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Of course, they also know that their ideal is not reachable or even approachable. It is, short of cloning and hatcheries, barely even conceivable. Nor do they truly want their ideal to be realized, for then they would have no providential role to play and would have to sink back into the great mass of humanity, their work done. No; they criticize the world from the standpoint of an impossible ideal not to improve the world but to stir resentment, that emotional equivalent of the perpetual motion machine. The resentful are easy to manipulate and willing to confer power on those who offer to liberate them from the supposed causes of their distress. Therefore it is important to keep inequalities of opportunity firmly before men’s minds; important, and easy, too, for it is always the case that if things had been different, things would have been different. Though we are enjoined—less and less frequently, to be sure—to count our blessings, it is far easier and more gratifying to count our curses. It accords with our desire to explain, or explain away, our failure. There are whole university departments set up to train students to do nothing else. The failure of others is a golden career opportunity for some.

Going to the other extreme, however, the belief that we can be liberated from all constraining circumstances whatsoever even without the establishment of equality of opportunity, what might be called yes-we-cannery, is also a recipe for ultimate misery. Self-conscious optimism (in most cases) leads to disappointment, defeat, and bitterness. That is why American literature, apart from the preposterous Walt Whitman, is generally tragic, because the country is so determinedly optimistic. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Thank goodness I have overcome my resentment—or would have done so if it hadn’t been for all these interruptions that I constantly suffer, and the necessity to earn my living. I have to work three months a year or more just to earn enough to pay my house and car insurances and my local taxes. No wonder my best books are those I haven’t written; it’s not my fault. The world is conspiring against me, preventing me from doing my best work, to its own immense detriment. I am glad in a way, it serves the world right.