The Loss Of The Religious Understanding Of

The Bravest And Most Noble Are Not Those Who Take Up Arms, But Those Who Are Decent Despite Everything; Who Improve What It Is In Their Power To Improve, But Do Not Imagine Themselves To Be Saviours. In Their Humble Struggle Is True Heroism.

Turgenev Saw Human Beings As Individuals Always Endowed With Consciousness, Character, Feelings, And Moral Strengths And Weaknesses; Marx Saw Them Always As Snowflakes In An Avalanche, As Instances Of General Forces, As Not Yet Fully Human Because Utterly Conditioned By Their Circumstances. Where Turgenev Saw Men, Marx Saw Classes Of Men; Where Turgenev Saw People, Marx Saw The People. These Two Ways Of Looking At The World Persist Into Our Own Time And Profoundly Affect, For Better Or For Worse, The Solutions We Propose To Our Social Problems.

The Loss Of The Religious Understanding Of The Human Condition—that Man Is A Fallen Creature For Whom Virtue Is Necessary But Never Fully Attainable—is A Loss, Not A Gain, In True Sophistication. The Secular Substitute—the Belief In The Perfection Of Life On Earth By The Endless Extension Of A Choice Of Pleasures—is Not Merely Callow By Comparison But Much Less Realistic In Its Understanding Of Human Nature.

Childhood In Large Parts Of Modern Britain, At Any Rate, Has Been Replaced By Premature Adulthood, Or Rather Adolescence. Children Grow Up Very Fast But Not Very Far. That Is Why It Is Possible For 14 Year Olds Now To Establish Friendships With 26 Year Olds - Because They Know By The Age Of 14 All They Are Ever Going To Know.

Where A Reputation For Intolerance Is More Feared Than A Reputation For Vice Itself, All Manner Of Evil May Be Expected To Flourish.