Victor F. Weisskopf put it down to people not feeling a deep commitment to a great cause beyond their own personal interest:
The lack of awareness of sense and purpose has led culture to become increasingly shallow. When the most important needs have been provided for, the content of life may amount to no more than a desire for entertainment or pleasure. In the extreme, the lack of a sense of meaning of life may lead to such excesses as the use of drugs. The damage to our society by drugs, with all their terrible consequences, is more threatening today than the receding danger of nuclear war. . . . What is missing in too many individuals is a feeling of deep commitment to a great cause beyond our own personal interest – a cause whose value is never questioned. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 332.)
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For a brief biography of Victor F. Weisskopf, click here.
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