Scventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
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ere Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MiCi.
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily ex press the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
Y, AUGUST 24, 1965
NIGHT EDITOR: JUDITH WARREN
On Being a Freshman:
One-to-One in the Multiversity
HERE YOU ARE, admitted as a fresh-
man to the University of Michigan,
probably conscious of both your abilities,
which are abundant, and your human
shortcomings, which you never have wor-
ied too much about until you found
yourself face to face with a university.
You see yourself, at any rate as an in-
dividual human being-lost in an over-
whelming society, perhaps, but still an
individual. You're in for a surprise.
The world prefers to think of you as a
commodity, thanks in no small part to
university sociologists. You have been
mentally and emotionally measured, typ-
ed, fitted and tested. There is, in fact, a
price on your head.
Your mind, your abilities and your
skills will probably be worth, very rough-
ly, $20,000-50,000 a year to the American
(or maybe some other) economy 10 years
from now. From $1500 to $5000 a year
will be invested in you as you go through
school. You are a human resource, far
more valuable than mineral resources.
GOOD NEWS? There's more. Society is
beginning to recognize, in its own
haphazard, going backwards, slow-to-
achieve-consensus way, just how valu-
able you really are. They'll pay, in other
words. $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a year.
You name it. Cars, ranch homes, round-
the-world vacations, even the sexual
facade.
Our market economy is an amazing
mechanism. One of the greatest inven-
tions in the world. It recognizes and re-
wards value quickly and efficiently.
(You'll learn about the market economy
in Economics 12, by the way, as you will
learn about that wonderful word "so-
ciety" in sociology 100. Good luck.)
If you are here in search of quick and
efficient rewards-whether in the form
of grades, self congratulation, or "lux-
urious living"-you can get them all here
and. more. But look at what you are do-
ing all up and down the line: you'reac-
cepting external definitions of what you
ought to like, of what is good for you.>
You accept the Coca-Cola ad as the
model of the good life, the "A" (and not
the work and thought that should go in-
to it) as the great goal, Playboy as a way
of life.
For God's sake back up a minute and
look at what you are committing yourself
to. Are you going to let somebody else---
be it Standard Oil or Lyndon Johnson-
tell you, either directly or indirectly,
what your personal values are? Are you
going to let General Motors' assumption
that what's good for it is good for you go
unchallenged?
The fact is that all of us have to some
extent. But four years in a university can
serve as a period for-reevaluation and re-
view, for careful construction of your
own life on your own terms.
WHAT I AM saying is simple: be both
.aware and wary, be ready, to profit
from every experience, balance ingen-
uousness with careful thought. If you
are cynical you end up in your own closed
box; if you don't discriminate among the
ideas, the theories and the philosophies
urged upon you as gospel, you end up be-
ing swept off in wrong, even harmful
directions. Leave yourself open to eval-
uate every new bit of fact or outlook that
comes along,' but remember that there
are at least four years more before you
really have to commit yourself to any-
thing.'
The freshman, as he proceeds through.
the University, soons begins to perceive,
or ought to, that he would do well to toss
out "A's", cars, color television and strip-
ed ties as inherently desirable. An auto-
mobile is nice, but it is external to the
person who drives it or owns it and hard-
ly embodies within itself any values or
philosophies with which that person can
identify himself.
Editorial Staff
ROBERT JO©fNSTON, Editor
LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM JEFFREY GOODMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
JUDITH WARR~EN......Personnel Director
TH~OMAS W EIL'ERG................ Sports Editor
LAUREN BAHRE.........Associate Managing Editor
SCOTT BLECH ...........Assistant Managing Editor
It's the same thing with grades. Mem-
orized reading lists or lecture notes ac-
quired to fill blue books are external. No-
body wants to commit himself or identify
himself with memorized facts. The act
of memorization is, by itself, of no great
'value. Neither is an "A", except insofar
as a person is able to identify with a
standard of excellence that he holds up
for himself in both work and thought-
a standard he has internalized. He must
have a commitment, not to "A's", but to
standards he believes in- which might
result in "A's", but not necessarily.
But how can you, as a freshman, know
where to make !new commitments that
must be made to lend stability and mean-
ing to your life? Who or what can you
believe? Where, in other words, do you
put your poker chips? r
Establish- some rough standards for
yourself. Standards first of excellence.j
You know, for instance, when you are do-
ing a good job and when you are not,
what's really behind that "A," when you
are making the effort and when you are
letting yourself follow the smoothest
path.
With this standard of excellence in
achievement set up, you will then be able
to conceptualize standards of logic, of
virtue, of' hope, of relevance and of per-
sonal meaning. Just remember that
standards must be for yourself, for what
you want to do, to be and to commit your.
self to. You should believe in and act
upon whatsyou think, but be generous in
allowing others the same privilege.
BUT STANDARDS are only guideposts,
there is still the problem of commit-
ment here and now. Where do you start?
Here I have a suggestion. Look through
the rest of this newspaper. Pass over for
a moment the many ads of the Ann Arbor
merchants. You can begin to see the di-
verse aspects of what we call the Uni-
versity.
The undergraduates, the faculty, the
graduate students, sports, activities of
every stripe, research, buildings, admin-
istrators, classes, lectures and outside
speakers. It all adds up to more than the
sum of its parts. It adds up to a univer-
sity, -not a wax museum. It's right here,
and it's more than buildings and offices
and books and homework.
It's worth looking for. It's worth a lit-
tle faith that there is something here in
the way of values andideas and ways of
thinking that is valuable to you as an
4individual, that can, with an investment
of time, effort and thought on your part
result in identity and commitment to
things you can believe in, not things that
Madison Avenue, or your roommates, or
"society" want you to believe in or will
believe in for you.
It all reduces to a common denomin-
ator, you, individually, on the one hand
and the part of the world that you're
willing and able to make your own, to
commit yourself to, on the other. It
comes down to a one-to-one correspon-
dence, and the University is a partner
that can be indulged in and relied upon
to provide the best possible source of in-
spiration for commitment.'
The University has, or is supposed to
have, a commitment to you as well.
While many faculty and researchers
here are interested primarily in power,
profit and personal aggrandizement,
there is still plenty of material left for
the other half of that one-to-one corre-
spondence. Don't let the University es-
cape its most essential obligation: peo-
ple-you.
The University can teach, it cannot
make you learn. And even learning isn't
enough. After you have listened to lec-
tures, studied books, taken notes and
written papers, you have done no more
than you might have done at any school
or even at home (given educational tele-
vision). You are halfway down the path,
but by no means there.
FOR THE LAST and most essential in-
gredients of the educated man-
alertness, sympathy and human identity
and commitment can come only through
close, personal interaction with other
persons.
The freshman, however many of him
there are, has every right to demand that
his professors, his graduate instructors,
By JEFFREY GOODMAN
Editoria Director
LAST FALL, when things were
exploding at Berkeley, there
were a few abortive attempts to
stir this University up too, and
when school starts again there will
be more.
Students almost by definition
have recurring emotional and aca-
demic crises.
Them will be overcrowded class-
es and three men in many two-
man rooms; some will feel dis-
contented and some might even
complain en masse.
AND EVENTS in the outside
world will continue to press in
on those who let themselves be
receptive.
Despite it all, quite sufficient
ways have been perfected to make
life pleasant here; no one really
has to put with any continuing or
bothersome tensions.
The student quickly enough
learns that this is a smoothly
functioning institution.
FOR BY AND LARGE the peo-
ple who set the tone of this place
and determine its style of opera-
tion are pretty shrewd. They know
how-in their speeches and poli-
cies and classrooms-to head off
any important disruptions, how to
explain away minor disturbances,
how to settle questions and chal-
lenges securely.
More personally, there is a host
of official arrangements - from
faculty office hours to psycholog-
ical and religious counseling serv-
es-to ensure that not too many
students need feel too much anx-
iety for too long.
And students can also count on
less official aid - from friends,
teachers and the inevitability of
semesters ending and accounts be-
ing settled-to bring closer to
home a philosophy in which the
resolution of doubts and anguish
is both easy and primary.
ALL OF THIS -is as it should be
for people who want to get along,
both in the University and in the
"real world" they will enter (too
soon) upon graduating, as well as
for the University and the social
system.
Tension, anxiety, disorder in
personality or in social institu-
tions do not serve the need for
preserving existing arrangements
from an onslaught of liberated hu-
man energies. It istvital that
everyone be drawn into the Great
Society, that none are left out-
side to challenge and upset its
structure or values.
Basically, modern men and in-
stitutions arecneither capable nor
desirous of coping with tension
and ambiguity, and in any case
we have become convinced by the
subtle encroachments of power
structures and vested interests
that what is good for business-
nearly-as-usual is ultimately good
for our souls.
UNIVERSITIES are simply func-
tional and structural microcosms
of the arrangements which obtain
outside- their walls. They are ser-
ant-arms of the broader system,
and their assigned purpose is to
socialize young people to be com-
fortable with the existing arrange-
ment by re-creating that arrange-
ment at all levels of society.
(This is not necessarily a con-
demnation; in actuality, it is but
one part of how "institution" and
"socialization" are defined.)
And so, in the universities as
in the broader system, the domi-
nant ethic is that one should not
continually be in a state of doubt
and search, a state of striving in
which good effort itself is all that
is needed for fulfillment.
THIS KIND of tension is too
creative! It increases too much
one's sensitivity to the disjunc-
tion between reality and ideal, be-
tween reality and hope.
Instead, emphasis is on the com-
pleted task as an end in itself, on
the resolved problem, the settled
crisis, on closure and finiteness
and definiteness. This would not
be so damaging if only these vari-
ous stabilizations were viewed as
essentially unimportant to the
process of renewed and continu-
ous creative struggle, if only ac-
cepted morality stressed that they
were but irrelevant phenomena in
an unending concern with action
and process and striving as the
only realistic ends (precisely be-
cause they are not ends) of hu-
man endeavor.
But such is rarely the case.
AS THE GREEKS tell this story
-via Albert Camus' interpreta-
tion of their famous myth - a
hero, Sisyphus, is doomed to spend
the rest of eternity pushing an
extremely heavy boulder up an ex-
tremely steep hill. Almost imme-
diately Sisyphus realizes he can
never reach, the top (perfection)
for, after every gain upwards, he
will be forced back down the hill
by the weight of the boulder.
He can give up altogether. Or
he can always want to succeed
and thus always be frustrated,
The Love of Struggle for Its Own Sake
Liberates Man from His Condition
this is the only way for men really the energy and self-knowledge and physically constraining by their
to live. love of struggle that has been own struggle, for this "war' 'is
building up in him. little more than a (tokenistici
IN THE MODERN AGE, how- And of course few, if any, of the handout, from superordinate, in-
ever, one concentrates on the goal tasks real men might do in to- creasing, dependencies and the
as an end point. In short time day's world are anywhere near as sense that one is not cwpable of
one either becomes frustrated constraining. conceiving and implementing, on
and then bitterly and confusedly his own, a better life for himself.
neurotic (because the boal can- SO THINGS GO much more
not be achieved and there is no smoothly and safely when the EVEN MORE revealing is the
joy in trying) or, more likely, tone of what is handed down- way American -foreign' policy is
one learns his lesson and gradually in media, in classrooms, in official conducted, as in Viet Nam and the
lets die his capacity to conceive pronouncements, in one-to-one Dominitan Republic or with re-
of ends that are at all difficult contacts-does not liberate the un- spect to China, Cuba and the rest
to attain. controllable energies of enjoying of the "non-aligned" left-leaning
He spends the rest of his life living, trying, striving, rebelling underdeveloped world.
ignorantly satisfied with pushing per se. There is no attempt in our ef-
his rock an inch at a time, at If social institutions were to al- forts to struggle with the multi-
which rate he will never make the low the locus of satisfaction or dis- ple and complicated problems of
top. satisfaction to fall upon the act revolution,, nationalism, peasants
Actually, both these alterna- of attaining some goal, they would vs. urbanites, democratic socialism
tives lead to neurosis, which is place the burden of fulfillment vs. c o n t i n u e d domination by
simply the inability to function upon genuine human endeavor in- "friendly" foreign and native cap-
in one's environment according to stead of the randomness with ital, the-socio-economic requisites
one's peculiar desires and needs which phenomena occur in 'the of democratic functioning;the dif-
for self-fulfillment. The person world, with which good is some- ferences in "Communisms."
who seeks nothing less than per- times rewarded, sometimes perse- These are issues which go far
fection continually fails, and he cuted, more often irrelevant. deeper, evoke far more anxiety
is so hopelessly overwhelmed that One would be fulfilled or not and demand far more creativity
he -mu't eventually retreat from fulfilled only on the basis of the than the one on which we cur-.
all significant struggle. unavoidable knowledge of his rently base our foreign policy -
style, energy and faithfulness to whether or not a government
THE PERSON whose goals are, himself, his awareness of how "supports" U.S. interests.
objectively and subjectively, not much of him went into any at-
especially worth pursuing (be- tainment. He would know himself INSTEAD of engaging whole-
cause they are not difficult) may better and better, and there would heartedly in this struggle to sort
well be happy, but in a subtler be supreme exhilaration in know- out conditions and imperatives
way he is still neurotic: he has ing that he is doing or trying to and really to compete with the
forfeited his essential nature by do what he must do. Eastern nations (instead of offer-
world" and little
auy latent desire
have to adjust IL
least to tell it to
it will not let
peace.
And there is ti mester, the busi-
ness and finance office's answer to
the non-use of costly facilities
during summer nd v a c a t i o n
months. Essentia ly the stuffing of
three full semes ters into a con-
tinuous 12-month academic calen-
dar, it generates damaging pres-
sures to cram an cut corners and
give back only w ia will assuredly
get results (i.e., ' vhat the teacher
wants). It is fast turning an expe-
rience that can b e beneficially in-
tense if given enugh slack into a
ridiculously ove intense rat-race.
There will be' peeches by "top"
administrators and "noted scho-
lars" and end s course lectures
in which the tudent will be
told subtly that ociety needs him
and wants him o long as he for-
gets the silly nd ion that he has a
legitimate righx -to demand of it
something it is rlot already willing
to give).
THERE WILL BE demands that
the administra 'on liberalize this
rule and elimi te that control
and, alas, only compromises and
assurances tha all is really well
and you never ad it so good and
the world reall does care (which
is too much tru , and it'll all come
out in the was (or the Great
Society) especieu ly since we all
agree- (isn't it onderul?) on the
basic guideline for our actions
and you shouldj appreciate a great
nation in whic there is so much
consensus abou Important things,
how dare you oubt these con-
clusions?
And there wi1 be endless other
compromises with the powers-
that-be: t h e state legislature
whose petty pol tics the University
feels it must pl y along with since
it must get stats money; irate par-
ents wanting tc know why the
University is eft her not guarding
their sons and daughters or is
turning them into Communists;
starving local bursiness enterprises
(on many of w lose boards of di-
rectors top Uniyersity officials sit
or in whose groiwing capital stock
many administ jators have strong
personal interests).
Compromises, because they are
the stuff of pe4.e.
IF IN BALANCE the University
like. the social, system it serves,
actively or by significant omis-
sions ends up ; utimidating indi-
viduals' natural desires and poten-
tially most fruful methods of op-
eration,sthere are nevertheless
numerous piltive--or at least
non-negatve developments a n d
attributes.
A residentI college, where stu-
dents will be n far smaller group-
ings than is ormal and where
learning will ber oth more stim-
ulating and organically tied to liv-
ing and socializing pursuits, is in
slow but certain progress.
It is possible; given enough de-
sire, to find some very stimulating
professors and even some very
stimulating courses.
ON THE MORE sedate side, if
one is afraid to seek personal re-
lationships with his often unap-
proachable elders he can some-
times even find understanding
mentors, new fathers, confidants
or Just good friends among the
faculty. The library is free, of
course, so there are always good
books to read (though they will
have to be read at home, for in-
side their walls the libraries offer
little but noisy, smoky chatter).
There are a few good extra-curri-
cular activities and groups of ex-
pressive people to join, for their
own merits or to escape studying
or to find a "community" with
whose attempts to find satisfac-
tion in some kind of creative ef-
fort one can identify.
Once In a while there is a
movie good enough that one can
relax his anxieties about the pro-
cesses of his life and enjoy him-
self (if one has no such anxieties
teeare many movies good
enough).
One can have good parties and
carry on (+espectably always, so as
not to create indignation) friend-
ships. And if one is so inclined he
can even get up on a stone bench
on the center of campus.and make
speeches, or he can read or even
write flaming editorials in one of
the freest college newspapers in
the coun wy.
AND OF COURSE there is still
a sphere-someplace, in some sit-
uations, at some times-untouch-
able except by the student. It re-
quires i - its- full exploitation only
that the student recognize it and
capitalize on it, only that he guard
it and understand it will all the
anguish that implies and then-
slowly, courageously, anxiously,
with nany troubles and setbacks
but, hop efully, with always the
satisfacion that pure striving
brings--that he extend it.
When all is said and done, this
University is still the- greatest of
THE CONDITIONS which liberate- human potential and thus allow genuine human fulfillment-ex-
ploring directing and redirecting the ariiieties and deep self-awareness which come from, a love, for its
own sake, of the struggle to express oneself-are essentially dangerous to our social system. So these
conditions generate considerable tension, which can only be communicated and understood as men
somehow isolate themselves from the prohibitive controls of the world around them.
denying its existence, by denying
the fully developing being he
might be if what is basic to him
could any longer asserts its claim
upon his actions. The reliance
upon achievement inevitably re-
quires shrinking the scope of one's
expectations or pushing sideways
or obliquely instead of straight
upward.
(Needless to say, there is a
great range of behavior in this
category-all the way from the
stereotypically anesthesized "orga-
nization" or "mass" man to the
administrator who has not learn-
ed the pleasures of striving in good
style or even, more fundamentally,
of his work.
(In order to preserve his psychic
health, he can propose and do
only the possible-i.e., only what
has not already been labeled ri-
diculous, undesirable or irrelevant
-which means that his modes of
fulfillment are no longer his own.)
THE REASON, it seems, that
present institutional arrangements
(and the preachings of their
prophets and managers and edu-
cators, which those arrangements
almost wholly determine) try so
hard to socialize men in the pat-
tern of deriving their pleasure
from resolution is that this makes
populations considerably more
predictable and controllable.
It is far safer to specify the con-
tent of the ends, solutions and
goals which are functionally de-'
sirable than it is to develop the
capacity for deriving fulfillment
from effort itself.
Moreover, whether goals are de-
fined explicitly or by stressing at-
tainments in general and more
subtly limiting their variance, to
define goals is to determine the
procedures men will take to reach
them (especially since means can
also be directly specified, which is
the function of law).
TV , ,, t v.,, ,,-+"V" v SA X" +,-
That exhila.ation is perhaps
the most human and the most
basic feeling which men ever
feel, and because it is so basic
and so powerfully intimate it
taps far more of those desires,
hopesrcapacities and visions
which lie too deep to be dirtied
by those social constraints
which essentially destroy human
life.
Content and success would be
unimportant, and thus they could
not be limited and delimited; pro-
cedure would be all-important, and
thus one would seek those goals
the struggle toward which would
bring them the most self-realiza-
tion.,
It would not be important if
there were reactionary forces to
keep one from what he really
needs, and what is commanded
and drilled in for the sake of
"progress" could no longer reach
the mind. Only the doing would be
important, and anyone who knows
this knows also that achievement'
would then cease to be a real
satisfaction since it would become
merely the beginning to new and
continuing efforts.
ALL OF WHICH is far too dan-
gerous socially to be entertained
seriously as a theme of education,
child-raising, religion or social
communication. By and large the
proclamations which one will hear
of this theme are hypocritical, and
in its actual practice and its state-
ments of "philosophical" justifi-
cation the social system contin-
ues to seek only resolution and
stability.
On the national scale the ad-
ministration is bent on bringing
the poor into the middle class -
which is all the war on poverty
is really about. This would reduce
the present tensions of having a
third of the population ill-fed, etc.
It would also reduce the equally
ing them no competition at all,
which is what our policies of alien-
ation and suppression ultimately
do), we feel compelled to reduce
every problem to its most obfu-
scating red and white terms and
-aim at nothing more than the goal
of containing/defeating Commu-
nism.
By almost any account such a
method is bound to be continually
frustrating and continually more
productive of paranoia and sim-
plism; if standing behind true
progress, no matter what color or
"ism" it represents, would produce
at least as much anxiety (for the
struggle will be exceedingly long
and complex), it would neverthe-
less liberate far more of our crea-
tive, constructive and beneficent
energies.
IN THE UNIVERSITY, in this
America-in-microcosm which is
-the Ann 'Arbor campus, one meets
the same stifling forces and em-
phases. Women will have hours,
for instance, so they do not have
to run their lives completely by
themselves -and so (quite apart
from whether they are already
"responsible" or not) they will
have two year's "grace" before
tl7ey must or can learn what' it
means and requires to be respon-
sible to themselves (which is ulti-
mately all that counts).
(The situation has improved
slightly, I must admit.: due to
the courage of the University's lib-
eral vice-president for student af-
fairs, junior women have been
granted permission to be wholly
themselves as midnight comes
around).
Exams will usually stress closure
-the resolution of questions with-
in the narrow confines of the
course outline or the professor's
particular prejudices - and their
very existence means that educa-
tion usually ends up fragmented
4