Recovering from the World Wars, people in general move away from giving their allegance to great causes. They have become more like Europeans of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment which also followed a period of turmoil and fanaticism. Tighe of the Psychotechnic Institute has formulated this "'...necessary period of rest...,'" (p. 124) which should last for about seventy five years. The Institute guides the process by advising the government to incorporate training in self-restraint and critical thinking into school education. After this analytic period, the next synthetic, creative or crusading period should be saner than previous ones. However, adherents of the Actionist movement, regarding the present period as decadent, want to follow a Leader with a Cause. Here then are the issue and the conflict of the current story.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Leaders with Causes makes me grit my teeth and remember monsters like Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, and their lesser but equally blood stained imitators!
Ad astra Sean
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