It Has Not Been For Nothing That

Above All We Need, Particularly As Children, The Reassuring Presence Of A Visible Community, An Intimate Group That Enfolds Us With Understanding And Love, And That Becomes An Object Of Our Spontaneous Loyalty, As A Criterion And Point Of Reference For The Rest Of The Human Race.

Unfortunately, Once An Economy Is Geared To Expansion, The Means Rapidly Turn Into An End And "the Going Becomes The Goal." Even More Unfortunately, The Industries That Are Favored By Such Expansion Must, To Maintain Their Output, Be Devoted To Goods That Are Readily Consumable Either By Their Nature, Or Because They Are So Shoddily Fabricated That They Must Soon Be Replaced. By Fashion And Built-in Obsolescence The Economies Of Machine Production, Instead Of Producing Leisure And Durable Wealth, Are Duly Cancelled Out By The Mandatory Consumption On An Even Larger Scale.

Because Of Their Origin And Purpose, The Meanings Of Art Are Of A Different Order From The Operational Meanings Of Science And Technics: They Relate, Not To External Means And Consequences, But To Internal Transformations, And Unless It Produce These Internal Transformations The Work Of Art Is Either Perfunctory Or Dead.

Adventure Is Humdrum And Routine Unless One Assimilates It, Unless One Relates It To A Central Core Which Grows Within And Gives It Contour And Significance. Raw Experience Is Empty, Just As Empty As The Forecastle Of A Whaler As In A Chamber Of A Counting House; For It Is Not What One Does, But In A Manifold Sense, What One Realizes That Keeps Existence From Being Vain And Trivial.

Modern Man Is The Victim Of The Very Instruments He Values Most. Every Gain In Power, Every Mastery Of Natural Forces, Every Scientific Addition To Knowledge, Has Proved Potentially Dangerous, Because It Has Not Been Accompanied By Equal Gains In Self-understanding And Self-discipline.