The Scholar: A Species Threatened by Professions (1972)

Abstract

Progress cannot be reversed; what it has killed, we cannot restore to life. Professionalism, like pollution, is here to stay. Nonetheless, the fact that professionalism and pollution are facts does not force us to welcome and implement them. Indeed, there are those who would accelerate “progress”, their effective definition of which is what is going to happen willwe nillwe. I wonder why progressive thinkers do not, since it is inevitable we shall all die one day, advocate present universal suicide.

“There are more ways than one of mourning”, said Monkey. “Mere bellowing with dry eyes is no good. Nor is it any better just to squeeze out a few tears. What counts is a good hearty howling, with tears as well. That’s what is wanted for a real, miserable mourning.” “I’ll give you a specimen”, said Pigsy. He then from somewhere or other produced a piece of paper which he twisted into a paper-spill and thrust up his nostrils. This soon set him snivelling and his eyes running, and when he began to howl he kept up such a din that anyone would have thought he had indeed lost his dearest relative. The effect was so mournful that Tripitaka too soon began to weep bitterly.

(?) Wu Ch’êng-ên, The Journey to the West