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Friday, December 7, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Liberty Still Insecure
Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock and some other social commenaries have analyzed commentators and an adviser in relation to rand change.
Values, mores, attitudes and technology change so quickly that most people have difficulty adjusting to them. The theory of personal merit, and reading it has probably saved some people, navychiatric bills.
But many basic struggles never seem to change, and most of the troublesome philosophic questions remain as unanswered today as they were in the age of ancient Greece.
The history of Greece is an excellent example of the perpetuation of some human struggles and an enduring nature of our ideas on progress.
In the time of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the great Grecian sculptors and poets, the Greeks established a semi-democracy that was the foundation of Western Civilization.
Athens, the ancient Greek city-state, was a model of democracy and was constantly defending itself from assaults by the militaristic Spartans. The same time, the fight for democracy has been lost more often than won.
Today democracy is a mackey in Greece. In 1967, a military clique led by George Papadopoulos took over the Grecian government and instigated martial law, as depicted in the film, "Z." The new government quickly became a model of repression, a good example of a military dictatorship for a political science class.
Suddenly, after some years of repression, Papadopoulous adopted repression, Papadopoulos adopted a more flexible posture, announced that parliamentary government would be resumed, martial law abandoned and some civil liberties restored.
Then General Dimitrios Ioanides and some cronies decided that Papadopoulous was bringing parliamentary government to Greece too quickly. A military clique led by Ioanides replaced the old one on Nov. 25 and is even more tyrannical.
"Listen, boys, you know we can close your papers down and publish our own, but we won't. You are absolutely free to say what you want about the previous government but nothing about the new one. And don't forget, I can lock you up any time I want."
He also set free many political prisoners and it appeared that liberty might again return to the cradle of democracy.
Man has not yet found a way to avoid wars, repression and prejudice despite all the changes. And the explanations for man's most other important philosophic answers remain obscure.
Futurologist Toffler and others point to the effects of vast and rapid changes and underscore the continuing complexity of life. But such a simple, natural human desire as political freedom is still being repressed in Greece, Chile and most areas of the world.
Ioannides addressed Greek newspaper publishers to tell them what to write about the latest coup and gave them some grim advice:
Adjusting to changing conditions is a necessary quality for any one to have in order to succeed and retain his sanity in a technological nation. But more human energy is needed to cope with some of these basic problems than adjusting to new gadgets, frivolities and fashions.
The military tyranny of Greece joins with the recent coup in Chile as examples of the continuing need to battle for democracy.
0172
Bill Gibson
Readers Respond
SUA Site Defended
To the Editor:
After reading Woody Duncan's turn to the Kansan (December 5), the SUA Board thought a few words of explanation could be offered to correctly present the simple facts about Mr. Ben McGovern's lecture and to squelch any more emotion-filled letters to the editor.
It cannot be denied that the ballroom and the related rooms were inadequate and couldn't ably accommodate all of those guests. When the board was aware of the potential "problem;" however, faced with the decision of presenting the Senator in the Union as opposed to not presenting him, the University of Kansas, the decision was made.
The ideal facility, Hoch Auditorium,
wasn't available because of Christmas
Vespers rehearsal. Another alternative
would have been Allen Field House.
However, the Board didn't consider this
acceptable. With a seating capacity of
17,000, an attendance of 4,000 would have
appeared scant and pathetic.
Rob Ramseyer
SUA Vice-president
Right to Scream
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides:
To the Editor:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech . . .
I agree that the "screamers" on campus are irritating. Their shouting cuts short a person's internal solitude, rudely jerking us out of our own peaceful contemplation.
However, an appeal to the use of some "official means" to gag the proselytizers threatens the freedom of everyone who has something to say. The importance of offending someone is that the message has become hackneyed, but it frightens me to see that there are still people who would allow "officials" to silence a person in order to preserve their knowledge of what is happening, attitude, and all lovers of free exchange of ideas aborah even the suggestion of it.
In the words of Will Rogers: "We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others." Jevons Milne 824 Missouri
An Untold Story
To the Editor:
The Kansan has recently published two articles analyzing the Middle East situation by Hillet Unz, an Israeli professor at this university. He has also written such a bold book in publishing those articles.
The Arabs are such a politically influential group in the United States that the viewpoint of the Israelis is hardly ever published in American papers. The Arabs dominate the TV, radio and press of this country in such a fashion that the American people get the Middle East news and analysis only in a biased and prejudiced manner. The blame, of course, lies with the Islamic State, which has such New York, where Govee Rockefeller can hardly win an election without making one speech daily in favor of the Arab side.
I am perfectly sure you and your staff realize there is no Palestinian problem. There is no such thing as Palestinians living in refugee camps for more than twenty-five years. Of course you didn't let someone present the story on the other side because of no 'story' on the other side—maybe a few cold and bitter facts. And who wants them.
Sohail Latif
Senior
Lahore, Pakistan
Your publication of these articles by Hildel Unz once again proves to me that your paper does its best not to present biased or prejudiced analysis of the world events. Is there anyone who could challenge the objectivity of Unz's articles?
Editor's note: The Kaans has received no locally written analysis presenting or supporting the Palestinian case. Such an argument would be welcomed.
'Unused Voters'a Vast Reservoir
Bv WILLIAM RASPBERRY
WASHINGTON—I didn't vote
That is neither a confession nor a boat, neither a statement of despair nor an assertion of arrogance. It is simply a fact: when the school board elections were held in Washington earlier this month, I didn't vote.
a difference.
The subject is on my mind now because of a recent conversation I had with a third-year law student at Howard University, Martha Scott, who was doing a paper on climate change in city. She hoped to offer a proposal for increasing voter turnout and she wanted my ideas.
What I told her, essentially, was that people tend to vote when two conditions are
It was the nonfillishment of these conditions, I believe, that accounted for the fact that only about 5.4 per cent of the city's population had bothered to vote in the school board race.
—The election involves issues that they consider important;
—They believe their participation makes
THE ELECTION WAS almost totally devoid of issues, or at any rate the issues seldom were clearly articulated by the candidates. Therman Evans, the young pediatrician who won one of two at-large seats, is a good example.
His pliant consisted of little more than a stated concern for children, a pledge to support unspecified policies that struck him hard. He said he would not be the one that knew very little about education.
point—so far as his likely contribution to the improvement of the public schools here is concerned, there seemed little to choose among them. Of even eleven candidates for the same seats.
This-please—is no put-down of Dr. Evans, who probably would have had my vote, had I voted. I mean, he seemed like a great teacher. He taught education philosophy or more to the
In my own ward, my choices were a young socialist who is a bachelor, a part-time laborer at the Washington Post who is also a bachelor, a middle-aged part-time and painter who described herself as a "concerned woman" in a change," and Albert Rosenfeld, the 62-year-old incumbent, a conservative and unstable.
OF COURSE I could have voted—I drive within a block of the polling place on my way to work. But with Rosenfeld predictably garnering almost three-quarters of the votes in a four-way race, was it really worth the stop?
Well, it depends on how you view voting. Some see it as a civic duty. They would
"WELL IF YOU AREN't A SORRY SPECTACLE."
show up to vote in a one-candidate race for
election even if they had never heard the
vote.
Others, and I include myself, see voting as a privilege, an opportunity to influence the way government functions. We see no point in casting either uninformed votes or fruitless ones. Perhaps we'll cast a futile attempt to vindicate invidence vote if we feel really strongly about a candidate or an issue, but, in general, we need to think that what we do matters.
We know the pat response: "Suppose everybody felt that way." I've said it myself. But we know that everybody doesn't feel that way. Even in a race between Tweedleid and Tweedledee, someone will be elected. But do I have to participate?
THE HOWARD LAW STUDENT wanted to know how to maximize her turbine output.
You can try to eliminate any con-
ceivable reason for not voting, or you can prove
that the vote is invalid.
We've grown too used to doing the first. We take an uninformed citizenry in an issueless campaign and we offer transportation, baby-sitting service, balloting instruction, refreshments or whatever. The number of increases turn-out, if only because some people are embarrassed not to vote in the face of all that tussle. But what do the extra votes mean?
The other way is to articulate the issues (assuming there are issues) that divide the candidates and provide forums for airing their proposals—whether debates or otherwise, in order to give the people a reason to vote.
Obviously the press can be very helpful in this regard. But it overtates the case to say, as some have said in regard to the paper, that "the press was largely responsible for the low turn-over."
No. What I missed was not press coverage but any feeling that the candidates saw impunity in their cases and their opponents or any feeling that it mattered very much—except to them—which they got elected. As a result, I had to believe that it mattered much whether I voted or not.
Some civic leaders and editorialists have deplored the low voter turn-out as a reflection of voter irresponsibility. I see it as evidence that a person with a real concern for public education, some strong leaders in the local community and ability to separate himself from the herd has a reservoir of nearly 300,000 unused voters to draw on.
New Chancellor Ranked As Top KU News
The arrival of Archie Dykes as the king washes the city, Kansas was the biggest campus news event.
Kansan editorial and interpretive writing students made the selections of top stories, and were invited to participate.
Campus construction, rated second, was most evident in the completion of Wescow Hall. The humanities building, more modest than the library, was opened just in time for the fall semester.
The Board of Regents announced Dykes' appointment in April and the new chancellor has since shown that his main concerns include faculty pay increases and the development of effective communication with the people of Kansas.
Another building, housing the Kansas Geological Survey, was completed and dedicated to Raymond C. Mureu, professor of geology at the University of Kansas; construction next to Robinson Gymnasium.
Campus elections were voted the third
most important event of the year even though only 14.4 per cent of the student body voted. Disinterest was not the only problem; there was only one candidate for student body president. The Student Senate paid $2,000 to a rent calculator to count 2,536 votes, but the first returns were not issued until the day after the election. The senator's election was declared invalid because of errors on the ballot.
The fourth biggest story was that of Raymond Nichols, who was appointed chancellor after 44 years at KU. He became acting chancellor after the resignation of E. Laurence Chalmers Jr., and held the post until the appointment of Dykes.
The continuing temur story held fifth. After conferences were held, committees ornated, and a series of news stories written, fellow professors commended professors who granted temur.
The long debate about the quality of the
Pearson Integrated Humanities Program ranked sixth. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Assembly decided that the program could not be substituted for English, Western civilization, speech and humanities requirements.
The Pearson program continued to provide accredited courses for other than normal freshman requirements. Students who were not affected by the assembly's decision.
Clyde Walker's appointment as the new University of Kansas athletic director was considered the seventh most important campus news event. Walker came to KU in 2014 and moved to North Carolina where he was recruited as assistant athletic director for six years.
A dispute between the Black Student Union (BSU) and the Student Senate was eight in the bulldoing. The BSU brought out a petition demanding that the committee removed from the BSU's food co-op budget.
The suit alleged "arbitrary and capricious taking of property." The senate agreed to return the funds when the co-op is reorganized to the senate's satisfaction.
The return of Gale Sayers to the University of Kansas was ninth in the student survey, Sayers, former Kansas All-American and a running back for the Chicago Bears, was appointed assistant athletic director.
A Coalition of Concerned Students, composed of 12 groups of minority and international students, complained that the senate had allocated insufficient funds to their organizations. The coalition initiated a petition, signed by 1300 students, to expel senate members from office and nullify senate legislation.
The news event 10th in importance concerned the annual disputes over the Student Loan Debt Reform Act.
What Price Sexual 'Equality?'
REVIEWED By Patrick Owens
I am about to praise a book, "Sexual Suicide" (by George F. Golder, New York Times; Quadrangle, $7.95) that is no kind of a final answer to the puzzle of man-woman relations but that seems to me by far the most important work to date on the subject. Golder is a conservative in a grand tradition, the Burke of Maastrte of the sexual dialogue. His arguments cannot be ignored unless you are willing to embrace equality. They will have to be answered before thoughtful people can fully embrace the continuing sexrule revolution.
Gilder's basic contention is that women play the crucial role in civilizing society. They operate, he says, on long-term biological timetables which make civilization possible. Men are inately much more violent, short-tensed and destructive. Women are inately to feminine values and the feminine timetable can society be peaceful and fulfilling.
FAR FROM BEING VICTIMS. Gilder
contends, women are inherently superior creatures. They alone can give birth, and this fact arms every woman with a security about her sexual identity that men can only envy. Men find their own sexual identity in sexuality. They depend, finally, on the concurrence of women for the affirmation of their masculinity.
As Gilder sees it, almost all feminist exertions are destructive of social amity. Should not women who do the same work as men receive the same wages? No.
"A society of relatively wealthy and independent women will be a society of sexually and economically predatory males . . . The sexual power of women, if combined with economic power, leaves many males with no civilized way to engage in sexual identity. If they can provide they have to resort to muscle and phallus."
GILDER FOCUSES on a social fact that is oblivious of enormous importance but that I had never given more than passing thought to. This is that almost all anti-social
bv Sokoloff
Griff and the Unicorn
N
The rather stunning inference he draws is that all the forces and movements that tend to separate men from women are profoundly anti-social, ultimately suicidal. Thus women's liberation, "gay" liberation, the Playboy philosophy of happy hedonism, "open" marriage, even Masters and Johnson, became agents of social disruption. In their different ways, they undermine manners, impose a provider role, and thus loose men to engage in masculine activities—boozing, hunting, mugging, rape and what-have-you.
This may seem at first glance fanciful. But if one looks at the potential for sexual separation in each of these phenomena and then refracts on the price society pays for abortion, Gilder seems to me to have drawn an indenture well worth sending to the jury.
violence is the work of womanless men. Single males commit more than 90 per cent of homicide.
assumption that regression is possible or would work if it were.
A democratic, equalitarian society would be essaying a different kind of suicide if it sought to stop in its tracks, turn women back into the home, and stop dead the "human liberation" movement, in all its manifestations.
THE PROBLEM with Glider—it is a problem faced by all the great conservative critics of equalitarianism—is that he has no only Acute definitions of the problems.
Very few Americans, children as they are of a society fully committed to human equality, could buy the Gilder "solution" solution. So the Gilders themselves oppressed by the sexual roles Gilder exalts are to turn out to be buyers. No open society ever goes backwards, so that societies manage to do only at the cost of great initial trauma and then stagnation.
We must return to monogamy, Gilder says, abandon recreational sex outside marriage, shield men from the competition of women on the job and elsewhere, aban-
dance pornography and prehensive program, and it is, in all its parts and particulars, pure regression.
NO 1 BELIEVE that Gilder is right in his
premises premises and erroneous in his
There is the additional problem that so many American homes are already manless. How can a society with any commitment to social justice sanction for some assumed long-range benefit the further oppression of millions of women already saddened with a full-time job and the burdensome role of single parent?
What we have in this book, it seems to me, is a reasonably accurate vision of a terribly unattractive future. Women are going to be more isolated and violent. Men are more isolated and violent. We become more an amusement and less a sacrament. The family as we know it is going to disintegrate. Life will become more achieve self-extinction.
But Gilder has not found the answer to all this. The harsh truth is that no one has found it.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily holiday magazine; published at Kansas Daily holidays examination periods. Mail in application to Kansas University, $1.25 per student record posted at Lawyers. $1.25 per student paid in student activity fee. $1.25 per student advertised offered to all students without regard are not necessarily those of the University. Admission are not necessarily those of the University.
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