The evolution of the capitalist style of life could be easily - and perhaps most tellingly - described in terms of the genesis of the modern Lounge Suit.
Once, as an experiment, I travelled around the world with a single suit. Before I left, I went to a tailor in Savile Row and asked him to make me a suit that I could wear in any climate and which I could use as a tuxedo, a dinner jacket, a lounge suit and a blazer.
If I as a geologist were called upon to explain briefly our modern ideas of the origin of the earth and the development of life on it to a simple, pas- toral people, such as the tribes to whom the Book of Genesis was addressed, I could hardly do better than follow rather closely much of the language of the first chapter of Genesis.
[T]he effects of general change [in literature] are most tellingly recorded not in alteration of the best products, but in the transformation of the most ordinary workaday books; for when potboilers adopt the new style, then the revolution is complete.
For me, what takes up most of the space in my closet are suits. I wear a lot of suits and jackets. But I think every man needs a black suit at home. You can never go wrong in a black suit. But in terms of style, I think it's about being comfortable in what you wear.
As far as he could see, the world was moving, in an orderly capitalist fashion, toward a logical, perhaps provisional, perhaps permanent, end.
Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.
A black suit can be classic and timeless and certainly for most occasions. But remember, it's not so much the color of suit as it is about the fit, cut, style, and, of course, attitude you have when wearing it.
As to harmonizing the theory of evolution with the Biblical account of creation, I do not believe it can be done, and I do not see why it should be. The story of Genesis is beautiful, and profoundly significant as symbolism: there is no good reason to torture it into conformity with modern theory.
When it comes to the whole debate today over evolution versus creation, Jesus affirmed the early chapters of Genesis were accurate when He said, "Have you not read, that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female" (Matthew 19:4). Adam and Eve didn't come on the scene after billions of years of mutations and evolution. No. God created them all the way back in the beginning-just like Moses reported in the Book of Genesis.
I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man - and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.
In the end, the most important thing to me is that I've raised three kids. I know that'll be the most important accomplishment of my life and it is the most easily obtainable, because all you have to do is pay attention. It is hard work and most people don't realize that's the real gift they are getting in terms of goals and success and accomplishments.
And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis.
The past is discredited because it is not modern. Not to be modern is the great sin. So, perhaps, it is. But every one has, in his day, been modern. And surely even modernity is a poor thing beside immortality. Since we must all die, is it not perhaps better to be a dead lion than a living dog?
I was working more on a primal, instinctive level. And it just seemed to suit me; it seemed to suit my concentration span, it seemed to suit my personal style of performance, and I have fallen in love with film acting.
We started off with physical evolution and got our form. Then we somehow developed language, which meant cultural evolution could race so we could change our behavior really quickly instead of over hundreds and hundreds of years. And then comes moral evolution, which means we're not frightfully far along with people. And maybe we end up with a spiritual evolution, which is this connectedness with the rest of the life forms on the planet.
Perhaps the most significant event in the evolution of the liberated mind arrives with the realization that most people, even in their deepest convictions, are blind to most truths.