Moral Revolution Student Values-Thev Do Exist
It is interesting that our elders are so often interested in what is usually termed the college students' set of values. It is interesting because these discussions are, almost without exception, carried on in the light of their set of values and within the boundaries of their generation's frame of reference.
These values are generally equated with what is termed "morality" and the concern is usually that a moral revolution is taking place within the university student.
CHANCELLOR W. CLARKE WESCOE recently participated in a panel discussion on this topic in Washington for the American Council of Education conference on the student in higher education. Wescoe said, "... the vast majority of them are deeply concerned with moral values, and have high standards of personal conduct." He does not feel that a moral revolution is under way.
Disagreeing with him was Sister Jaceline Grennan, president of Webster College, Webster Groves, Mo. She feels that students are not only violating
long-accepted codes of behavior but are questioning the very tenets themselves.
These views both take one basic idea for granted. This idea is that a moral revolution, as they put it, and a questioning of the tenets by which their generation has always lived would be wrong. If a majority of us are concerned with moral values, they feel, then we must not be undergoing a revolution; we must obviously be believing in what has been held moral for several decades.
After all, morals are man's natural sense or reasonable judgment of what is right or wrong. When we hold values, we hold ideals which we deem valuable or desirable to our lives.
THIS TENET IS NOT valid. Their equation of morals and values is not necessarily untrue if the narrow limits which they impose are removed. The fact that a moral revolution is taking place, and it is, in the college community does not necessarily mean we've all rejected morality. Because others have to some extent, successfully lived by a certain set of values does not preclude they are the only set.
Why should we be expected to live by tenets which
often seem to make little sense in the society with which we must now deal and, in the future, form.
Students today are definitely concerned with values, as Chancellor Wescoe said. These values, whether it be a good or bad sign, are not necessarily based, however, on the dogma of any church.
Gordon Allport aptly states the situation in his book, "The Individual and His Religion," by saying students today "drift from a theocentric to ethical emphasis." He goes on to say that the majority of students are dissatisfied with institutional religion as it exists.
STUDENTS TODAY do care. They are constantly searching for the principles by which they can live to make life meaningful for them. What do our elders think all the hub hub on college campuses these past few years has been about?
This is not to say students are all atheists or agnostics. Many have chosen the Judaeo-Christian ethic; other have not. But our moral revolution is not causing mono cane. We are aware.
Immoral Vs. Amoral
Janet Hamilton
Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe did himself proud last week at a meeting of the American Council of Education in Washington. He affirmed the morality of college students.
This is a refreshing and enlightened change from the seemingly endless streams of drivel on college morality issued ex cathedra by pontifical administrators.
The two chief dangers of such pontification are (1) setting an objective standard of judgment for morality and (2) judging said "morality" on superficial terms.
SISTER JACQUELINE GRENNAN, president of Webster College, Webster Groves, Mo., challenged Dr. Wescoe's evaluation of the moral revolution. She said students are violating accepted codes of behavior and—yea, verily—questioning the very tenets themselves. This questioning, she said, was not limited to personal re-examination, but also queried and/or rejected the basic beliefs of their religious institutions.
Another panelist, Dr. Graham B. Blaine Jr., chief of psychiatric service at Harvard, said college students "do appear to have developed a new kind of sexual morality, based primarily upon fidelity rather than chastity." Dr. Blaine added that these students should be told that healthy sexuality does not include intercourse.
These latter, narrow views are unworthy of academicians. Re-examination does not necessarily lead to damnation, and the demise of a standard does not preclude morality so long as another standard takes its place.
The immoral student—one who has a set of standards but consistently violates it—is, I think, a rare breed and offers no real threat to the
social structure of Sister Jacqueline, Dr. Blaine, et al.
THE STUDENT WHO DISTURBS Sister Jacqueline most may not be immoral at all, but amoral. He is very moral within his own group but has no background of Judaeo-Christian morality. But he is not immoral.
The amoral student often offers revitalization by challenging the "moral" group. For the morality of Western society is only a surrealistic farce if the individual does not make a conscious, personal affirmation of those standards.
The state of morality cannot be measured by membership in campus religious organizations, many of which have failed to provide truly "moral" leadership. The state of morality can, I believe, be measured by the degree of popular concern for the welfare of one's fellowman. On most college campuses that level of "caring" is quite high.
The worst thing that could happen to America would be for her youth to placidly accept the dictums of an outmoded, Victorian ethic on sex, alcohol and extremism.
THE PAST GENERATION is a little presumptuous about the efficacy of their standards and their denial of our right to question those standards. They haven't done such a hotshot job of running the show themselves.
We cannot afford apathy. We need to reexamine and adapt the old standards to the needs of the changing world.
As John Hines, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of America says, "We need to go where the action is."
And that searching is morality itself.
'Virginia Woolf not 'Dirty'
— Jacke Thayer
After a successful Broadway run, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is presently undergoing the Hollywood treatment, probably to emerge somewhat toned-down in spots and tamed-up in others, so that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton may disport themselves attrac-
When the play was announced several months ago as a fall presentation of the University Theatre, the local press and numerous residents greeted this news with consternation. Word had gotten around that it is a "dirty" play.
tively and sympathetically in the leading roles.
One local letter-writer favored leaving out all the parts that might be offensive to anyone. If the play received the suggested Lawrence treatment, it would emerge as a very short play indeed, since nearly all of the dialogue would have to be removed. Unfortunately, most of the intellectual content and moral significance of the play would be removed at the same time.
2 Daily Kansan
MARTHA AND GEORGE may have started their life together as two of the pretty people to whom all good things come. But on the night Albee reveals them they are two tired, disillusioned, ugly people doing a poor job of coping with their disappointments. Each knows the other's shortcomings; yet there is still some understanding underneath the hurt given and the hurt received.
Tuesday, October 12, 1965
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Albee lays his characters bare and poses the question, "Just how much reality are humans able to bear?" But he doesn't provide an easy answer. Is this little twinge of empathy all the fulfillment Martha and George will ever have?
Surely any person of college age or over has heard most of the language used, whether or not he habitually engages in such games as those enacted in the play.
-Yvonne Willingham
Morality-Confusion
Associate professor Robert T. Bobilin has served as college chaplain at Whittier College in Whittier Calif, and at Hamlin College in St. Paul, Minn. He now has a joint appointment at KU as associate professor in sociology and religion.
Ten years ago Philip Jacobs, a University of Pennsylvania political scientist, published a classic study on "Changing Values in College." At that time he summarized the data at hand with the statement that 80 per cent of American college students were "gloriously contented and self centered." Rather than call the value outcome of college education liberalization Jacobs said it was socialization—the process of refining, polishing or shaping his values, so "that he can fit comfortably into the ranks of the college alumni" and middle class society.
When morality and college life are discussed the problem that is likely to be raised is that of sexual behavior. My observation is that this generation of students are no less moral than any previous generation, but perhaps more confused and uncertain. The automobile, the motel and pills have provided greater possibilities that were not available a generation or two ago. Students certainly are part of a society that has 250,000 babies born to unmarried mothers each year and (according to one qualified estimate) one out of 5 brides is pregnant at her wedding. Illegal abortions in the United States are estimated to range from 200,000 to a million yearly.
College students are certainly now more open and frank in regard to sex, also more confused. There is considerable rejection of traditional morality. Some would take Hugh Heffner's line that this is only a healthy rejection of restraints. We do need to remember that it was only in the 17th century with Jeremy Taylor that Christians had anything positive to say about sex even in marriage. Sex and sin are equated in some Christian groups even today.
If that was true ten years ago there is evidence that it is less true now. My observations are that there are increasingly significant minorities among students who are taking very seriously the chief ethical crises of our time—international war and race relations. Numbers of student groups nationally are making real contributions to the discussion of issues involved and in direct action. Graduate and undergraduate students have been participants and leaders in sit-ins, voter registration efforts, protest marches and teach-ins. Less dramatic efforts have been made in tutoring disadvantaged children, getting signatures on petitions for fair housing, in collecting funds for bombed schools, and helping to rebuild destroyed churches. There has been a growth in the number of student organizations nationally concerned with social and political issues.
Some students, of course, become involved in the above movements because they find an outlet for adolescent rebellion against authority and the status quo. More often, however, students confront the adult society, including faculty, with embarrassing reminders of the professions of equality that have existed so long unfulfilled.
STUDENT RESPONSE TO THE Peace Corps, work camps, summer-service volunteer projects, and greatly increased student interest in educational travel abroad are further evidences of student concern for values today.
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AS FAR AS STUDENTS are concerned, there are no readymade external moralities to replace the conventional code and many students are searching for a more creative and more responsible morality for sexual relationships.
The development of new morality that will "have its roots in the depth of our being and in our awareness of the true needs of our fellows" is a need of students as well as society as a whole. Educational institutions have not generally been conscious of themselves as the catalysts of new morality, but that may well be the situation today.
- Robert T. Bobilin