Note 82 — III The ‘Clerks’—The Great Betrayal

These views on the modern cult of the particular do not seem to me to be invalidated by the arrival of a recent school (Neo-Thomism) which opposes the cult of Being to that of Becoming. According to the leaders of this school, it is clear that, despite certain universalist declarations, human Being really belongs only to them and their group, although in this case the group is wider than the nation. One of them would quite willingly say with a Christian of the second century: ‘We are men; the rest are pigs and dogs.’ Nor do I think I need take into account those particularisms which claim that by working for themselves they are working for the universal, seeing that for them their own group represents the universal. ‘I am Roman, I am human’ (Maurras). ‘I am German, I am human’ (Fichte) and so on.... However, these claims show the prestige of the universal in despite of doctrines.