he were to acknowledge his atheism, his career would be ruined (evading the fact that many professors are known
atheists and their careers are unaffected by it). He tells himself that he is reluctant to cause pain to his elderly
parents who are devoutly religious and who would be dismayed by his lack of faith (evading the fact that he is not
obliged to "convert" his parents, merely to state his own convictions, and that a man who takes ideas seriously does
not sacrifice his own judgments, which he knows to be rational, in order to placate people whose beliefs he knows
to be irrational).
His rationalizations serve to shield him from a full recognition of his treason. But because it cannot be blanked out
entirely, he is condemned to struggle against secret feelings of self-contempt—and he retaliates by cursing the
malevolence of "the system" and of reality, since he cannot have his treason and his self-esteem, too.
Consider the case of a successful playwright who selects some important theme as the subject of a play, a theme
requiring and deserving a serious dramatic presentation, and then realizes that his viewpoint will antagonize a great
many people. He decides, therefore, to write the play as a comedy, making "good-natured fun" of the things he
regards as evil, counting on his humor to prevent anyone from taking his views seriously and being offended or
antagonized.
He does not tell himself that he dreads to be regarded as "unfashionable." Instead, he tells himself that serious plays
dealing with controversial ideas are noncommercial—and dismisses the many exceptions as "freaks" requiring no
explanation.
But he cannot entirely elude the knowledge that he has sold out the motive that prompted his desire to write the
play in the first place. So he retaliates against his discomfiting sense of moral uncleanliness by cursing the
"stupidity" and "bad taste" of the masses.
Consider the case of a scientist who despises the obscurantist jargon that is rampant in his profession, and the
"postulates" underlying that jargon, who is rationally convinced that the theories of many of his most highly
regarded colleagues are wrong. But he twists his brain to adopt that jargon in his own writings, dilutes his criticisms
in every possible way, and strives to smuggle his own ideas into the minds of his readers in such a manner that no
one will notice the extent of his departure from established belief.