Solly was nodding and smiling rather grimly.
"But why?" I demanded. "You had such brilliant prospects here on Earth. Why did you do it?"
"Surely you of all people must know by now," said Dolly excitedly. "Can you and your family go on living in this kind of a world? Can you endure this police-state tyranny now that you know what it is? Can you accept the hypocrisy, the masquerade behind pious slogans? What is this thing they call Competition? Is it really good? Is it really the expression of democracy? Is it what they want or is it forced on them?"
"Dolly, you're asking more questions than you're answering," said Celia, trying to head her off.
"Or is it organized greed? Simple dog-eat-dog? The law of jungle cunning and brute force re-affirmed? If we must compete, let it not be as maggots swarming over a half-eaten pie! Let's get people to vie with one another in service to mankind!"
Dolly had worked herself into a kind of evangelical zeal, with Solly nodding hypnotically in agreement.
I answered calmly, trying not to strain our newly healed friendship. "I don't go along with you on some of the things you say, Dolly. I personally think competition is the mainspring of progress—"
Solly started to protest.
"—material progress," I added.
"Well, maybe," said Celia, and in a flash I could see what had gone wrong with Freddie's home-life, from the school principal's point of view. "But I can't see what competitiveness has to do with creative art, or the pure sciences, or philosophy. I think it's positively destructive in those areas. The real struggle there is internal, not external. To me, competition is only a part of life not the whole of it."