Words&Dirt

“The mind of man spontaneously assumes greater simplicity, uniformity and unity among phenomena than actually exists.  It follows superficial analogies and jumps to conclusions; it overlooks the variety of details and the existence of exceptions.  Thus it weaves a web of purely internal origin which it imposes upon nature.  What had been termed science in the past consisted of this humanly constructed and imposed web.  Men looked at the work of their own minds and thought they were seeing realities in nature.  They were worshiping, under the name of science, the idols of their own making.  So-called science and philosophy consisted of these ‘anticipations’ of nature.  And the worst thing that could be said about traditional logic was that instead of saving man from this natural source of error, it had, through attributing to nature a false rationality of unity, simplicity and generality, sanctioned these sources of delusion.  The office of the new logic would be to protect the mind against itself: to teach it to undergo a patient and prolonged apprenticeship to fact in its infinite variety and particularity: to obey nature intellectually in order to command it practically.”

––Reconstruction in Philosophy, by John Dewey, pg. 35-6

“‘They take it calmly, almost as a matter of course, don’t they?’

‘Yes,’ Helen said.  ‘You see, all their lives, ever since they’ve known anything, they’ve lived under the shadow of war––atomic war.  For them the abnormal has become normal.  All their lives they have heard nothing else, and they expect it.’

‘They’re conditioned,’ Randy said.  ‘A child of the nineteenth century would quickly go mad with fear, I think, in the world of today.  It must have been pretty wonderful to have lived in the years, say, between 1870 and 1914, when peace was the normal condition and people really were appalled at the idea of war, and believed there’d never be a big one.  A big one was impossible, they used to say.  It would cost too much.  It would disrupt world trade and bankrupt everybody.  Ever after the first World War people didn’t accept war as normal.  They had to call it The War to End War or we wouldn’t have fought it.  Helen, what has become of us?’

Helen, busy tuning the car radio, trying to bring in fresh news, said, ‘You’re a bit of an idealist, aren’t you, Randy?’

‘I suppose so.  It’s been an expensive luxury.  Maybe one day I’ll get conditioned.  I’ll accept things, like the children.’”

––Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, pg. 85