KANSAN COMMENT
Man : 2001
There has been much talk recently about the problems of ecology. Many people are saying that man is bringing about his own destruction through air and water pollution and the population explosion.
These people have little faith in the potential of man. While dinosaurs, dodo birds and passenger pigeons have passed into extinction, man has prospered. Man is the greatest living organism because he can adjust to his environment. He has adjusted to the Ice Age, changes in terrain, families and epidemics, and he will adjust to pollution and over-population.
As the atmosphere begins to fill with pollutants, and the oxygen content drops, man's chest will expand so that it can hold larger lungs. A third lung might even be added to act as a reservoir when a man passes through a heavily polluted area (this development alone would add several years to any smoker's life).
Man's nose will grow so that he can inhale larger quantities of air and get the oxygen he needs to sustain life. In order to keep the harmful particles in the air from reaching his lungs, he will develop dense growths of nostril hair. Other hairy accouterments, such as the scalp, eyebrows and eyelashes will disappear because they will tend to catch the dirt suspended in the air.
The eyes will also undergo interesting changes. Man will soon have two sets of eyelids. Under the present set he will develop a transparent set similar to those found in lizards. When these eyelids are shut, they will protect the eyes from the atmosphere and still allow man to see. Since pollutants will blot out most of the sunlight, man will develop eyesight which will enable him to see in the dark like a cat.
Without the present warmth from the sun, man's body temperature will drop and perhaps he will become a cold-blooded animal.
There will be a shortage of usable water but man can overcome that too. He will take another hint from the lizard and develop a very oily skin—or possibly scales—which can easily be wiped clean without water. His weight will drop because of a smaller amount of body fluids and also because the population will cut the amount of food available per capita.
With the population rapidly expanding, the highways will soon become clogged and man will have to abandon the use of automobiles (unfortunately this will spur the population explosion because of the loss of thousands of highway fatalities which are helping so much to control the population).
Because man will be relatively weaker, he will not be able to endure long walks on just two legs. He will probably revert back to being a four-legged animal. This, too, will be an advantage. Any student of anthropology knows that man's organs were meant to be suspended from his backbone not piled atop each other as he stands erect. Women will be happy to learn that walking on four legs will eliminate the painful "milkleg of pregnancy" and varicose veins.
If it develops that the world cannot provide enough food to sustain the increased population, nature will again come to the rescue. It will merely raise the death rate and the infant mortality rate until man can live comfortably again.
Obviously too many radicals are calling for unnecessary government involvement in the control of our environment. They have no faith in man or nature and want to change the course our world is taking. Man has survived thousands of years and with the help of a few natural adjustments he will continue to survive and rule the world.
Unless, of course, there is a nuclear war.
'Funny. I never thought of you as a radical revolutionary.'
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hearing voices—
Student's, women's rights
To the editor:
Authoritarian education as expressed by Professor J. Eugene Fox must be ended in the American educational system. It must be ended because the ideas expressed by Professor Fox are, in fact, no more than paternalistic babblings. This whole idea and concept that force-learning makes for a better liberal education is absolutely absurd. What is needed is a readjustment of what constitutes academic credit. It's time we face-up to the fact that as an academic community the issuing of credits in order that one may gain added insight into one's profession is entirely irrelevant. It is a known fact that most technical know-how has to be learned by experience through on-the-job training. This often involves the reversal of the memorization process taught to us by this authoritarian system.
The idea of the liberal arts curriculum is a good one, but to presume that if one does not have a proficiency in some foreign language that he is not entitled to a degree is pure irresponsibility on the part of Professor Fox. The reality of the situation is, in fact, that the current liberal arts curriculum has very little, if anything, to do with that which goes on in the outside world. To quote from the book, "Radical School Reform," Paul Goodman sums up the point brilliantly: "Young men learn more about the theory and practice of government by resisting the draft than they ever learned in Political Science 412." We have to come to grips with the problem of what constitutes a relevant education. We have to realize that the issuing of irrelevant degrees is one of the great problems that the American society faces.
Not even our institutionalized system of education can cover-up the fact that students will only remember those things which they deem important or useful. All else will more than likely be forgotten. The question is whether or not society benefits from those individuals who have acquired a liberal arts degree, the end product of a series of repressive requirements. Maybe a more positive way of phrasing this question is whether or not society could benefit from those educated in academically free situations where the students can gain true knowledge. The educational system of today is the great stifler of creativity. Its products are fear, dishonesty, destruction of eagerness to learn, alienation, conformity, smothering of self-expression, narrowing scope of
ideas, prejudice and self-hate. You, Professor Fox, and your irrelevant degree requirements are typical of the elements we have to thank for this.
Now to get around to this hogwash that we as students are free to choose our own courses. This is like saying we have freedom of choice when we enter the military, simply because there are several branches of the service. Sure, we as students have a choice of taking several different foreign language courses, but that is totally irrelevant because foreign language is a requirement. Contrary to Professor Fox's opinion, everyone in the school of liberal arts is required to have sixteen hours or proficiency to graduate; hardly what I would call a free choice to design my curriculum. In fact, Professor Fox's whole diatribe is nothing more than fancy double-talk. First, he states, "Any student is free to design any curriculum to pursue any combination of courses which seem educationally valid to him . . ." but in the next breath he backs down and states, "If I were asked, however, if I believe that a person who, for example, has no exposure to a foreign language possesses the rudiments of a liberal education, I would answer no." Hardly what I would call a definitive statement on free choice in a curriculum.
We as students do not have freedom of choice. Our condition has been well stated by John Holt, a renowned educator: "It is that with very few exceptions the schools, from Kindergarten through graduate school, do not give a damn what the student thinks. Think, care about or want to know. What counts is what the system has decided they shall be made to learn." At the University of Kansas we are made to learn what some unknown has deemed appropriate for us, and I as an individual denounce this authoritarian system.
The fact that Professor Fox has taken upon himself the task of being the champion of an archaic and outmoded system is enough of an irresponsibility, but the fact that he had to attack my individuality in the process constitutes a personal affront to me. I feel, contrary to Professor Fox, that I am the master of my own ship, and that I alone am qualified to plot my personal course in education. I am not just yet "prepared to face the eventuality that in some instances the agency would decide that it had more faith in the collective opinion of the faculty than in the individual opinion of the student." Nicely put, Professor, but I am not an agency—I am an individual.
The fact that the faculty will take a look into the definition of a liberal education next year, or the next, and then predictably cop-out under the yolk of compromise, or put-off, makes no difference to me. What needs to be done is to return education back to the individual. Mediocrity at our educational institutions can no longer be tolerated. We are decaying, but the truly sad thing, and the thing which worries me the most, is that students and instructors are willing to sit idly by and let the State put a stranglehold on individuality. It is a sorry state of affairs at this university, and I might as well be whistling in the dark. But let's at least give libertarian education an opportunity to prove itself.
I am not likely to accept the fact that professional opinion as to what constitutes a liberal education is any better than my humble "novice opinion." Who is in a better position to judge the merits of the education he is receiving than the student himself?
Ronald Philip Worth Overland Park sophomore
After I arrived I saw no signs of furniture or art rescue operations (although these operations were probably in progress), so I asked about them and was told by a fireman that their only concern at the moment was to extinguish the fire.
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I am a member of the Union Operating Committee and when I discovered Monday night the Union was burning I hurried to the scene, about 11 or 11:30 p.m.
Several times after that, when I saw students running in and out of the Union, I asked police and other officials if I could help in whatever rescue operations were being conducted. I was told to get off the street and I was physically pushed away from the building.
I would very much like to know, if there be someone who's willing to tell me, whether the officials who were running the show were of the opinion that a woman has no "call" to be in a burning building, or whether it was merely the case when there were already a great sufficiency of (men) volunteers helping.
Although I don't happen to own a coffeepot, somehow I can't help thinking I could have been of SOME help in saving some of the valuable things in the Union from fire, smoke and water.
C. Suzanne Atkins Leavenworth junior