the safety, or political, or economic
dimensions of a problem, people ought to choose the
method of action which produces the most
consequence in the least time, or the most good for
the greatest number of people. We can never make
these judgments. The ideal of action is to know
exactly what one wants. In a
post-Christian world we are born into a world in which
people can know neither what they want nor what they
should do.
So
we are all left in a weird state of irresolution. In
that state, we have to find out, as best we can, what
we do want. And as best we can, we must choose
action which furthers what we want. But we are never
going to know how to do this, nor how to
choose the action which will best do it. So we must
try the best we can, and we must try to do the best
we can with the best we have.
This
happens to be the situation which has developed
during the ‘‘long’’ 20th century and in the
‘‘short’’ 21st century. The difficulties
that people have experienced arise from a condition
which is not very often recognized, perhaps never
by the people who suffer them, perhaps not even by
the people who know they suffer them. People may
be aware that something is a problem. But they may
not realize the nature of the problem, nor the
consequences of the problem. For example, someone
in the state of
unrecognized stress may make the discovery that he
has cancer. And the first thing he may feel is
frustration at having to confront what seemed to be
a problem that had to be dealt with. Yet the
frustration is based on the fact that he had not
realized the nature of the problem. So the cure
for the problem is, not to solve it, but to know
that it is a problem. And the cure for this
is, not to solve it, but to understand it.
There is another example which is perhaps
better known, if one is to say that it is
‘‘known.’’ In a significant number of
American cities there are what are called red light
cities. They are some of the most affluent
cities in
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