Bethlen Naptár, 1949 (Ligonier)
Respect for ideals
BETHLEN NAPTAR 73 pendent on his fidelity to noble ideals. Notwithstanding opinions to the contrary, let me state most emphatically, that real progress in mankind’s destiny is not dependent on material things. Material things are inert things. They have no vitality in themselves, and whenever they are given priority over ideals in human affairs, the result is always disastrous. A mere glance at the world in which we live today will fully uphold this view. Torn by dissensions, hopelessly divided by sharply clashing interests, seething with discontent, it is on the verge of a new disaster. While the best minds of the world make desperate efforts to find the way to peace, the terrible threat of World War III hangs ominously in the air. Even more threatening than the threat of a new world war is the gloomy picture which some of the greatest thinkers of our days paint of the state of world affairs. A former Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, speaking before the American Society of International Law, made this statement: “The specter of a new descent into the conditions of international anarchy, which characterized the Dark Ages, looms on the horizon today. I am profoundly convinced that it menaces the civilized existence of mankind.” The noted observer of world affairs, Dorothy Thompson, wrote not long ago: “We are in a new Dark Ages. We are in it up to our neck . . . Civilization has already capitulated to barbarism by default of its own standards. It will capitulate further, for it has lost its morale.” A Harvard professor, Ernest A. Horton, makes the following observation: “The present level of human behavior is so low, that man is more likely to use control of unlimited forces for destruction, rather than for constructive purposes... Gadgets and machines are getting better and better, and man is getting worse and worse.” Another Harvard professor, P. A. Sorokin, writes as follows: “Everything and everybody is ridiculed and degraded. We fairly revel in such debasement, which has become the stock in trade of debunking magazines and other periodicals.” A leading British philosopher, C. M. E. Joad, offers this devastating summary: “Here is then an age, which is without beliefs in religion, without standards in morals, without convictions in politics, without values in art. I doubt if there ever was an age, which was so completely without standards or values.” The eighty-year-old dean of American scientists, Dr. Robert A. Milliken, is no less outspoken in his diagnosis of present day world affairs: “Unless”, he says, “the peace-loving peoples of the world unite their strength to put a stop to international \
