Human Nature and the Human Condition

Since the publication of The Modern Temper thirty years ago Joseph Wood Krutch has maintained and enhanced his distinguished place in American letters. Now for the first time since the publication of The Measure of Man-which won the National Book Award as the most important work of nonfiction in 1954 Dr. Krutch has written a book about his central concern the nature of man and society. In HUMAN NATURE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION he contributes a searching commentary on American life today. This book focuses on concepts familiar to all of us. and characteristically. Dr. Krutch probes them in highly original and concrete fashion. Sympathetic and incorruptible he writes about such vital contemporary problems as prosperity and the cult of the high standard of living (how synonymous is with the good life?): the problem of the threatened loss of our belief in the dignity of man; the peculiar nature of American materialism; the question of more leisure for whom and for what; and the meaning of the welfare state. The Measure of Man was a defense of the reality of human choice and will against HUMAN NATURE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION upholds the validity of value judgments against Relativism which Dr. Krutch considers the great religion of our time. His thesis is that good and evil the beautiful and the ugly are not merely relative to a particular culture-the prejudices of a given society-but have meaning in relation to a permanent human nature. In developing this theme Joseph Wood Krutch reveals himself as a modern humanist who brings alive the enduring principles of humanity.