[99] is the object of a LIMITED desire. It EXCLUDES others. And the same thing is with the world of objects: something is EXCLUDED, if you have something else. Of course there is a drive in us, in ALL of us, to draw the whole of reality into ourselves. And the machine is perhaps the highest, and in this sense in a new way the most demonic^a, symbol for this insatiable desire to go beyond anything given to the new which is given. Now in almost a caricature, this is the case in the selling and buying attitudes of our present trade activities, where everything which is one or two years old of usage is thrown away and replaced by something new, and the main attraction of something new is that it has a little bit more gadgets, or a little bit different, maybe essentially even less work, but there is something new in it, and so it is better than what was before. This kind of drive is the symbol for what the old theology called "concupiscence," endless desire. The desire in itself is good, it belongs to human finitude--we all need the other one and the other thing. But the infinity of it: that is what the old theology condemned as concupiscence, the endlessness of it. If we therefore ask ourselves: how can we overcome this situation? (which certainly cannot be overcome absolutely in our situation of time and space--we cannot create a utopian situation), then the only answer I can give is one which has been given in a book by my friend Professor [Herbert] Marcuse^b, Eros and Civilization, who is in Brandeis, a sociologist, and his answer, in this analysis, is EROS^c, in some way.* Now I don’t know whether the answer can be used in the whole of society as a real transformation of the forms of life as we live together today. There the problem of the interpretation of history, of utopia, etc., comes in. But the fundamental point of this answer is true, that the eros relationship between man and man, between man and object, has been lost. I first noticed that when I came to this country and saw people go into the nature. There are others, and it is never the final insight you have, if you observe something in this country--it is always something else also. But at least it was a partial impression I had--they go into the car, they run to the country, they stop for a look, take their N. Y. Times, read it, and go on! [laughter] This is "going out into nature." Now what is lacking here? What is lacking is eros^d, because eros means commitment to that which you want to have, with which you want to fill your need. And then something miraculous happens: nature also commits itself to you, and comes to you, and this is a mutual relationship. But if you treat it as something at which you look in glimpses and then go on speedily, then it DOESN'T REVEAL ITSELF TO YOU. That is one example for the situation in which the possibilities ruin the eros relationship. And what l want, as my last word to this whole section on technology and religion, is [to say] that religion^e, on the basis of becoming ultimate concern, may HELP us perhaps to be concerned on this basis about the PRELIMINARY things in an ultimate depth, and the ultimate depth of ALL relations between finite realities is love^f. *PT, in aside to visitor in the audience (Jacob Taubes): "I see that you have it with you!"