"Are you?"
The blush came again. She spoke in a low voice, "Mostly."
"People," I said, "don't want to know about people, nowadays."
"Did they ever?"
"Here and there—by fits and starts. They had a short spell of wanting to find out about themselves through reason—a couple of centuries ago. Innumerable spells of trying to figure themselves out through religions."
"But not now?" She was sarcastic. "Nobody knows anything now?"
"The average college graduate doesn't even know where he is in relation to other objects. Couldn't point to the ecliptic. Or explain the changing seasons. Couldn't point toward the sun, at night. Friends of mine, well-known writers, belong to a society that believes the earth is flat. There's another buddyship of boobs who think the earth is hollow and we live inside. Till the government began financing research for war, America spent twice as much on astrology as on scientific investigation. The folks would rather, by twice, be fooled than find out the truth."
"We've made a lot of progress."
"Individuals have learned a lot. The people ignore it. They are interested in the applications of science—appalled by the implications. Our civilization is just one more swarm of low cheats. It won't last because cheats can't. Only inertia sustains the current shape of it, and that momentum is encountering more friction every day. A republic of crooked dumbbells can't safely use the instruments of clever men. People not only don't know how to behave, they don't even know they are ignorant. Yet in the main, people are thoroughly satisfied with themselves. In view of sure catastrophes that loom on every margin toward which they hurry—the very self-satisfaction of people is the statistical guarantor of their doom. Hence that crack about pride going before a fall."
"I think people behave rather well, on the whole."