Evening star., 1948-09-05
Living on Life's Surface

In an interview with Japanese news
papermen, the celebrated Helen Keller has
voiced sentiment that seems singularly
to the point in these days of distorted
values when life's meaning is measured
not so much in terms of the spirit as in
terms of the hesh-in terms of price tags
in terms of a me-firSt assessment of human
existence, in terms of a supermaterialistic
philosophy that draws little basic distinc-
ton between the worth of man and the
worth of an insect.
Miss Keller-who is on tour of Japan,
where she is something of national
heroine-has summed up the case in these
words: Il feel sorry for seeing people be-
cause so many of them live on life's sur
face. They cannot see the essential things
of life, while blind people with thinking
minds can." The truth in that is funda-
mental. Like many others similarly af-
flicted Miss Keller-sightless and totally
deaf since birth-undoubtedly has lived
more happily and more constructively
than great numbers of us who can see,
speak and hear but who lack her under
standing and appreciation of what the
world is and of what human beings are
SuppOSeQ W QO LII IL.
Certainly it is characteristic of our age,
characteristic of the modern temper, that
many an intellectual man is baf1ed by
himself and somewhat contemptuous of
his purpose and destiny. There was time
when he anchored himself to specific
spiritual dogmas or concepts-to a gener-
ally accepted philosophy that evaluated
him as a child of God, creature with a
soul, an individual facing an after-life and
ultimate accountability before higher in
telligence. But now he is adrift from the
old moorings. Now, among vast numbers
of his kind, the materialistic view pre-
much as one with the cow in that both
according to the materialists, begin and
end here, with apparently no higher
function than to enjoy as much feshly
pleasure as possible before settling back
into meaningless, eternal negation.
Is it any wonder that people who see
themselves in that light live on life's sur
face? Is it any wonder that they know
prices rather than values? That church,
home, family, community service and the
like are of little significance to them? That
their standards are tawdry? That they are
shallow and selfish? That distractions like
freedom, justice and virtue leave them
cold? That their philosophy is a philos-
ophy of what's in it for me? That they
regard a thing to be good not because of
what it is in itself, but because of its per-
sonal effect on them? That their outlook
seeping down from the top intellectual
levels to the broader mass, has cheapen-
ing and baneful influence on whatever
society is afflicted by it? And is it any
wonder, finally that having cut themselves
off from spiritual concepts, having judged
man to be about as purposeless as bird or
quadruped, they have lost self-respect and
find that their supermaterialistic pursuit of
happiness, instead of leading to peace of
mind, leads chiefly to psychiatric ills or
sterile sense of personal futility?
Miss Kellers remarks on all such seeing"
individuals are applicable to the world at
large. For If the things of the spirit con-
tinue to fall back in steady retreat before
the onslaught of materialism, the law of
the jungle-and not the ancient abstract
standards or morality and justice-will al
most certainly come to dominate life within
and among nations. Even now the trend
In that direction seems frighteningly
strong. People with eyes to see had better
look hard at it.