Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

182 LIFE AND IDEAS OF MITRINOVIC

that humanity as a whole had reached such a turning point. According to him,

There will be no more great geniuses, no more great prophets, philosophers, artists. The primordial sources have been worked out to the full. There can be no more original notions in philosophy, no new revelations in religion, no fresh inspiration in art. This is not a sign of decadence, but the sign of a new acon, a new level of existence. There is no longer need of new influxes from a few great original creative men: there is need of a creativity which is possible to the many.’

At this critical turning point the individual has to face the whole question of the meaning of his life. Similarly humanity has to face the equally critical question of the meaning of human life on the planet Earth. Up to now human beings have been very largely engaged in the struggle for survival, or in struggles with one another for possessions and power. But technology has made it possible to produce plenty for all, and our power to destroy one another has made it imperative that we should order our world as a whole. Mitrinovié believed, however, that material plenty would not be realised and that the violence of war would not be ended until humanity conceived a common vision of the future significance of human life. How did he envisage this future?

The need of humanity was to begin to unite all the threads of life into a meaningful whole, based on the growing realisation of the interdependence of all people and things in the world and in life. The first necessary step towards this was to be a critical re-assessment of the whole human past. This was not to be a mere passive contemplation, a kind of historical or archaeological research, but an active effort to relive and re-appropriate the past, with all the glory of human attainments and all the shame of human crimes and folly. In the works of great artists and philosophers, of sages and religious teachers, we could find the significance which humanity has attributed to itself through the ages. We would also be faced with evil and with the failure of humanity to live up to its own highest valuation. Mitrinovié, however, maintained that past failure and wickedness could be redeemed. Just as a work of art is never complete until the last brush stroke or the last notes have been added, which can make or mar the whole, so the whole of human history could in the end be turned into a glorious attainment or a ghastly failure. Maurice Maeterlinck, who had been associated with the original Blutbund initiative, expressed a similar notion. “Our past” he wrote, “depends entirely upon our present, and is constantly changing with it. Our past is contained in our memory ... Even though our past