108
PARTISAN REVIEW
"The Bomb."
Is it possible to overestimate the depth, and the
variety of ways, in which this must have disturbed millions of people,
of all levels of intellect? Which significances or reactions may be
invalid cannot be discussed here; so far as conversion
is
concerned,
the most important thing is the deep turning of the soil.
The desire tor moral absolutes.
Hardly surprising among those
who have witnessed, suffered or perpetrated enough pragmatism
and moral relativism-above all
in
their customary degraded use
in public and private life.
Guilt.
Obedient to the classical psychoanalysts, most intellectuals
forbid themselves (and others) a sense of guilt--except over having
a sense of guilt. Thus proscribed, the sense of guilt and one's entire
being are bound to become gravely diseased. The only prospect of
healing: discovering one's right and obligation to admit and
dis–
criminate one's guilt.
Personal responsibility.
Virtually the whole "modern mind," at
its popular intellectual level, denies it and tends to destroy the sense
of it. It
is
fashionable to feel, and to force upon others, an
acute sense of social responsibility; but it
is
rare to find a non-religious
person who recognizes what
is
meant by sinning against oneself, or
who recognizes that, granted extenuating circumstances, every person
is
crucially responsible for his thoughts and actions.
People have been badgered half out of their minds by the sense
of a sort of "global" responsibility: the relentless daily obligation
to stay aware of, hep to, worked-up over, guilty towards, active
about, the sufferings of people at a great distance for whom one
can do nothing whatever; a sort of playing-at-God (since He
is
in
exile) over every sparrow that falls, with the sense of virtue in–
creasing in ratio to the distance. This enormous and nonsensical
burden can be dropped, with best intelligence and grace, by religious
men; ih any case by Christians. Believing
in
the concern, wisdom
and mercy of God and
in
ultimate justice, roughly aware of how
much (.and little) attempts at social betterment can bring, rid of
illusory responsibilities, Christians can undertake real and sufficient
ones: each to do no less than he as a human being is able (and he
is not apt to be a saint), for the human beings within his sight and
reach and touch; and never to presume it other than anti-human
to try to do more. Thus alone, it becomes possible to be quiet, to begin
