They, or rather it, the Staff, seemed to concentrate on the whole question of why Kane had ever volunteered for a job demanding extreme isolation in the first place. The point was that apparently Kane had been anti-social, a Group Spirit deviant from the beginning.
Kane tried to explain it, calmly at first, then more emotionally. Either way, he knew that whatever he said was only additional grist to their syndrome recording mill. Being alone in order to do certain kinds of work demanding isolation seemed to be beside the point.
The point was that being on the Moon deprived a man of Groups. It was a kind of psychological suicide. Now that he was back home they would straighten him out. The question of returning to the Moon was ignored. To them, this was an absurdity. What did Kane want?
Kane was in no position to know what he really wanted—yet. They were going to help him decide what he really wanted. But they already knew that. It only remained for Kane to agree with them.
The majority was always right.
He explained his values to them. They listened. He told them that as far as he was concerned the social setup was now deadly, a kind of self-garrisoned mental concentration camp in which free thought was impossible. A stagnate, in fact a regressive state of affairs. Proficiency in skills would go, science would die. A herd state. Individuality lost. Depersonalized. Tyranny of the Majority. Integration mania. Collective thinking. Mass media. Lilliput against Leviathan....
But Kane wasn't happy, that was the important thing wasn't it?
Could a knowledge of how rapidly the Universe was expanding contribute to the happiness of a human being living on Madison Avenue in Manhattan?
Obviously the answer to that was no.