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suffers eternal hunger and thirst standing in a river of receding waters, overshadowed by fruit trees with receding
branches. A world of ever-rising demands is not just evil-it can be spoken of only as Hell.
Man has developed the frustrating power to demand anything because he cannot visualize anything which an institution
cannot do for him. Surrounded by all-powerful tools, man is reduced to a tool of his tools. Each of the institutions meant
to exorcise one of the primeval evils has become a fail-safe, self-sealing coffin for man. Man is trapped in the boxes he
makes to contain the ills Pandora allowed to escape. The blackout of reality in the smog produced by our tools has
enveloped us. Quite suddenly we find ourselves in the darkness of our own trap.
Reality itself has become dependent on human decision. The same President who ordered the ineffective invasion of
Cambodia could equally well order the effective use of the atom. The "Hiroshima switch" now can cut the navel of the
Earth. Man has acquired the power to make Chaos overwhelm both Eros and Gaia. This new power of man to cut the
navel of the Earth is a constant reminder that our institutions not only create their own ends, but also have the power to
put an end to themselves and to us. The absurdity of modern institutions is evident in the case of the military. Modern
weapons can defend freedom, civilization, and life only by annihilating them. Security in military language means the
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ability to do away with the Earth.
The absurdity that underlies nonmilitary institutions is no less manifest. There is no switch in them to activate their
destructive power, but neither do they need a switch. Their grip is already fastened to the lid of the world. They create
needs faster than they can create satisfaction, and in the process of trying to meet the needs they generate, they
consume the Earth. This is true for agriculture and manufacturing, and no less for medicine and education. Modern
agriculture poisons and exhausts the soil. The "green revolution" can, by means of new seeds, triple the output of an
acre--but only with an even greater proportional increase of fertilizers, insecticides, water, and power. Manufacturing of
these, as of all other goods, pollutes the oceans and the atmosphere and degrades irreplaceable resources. If
combustion continues to increase at present rates, we will soon consume the oxygen of the atmosphere faster than it
can be replaced. We have no reason to believe that fission or fusion can replace combustion without equal or higher
hazards. Medicine men replace midwives and promise to make man into something else: genetically planned,
pharmacologically sweetened, and capable of more protracted sickness. The contemporary ideal is a pan-hygienic
world: a world in which all contacts between men, and between men and their world, are the result of foresight and
manipulation. School has become the planned process which tools man for a planned world, the principal tool to trap
man in man s trap. It is sup-posed to shape each man to an adequate level for playing a part in this world game.
Inexorably we cultivate, treat, produce, and school the world out of existence.
The military institution is evidently absurd. The absurdity of nonmilitary institutions is more difficult to face. It is even
more frightening, precisely because it operates inexorably. We know which switch must stay open to avoid an atomic
holocaust. No switch detains an ecological Armageddon.
In classical antiquity, man had discovered that the world could be made according to man's plans, and with this insight
he perceived that it was inherently precarious, dramatic and comical. Democratic institutions evolved and man was
presumed worthy of trust within their framework. Expectations from due process and confidence in human nature kept
each other in balance. The traditional professions developed and with them the institutions needed for their exercise.
Surreptitiously, reliance on institutional process has replaced dependence on personal good will. The world has lost its
humane dimension and reacquired the factual necessity and fatefulness which were characteristic of primitive times.
But while the chaos of the barbarian was constantly ordered in the name of mysterious, anthropomorphic gods, today
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