I Love America, But I Don't Like

The Greatest Mystery About A Human Being Is Not His Reaction To Sex Or Praise, But The Manner In Which He Contrives To Put In Twenty-four Hours A Day. It Is This Which Puzzles The Longshoreman About The Clerk, The Londoner About The Bushman.

There Are Two Insults Which No Human Being Will Endure: The Assertion That He Hasn't A Sense Of Humor, And The Doubly Impertinent Assertion That He Has Never Known Trouble.

Fine, Large, Meaningless, General Terms Like Romance And Business Can Always Be Related. They Take The Place Of Thinking, And Are Highly Useful To Optimists And Lecturers.

Upon This Theology He Rarely Pondered. The Kernel Of His Practical Religion Was That It Was Respectable, And Beneficial To One's Business, To Be Seen Going To Services; That The Church Kept The Worst Elements From Being Still Worse; And That The Pastor's Sermons, However Dull They Might Seem At The Time Of Taking, Yet Had A Voodooistic Power Which 'did A Fellow Good-- Kept Him In Touch With Higher Things.

I Think Perhaps We Want A More Conscious Life. We're Tired Of Drudging And Sleeping And Dying. We're Tired Of Seeing Just A Few People Able To Be Individualists. We're Tired Of Always Deferring Hope Till The Next Generation. We're Tired Of Hearing Politicians And Priests And Cautious Reformers... Coax Us, 'be Calm! Be Patient! Wait! We Have The Plans For A Utopia Already Made; Just Wiser Than You.' For Ten Thousand Years They've Said That. We Want Our Utopia Now — And We're Going To Try Our Hands At It.