12 April 2007

Aphorism of the month (April)



The belief in society

It is clear that before any change in human psychology, either individual or collective, could take place, it would be necessary for the belief in the meaningfulness of human society to be abandoned. (The resistance to its abandonment is of course immense.)

It is true that this is only one of the attitudes which is invalidated by the perception of total uncertainty: but psychologically it is the lynchpin of the whole affair. If you never believe that human society, or collective opinion, can confer any meaningfulness upon your actions or attitudes, you can never develop the human psychosis in a permanent form.

from the forthcoming book The Corpse and the Kingdom