"You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said
it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You
have cried that man's sins are destroying the world and you have cursed
human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded.
Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more
sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to
morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you held as the cause of
your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed
independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have
sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial.
You have sacrificed happiness to duty.



"You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that
which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in honor from the sight
of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is
the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought
into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you
have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I-I am the man who has
granted you your wish.



"Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality was
designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of
your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all those evils
you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped
your motor. I have deprived your world of man's mind.



"Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The
mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn't. There
are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom
there aren't.



"While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of justice, of
independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem-I beat you to it, I
reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and
the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had been too innocently
generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality-mine.
It is mine that they chose to follow.



"All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it
is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not
choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not
recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a
claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don't. Do not beg us to return. We
are on strike, we, the men of the mind.



"We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the
creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against
the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike
against the doctrine that life is guilt.



"There is a difference between our strike and all those you've practiced for
centuries: our strike consists, not of making demands, but of granting them.
We are evil, according to your morality. We have chosen not to harm you any
longer. We are useless, according to your economics. We have chosen not to
exploit you any longer. We are dangerous and to be shackled, according to
your politics. We have chosen not to endanger you, nor to wear the shackles
any longer. We are only an illusion, according to your philosophy. We have
chosen not to blind you any longer and have left you free to face
reality-the reality you wanted, the world as you see it now, a world without
mind.



"We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been
the givers, but have only now understood it. We have no demands to present
to you, no terms of bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing
to offer us. We do not need you.