ABSTRACT
A person may have to select among techniques, modify them, question their application—all in light of the contingencies of his life. With each new challenge to the individual people could realistically imagine from a theoretical point of view, with every new difficulty where a person seeks advice in real life, the program would be pushed farther. For individualist morality, however, the need is unavoidable for a new conception of the individual, different from the inadequate creature which the success of liberalism has mythologized and which has set so much of the political agenda in this century. Formal schooling fails to provide the best training for certain people, there is no question. In that respect Harrington has a plausible claim against relying on education to deal with the culture of poverty. An ordinary person can look at a situation, see that his belief about it is false, and revise that belief.
