THOUGHTS FOR THE TIME.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 September 1930, Page 4

THOUGHTS FOR THE TIME.

5 ‘ . . .• I : SELF-INTEREST PREDOMINANT', Our practices and policies in the past have been based all too much on “individual bias and the slurring cf inconvenient data; the possessing’classes have something to conserve, and are instinctively conservative; the nonpossessing classes have less stake in the existing order of things and are instinctively radical. What is required is that evidence should supersede emotion and self-interest as a ground of belief. Self-interest and prejudice and mob-contagion and sentiment and the wish to believe are combined in an irrational jumble, giving rise to the Group Mind. Those who look further into things than the majority are always unpopular; false prophets alone prove acceptable to the crowd. Economists are unpopular because they throw the search light on plague spots, which vested interests would fain keep in the shadow, and strip the authority from popular social ranks.”—Professor B. E. Murphy. ;