Page 2 Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, July 2. 1957
Conformity: Blame The Liberals
"Conformity—Strength In Numbers," our "un-American" editorial published in the June 25 issue of the Summer Session Kansan, snare-drummed opposition to a more tympanic crescendo than we expected. Not only were we forced—out of editorial fairness—to publish two letters from students-who showed no qualms about disagreeing, but we had to run an editorial that double-crossed us by carrying the idea of conformity to the point of absurdity.
In many vague ways we agreed with both the letter writers and the opposing editorialist. We agree with the letter writers that the conforming tendency of today's youth is leading us like "anxious sheep . . . straight to the wolves." We also agree that "individualism can be dangerous, but that its dangers are preferable to those inherent in collectivism."
We agree with the editorialist that a certain amount of conformity in society is necessary—that is the obvious, the fundamental. We cannot live without a few rules, formal and informal.
We DO disagree, however, with the letter writer who wrote that he believes we are unaware of the implications of our statements. We believe the present generation youth HAS found strength in numbers, and that he learned it from the liberals of the past 40 years. The silent generation has learned conformity from the pragmatic liberal who neglected religion, ethics, and esthetics and over-emphasized the activities associated with the getting of a living-security.
Pragmatic liberalism, this 18th Century child, grew out of the mastering of nature and machinery. For the liberals, this combination of science and technology was the answer, the panacea for an ailing society or an ailing individual. He latched onto a social fact and followed it blindly to its depressing, abyssmal end. He ignored a real and important fact: facts themselves change, even in the physical sciences. He ignored traditional thinkers—the ideals we inherited from Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Voltaire, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Mill. He ignored the world of personality—the existence of feelings, emotions,
values, purposes—for his great god, Science, that would save the world, he thought.
Besides this pragmaticism, the silent generation has inherited the characteristic of affable compromise that grew out of the political ambivalence of the old liberals. During the 1930's, American liberals laid in a calm climate between the Marxian revolutionaries on the Left and the Fascist revolutionaries on the Right. Some fell in with the Marxists, some with the Fascists, but most of them never could wholeheartedly agree with either side and were consequently left without a voice, no longer daring to act. They were afraid of the soils of battle, so they all became pacifists. Force, was a dirty word then, and it still is.
The main point of our editorial was that this college generation has learned from the liberals themselves that they should be nice quiet kids who should think everybody and everything is good, and who should be optimistic when the world has sunk to an all-time humanistic low. Even though most of the present generation did not experience Bolshevism, Nazism, and Stalinism, they have inherited the muddled thought that was typical of the liberals who did.
Thus, in view of the liberal's history of pragmaticism and pacifism, it is no wonder that the present college generation has become withdrawn and blissfully unaware that the future is much more important than the present.
This would seem the most pitiful characteristic of the American college generation today: their unwillingness to sacrifice for a better future, not only for themselves but for all the world. What they all must learn is that an ignominiously contented individual is of little value to society, and that while conformity offers security for the present, they are running, as our critic writes, "straight to the wolves."
Can they be saved? We do not expect the savior to be a pragmatic liberal. If he comes at all, he will be awakened from this generation or the next. Old liberalism has died a natural death; procreation is no longer possible because the ideas are sterile. —Dale Morsch
Two on the Isle -
There are several reasons why people go to the movies. (1) They don't have an air conditioner, (2) They don't have a car, (3) The television set is broken, (4) They can't afford a six-pack, (5) They're wild about popcorn, or (6) They're not married.
In its pre-holiday bid to attract moviegoers, the Granada theater has installed a lurid epic entitled "China Gate." This tantalizing tale explains the adventures of a Chinese female soldier-of-fortune who slops up cognac in a bombed-out bar somewhere in Indo-China. The local French commandant persuades her to lead a cosmopolitan group of French legionaires through the "China gate" in order to blow up a "dirty Communist arsenal." Included in the group are two red-blooded American boys, Gene Barry and Nat "King" Cole in his first dramatic (?) role.
Everyone's taste differs in amusements, but until the film version of the Kinsey Report is released, Holloywood will continue to crank out its varied fare. If one doesn't mind wading through assortments of "sound" and "scopes" and other kindred flap-doodle, the local cinemas are featuring films designed to prove that "movies are buggier than ever."
Newcomer Angie Dickinson as the broad who leads the charge is alternately Chinese and Brooklynese, but turns on the charm in time to make the "dirty Communists" let her Beavor Patrol into the arsenal. However, Mr. Barry goofs his assignment with the explosives and it remains for Wonder Woman to do the job. That she is successful is apparent as soon as one sees the close-up newsreel shot of the first atomic bomb test.
Each of the low motor types in the film is asked why he is fighting: "I'm a-fightin' soes that this here whole Western World NATO and them other outfits, can be free forever." Mr. Cole does passably well in his conversion from piano to tommy-gun. Sam Fuller, trusting no one, has written, produced, and directed this story of love and war in the Far East with the able musical help of the late Victor Young.
Across the street, at the Varsity theater, Columbia Pictures Corp has furnished two pieces of celluloid that, along with a good news-reel, round out a twin bill. The first of these is a Western called "Utah Blaine." Now this Blaine, as played by Rory Calhoun, is a real rustic Robin Hood. In 75 minutes he manages to woo and win heroine Susan Cummings, revenge his dead friend Max Baer, save the local citizenry from the bullyings of the "baddie" pay the mortgage, and shoot down one of the fastest gunslingers in the territory. The plot is relatively unique in that it revolves around how the hero wears his guns. They are so low-slung that only a trained gibbon could get them out of the holsters; in traditional fashion, they also fire approximately 300 times before reloading
(Continued On Page 4)
TV Notes
NEW YORK—(UP)—The NBC Opera Company has five productions in English scheduled for TV next season. The first will be a new one, Francis Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" on Dec. 8. The others are Menotti's Christmas special, "Amah and the Night Visitors," "Rigoleto" and a two-part presentation of "Meistersinger."
NBC is offering 13 repeats of the "Sir Lancelot" series during the summer, the last eight of which will be color as well as black-and-white.
United Press radio transmissions from New York reach 86 cities in the world simultaneously.
"Climaxi" on CBs plans to integrate "remotes" into its live dramatic action to obtain use of actual backgrounds mentioned in the scripts
SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
Replacements for Hal March as master of ceremonies on "The $64,-000 Question" while he is in Hollywood making a movie include Gene Kelly (July 9) and Celeste Holm (July 16).
(Published Tuesdays and Fridays)
Ed. Phone 251 Bus. Phone 376
Editors ... Dale Morsch
John Eaton
Business Mgrs. ... Colby Rehmert
Bill Irvine
Reporters ... Martha Crosier
John Husdr
Janet Juneau
Manager ... James E. Dykes
CBS has announced construction of new facilities to increase the scope of its operations at Television City in Hollywood. Two new studios, seven new rehearsal halls, a major expansion of the service complex, including provision for making and storing the many articles necessary to a TV production and a new administration building are included in the program which is scheduled to be completed late in 1958.
Steve Allen's Sunday NBC hour was a year old June 23.
In days of old, when knights were bold. . They fed their horses HAY. .
Centennial Goes Havwire
APPLETON. Wis.- (UP) - A marching band and balloon nearly wrecked a centennial parade here Saturday. The band frightened a horse and the balloon made six shetland ponies bolt. The parade was held up until all seven animals were rounded up.
When You're In Doubt, Try It Out—Kansan Classified Section.
Sisters Lose The Battle
NEW YORK—(UP) —Margaret Fisher and her older sister, Ann, put up a battle Sunday when two robbers invaded their home. The robbers were able to subdue the sisters and fled with $800 in cash and jewelry. Margaret is 82, and her sister, 92.
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