Such a world permits only one way of looking at things, of viewing reality. Fear of this sort of ridicule so often keeps many from breaking free from this one-dimensional gulag of the human spirit and charting a new course. They are therefore subject to critique and open to development and transformation based upon the democratic notion of dialogue among citizens who have a sense of personal and civic responsibility and a multi-dimensional way of viewing reality. They are not subjects, but persons and citizens who are imaginatively and creatively engaged with one another. Adaptation must be distinguished from integration.
Integration is associated with open societies.
Integration results from the capacity to adapt oneself to reality plus the critical capacity to make choices and to transform that reality. To the extent that man loses his ability to make choices and is subjected to the choices of others, to the extent that his decisions are no longer his own because they result from external prescriptions, he is no longer integrated. At some point in the development of closed societies significant numbers of people become conscious of their alienation. This consciousness marks the beginning of a new cultural climate which begins to challenge and eclipse the old one. The emergence of this new climate reveals society as an unfinished project, as something that is not completed or a given, but as created and conventional.