Predicament of Human Incompetence 7
In this matter it should be further observed that the
double nature of our relations indicates how we are al-
ways involved in a double purpose. We unite with others
both to make a living and to give life a meaning—and one
purpose does not displace the other. Life always means more
than making a living.
In our machine age we have vastly extended and multi-
plied our relations with people in order to obtain what we
want. And this extension has been so effective that it has
become a peril. Men have leaped to the conclusion that if we
were totally connected (instead of everybody for himself)
in the business of getting what we want, we would create
a paradise.
But the paradise never arrives, for quite ancient reasons.
One reason is set forth in that old folk tale of the Garden
of Eden. The deceptive temptation there was an offer to
the first social group of a paradise free from want and
fear if only they could have one more apple. They had a
totalitarian monopoly of all the sources and means of
production, and yet the old struggle of good and evil began
in that deception that all would be well when one more de-
sire was satisfied. This is the bugaboo of all Utopias. No
ingenious arrangement can stop people wanting another
apple. Hitler wanted only one more living room for his
people, and he kept right on wanting more rooms until it
seemed that there was no security short of owning the earth.
Something like a poll was once taken to gauge the con-
tentment enjoyed at different levels of income. At each
level people felt they could be quite satisfied if they had
somewhere around one-third more than they then possessed.
On that score, satisfying desire would only lift a man into
the next higher bracket where just one more third would
usher in the paradise. Even in the old folk tale, when the
first family had everything it wanted, the two sons started