ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates that a social malaise can be the product of half-truths and of intellectual confusion. The usual diagnosis of such a malaise has to do with such things as depersonalization and the welfare state. If a person believes, as those suffering from the contemporary malaise appear to do, that all actions have causes and that once one can point to a cause for their acts and they can use it as an excuse for their behaviour, this has two unfortunate effects, one logical and the other practical. Some men burden themselves with too great a sense of responsibility. They torture themselves for not being saints, seers, or supermen. They suffer from a malaise just as much as those who blame everyone except themselves for what they are. It is a widespread malaise fostered by half-truths that one can wish to consider. Such half-truths, when they gain a hold, can fester and lead to strange moods and maladies.
