“In my attempt to understand the reason for the existence of the gaping chasm that appears to divide the separate worlds of the visionaries on the one hand and the common sense realists on the other, I have pondered on the question of innocence, and it seems to me that what so often is taken to be either virtue or cynicism is ultimately a reflection of the duality of man’s nature expressed in the opposing conditions of innocence and experience. Within each human being at all times, and for each generation, the struggle is waged between two contrasting perceptions: the ideal, which is rooted in innocence, and the real, rooted in experience. In the condition of innocence, however, we are always threatened by experience, and sense that we are perilously close to losing the childlike innocence This is the realm at which innocence comes in to contact with politics; the experience emerges from the act of human association and disassociation.”
