The second result of feeling that we are separate minds in an alien,and mostly stupid, universe is that we have no common sense, no way ofmaking sense of the world upon which we are agreed in common. It'sjust my opinion against yours, and therefore the most aggressive andviolent (and thus insensitive) propagandist makes the decisions. Amuddle of conflicting opinions united by force of propaganda is theworst possible source of control for a powerful technology.It might seem, then, that our need is for some genius to invent a newreligion, a philosophy of life and a view of the world, that is plausibleand generally acceptable for the late twentieth century, and throughwhich every individual can feel that the world as a whole and his ownlife in particular have meaning. This, as history has shown repeatedly, isnot enough. Religions are divisive and quarrelsome. They are a form of

one-upmanship because they depend upon separating the "saved" fromthe "damned," the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from theout-group. Even religious liberals play the game of "we're-more-tolerant-than-you."