Kathy the Carmelite won our little “Name That Theologian” contest some weeks ago, and she would have been followed by Alicia and perhaps a few other well-read ladies. (Do we have educated women at St. Blogs or what?) This one should be a little harder. The excerpt is taken from a book that was moderately influential in shaping my own worldview — a book that, in my opinion, should be much better known. I’ll give you a couple of clues: the philosopher is a European, and the book was first published in 1926.
“The world which surrounds the new man from his birth does not compel him to limit himself in any fashion, it sets up no veto in opposition to him; on the contrary, it incites his appetite, which in principle can increase indefinitely. Now it turns out — and this is most important — that this world of the XIXth and early XXth centuries not only has the perfections and the completeness which it actually possesses, but furthermore suggests to those who dwell in it the radical assurance that tomorrow it will be still richer, ampler, more perfect, as if it enjoyed a spontaneous, inexhaustible power of increase. Even today, in spite of some signs which are making a tiny breach in that sturdy faith, even today, there are few men who doubt that motorcars will in five years’ time be more comfortable and cheaper than today. They believe in this as they believe that the sun will rise in the morning. The metaphor is an exact one. For, in fact, the common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes that it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly-endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice.
This leads us to note down in our psychological chart of the mass-man of today two fundamental traits: the free expansion of his vital desires, and therefore, of his personality; and his radical ingratitude towards all that has made possible the ease of his existence. These traits together make up the well-known psychology of the spoilt child … To spoil means to put no limit on caprice, to give one the impression that everything is permitted him and that he has no obligations. The young child exposed to this regime has no experience of his own limits. By reason of the removal of all external restraint, all clashing with other things, he comes to actually believe that he is the only one that exists, and gets used to not considering others, especially not considering them as superior to himself … No human being thanks another for the air he breathes, for no one has produced the air for him; it belongs to the sum total of what ‘is there’, of which we say ‘it is natural’ because it never fails. And these spoiled masses are unintelligent enough to believe that the material and social organization, placed at their disposition like the air, is of the same origin, since apparently it never fails them, and is almost as perfect as the natural scheme of things.”
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