The name is absent

Predicament of Human Incompetence 5

Let a very charming girl cross the Princeton campus and
nothing can prevent her from becoming an object of obser-
vation. No one can know her as a person until he can meet
her, so for the time being she remains a fascinating object
drifting across the landscape. Go to your favorite food
shop, and the man behind the counter is a utility who stands
between you and starvation, just as the haberdasher is a
utility who shields your nakedness from the public gaze.

So the psychologist analyzes us as cases; business needs
us as customers without benefit of personal introductions;
factories must have men as hands to run machines; doctors
must treat us as patients, or guinea pigs; the army takes us
as cogs in a military machine; we like Russians now because
they are useful, and they like us because we ought to be
more useful.

We are sentimental when we think that, if we were only
good enough, we would always treat people as persons. So
long as we must promote the world’s business, organize
trade, study disease, or paint portraits, we will on occa-
sion treat persons as objects to be observed, manipulated,
and used.

The more organized and mechanical our civilization be-
comes, the more acute is the problem of keeping alive as
persons. Blindness to the danger here has accentuated our
difficulty. We use other people for our purpose and they use
us for their purposes; and soon the stronger are tempted to
exploit the weaker. Straightway the so-called “weaker”
organize their strength to exploit the public as they them-
selves had been exploited. And finally the public organizes
to manage everybody. Instead of dreaming that such a con-
test of interests can be outgrown, we must realize that the
“haves” and the “have nots” are always with us, even in a
classless society. The struggle with this problem is the raw
material out of which real character has to be made, real

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