Patterns or Principles & Other Essays

The Essays Collected in PATTERNS OR PRINCIPLES deal, from various perspectives, with the central confrontation within modern culture. The confrontation is between two irreconcilable philosophies of life. One is centered on mere patterns of thinking that obey only the fashions of the moment. The other is steeped in principles whose truth is not independent on momentary preferences. The different kinds of correctness-political, academic, societal, educational and scientific-have one thing common, they aim at establishing the rule of mere patterns. According to that rule any pattern of behavior, which is acted out by people whose number is statistically significant, is entitled to full legal recognition and political support. And the same holds true of any set of ideas, subversive or distasteful as they maybe when measured up against the traditional of western Civilisation. While these principles have always been held to be synonymous with absolute, unchangeable truth, patterns are always subject to perpetual reshaping and therefore strictly relative. The expression "statistically significant" should readily evoke the scientific veneer which this crusade against Western Civilization uses in order to appear intellectually respectable. A major aim of these essays is to throw light on this abuse of science for purposes wholly alien to it.