Cities with all their advantages have something hostile to liberal learning, the seductions are so subtle and accost the senses so openly on all sides.
There are seductions that should be in the Smithsonian Institute, right next to The Spirit of St. Louis.
One of the key places where sociology should be used is in analyzing 'the world' of our times, so that we can be more discerning. To resist the dangers of the world, you have to recognize the distortions and seductions of the world.
The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.
To be free one needs constant and unrelenting vigilance over one's weaknesses. A vigilance which requires a moral energy most of us are incapable of manufacturing. We relax back into the moulds of habit. They are secure, they bind us and keep us contained at the expense of freedom. To break the moulds, to be heedless of the seductions of security is an impossible struggle, but one of the few that count. To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble.
