(copy of a letter)
I said we have to try to get value for money when anyone comes to work here, and I suppose I may be slandered as wanting people to work hard for low pay. But actually, of course, surrounded by a hostile society as I have been, it has been almost impossible for me to get anyone to do anything and what I have actually paid out for it in terms of money and effort has been very high.
This is part of what people would understand much better if they had any sort of continuous contact with us and did not just stay as far away as possible where they can maintain fictional social interpretations of our position.
I was starting from absolute scratch and knew that I would need to build up a lot of capital to create the most minimal residential college environment for myself. So although I have done much better than people expected, and they regret the minimal viability I have achieved, I still need to think in terms of capital progress, and it is still very seldom possible to make it, in spite of the very modest improvements in our position, which have been achieved in the teeth of the most violent opposition. Violent, that is, when there seemed to be any chance of my getting any improvement in my position in terms of either money or people.
So now the high-IQ ghetto can just about support itself in reasonable physical health, but without having enough manpower either to be academically productive or for life to be in any sense rewarding for us; it is still a case of trying to prevent everyone from going downhill as a result of trying too hard to do more than is really possible, because of course we feel that it is only by being as conspicuous as possible (sending up distress flares) that we have any hope of bringing ourselves and our need for workers and supporters to the attention of the very few sufficiently exceptional people who could bring themselves to have anything to do with us.
Surviving physically without sending up distress flares is really more than we can manage, so it is always easy for people to get run down trying too hard, as in the case of the recent publication of Fabian’s book, which was as abortive as usual.
We can’t expect anyone to find our ideas congenial; everyone has been brought up in modern oppressive society and believes in society, i.e. in the oppression of the individual. However, we are quite respectable people (on old-fashioned terms) and it is not illegal to criticise the prevailing ideology, although it arouses covert persecution. One has to think oneself lucky that the persecution is not of the overt variety which might result in one finding oneself in a forced labour camp.
