You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the existential confusion of humanity, despite advancements in science and technology.
Walker Percy articulates a profound concern about modern society's disconnection from self-awareness and purpose. He suggests that, although we have made remarkable progress in scientific and technological fields, we remain fundamentally lost regarding our identity and the meaning of our actions. This reflects a paradox where material advancements do not translate to an understanding of the human condition.
In practice
During a lecture on existential philosophy, this quote can be used to illustrate the dissonance between technology and human understanding.
They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself -- ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide.
It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal.
Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?
We love those who know the worst of us and don't turn their faces away.
Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.
Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past.
The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.
Our forms of government - though both cast in the democratic pattern - are greatly different. Indeed, sometimes it appears that many of our misunderstandings spring from an imperfect knowledge on the part of both of us of the dissimilarities in our forms of government.
Memoirs are the backstairs of history.
Cities give us collision. 'Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man.
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
If we are concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is plausible to decrease waste, to make better use of stocks available, and to develop substitutes. But what about the appetite itself? The major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialised countries
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