We can count on injustice in human affairs; on privilege, exploitation, and violence. Violence, which in its ability to turn a human being into a thing, inflicts the final injustice.

But we can count, too, on men and social movements to challenge and so to limit this grim reality. In one era a revived religious or political tradition, in another a movement of the oppressed, but in every time some men will affirm dignity and brotherhood and the possibility of community across national, racial, and ideological barriers.

It is a tragic moment in history when such people lose their bearings; when the ideas and goals that inspired them fundamentally alter; when an accurate assessment of their spiritual health is Nietzsche's “1 have forgotten why ever I began.”