The nation . legalholiday. FOR THE Bolsheviks, the good so-ciety would come automatically iftin right powei were applied to theright program. But power and pro-gram arc not the question: whatmatters is the immediate realizationof humane content, here, there, rywhere, in every fact and re-lationship of society. Today the bru-tal fact is that society cannot endurewithout this realization of humanecontent. The only way to realize it lirectly, personally, in the im-mediate context. Anything else isnot just too expensive; it is wreck-ing the machinery. Modern society >o complex and too delicate
The nation . legalholiday. FOR THE Bolsheviks, the good so-ciety would come automatically iftin right powei were applied to theright program. But power and pro-gram arc not the question: whatmatters is the immediate realizationof humane content, here, there, rywhere, in every fact and re-lationship of society. Today the bru-tal fact is that society cannot endurewithout this realization of humanecontent. The only way to realize it lirectly, personally, in the im-mediate context. Anything else isnot just too expensive; it is wreck-ing the machinery. Modern society >o complex and too delicate to afford social and political Darwinism more. This means personal moral action. I suppose, if you wish to call it that, it means a spiritual •lution. Prophets and seers havebeen preaching the necessity forspiritual revolution for at least threethousand years and mankind has yetto come up with a bona fide it is that kind of action andthat kind of change that young peo-ple are demanding today. I960. Myself, past fifty, I cannot speakfor the young. I am inclined to thinkthey will fail. But that isnt thepoint. You might as well he a heroif society is going to destroy youanyway. There comes a time whencourage and honesty become cheaperthan anything else. And, who knyou might win. The nuclear explo-sion that you could not prevent-nt care whether you were braveor not. Virtue, they say, in itselfis intrinsicallv enjoyable. You cannothing, then, by striking back. Furthermore, just because the ma-chine is so vast, so complex, it isfar more sensitive than ever action does tell. Give atiny poke at one of the insignificantgears down in its bowels and slowlyit begins to shudder all over andsuddenly belches out hot rivets. Itis a question of qualitative of men built the Pyra-mids. One punched card fed into amechanical brain decides the gravestquestions. A few punched cardsoperate whole factories. Modern so-ciety has passed the stage when ita blind
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