A Game of Cards
？諾曼·卡曾斯 / Norman Cousins
Even since I was old enough to read books on philosophy， I have been intrigued by the discussions on the nature of man. The philosophers have been debating for years about whether man is primarily good or primarily evil， whether he is primarily altruistic or selfish， co-operative or competitive， gregarious or self-centered， whether he enjoys free will or whether everything is predetermined.
As far back as the Socratic dialogues in Plato， and even before that， man has been baffled about himself. He knows he is capable of great and noble deeds， but then he is oppressed with the evidence of great wrongdoing.
And so he wonders. I don’t presume to be able to resolve the contradictions. In fact I don’t think we have to. It seems to me that the debate over good and evil in man， over free will and determinism， and over all the other contradictions—that this debate is a futile one. For man is a creature of dualism. He is both good and evil， both altruistic and selfish. He enjoys free will to the extent that he can make decisions in life， but he can’t change his chemistry or his relatives or his physical endowments—all of which were determined for him at birth. And rather than speculate over which side of him is dominant， he might do well to consider what the contradictions and circumstances are that tend to bring out the good or evil， that enable him to be nobler and a responsible member of the human race. And so far as free will and determinism are concerned， something I heard in India on a recent visit to the subcontinent may be worth passing along. Free will and determinism， I was told， are like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism. The way you play your hand represents free will.
Now where does all this leaves us？ It seems to me that we ought to attempt to bring about and safeguard those conditions that tend to develop the best in man. We know， for example， that the existence of fear and man’s inability to cope with fear bring about the worst in him. We know that what is true of man on a small scale can be true of society on a large scale. And today the conditions of fear in the world are. I’m afraid， affecting men everywhere. More than twenty-three hundred years ago， the Greek world， which had attained tremendous heights of creative intelligence and achievement， disintegrated under the pressure of fear. Today， too， if I have read the signs correctly in traveling around the world， there is great fear. There is fear that the human race has exhausted its margin for error and that we are sliding into another great conflict that will cancel out thousands of years of human progress. And people are fearful because they don’t want to lose the things that are more important than peace itself—moral， democratic， and spiritual values.