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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Feb. 23, 1961
Away From It All
Apparently, KU is considered a small, excluded sanctuary in this seething world of ours, where the less that is known about what is going on, the better. Tranquility and placidity are to be the hallmarks of the "Athens on the Kaw." This is no place for healthy controversy.
A controversial little film, titled, "Operation Abolition," has been circulating through colleges and universities across the nation for the past few months. It supposedly is the documentary story of the student riots at San Francisco last May during the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of alleged pinks and fellow travelers on the faculties of various area schools.
IT IS CONTROVERSIAL IN THAT THE film has drawn support and condemnation from groups at the same showing. Those opposed say it is biased and obviously doctored to show the Committee's point of view. Those for it say it shows the real proximity of the "Red Menace" and the danger posed to the minds of American students.
We don't know. We haven't seen it.
The University of Washington's daily newspaper devoted an eight-page section to commentary on the film and its companion piece, "Communism on the Map." Faculty members and students discussed, in articles, both sides of the question and included analyses of the Committee's activities, practical Communism, the effect of propaganda and other points.
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, articles by staff members of the Committee, defending the film and the investigations, sparked voluminous mail from viewers and readers.
Everywhere it has been shown, "Operation Abolition," has been cussed, discussed, defended or endorsed. Nowhere has it caused rioting, demonstrations or dishonor to the schools.
But at KU it was postponed for fear of economic reprisal by the state legislature in case the film started some distasteful actions by the student body.
Granted that KU's existence is dependent, in part, upon the millions in tax revenue appropriated by the legislature each year. But this in no way puts each student under obligation to the body in Topeka. And if some members of the student body were to express their beliefs in a manner which drew attention to the school, it would be a far greater wrong for the legislators to react by slicing the schools' funds.
The four years at a university, any university, is the one period in a person's life when he must choose the direction he is to take, whether it be in politics, religion, vocation, personal philosophy or prejudicial values. It is usually the only time he finds out that the world is in his hands for him to discard or make better.
IT IS THE ONE TIME WHEN HE SHOULD be forced to become aware of his role in the world; to have his mind crammed with every bit of information and knowledge that it can contain. It should not be a time when he is denied any information.
This is the time for him to fly, to joust with windmills, to fist fight for ideals or crash ignobly from his ascent. But he cannot, he will not, decide responsibly if he does not have access to both sides to every dilemma of life.
What is the House Un-American Activities Committee? Who rioted in San Francisco? How active are Communists at universities? Why is everyone so upset about all this?
But more important, why have other students been given the answers and made decisions regarding the controversy of the film?
We don't know. We haven't seen it.
Haertel Wrong?
Editor:
Concerning Mr. Ronald Haertel's observations and value judgments on Americanism, I should like to comment:
In what sense are American students not progressive? The word progressive includes any type of movement forward (even chronological). I am only baffled by its use in this context.
WHY SHOULD ONE REBEL if there is no need to? Since rebellion would introduce more chaos into the present (chaotic or orderly) system. I see no inherent value in rebellion.
As for our goals being generally small and petty, I do not think that we are unique in this respect. Are Germans' (or any other for that matter) goals for the most part more meaningful and lofty?
I WILL ADMIT THAT students work here so that they may retire by 40 and drive a big car, only if Mr. Haertel will also agree that students in his country pursue degrees for prestige alone. Both observations are sweeping generalizations; mine is as realistic as his. Even if both were true, I would say that prestige is, as a value, as false as any materialistic one.
All told, the "criticism" is not a criticism, but an oral essay on the differences between European and American politics (in the broad sense), and I would like to add that it is a rather ineffective, vague attempt at that. The only observation which is criticism, and very good too, is the one concerning American wastefulness. Certainly Americans could take lessons from their European neighbors in this area.
Lowell M. Dicke Topeka Senior
--make it very clear that I do not wish to be equated with "those of us who don't give a tinker's darn about what Pirandello, and Rousseau, and Hobbes said about themselves and us." Mr. Bentz, I do give a tinker's darn about what Pirandello, Rousseau, and Hobbes said about themselves and us!
Senility, Sterility, Fraternity Editor:
Dear Old Kay Unipristine!
You are invincible in your stagnant social immobility. Your stolid ethics have been condemned, your manners have been criticized, your cold shoulder has been cursed, and still you remain aloof
...Letters ...
... eyebrows arched, skirts un-
ruffled, hay untumbled.
You ignore your foreign suitors, allowing them to draw a circle around themselves and shout their desires from their lonely omnium magnum.
Young angry liberals demand your audience and grow sterile from waiting . . . young dedicated conservatives implore your sympathy and are cast off by your dogmatic tolerance.
Tell us — tell all, Kay Unipristine, what makes your heart flutter? Must you too grow socially senile, awaiting a virginal conception?
Darrell Owen Dodge City senior
BROTHERHOOD
Editor:
W. C. No Menace
Concerning Mr. Carl Bentz's letter in "Sound and Fury," Feb. 15, in which he swings his double-edged sword at the Western Civilization Department. I find several statements which are completely alien to my usual apathetic outlook.
I DO NOT PURPORT TO speak for the Western Civ department. Nor do I claim to speak for those students who, like myself, must participate in the Western Civ program. I would simply like to
No, Mr. Bentz, "I have never heard of anyone who died because they didn't take the course," either. Expanding this little gem of wisdom further, I have not yet heard of anyone who died because they did not take any courses at this university. Nor have I yet heard of anyone who died because they did not finish school. But does this mean there is absolutely no benefit to be derived from a study of western civilization, or from attending a university.
STUDENTS WITH YOUR know-it-all to-hell-with-everyone-one-else attitude stifle informative group discussion. By removing yourself from the "menace" of Pirandello, Rousseau, and Hobbes, you might render a great service to those who do give a tinker's darn.
Few departments are prefect and the Western Civ department is not among the divine. Does this render the whole program worthless? Isn't it possible—possible, understand — that you might derive some minute shred of benefit from this "menace."
The Western Civ program is not a menace, M. Bentz, nor will it become such until the straight-forward presentation of truth, knowledge and the wisdom of the past becomes a menace.
Robert N. Hill Erie sophomore
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Surely this is the ultimate ethical postulate in a democracy: not that man is good, but that he is capable of good; not that he is free from corruption, but that he is desperately sick of it; not that he has fashioned the good society, but that he has caught an unforgettable glimpse of it.-Stephen K. Bailey, Ph.D.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
SOMETIMES I THINK THE MATH SECTION OF THIS TEST IS A LITTLE TOO ROUGH."
International Jayhawker
And Foreign Students?
(Editor's Note: Part II. to appear tomorrow, is a commentary on the attitudes of students from Asian and African countries studying at KU.)
By Rab Malik
Pakistan graduate student
Part I
There are slightly less than 300 foreign students at the University of Kansas at the present time and the number is ever increasing. This is all for the good. Most of us come here in the pursuit of learning new ideas and technical skills, hoping that knowledge thus gained may be of some benefit to ourselves and to our respective countries.
THERE ARE OTHERS, BY AND LARGE OF EUROPEAN stock, who make the trip to the United States with regrettably less plausible motives. Their prime objective is material gain, for they come here with the conviction that America does not have much to offer in terms of learning and "culture"—whatever it may mean!
Inflated but false jingoism of this sort prevents them from reading American books in the field of literature, history and philosophy. They deprive themselves of learning anything about the American institutions, thus living in a dream-like world of once all-supreme Europe—Europe that is no more—Europe that at the present time survives because of American charity, generously given, and protected by the American defensive might.
CURIOUSLY ENOUGH IT IS THIS GROUP WHICH DOES not miss a single opportunity to pass judgments, ill-conceived in most parts, on American culture and institutions. The institutions of this country being somewhat different from the out-dated ones in Europe, because of the peculiarly different nature of their development, are deemed intolerable. This defies comprehension.
It is my well considered opinion that if a culture, with all its operas, classical music, and outward, hence artificial sophistication, is unable to defend itself, it is not worth a penny. The presumably high culture of France did not protect that country during World War II. Nor the magnificent opera house in Vienna was not of much avail when the swastika fell on Austria under the cover of the Anschluss! When Khrushchev claims that he can turn the whole of Europe into a cemetery in two days if he does not have to reckon with the American presence there, agreeing voices are heard in unison. Wither culture! Enough about the Europeans.
I do not propose to defend America or the American people. I have a hunch that they are capable of doing it for themselves. But I do want to combat a belief among my fellow foreign students that the America which does not fit into our own ideas of "the good" and "the perfect" is necessarily the America in bad shape. This type of thinking is too absurd to have any value.
Dailu hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
John Peterson ... Managing Editor