The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

644 THE FREEMAN Novembercrisis, the inner crisis in man himself.For is it not true, as Yeatssays in a famous poem, that "Thewicked act with dreadful intensity,while the good lack all conviction."Youth Seeking IdentityIt is a time of troubles for all,but perhaps it's easier for the oldwhose habit patterns firmed up ina healthier era than for the youngwho are searching for a value systemand cannot find one. Depression,in the vocabulary of manyyoung people, does not mean theeconomic malaise which this countrystaggered through during theNineteen Thirties; it means thesomber mood in which they hangquestion marks around life, wonderingif it really is worth living.They are trying to find meaningfor their lives in terms of thevalues their elders lived by - or onany other terms - and they arenot having much luck. We sometimesfind their behavior ratherbizarre; the long hair, the weirdclothing, the haphazard life styles.But perhaps these symbolize amessage they are trying to getacross to us. Some of the so-calledhippies, by deliberately being i11­housed, ill-clothed and ill-fed, maybe practicing a charade whosemessage is that the More AbundantLife, as defined in New Dealterms, is not a proper goal forman. Perhaps they have a suspicionthat reality is wider anddeeper than the physical universerevealed to common sense - as religionhas always maintainedandso they experiment with mindexpandingdrugs. They grope aftersome form of religious expression,but still they drift.Now, we know something aboutthe rise and fall of civilizations.In our schoolbooks we read about"The glory that was Greece, andthe grandeur that was Rome."Toynbee, Spengler and Dawsonhave made· us aware of dead civilizationson other continents. Acivilization comes into existencecradled in dominant ideas,launched by deeds of heroism andself-sacrifice, and it maintains itselfin a tonic condition only selong as it has solid grounds fOlbelieving in itself and its destinyBut civili~ations wane; Rome fell;Spengler predicted the decline ojthe West. We need not buy ~single one of Spengler's theoriesbut it is hard to argue against hilphrase: The West is in declineGreat numbers of people in thi:favored land no longer believe i1the things that made Wester]civilization unique.An animal species which haflourished in a given area may bwiped out by a disease, or it rnabe decimated by a predator, orclimatic change may destroy itfood supply. Everyone of thes