Our generation is plagued by a loathing of the complex. Everywhere people are looking for an absolute formula, a clear rule, a plain solution of life's enigmas. Politicians campaign by promising absurdly facile remedies for enormously difficult problems. They offer slogans for substance. Electoral oblivion is sure to swallow any man or woman who in good conscience tries to be honest with the public.
People prefer a spinner of fairy tales.
No one wants to hear about the hard and hurtful surgery our ailing society really needs. Indeed, we all possess something of this ingrained reluctance to confront the harshness, the unfairness, that insistently clamours for our attention. If we did not block our ears, weeping would embitter every hour. So we allow ourselves to see and hear only a little, otherwise every hour would be a haunted nightmare, an intolerable burden of misery. Yet in these days of mass communication, reality is much harder to escape.