Chapter 18
The Quest for Happiness
Man has made his first landing on the moon. It remains
to be seen whether his immense investment of energy in this form of exploratory
behavior will bear fruit, but one result can already be foreseen today.
Access to the moon presents scientists with a unique opportunity. If they
succeed in constructing a huge telescope there, it will be possible – since
the moon has no atmosphere to interfere with the passage of light – to
look a little farther into the limitless universe. We shall then be able
to observe cosmic phenomena millions of light-years away and gain an even
clearer recognition of just how tiny a spatial and temporal phenomenon
we ourselves are. Let us assume that an astronomer stationed on the moon
has stolen a few hours from his research program to look at the earth purely
for his own pleasure. Let us further assume that his telescope is powerful
enough to enable him to observe the activities of individual human beings.
What does he see?
He sees us for what we really are – creatures that dwell
all over a sphere. In other words, he sees something which we find hard
to imagine (although we know it perfectly well) because our top-and-bottom
orientation has the a priori fixity of a Kantian category. He sees how
the people situated on the upper side of this globe – in other words, the
side which happens to accord with his own position-walk upright. Aiming
his telescope at the side of the globe, he sees people strolling about
and engaging in other activities at 90 degrees from the per-
(original book page 200)
pendicular. Finally, turning to the bottom of the globe,
he sees airplanes taking off downward and couples courting on secluded
benches, oblivious of time and place and unaware that they are – to him
– upside down. In short, he sees us in our true perspective, and the spectacle
may possibly serve to illustrate a human peculiarity which we take even
more for granted than all the rest: our quest for happiness.
As soon as our planet – a mere grain of sand in cosmic
terms – produced the requisite conditions, its surface witnessed a process
which expressed itself in the formation of increasingly complicated and
efficient structures. So far as we can tell today, this process had no
real goal or objective save that of self-enlargement. In this respect,
life resembles a fire which seeks nourishment and employs it to promote
its own growth. Fire, too, requires energy and converts it into part of
its process. This also applies to the life process, which also seeks utilizable
energy which likewise becomes a component and, in turn, the real activator
of the process. The great difference is that the life process manifests
itself in the formation of ordered structures which facilitate the active
procurement of energy and are, in this sense, useful. These structures
not only grow but, within the natural limits imposed upon them by, say,
terrestrial gravity or their own organization's restricted ability to expand,
multiply as well. If the life process had not developed both these faculties,
it would swiftly have ground to a halt. It did, in fact, develop them and
so perpetuated itself. Scientifically, Nietzsche's contention that the
sole purpose behind this process is a will to power can scarcely be refuted.
On the other hand, a similar will may be attributed to fire, though on
a far less complicated scale.
Each of us – each human being – is a similar productive
system, a similar order attained by the life process, and the most complex
and powerful of all. We are the only such systems to be able – in our imagination
– to assess ourselves, review our own lives, and deliberately shape them.
In us, the life process reached a point at which blind will was joined
by reflection – in other words, the ability to affect the direction of
that will. In what direction is man now steering it? Our activities have
become (vastly complicated, but what is their ultimate objective?
(original book page 201)
All systems engendered by the life process share the fundamental
ability to assess what is conducive or not conducive to that process. This
discriminative faculty is controlled in accordance with what biologists
call the pleasure-pain principle. Living creatures react positively to
many perceptions, are attracted by them, as it were, and gravitate toward
them. These stimuli cause them pleasure; others, which repel them and provoke
withdrawal or aversion, cause them pain. We cannot tell if these pleasing
and painful sensations are comparable with the human sort because we cannot
communicate with plants and other animals. Certain schools of psychology
are therefore justified in pointing out that we ought not to make inferences
about animals' sensations from our own. On the other hand, it can scarcely
be doubted that our sensations depend upon the pleasure-pain discrimination
which characterizes the entire life process – indeed, is its central driving
force.
The salient point – and here we come to another crucial
human peculiarity – is that we are not only aware of pleasurable sensations
but can recognize the causality of their origin. Because we realize what
such sensations do for us, it is only natural that we should use our intelligence
to promote pleasurable conditions and prevent disagreeable conditions to
the best of our ability. Further than that, we change matters or bring
about artificially contrived situations so as to enhance our state of pleasure.
The most powerful sources of pleasure are our innate instincts. These function
in such a way that the attainment of a given instinctive goal engenders
pleasurable sensations, whereas nonattainment produces disagreeable ones.
This is why innate behavior patterns have always been a focal human interest.
It is clear that our ancestors early succeeded in making these positive
sensations – originally no more than a necessary cog in the total mechanism
of species preservation – a definite objective. In other words, the means
became an end in itself.
This development has gone far indeed, one example being
our feeding habits. We have long ceased to eat merely to introduce a requisite
quantity of nourishment into our bodies; instead, by suitable preparation
and seasoning, we have increased the power of food to bestow pleasure on
us. For many people, the problem has ceased to be how to eat enough to
stay healthy;
(original book page 202)
but rather how to eat as well and as abundantly as possible
without impairing their health. Such an example alone suffices to show
how novel this development is from the evolutionary standpoint. Hitherto
directed outward and aimed at assimilating alien substances, expanding
and propagating itself, the life process is now, as it were, turning against
itself and aiming at the activation of processes inherent in itself. To
put it crudely, man is becoming an exploiter of his own pleasure-bestowing
mechanisms
– a very singular parasite which lives on its own nerve structure. He has
become a specialist in enjoyment and, consequently, a civilized being.
Linguistic usage has endowed the words "exploit," "parasite,"
and – above all – "hedonistic" with a negative connation which has no place
in this discussion. From the cosmic, sober, and unprejudiced viewpoint
for which we are striving here, each living creature is an exploiter and
a parasite. Plants exploit the source of energy represented by the sun's
rays and are thus sunlight parasites. All creatures use the bodies of certain
other organisms, whether animal or vegetable, as a source of energy; the
fact that they exploit these other bodies makes them a kind of parasite.
We normally restrict the definition of parasite to those animals (and plants)
which attach themselves to others and feed on them continuously. In our
subjective human view, this method of obtaining nourishment is repellent
– probably an innate reaction which we reserve for our own parasites and
transfer to all analogous natural processes unconnected with us. From the
biological point of view – that of the life process – this form of existence
is no worse than any other. Indeed, ethical judgments such as good and
bad have no foundation here. The only valid criterion is "viable" or "nonviable."
We are exploiters and parasites of cattle, fruit, grain, and so forth.
What is so novel and unusual about man is not, therefore, that he is an
exploiter and parasite, since these terms are applicable to all living
creatures. Our true peculiarity is that although the acquisition of energy
(and matter) remains important and necessary, it is no longer our central
goal or real objective but has become a means of obtaining something else.
This something else, which has thus become our true aim in life, consists
of pleasurable sensations – in other words, concomitant features of
(original book page 203)
our life process. To obtain these, man engages in far
greater exertions than are necessary to the maintenance of life. Naturally,
there is nothing bad about this form of exploitation, or autoparasitism,
provided it does nothing to impair viability. However, man has gained such
superiority over all other creatures that he can afford the luxury of cultivating
his own pleasurable sensations. By so doing he is giving the life process
a new and singular twist – one which is vaguely discernible in certain
other creatures (notably domestic animals) but which in our case, by reason
of our conscious intelligence, has become the central feature of our development.
The word "pleasure" is equally subject to misunderstanding
because many manifestations of pleasure have acquired an unfavorable tang.
We regard intense interest in food or sex as "animal" and morally objectionable,
whereas heightened sensations of pleasure derived from the brood-tending
urge or our social instincts – that is, intense pleasure in the welfare
of children or an act of friendliness toward another – impress us as good
and justified. This in part depends upon religious criteria, but Lorenz
has suggested that the distinction probably derives from an innate reaction.
As soon as "primitive" instincts which are old in terms of evolutionary
history attain a functional pitch exceeding the norm, we regard them as
bad; in those that are in process of regression, we regard an analogous
excess as praiseworthy. This is, as it were, a correction applied to the
deviation from the natural selective principle created by domestication.
To the biologist, the term "pleasure" has no such favorable or unfavorable
connotation but embraces all processes of excitation insofar as these have
a positive tendency – in other words, cause an organism to respond to or
persevere in a stimulus situation. However, because the term has no such
neutral connotation in daily use, it does not lend itself to further employment
here and should be replaced by another which, though current among philosophers
and poets, is seldom used by scientists. This is the concept of being happy
or, simply, happiness. It has the great merit of being almost entirely
neutral: happiness may be associated equally with an orgasm or sensations
derived from the appreciation of art; a soft bed can make us as happy as
a mark of public recognition, as the birth
(original book page 204)
of a child, as the ruthless crushing of an opponent. Although
a quite temporary condition may be called happiness (a moment's happiness),
we generally describe people as happy if agreeable sensations predominate
in them for considerable periods, if their conduct and attitude to life
is such that they persevere more or less continuously in a state of being
happy – a condition which may embrace a large number of individual sensations.
Man modified drinking, as well as eating, in order to
increase its pleasure-bestowing properties –
in other words, he learned to employ it as a means of
intensifying his state of happiness. We even exploit the respiratory function
when we smoke tobacco. The flight urge, which expresses itself in fear,
is strongly developed in us. This instinct originally responded to dangerous
animals, strangers, unfamiliar surroundings and natural phenomena. Thanks
to our capacity for causal thought, it extended to a far larger number
of circumstances which we find menacing in some way and which therefore
arouse anxiety. The same instinct gave rise to our urge for security, which
we satisfy when concealing ourselves for purposes of sleep or sexual intercourse.
It also gave rise to an immense number of contrivances which endow man
with a pleasurable sense of security: burglarproof houses, fences, weapons,
defensive alliances, insurance policies, much legislation, territorial
defense installations, the police, the courts, prisons, and many other
things. A considerable percentage of the taxes paid by a citizen represents
the price of security. As we have already emphasized, man cannot work off
his equally strong aggressive urge in a well-ordered society without undesirable
consequences. Instead, he obtains the sensations of happiness it can bestow
by indulging in socially acceptable rather than violent conflict, by intrigue
and artifice, by attending boxing matches and races (at which he identifies
himself with the contestants), by sporting activities, theaters, films,
and much else besides. Anyone who cannot fight his own battles (or is inhibited
by excessive feelings of fear) has a chance of attaining this source of
pleasure through the medium of his imagination. We derive happiness from
our brood-tending urge by making our families happy. The social instincts
– left far behind by the scale of modern mass society – bestow pleasure
on
(original book page 205)
us when we indulge in social get-togethers and the festivals which men have devised the world over; we derive sensations of happiness from national enthusiasm and fighting spirit (sentiments which have become exceedingly dangerous); we derive happiness from membership in a group, from championing an idea, from espousing a doctrine. Other products of this instinctive behavior – additionally influenced by the sexual urge – are the intense human striving for status and the pleasurable sense of power associated with impressing other people, with the attainment of superior positions, titles, decorations, and marks of distinction. The impulse toward order – if such a thing is indeed a hereditary fixation – bestows sensations of happiness on us when we are successful in the coordination of processes, men at work and women in the home. The exploratory urge brings joy through the medium of variety, games, gambling – even danger. Flocks of modern tourists exploit this happiness-bestowing reaction in the same way as the masses congregated in cinemas and before television screens. The sexual urge brings singularly intense feelings of happiness ranging from the purely physical to the mental and spiritual, and the far-reaching effects of this particular quest for happiness are universally familiar. Closely linked with it is our innate faculty for aesthetic appreciation. This has led to culture in the true sense, in that we do, where possible, mold our manifold artificial organs in such a way that they not only serve us within the context of their function (in addition to being a means of impressing others) but also delight us by their beauty, in other words, bestow feelings of aesthetic satisfaction upon us. The motor instinct, the linguistic instinct, and other innate proclivities likewise prompt us to actions whose performance brings us happiness. It is characteristic of human instinctive behavior that our instincts are no longer rigidly allied with fixed hereditary coordinations and that we no longer respond selectively to clearly defined key stimuli. Rigid motor sequences broke down in the case of learners, as we have already discussed, and our own mechanisms of innate recognition have also lost their selectivity because of human self-domestication. In practice, this means that although our instincts have survived-and in many cases gained in strength – they seldom lead to strictly prescribed mo-
(original book page 206)
tor sequences and respond to a wide variety of environmental
situations. This accounts for the obscurity of our instincts – the "dark
urge," as Goethe called it. If one of them responds to suitable stimuli
– or declares its presence by spontaneously producing excitation – we become
restive without immediately recognizing the direction of the urge. Only
when a "switch-off" situation has been found in which the urge finds an
outlet and brings us sensations of happiness do we recognize the instinctive
goal that has been attained, register it, and later go in search of it
again. Experience thus renders our instinctive behavior more selective:
We gradually learn what we want. Since instincts vary greatly in strength
from individual to individual, different instincts may predominate in different
people. In addition, there are the acquired norms of action and reaction,
which, when sufficiently well established, also turn into urges whose timely
fulfillment arouses feelings of happiness. Finally, there are the motor
sequences formed in the imagination plans and illusions – which also behave
like instincts and bring feelings of happiness when put into effect. The
human body may be compared to a cart drawn by a wide assortment of horses,
all pulling in different directions. The driver, the self-aware ego, is
dormant when the cart embarks on its journey through the world. At first
it is the existing or innate horses which pull the cart, guided by parents
and society. Gradually, the driver asserts his authority, receiving countless
pieces of advice en route and striving to get a firm grip on the reins.
He acquires more horses, and these must be curbed, too. The journey – one
of business and pleasure combined – leads through a forbidding jungle of
regulations peculiar to the district. Obstacles and difficulties abound,
each horse requires feeding and tries to take the bit between its teeth.
Often, too, the members of the team make the driver's task still more difficult
by pulling against one another.
Intellectuals and poets of every age have debated the
best way of driving the cart smoothly and attaining as permanent a state
of happiness as possible. Their legacies of opinion and advice are often
diametrically opposed. Many (Nietzsche, for instance) saw happiness in
self-aggrandizement and the surmounting of obstacles; others (like Chuang-tze)
recommended
(original book page 207)
total abstention from power and frenzied exertion. The
Cyrenaic school of philosophy founded by Aristippus declared that everything
which bestowed pleasure was conducive to happiness and therefore good;
another school, the Stoics, declared that pleasure was a fetter, a limitation
upon freedom, that it made people unhappy and was therefore bad. According
to Horace, whose views are more popular than most, property brings happiness.
Diogenes-and many another since his dayshowed that happiness and contentment
can also be founded on lack of property. According to the Jewish, Christian,
and Moslem faiths, happiness reposes in another existence. Goethe declared
that happiness is to be found everywhere in the world, though he did say
at another point that it is always present where one does not happen to
be. Hölderlin tells us that happiness is harder to endure than unhappiness.
Cicero held that happiness subsists in desire rather than fulfillment.
Seneca's view was that happiness contains the seeds of its own downfall.
Lao-tse advised people to renounce happiness in order to gain it – and
so on.
One characteristic of happiness which has taxed the minds
of many thinkers is its mysterious impermanence. It dances along like a
will-o'-the-wisp, tempting human beings to grasp it and vanishing into
thin air when they try. Mysterious though it appears, this process has
its almost commonplace explanation in the phenomenon of the varying stimulus
threshold. A thirsty man trudges through the desert, and the stronger his
craving for water becomes, the further all his other desires recede into
the background. Wealth, power, sexual gratification – all these become
meaningless; a glass of water acquires more importance and offers greater
promise of happiness than anything else in the world. The stimulus threshold
of the predominant instinct has dropped to zero, and all the other members
of the parliament of instincts slump helplessly in their seats. The body
exclusively obeys the directives of the one overpowering instinct: thirst.
Then the unfortunate man reaches an oasis and, in a positive frenzy of
delight, drinks his fill. The stimulus threshold climbs again, and hunger
and sleep now stake their claim. The next day the man's interest in other
things revives. Various other members of the parliament of instincts rise
to speak.
(original book page 208)
Swallowing liquid no longer induces an ecstasy of happiness,
and within a few days drinking has become just as natural and just as much
a part of normal routine as it ever was.
One more example: A man has decided to acquire a house
and strains to attain his objective. In this case the responsible member
of parliament is a structure formed by the imagination. This instinct,
too, thrusts its fellow instincts into the background and soon controls
the mind and, consequently, the actions of the man in question. This is
another instance where a stimulus threshold has sunk, creating an appetency.
The man duly succeeds in acquiring his house. He moves in, ecstatically
happy. Weeks and months pass, and still the house brings him joy and happiness
– though other desires assert themselves in the meantime. First, the man's
thoughts turn to a car. Eventually he becomes a millionaire. Now that every
wish is fulfilled almost before it finds expression, all the man's instincts
undergo a raising of the stimulus threshold until only supernormally strong
stimuli can elicit feelings of happiness. In the end, the "poor" rich man
does not know what to wish for any longer. Then fortune deserts him, and
he loses everything. He falls sick; his friends ignore him. And, to and
behold, he suddenly derives happiness from insignificant little trifles.
A bird alights on the ground near him, he throws it a few crumbs, the bird
pecks at them – and tears come into the man's eyes. His thoughts return
to the house. What a magnificent property it was! And the good health which
he always took for granted – what a blessing that was! As soon as something
is taken for granted, the stimulus threshold rises; starve a little, and
it drops. Thus the real enemy of human happiness is not unhappiness but
satiation and the familiarity that breeds contempt.
Prosperous parents often make the mistake of fulfilling
all their children's numerous wishes as promptly as possible, simply because
they can afford to and because they imagine that they are thereby guaranteeing
them a particularly happy childhood. They are not, in fact, doing them
any real favor. The children become restive, refractory, and hard to please.
The explanation is simple: They yearn for feelings of happiness, but these
are ( linked with appetencies which take shape only when they are
(original book page 209)
correspondingly hard of fulfillment. In this respect,
children of less prosperous parents actually have an advantage.
The phenomenon of varying stimulus thresholds may be
the basis of the only natural justice in the world. The poor, whether young
or old, can experience feelings of happiness quite as intense as those
of the rich, if not more so. Furthermore, the commonly expressed theory
that moderation is a good basis for happiness finds very real confirmation
in this. Anyone with enough strength of mind not to pamper himself can
hold down his stimulus thresholds artificially; his various urges will
then bring him feelings of happiness in response to moderate stimuli –
and moderate stimuli are, from a practical point of view, easier to attain
than supernormal. He who abstains obtains, said Lao-tse, and it is doubtful
if the facts could be stated more succinctly. The Epicurean school of philosophy,
which also grasped this truth, went so far as to recommend moderate asceticism
as a means of whetting, rather than blunting, the instincts. Anyone who
breaks habits and intersperses his normal existence with spells of simple
living will obtain similar results.
Excitatory processes occasioned by conflict situations
are disagreeable to man. These occur when instincts collide with each other
or with deliberately formed intentions, or when an action considered to
be important encounters unexpected difficulties which call for a swift
decision. In earlier times, when large sections of the world's population
were still deprived and oppressed, the feelings of those with no hope of
advancement consisted solely of such conflict situations. Their urges found
no satisfactory outlet, and life dragged on from one privation and humiliation
to the next, beset by disease and physical hardship. This situation accounted
for Buddhism, which sees our present existence as a vale of sorrow – in
other words, something negative – and preaches total suppression of wishes
and desires as the sole way out. Total extinction here becomes the goal
of earthly existence. Because urges can be gradually weakened by nonfulfillment,
this method certainly affords relief. To revert to our earlier metaphor,
the horses pulling the cart are no longer fed or watered – in fact, everything
possible is done to kill them off. No new urges are formed by habit in
such a situation, and the imagination is similarly – reduced to a state
of desireless-
(original book page 210)
ness. This deliberate blunting of desire and consequent
inner independence produced a condition of fatalistic equanimity which
was more satisfying than the earlier state of affairs. Christianity, which
originated under similar conditions, went a stage further. This doctrine
also sees life as a vale of tears, but it is only an ordeal or transitional
phase. Happy are the unhappy, for theirs shall be everlasting bliss. This
attitude produces a negative effect too, but it is more positively happy
than Buddhism. Never, perhaps, has the power of human imagination been
more rigorously tested than by Christianity. As a formula for living, it
succeeded in doing something which is probably incapable of improvement:
It succeeded in making the sufferer rejoice in his suffering, the downtrodden
in his oppression, the helpless in his impotence.
Science also has something definite to say about the
extent to which material possessions can bring happiness. Those things
which we call possessions – disregarding food and territorial claims (landed
property) – are artificial organs in the fullest sense. Each of these functional
structures is, as we have already said, associated with a need to form
acquired coordinations appropriate to their use. Other requirements are
that they should be maintained, regulated, and tended when necessary. Thus,
like every integral physical organ, these units make certain demands, and
their possession creates an appetency to use them – especially where larger
and less easily procurable contrivances are concerned. A bought but unused
pencil may be forgotten without more ado; a dress may oblige a woman to
wear it, and a car may very well become master instead of servant by compelling
its owner to use it. Diogenes and his followers freed themselves from such
fetters – from such an influencing of the will – by roaming the countryside
with nothing but a blanket and a begging bag, and many modern hoboes and
dropouts behave similarly. It goes without saying that such a mode of life
is suited only to individuals, not to an entire population. A very real
problem does exist here, however, particularly for the wealthy and well
endowed. They may easily surround themselves with more artificial organs
than their central nervous system can master successfully; they may be
presented with too many opportunities and too many consequent
(original book page 211)
obligations. If a man augments his organizational system
with
too much property, with too many artificially acquired
organs, time becomes too short for him to exploit all the opportunities
they offer, and they turn against him. They make certain demands on him,
coercing, compelling, tempting; the controlling cerebral structures war
against one another and make the man restless and discontented despite
his wealth. Once again a certain measure of restraint provides the basis
of happiness. Individuals certainly vary in their ability to cope successfully
with material possessions. As long as they are seen as something wholly
separate from ourselves, there is no reason why constant accretions of
property should not enhance our capacity for happiness. If, on the other
hand, they are treated as supplementary functional units which make the
same demands on the central nervous system as our bodily organs proper,
it is easy to see that there can be too much of a good thing, that the
"body" eventually becomes distended and overburdened, and that the functional
units – each in itself capable of arousing feelings of happiness – neutralize
and erode one another.
There is one more danger associated with property. Pomp
and riches can, as the Koran says, easily become "barren and withered,
and turn at last to parched stubble," and Thucydides wrote, "Woe to him
who loses a happiness to which he was accustomed." As happens when we lose
a person whom we have loved or grown accustomed to, hundreds of cerebral
"tracks" run off into the void, must be disentangled, rerouted, and adapted
to changed circumstances. The urges activated by former habits have to
be killed off. There seems little doubt that much depends here, too, upon
the way in which the driver of the cart handles his reins. If we are modest
from the start, if we overlay our existing ties with a fatalistic conception
of just how ephemeral they can be, and if we do not make them a basis for
overambitious dreams of the future, two advantages are gained: We hold
our stimulus threshold down by never taking the moment for granted; and
we are prepared for a potential loss. Although this certainly entails a
renunciation of paradisal unconcern, such is the trend that characterizes
our development into human beings.
In the modern free-enterprise world, man's acquisitive
urge
(original book page 212)
is artificially stimulated. Because of the vastly increased
range of goods and services designed to bring happiness, alluring possibilities
have become almost too numerous. The resulting burdens, fatigue, and nervousness
can be observed with particular clarity in metropolitan cities. The modern
world resembles Goethe's sorcerer's apprentice, who conjured up a spirit
from which he could not escape. Each new consumer good, every novel form
of enjoyment and pleasure, acquires a sort of independent existence, makes
demands on people, tempts them, and fights – in a sense – for its life,
simply because of background commercial interests which do all in their
power to "sell." In Communist countries private ownership is restricted
or entirely banned by the state, which inhibits personal aggrandizement
and development on the part of the individual.
Modern humanity now directs its gaze with interest –
and anxiety – toward East and West in turn, under the impression that man's
future lies in one quarter or the other. The ideas developed in this book
indicate that it lies in neither, and that both trends are exaggerated.
That Communism is not a system qualified to become the
final stage of human development may be inferred from the considerations
that follow. Let us assume that Communist doctrine were to conquer the
entire world. What then? The absorption of individual creatures into a
superordinate power structure is biologically significant in that a stronger
productive system comes into being – stronger, however, only in regard
to rivals and enemies. What would remain to justify the existence of such
a system if it ruled the world in splendid isolation? It would then – if
consistently true to its basic principles – serve to prevent the efficient
from developing and to enforce a state of affairs in which all its human
components were permitted, on principle, to lead strictly similar lives
with strictly limited organs and strictly controlled joys and sorrows.
But that would be a condition so diametrically opposed to the general evolutionary
trend that the system would disintegrate of its own accord as soon as its
victory was complete. And, once again, mankind would be confronted by the
question: What now?
A system of government probably better qualified to become
(worldwide would be one that on principle guaranteed the rights
(original book page 213)
of very different systems. The suppression of individual
groups - a process which summoned Communism and other movements into being
– cannot be justified and has since been eliminated in another way. What
must also be eliminated, however, is the idea that one way of life is equally
suited to all men. This is as untrue as it would be to assert that the
same rules of conduct produce identical results in individual cases. Individuals
differ widely, if only in the formation of their instincts, and this is
a source of wealth which should not be dispensed with. Lack of tolerance
toward other schools of thought is, perhaps, the one acquired characteristic
which might genuinely be described as evil. The inhabitants of our tiny
planet may all be in the same boat, but this does not mean that each passenger
is identical. Human beings do not possess the same inherited characteristics,
the same talents, the same vitality, the same desires. The notion that
they are equal is fundamentally wrong. What is right, on the other hand,
is that we ought to grant each human being certain equal basic rights –
coupled, of course, with equal basic obligations. How the individual develops
– within the framework of an overall system required by all – ought surely
to be his own affair. On this level, no one way is essentially better or
worse than another.
The development of modern free enterprise is similarly
exaggerated. All progress, every spatiotemporal structure which serves
us in any way, is undoubtedly good in itself, but only for as long as it
really serves us and does riot succeed in making us its servants. Today,
spurred on by the quest for markets, the general tendency is to influence
the individual in such a way that he does more and wants more than is compatible
with his time and energy. Buyers are, by definition, dissatisfied, so everything
is done to create dissatisfaction. One particularly bad – and biologically
stupid – tendency is to depreciate that which exists. Whatever it may look
like, the artificial organ becomes, by reason of its acquisition, a part
of our physical organization and itself acquires value because of that
(but only that). Influences which cause us to slough it off for no good
reason and seek an endless succession of replacements are necessarily harmful
to us, undermine our self-confidence and natural basis of existence.
(original book page 214)
The central evil in this development consists in playing
up a social criterion based on the ownership of purchasable commodities.
As long as our neighbor's possessions determine the value to us of what
we ourselves own, we are merely puppets on a string. The quest for market
outlets has destroyed many values within a very short time. Festivals –
one of the staples of human civilization – are increasingly becoming dates
on which people can be persuaded to buy things or exchange presents – in
other words, to acquire goods and services. Works of art are blithely linked
with articles offered for sale and thereby forfeit their elicitive power.
The same pernicious tendency is clearly discernible in many other fields.
Inoculation with too many wants causes us to work more than we wish, have
less time for reflection, less power of resistance, and a greater susceptibility
to sales influences. Such is the prevailing nexus of cause and effect.
The underdeveloped countries lie in a no-man's-land between
the two main spheres of influence. They are wooed by both camps, but not
in their own best interests. One side aims to incorporate them in its power
complex and turn them into functional units; the other to implant new desires
and a new sense of values so as to convert them into a seller's market.
Their original self-assurance – as valid as any other – is being undermined
from both sides. Something primitive, perhaps, but rooted in itself is
thus being transformed into something second or third-rate: an industrious
cog in a machine or an industrious member of a herd of buyers.