Dianetics is the science of reason. In Group Dianetics we have been talking on the level of nations because people are wondering about atom bombs and the fate of existence, and we have stressed this point. However, nations are not the only groups in the world. One group is like another group, a collection of individuals with certain goals and desires. I would like to tell you about how to straighten out a group and raise its survival value and general tone.

A strong man who is well and cheerful is much better able to survive than one who is sour on life. A person who survives is a person who has the greatest survival potential. It is measured by his general tone, his attitude toward life, his ability to cooperate with life and his native intelligence, as well as other factors. All men are not born equal. Some, for instance, have greater ability to execute their ideas.

All men are entitled to equal rights under law, if it is any kind of group. When a group denies individual rights it is far down on the tone scale. The individual needs to determine his own future, to conduct his own life, and so on. Russia has overlooked this.

The United States has overlooked to some slight degree the individual’s necessity to be a part of his group. The group of the United States is not as strong and powerful a group, as groups go, as it is a strong and powerful number of individuals. Our stress is on the individual. Perhaps it is a little over stressed, but this does not mean that the individual is not entitled to equal rights under law. It means that he should be given more of something. An individual should have more say in the conduct of his nation and is entitled to a greater feeling of oneness with the other members of his group, and he is entitled to contribute to the group.

During the last war people were not allowed to contribute their skills to the country. The personnel placement failed badly. For instance, a trained engineer would ride a motorcycle to carry messages, or a boy who was really a good architect would pilot a plane. The inability of the individual to contribute to his group lowered his tone.

There seemed to be some belief on the part of the administration that the people were soft-headed and had to be protected. The news dispatches that came out led people to believe that the war was not very serious, but the people in the combat area knew it was not so good. Every government does this out of some mistaken idea of security or effort to pick up the group tone.

The war neuroses turned up back of the battle lines, not in the battle lines. Those in actual action were not hysterical. A person in a supply depot would develop a war neurosis, and a soldier on the front lines would not go mad. He was contributing to his group.

There is an enormous group potential in every individual. Russia plays up to this group potential. It sells the group to the individual and tells the individual he is not important as himself. It is too heavy on the third dynamic. It says the group is all.

Man has a tremendous need to belong to a group, and people of the country cannot be prevented from contributing to the country. People who were given charity wanted to be able to work. They should have been permitted to contribute to the group, but they were not, and therefore they were very unhappy. The individual must be able to contribute to the group, and vice versa. One is not greater than the other.

There is nothing wrong in our basic structure except that the group ideal has slacked off. Weneed to get democracy burnished up instead of talking about better forms of government. Some people were willing to consider that fascism was desirable and could be expected. They were willing to let the tone of the country drop into effect. They all have ideas about how this group should be run. They should be able to express their ideas, should have more direct representation, should be themselves the government. That is the way a democracy should work.

It is a simple thing to increase the tone of a country, without even clearing up its engrams. All you have to do is demonstrate the fact that the group has a mission and give each individual the right to contribute to the carrying out of this mission. In this way we could carry forward with an increased tone level.

But we should go back and find where these hidden pieces of information are: Did J. P. Morgan sell us out as a nation? What about the Civil War? An entire part of this country is stuck in the Civil War. This engram should be run out.