In Our Time, What Is At Issue

Above All, Do Not Give Up Your Moral And Political Autonomy By Accepting In Somebody Else's Terms The Illiberal Practicality Of The Bureaucratic Ethos Or The Liberal Practicality Of The Moral Scatter. Know That Many Personal Troubles Cannot Be Solved Merely As Troubles, But Must Be Understood In Terms Of Public Issues And In Terms Of The Problems Of History Making.

To Accept Opinions Is To Gain The Good Solid Feeling Of Being Correct Without Having To Think.

To Really Belong, We Have Got, First, To Get It Clear With Ourselves That We Do Not Belong And Do Not Want To Belong To An Unfree World. As Free Men And Women We Have Got To Reject Much Of It And To Know Why We Are Rejecting It.

The Very Shaping Of History Now Outpaces The Ability Of Men To Orient Themselves In Accordance With Cherished Values.

The Economy - Once A Great Scatter Of Small Productive Units In Autonomous Balance, Has Become Dominated By Two Or Three Hundred Giant Corporations, Administratively And Politically Interrelated... The Political Order, Once A Decentralized Set Of Several Dozen States With A Weak Spinal Cord, Has Become A Centralized Executive Establishment Which Has Taken Up Into Itself Many Powers Previously Scattered... The Military Order, Once A Slim Establishment In A Context Of Distrust Fed By State Militia, Has Become The Largest And Most Expensive Feature Of Government.