“As I said earlier, a smug people cannot even find the motive for asking
if a science of psychology exists, let alone what it has learned.
And we Americans are probably the most self-satisfied people who ever
appeared. The whole world starves, brawls, perishes around us.
Our own philosophy of progress is leading us to swift, continental
exhaustion–to the resourcelessness of our own progeny.
Yet we believe we are doing right and doing rightly–a great, good,
wonderful, near perfect nation.
It will take generations of disaster to crack the hull of such
preposterous self-satisfaction. Only through despair and amidst
ruins, in all likelihood, will men discover that humility which
may lead to the honest assessment of man’s vanities, his insane
traditions, pompous faiths, patriotisms, and excesses.
But there is not much use in talking about it or trying to explain.
Knowledge cannot fend where the people refuse to know”.
Excerpted from “Opus 21”, author, Philip Wylie.
Published by Rhinehart and Company, New York and Toronto.
I would add that this excerpt is taken out of context.
“Opus 21” is a novel about a man[the author], who upon
discovering a growth on the back of his throat, is told at
time of biopsy that if malignant it would be inoperable
due to location, and therefore fatal.
Islander.