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PARTISAN
REVIEW
they most certainly are, because, when basic values are subverted
commonsense
is
subversion.
Now, if this kind of reasoning can and must horrify us in the
Russian people of today, even the faintest traces of it should horrify
us in ourselves. We may pity the Russians and think that, once the
heavy stone of terror is removed from their hearts, their minds may
again learn to walk straight down the path of logic. Here, in Amer–
ica, where the heart is still free, why should the mind, without any
compulsion from the outside, produce and keep such a solid structure
of conformism? What should we think of the individual who in–
flicts upon himself this kind of punishment, gratuitously abdicating
the exercise of intelligence, and for reasons appallingly weak?
The idea that all things can be improved and that therefore our
best efforts should be directed toward improving things, is typical of
the Helen Hokinson type of clubwoman.
The idea that only good things can be
improved,
while bad things
are made worse by improvement and that, consequently, our first
effort should be directed to finding out whether a thing is good or not,
is typical of Socrates. The first leads to cowardliness, to dictated
opinions, it is the best preliminary schooling for the acceptance of
Communism.
The second leads to education, of the others as well as of oneself;
it is the only existing antidote to any form of thought-control, and
is, in fact, the thing most dreaded by the Communists as by all totali–
tarians.
Socrates cares; the Clubwoman does not. She wants the semblance
of participation. She knows very well that there is no way of deciding
in the course of a debate whether a certain technical improvement or
constructive alternative in a highly specialized field is possible or not.
(To be serious at all, the debate should in fact coincide with the life–
work of specialists.) Too much technical knowledge, too little time.
So it is very comforting to have a "constructive suggester" come
around with a very complex affair which sounds perfectly fascinating
to the least interested, and,
if
anyone in the audience, sensing the
void of the whole thing, tries to bring back the "suggestor" to the
fundamental issue in plain terms of common sense, he runs counter to
the rules of politeness, and of course the sacred tenets of democracy
in debating (let everyone speak, but for no longer than five minutes,
