Certainty Abolishes Hope, And Robs

As A Culture Moves From Orality To Writing To Printing To Televising, Its Ideas Of Truth Move With It.

Because He Did Not Have Time To Read Every New Book In His Field, The Great Polish Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski Used A Simple And Efficient Method Of Deciding Which Ones Were Worth His Attention: Upon Receiving A New Book, He Immediately Checked The Index To See If His Name Was Cited, And How Often. The More "malinowski" The More Compelling The Book. No "malinowski", And He Doubted The Subject Of The Book Was Anthropology At All.

But In The End, Science Does Not Provide The Answers Most Of Us Require. Its Story Of Our Origins And Of Our End Is, To Say The Least, Unsatisfactory. To The Question, "how Did It All Begin?", Science Answers, "probably By An Accident." To The Question, "how Will It All End?", Science Answers, "probably By An Accident." And To Many People, The Accidental Life Is Not Worth Living. Moreover, The Science-god Has No Answer To The Question, "why Are We Here?" And, To The Question, "what Moral Instructions Do You Give Us?", The Science-god Maintains Silence.

The Reader Must Come Armed , In A Serious State Of Intellectual Readiness. This Is Not Easy Because He Comes To The Text Alone. In Reading, One's Responses Are Isolated, One'sintellect Thrown Back On Its Own Resourses. To Be Confronted By The Cold Abstractions Of Printed Sentences Is To Look Upon Language Bare, Without The Assistance Of Either Beauty Or Community. Thus, Reading Is By Its Nature A Serious Business. It Is Also, Of Course, An Essentially Rational Activity.

Public Schooling Does Not Serve A Public; It Creates A Pubic.