Principles and Heresies

In the general collapse of standards today, success in the eyes of the world has largely lost connection with the integrity of the person and with an objective estimate of the value of his activities. The ballyhoo of the “mass-communications industry,” reflecting the needs and modes of the Establishment of which it is an essential instrument, clouds counsel and substitutes constructed public myths for analysis and examination. Public success and intrinsic worth, it is true, have never coincided more than approximately.

It is not the imperfection of the world that is new; what is new is the almost total absence of critical standards among the leading sections of society by which to judge the worth, not of this or that personality, but of the entire process whereby “success” is established.

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

Featured Tags

In the general collapse of standards today, success in the eyes of the world has largely lost connection with the integrity of the person and with an objective estimate of the value of his activities. The ballyhoo of the “mass-communications industry,” reflecting the needs and modes of the Establishment of which it is an essential instrument, clouds counsel and substitutes constructed public myths for analysis and examination. Public success and intrinsic worth, it is true, have never coincided more than approximately.

It is not the imperfection of the world that is new; what is new is the almost total absence of critical standards among the leading sections of society by which to judge the worth, not of this or that personality, but of the entire process whereby “success” is established.