Throughout the world, there is discontent and revolt. When people revolt, they are revolting against a pattern, the old establishment and so on. That revolt invariably creates its own pattern – long hair, LSD, permissive sexual laxity, and so on. As one observes historically and at present, one can see revolt invariably ends up in a pattern, perhaps slightly modified, but repeating the same old thing in a different way. Conformist again. You see what has happened? Like in Russia, they have had a terrific revolution, and I don’t know how many millions of people have been killed for an ideal. They are now coming back to the same old hierarchical principles – the high, middle and low. The high want to maintain their power at any cost, as the old establishment had tried before, and the battle is on again between the high, middle and low – the same pattern repeated. So I feel mere revolt is not a solution at all.
From a conversation with Donald Ingram Smith, New Delhi, 24 December 1966