Man Cannot Change His Nature

Abstract

Why has the human factor been brought up?: I honestly cannot understand why many of our philosophers have for so long resisted placing the concept of the "human factor" in scholarly circulation. Of course, the conjunction of the words "human" and "factor" is unfamiliar. The ABCs of humanism teach that man cannot be a means, i.e., a "factor," that he is an end in himself and enjoys moral and spiritual autonomy. But to anyone willing to see and to hear, it has been clear from the outset that this is a special, even an exceptional case. For the first time in many years this awkward combination of words presented the possibility of reflecting on the principal lessons of our socialist history, of recalling those seminal truths of social existence that we have neglected.