historian Jacques Barzun and actress Nancy Kelly.

In all honesty, they really could be talking about life on Mars by comparison to 2011.

Clifton Fadiman: “I think on the whole it’s because our moral universe doesn’t include contemplation as a virtue. In Greek times it did. In other words, great men laid it down. You were a better man if you did spend some time in contemplation and I imagine even the average man of the time felt the authority of that statement. At least we think he did. Now I don’t think that would be the case at all. For example, suppose any President that we might have announced in the morning paper ‘I am going to spend four hours a day thinking’, and said he felt this was his duty to the citizens of his country. He of course not only would he not be re-elected, but he’d probably be impeached for lunacy. And I’m not all that sure I wouldn’t help to impeach him. Because the notion of a man announcing that he’s going to spend four hours a day in philosophical contemplation does sound a little wacky, doesn’t it? But it wouldn’t have sounded so wacky some hundreds of years ago.”

I don't know if the concept of contemplation would be deemed wacky today or just an abstract concept that bears no resemblance to reality. The same I suppose is true of the moral universe. Pardon my cynicism, but I have a strong feeling that's a universe most people currently don't inhabit. Or at least it would seem that way if we took mainstream media seriously.

I could be totally wrong but . . . . .

That was 1956.