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Saturday Review
Editor - Norman Cousins Publisher-William D. Patterson Associate Editors Irving Kolodin • Horace Sutton Associate Publisher - Richard L. Tobin
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Modern Man Is Obsolete
EDITOR'S NOTE: Twenty-five years ago this month, the Saturday Review pub- lished an editorial on the implications of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and the advent of nuclear energy. That editorial marked a new philosophical course for the magazine, a course that has persisted this past quarter-century. On the anniversary of Hiroshima, the editors republish herewith the bulk of that editorial as a restatement of SR's editorial aims.
W
hatever elation there is in the world today because of final victory in the war is severely tempered by fear. It is a primitive fear, the fear of the unknown, the fear of forces man can neither channel nor comprehend. This fear is not new; in its classical form it is the fear of irra- tional death. But overnight it has be- come intensified, magnified. It has burst out of the subconscious and into the conscious, filling the mind with primordial apprehensions. I t is thus that man stumbles fitfully into a new age of atomic energy for which he is as ill-equipped to accept its potential blessings as he is to counteract or con- trol its present dangers. Where man can find no answer, he will find fear. While the dust was still settling over Hiroshima, he was asking himself questions and finding no an- swers. The biggest question of these concerns the nature of man. Is war in the nature of man? If so, how much time has he left before he employs the means he has already devised for the ultimate in self-destruction—extinc-
tion? And now that the science of war- fare has reached the point where it threatens the planet itself, is it possible that man is destined to return the earth to its aboriginal incandescent mass blazing at fifty million degrees? If not—that is, if war is not in the nature of man—then how is he to inter- pret his own experience, which tells him that in all of recorded history there have been only 300 years in the aggregate during which he has been free of war? Closely following upon these are other questions, flowing out endlessly from his fears and without prospect of definitive answer. Even assuming that he could hold destructive science in check, what changes would the new age bring or demand in his everyday life? What changes would it bring or demand in his culture, his education, his philosophy, his religion, his rela- tionships with other human beings? In speculating upon these questions, it should not be necessary to prove that
on August 6, 1945, a new age was born. That day marks the violent death of one stage in man's history and the be- ginning of another. Nor should it be necessary to prove the saturating effect of the new age, permeating every as- pect of man's activities, from machines to morals, from physics to philosophy, from politics to poetry; in sum, it is an effect creating a blanket of obsoles- cence not only over the methods and the products of man but over man himself. It is a curious phenomenon of nature that only two species practice the art of war—men and ants, both of which, ironically, maintain complex social or- ganizations. This does not mean that only men and ants engage in the mur- der of their own kind. Many animals of the same species kill each other, but only men and ants have practiced the science of organized destruction, em- ploying their massed numbers in vio- lent combat and relying on strategy and tactics to meet developing situa- tions or to capitalize on the weaknesses in the strategy and tactics of the other side. The longest continuous war ever fought between men lasted thirty years. The longest ant war ever re- corded lasted six-and-a-half weeks, or whatever the corresponding units would be in ant reckoning. It is encouraging to note that while all entomologists are agreed that w a r is instinctive with ants, not all anthro- pologists and biologists are agreed that war is instinctive with men. The strict empiricists, of course, find everything in man's history to indicate that war is locked up with his nature. But a broader and more generous, certainly more philosophical, view is held by those scientists who claim that the evidence to date is incomplete and mis- leading, and that man does have within him the power of abolishing war. Prom- inent among these is Julian Huxley, who draws a sharp distinction between human nature and the expression of human nature. Thus, war is not a re- flection but an expression of his nature. Moreover, the expression may change, as the factors that lead to w a r may change. "In man, as in ants, war in any serious sense is bound up with the existence of accumulations of property to fight a b o u t.... As for human nature, it contains no specific w a r instinct, as does the nature of harvester ants. There is in man's makeup a general aggressive tendency, but this, like all other human urges, is not a specific and unvarying instinct; it can be molded into the most varied forms."
But even if this gives us a reassuring answer to the question—is war inevita- ble because of man's nature?—it still leaves unanswered the question con- cerning the causes leading up to war. The expression of man's nature will
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continue to be warlike if the same con- ditions are continued that have pro- voked warlike expressions in him in the past. And since man's survival on earth is now absolutely dependent on his ability to avoid a new war, he is faced with the so-far insoluble problem of eliminating those causes. In the most primitive sense, war in man is an expression of his competitive impulses. Like everything else in na- ture, he has had to fight for existence; but the battle against other animals, once won, gave way in his evolution to battle against his own kind. Darwin called it the survival of the fittest, and its most overstretched interpretation is to be found in Mein Kampf, with its naked glorification of brute force and the complete worship of might makes right. In the political and national sense, it has been the attempt of the "have-nots" to take from the "haves," or the attempt of the "haves" to add further to their lot at the expense of the "have-nots." Not always was prop- erty at stake; comparative advantages were measured in terms of power, and in terms of tribal or national superior- ity. The good luck of one nation be- came the hard luck of another. The good fortune of the Western powers in obtaining "concessions" in China at the turn of the century was the ill fortune of the Chinese. The power that Ger- many stripped from Austria, Czecho- slovakia, Poland, and France at the be- ginning of World War II, she added to her own. What does it matter, then, if war is not in the nature of man so long as man continues through the expression of his nature to be a viciously competi- tive animal? The effect is the same, and therefore the result must be as con- clusive—war being the effect, and com- plete obliteration of the human species being the result.
I
f this reasoning is correct, then modern man is obsolete, a self- made anachronism becoming more in- congruous by the minute. He has exalted change in everything but him- self. He has leaped centuries ahead in inventing a new world to live in, but he knows little or nothing about his own part in that world. He has surrounded and confounded himself with gaps— gaps between revolutionary science and evolutionary anthropology, be- tween cosmic gadgets and human wis- dom, between intellect and conscience. The struggle between science and morals that Henry Thomas Buckle foresaw a century ago has been all but won by science. Given time, man might be expected to bridge those gaps nor- mally; but by his own hand, he is de- stroying even time. Communication, transportation, war no longer wait on time. Decision and execution in the
modern world are becoming virtually synchronous. Thus, whatever bridges man has to build and cross he will have to build and cross immediately. This involves both biology and will. If he lacks the actual and potential biological equipment to build those bridges, then the birth certificate of the Atomic Age is in reality a memento mori. But even if he possesses the nec- essary biological equipment, he must still make the decision which says that he is to apply himself to the challenge. Capability without decision is inaction and inconsequence. Man is left, then, with a crisis in de- cision. The main test before him in- volves his will to change rather than his ability to change. That he is capa- ble of change is certain. For there is no more mutable or adaptable animal in the world. We have seen him migrate from one extreme clime to another. We have seen him step out of backward societies and join advanced groups. We have seen, within the space of a single generation, tribes of head-hunters spurn their acephalous pastimes and rituals and become purveyors of the Western arts. This is not to imply that the change was necessarily for the bet- ter; only that change was possible. Changeability with the head-hunters proceeded from external pressure and fear of punishment, true, and was only secondarily a matter of voluntary de- cision. But the stimulus was there; and mankind today need look no further for stimulus than its own desire to stay alive. The critical power of change, says Spengler, is directly linked to the survival drive. Once the instinct for survival is stimulated, the basic condition for change can be met. That is why the quintessence of de- struction as potentially represented by modern science must be dramatized and kept in the forefront of public opinion. The full dimensions of the peril must be seen and recognized. Then and only then will man realize that the first order of business is the question of continued existence. Then and only then will he be prepared to make the decisions necessary to assure that survival.
In making these decisions, there are two principal courses that are open to him. Both will keep him alive for an indefinite or at least a reasonably long period. These courses, however, are di- rectly contradictory and represent po- lar extremes of approach. The first course is the positive ap- proach. It begins with a careful survey and appraisal of the obsolescences that constitute the afterbirth of the new age. The survey must begin with man himself. "The proper study of Mankirid is Man," said Pope. No amount of tink- ering with his institutions will be suffi- cient to insure his survival unless he can make the necessary adjustments in his own relationship to the world and to society.
T
he first adjustment or mutation needed in the expression of his na- ture, to use Huxley's words, is his sav- agely competitive impulses. In the pre- Atomic Age, those impulses were nat- ural and occasionally justifiable, though they often led to war. But the rise of materialistic man had reasons behind it and must be viewed against its nat- ural setting. Lyell, Spencer, Darwin, Lamarck, Malthus, and others have concerned themselves with various as- pects of this natural setting, but its dominant feature was an insufficiency of the goods and the needs of life. From biblical history right up through the present, there was never time when starvation and economic suffering were not acute somewhere in the world. This is only part of the story, of course, for it is dangerous to apply an economic interpretation indiscrimi- nately to all history. Politics, religion, force for force's sake, jealousy, ambi- tion, love of conquest, love of reform —all these and others have figured in the equations of history and war. But the economic factor was seldom if ever absent, even when it was not the prime mover. Populations frequently in- creased more rapidly than available land, goods, or wealth. Malthus be- lieved that they increased so rapidly at times that war or plague became na- ture's safety valve. This interpretation has undergone some revision, but it is not the interpretation but the circum- stances that raise the problem. Yet, all this has been—or can be—
M
an is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush hint. A vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him.... All our dignity, then, consists of thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor then to think well: this is the principle of morality. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world. —Blaise Pascal, The Philosophers (1670).
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Letters to the Editor
T V , FCC, et al.
ALL VERY WELL for Nicholas Johnson in "What Do We Do About Television?" [SR, July 11] to chide critics of TV for not pushing hard enough against the corporate barons we abhor; b u t it is curious that he neglects to criticize the FCC's role (for which, I realize, he carries but a minority responsibility). In the same issue, SR's TV-Radio colum- nist, Robert Lewis Shayon, reports on a grassroots attempt to challenge right- wing control of radio, and on the FCC's dilatory tactics in response. Such tactics, or nontactics, are far from unusual; they are, indeed, the FCC's rule, and reflect the fact that the commission is responsible to the barons, not the public. Reports like Mr. Shayon's help to clarify why critics tend to be driven in one of two directions: toward more forceful ("extreme") demon- strations of opposition, or toward a cava- lier apathy. TODD GITLIN, Carmel, Calif.
NICHOLAS JOHNSON may have done better by following his own advice: petition ABC, CBS, NBC, et al., for an hour of prime time in which to deliver his mes- sage. CHRISTOPHER W. BURDICK, Fair Lawn, N.J.
Clarification
T H I S LETTER is to d r a w attention to t w o errors in David Dempsey's article "Librar- ies and the Inner City" [SR, Apr. 18]. Mr. Dempsey stated that "Last year, the city of Roswell, New Mexico, fired librar- ian Gordon McShean for... ." This is entirel' inaccurate. On September 25,1967, I submitted my resignation to the Board of Trustees of the Roswell Public Library. This was refused, and at that meeting the Library Board also passed unanimously a resolution criticizing pressure from spe- cial interest groups and hasty, errone- ous, and ill-considered action of the City Council opposing the library program. However, after receiving physically threat- ening phone calls, my wife and I felt that it would be personally dangerous for us to remain in the community, and for that reason I submitted a second resignation, with the explanation to the board that we appreciated their desire for us to stay b u t we felt forced to leave the community c\en if the resignation were not accept- ed. On that basis, the resignation was accepted. Mr. Dempsey continues the previous statement by stating that my leaving was for " b a d judgment." At no time was the phrase " b a d judgment" suggested to me, and the reaction of the board was gener- ally that the series of poetry readings and their handling was entirely appropriate, and the particular program in question, as well as its title, had been discussed with the Library Board president in advance of its announcement. Furthermore, nu- merous expressions of professional sup-
port were received from local, state, and national library quarters, including a res- olution of the Executive Board of the New Mexico Library Association stating that "Imaginative library programs of all sorts are important to the intellectual well-be- ing of any community." In general, the professional opinion was entirely support- ing of the program in the manner in which it was handled. For a periodical as significant in library circles as SR I feel it is especially impor- tant to report accurately those facts which reflect upon the careers of library pro- fessionals. The response to my profes- sional activities in Roswell was excellent, and my support by the Library Board was most encouraging. The only reason for my leaving was the threat of personal phys- ical attack by a few emotionally dis- traught individuals. GORDOX MCSHEAN, Dundee, 111.
Score Half a Point
WILBUR M. S M I T H , in his c o m m e n t s [LET- TERS TO THE EDITOR, July 4] on my r e m a r k s about the Reading Room of the British Museum library, has made a point. Half
a point, anyway. One doesn't really have to begin queueing at 9 in the morning in order to get a seat in the Reading Room. It just happens to be desirable, if you want to be sure (although August is a n almost impossible month, when the li- brary is so heavily patronized by on-va- cation students). As for being ejected for chewing gum, of course I was having a little fun. I've never seen anybody put out for that revolting practice; on the other hand, I've never seen anybody chewing gum in the Reading Room. The library's printed rules specifically forbid it. Also, visitors come in with clean hands. They seem to know all the rules, which, among many other strictures, even forbid a vis- itor to lay a piece of paper on the open pages of a book. Finally, the matter of talking. Mr. Smith states he has seen husbands and wives frequently consulting each other. I don't have Mr. Smith's ability for knowing which Reading Room visitors are married to one another. My own experience is that there simply is no talking whatsoever. Next time Mr. Smith comes to London, I'll be happy to go to the library with him. Then he can talk to me. At first h e will be warned. If he persists, he will be tlirown out; and I will be there to catch him. HERBERT R. MAYES, London, England.
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