Laboratories of Social Change Summary and Analysis

In this concluding chapter, Lessing points out that a regular diet of bad news keeps people in a depressed state concerning the human condition, but her belief is that this is a time of upheaval and rapid change. She thinks that people in a century or two will look back and say this was a time when the developing forces of self-knowledge warred with those of stupidity and mob thinking. On the bright side, she observes that several countries have adopted democracy in recent years, but on the dark side, many young people seem to regard democracy as a sham and a mask for exploitation. Lessing sympathizes, having witnessed hypocritical democracies, but she stresses that historically, the rights of choice and public criticism of government are relatively new. Ancient Greece was a slave state. The...