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Wednesday, November 18, 1970
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Kansan Photo by Tina Borak
Lack of Heroes Increases Disunity
Most commentators have agreed that the world lost the last of its giants when the heroic Charles De Gaulle died last week.
Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, De Gaulle—all the great men who were so instrumental in shaping the postwar era are gone.
These men, though, were more than leaders of their countries and makers of history. They were heroes; they were admired and loved and followed by the peoples of their countries.
The French people showed how deeply they felt this love when, through darkness and rain the night of De Gaulle's funeral, they marched—a million strong—up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. As the head of the column reached the burial place of France's unknown soldier, thousands of voices broke into the Marseillaise.
And this wasn't exclusively an outpouring of emotion by older Frenchmen remembering the days when De Gaulle gave their country the pride and strength to engender a rebirth of French grandeur. The young faces in the vast crowd indicated that they, too, had lost a hero.
Recent Gallup polls have shown that Americans today are at a loss when asked to name a national figure who is a hero to them.
There are those who would question the relevance of the hero image in the era of the 20th century. But heroic figures have had a way of healing divisiveness within a country and leading it to greatness with a sense of purpose, as De Gaulle was able to do in France.
There is an aura about heroic figures that unifies a people in admiration for them. Maybe America needs a hero now more than it ever has. There is a disturbing and uneasy comparison to be made between the bricks and bottles directed at the President of the United States in San Jose, Calif., last month and the unashamed love and patriotic emotion directed toward a former French president by his people last week.
If we do lack today persons of universal respect and admiration with heroic qualities of courage and a sense of purpose, perhaps it is because, as John F. Kennedy wrote in "Profiles in Courage," "A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or reward that quality in its chosen leaders today."
It is admittedly difficult to pinpoint the actual effects of this modern dearth of heroes.
As old-fashioned as it may seem, heroes can still set examples for their people, can give them a sense of unity and purpose.
The loss of Charles De Gaulle has brought to mind what fixtures of his heroic dimensions have been able to
do and what such a heroic figure could mean to the American people today.
—Bob Womack
The Lighter Side Hold the Praise
BY DIOR WAY
UPI Writer
Almost nothing will cool off a teenage age romance quote as quickly as the girl's finding out about her boyfriend's appearance of the boy she is dating.
I made this discovery on a recent evening when I went over to Harper Valleys house matters involving the PTA.
Harper, which isn't his real name, but two teenage daughters who are not their real names either. For some reason the Vallois children aren't their real names either.
As we were looking over the proposed PTA budget for the coming school year, Echo came in with her boy friend, Ashton Flakley. I was impressed by him.
He was a clean-cut lad with unusually good manners and a respectful way of speaking to people. He is an example of faith in the young generation.
Harper whirled around and clapped a hand over my mouth. "Sisshih" he kissed, "Echo might hear you."
"Ashson sure seems like a nice kid" I remarked later. "He has a lot of . . ."
"What's the big idea?" I said pushing his hand aside. "I was only going to say that Echo's
boy friend has a lot of . . . "
Harper raised a finger to his lips, "For Pete's sake" keep your voice down" he said. "If Echo hearts you say something complimentary about Aktion to go out with him any more."
"Why?" I said. "What makes you think that?"
"Because that's the way we lost Donny Appleberry."
**Who is Danny Appleberry?**
"Peacea's ex-boy friend. He was a great friend, kid who was a pleasure to have around. Best of all, we felt safe about letting her go out with her." So we encouraged her to date.
"And that was a mistake?"
"A dreadful mistake. As soon as Peace discovered that we liked Donny, she decided that he was square and dropped him on the car. He did this by dating a bearded creep who calls for her on a motorcycle."
"But you are her parents?" I said. "I'm just a family friend, isn't it all right for me to approve of Echo's boy friend?"
"At this stage, when they've just started going steady, any adult prison could cause a man to fall. If you don't have anything bad to say, I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself."
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Dream Along, Dream Alone The Sleep of the Just
Kansan Writer
Martin Luther King gave expression to one of the greatest, corruptions of our time. His "I have a dream" assumed a definition of a dream as something that one hoped to see realized. Yet it is the essence of a fine dream that it not be realizable, and that one not hope it to be.
By DAVID PERKINS
The corruption of dream-as-vision to a dream-as-hope has turned once beautiful and fantastic dreams into nightmares of delusion and frustration. The idea that our dreams represent possibilities leads to a natural devaluation of the hopelessly outclassed right-now reality, and a great feeling of gullish and impotence for not being able to "make our dreams come true."
For the minute one begins to realize one's dreams (which is not at all possible if they are good dreams) they lose all of their worth as entertainment, diversion, vision and restoration, and become just another boring and debased reality. It is not the dream, however, that becomes reality; it is merely lost, even as a dream. What becomes reality is some trivial approximation, some monstrous child that in its very birth killed the dream.
It is commonly remarked that the great malaise of our time is the rift that separates our dreams from the reality of our society. The fact is exactly the reverse. We are frustrated because they are so close, because we work so tirelessly to make them close. Our current frustration and general unhappiness will be as nothing when we actually close the dream-reality gap.
What is vital to a healthy society is that its citizenry, both hip and straight, devote itself to spontaneously improving the quality of its real sociality and, quite distinctly, to improving the quality of its personal life. Dreams are made canon and cannon, it hardly pays to stay awake.
★★
A second great corruption is the romantic pursuit of justice. And this
pace is generally run by those who have the most to lose from it.
When a brick shatterers glass, that is justice. When a wolf eats a nake, when cockroaches survive and dinosaurs populate museums, when General Motors thrives and conscience objects go to jail, that is justice. That is essential justice. But this essential justice is disturbed by the operations of capitalism. The capitalist view is that everything is translated into "a system" of justice (thereby removing its essence) and that everything can be assigned a value on a numerical (read dollar) scale and that all debts incurred are dischargeable.
Further, under this system everyone receives what is his due. This means no more and no less. However, the restriction against "no more" turns quickly to parsimony, thru a dementia of life's essential prodigality. The justice of "no more" becomes an obsession and manufactures scarcity to satisfy itself, thereby creating the injustice that is infringing virtually due to the Depression. The desire for justice among "referees" to maintain capitalism they are. They seek to deny the essential character of existence by tacking on all of us an arbitrary (and now reactionary) price system.
But the most ridiculous critics for justice are in the revolutionary Left. For their mewing for justice is accompanied by a call for destruction of the system. Obviously, a very complex system is indispensable for the operation of system justice. Without it, we would revert to the essential justice of the brick, the wolf and General Motors. (The law does not protect General Motors: General Motors protects the law). For anyone as puny as Jerry Rubin or as helpless as an acid freak to that is partly sulcised.
I think it's clear that we should get rid of ridance. It's become an encumbrance. If we ran our economy half-way-sanity (eliminating our current, high judicious death trip of production-consumption) we could all live fairly comfortably without very much effort. Most of us would not have to "work" at all, and could direct ourselves almost exclusively to the more important task of dreaming.
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NEWS STAFF
News Advisor Del Brinkman
Editor Monroe Dodd
Audited Editor Cass Stewart
Census Editor Tom Scales
Editors Gail Bland.
Editors
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Articles and Reviews
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Ji Hoffman, Radarhead
What probits our doing this is our insistence on the capitalist system of justice, balanced precariously over, and partly obscuring, the essential justice beneath. We do not allow one another more than we are due. We oppose expansion, overflowing (except of phosphate detergents), and insist that we be treated equally, "justly," when no treatment could be further from justice.
Business Advisor Mel Adams
Director of Advertising Manager John Lafayette
Advertising Manager John Lafayette
Marketing Director Richard Stimulus
National Art. Mgr. Richard Stimulus
Circulation Manager Todd Smith
Circulation Manager Todd Smith
We can afford it now, because we don't have to buy it.
RUSINESS STAFF
For the first time in history we can scrap both essential justice, and begin to treat one another unfairly well. (We have begun to do so already in a minor, though furtive, way.) Only with justice overridden does fraternity become a possibility. No one I know, and least of all myself (who I know best), deserves to be loved.
We can afford it once, because we don't have to bear it.
Member Associated Collegiate Press
'Gromyko says we should get these figments of US imagination camouflaged immediately.'
Griff & the Unicorn
By Sokoloff
LETTERS
"Copyright 1970, University Daily Kansas"
God Save the Greeks!
I was very much moved while reading the editorial in last Wednesday's Kansan. After doing so, I felt compelled to respond. My reason for this was a personal concern for the Greek system.
To the Editor:
It's true that housing has been a serious problem at UW. It's also a major halls and Greek houses are really suffering. But it was only through experience that I learned of the structure of the University, by the Greeks. Unfortunately, my knowledge of the structure and its limitations, I cannot comment limited. I can only comment from
personal opinion and past experience.
Just in the last two and a half months I have come to realize that, to a certain extent, there actually was some truth to the rumors that the Greek system is more involved found on the campuses of colleges and universities on both coasts. Better yet, ask any senior active no longer living in the house on this campus why he or she moved out. However, I have found—and made sure of it—sake that this continues to be true—the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
I agree with the statements cited in the context of the case that the Greek system would not facilitate immediate change in order to preserve the Greek system indefinitely at KU. Examples cited were in a study that needed most were very effective.
I hate to see the downfall of the Greek system. I hope the Greeks will take immediate action before it's too late. The competition is becoming greater all the time, and confidence that they will survive
God save the Greeks!
Marcia Foster Chanute junior