the blindness of our philosophers, willing to forsake the field of reason, morality, and the considered life for the barren wrangling of logical dialectic, hoping thereby to qualify as "scientific" long after their concepts have been discarded by science as untenable; an ecclesiasticism, overawed on the one hand by scientific dogma into a timidity fearful of rebuking the sins of the proud, and on the other hand holding a false defiance of scientific truth and discoursing of artificial sins and easy damnations, an orthodoxy approaching at times a devil worship with a concomitant of rattlesnakes. An age of such paradoxes has suddenly come face to face with the end of an epoch, an era whose problems can be met neither by moral flabbiness nor by fanatical but ignorant zeal. Old political shibboleths are no longer adequate. Our deepest sense is one of frustration, disillusionment, and fear. The amazing progress of science with its increase of material comforts has built up in two generations a confidence that economic welfare can bring the solution of our most pressing problems but, so far, it seems only to emphasize the distresses of multitudes of human beings. At the moment when better conditions seemed on the point of universal realization, the dream has been shattered by the dedication of scientific discoveries to purposes of destruction because our spiritual achievements have not kept pace with scientific invention. So certain were we that scientific knowledge would not be put to immoral and antisocial uses that we had built for ourselves a fool's paradise. Of this debacle there had been many signs of which we had refused to take notice. For evidences of the degeneration of our civilization we needed only to note the vulgar tone of our literature, its repudiation of moral conduct, its lewd pursuit of the desires of the flesh; the blatant picturing of crime and disorder dished out by the cinema and heroized for the lengthening queues of our babes; a new reign of narcotic and alcoholic addiction in our adolescents; the irresponsible confusion of our artists who seek originality at the expense of meaning and ugliness; Professor Einstein calls us to a new order of thinking, but it is a question whether he, or any of us, has fairly begun to realize the implications concealed in his statement. There are still many of us so comfortable in the midst of a madhouse world that we calmly repose in the confidence that history will turn back for us the pages of yesterday's pattern with here and there merely an added marginal gloss. Others obsessed with the importance of some wild panacea hope to bring in a kingdom of God, without an inconvenient attention to righteousness or person al sacrifice, substituting therefor correct opinions or pious forms. The simple relation of cause to effect should be sufficient to convince us that there must be drastic changes in our attitude toward life, for we live now in a society whose smugness has been destroyed, the relations between men and nations violently overturned, and old ways of meeting world crises have become obsolete. As the Macedonian phalanx upset the world of Alexander's time, and the longbowman of England displaced the lancer, and the invention of gunpowder outmoded the castle, so now the atomic bomb brings the end of an age and leaves us standing drunk on the verge of possible destruction. The problem of survival has, in this day, become the problem of the moral person. No future war can be localized to areas and groups for all may rest upon the decision of one man-without conscience but with an atomic bomb. A new orientation of life toward its higher possiblities is demanded. The problem is moral and spiritual and only by meeting it in the high field of spiritual force "shall we find courage." We have now gone as far as we can get on the basis of materialism alone. Each additional discovery can only increase the moral dilemma. "The Spirit of the Power of the Air" on which we now call, has capacities for universal deception never before known in its reach to all mankind in an age of lies. We cannot shout loud enough to outvoice the spirit of evil for it wills not to know the truth. Wilfully misshapen minds and distorted souls lead the multitudes astray and at the same time command destructive powers. Without an actual manifestation of internationally disinterested kindness and love, the battle for civilization cannot be won. We must free ourselves from the motives of social or political selfishness and rise to the supra-material level of action. Every grafter must be seen as the most dangerous of enemies, working from within. As science has surmounted materialistic concepts to seize invisible sources of power, so must moral faith begin to operate with respect to belief in the power of righteousness, the strength of good will, the convincement of integrity, honesty, care for the welfare of men, sympathy for the starving, ignorant, and unhappy masses. Every person must be viewed as the possessor inviolable gifts. of inalienable rights, the bearer of There are, however, certain mileposts to be reached before we can enter upon the supra-material age. There must be honesty, without and within. No construct of lies, though we pile it to the skies, can ever be strong. However massively we build it, "one little word" shall fell it. When truth appears, the most colossal structure 78 NEW OUTLOOK will fall like a house of cards. The higher it is piled, the greater the collapse. Let us not dream though that the most conspicuous liar is the only one. We have house cleaning of our own to do. The lapse from business integrity, the feeling that profits justify any means, moral blindness in high places, political graft and intrigue, witchhunting, and wilful falsehood to destroy competitors; whatever "loveth or maketh a lie" presents a weakness in our political and social fabric more dangerous than the worst lies of our enemies. Among the betrayers of our peace is the principle of exploitation, making the weak carry the burdens of the strong; the sufference of race and religious bigotry with its adamantine indifference to the rights of others. These are the quislings within the gates more perilous than the weapons of the enemy. In the last analysis, we can be betrayed by ourselves alone. Standing on a foundation of honor and integrity we can conquer any foe. The dereliction of a trusted leader can be more disastrous than the losing of a battle, for when faith is lost, all is lost. We have lived too much by "the main chance" and have called it good. The problems that now face us cannot be settled on that basis. The future society must be viewed from the standpoint of world-wide needs and demand a courage and acumen which do not arise in animal souls. The problem centers in the person. "We shall find courage" only in the higher ranges of personality, the region of convictions, of emotion, of loyalty to truth and righteousness at whatever cost. Moreover, these loyalties must embrace the last and feeblest and most ignorant, even the degraded and the criminal. The measure of our response toward the last member of society is the measure of our civilization. To an age surfeited with things such a program must seem quixotic and impossible. "Who," it will be said, "is sufficient for these things?" But the supra-material soul of man is a field in which the Eternal Spirit manifest in all life can act eternally. Recently illustrated in the daily press was a mountain fire. Following a long and severe drought, the chaparral was dried out to the point of explosion. Then some pyromaniac tossed a burning cigarette and the whole mountain seemed to burst suddenly into flame. The photograph shows each tiny bush of the many millions tipped with its little blaze. Dire circumstances in a world of universal communication may turn the minds of men to the only field in which their deepest problems can be solved. We may not need to abide the tedious processes of rational conviction, for beneath the surface of our common (Cont. on page 89) NEW OUTLOOK WEATHER VANE A breath of Will blows eternally through the universe of souls in the direction of the Right and Necessary. It is the air which all intellects inhale, and it is the wind which blows the world into order and orbit.-Emerson. THE WORLDS FOOD THE SECOND WORLD food survey drawn up by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is not a cheerful document. Production of food per head still remains below pre-war levels in many parts of the world and "the proportion of the world's population with inadequate food larger"-this in spite of the immense increase in the total output of North America and lesser increases in most parts of the world except Europe, South America, and the Far East. The diagnosis that the peoples of the poorer lands are growing hungrier relatively to those of the richer lands is familiar. Looking ahead to 1960, F.A.O. suggests that if most of the people of the world-with India, parts of South America, and Africa as major exceptions are to be brought within sight of a bare sufficiency to eat by, then very much greater efforts will have to be made. F.A.O. notes the need for international machinery to divert food to famine areas at pres ent too much depends on the moods of the American Congress, generous though it has often been. It also suggests that regional planning across national frontiers is required-which will please advocates of a European agricultural pool. But these visions apart, there is a refreshing realism about F. A. O.'s recomendations. Largescale mechanization and the reclamation and irrigation of unused acres is relegated to second place, because sufficient capital is unlikely to be available. Education in new methods, the provision of fertilizers, improvement of breeding stocks, the reduction of waste, and such sensible devices as the breeding of fish in rice fields are suggested as the main avenues of advance. The doctrine of increasing yields before acreage should be attractive to Governments because economical and it has also the great advantage of producing results more quickly and more certainly. -The Manchester Guardian 80 } RICE PRODUCTIONS International: More than seventy delegates from twenty countries met last month in Bangkok, Thailand for a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization conference on rice. Almost all Asian states were represented, as were several Occidental nations. Purpose of the meeting was to study means of increasing and improving the production of rice, Asia's main food, and to solve storage and marketing problems. RACE RELATIONS SEMINAR United States of America: A world seminar will be held next year on race relations, according to present plans of the Institute of Race Relations. It will last a month, and take place at the University of Hawaii, in Honolulu. Scholars from all over the world are being invited, and they will study means of improving relations among and racial groups. ethnic the latest count, five hundred and forty technical aid projects were in operation, and another three hundred and twenty were ready to begin. Altogether, seventy-six countries have received or are receiving some form of UN Technical Assistance. Experts sent out have been recruited in sixty-one nations, either by the UN itself or by the Specialized Agencies including UNESCO. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE United Nations: Some twenty million dollars were spent last year on technical assistance projects in underdeveloped countries by the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies. It is hoped to step this up to twenty-three million during 1953, if funds are available. To meet the target, the General Assembly's Economic and Financial Committee has asked governments to increase their contributions. At SOCIAL WORK UNIVERSITY OF CEYLON Ceylon: A portion of the University of Ceylon has moved into its new permanent home at Peradeniya, near the capital at Kandy. The Peradeniya site is extraordinarily beautiful, and used to be the royal gardens of the original Sinhalese monarchy. The layout of the new university there was planned by the famed British archi NEW OUTLOOK |