=S, s

 

26 THE CRIME OF PROMETHEUS

is acted out by the modern mass-man with all the outward
optimism incumbent upon his efficiency. As he becomes more
isolated and atomized in the social mass his beliefs become
articulated in terms of social forces. Yet as he obtains unlimit-
ed means of communication he loses social communion. As
his conception of space and time is extended his world vis-
ion contracts into a well-conditioned world of ways and
means, and into the privacy of his home, with its clutter of or-
derliness, he carries the spiritual chaos of his aloneness. Each
heir to Prometheus is chained to a rock of solitude. Self-im-
molated, without spiritual paternity, he must either
surpass himself or become submerged in an animal-like
existence,

The predicament of this modern mass-man characteri-
zes him at every level of the social scale: mania for enlighten-
ment, specialized tasks, isolation, and anxiety at being alone.
Bereft of purpose, he puts faith in the common future, yet
he himself carries no futurity. Sympathetic, irritable, curious,
and desiring to be informed about his neighbor, he makes use
of a language increasingly denotative and abstract, suitable
as an instrument of technical guidance for getting through
the day and for filtering down orders and commands
relating to methods of doing things in efficient ways.
His science is formulated in terms of the predictable
behavior of masses and the incidence of chance eccentrici-
ty; to be informed on his destiny he must speak statistics.
In lonely panic he demands continuing crises to fill void days
and make them pass and perverts his pursuit of happiness
into pursuit of happenings, watching for fateful signs in the
ne ws. Instead of seeking to create of himself a higher, ra-
tional instrumentality, he attempts to identify himself with
some successful program or plan. Claiming rights as nature’s
heir he purposes to render society altogether ““natural,’and
so his good works multiply on the basis of the common body
of knowledge of how to do ““things,”’ as he militantly lays the
foundations for a brute society whose language will be instinct-

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