The Case for Modern Man.

Abstract

on oblivion, and a whole people retreats into a conservative posture, searching for security. We are afraid. In such a fetid climate of clammy fear it is like a breath of fresh air, dry and clarifying, to read and study a wise book in defence of the liberal position. Such is Charles Frankel's Case for Modern Man. In a society whose weather vanes are blown by such prophets of doom as Jacques Maritain, Arnold Toynbee, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Karl Mannheim, it is a rare pleasure to see the scowling climate of opinion, the foreboding cold front of these critics of the liberal view, called in question in a brilliant and scholarly study. The managerial revolution, the increasing power of federal governments, the strife in America, Europe, Africa, and Asia beset us on all sides. Many men have wondered if the hope for a liberal era was not coming to an end, if not already ended. Toynbee has attacked the secular modern age because of its attempt to construct its own society on humanistic grounds. This, he thinks, demonstrates severe guilt caused by inner pride, for he believes that we are breaking fundamental laws of history. Neibuhr, believing in the all-pervasiveness of original sin, a kind of genetically determined inborn state which is built into the germ plasm of sinful man, rejects the liberal state and with it any possibility that man may be improved or perfected. The evil locked in DNA and RNA is the neocalvinistic equivalent of original sin. Mannheim is opposed to the liberal view because he does not believe in the objectivity of human reason. Maritain, believing in absolutes, objects to the liberal view. He denies the possibility of an experimental attitude in morals. Against this brooding despair, four black birds on a barren wintry wall, this book brings hope if not cheer. It is encouraging, for it holds that human capacity can mold if not entirely control human destiny. Man's skill, potentially, may thwart his own trickery. Thus Frankel recognizes that for the first time man is in a position to bend the future toward his conception of a better world, though the possibilities of failure loom large before us. This unforced enthusiasm is a healthy sign in a society where pessimism is taken for granted, for here we have a positive statement, one brilliantly set forth by a man who shares with some scientists and physicians a belief that human intellect, properly used, may indeed fashion

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