Thomas Mann on the Artist vs. the State - The New York Times

Among the harshest critics was Mann's older brother, the novelist Heinrich Mann, who published a historical study of his own, ostensibly about Émile Zola and the Dreyfus Affair but really a defense of liberal democracy and a declaration of the politically engaged writer's responsibility within it.

Central to Mann's argument in both "Thoughts in Wartime" and "Reflections" is a distinction between "Civilization" and "Culture." The terms are often used interchangeably, but Mann insists that they "Are not only not the same, they are opposites." Civilization "Involves reason, enlightenment, moderation, moral education, skepticism," whereas culture represents "The sublimation of the demonic." As such, it "Belongs entirely to the other side a deeper, darker, impassioned world." Every nation has a distinctive culture, but not all nations are civilized.

For the whole of his career, from "Buddenbrooks" to his final, unfinished novel, "Felix Krull," Mann was fascinated by the figure of the artist, an ambiguous character who stands "Between two worlds at home in neither." In Mann's rendering, the artist wields a vital power, one not entirely under his control, and as such poses a kind of risk to a culture that nonetheless depends on him. Since Mann believed that democracy politicized everything, he believed there could be no place for true art in a democracy: "What is necessary is at bottom not art at all but the manifesto, the absolute manifesto in favor of progress." Instead of the...

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