The Desire Not To Be

If, As I Believe, The Ends Of Men Are Many, And Not All Of Them Are In Principle Compatible With Each Other, Then The Possibility Of Conflict - And Of Tragedy - Can Never Wholly Be Eliminated From Human Life, Either Personal Or Social. The Necessity Of Choosing Between Absolute Claims Is Then An Inescapable Characteristic Of The Human Condition. This Gives Its Value To Freedom As Acton Conceived Of It - As An End In Itself, And Not As A Temporary Need, Arising Out Of Our Confused Notions And Irrational And Disordered Lives, A Predicament Which A Panacea Could One Day Put Right.

Conformities Are Called For Much More Eagerly Today Than Yesterday... Skeptics, Liberals, Individuals With A Taste For Private Life And Their Own Inner Standards Of Behavior, Are Objects Of Fear And Derision And Targets Of Persecution For Either Side... In The Great Ideological Wars Of Our Time.

Injustice, Poverty, Slavery, Ignorance - These May Be Cured By Reform Or Revolution. But Men Do Not Live Only By Fighting Evils. They Live By Positive Goals, Individual And Collective, A Vast Variety Of Them, Seldom Predictable, At Times Incompatible.

Those Who Have Ever Valued Liberty For Its Own Sake Believed That To Be Free To Choose, And Not To Be Chosen For, Is An Inalienable Ingredient In What Makes Human Beings Human.

True Knowledge Is Knowledge Of Why Things Are As They Are, And Not Merely What They Are.