Go It Alone

Philosopher Marten ten Hoor of the University of Alabama is convinced that the U.S. has become a nation of busybodies. In the current American Scholar, Ten Hoor, Ph.D. from Michigan, makes a "plea for education for privacy . . .

"Never in the history of the world," Ten Hoor says, "have there been so many people occupied with the improvement of so few . . . Never have there been so many people making a good living by showing the other fellow how to make a better one." As an example, he points to "the tens of thousands of miscellaneous social-minded folks who attend conferences, workshops and institutes organized for the improvement of the human race . . . This is an era of undiscriminating allegiance to good causes ..."

Expended Potential. Such allegiance, says Ten Hoor, may be worthy, but "I must confess that I view all this indiscriminate altruism with a jaundiced eye. It does seem to me that these days there are too many leaders and too few followers; too many preachers and too few sinners--self-conscious sinners, that is ... Especially in a democracy, where everyone is more or less free to advocate schemes for the improvement of society, lively and self-confident minds are inclined to expend their intellectual and emotional potential on reform movements. The attention of the reformer is consequently drawn away from contemplation of the state of his own soul . . . How then can he be sure that he is the right person to prescribe for his neighbors? . . ."

Dramatic Specter. The first requirement of education for privacy is "to learn how to think--not out loud or in print, but privately. The thinker himself, not his neighbor, is to be the beneficiary ... To possess one's soul in an intellectual sense means to have found some answer, or partial answer, to the questions: What is the nature of this world . . . what is my place in it, and what must be my attitude toward it? ...

"In education for privacy . . . there is equally urgent need for ... the establishment and maintenance of moral harmony. From the days of primitive religion, through Greek tragedy, the Christian epic of sin and salvation, and modern psychology . . . there runs the theme of the un easy conscience. The dramatic specter of moral guilt is the principal character in many of the greatest creations of literary genius. No matter what the learned explanation, the psychological state is one of inner moral disharmony ... It is a private affliction and must be cured privately ... A vision of the good life the spirit must have; for devoid of it, the imagination is without moral perspective, conduct without guiding principles, and action without trustworthy habits . . ." Says Ten Hoor: "He who is not educated for privacy is hardly fit to educate others . . . Without education for privacy, he will neither merit leadership nor learn to recognize it in others . . . That, according to my exegesis, is in this connection the meaning of the Biblical text: Tor what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?' "

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.