Thomas Mann Predicted the New World Order
8th November 2024
“What was it, then? What was in the air? A love of quarrels. Acute petulance. Nameless impatience. A universal penchant for nasty verbal exchanges and outbursts of rage, even fisticuffs.” Near the end of his novel The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann presents its snowbound setting — a sanatorium for tubercular patients in Davos, Switzerland — as the microcosm of an ill-tempered age on the edge of an abyss of violence. “Every day fierce arguments, out-of-control shouting-matches would erupt between individuals and among entire groups; but the distinguishing mark was that bystanders, instead of being disgusted by those caught up in it or trying to intervene, found their sympathies aroused and abandoned themselves emotionally to the frenzy.”