Seventy-Sixth Year
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On Fiedler: The Fallacy of Omniscience
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Editorials printed in. The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 1967
NIGHT EDITOR: LAURENCE MEDOW
{
The Faculty Resolution:*
Whose Good Faith?
By ANDREW LUGG
Daily Guest Writer
LESLIE A. FIEDLER, the om-
niscent, made his debut Friday
evening with an all-seeing, all-be-
lieving, all-knowing view of World
Youth.
He pironetted nicely through his
repertoire of the banal, the trite
and the sick, with a verbal ele-
gance and iconoclasm worthy of
his -mentors, Marshall McCluan
and Buckminster Filler. The lec-
ture resowed itself into a brilliant
analysis into the contorted and
fragmented mind of Leslie A.
Fiedler.
Fiedler approached his subject
from his avowed position as a
middle - class Freudian - Marxist.
From this stance, which it would
be more to the point to call cryp-
to-Freudian and pseudo-Marxist,
he presents the hippies as the true
radicals of the century.
HIPPIES writing on the hippy-
world, he announced, will be the
writers future generations will look
to as "the mark of this epoch."
But it is difficult for hippy
youth to place into any of the
categories he established ("saint,"
"cowboy," "man-girl," "white Ne-
gro" and "Gentile Jew") the poets
and writers recognized by the
hippy, pre-hippy, non-hippy and
post-hippy as being where it's at.
To name a few: Gary Snyder
(maybe another category for him:
Japanese Indian); Robert Creeley
and Charles Olsen (from Universi-
ties); Alan Ginsburg ("Howl" and
"Kaddish" are "beat" not "hip");
Borges and Tolkein (an Oxford
scholar).
FIEDLER'S VIEW is simplistic
in the extreme. He did not or
could not establish any differ-
ences among the Mario Savio
"Turn In, turn on and take over"
group; the "turn in, turn
on and drop out" group; the teen-
ie-boppers; the baby hippies; the
hipsters (they still exist); univer-
sity hippies, or the minutae (i.e.,
post tenny-boppers and pre-baby
hippies).
It is only necessary to read "The
Village Voice' 'or "The East Vil-
lage Other" for a few weeks to
realize the diversity of aims (they
have aims!) and the multifarious
"ways of life" these groups rep-
resent. Note that there is a world
of difference between Simon and
Garfunkel and Joe Tex. In Fied-
ler's mind these groups jell into
a homogeneous mass which threat-
ens him almost to the point of
paranoia and with which he iden-
tifies to an alarming extent.
THE SIMPLISTIC view is not
as much due to problems of pre-
senting a balanced view of a wide
and involved phenomenon in a
very short space of time, as to the
fact that he was applying a meth-
odology (Marxism - Freudianism)
which is no longer very relevant.
Fiedler uses the rhetoric of
nineteneht century determinists to
categorize the world. Marxism
serves him the "sociological" par-
apernalia with which to systemize,
and Freudianism gives him a
structure for explaining the illogi-
cal.
Rather than presenting a logi-
cal thesis of the irrational, Fiedler
endeavors to rationalize the ir-
rational. The enigmatic, the
wierd, the un-sane may in his
terms be subjected to psycho-an-
alysis and be explained and incor-
porated into his wilted middle-
class Weltanschung.'
Fiedler's well-touted example, R.
D. Lang, has done the same thing
in "Morgan."
THE OMNISCENCE of Gidler,
McCluan and Co. is intolerable.
Our first thought is "who are they
putting on." This is 1967 and
things are far more complicated
than either Marx's or Freud's
cause and effect" theories make
out.
The twentieth century has
thrown up existentialist phenom-
enology and the "new" physics. It
is these theories-which have de-
nied Marx and Freud-that are
the "tenor" of today.
The insistence on Freudian-
Marxist interpretations is a symp-
tom of the American Dream syn-
drome. One won't go far wrong
by seeing Fiedler's analysis as ram-
pany hedonism.
He sounds like the fraternity
student who gave me a lift once,
and said, "It must be nice to be
a beatnik." "'. . What do you
mean?" ...being free!"
For Fiedler the hippies seem to
be approaching a hedonism that
he wishes for himself.
IT SEEMS that this hedonism is
equated with radicalism. But how
radical are these hippies? How new
are their values, or their philos-
ophy?
It seems that for them drop-
ping out, taking over, etc. is the
way to "happiness" and that this
is nothing more than a revolt
against irrationality--the last jad-
ed attempt to practice determin-
ism.
The hippies are nineteenth cen-
tury romanticists aspiring to some
sort of mystical unity of man and
nature. A tendency, incidentally,
which has culminated (at present)
In Leary's "Illumination of the
Buddha," a last attempt to rede-
fine the "soul."
Their philosophy is nothing new
-rather it is a logical extension
of Fiedler's peculiar brand of
Marxist-Freudianism, necessarily
tempered by the American dream.
They are "hung-up" on such out-
moded concepts as "laws of na-
ture" and "essence." By trying to
maximize certainty, half-truths
are inevitably presented as "truth."
Fiedler romanticizes; he sees in
the hippies a glorious ideal of do-
ing nothing. The result is
that analysis becomes subservient
to catharsis (Freudian sense). His
methodology is out-dated and his
conclusions are underlined with
prejudice rather than scholarship.
'fi
IN THEIR, LAST MEETING the literary
college faculty charged the University
administration ,with "less responsibility
and less fidelity to the democratic proc-
ess than the University community had
every right to expect." At the same time,
they urged students to refrain from dis-
ruptive activities: disruption, they said,
will not gain desired ends.
Students must receive this resolution
as showing the faculty's genuine interest
and support-albeit cautious support-for
student demands.
BUT IT SHOULD BE clear now that it
was precisely because the administra-
tion acted: (and may continue to act)
with "less responsibility ... than the Uni-
versity community has every right to ex-
pect" that students have had no other
recourse than disruption.
The faculty reasons that the "most im-
portant requisites" toward achieving the
goal of greater student-faculty participa-
tion in the decision-making process are
"good faith and mutual trust" and a
chance for something like the Hatcher
tripartite commissions to be formed.
Keep in mind, however, what it took to
get the administration to even agree to
discuss the issues.
SMALL WONDER, then, that those com-
missions would be regarded with sus-
picion by the student body. The "good
faith" the faculty calls for certainly has
not been guaranteed by the administra-
tion's actions. The faculty may "regret
the breakdown in . . . confidence" but it
will take will take the administration to
eradicate its existence.
Indeed, there are those students who
oppose even working with the Hatcher
commissions, arguing that they have been
established merely to drain the energy
and legitimacy of the movement into a
blind alley.
Hopefully this will not be the case; part
of the success can be guaranteed, how-
ever, if students keep activity going on
their own while sending their best rep-
resentatives to the commissions.
THE ADMINISTRATION is on trial. This
is their opportunity to demonstrate
the "good faith" so vital to a properly
functioning University community.
If they continue to show their unwill-
ingness to share decision-making powers,
the "Movement" will be forced back into
high gear.
-PAT O'DONOHUE
Johnson Miscalculated on Fighting Two Wars
WORKING ON his budget, the
President must be actuely
aware how true is the old saying
that to govern is to choose. His
choices have become much more
painful.
Last year, when he was prepar-
ing his message on the State of
the Union, he still dared to be-
lieve that "this nation is mighty
enough, its society is healthy
enough, its people are strong
enough to pursue our goals in the
rest of the world while still build-
ing a Great Society at home."
Even then he knew that there
was some doubt about that proud
promise, and in the budget mes-
sage which came 13 days later he
said, "even a prosperous nation
cannot meet all its goals at once."
THE QUESTION he is wrestling
with today is whether he can
achieve any of the goals he pro-
claimed a year ago. He cannot be
at all sure that he can achieve
his goal in Vietnam, and he is
compelled to admit that he must
postpone indefinitely most of his
goals at home.
A year ago we were living in a
buoyant economy which at the
existing tax rates was counted
upon to produce very large rev-
enues. These revenues provided
quite painlessly for the two wars
-the war in Vietnam was then
on a smaller scale and was ex-
pected to end rather soon and the
war on poverty. Because these
revenues have been so much eaten
up in order to pay for the en-
.larged war in Vietnam, the choices
before the President have become
much sharper and much more
painful.
It now seems probable that the
President will not fight the two
wars simultaneously and that his
boasts and his promises a year
ago are to be laid aside.
WHY CAN HE not fight the
two wars simultaneously? Why
can't a country as rich as this one
deal with what is a small war and
also tend to. its affairs at home?
Any statistician can provide the
figures to show that the country
can support both wars if there is
a small increase of taxes-or a
very large budgetary deficit.
Most of the economists, with a
few notable dissenters, such as
Walter Heller and John Kenneth
Today
and
Tomorrow
By WALTER LIPPMANN
Galbraith, are saying that while
taxes should have been raised
early this year it is dangerously
late in the expansion to raise
them now.
According to the Morgan Guar-
anty Survey, the gross national
product will show only a small
gain for the last quarter of 1966,
perhaps as little as 2 per cent in
real terms. Even the second- and
third-quarter gains were modest,
averaging 3 per cent when taken
together.
There is thus a danger that with
such slow expansion the growth
of demand will not keep pace with
the growth of capacity in the
economy. To impose higher taxes
on an economy which is slowing
down might bring on a recession.
The economists may well be
right. But the practical effect of
their advice is that the war on
poverty and urban blight must in
effect be suspended - unless the
President has the courage to run
big budgetary deficits.
AS ONE WHO thought last year
that the President was deluding
himself about our ability to fight
the two wars, I have been asking
myself why a country which is as
rich as we are today should feel
itself compelled to economize at
the expense of its children and of
its poor.
There exists, I have come to
think; some kind of rule which in
a democratic society limits what
the voters will stand for in the
way of sacrifices for the public
good-the public good which is not
immediately, obviously and direct-
ly to their own personal advant-
age.
During P r e s i d e n t Johnson's
honeymoon period-say up to the
spring of 1965 - a comparatively
small war in Vietnam and the
small beginnings of the war
against poverty were paid for
easily out of the revenues of our
expanding economy. Thus, the
poor were provided with tangible
small payments on large promis-
sory notes, and this gave them
hope and patience.
At the same time the well-to-do
and the rich never had it so good,
and in addition they had a fairly
substantial hope that they might
be given another tax cut with still
better things to come.
These were the psychological
foundations of the Johnson con-
sensus, and under it the conflicts
between labor and capital and be-
tween the races were assuaged and
tranquilized.
THE REAL COST of the escala-
tion of the war in Vietnam is. not
measured in dollars and cents. The
real cost is that the surpluses of
an expanding economy have been
swallowed up, and this has re-
moved the lubricants and the cu-
shions against the conflicts of
interests and the rivalry of
ideologies.
We are moving more and more
into sharp and raw confronta-
tions. This is the tragic conse-
quence of one of the most serious
miscalculations in our history.
(c), 1967, The Washington Post Co.
Britain's Peace Proposal
LAST WEEK Great Britain proposed that
the United States and South Viet Nam
join Hanoi at the conference table to help
end the war in Viet Nam. The British
proposal received much international at-
tention.
Hanoi, however, correctly evaluated it:
it was a "vicious statement."
It is a well-known fact that the United
States and the South have been willing
to talk to North Viet Nam for quite some
time. Hanoi has not been willing to join
them for a number of continually reiter-
ated reasons which the South and the
U.S. have as yet not met.
THE BRITISH "proposal" blithely passed
'. over the Hanoi preconditions as if they
did not exist, and by ignoring them they
obviously meant to put the onus of not
negotiating solely on the North.
The United States will negotiate: but at
present they are bombing the North. The
British proposal made no mention of a
halt.
The South Vietnamese will negotiate:j
but they refuse to enter into talks with
the National Liberation Front. The Brit-
ish proposal made no mention of includ-
ing the National Liberation Front in talks.
IN LIGHT of these two omissions it seems
more likely that the British statement
was motivated far more by internal Brit-
ish politics and in the interest of Ameri-
can prestige than by a genuine desire for
peace.
We need no more "peace proposals" like
these.
--HARVEY WASSERMAN
Editorial Director
No Comment
Department
ON DECEMBER 7, 1966, the literary col-
lege Calendar Committee submitted a
report which called for a number of
changes in the University's academic cal-
endar. The committee, which was made
up of a group of literary college profes-
sors with George May of the math depart-
ment as chairman, suggested among oth-
er things that the mid-term break be
lengthened into a full week and that the
number of study days before final exams
be increased in order to make the tri-
mester system more livable for students.
University students are currently re-
ceiving, along with their transcripts, a
copy of the academic calendar, incor-
porating no real changes over previous
calendars, which runs through the
Spring-Summer term of 1970.
--STEVE WILDSTROM
4
Letters: Secretary Decries Mandatory Loyalty Oath
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Business Staff
SUSAN PERLSTADT, Business Manager
JEFFREY LEEDS ........ Associate Business Manager
HARRY BLOCH ............... Advertising Manager
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JUNIOR MANAGERS-Gene Farber Erica Keeps, Bill
Krauss, Sam Offen, Carol Neimera, Diane Smaller,
Michael Stecklis, Jeanne Rosinski, Steve Wechsler.
Editorial Staff
MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH, Editor
BRUCE WASSERSTEIN, Executive Editor
CLARENCE FANTO HARVEY WASSERMAN
Managing Editor . Editorial Director
To the Editor:
ON JANUARY 3 I went to the
personnel office at the Uni-
versity to be "processed" in order
to begin my job as secretary in
the Sociology Department.
After writing my name, sex,
and social security number on sev-
eral documents, I was given a loy-
alty oath to sign. This oath is re-
quired of every employe of the Uni-
versity from janitor to professor.
I decided not to sign it at the
time and was told that I could
not report to my job; my name
was stricken from the payroll.
I HAVE SINCE talked with sev-
eral people including an ACLU
lawyer. My choice is apparently
simple. Sign or forget the job.
I returned and signed the oath.
Following is the statement which
I attached to the oath:
I SIGN this statement with the
greatest reluctance. I sign it only
because it has been made clear
to me that I will not be able to
obtain any job with the University
unless I do sign the statement.
And I want the job for which I
have been hired.
My objections to this Employe
Oath are not based on any feel-
ings of inability to support the
Constitutions of either the United
States of America or the State of
Michigan.
To begin with this oath is stup-
id; it is patently ineffective to
accomplish even its own presum-
ed purpose to assure the loyalty
of all employes. If, indeed, I had
designs on unconstitutionally over-
throwing the Sociology Depart-
ment, I would certainly have no
qualms about signing this oath.
THE OATH is insulting and of-
fensive to me. It questions the good
faith of my motives in accepting
my position. It dictates the views
I must hold in order to obtain em-
ployment.
While it might seem somewhat
more reasonable-although just as
futile-to demand this sort of oath
for persons doing classified work,
it is entirely ridiculous to require
it as a requisite for secretarial
work. 1
Finally, it violates my personal
sense of ethics to pledge my sup-
port categorically to any person,
thing, group, or dogma. I believe
that one's commitments should be
based on one's moral judgment of
a particular situation at a partic-
ular time.
Governmental impositions of
oaths of this sort which exert
economic and personal sanctions
over thoughts and actions are Big
Brother tactics which have no
proper place in a country that
supposes itself to be free.
-Deanna Sue Nilsson
Fiedler
To the Editor:
THE EVENING before last, I
caught about the last two-
thirds of Leslie Fiedler's act at'
Rackham-and it was, in a vague
sense, a rather rewarding experi-
ence.
i haven't, I must admit, had quite
so poignant a glimpse of the big
bright world outside of Ann Arbor
since the then Michigan Union
treated us to a similar bit of
Americana in the form of Ross
Barnett.
Fiedler and Barnett share two
essential characteristics: first, they
both provide a welcome relief from
the usual Ann Arbor movie fare
and secondly, they both represent;
styles of logic which are seldom
encountered in the sterile pre-
cincts of academe.
It's kind of a nice thing to have
people like that around once in a
while-to let us know what all
those people out there are doing
with themselves-although in both
cases, the experience is rather un-
nerving.
DEPARTING from the usual
style of guest lecturers, however,
Fiedler concentrated on bringing
middle-aged coals to a happi New-
castle. Young people today, we
were told are "freaking out" all
over the place, and that is kinda
camp, isn't it; I mean, isn't it nice
that they don't believe in syntax
--if you know what I mean.
It's just going to be a matter
of time before Fiedler and the
rest of the 1950-punchy generation
joins us in our yellow submarine
and sail off to the never-never
land of inner space.
Perpetual Peter Panism, especi-
ally when it is viewed from a safe
distance, is suculently delicious to
"End of Ideologists"-and Mr.
Fiedler did Daniel Bell up proud.\
IF. YOU THINK the foregoing
reference was obscure, dear reader,
you should have heard some of the
ones that got name-dropped on
us two nights ago. The sort of
game of "intellectual" escalation
Fiedler played makes Lyndon and
Bobby McNamara look like pikers
-if you know what I mean dahl-
ing.
Anyway, Fiedler didn't say very
much sweetie-but then again,
Negroes, of course, are still going
to starve- and maybe a few of
them will get their heads kicked
in-but all we have to do is swal-
low a bit of psychedelic Valhalla
and the whole problem will dis-
appear.
Maybe a few South East Asians
will be roasted into carbon while
we do it, but when the war crimes
trials are held, we can all tell the
judge that we were high and
didn't know.
FIEDLER TOUCHED on a few
other interesting topics of course,
like the Waspization of intellec-
tual discourse-but these are too
serious to mention to a group of
"young people"-so I won't even
try. Let's all just climb. into our
pink-roasted-yellow-flecked-acid-
powered submarine.
If we all stay high-we'll stay
clean, right gang? No nice Berke-
ley-type riots-just one nice big
Hesse-ish magic theater.
-Stephen D. Berkowitz, Grad.
Who's Who
To the Editor:
WHO AM I?
I teach classes at a University.
I conduct seminars and I lecture.
I counsel students.
I give grades.
I write recommendations.
I conduct independent research.
I write scholarly articles.
I publish in scholarly Journals.
I discuss, agree and disagree
with my colleagues on important
issues.
I have a long-term commitment
to the University.
I am part of the group that
teaches 60 per cent of the lower
division courses.
I cannot vote at faculty meet-
ings.
CHECK THE CORRECT
ANSWER:
I am a teaching fellow.
I am a faculty member.
WHO AM I?
I teach classes at a university.
I conduct seminars and I lecture.
I counsel students.
I give grades.
I write recommendations.
I conduct independent research.
I write scholarly articles.
I publish in scholarly journals.
T disenss agree and disagree
No Reason
To the Editor:
T HAVE NOT been able to deter-
mine why course program plan-
ners have made Great Books 201
a prerequisite to Great Books 202.
Since each Great Books instruc-
tor chooses the works his class
will read, students in 202 have
dissimilar backgrounds, making
references to works read the pre-
vious term impossible.
The College of Literature, Sci-
ence and the Arts Announcement
1966-67 describes the sequence:
To introduce underclassmen
to the great books by reading in
translation the books themselves.
In the first term, six to eight
books are read from the Classi-
cal period (Greece and Rome);
in the second term, from the
medieval, Renaissance, andearly
modern periods. Great Books 201
is a prerequisite to Great Books
202.
In the first term, one reads
works that can be found in Clas-
sical Department courses: in the
second term, one reads works
found in Enilish Department
courses. If these two departments
warrant separation, then the Great
Books sequence, because of the
disparity in material, should be
separated into two independent
courses.
I seeno value in making Great
Books 201 a prerequisite to Great
Books 202; and, I, like the An-
nouncement, can give no reason
for the requirement.
-Mark Larsen, '70
Surprise
To the Editor:
DURING finals week last month
I received a "Christmas sur-
prise package" packed by the
"Michigan Student Committee,"
and costing my family three
dollars.
The package contained, among
other things, a pack of Wrigley's
Doublemint Gum, two ragged,
bite-sized apples, enough instant
cocoa to make one cup, and a
plastic flower ("Made in Hong
Kong, Sc").
A generous estimate put the to-
tal value at a little over 40 cents.
The remaining $2.50 plus per pack-
age must have been more than
sufficient to defray mailing ex-
penses, especially since the pack-
ages were distributed free of
charge in the dorms.
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