Fear_of_Change-2

[10] [15] IRA| COMMONLIT The man whom you can reduce to a state of fear by threats of retribution,? is not reduced to such a state by your words, but by the corroboration? of a guilty conscience within him. One is justified by human experience in gauging the degree of guilt by the readiness of the fear. When a spokesman arises and says, “Yes, we have a great deal of fear,” it is probably true that he and those he represents really have much to fear. But it does not follow that everyone has. Those whose conscience is clear, who know that they have done their duty and have not denied their obligations to humanity, who have not thought themselves better or more deserving than their fellow-creatures—these do not have to take refuge in fears. They are free to scan the future and to greet whatever it may have in store. The accusing conscience, the life that knows it has ignored the rights of others, is Fear’s ally. Well, what about the mysterious future? What are its portents? What is the outlook? False prophets always prophesy peace, and the reason their prophecy is false is that there never is peace in the way they mean it. So, if this page were to begin on the note of “Peace, peace,” you could at once set it down as false. As long as there is life there is Change. The peace of stagnation is an attribute of death. That, therefore, is one element we may expect in the future—the element of Change. Whatever we may regret about it, the old world as we knew it can never come back. It can never be the same again. Even if every human being on the globe devoted himself to reconstructing the old world as it was, it could not be done. And the reason for this is that we ourselves have changed. We are not what we were. We can never be the same again. Something has passed over us and upon us that has rendered us different. We have changed our angle of view. That which formerly seem all-important now occupies a lower place, and that of which we seldom thought has been made the chief interest of life. The world has really been turned upside down as far as its thinking is concerned. Of course, this is nothing new. It has always happened, though not always so suddenly and inclusively as it has happened now. We are continually changing and life is always changing for us and the world is changing beneath and around us—so why fear Change? And yet there are people who really do fear it. These are the people who are falling victims to the propaganda of Fear today. 2. Retribution (noun) punishment inflicted on someone as revenge for a wrong or crime 3. Corroborate (verb) to confirm or give support to a theory