Mel Scult's Intro:
Part of the difficulty in being a person is that we often know what we ought to do but don't do it. In the selection below, Mordecai Kaplan, in his diary, reveals to us that he suffers from the same disease as the rest of us. It is somewhat reassuring to see that even the great people among us have the same problems as we all do. The other problem we often suffer from is ambivalence. The diary is particularly valuable because it reflects different and often conflicting moods. In the second selection Kaplan muses on his ambivalence about capitalism and communism. This entry was written in the early thirties. Kaplan was attracted to the socialist theory because of its obvious ethical content. It is ironic that he always had congregants who were wealthy though in his heart of hearts he saw himself as quite radical when it came to economic matters.

I cant do what I tell others to do
July 20, 1934

From the apparently little effect which all these exalted ideas about salvation seem to have upon me personally considering how far I am from doing the best, etc., --I began to suspect the value of those ideas. But then I recalled two facts which reconciled me to the paradox of uging something upon others which has but little effect on myself. First, the fact clearly pointed out by Aristotle that a desirable state of character cannot be attained through knowledge merely. It calls for long and arduous habituation, and not having being habituated to live my ideas I am condemned to keep on talking about them. Secondly, physicians who are cardiacs and consumptives are said to have an advantage over those who are well in having first hand knowledge of the diseases they try to cure.

Being Ambivalent - This time about Communism
July 25, 1934

It seems that the only way a man in my position can manage to exist is deliberately to split his personality and lead sort of Jekyll and Hyde existence. Otherwise I am likely to go insane or be a complete failure. All this fine talk about integrating one's personality is mere piffle. That doesn't mean to say I shall not wax enthusiastic about it, but I shall do it with that part of my personality which is bourgeois and parasitic. There will undoubtedly continue to operate a certain osmosis between the two personalities in me, but I must recognize the class struggle as existing between them no less than between the capitalists and the proletariats. I believe I shall be better off if I henceforth identify them as two separate entities even to the extent of naming them asthough they were two distinct persons. I shall call one Mordecai (the old Adam) and the other Menahem (the regenerate me). Mordecai is a liberal bourgeois. Menahem is an out and out Communist.