It only whispers
Among the many words which have been flung about carelessly in the past decade is "conscience."
The defiant young radical declares that he broke a law because his conscience told him to.
The patriotic conscience of the too-brutal policeman tells him that he must crack open the head of that dangerous young radical.
Neither that young radical nor that patriotic policeman knows what his conscience is. Neither is really listening to his conscience.
"Yet while our conscience thus insists that we do right, it does not by itself tell us what IS right," said Harry Emerson Fosdick. "Our ideas of what is right come from varied sources—our inherited tradition, our contemporary culture with its prevailing customs and codes, our own passion and self interest, our excuses and self justifications, the books we read, the movies we see, the people we admire, the philosophy we hold."
Conscience, too often claimed by dissenters belongs to everyone. Adolph Hitler was surely acting out of conscience—doing what he thought was right.
The conscience, then, is an idiot, and like all idiots needs direction. For conscience to be used as a force for good, the convictions which a person holds must be well-founded and human, intelligent and compassionate. The conscience is the vehicle of convictions, and not, as is popularly believed—even by some of the most courageous contemporary Americans, the source of those convictions.
An example of a person obeying his religious conscience without regard to humanity and human intelligence (at least when viewed by contemporary standards) is Columbus, who wrote to King Ferdinand, "In the name of the Holy Trinity, from here we can send as many slaves as can be sold."
Had Columbus understood better the source of the Holy Trinity—a sincere religious compassion in the form of the Bible—his conscience would not have led him to assume slavery was ordained by God.
"That we need more conscientious people is a platitude," wrote Fosdick. "An immense amount of conscientiousness does more harm than good . . . So a young child prayed, 'O God, make all the bad people good, and make all the good people nice!'"
An undisciplined conscience, which works
without regard to reason or compassion but merely on that vague whisper—"Do right," can be more destructive than an ignored conscience.
The greatest literary example of what conscience is may be found in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Huck is torn between helping slave Jim escape and obeying his "conscience" by returning him to his owner.
"It would get all around, that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was to ever see anybody from that town again," says Huck. "I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it . . . The more I studied about this, the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down or ornery I got to feeling."
Later, Huck talks about "something inside" him saying, "There was the Sunday school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd learnt you, there, that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire."
Torn between his conscience (directed in large part by a societal conscience which rejected freeing slaves) and his own compassion for Jim, Huck finally decides to act against his background, against those traditions which he had been led to believe were naturally good. "All right, then. I'll GO to hell," he declares!
The conscience is far too complex, then, to direct any significant action without the guidance of other facilities.
So it is more than probable that the law-breaking demonstrator who hears "something inside" has no more claim to conscientiousness than the club-wielding policeman. Their consciences have been formed by a vast number of things (going to Sunday School or not, as Huck says).
If either the demonstrator or the policeman is more righteous than the other it is probably because of the weakness of the convictions of one or the other, the weakness of the factual foundations of one or the other, the weakness of the moral backgrounds of one or the other.
But too much has been blamed and too much credit has been given to that little "something inside" which, in reality, only whispers:
"Do right. Do right. Do right."
We should never do right until we learn what right is.
Mike Shearer
hearing voices—
To the editor:
Attorney - General Mitchell should have realized that it was unnecessary for him to make a horrible example of the "Chicago 7." They were doing a pretty good job of discrediting themselves until the U.S. Department of Justice intervened. As a result of being brought to trial in a court presided over by an inept and biased judge, this group of emotionally immature, destructive individuals have become martyrs and heroes in the eyes of some young people.
The process of correcting injustices in our society and learning how to live together under
The demands that freedom and power be extended to all people must continue to be made persistently and emphatically. However, violence and unreasonableness in making demands are selfdefeating and destructive of human dignity.
stressful conditions is difficult and frustrating enough without having lighted matches thrown into emotional powder kegs repeatedly.
and institutions that make us angry.
I suggest that the Attorney-General and all the rest of us pray that we can control our fears and restrain our impulses for revenge against the people
Sydney O. Schroeder, M.D.
Psychiatrist
Student Health Service
(EDITOR'S NOTE). This is a note to A Concerned Jay-hawker who wrote to say that we should protect free speech by banning the Harambee and Vortex, disbar Velvel and nip all of these conspiracies in the bud. I think you're nuts, and since you don't include your name, I doubt your concernedness. Anyone who doesn't have the courage to sign a letter, isn't getting the benefit of this page.—MS)
SOKOLOFF
$ \textcircled{C} $ David Sokoloff 1970
FORTOMATELY, OUR SYSTEM OF JUSTICE HAS BEEN EQUAL TO THE CHALLENGE OF THE "CHICAGO, 7"
WHERE ELSE COULD A JUDGE DISPLAY
OPEN BIAIS in THE COURT and THEN
deny A BOND to the DEFENDANTS?
WV, WHERE ELSE COULD YOU FIND
SUKH BEAUTIFUL USE OF ILLEGAL
WIRETAPPING ? WHERE ELSE COULD YOU
SENTENCE A PERSON TO FOUR YEARS FOR
CONTEMPT WITHOUT BENEFIT A OR REAL ?
I ASK YOU WHERE ELSE CAN THE
POLITICAL CAMPAIGN BE
AGAINST YOUR POLITICAL OVERSHELD
123.456.7890 123.456.7890
All rights reserved 1978
Alphabet soup and maybe an avocado
By MIKE SHEARER Editorial Page Editor
Mail distribution of the Pratt Junior College Crossroads was recently halted by a disturbed college president.
Obscenity? Libel? Treason?
Nope. Dr. Ray Cleveland, juco president, said he stopped the mailing of the most recent issue of the bi-monthly publication because of (trumpets, drum roll, general fanfare) "negative articles."
He told the Pratt Daily Tribune that the issue contained "four or five articles nipping and ripping at the college." (Pauline gasps, Dudley clutches his throat, Black Bart even raises his eyebrows.)
One of the articles, it seems, dared to include a factual article based on an administration questionnaire which gave the number of freshmen who did not plan to return. This isn't good public relations, you see.
"The journalism department here is not the same as at a four-year college, nor is the newspaper the same as the newspaper downtown," the conscientious college president told the newspaper downtown.
"You try to teach young people to be critical . . . to look at things in a critical light . . . and no one says everything is rosy at the junior college," he told the Tribune. "But most of our students are positive thinkers."
Cleveland says he doesn't believe in censorship. "No, I believe in guidance," he told the Tribune.
I don't think the good president has the faintest knowledge of censorship (halting mail distribution ain't guidance by any definition), journalism (newspapers aren't supposed to create a positive, false news world, but rather are supposed to describe the world as it is) or negativism (there are few things more negative than controlling the news to suit a power structure).
No, Dr. Cleveland, everything isn't rosy at the junior college. But the least rosy thing seems to be your attempt to create a rosy world. ("The rose garden world of perfection is a lie and a bore too."—Hannah Green.)
(Curtain falls to chorus of "boos" and back-row chantings:
"Power to the people!")
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