Exploring medialand
The first plunge into Marshall McLuhan's analysis of the media world was a heady experience.
The class met in a carpeted room in Oliver Hall, and we all sat on the floor with bare feet and the expressions of disciples. Sitting on the table above us, manning the two slide projectors, the movie projector and the stereo tape recorder, was our instructor.
Our minds swam in a sea-like sense environment. Television, Picasso, Alice in Wonderland, Ultra Bright, music playing back against McLuhan's script, the verbal and visual puns cascading down.
"The Medium is the Massage."
"Massage?"
Hot and cold media. The invention of the linear, sequential alphabet. "Curse you, cursive!" Introduction of the telegraph — our shrinking world, the global village. The onslaught of electronic technology, which has created new ways of getting into one's environment.
"Is this relevant?" someone asked. What does this have to do with anything?
"Well, maybe McLuhan is wrong," our instructor said. "Let's talk about it."
McLuhan talks about our involvement with our environment—each contact that man has with anything outside himself. Does this include unseen forces, man's spiritual life? Does technology extend our ability to love one another, to pray?
The class asked questions and probed the unorthodox meanderings of McLuhan's words and pictures. It is hard to learn when you have to do most of the probing by yourself and cannot rely on a textbook or an established set of theories.
But that kind of education is also the easiest, because it's fun.
What a radical thought.
Have fun in your classes, too.
Norm notes
Joanna K. Wiebe
By Mike Shearer Kansan Arts & Graphics Editor
The recent headline read: "Bomb Raids Back to Normal."
"normal, adj. 1. conforming to the standard or the common type; regular, usual, natural, or not abnormal. the normal procedure. 2. serving to fix a standard. .."
Perhaps bombing is no longer considered an aberration from man's naturally peaceful state. Perhaps it is now natural for men to be at war.
You know, don't you, that normalcy is no absolute. We determine what is normal.
Or have we, in our limp silence, already made that determination?
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Gus DiZerega
Rapping left
Man is mortal. That may be; but let us die resisting; and if our lot is complete annihilation, let us not behave in such a way that it seems justice!—Obermann, Letter 90.
History is full of examples of men fighting for their liberty against impossible odds, sometimes winning, more often losing but serving as a constant reminder that there is more in the hearts of men than love of money and power.
Dissent in California this summer was repressed in an orgy of police madness at Berkeley. Ronald Reagan's goons gassed, murdered and maimed their way to that high principle of "law and order."
The right wing government ran amok, offering chaos and fear in the name of law and order. The support for Reagan by the middle class had uncomfortable parallels with the overwhelming support the Nazis got from the German middle class.
Returning to Kansas, I found the same senseless reaction with even less cause. Senator Reynolds Shultz, other venal politicians, the Board of Regents and the "common man" have united to destroy the internal autonomy of the University of Kansas.
The most promising innovation for peaceful internal university reform in the United States has been destroyed in an orgy of mindless reaction. The Senate Code still exists on paper, but its viability has been destroyed from without.
The action taken against the disruption of the ROTC Review was handled solely by the students and faculty, as it should have been.
A peaceful University handling its own affairs is not what Senator Shultz and his ilk want. The University must be brought to heel, the students must be cowed and beaten, and Mount Oread must become a mere extension of Topeka.
Our Senate Code was like Dubcek—it was too successful. It had to be destroyed. We can expect greater inroads in the future as the University system becomes more and more an arm of the State.
We must all unite to preserve our University. Despite their differences, students, faculty and administrators all stand to lose when the University ceases to be free. We must demand a guarantee from the legislature that our affairs are our own, that internally we will be autonomous. Shultz and his ilk should be put on notice that students are not doormats, that KU shall be free, for all men—even Senator Shultz—or it shall not be.
"Straight" students should also be concerned. Only the long-hairs got it this time, but all students will now be under pressure to conform, not to think and act for themselves. Now anyone's private records can be scrutinized by the politicians in Topeka.
I am not revolutionary. I do not think the road to freedom lies through a mound of corpses. Still, we are, as the Senator has said, at war. Let us remember this. We do not need violence to battle him. Violence is his tactic.
Shultz and his minions are the ones ready to use the police, courts, and military. He already has done so.
No one should go to class, no one should teach a class.
A massive voluntary student strike should coincide with student leaders from right, middle and left going to Topeka to negotiate to regain our internal autonomy. Faculty and administration should be urged to join us. This is their battle too. To do less is spineless.
As a united campus we should close this University down for one day.
If KU produces men, now is the time to snow u.
Change of tune urged
Dear Editor:
Miss Joanna K. Wiebe's editorial comment of September 16th makes me want to puke!
Economic hard times, the draft and political suppression indeed.
This country enjoys unprecedented economic prosperity and the opportunity to attend a college or university was never better (just try to find a parking place and look at the number of cars, mostly new). . . . Sure, there is room for improvement, but your tale of gloom and doom just doesn't match the facts.
Yes, we have a draft and it will undoubtedly continue for a long time. I am intimately familiar with that situation as my husband was drafted this year and is now in the Army. However, we Americans and college students are not alone. The Russians, Chinese, Koreans (North and South), Vietnamese (North and South), Germans (East and West), and all of the East Europeans have a draft too. You seem to have lost sight of a simple time-honored fact of life. Rights, privileges and responsibilities
go hand in hand. . . We all want the war to stop. How about devoting some of your energy to sending appeals to the Viet Cong and Hanoi. They too have a role in the hostilities.
Your accusation of political suppression really makes me boil. The students suspended were disciplined for flagrant breaches of established and published rules of conduct. No one denied these "politically suppressed martyrs" the right of peaceful assembly and demonstration. The suspended students were found guilty by a duly constituted disciplinary body composed of fellow students and faculty. Action was taken only after lengthy and fair hearings. Is that your idea of political suppression?
You remain conspicuously silent on important facts. What did the "politically suppressed" actually do?
They physically destroyed University property when they forced their way into the stadium. They ignored law enforcement officials by pushing them aside. They shouted obscenities and made equally obscene gestures to fellow students. One of the "politically suppressed" actually shoved the Chancellor of the University aside in order to take over the reviewing stand to direct his forces. . . . You further remain silent concerning the rights of ROTC cadets. If you like it or not, they too have certain rights including the right of peaceful assembly. . . . The ROTC student believes in something also, to the point of placing his life at stake when he enters the armed forces.
Political dissent is great. It is a long standing part of our heritage and I pray that it continues. But we should remember that a right is not a license to disregard the rights of others and the rules by which we gain this right.
Why don't you try telling it like it is? Investigate all sides and be a good editor. I guess from your comments that you have never talked to an ROTC cadet, a member of the armed forces, a local merchant or banker, or a government official. Blow your horn as loud as you please. But, study the music first or you will continue to blow sour, untrue notes.
Suzy Leary
Senior