It Has Been Our Fate As A

In Using The Terms Play And Playfulness, I Do Not Intend To Suggest Any Lack Of Seriousness; Quite The Contrary. Anyone Who Has Watched Children, Or Adults, At Play Will Recognize That There Is No Contradiction Between Play And Seriousness, And That Some Forms Of Play Induce A Measure Of Grave Concentration Not So Readily Called Forth By Work.

One Of The Primary Tests Of The Mood Of A Society At Any Given Time Is Whether Its Comfortable People Tend To Identify, Psychologically, With The Power And Achievements Of The Very Successful Or With The Needs And Sufferings Of The Underprivileged.

To The Reactionary Ear Every Whispered Criticism Of The Elite Classes Has Always Sounded Like The Opening Shot Of An Uprising.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., In A Mordant Protest Written Soon After The [1952] Election, Found The Intellectual "in A Situation He Has Not Known For A Generation." After Twenty Years Of Democratic Rule, During Which The Intellectual Had Been In The Main Understood And Respected, Business Had Come Back Into Power, Bringing With It "the Vulgarization Which Has Been The Almost Invariable Consequence Of Business Supremacy.

It Is The Historic Glory Of The Intellectual Class Of The West In Modern Times That, Of All The Classes Which Could Be Called In Any Sense Privileged, It Has Shown The Largest And Most Consistent Concern For The Well-being Of The Classes Which Lie Below It In The Social Scale.