4t~e ll llBal Seventy-Sixth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS China Policy: A Quaker Proposal Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MIcH. yevaL NEws PHiONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This mus t be noted in all reprints. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: SUSAN COLLINS Only New Attitudes Can Humanize society "OW CAN MAN, living in today's deper- demned to a life of teaching. In addition, sonalized and dehumanized society, many lack teaching talent. When any of regain a feeling of individual accomplish- these conditions prevail, the quality and ment and personal relevance? effectiveness of teaching declines. Teach- The reason for today's societal deper- ing as a communications art ceases to sonalization .is the reversal of the roles exist. of' man and the machine. Man, instead Another great barrier to communica- of dominating and controlling his ma- tions is sex. Nearly everybody has cultur- chines, is often controlled and dominated ally nurtured fears about sex, regarding by them. The assembly line economy and not only the participation in human sex- the large bureaucratic institution are ual activities but, more important, the the primary sources of this domination, appearance of participating. Effective It is doubtful that any solution to the relationships between men and women problem of man's domination by the ma- must eventually include sex as a dimen- chine can be achieved within the realm sion of feeling and understanding. How- of reducing the size of existing institu- ever, because of the fears involved, par- tions. There is still a definite trend to-, ticipation in sexual activities often re- ward larger and larger institutions, part- sults in a worsening of the overall rela- ly due to expanding population. In addi-, tionship tion; the advantages offered by today's machine age culture are attractive-large ANY EFFORT to establish effective institutions have greatly eased the bur- comniunication will require a num- dens of man and taken over many men- ber of changed attitudes. These -altera- lal tasks. tions must first come from parents and the teachers because they have the first HE ANSWER to the problem must lie access to the malleable mind of the grow- within the area of increasing the ing child. There is, however, no one easy uniquely human faeulties ,of empathy, cause or one easy answer., understanding and care. The way these " Communications training must begin human attributes can be increased is in the cradle. New parents should recog- through systems of more-effective inter- nize their offspring as individual human personal communication. beings whose thoughts, even though hazy Some may argue that the communica- and primitive, should be understood-and tions mechanisms now possessed by man listened to. are more effective now than they have * The education of a child must take ever been. These mechanical devices are the form not of rote imitation of a not however, relevant; With the growth bored and frustrated teacher but of ex- of rapid and efficient communication de- citing transferal of ideas and concepts vices, effective communication between between humans. humans has broken down; any mechan- When the child reaches the age ism is only as effective as the humans where the opinions and influence of peers who use it. overrides that of parents the social run- The failure of communication between " around should be discouraged rather than people is deeply rooted in our society and pushed. A child should be encouraged continually reinforced throughout life. to discover, grasp and become aware of the people and the experiences around COMMUNICATIONS FAILURE begins in him. early childhood when a child cannot , Sex should be included inder the get his ideas across the parental barrier. category of a mental and physical exper- This is reinforced later in life when ience rather than assimple gratification meaningful communication is attempted of an animal desire. It should be removed between peers. Becpuse the capabilities from its traditional place in the gutter for communication have not bee nurtur- and establishled as an accepted and ed at an early age the so-called socializa- worthwhile part of living. tion process begins; the superficial and These are not ways of implementing a substitute communication of the high new social order. They are, rather, desir- school dance and the country club-small able ideals and goals for correction of talk, role playing, social conventions - social ills. Ways of implementing change take over, cannot be spelled out-except that it will Another aon the early break- take the desire' of the individual on a down in communications Is the poor qual- ghand scale to effect any change. ity of the educational establishment. Al- though dedicated and innovative teachers IT IS POSSIBLE to defeat the domin- do exist at the early levels they are few ance of the mahine and the mechani- and far between. Many teachers in the cal dilemma of humanity but only earlier years are either very young and through the now closed doors between transient or those who feel they have people. been, for one reason or another, con- -MICHAEL BADAMO P i m at Political Im11licatiolis - Our age has had no escape from an awareness of history. Much of that history has been hard and full of suffering. But now we have the luxury of an historical awareness of another sort, of an occasion not of an- xiety, but of promise. We may speak without exaggeration of this occasion as historic, since we have come here to enact anew the chief function of cul- ture and humanism, to bring man again into communication with man. -F. O. Matthiessen "From the Heart of Europe" (1948) I WHEN I WAS seven, I began terrorizing a smaller boy who was five. Nothing harsh, just con- tinuous. The reasons were com- plex, but to my mind, they com- pletely justified everything. One day I was fifteen, coming home from high school, and there was that "little" boy, grown consider- ably larger, waiting at the corner. He hadn't forgotten. I was reminded of that incident by the events of the past week- which now are history-and the examination of a 68-page book by "some" Quakers: A New China Policy: Some Quaker Proposals. Simple as "thee" and "thou" it lucidly states the "facts" about China and America's sordid rela- tions with it and moves beyond to viable alternatives. This book moves from the fact that the United States and the People's Republic of China have become almost completely sepa- rated by a wall of mutual hos- tility. There is no cultural ex- change, no trade, no intervisita- tioti, no diplomatic contact (ex cept for occasional offiical en- counters in off-the-record talks at Warsaw). More-there has been no settle- ment of the Korean War, only a cease-fire. Contact with China is still considered "dealing with the enemy." China views our mili- tary installations near its borders and our support of Taiwan as aggression. We say they are "justifiable defense." America in China is pictured daily, visually as well as orally, as imperialist and enemy. And in America, China is seen as the little-boy-grown-up of my story; something to be feared. And some- thing that can easily be dealt with: "Bomb their nuclear instal- lations." As anyone who has followed American foreign policy for the past twenty years should know, incidents such as Santo Domingo and Viet Nam are fairly predict- able. Given bureaucratic bungling and unfeeling judgments, that policy which has misunderstood countless nations, people, events- human nature, it seems, in gen- eral and particular-has helped to create our present impasse. It must be stopped. THE QUAKERS have seen that this mutual hostility and con- tinued lack of communication has brought neither C h in a nor America security or stability. To continue our relations on the basis of mutual ignorance and aggressiveness means tragedy not just for the two nations, but as we must surely realize now, the entire world. The new Quaker policy urges reason and an end to passion- directed diplomacy. It discusses past and present aspects of the Sino - American relationship and indicates impressive alternatives. What are the origins of the present Chinese-American im- passe? The factsnow are that China in 20 years, has truly made a "great leap forward." Under Mao Tse-tung's leadership, China has externally become one of the world's greast powers. Internally, there has been another great leap. China has absorbed much modern technology. China has in- stituted national health and edu- cational programs, elevated the status of women, subordinated the Family and broken its death-grip on development at many levels. In short, in 20 years, after a cen- tury of national humiliation, of massive decline, China has re- gained status: diplomatic, social, economic, military. To understand this leap, to un- derstand what it means for a nation of 650 million to regain national integrity, we must un- derstand China's past. And we must recognize that past as dis- tinct, though not inferior, to the West's. China was a civilization that at the end of the 18th century, was as rich aesthetically and tech- nically, as that of the West. The 19th century saw dynastic de- cline, economic distress, civil war, and defeat and encroachment by foreign powers. To be certain, the decline was both internal and ex- ternal-but its humilitation at the hands of the West and the United States cannot be denied. AMERICA's relations with China have been at the expense of China. America enjoyed special ecnomic privileges from 1839 to 1890, as did other powers, when China was reduced to a semi-colony of the West. America. excluded Chinese as immigrants in 1880. America's so-called "Open Door Policy" in 1890 simply re-organized the plunder. At the beginning of the 20th century, China was hot only humilitated, but weak and un- ready for modern existence. As a result of economic inter- vention and political apathy, Chi- nese revolutionaries in the 20's turned to Russia. But resentment of American policy was not limit- ed to revolutionaries; it cut across class, religion, economic, identi- fications. And in 1931, it hit a new low as we and the rest of the W e s t. watched the Japanese slaughter American missions in Manchuria with American-bought scrap iron, not unlike watching India and Pakistan slaughter each other with American weapons. From the 30's until the end of the Second World War, China experienced national disintegra- tion as a civilization. In the en- suing civil war, America not only interferred, but ended up backing the losing side.' hIParenthesis By GEORGE ABBOTT WHITE 1949-1950 was a watershed. There was on the one hand, a feeling that our valuable advice and our more-valuable dollars had not only been misused, but un- gratefully received. We were sad- dened and angry: "We spent all that money!" On the other hand, we were unprepared and unable to accept the bankruptcy and defeat of Chiang Kai-sek or the strength and dynamism of Mao Tse-tung. And besides, John Foster Dulles found out Mao was a Communist. IN THOSE crucial years, Dulles was ready to accept the mainland as China. What followed, the foundations of the way we act now, are difficult to determine. But we could not then, and cannot now, see China from China's point-of-view. I suppose that was the one good point Japanese writ- er Makota Oda conveyed at the recent teach-in: another point of view. We cannot see a better life in China. We cannot see that China has traded povertysfor the 20th century. "The Chinese com- pare the Communist present with their own past not with our pres- ent, and their opinions are shaped by their own reality, not ours." Part of that reality is economic, part is Marxist-Lenist, part is in- tense nationalism. So much for the past, what about the present? The Quakers say: China's policy toward the U.S. (1950- 1965) has been as fruitless as U.S. policy has been. Chinese hositility toward the U.S. has been fanned for purposes of domestic control. But it is pos- sible that China's desire for technological development, for more rapid modernization, and for an accepted place in the family of nations would produce a more friendly response if American policy should change. The end of hostility and fear is something both should want. And friendship, as we have seen in the cases of Germany and Japan, can come very easily; "fascist animals" can easily become "allies." Given the goal of friendship, what are the alternatives? First, blaming obviously does zero. Cau- tion is acceptable, but forgiveness now, on both sides, is a necessity. If America maintains unreal be- liefs (i.e., Truth like Communism is monolithic), there will be. no progress. And if we do not take the first steps, after ignoring China's years ago,. progress is an impossibility. 1) We could halt the military threats and incursions against the mainland by Taiwan. Taking 1China's point - of - view, Taiwan's incursions (not incon- siderable) and the Seventh Fleet's presence, might be seen as having Long Island staffed with British who, every evening, sail into New York City, Newport, Hartford, and shoot up the town. When the cops chase them, an armada steams in between a n d smiles. Telling Chaing & Company to cease costs nothing and they might even be happy about it-more money can be sent to Swiss banks by not spending it on guns and gasoline. 2) We could acknowledge that the People's Republic of China is the government of China. Our, act not to recognize is based on John Foster-Dulles' famous re- mark on the "tentative" Commun- ist hold: "By withholding recogni- tion from Peiping, it (U.S.) seeks to hasten that passing." After 20 years, . it would seem plain that Peiping is not, John Foster Dulles' memory to the contrary, "wither- ing away." Besides the communi- cation gained by, reciprocal am- bassadors, China once again be- comes a true nation and not an adolescent "outlaw," devoid of and deprived of, international respon- sibilities. 3) We could demonstrate our concern for the well-being of China through economic, tech- nical, and political exchanges. 4) We could end American restrictions on communications and exchange with, China. 5) We could end ouraspecial restrictions on trade with China. 6) We could declare our read- iness to join China in projects; of mutual advantage and con- cern. "Well-being" is simply another way of saying we will communi- cate on problems. We will dismiss our cute cliche' of the Bamboo Curtain and earnestly communi- cate on all levels with all people: educators, businessmen, techni- cians, 'farmers, labor union of fi- cials, tourists (with, loud shirts and knobby knees yet!). We will exchange books and periodicals, art and technical exhibits. We will admit that the Mekong River (2800 miles long) begins in China and runs for 1200 miles in China. We will work together, independ- ently and in the United Nations, on problems that affect the entire world: population growth, food- producing problems, health prob- lems, scientific exploration. Lest I be taken as idealistic, let me hasten to say that there is no guarantee that China will be- gin all or any communication on the other end. But then there is no guarantee that Yahweh doesn't hate me. And there is the chance, small perhaps, that something will begin. All of these alterna- tives are not big leaps physically, but they are psychologically. The Quakers make two other suggestions, both of which I find necessary and viable: admission to the United Nations and an end to Taiwanese division. Their ex- plication is lucid and revealing; their reasoning and conclusions, compelling. These alternatives are exactly that. They represent attempts to deal with reality in the light of relative absolutes such as justice and world peace, in a world com- munity. They presuppose commit- ment to that world community. They must be accepted tentative- ly. Reality changes and as it does, so must our alternatives. But in a very real sense, these Quaker proposals, their formulation of a "new" China policy, are crucial alternatives. We cannot afford to dismiss them. We cannot afford to deny them. We must communi- cate. And not in .ignorance. ;# w "Change The Course Or I Want To Get Out:" NATO A h7 1* 'The Collector' Again: Is It Entertaining? jT IS HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT that with- in the next several months Egyptian President Nasser and Soviet Premier' Kosygin may be serving as. mediators in the current Indian-Chinese and Indian- Pakistani border disputes. Prime Minister Shastri has just recent- ly called upon the United Arab Repub- lic to extend its good offices in the for- mer confrontation, while the Soviet Un- ion has already offered to play host to the latter two antagonists in Tashkent. Should these bids at reconciliation be realized, they contain several rather-con- sequential implications both for the states involved and the rest of the world. IN THE FIRST PLACE, in the conceiv- able event that these sets of negotia- tions prove successful the status of each mediator will be considerably elevated in the eyes of the uncommitted nations. On the other hand, another instance of Chinese belligerence in world affairs might prove detrimental to its relations with the countries of Africa and Latin America. On mainland Southeast Asia, however, this show of force, albeit on the Editorial Staff Indian border, could frighten such states as Burma, North Viet Nam and Laos into following Cambodia in abandoning a fence-sitting posture vis-a-vis the Sino- Soviet rift and adopting an unqualified pro-Peking policy. ECONDLY, the benefits accruing to President Nasser could not be under- estimated. He is currently in the unenvi- able position of having recently been dis- paraged by Tunisian President Bourguiba for his unconditional refusal to nego- tiate peace with Israel, and for his en- deavors to bring about Egyptian para- mountcy within the Arab bloc. He has furthermore suffered an appreciable loss of face in the Yemen conflict. By reconciling a Communist with a non-Communist state, he could improve his chances of becoming a key figure in the neutralist bloc. In effect, this striving for uncontested leadership among the non-aligner would offset his present political weakness among the Arab nations. The long-range end result, if compounded by similar en- suing situations, may well be the primacy of Nasser in both the Arab and Afro-Arab blocs. LASTLY, although the prestige of the United Nations Security Council may By MICHAEL JULIAR M COUSIN was trying to tell me that I didn't understand why most people go to the movies. "They go to be entertained, and so do I," he emphatically stated again and again. "Your criticisms are invalid and usually inexcus- able because they ignore the en- tertainment value of movies" Since I don't believe in down- trodding my relatives, I agreed with his first point: most people do go to movies to be entertained. But. I realized it would take two evenings of continuous bulling to make him understand why I think my critiques are valid and, that I always consider entertainment values. And he and I are not that compatible. LUCKILY, I do have a captive audience on campus which will allow me to bull it for a few min- utes because it so vehemently disagrees with my recent opinion of "The Collector." First of all, any movie should entertain, like any other creation of man, such as Tinker Toys and Tchaikovsky, pop art and Picasso. They are all different brands of a creative LSD that affect and excite the mind. For instance, a movie by Bergman is no less en- tertaining than is one about James Bond. People come away from both movies, vehemently discuss- ing their merits and faults. But everyone is sure that his mind has been excited. Yet, like the difference between pop art and Picasso, there is a vast cleavage between what I call pap film (suckling the milk of Hollywood's generous breast) and that singular form called "art" film. The difference is simply that between diversion and stimula- Hollywood today (as for the last 50 years) is meant to be diverting entertainment. Once in a while., a Stanley Kubrick will come along with a stimulant like "Dr. Strange- love," a nonescapism item that does not leave an audience with the feeling that it has simply been given two hours reprieve from the rigors of everyday real-, ity. William Wyler tries to be stimulating in "The Collector," like Kubrick succeeds in doing in "Dr. Strangelove," but he fluently fails as always. SECOND, "The Collector" is meant to show the struggles of a girl trying to escape from a men- tally and physically impotent boy. It is meant to depict the boy's struggle to escape from the im- potency and find some kind of love, even if he has to kidnap a female to do it. And "The Col- lector" is meant to show the fric- tion that develops between the two protagonists. Does William Wyler bring all this off? Does the boy gain any respect or humiliation or sym- pathy from us? Do we physically feel the torture the girl is under- going in one sense and the boy is in another? Are we, in a word, stimulated, or are we only diverted with entertaining events: a kid- napping, a detention, attempted escapes, an attempted seduction, and the final death, appended with the beginning of the cycle again? Stimulating entertainment or diverting entertainment? Which did Wyler try to give us? The former. Which did he give us? Unfortunately, the latter. However, friends of my parents, friends of my friends and just friends and students all say that they were entertained, that they enjoyed "The Collector," that it was a fine movie. able to draw a few pretty lines on paper. She has no ingenuity, no adaptive abilities that she can put to the task of getting out of her dungeon cell. She can feign sick- ness, as any woman knows how to do in time of distress. But her warden knows at least that much about female psychology. When tied up in the bathroom while a neighbor welcomes her kidnapper to the neighborhood, all she can do is to try to flood the mansion withwater to attract the old man's attention. Make noise girl! -Stamp those two free feet on the floor! If she can stretch one out to the bathtub faucet, revealing about ten feet of beautiful leg, she can at least think of using them some other way. Sure, she's under stress, pan- icky half the time, and the rest of the time simply unable to un- derstand her warden. But if the director can't help us to forget all the chances and possibilities of escape that she misses, why should we try to forget them by our- selves? In other words, where is the suspense? I will not dwell on the acting here even though every soul on campus has his own staunch opin- ion about it. Judging acting is too often like trying to explain why you are in love-it is next to im- possible. IN MAKING "The Collector," Wyler gave himself a very tough technical problem to solve because: most of the action takes place in Miranda's cell, on the steps lead- ing to it and on the ground floor of the house, He did not solve the problem of constrictive action ef- fectively. He blocked his scenes like a stage director, setting them up as if they were being created under a proscenium arch. The only thing he shows a character doing action takes place, how can such a large and lavish dungeon con- vey- to us any sense of Miranda's imprisonment? Of course, it is laid out for her comfort, but that is the jailer's conception. It is not Miranda's. If this is meant to be a paradox or a symbol of the two antithetical outlooks the two char- acters have, Wyler never works with it. He just lets it wallow on the screen as a fact while it grates, our imaginations and becomes annoying. THE KEYSTONE of "The Col- lector," as any movie, is the direc- tor. Wyler's work is lax and sterile. For example, if an audience has to laugh at dramatic points in the film, as it did when I saw it, the director is at fault, rarely the actors. If he lets his camera dwell on a face and no feeling is conveyed to the audience, it is the director's shortcoming, along with that of the man who helped him to edit the picture. As the cinematic parlance goes, no "non- existent feelings" were created'. The famous Russian director Pudovkin describes what I mean: "Kuleshov (his teacher), and I made an interesting experiment. We took from some film or other several closeups of the well- known Russian actor Mosjukhin. We chose close-ups which were static and which did not express any feeling at all-quiet close-ups. We joined these close-ups, which were all similar, with other bits of film in three different com- binations. In the first combina- tion the close-up of Mosjukhin was immediately followed by a shot of a plate of soup- standing on a table. "It was obvious and certain that Mosjukhin was looking at this soup. In the second combination the face of Mosjukhin was joined to hn c .hrd x .rnffin in which admired the light, happy smile, with which he surveyed the girl at play. But we knew that in all three cases the face was exactly the same." THIS WAS NOT a "trick" by two Russians, but the application of a basic cinematic technique. In "The Collector," Wyler tried to do roughly the same thing when Miranda realizes how abberrant her captor is or when she begins to realize that she will never escape and at other points in the .film. But a bowl of soup or a child isn't shown on the screen in juxtaposition with a close-up of Miss Eggar's face. A verbal, pure- ly aurol connection is made. The "collector" says something and then the close-up of Miss Eggar's face fills the screen-a distortion of the "non-existent feeling" idea that sometimes works elsewhere, but fails here. No emotion can be engendered in the viewer because the aural-visual combination that Mr. Wyler presents us with is not 'strong enough. Still, many people came 'to be- lieve that they had seen fine act- ing and expressive delineation of emotion. But they were only mis- led-not as the Russians misled their audience,-but as a common popular culture has been mislead- ing its mass audience for years. The audience was indoctrinated through advertising, gossip col- umns, magazine articles and sev- eral laudatory reviews to expect good acting in "The Collector." Then, when people saw Wyler's camera dwelling on Miss Eggar's face, they exploded their expec- tations into visual emotion exist- ence. These people may have em- pathized with the characters. They may have honestly felt that "The I