"Paul. What are we supposed to think—to do—when we spend all the energy and time and dough to make a brilliant adult out of a promising kid? By 'we'—I mean at least a hundred men and women. The kid turns out to be super-good. Everybody chips in to make sure he has every possible opportunity. He is tops in his class. He gets an inside hot spot on the most important project in his nation. Every single person who ever knew him—loves him—and is button-popping proud of him. But one day he has his feelings hurt badly—and there's not one thing we can do for him. We try. But it's no dice. So he climbs out of a window and slams about a billion dollars' worth of brains and the time and energy, and hope of other people, to smithereens, on the curb. We bury what's left of him. And then we sit around asking each other what the use is. Our best wasn't good enough for him or for us. We keep asking ourselves what the hell he did expect of life—and of us—that he didn't get."
Paul at least listened—which was a clue: he'd listen to a piece about himself.
But he said coldly, "Your values are pretty sleazy, Phil. Only a day or two ago, you were telling me that we physicists had sinned. That we deserved to be punished. That all we'd done was evil. Now—because you're in a corner—physics is suddenly the most important thing in the nation. May I repeat—horse manure!"
"Sins of omission," I said. "You guys think of yourselves as honest—and you are, in one way. About science, you don't cheat or lie, ever. It's the solitary triumph of our age. And look at the results. Progress in objectivity accelerates by a factor of hundreds—thousands—in a couple of centuries. I'm for that. But that—alone—isn't enough. You birds look at your objective integrity as if it were all there is to virtue. It's not. Listen, Paulo. There are two functions of virtue: one is to find new truths; the other is to dispel old lies; the whole man practices both, equally."
"Grant that—but don't we educate people as fast as we can?"
I shook my head. "Look at you. The scientific description of your situation on this bloody shelf is known to tens of thousands. But not to you. You're the victim of old lies. You're about to toss yourself into the late afternoon because you were so busy learning new truths in physics that you never bothered to dispel the old lies in your psychology. You're a damned anachronism! A burnt offering to Woman. You're a puppet of a lot of myths and legends and poor child training. You might as well be a pagan male virgin—offered up to some fat, female goddess by your tribe. A man that isn't a man. A scientist from the neck up—and a howling heathen from the waist down. Unaware of the fact. A pretty picture!"
"I suppose," he said with the utmost bitterness, "that I would be sitting in your apartment chortling happily—if I had ideals like yours. The scientific integrity of a whore-master."
"My ideals," I said, "at least keep a mediocre author plugging to the end. Yours, apparently won't save one of the world's top mathematicians from one lousy pair of legs."
"That's all you feel about a woman!"
"That's all you feel! Fate took away your candy and now you won't play. It was public candy, anyhow—and only good for all the boys. You wouldn't face that. But if you want to love women realistically, that's just what you'll have to face, among a lot of other things. Love lies a long way beyond Marcia's behavior." I tried to grin at him. "I'm supposed to be a psychologist, myself. There should be a way by which I could persuade what's left of your senses to stop playing Prometheus and get off your rock."