Discontent with "Society"and the Striving for "Community"
In its critique of society, the youth movement deplores the atomization of men in the age of technology; the dissolution of organic relationships and bonds; loneliness and heartlessness; the ugliness and constriction of the large cities; modern technology and the rational industrial society which, through its one-sided emphasis on the development of the intellect, leads to the spiritual and emotional impoverishment of mankind. Dissatisfaction with this state of affairs prompts the striving for a new life style, for a community, a collectivity in which all those frustrated and withered vital shoots can thrive and blossom out in a new and satisfying life.
Inner Truth as an Ontological Criterion
The endeavor to "fashion life in the spirit of inner truth," proclaimed in the Meissner Formula, indicates the crucial importance of this theme within the total concept of the youth movement. In the youth movement's critique of society, the one feature most frequently pilloried was the lies and falsehood behind the facade of social norms and conventions. They were confronted with "inner truth" or "the spirit of truth" as a criterion of a fulfilled and righteous life conducive to strengthening community bonds. The movement sought the key to the discovery and recognition of this truth in the intuition, the subjective inner stirrings of the individual and the community, while rejecting rational, objective criteria as inadequate and misleading. It was art rather than science, sentiment rather than reason, intuitively grasped rather than externally established norms that were considered the effective instruments in a genuine search for truth.
The Bund
This organizational cell of the youth movement also owes its origin to a collective emotional experience. "For the constitution of the 'Bund' emotional experiences are vital, they form its 'foundation.'" "The flame of the 'Bund' only leaps up when those stirred to their depths as individuals meet, mutually recognize the common direction of their 'feeling' and on that basis kindle one another's enthusiasm."
The collective will (volente generale) is forged at the Bund rally, mostly through strong emotional attachments focused on the personality of an inspiring leader. Born as a flash of intuition, the collective will is subsequently spelled out in statutes and resolution. Any deviation from that collective will must end either in separation from the Bund or in a recantations. Discussions may well take place within the Bund, but decisions are arrived at by the rising into consciousness of an "inner truth," not by the mechanistic method of democratic vote-counting. Sparked by the emotional ambiance of the Bund rally, this "liberating" idea illuminates the road ahead.
Totality of Commitment
Although activities accounted for only a small proportion of the time of its members, the youth movement was not content with the role of an additional and subsidiary instrument of eduction, but endeavored, on the whole with success, to totally dominate the lives of its members. Actually, the striving for "wholeness" and total commitment follows from the characteristics of the youth movement already described here. In its critique of society the youth movement deplored the fragmented, mechanistic relations between men, and its search for communion was expressed in a yearning for a pattern of organic, harmonious and all-embracing relations between the members of the community. Thus, there is a straight line leading from the principle of "inner truth" and the attempt to translate it into real life to the principle of the "totality" of the youth movement. "Inner truth," as it was truth in its purest form - in contrast to all externally imposed norms - demanded unconditional compliance, irrespective of society and social circumstances. It was bound to be regarded as indivisible and exempt from the need to enter into compromises with other "truths," exempt from the need to iron out differences and find a middle way. The more that "inner truth" was felt to be an elementary phenomenon of nature, the more complete was its demand for total submission. The educational approach chosen by the youth movement to translate its postulate into reality and to harness the total identities of its members consisted in the endeavor to mold their "conviction" and their "bearing."
Molding "Conviction" and "Bearing"
The youth movement based its approach on the assumptions that in education the relationship between cause and effect, challenge and response, is never a straightforward and direct one, but that human reactions and modes of behavior in real situations are determined by psychological predispositions, classified as Gesinnung and Haltung, conviction and bearing. These predispositions in turn are derived from certain value judgments.
Having adopted this concept, which is diametrically opposed to that of modern behaviorism, the youth movement proceeded with faultless logic to draw a conclusion that is vital for an understanding of the movement. Once it is accepted that an individual's mode of behavior is governed entirely by convictions and bearing, there is little point in attempting to influence behavior directly in the course of the educational process. What matters instead is to dominate convictions and bearing. This would then spontaneously and without any further outside intervention - perhaps with redoubled efficacy as a result of refraining from exerting any external pressure - direct behavior into the desired channels. An unshakable faith in the inner logic and inevitability of this process confirmed the youth movements in its tendency to concentrate almost exclusively on the molding of the convictions of its followers, while the customary "schoolmasterly" methods of behavioral drill were spurned with ridicule and contempt, as they appeared to be based on a confusion of cause with effect in the sphere of education.
The same interpretation was applied to social processes. All the sections of the youth movement, representing a broad spectrum of different hues and divergent tendencies, were united in the belief that a transformation of the social order could only be effected by human beings who themselves had been transformed beforehand, and that only a "different" type of man would be able to ensure the survival of a new order. On the other hand, a genuine transformation could never be brought about by the use of violence to enforce changes in external circumstances, unless such changes were preceded by a spiritual transformation of the human beings concerned,
"Indirect" Education
The youth movement looked upon "indirect" education as the most effective means of influencing the conviction and bearing of its followers. In place of the "direct" education practiced in the schools, which endeavored to transmit to the pupil information, opinions, skills and modes of behavior, the youth movement sought to affect the conviction and bearing of its followers indirectly, not by preaching the word, but through the mysterious workings of symbols and allusions, and above all through the participation in experiences charged with emotion; not through the impact of outside influence, but though the inward force of moved hearts and souls.
Contrary to the educational principle of rationality, which took it for granted that rational thinking will of necessity engender rational, and thus "positive" action, the youth movement believed that if only the youngster was exposed to the "right" type of experience, if he became "moved," his convictions and bearing would be molded the "right" way and appropriate action was bound to follow in due course.
The Movement and the "Moved"
The features listed here suggest a new and unconventional definition of the youth movement, summing it up primarily not as an organization of young people but rather as Jugendbewegtheit, youth's state of being moved, of being emotionally gripped by the sense of being young. This interpretation in terms of a movement of the human spirit appears to be supported by the general usage of the youth movement, which in referring to its followers never spoke of "members," bur of Jugendbewegte, the "youth-moved" or "moved youth."
Yet, such movements of the human spirit, peaks of spiritual agitation, are by their very nature transient and fugitive, whereas social structures, even if generated in the first place by a movement of the human spirit, tend to outlast the inspiration and take on the character of movements in the sense of organizations, and then moods are superseded by statutes, feelings by actions, formative experience by tasks, and the free, unshackled gathering of the young by a lifelong association tied to limited objectives.
In this way the youth movement fell victim to an inexorable dialectic: for a perpetuation of the state of being spiritually moved and in the grip of emotion without ever reaching the stage of bringing the ideals down to earth and proving them viable in real life was bound to reduce the youth movement to absurdity, whereas the translation of the ideals into reality spelled the dissolution of the movement. The span between the two poles of this dialectical process constitutes the history of the various youth movements.
Summing up, the youth movement can be regarded as a manifestation of a profoundly pessimistic view of modern culture, aiming at a radical transformation of man as a prerequisite for the transformation of the real world.
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