… encounter with reality …
In the soothing softness of the modern world, the mass of traditional rules which gave consistency to life broke up as the frozen surface of a stream breaks up in spring … Thanks to the progress of technology, the greater part of the restraints imposed on us by the cosmos have disappeared and, along with them, the creative personal effort which those restraints demanded … The frontiers of good and evil have vanished in a mist of ideologies, whims, and appetites … As everyone knows, few observations and much discussion are conducive to error: much observation and little discussion to truth. (Reflections on Life – Alexis Carrel quoted in Religious Sense – Luigi Giussani p.3)