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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Thursday, Oct. 31, 1985.
Interest in Student Senate is waning, apparently.
Interest in the Senate
Only two sets of presidential and vice presidential candidates have filed to run in this month's elections. Many candidates for senatorial seats will run unopposed. Seven sets of candidates ran last year.
Lack of interest is perhaps a product of a smooth-running government, in which needs are addressed and some promises kept.
William Easley, student body president, said Tuesday that voter turnout probably would be lower this year than last year — when a whopping 17 percent of the student population cast ballots.
This Senate administration has seen no "left-wing" element, no uproar over the Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas, no McDonald's in the Kansas Union.
And it has kept some of its promises: A rape awareness program, late-running buses and, despite a frustrating delay, possibly a campus lighting plan.
Yet problems - highly visible ones - remain.
"Student Senate" is often
said alongside "infighting," and the problem seems to be more than just deep ideological differences. The differences are added to other problems to spur infighting.
These changes could prevent problems that intensify already strident political debate and keep the debate from becoming personal.
A committee meets without a quorum, yet it approves legislation on student representation. A committee is told to do something about a grade appeals board and never gets to it. Meeting time is wasted on an unnecessary baseball resolution, causing senators to leave in protest.
Finally, we should be concerned when students appear bored with the body that is supposed to represent them. Yet it is difficult to condemn apathy when it is the result of a lack of severe problems to complain about.
These are problems with solutions. Cancel committee meetings when no quorum is present. Give important proposals top priority in committee meetings. Ignore the impulse to deal with silly bills.
Unneeded letter grades
"This film is rated PG-13-SA."
Such a warning code should accompany movies that contain scenes of drug use, some parents' groups told a Senate subcommittee last week.
The SA label, for Substance Abuse, would be used in addition to the five warning codes now used by the motion picture industry's voluntary ratings board; G. PG, PG-13, R and X.
Smoking dope, snorting coke and popping Valiums have become more common in society — particularly among young people — and also more common on the silver screen.
For their childrens' sake, many parents say they want to know whether films include scenes of drug use. They want it spelled out for them with two simple letters at the bottom of film advertisements.
But Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, thinks the SA label is unnecessary. It would only confuse parents, Valenti said. How will they distinguish between a PG-SA and a
PG-13-SA. Will people think
SA stands for Sex Appeal?
Indeed, five ratings categories are enough. An extra rating label won't dissuade young people from deciding to use or not to use drugs. A better suggestion would be to assign a minimum rating, such as PG-13, to films depicting drug use.
Not all films glamorize drug use. In fact, many members of the movie industry crusade against it — on and off screen.
Parents, not Hollywood, are ultimately responsible for deciding whether young people should see a particular movie. If parents are concerned about what their children are seeing on Saturday nights, they can read newspapers and magazines to inform themselves about the content of films.
They don't need to add two extra letters to the already confusing alphabet soup of the movie ratings system.
Filling Timetable blanks
The department of English is helping to fill in the blanks left in the Timetable and the University catalog.
But each semester the English department takes the time and expense to print detailed descriptions of the courses it offers.
In most departments, the only guide through the host of class offerings is the course title and meeting time in the Timetable. A student looking for more information can refer to the thumbnail sketch in the catalog.
Reading the lists is a little like shopping by mail-order catalog. Students can find in them the required and recommended texts and the number of papers and tests expected for the class. The instructor also writes a brief statement of the class's goals.
These guides complement a student's adviser and help map the way through the maze of requirements and electives students have to choose from.
They are invaluable, empowering students with the necessary information to determine and set their own course. The departments that devote the time and expense to provide this should be commended.
Rob Karwath
Editor
John Hanaa Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial editor
Lauretta McMillen
Campus editor
Susanne Shaw
General manager, news adviser
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson
Retail sales Campus sales
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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An end to Mideast cycle of violence
Once again, the Mideast and its peculiar violence were in the forefront of events during the last few weeks. From the West Bank to Larnaca and from Tunis to Washington and Jerusalem, everybody was calling for revenge, destruction and annihilation. Everybody pretended to speak in behalf of Justice, Peace and Freedom and other dubious rationalizations for the use of violence
What frightens me in all these developments is not the events themselves — they may be forgotten — but, more dangerous is the kind of discourse that has been used in the region for the last 40 years and has led us into a situation with more violence in sight.
We've seen it with Hitler's "Aryan Nation," with religious wars over the centuries and with other racists who said they alone held the truth.
Indeed, history has shown us that whenever a whole people pretended that it was the best, the purest or the brightest, the world was in jeopardy and the apocalyse was not far away.
By the end of World War II, the world mistakenly thought that that
kind of reasoning could no longer exist. After all, it was the 20th century, and scientific knowledge had shown all the racist "proofs" to be false. Men and women were supposed to be born equal and able to make their own choices freely.
Some of those who were victims of the "Aryan Supremacy" are using the same false rationale in the Middle East to impose a "democracy" where you have to be a Jew or accept Jewish supremacy to share the benefits.
Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Apartheid still exists; we still live with all kinds of extremism; and some people still use religious supremacy to build a state that should be “pure.”
Israeli leaders, such as Rabbi Kahane — a potential future premier — and Shamir and Begin, are not ashamed to appear on the international screens screaming. "We want all the Arabs out, out, out."
Out from where? From the land they have lived in for thousands of years. Why? Because they have more babies born each year, therefore they may outnumber Jews
Guest Shot
Khemaies Chaieb
in their Jewish state.
What a logic. We are at the end of the 20th century, yet some people still think that your faith — whatever it is — should allow you to decide for others where to live and where not to live.
Besides the four million Palestinians dispersed all over the world and obliqued to live with their despair because the hope for returning home has been assassinated, we are seeing the religious rationale being used more and more to defend the actions of all parties in the Middle East. "After all, it worked for them, why not try it?" seems to be everybody's reasoning in the Mideast.
What is more surprising is the fact that almost no one seems to question this rationale and wonder about its eventual results. Actually, the results are already here in the form of violence and terrorism.
When Israel invaded Lebanon in
1862, many Shiites in the south welcomed it; one year later it became a religious obligation for each young Shiite to die fighting the Israelis. This is a result of using religion to justify political and military aggression.
If we really want peace and coexistence in the Middle East, we must help its people live together not as followers of a particular faith but as citizens of the same democratic and secular state.
I know that many would argue that this is too idealistic to be achievable because of the accumulated hatred among the three communities: Christian, Muslim and Jewish. But, I think that, with some help from the world community and some understanding from all of us, this could happen in a matter of a few years.
Nobody thought that the Germans and the French could ever live together in 1945; today they are full partners.
Jean-Paul Santre wrote, "The Evil is the Other." Our world would be better if we accept that the evil is not the other.
A necessary step to a saner world
Virtually all the year I was in second grade we celebrated one compelling theme: World War II was over, the United Nations was born and the world would live in peace forever after.
We sang songs about peace, we presented plays and skits about our visions of a world without war and our teachers impressed on us that the moment was unique in history. One teacher predicted we would see a day in our lifetime when there would be “one world” government administered by the United Nations.
The other day, when the U.N. celebrated its 40th anniversary, I could not help reflecting on those days of innocent optimism.
Four decades after its founding, the sad truth about the U.N. is summed up in a simple fact. The organization, after much heated debate, could not agree on a statement describing its purpose. Negotiations broke down over exactly one word.
As a result, a document titled "Declaration on the Occasion of the 40th Anniversary" was not released. When it was finally determined the document would fail, a diplomat said as the meeting broke up, "This is the U.N. Now back to reality."
Sad to those who had hoped for more, reality is the United Nations has not become the last best hope for peace. It has disappointed many since the time of its founding.
In none of the main flash points threatening the future of the globe is the United Nations a pivotal player. Not in arms control, not in southern Africa, not in Central America and certainly not in the Middle East.
It was with respect to the Middle East, in fact, that the 40th anniversary document failed. The Arab states and their supporters proposed language calling for a "just" and lasting peace in the region. The United States insisted on a "comprehensive" peace.
As with so many other such squabbles, this one brought to mind those whistles which only dogs can hear. Each side in this dispute was responding to tones most of the rest of the world could not distinguish.
All the same, there is a good reason
"Leaders of all nations are assembled here, and behind them is the single collective constituency of the human race."
Robert C.
Maynard
Oakland Tribune
to argue that if the international agency did not exist, we would have to invent it. Indeed, I would go further and argue that the world is a better place because the United Nations exists.
The problem with the U.N. is not that it has failed to cure all the world's ills. The problem is it was oversold from the outset. All that pomp in San Francisco at the beginning led people to expect more of the agency than would have been humanly possible to produce.
What it has become instead is an important international service agency and a forum before which the world's many disputants may air their cases. Perforce, then, the place has taken on a rancorous tone. That is the unfortunate state of the world.
By the time the anniversary celebration was over, 200 speakers had addressed the General Court before the prime ministers, sultans and dictators.
Of them Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said: "Leaders of all nations are assembled here, and behind them is the single, collective constituency of the human race." He called the United Nations "the most authentic expression of the international community in all its diversity."
That's not quite the same as being the seat of world government, but it is an important and necessary step toward a saner world.
Mailbox
No place at KU for secret research
Presently the Faculty Senate Research Committee is proposing that University policy become much more permissive concerning classified research. Now "classified research" is just a fancy name for secret research.
And the reason for making such agreements? Money, of course; the money that comes with the award of a research grant. The lesson to be learned here again is that money corrups. The lure of big research bucks has caused some to turn their backs on the highest ideals of the University.
This proposal suggests that the University of Kansas should become a haven for research conducted behind closed — indeed locked — doors. What will take place behind this veil of secrecy cannot be divulged because faculty of the University will have agreed not to divulge those secrets.
What is the essence of the University? The University is above all an educational institution. The purpose of the University is to teach those who come through its doors to learn.
But what is secret, cannot be taught. It follows that secret research has no place at a university, for the point of secrecy is to hide the truth, but the essence of a university is to disseminate the truth, to tell all who can be persuaded to listen of the achievements of the human mind.
Some will say that to forbid secret research is to violate the academic freedom of researchers to pursue the truth wherever it may be found. This is poppycock.
To propose, therefore, that KU be a haven for secret research is to propose that this University not be a university. It is to forget what a mystery is. It is to be corrupted by the prospect of research dollars.
Academic freedom does not entail the right to pursue information no matter what one must do in order to pursue it. One can imagine research that could be pursued only through acts of moral turpitude. This would not render
the strictures against moral turpitude a violation of academic freedom.
Analogously, it is not a violation of academic freedom to forbid secret research.
For a professor to sign a contract to do secret research is for a professor to sign a contract not to educate, not to teach what she knows, not to disseminate the knowledge she has gained.
It is not a violation of an educator's academic freedom to forbid an educator to agree not to be an educator. Such an agreement represents not freedom, but license.
I have heard the Chancellor speak eloquently, at a recent Fall Convocation, of the indissoluble between teaching and research.
One can hardly, on the one hand,
justify the research mission of the
University by appeal to the indissoluble link of that mission with teaching and, on the other hand, be prepared to tolerate a policy that allows secret research.
Secret research is research that cannot be taught. Research that cannot be taught is research that is not indisolubly linked to the teaching mission of the University.
Those who wish to defend the research mission of the University cannot have it both ways. If they want to defend research because of its indissoluble link to teaching, then there is no place for secret research at a university. If there is a place for secret research at the university, then research is not indissoluble linked to teaching.
As matter of fact, distinguished universities such as Stanford and MIT have very restrictive policies concerning secret research. KU should follow their lead.
If University policy on secret research is to be changed, a more restrictive policy would accord more closely with the ideals of a university. One hopes that it would accord more closely with the ideals of KU.
Don Marquis associate professor of philosophy