KWSAN COMMENT
14.3
Obscenity was mostly yesterday
Obscenity—that vast and mysterious entity which, if we include everyone's definition, includes everything—seems to be begging for an explanation here at KU.
Last year, a dispute over the publication of a poem in the Cottonwood Review resulted in the University's requesting the University of Kansas Printing Service to continue production despite Service employees objections. The Kansan too has had minor conflicts over the definition of obscenity.
Most recently and most dramatically, the Black Student Union newspaper production was halted by a walkout of Printing Service employees, one of whom said, "I think the BSU should have a newspaper but you're dealing with subject matter of obscene words and ideas that not only contradicts human beings but our whole morality. If we print a paper like this then there are no moral or ethical codes to live by."
The editor of the BSU paper said, "This is our language. This is the language used in the black community."
With due respect for the ethical backgrounds of both the employees of the Printing Service and the black students involved in the newspaper, I'm going to attempt to define obscenity. The definition is mine, no one else's.
First of all, it seems trite to say that obscenity is in the mind, so let's turn to the words of Havelock Ellis who said that very truth in less hackneyed terms: "There can be no doubt whatever regarding the soundness of your view of 'obscenity' as residing exclusively, not in the thing contemplated, but in the mind of the contemplating person."
Most of the words and ideas which become obscene in the mind are, and not coincidentally related to sex, the biggest sin in traditional America's background. The idea that sex was at best tolerable (as long as pleasure was not associated with it) goes back
much further than the Bible, but much of Puritanical America's Attitude toward sex was based on Paul's writings in the New Testament, particularly "I Corinthians."
Attitudes toward sex have changed drastically in the past century and particularly in the past two decades.
For several reasons, most young people today are not shocked at all by sexual terms even when in reference to sexual acts which remain largely taboo. Through new freedoms in various art forms, young people have been faced with terms and ideas which once surfaced only in restrooms and alleys.
The new Morality, as it has been somewhat misnamed, is actually an overt acceptance of many covert customs. (The Kinsey Report, now a dated study, showed that both men and women were participating in sexual acts which they still refused to condone or discuss.)
In testimony for the film "I Am Curious (Yellow)," Psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hornick said, "I would assume that this court doesn't need to be told about the double standard about sex in these United States. There has always been one standard of conduct and another of what we do or talk about."
Much of young America has been frustrated for sometime with the hypocrisies and inconsistencies in all levels of society, including sexual mores.
Norman Mailer, also in testimony for the Swedish film, said, "It is not only in the 20th Century that we come to feel that despite the majesties of law, and of religion, that there is something accelerating in the 20th Century at such a fast rate that religion and law, by the very fact that they are institutions, and stable institutions, are not changing quite so rapidly as the nature of life."
The definition of obscenity, too, is changing far more rapidly than codes and dogma. What is obscene to a KU black may not be obscene to a printer at the Printing Service.
Certainly, what is obscene to a printer may not be obscene to the black.
And so who is to decide whether a poem sandwiched in a BSU paper is obscene?
Well, if there is something which is in and of itself obscene (I doubt it), that obscene element should be determined by the readers of the obscenity. The BSU paper was designed for KU blacks, not for the KU printers to take home to the family coffee table, and there seems very little evidence that KU's black population would be offended at the words in question.
There being no absolute evils but only conditional evils, we might look at the motives of the KU blacks who put the paper together. J. A. Hadfeld said, "There is no such thing as an evil in itself. Evil is not a thing, but a wrong function; it is the use of good impulse at the wrong time, in the wrong place, toward a wrong end, that constitutes an evil function."
I agree with Hadfield's definition and I have seen no evidence to convince me that a wrong end was intended. The BSU editors had as their intention neither pollution of the minds of the printers nor pollution of the minds of KU blacks
Every man should have a right to decide what is obscene for himself and every group should have that same right. Since the Printing Service employees are not among the prospective readers of the paper, their refusal to print the paper seems a denial of the BSU's right to determine what is obscene for its members.
Someone once said that morality is only moral when it is voluntary. KU students, no matter what color, are not going to be saved from this mythical immorality which the Printing Service workers think exists.
Our tongues are our own. There isn't room in any man's throat for any voice other than his own.
—Mike Shearer
Others on issues-
By DAVID AWBREV
Student Body President
In response to the controversy concerning freshmen representation in the Student Senate there are several facts which have been ignored.
The Senate Code is a unique document which recognizes the complex nature of the modern multiversity. The Code is based on the realization that each school of the University has concerns and problems which are inherent to its academic mission and bureaucratic structure. That is, the authors of the Code felt that the engineering school should decide its own special problems irregardless of the wishes of the business school, that Corbin College should devise its own response to internal questions and not be dependent on Oliver College. Thus, the central concept of the Code is of decentralization of the governance of the University, realizing that there are certain issues which pertain to the entire University and must be decided by representatives from all the schools. Therefore, the Senate exists not to bother about the policies of the education or journalism school, but to decide on issues of universal concern.
Steve Hix should not come to the Student Senate in order to achieve the representation of freshmen in the Senate, but to the separate Colleges-Within-the-College. If the CWC senators, such as Jeff Lough, feel they cannot reform their college then they are incompetent and should be recalled.
The CWCs and all other schools have complete power to determine how their senators are elected. The only stipulation being that it be done by the entire school.
The Senate Code is dependent upon the involvement of all students within their particular school. The Student Senate, which consists of representatives from all schools, should not interfere with the internal operation of any separate school. The Student Senate must direct itself to the whole range of student problems, and questions relating to the independent schools should be decided by the members of that school.
I hope Steve Hix will continue to achieve freshman representation in the Senate, for I certainly am in sympathy with the lack of voice for this large number of people. However, I refuse to allow myself to dictate to the freshmen or to the CWCs what they need; for I strongly feel that only the freshmen can articulate what they want, all the Senate can do is give direction, but leadership must come from the class itself.
hearing voices—
To the Editor:
Joe Naas, in his editorial "Trigger Fingers" (UDK, Feb. 17) portrays Israelis as "trigger happy." But he doesn't tell us that Israel is a nation of less than three million people surrounded by over ninety million Arabs who openly proclaim their intent to destroy Israel and all of her people.
In short, he doesn't tell us that the Arab terrorists, just as the Arab nations, kill and wage war to wipe the Israelis off the face of the Earth, while the Israeli heroes (his term—but that's one
He doesn't tell us of the billions of dollars in planes, tanks, and other military aid furnished to the Arabs since 1967, chiefly by the Russians, an amount far greater than the Israelis have been able to obtain. He doesn't tell us of the oil which the Arabs but not the Israelis have, which makes the Israeli position in World politics precarious indeed, as by any Biafran will certify.
thing in his editorial he got right) kill in self defense.
He then asks (rhetorically)
"But what is an Arab?" And reply,
"American answer: an Arab is an oppressor of the Jews. False:
[he says] an Arab is a person,
people, a human being." He doesn't seem to realize that the two are not mutually exclusive.
But the fact is that the number of human beings who have been oppressors of the Jews encompasses a good deal of Christendom (even Mr. Naas must be aware of this) and almost all of the Arab
My suspicion is that Mr. Naas, like so many Americans who have rightly reacted with revulsion to our own bloody involvement in Vietnam, has forgotten the distinction between aggressors, and those who would defend themselves against aggression. I hope the time never comes when he has to discover this difference from bitter personal experience.
world (something Mr. Naas seems unaccountably not to have heard about).
Howard Kahane
Associate Prof. in Philosophy
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