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Thursday, December 7, 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Book Hoarding By KU Profs
In a recent research effort, I was nearly thwarted when I discovered that three major works relating to my subject were checked out by one of the faculty. Inasmuch as I did gain access to the works in time to finish the paper I was doing, I suppose I should feel lucky, but even so, there are a few questions still around in my mind. How, for example, can you honestly need to have a book checked out for over two years? Two of the books I wanted had been checked out since Nov. 1970, according to both the University records and the stamp in the books. Or for that matter, why should a professor need both his own copy of a book and the library's as well? When he apologetically met the book, and explained that he wasn't sure where the library copy of one of the books was, so he was loaining his personal copy instead. While I
certainly appreciate his consideration in loaning me his personal copy. I don't really understand why we copied two copies in the first place.
There is a simple solution to such abuse of privilege. The library should institute a system of fines for failing to return books before the due date, or returning books before the due date.
Those faculty members who really needed the extended use of library materials would find such fines to be no real handicap. Since faculty members are allowed to check books out for four months, those who wanted to keep books indefinitely could do so by returning the books to three times in a year. If the material is truly needed, this would constitute a small handicap; only those who don't really need the materials would consider such a system to be a great burden.
—Robert Ward
Garry Wills
Left Meets Right In Kooky Middle
Two years ago, when I described Richard Nixon as the defender of a dying liberalism, this position was trusted as an allegory. And Richard Nixon was a right-wing ogre, the liberals' favorite villain.
Yet one of the most striking aspects of this last election was the political advertisement, endorsing the President, printed with lists of old-line liberals appended. It is recognized that the anti-busters have hostages out and but people were surprised when they encountered Nixon's side from a vivid fear of the New Left.
Even those who did not openly endorse the President had much to fear if McGovern should prevail. What if we should reevaluate all the bases of the Cold War, as well as of the Constitution, much much the Establishment fears this development. It took the risky embarrassing step of making William Bundy—an interested party, to say the least—the editor of Foreign Affairs. And guess who supported him, against Left criticism? The wealthy members of National Review. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
The revisionist Left is an acute menace to the Cold War Establishment—and Nixon is the custodian of the myth that has always protected the Establishment by the myth of America's virtue.
But it goes deeper than that. The menace of the New Left, now splintered and debilitated, is still exaggerated in the Old Left's eyes. These children were their favored heirs of liberalism to turn on it, reject it, call it a privileged self-guarding establishment—nothing could hurt the official guardians more. Now they fill the pages of Commentary with cries about a new barbarian, the collage of the radical left, and the end of American tradition—the mean, of course, the end of liberalism.
Against such a radical challenge, the essential unity of the liberal tradition reasserts ideas of work, and of "self-determined" nations. William Buckley and MPat Moynihan mount the barricades together. Inside are Nixon and Kleinfeld. In the approaches, Norman Foolhardy and Irvist Kristol.
The false eminutes of a decade ago now dissolve to an embattled unity. I remember, some while unacknowledgmental, an alarmist right-winger saying that Robert Kennedy was a new Hitler. Now comes liberal pressure, and the student traumatized by campus unrest, saying "the performing self" (he means an Abbie Hoffmann) is the principal menace to our society.
But who takes Abbie seriously anymore? Professor Nisbet, that's who. In a Washington Post essay, he scans the horizon fearfully, looking for an Abbie grown outsize and to awe supe power. The candidate he finds is Senator Edward Kennedy.
Teddy's crime for Professor Nisbet—just like Bobby's crime for my right-wing friend—is that he has become, in Nisbet's words, a liberal intellectual Left in America." In short, the kids like him. if they do, that he must be cool. The wook right and kooky Left have performed an intricate dance in toward each other, where, united great landslide President, they now form the kooky Middle.
(C) Universal Press Syndicate, 1972
James J. Kilpatrick
Kilpatrick Backs Legalized Pot
WASHINGTON—In *the*, current issue, the editors of National Review grapple with the matter of marijuana, but with deference to my conservative colleagues, I think they let the main conservative questions slip away.
The principal article, which urges that marijuana be legalized, comes from Richard C. Buckley, a former president and Jeffrey Hark take a generally opposing view. William F. Buckley, Jr., editor-in-chief, fairly support C. Buckley, "for one reason, that it is plausible, but overwhelming."
On the face of it, this is an astonishing position to be taken by the nation's leading journal of conservative opinion. Yet if we are prepared to accept the position as the advanced by the proponents of pot, the position is not astonishing at all.
The question is deeply troubling, but it is not unusual. The same issues are involved in such matters as homosexuality and pornography. And if the teacher one finds the same principles, applied in reverse, in such diverse matters as the automobile air bag and the fluoridation of public water supplies, she can define the proper role of government in a free society.
The conservative philosophy holds, if I understand it correctly, that within certain limitations, a free people should be just that—that they are the limitations fixed by the impact of my conduct on your rights. As a general proposition, conservatives hold that no human condition should be prohibited by that conduct causes positive harm to the innocent bystander or to society as a whole.
We see this proposition at work in a thousand ways. In theory, a man is free to build a glue facet where it causes offense to his neighbors. The citizen is free to play his stereo; but he is not free to play it at full volume at 2 a.m. When he leaves the house, he pleases, and he has to stop at the stop lines. An activist is free to harangue a crowd, but he cannot provoke a riot. And so on. We see this proposition simply the harm that is done.
When homosexuality was held in nearly universal abhorrence, a valid case could be made against the employment of homosexuals in sensitive government positions—they were subject to blackmail. The argument is of the justification for law against pornography lies in the belief—a belief not susceptible to easy proof—that pornography corrupts society as a whole.
The other side of the proposition, as I say, lies in conservatives' hostility to laws that do not undertake to prohibit evil, but seek to compel good—the requirement for air bags, the fluoridation of public water supplies. But put those aside.
Getting back to the matter of marijuana. If criminal laws against the smoking of pot are to be justified, they have to be justified in terms of the harm that marijuana causes, not to the individual, but to society. There is some evidence, I understand, that marijuana tends to slow physical reactions, so that a drug on marijuana becomes a danger on the highway. Coconat flatly denies this. In any event, this is an argument against smoking-and-driving, not against smoking.
A second line of argument holds that the marijuana habit
leads to heroin addiction, heroin is universally regarded as a serious social evil, imposing heavy burdens upon society as a whole. If this causative theory is correct, this argument would suffice, and other serious students of the subject deny it absolutely.
These are the questions conservatives ought to be asking. Most persons of my generation are doubtlessly against it. We equate it vagely with sin, with misery, but keep coming back to Mencken's law, that is, in the absence of provable social harm, when A undertakes by law to impose his moral values on B, A is a scoundrel. If conservatives are to be consistent in their philosophy, they should join Cowan and Buckley to impose criminal sanctions against more possession and use of marijuana be repealed.
(C) The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
"WELL, CABINET MEETINGS ARE PICKING UP"
Readers Respona
Houseperson or Housewife?
Pavcheck
To the Editor:
According to the Chase Manhattan Bank, the average housewife works a 90.6 hour week and receives no paycheck. If Robert Ward was really as concerned about the future of housewives as he was about the future of "Degrading Freedom," (Nov. 30) he would not waste his time putting down women's liberation. He should ask the following two questions:
that theoretically favors equality, yet in actuality seeks to limit the options open to me and others. In contrast, a binary basis of sex difference
Cindy Kissee Olathe, Junior
Why not make housewifey a real job, with a 5-day, 40-hour work schedule? Some women more become housewives? Women's liberation is not against housewifey. It is more appropriate. The discrepancy between a society
Twist
Robert Ward's editorial "Degrading Freedom," (Nov. 30) utters the standard criticism against the feminist movement—feminists are degrading women who have been an elitist twist has been added—feminists should stop degrading housewives because there are all these mediocre women who can't be great (i.e., politicians' favors should not be assigned by the socialization process to the ranks of
To the Editor.
housewives in order to protect them from the frustration of unfulfilled aspirations that result from having alternatives.
Accusations that feminists degrade the role of the housewife are most often heard from women who have been widely promulgated in the male-dominated media. I suspect a sort of divide and contested underlies this hidden concern for the status of housewives.
The accusations, however motivated, are false. Feminists demand alternatives in roles for women. We do not bellittle housewives either we damn the feminist role or we damn the process which tells us this is the only appropriate role for us. The feminist role is the movement is successful being
a houseperson will assume greater significance. Women and men who choose this occupation will give it status by their selection. Degradation results from the current limitation of a woman's role which gives it a slave-like quality.
The sham of Ward's argument is obvious in his wistil approach. He is not sincerely concerned the mediocere dignity. He clearly considers the less valuable than the elite, a value judgment which also accrues to the roles he considers appropriate for each—housewife or professional professional or the elite. He is kind enough to feel that we should not deprive the "mediocere of their sense of human dignity"—even though we are by permitting them choices in occupations.
Griff and the Unicorn
By Sokoloff
Universal Press Syndicate 1972
Ward is right in saying that the whole American society does need liberation so all persons will be able to choose their own roles and occupations and that their needs will be met. However, this goal is not accomplished by designating certain roles as mediocre (i.e. housewife), and socializing certain groups within these them as their only appropriate alternatives. Human dignity is denied, not enhance'
LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, doubled and exceed 500 words. All letters are subject to the instructions according to space limitations and their students must provide their name, year in school and job, and staff must provide their name and position; others must provide their name
--by such (male) elitist management.
1
Lawrence Graduate Student
Monument
To the Editor:
In regard to your article of November 30 concerning the proposal for a Jayhawk program for the awarding program for the promotion of the Jayhawk and the proposed monument I should like to suggest to students McLane and Neil McLean that I work to the Alumni Association or the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The program perhaps could be utilized in campaigns for the University of Kansas students.
BARBARA NONICK
Shawnee Mission. Sophomore
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