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Our times are filled with excitement and anxiety. True in a certain sense, this often repeated statement can turn into an opiate for the large majorities who weary easily in the face of chronic danger. Thus they partake only as spectators in the all-too-rapid happenings on our Earth. Yet, the farther the distance grows between their self-imposed passivity and the challenging turbulence of the world, the more they linger in an increasingly frustrating boredom.
Relatively few human beings can, to some extent, sustain as well as develop qualitatively the awareness, the feeling, and the knowledge that time is running out for the hope:
of averting the danger of atomic and germ warfare;
of curbing mass famines resulting from staggering overpopulation;
of stopping the depletion of our resources and the related universally lethal poisoning of air, water and soil;
and of developing those aspects or qualities in the human being that are necessary not only for effective action in the pursuit of the above goals, but also for creating a human community in which authentic existence is maximally harmonized with social responsibility.
While such human development will focus on love, tolerance, responsibility and willingness to sacrifice, it will first of all require a radical effort to recognize some of the deepest prejudices that have led to our present predicament. This must then lead to a deconstitution of the most dangerous structures of our society, of science and of psychology in order to reconstitute our world anew. In this reconstition, which we can envision only vaguely, the mentioned qualities of love, tolerance, responsibility and willingness to sacrifice will blossom out in a genuine rather than distorted or neurotic form.
Time is running out. So often it appears that too few individuals are deeply, wisely and responsibly aware of this running out of time. More and more people use increasingly large blinders to shield themselves from such frightful awareness. They seem unconce