[141] value? My answer was, it cannot. There are many ways in which an idea can come into existence, but no way as such refutes or confirms the truth WITHIN ITSELF. For this reason, I warn you, ALWAYS, [not] to confuse these two questions, of genesis and validity^a. I may add here perhaps one thing because it is of such practical importance for our thought in our daily lives: Let us imagine that you discuss a problem of a life decision, an ethical or vocational decision, with a friend. And after a certain time, he tells you: of course, you must think like that because you come from this suburban sociological background. --- If then I were in your situation, I would answer: Yes, and you must think like that because you have neurotic traits in your character! -- This is the only answer you can give. And then what is the next step? l used to say the next step is that one of the two says to the other, "So let's stop this and have a drink!" [laughter] Now this is a caricature of the method which confuses genesis and validity. Probably he is right when he tells you that the fact of your coming from a special suburban surroundings enforces your ethical judgments. And probably YOU are right when you tell HIM that the neurotic elements (everybody has some) in his character structure enforce HIS theoretical---political or theological---judgments. But you only can continue asking: So what? That is the situation. That is all our situation. And you can, if it were not for grades, deal with me in the same way and say, "We don’t come any more because we can deduce this from your being born in the year 1886, in the middle of the High-Capitalist society of Central Europe; you are a German and nourished in German romanticism; you are a neurotic with extreme guilt feelings [laughter] ; so everything you tell us here is nothing [other] than