality's mark in the personal file.

The concept of life is opposite to the notion of war and is synonymous to the idea of peace in the Lost Generation works. A war experience gives a man a right to say, “. I do not care what the world is. All I want to know is how to live in it” [24, p. 114]. After the World War II understanding of “what we spend our lifetime on” [19, p. 141] becomes essential. An individual life's content is of a special care. In times of “jazz love stories” when life rapidly “changes ... not from century to century but from year to year” [23, p. 247] the concept of life is associated with drama, triumph and mystique. The lost and resurrected, sensual and materialistic, hidden and explicit life is interpreted as evil, good or chaos by the Lost Generation writers.

Life is a tragedy with the predetermined end [24, p. 184]. Life is compared to a misery of the “mangled dying being” [18, p. 125] or to a shipwrecked people [17, p. 109-110]. However, life can be a kindness-for- others [19, p. 57] or, generally speaking, it should be something more than hatred [15, p. 280]. Life is an absence of savagery, life is for life itself [13, p. 134]. The feeling of life should be equal to a blast furnace's flames [19, p. 257]. On the other hand, life is made up of some little things (like a glass or a white tablecloth) which are of a great value in the ruins and chaos of the troubled times [13, p. 135]. Life is victorious when the event of “I-awareness” takes place and a personality is no longer a powerless part but a meaningful unit [5, p. 86, 104]. According to another point of view, life is pointless because it is a “football with all players out and no referee” [23, p. 240]. Life is a point of light which comes from nowhere and disappears unexpectedly [11, p. 9]. Life is “thousands of lights and streets which are stretching out to infinity” [17, p. 95].

Although a war has its advantage of absurdity [8, p. 111] the concept of life is not recognized as an undisputed evil in the era of the ideological crisis caused by inefficiency of liberalism and rationalism [26, p. 82]. Along with a pessimistic life perception including futility, inevitable losses and death there exists a deep intense being based upon a peaceful routine's dynamism and an awakened self-consciousness. The Lost Generation works' main characters completely accept life (despite of some terrible sufferings) as the omnipresent life “always and everywhere makes the way” [26, p. 160].

In the philosophical sense death is an integral component of life. Life owes death the world knowledge and the emotional experience, “Almost everything we have we are given by the dead ., our language ., ability to feel happiness and despair, . ability to sympathize ...” [14, p. 33]. Life is not fulfilled if a man “ throws life away” [14, p. 61], that is in the wrong business betraying the values and ignoring life's challenges. Both the Lost Generation writers and the non-classical philosophy grant a man the right to be responsible for his destiny. Suicide being a simulacrum of courage gives the illusion of a free will [17, p. 52].

In the literature of the Lost Generation's authors happiness is highlighted as the most uncertain moral value along with the most costly things in the world [18, p. 97]. “Mathematically error-free happiness” [5, p. 3] declared by a totalitarian state is an absurd intention. To make (italics are mine - O. N.) people be happy is a ridiculous task when happiness is associated with some organized nap and richness of the fed [5, p. 138], which means death to everything live. The satiety should be understood as a people's force feeding on slogans and empty promises. In a totalitarian state happiness can be measured by a contradictory fraction which has blessedness as a numerator and envy as a denominator [5, p. 16]. Totalitarism implements not only F. Taylor - like industry but introduces a controlled F. Taylor-like intimacy [5, p. 31]. Emotions' management is both a crazy and a dangerous idea as “people are linked not only by means of the relationships and bonds seen by the daylight of consciousness” [1]. The emotions of happiness, joy or pleasure cannot be regulated or calculated from outside as these feelings (like the emotional sphere in general) are subjective and irrational.

Having had the horrific experience of the World War I a man looks for a personal happiness asking himself if he is able “not to offend against Justice and not to attempt the other's rights” [11, p. 140]. Intersubjectivity as a today people's condition for existence [21] allows a person to create his own being among others, be in the world but not out of it taking both personal and other people's interests into consideration. The analyzed literature's realism is in a truthful opinion about a happy being including such elements as a calm life conception [16, p. 114], an encouraging presence of money [18, p. 163], everyday amenities and even a pleasant weather. In some borderline situations of being physical senses let a man have the lifeline connection with the world through sense of touch, auditory abilities, sense of smell and visualization.

“Happiness is everywhere as much as you like. Just bend over and pick it up. Happiness goes simply, always much more simply than you think” [19, p. 142]. This statement cannot be considered as a life illegibility but a recognition of life ' s value, a call for the life clarity and a childish trust. The prewar understanding of happiness as a boundless something dreamingly sparkling [14, p. 15] has the meaning of a physical survival related to bread and a shelter. A physical survival means a possibility of future, which itself is happiness as it denies a painful present. Probably, a human happiness gets its peak at some crucial moments which are subjectively significant. Nevertheless, happiness should be accepted as a relative notion to avoid the feeling of an absolute unhappiness [17, p. 10]. Thus, A. Einstein's term - relativity - is used in the spiritual realm and it is a certain security in the terms of the unstable being.

The Lost Generation writers admit the notion of love to be rather a wide field [14, p. 74]. Love's concept's content is various including fear of loneliness, anticipation of other “I”, self-esteem and self-sacrifice. Emphasizing the irrational nature of love the literary works interpret this feeling as an “unsteady image of the reality in the imagination's mirror” [19, p. 123]. The authentic unpredictable movements of love are associated with sea tides. In love hope can be buried as well as discoveries can be celebrated. In love “the wreckage of the ship, the sunk cities, some boxes full of gold and pearls” can be found [19, p. 148]. The generation caught under the wheel of the geopolitical shifts realizes that love is a diverse phenomenon which has its amplitude with its own color and love's sounds and the tactile ranges constantly change. Love “does not know either measure or price” [19, p. 254]. In the totalitarian state which cynically proves love to be emotionally ineffective and rationally inappropriate a person is tempted by “the criminal” desire [5, p. 90] of a sensual love which is natural in its origin.

There is no denying that actuality of the appeal to loving people made after the World War II is still relevant nowadays: ”My dear lovers! ... In you there is the only joy of the violent world” [11, p. 139]. Love- for-the benefit-of-another justifies a man's life and gives it fearless meaning: “Nothing is scary while the person you love is still alive” [12, p. 159]. Revenge is not considered to be a fair consequence of a failed love in the world which depends “on a little warmth” [12, p. 288]. Any illogical or unexpected sincere word, a look or a gesture can be the measure which changes the situation for good. Love is an act that needs no explanation [19, p. 200]. An expression of true love like all other acts is a responsible speechless action while words are not always the act.

The Lost Generation writers admit that “it is easy to be loved by someone but it is hard to love” [22, p. 415]. Gaining of the existence's fullness through love of Another is difficult because the process needs moral, will, intellectual and material efforts. In our opinion, the element of fight presenting in love is connected with the subjectivity of another person. The resistance's overcoming is an attempt of another person's understanding: “You are in love because you cannot take control of love” [5, p. 49]. Love's internal contradictions are in a person's desire for love's eternal existence and inability to a priory control and hold the feeling. Love as an ideal substance is easily influenced by. Its changeable nature is fragile and sublime. Thus, final loving hearts' fusion is impossible and the recipe from love fading is in frequent separation [18, p. 164]. Expressing doubts of the latter's correctness it should be noted that an absolute love harmony is mostly an illusion.

The fair point - “nothing can be held” [18, p. 28] - concerns not only love feelings but also a sphere of an ideal existence of a man. There does not exist a frozen emotion like there cannot be found any stiff moment. In the very word possession there is an “honest burgher's miserable and hopeless illusion” [17, p. 192]. As a result of global catastrophes and local disasters any family or a job, a dwelling or money can be easily destroyed or devalued. Men's ideals, hopes or dreams become senseless. On the eve of the world wars people live in illusion of “the eternal power, eternal health and prevalence of good in men” [22, p. 277]. The shortsightedness costs too much to the human race. The writers put a question about a man's loss of his own essence of being. However, this problem is typical not only for the XX-th century. “An extraordinary man has always to teeter on the brink. Not everyone is able to withstand the pressure” [22, p. 259] of dogmatism and fanaticism.

The problem of possession is directly related to a person who can hardly resist the “flow of things and money” [22, p. 335]. Some obvious manifestations of a material wealth in marriage humiliate a financially dependent partner. Trampling on a human dignity means a human pride's insulting, which is the “real vulnerability” for a personality [22, p. 343]. A complete ignoring of somebody's existence as the reality of a different Spiritual Self or arrogant disregard for other people's views can be considered as the signs of a limited mind and of an uncultivated emotional sphere. Finally, this is the way to totalitarianism. Self-awareness's awakening is linked to a certain setting apart from others, especially when the world seems hostile to live in through its aggressiveness or indifference. A personal self-sufficiency is the result of a complicated intellectual work, a courageous creativity and the ability to protest against formality (e.g. equality of slaves, some semblance of freedom, etc.). Men are the only creatures who deny to approve of their own being [8, p. 225] striving for further development.

In the totalitarian regimes there is “nobody who feels lonely but the one of us” [5, p. 7]. Under the conditions of freedom's absence people's homogeneity is not of a species' kind but of a moral sort because the human beings become impersonal screws or numbers [5, pp. 12, 18, 46, 84]. Yet these people are going to make a discovery that “a man is like a novel because nobody ever knows what will happen up to the last page” [5, p. 107]. People's physiological, intellectual and moral inequality associated with “some thermal contrasts of life” [5, p. 116] is the norm's differences thanks to people are interesting to each other. Self losing can be seen, among other things, in truly love's inability and in loss of imagination that is “the last barricade” [5, p. 119] to fight against the universal happiness of slaves. Imagination stands against a dogmatic integrity because a man's spirit is a priori free and dreams are out of somebody's control. In wartime “only dreams help put up with the reality” [19, p. 81] as they restore the lost paradise in the form of the peaceful dawns, the fireplaces' quiet warmth and some favorite books.

People lose themselves because they lose the firm moral footing - moral values are deformed noticeably. The French Revolution (1789-1794) starts ruining the moral values of the Enlightenment. As Sh. Talleyrand says, “if you haven't seen Europe before 1789, then you don't know what the joy of life is” [11, p. 167]. In the XIX-th and especially the XX-th century modesty and honesty are depreciated and “rewarded only in novels. In life they are used and then are thrown aside” [18, p. 28]. The moral decline is a humankind's sheer regression. The lost Generation authors ask us to remember “the wonderful time when people used to be horse-tails or reptiles. ... How much people have lost since that time!” [18, p. 155]. The matter is the true values have nothing in common with either money or a profitable position [11,p. 77]. The Marxism's

limitations are in reducing people's relations to exclusively social-economical ones. Still, faith and honesty “cannot be destroyed by any . sophistry” and “a childish simplicity of a soul defending against malice” retutrns to be a real value [23, p. 150].

The Lost Generation era's cruelty is in a total mystification of the reality around. “Peace is conquered with cannons and bombers, humanity is won with concentration camps and pogroms. ... Aggressors are believed to be peace's advocates and the chased or expelled are considered to be peace's enemies” [12, p. 84]. In the inverted world a man is bought like a paid dancer [22, p. 369]. The world of the Looking-Glass does not allow a human charm as a self-sufficient value to exist [22, p. 415]. The world of a cynical pragmatism rejects a human for “penetrating the essence of things, solving the hardest life situations”; “the ABC of a human decency” [22, p. 369] does not exist in the atmosphere of contempt for courage, courtesy and a natural attraction to good. The World Wars have made their tragic contribution into moral values' distortion. The cognitive process related to a teacher or a book loses its significance. The society degrades being satisfied with up-to-the-minute, digestible and primitive things.

Words' value are lost. “It is hard to find words when you really have what to say. And even if the necessary words come, you are ashamed of pronouncing them. All these words belong to the past centuries. The modern age has not found words for expressing its feelings. Our age can only be unceremonious” [18, p. 222]. Artificiality and vulgarity of the words which lose their sensitivity is the result of the ideological propaganda and militant rhetoric, which deprives words' meanings substituting them with some dead simulacra. The world becomes absurd not just because of substitution of concepts but due to absence of people's unity - politics rejects human and prefers a religious extremism. A polyphonic world is in distress - a young man has to leave Germany because his father is a Jew, the same youngster is persona non grata in Switzerland because his mother is a Christian [12, p. 165]. The separation of believers and atheists prevents people from a natural communication and creates an indefinite claim on some exclusiveness of both sides [6, p. 79].

Nature stops being an object of some aesthetic contemplation turning to the object of capture, consumption and extermination. “Some semi-religious, intensely pathetic character which the aesthetic pleasure had two centuries ago completely clears nowadays” [26, p. 157]. Mockery of a sensitive soul enjoying clouds as the source of inspiration [5, p. 4] is a hidden longing for the lost magic unity between nature and a man in the era of technological advances. Being an element of nature himself, a man makes economy a priority ignoring the nature's mechanisms becoming selfish and insensitive. “Did not that aesthete and the art expert think about feelings of the tuna being killed by his flotilla?” [14, p. 94-95]. The mankind's global intervention into the nature's processes without considering the tragic consequences leads to environmental disasters and disbalance of natural subjects. Although “nature itself is indifferent to the human values” (Rassel) nature is valuable to a man. Some healthy essence of nature seen in the XVIII-th century [4, p. 8] opposes the pressure of the XX-th century social life.

“The Gods of dawn and twilight, birds' songs and midnight silence, ploughing and harvest, fields and green grass, cows and anxiously bleating sheep” [11, p. 83] are pagan gods which will exist while living in people's minds. “The sea, rain, indigence, desire, fight against death unite people” [8, p. 367]. Thereby, nature, death and people's needs are universal people's interests. Goethe fairly remarks that “in a badly built town . its inhabitants . are in the desert of a gloomy existence” [3, p. 430]. The most beautiful town is the one where a man feels happy [17, p. 107] because the sense of beauty arises from a positive attitude towards somebody or something rated highly.

“Beauty is not outside but in ourselves. It is our own beauty that we learn from the changing patterns of life's eternal flow. Through light, shape, movement, glow, scents and sounds ... life expresses itself' [11, p. 62]. In difficult situations of being a man is supported by nature. Spring flowers of England are like a reproach to people's despair, malice and greed [11, p. 134]. The annual renewal of nature does not depend on a man's will, which is dissonant with a person's dependence on other people's wills. “Spring comes and trees can carelessly blossom again . and they know nothing of passports, treachery, despair and hope” [19, p. 195].

“A man stops being wild only when [the Soviet Union] isolates a machine perfect world from the unreasonable ugly world of trees, animals and birds ... behind ... the Wall” [5, p. 62-63]. The words mentioned above should be understood the exact opposite. A person loses the human essence if he or she breaks away from the nature. An ideal world is not machinery and engineering but a harmony of the inside and outside. “Machine's beauty is in steady and precise ... rhythm. However, aren't you pendulum-accurate fed by the Taylor system?” [5, p. 118]. The matter is a human nature is not constant. The sphere of emotions is changeable. Instincts coexist with the conscious. Without imagination, inspiration, anticipation, insight, dreams, which is irrational, a man is just a machine started with the social rhythm and doomed to death. Thus, the mechanical life is meaningless for us without an ability to express and share our feelings, that is to manifest ourselves through communication in any form.

The decline of moral values at the public level does not mean their death in the mind of an individual. Is anything of importance in the world where everything is sold, bought, changed drastically and died? Yes, it is. “It is the fact that we are not dead anymore. ... And the fact that we are not dead yet” [13, p. 178]. While a person is alive he has to struggle with the circumstances. “A person is nothing but a series of decisions, ... the amount, form and set of relations.” [21]. Resistance to evil is neither a nice figure of speech nor an abstraction. An explicit or an implicit repulse can become a key concept of the worldview (if not the meaning of life) at the crucial time because the terms like Motherland or life can mean less than the notions like justice or freedom [17, p. 3]. Rebellion manifests itself in life's awakening in a man, in birth of the ability to sympathize and empathise. To oppose means to be authentic and be able not to be equalized [5, p. 21]. An opposition starts with some independent thought's birth (“. it is necessary to think a little - this helps greatly” [5, p. 91]) when men question themselves about God and the things' correlation.

Resistance is a protest against dogmatism and paucity of beliefs in the society which lives “according to the ... laws of the multiplication table. There is neither hesitation nor errors. There is only one truth and the true way is only one” [5, p. 46]. Resistance is in the revolt against a dead unity of “the grey-blue ranks” [5, p. 6], against flaunting the private life. Protest against “wide open faces” [5, p. 93] starts with courage to think and feel, which is a crime in the totalitarian state. A man of protest hopes to find a meaningful being among speechless molecules and phagocytes [5, p. 86]. A rebellious man realizes the power of laughter as a weapon which can destroy even a murder [5, p. 139140]. “Fate is never stronger than a cool courage that resists the destiny” [19, p. 357]. A spirit of nobility is able to oppose the tragic existence: “Untill a person gives in, he is stronger than his fortune” [18, p. 308]. Buying a new dress is a sick woman's protest against the abusive conditions of life [17, p. 121]. Beauty counters vulgarity, fear and hatred as a defensive redoubt in the wartime.

Any war proves that any oppression can be beaten. The most essential thing is to remember the reason of the protest [15, p. 103]. Along with heroism there is a bravery of a long-term resistance filled with the physical and moral sufferings. For instance, death camps' prisoners are people humiliated unbearably. However, they have a dignity not to consider themselves humble [15, p. 257] because hope as a ghostly guide of some worthy life is still alive. Without arms and military operations the prisoners win the subhuman's morally because the poor men remain people under the inhuman circumstances. “If I can go without bread till tomorrow, . then I am not yet an animal. ... It is the resistance. This is how to become a person. It is a beginning. .“ [15, p. 59]. It is necessary to survive to live on not only to be self-respected but to be loved in a family and respected at work.

Work as a source of a material being should bring a moral satisfaction as well. During a total unemployment work becomes hardly achievable. On the other hand, having a job is not the irrefutable proof of somebody's happiness. A man should realize that a personal work is an essential and a respected part of a great social whole. That is why a man's yearning for “the profession's ethics” [22, p. 427] is natural. Some pieces of advice relevant to work are given in the Lost Generation literature. Firstly, “you should do your job as brilliantly as possible and not to make too much noise” [11, p. 118]. Secondly, “a man should be a master of the craft and if he is not he is nothing better than others” [22, p. 326]. Finally, a successful career cannot have anything to do with a social snobbishness or a material insatiability.

The literary analysis of the global redistribution's era of the financial capital and the political authority's fusion, aggressive wars and public consciousness's total manipulation lets the Lost Generation authors make a conclusion: “Even in America money is not the only stimulus which reveals the best in a person” [23, p. 248]. The economic starvation is unworthy of a human being because it has “ a terrible squalor, dirt and stupidity” [23, p. 233]. An economic poverty can definitely be named a social and moral evil.

The notion of evil is versatile in the works of the Lost Generation writers. Evil's manifestations are “laziness of heart, fear, simulation of conscience” [15, p. 104]. The obvious benefit of prisoners' release contains the problem which is in “the train of loneliness, sad reminiscences and perplexity” [15, p. 307]. The society that does not participate in the war directly is hostile to a soldier who gets tired of chatting about nothing [19, p. 141]. The evil of a social routine is in empty pastime, reckless entertainment and pointless words, that is in people's failure to realize the tragic lessons of history and in people's reluctance to reflect on their own lives. In the postwar period (“. there is almost always a war” [14, p. 80]) the war means worldviews' intransigence, political and religious conflicts, social injustice and some destructive ways of behavior. As the Lost Generation authors note, the only war which is worthy to participate in is a war of mind against stupidity and inertia.

In fact, in 1920-1930s “sport, journalism and aristocratic manners” [11, p. 85-86] make a man's life senseless. The system of values under the name of “aristocratic egotism” [23, p. 26] collapses inevitably because this is the worldview of some talented people not having any moral principles or faith in the man. A newspaper becomes an instrument of manipulation because the paper substitutes a critical analysis of the objective reality for a gum's red cent sale to thousands of harried people [23, p. 198]. Templates are dangerous for both life and art because standards are evil to development of thoughts. For example, the imposing statements (about the cheerful American nation or the Russians obsessed with suicide) [23, p. 142] run counter to the objective data.

Hitler's Germany is an absolute evil because it embodies “a rough materialism and a complete tyranny of power” [23, p. 142]. Upbringing in a pre-war Germany in the National Socialist Hitler Youth organizations is an onward annihilation of thoughts and feelings' freedom. The attractive form including sports, aircraft modeling and orienteering conceals the fanatic ideology of fascism. A young man brought up on National Patriotic ideas stands up for a theory of racial supremacy [22, p. 442]. Evil is in the euphoria of devotion to the Party “messiah” who believes that everything is fair in the fight for power: “You had to be a murderer to be adored” [17, p. 210]. The notion of a nation's rising up is associated with a stone. When you raise the stone some creeps crawl out of it using fine words to hide their own true nature [17, p. 78].

Kindness degenerates into an artificial sympathy. Discipline takes the form of cruelty. Dignity turns into intolerance. Evil is in the absolute limitation which discards History as a used rag. At the place where “Francis preached a sermon on love there are columns of the marching youths in the fascist uniform obsessed with delusions of grandeur, intoxicated by both empty phrases and hatred to other peoples” [19, p. 245]. Evil is a morality of the criminal world [8, p. 256] being chosen consciously by a dictatorship. The regime pays the price for such a choice over the time because “complacency in evil is death” [1].

The social evil involves some political and religious barriers because they are “artificial differences invented the powerful to encourage their weak henchmen and to remove ... the strong” [23, p. 48]. Evil is in the loss of a social identity: “Nowadays even Christ found without a passport would be put in jail” [19, p. 185]. Evil is in leveling of personal qualities which have been destroyed since the time of crimes' prevalence [12, p. 298-299]. According to the Lost Generation writers, death of intellectuals is due to their moral hesitation and searching: “The more primitive man, the more satisfaction he demonstrates. ... Doubts and tolerance are intellectual person's features. That is why such people are still dying. It is a Sisyphean work” [12, p. 91]. Dying of sensitivity - “A metre away a crying suffering man is dying but you feel nothing” [12, p. 29] - is a world's disaster because the evil's quantity becomes a terrifying routine. A personality's eternal problem which is especially vital in the XXI-st century is “to know evil as it is whether the evil wears muddy, boring or luxurious clothes” [23, p. 145]. It should be mentioned that it is not enough to find the evil out but it is necessary to resist it.

It is “youth itself' [11, p. 9] that is an irreparable loss of the XX-th century. The generation gone through the horrors of the First World War feels they are old having no experience of age: “We are old, cynical, we believe in nothing and sometimes we are sad” [13, p. 113]. The senility including the experienced suffering, pain and disappointment is not of a physiological but of a psychic nature. The First World War participants admit that a man can find a balance in the post-war world if he “steps outside of selfishness” [23, p. 254]. “The caricature-ridiculous, confused and helpless” [11, p. 19] older generation is responsible for the old slogans and creed, which is fear of poverty, worship of success and gods' death [23, p. 256]. However, “the whole world is guilty of the bloody crime” [11, p. 30] against humanity as “most of the male's side of the young generation has died never live to be thirty years old” [11, p. 135].

The generation experienced its own extermination take ironically G. Leibniz's (1646-1716) thought of the existing world as the best of the worlds because the faith in a reasonable word order is lost. The generation of the young is killed even if it is rescued from shells: “We were eighteen and we just started loving the world.

We had to fire on life” [16, p. 62]. The generation is ruined “for nothing, . in the name of empty chatter, ... newspaper lies and the politicians' militant impudence” [11, p. 169]. Some survived memories' fugitives compare their living in the native country with tourists' temporary staying [16, p. 84] and with the collapsed pit's miners whose worthy dreams are unclaimed “in businessmen, corruption and poverty's time” [18, p. 58]. The abandoned and homeless, deceived and apathetic people like “lost children” [12, p. 186] are involved in the Second World War under the terms of the revived anti-humanism. The Lost Generation writers erect a tombstone to the generation that “hoped for much, fought fairly and suffered greatly” [11, p. 7].

The characteristic signs of 1920-1930s include a rationalized love with phone calls instead of letters and the power of a totalitarian state-god with punitive bodies instead of the Middle Ages' guardian angels. The Christian God sacrifices Himself for the sake of a man while the technocratic civilization's citizens sacrifice their rights and freedoms to the state-god. The Christian God affords a man's soul right to doubt and make mistakes while a totalitarian authority gives a person the only right to be punished or even killed [5, p. 32; 77]. The millennial civilization appears to be “false and worthless” [16, p. 172] because it has never learnt to prevent peoples from a fratricidal confrontation. There is no progress in people's awareness of life as an ultimate gift. The war crimes are in undermining faith in a human mind and “the human race inspires an invincible horror and disgust” [11, p. 266].