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; 1 -
Potter's Primer
Schools Scoundrels
"SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS" is yet another in the long line of
slick, sophisticated British comedies which have successfully been
paraded into the Campus Theater in the past few years.
like its predecessors the producers of "School For Scoundrels" (Or
How To Win Without Actually Cheating) have pulled their players
from the British comedy actors pool. From this group Terry-Thomas,
Alstair Sims and Ian Carmichael have been paged to play parts long,
orials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
DAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1960 NIGHT EDITOR: ANDREW HAWLEY
Can An Artist's Violence
Supersede Social Morality?
LT'IOUGH SOCIETY is right in condemn-
ing violence from the sociological point of
w, It is sometimes hard to apply society's
ndards to individual morality.
Lhis difficulty has been reflected by Max
mer's column on novelist Norman Mailer's
aignment for wife-stabbing.
'arman Mailer, whether a great writer or
, deserves to be punished for acting in a
,nner which undermines society but this
a not say that he acted against the best
erest of his needs as an artist.
IMRNER SAYS THAT although Mailer pro-
bably had feelings of both great strength
d growing weakness as a writer he was
ven to "exploitations of experience" by the
:ninant feeling of waning talent.
3ecause of this feeling of decline, Mailer
a driven to endorse violence-both creative
d actual. The creative violence, which came
wt, Was expressed in The White Negro and
vertisements For Myself On The Way Out.
'he White Negro published in 1957, outlines
thiking of Mailer which would lead to
lence. The main concern of the essay is
seek the sub-sub-cultures of America which
still capable of giving rise to creativity.
e sub-sub-culture Mailer uncovers is the.
4an group that has resulted from the meet-
pf the disillusioned White with the Negro.
TENEGRO, who lives a life much more
violent' khan that of the White, has lived
cording to Mailer the type of existence
pessary for true creativity. An existence.
,ative because it is free-a life of violence
d sexuality uninhibited by the White Man's,
iltifying codes. Mailer says that one can
his creative possibilities by violence.
Advertisements For Myself is considered one
the most revealing documents ever published
out the mind of an American writer. One of
ller's major ambitions given in this book
£ to write a great novel-"a colossal eight-
ume novel, complete with characters, time-
eme, more blueprints, soliloquies, and all~
a paraphernalia not of a writer writing but
's writer telling himself how he must write,"
eordng to Lerner.
t IS IMMEDIATELY obvious that given
Mailer's sense of creative frustration and the
t he is far too restless to turn out an eight-
Lume novel, or anything else so impressively
ge, that as a person he had to find an outlet.
rerner's answer to Mailer's need for an outlet
her than writing is: "When the fears gnaw
arper at him, he may simply retreat into
shell-or he may fer*ntly keep asking him-
I what is happening, and where he can turn
4t for the connection that will set him off?"
And if the "connection that will set him
OM OTHER CAMPUSES:
Trimester PlC
' ATTITUDES of students and instructors at
the University of Pittsburgh are ix dicatve
a national consensus, the accelerated 11-
sth school year may soon replace the tra-
lonal 9-month academic year. After testing
e trimester plan, Pitt's students and instruc-
s admit that advantages outweigh disad-
ntages, that mney saved and more efficient
e facilities are more important than suf-
Ing summer's heat or missing the leisurely
cation. Because'over fifty schools are con-
ering the trimester plan, the program should
defined, examined and evaluated in terms
probable changes it will bring for students,
tructors, and administrators.
Jrnder the trimester system the school year
uld include three 15-week semesters and
e month of summer vacation. The first se-
ster would start the first week of Septem-
r and last until mid-December. The second
nester, commencing immediately following
w Year's, would extend to the beginning of
nmer session about the third week in April.
gust, the hottest month, would be the only
cation of significant length. Full-time parti-
iation would lead to a B.A. in three years'
ie. The trimester year would comprise a
Al of 135 weeks over three years instead of
8 weeks over the customary four year span.
EALIZING that little can be done about
summer heat and shortened vacations, more
d more students participating in experi-
ntal three-semester programs accept the
;tem because it saves money in the long run.
e average net saving for three summers' work
approximately $1,100. Since the median an-
al starting salary for college graduates is
out $5,200, a three-year 'graduate may ex-
et to gain over $4,000 by not working sum-
rs and graduating a year earlier. However,
idents who must meet immediate payment
adlines may have little regard for estimates
future savings. A recent increase in loan
ailability brought about by the National De-
ise Education Act of 1958 enables students at
off" is violence, not only the act of violence
but all the agonizing reflection that will pro-
bably come after it, how can an artist deny
his need?
"BY BREAKING INTO reality thus one loses
. touch with the real world," writes Lerner
but the question is what should the arist's
world be? The traditional reason for great
creative energy, from Plato to Van Gogh, has
been dissatisfaction with one's .present society
of "the real world."
The world for Mailer has to be outside of
the real world of Max Lerner and the phycholo-
gists of adjustment if he is to be capable of
significant creation. And in the process of
seeking new sources of creativity it was under-
standable that he would be driven to violence-
the most dramatic possible break with society
and its "real world" .
Lerner himself gives the excellent example
of the contemporary French playwright Jean
Genet as a man "whose life has been as his-
trionic and code-breaking as his art." But
who can read Genet's play The Balcony and
deny that one of the factors that makes him
a great writer is the experiences he went
through by thievery, and by meeting people
living in both a mentad and/or physical under-
world.
LERNER REFERS to Nietzsche and comments
thatn when Nietszchetried to go beyond
good and evil he discovered "It is dizzying
stuff."
Of course it is dizzying stuff, but how can
an artist living in a Cold War society not be
constantly curious about morality and es-
pecially the morality of either individual or
collective violence?
And when the artist, as in Mailer's case,
decides to explore this fascination with action
and to engage in violence it is the responsibility
of the more restrained members of society to
establish a morality that will enable the artist
to refrain from violence. But surely this moral-
ity has to be based on something less childish
than to say "It is dizzying stuff" or the ideal
that an artist "if strong enough" . . . "manages
to hold himself together as a person."
ALBERT CAMUS' The Stranger posed a
modern dilemma of great difficulty. The
problem is this-in a world of fluid mobility
and exposure to numerous value systems the
independent man will not be bound by any
one value system but will constantly be ex-
ploring them all. A morality suited to the times
that will allow for exploration but will make
the essential restraints valid obviously has to
be on a less childish level than that proposed
by Max Lerner.
-RALPH KAPLAN
n Evaluated
ticipation in all three semesters. The trimester
plan will have to duplicate the current enroll-
ment plan, since a program requiring enroll-
ment for all three semesters would undoubtedly
keep many capable students out of school.
THE GREATEST ADVANTAGE of a nation-
wide trimester plan would be the continued
usage of facilities currently idle part of the
time. Since property taxes remain fixed wheth-
er the buildings are occupied or empty, in-
creased use of facilities would cut average
cost per student and control rising tuition
rates in many private schools. In addition,
more efficient use of facilities would solve
the problem posed by the country's popula-
tion explosion. Adoption of the trimester plan
seems the most economical way to accommo-
date the rising number of applicants.
Surprisingly enough, students have not op-
posed the trimester plan with as much de-
termination as' faculty members who prefer
their vacations as time for study and research.
Obviously the teacher shortage wold neces-
sitate more classroom hours per instructor and
the teaching profession, once enhanced by
pleasant vacations, could become a year- 'round
job with more total pay but less satisfaction
and intellectual mobility. Better salaries, how-
ever, brought about by funds saved through
continued use of buildings might draw more
people into the profession. Perhaps an increase
in the number of instructors would allow a
teacher to work four semesters of every two
years and have the two periods free for re-
search.
ADMINISTRATIVE tasks in adoption of the
trimester plan would involve persuading
various law-making agencies to revise rules
concerning graduation requirements and eligi-
bility for intercollegiate sports. Under the tri-
mester system at the University of Pittsburgh,
a graduate student in law can finish in two
years, but the Pennsylvania State Board of
4.4 I C- :>
4C~ ,^ +U~art<~zG ? ' Ofr"+o
THE SCIENTIFIC ORIENTATION:
Non-Lab Courses Simplified
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the se-
cond article in a two-part series
on the University's science require-
Ments,)
By FAITH WEINSTEiN
Daily Staff Writer
WITH the basic lab courses
over, the non-science major
tends to look forward to the third
semester of the science require-
ment as a welcome relief from the
morass of meaningless detail
which, he feels, has dominated
his training before.
He comes into his third semes-
ter, usually not with a new ori-
entation towards science, but with
an old attitude, compounded of
confusion and annoyance, which
his two semesters of lab science
have only intensified.
The science departments are
well aware of this attitude, and
try to counter it by offering at
least one upper-class course which
is designed primarily for the non-
science major. These courses,
tricked out in humanistic titles
like "Zoology in Human Affairs,"
or "Plants and Man Today," of-
fer the student the scientific gen-
eralizations without bothering
him with any of the detail, del-
ing in concepts rather than tech-
nicalities.
THE ZOOLOGY department's
Zoo 38 is a typical example of
this kind of course if somewhat
better than most. Zoo 38 is taught
by Prof. Marston Bates, whose
attitude, as he puts it in his
opening lecture, is one of "pro-
selytizing the heathen." His course
deals with the broad scientific
concepts, attempting to eliminate
specific detail, and with more a
social than a scientific goal.
"I'm scared about mankind,"
he said. "We are still part of the
system of nature, and we have
to have some understanding of
what we are doing when we modi-
fy it.
His goal in his course is to
communicate this fear to the fu-
ture housewives and lawyers of
I America, who, from the general
makeup of the class, he seems like-
ly to reach. But Zoo 38 is not a
science course, it is rather a course
in the sociology of science, with a
good deal of philosophic Bates
thrown in. If you like this kind
of thing, it is an excellent course,
but it doesn't do anything about
giving the humanities major a
new slat on science.
* * *
PROF. BATES is well aware of
this, problem, and feels it could
be solved if he could have some
laboratory space-or at least some
place where he could "bring the
student into contact with the ma-
terials." But it is probably not as
easy as that,
There is something wrong with
the basic attitude in these courses.
The teachers are trying hard to
meet the needs of the non-science
major, but they are doing this by
attempting to reorient the course,
to the humanist's point ofsview,
rather than trying to recast the
attitude of the student.
Humanities students are defen-
is necessary for the students who
cannot really grasp the scientific
essence itself.
These courses tend to center on
what Prof. Laurence Slobodkin
calls "Reader's Digest science," or,
at its best, New Yorker science.
In the careful tiptoeing around the
mass of detail, the course is made
too tentative, too general, too so-
cial science-oriented, to have any
lasting effect. At best, it gives
the student who has never under-
stood science the chance to see
that there is something there that
he cannot reach, a side to science
which is as more wonderful and
fascinating than he ever thought
possible. At worst-well, Prof.
Slobodkin made a careful distinc-,
tion between the inebriation of
intellectual experience and the
ecstasy of solid knowledge-Zoo 38
seems more the course for inebri-
ation than for ecstasy,
* * *
PROBABLY THE BEST basic
science course at the University,
and almost certainly the only one
which takes the intellectual capa-
city of the humanities student
ser'iously, is College Honors 33.
This is a course for honors stu-
dents in the evolution of the uni-
verse, as Prof. Slobodkin, who
teaches part of this course puts
it, "from the pre-atomic globule
to Harlan Hatcher."
In this course, four major fields
of science are covered, extracting
from them the portions applicable
to the general subject of evolution.
"The teachers make a deliberate
attempt to use the full intellectual
capacity of the studerit. The net
effect is a parid-paced but not
superficial course."
This is a highly experimental
course, and an experiment which
the teachers seem to feel is a
success. Student reactions vary.
"Some students love it, some rise
like Alcibiades from the couch of
Socrates - entirely untouched-
some felt they had been swin-
dled."
ONE OF THE STUDENTS who
felt she had been more or less
swindled, damned the course as
"science made hard, with all kinds
of math thrown in besides. All
the professors get together and
try to cram you full of the first
year of each of their courses. It's
nothing like I thought it would
be."
Another student defended the
course: "It's been a very good
thing for me, and I've learned an
incredible amount. I just wish I
had a lot more background in
everything."
The main complaint about the
course is that it is, in many cases,
somewhat too technical for the
background of the students. But
if anything, this is an error of
commission rather than omission,
and perhaps a fault which will be
ironed out later. It will be highly
unfortunate if a course which has
so much potential quality, be-
comes over-involved in its own de-
tail at the expense of the con-
cepts and the patterns of evolu-
tion,
I, .
greater emphasis on facts quite
urgently. "Never over-rate the
'mereness' of facts," he .said. "I
think if taught differently, stu-
dents would emerge feeling thatj
they had been somewhere - but
that feeling would be fake. You
can teach a course that is less.
rigorous and more dramatic, more
humanized-a course that will
leave the student with a sense of
euphoria. But euphoria leaves a
hangover, while hard facts can
produce a higher ecstasy,
WHAT SCIENCE teachers do
not seem to realize is that the
non-science major often has a
hard time getting beyond the hard
facts. It is very much a question
of attitude. While it is true, as
he says, that there is a distinction
between a "scientific theory and
a blubbering generality," there is
also as difference, equally semen-
tic, between a "hard fact" and a
morass of detail.
Giving students scientific theory
without any basis in factual de-
tail, he justly damns as "black
magic." But if you are to re-orient
the non-science major to the sci-,
entific point of view, you must
do it through concepts. Just as a
science student must, be. taught
how to approach poetry in Eng-
lish 31, the humanities student
must be taught how to approach
science. And the best way to do
this would seem to be, at least in
transition, through making the
concepts behind the detail as ut-
terly explicit as possible.
* * *
WITH THIS KIND of re-orien-
tation, the humanities student
would be as capable of learning
the scientific method and all re-
quired detail, as the science stu-
dent is able to learn to read and
even to enjoy poetry.
A course which attempts td
make the transition from the
humanists point of, view to the
scientists, a course which begins
with teaching the students how to
approach science, is necessary on
the basic laboratory level. But it
is even more necessary on the
upper-class level, where the initial
steps have already been taken, and
where the non-science student
may have his last chance to learn
to see the scientific world,
FRANCE:
Policies
Stated
IN AN APPEAL at the beginning
of the new school year, the
National Union of French Students
(UNEF) once more stated its
policies in the Algerian problem,
In the name of French youth, the
UNEF regretted the possibilities
of bringing about peace through
negotiations remained unused; it
oppossed strongly the fact that
an anachronistic war is destroying
France's future and shattering her
since familiar to them and to
American audiences.
HOWEVER, the difference be-
tween "School For Scoundrels" and
its' virtually undistinguishabe'
forerunnersis its material. As a
base for its plot Stephen Potter's
series of satiric essays (Lifeman
ship; Gamesmanship;'Oneupman-
ship) have been used.
Potter's works are based on his
theory of Lifesmanship. The world
Potter says is divided into two
great parts. These divisions are
not, as you might think; men and
women, but those people who are
one up and those who are one
down. And simply, Lifesmanship is
the art of being continually one up
on your opponent.
WITH THIS as a basic premise
the plot of "Shool for Scoundrels"
is divisible into four distinct parts.
The first concerns a one-down
character, one Fred Palfrey (Car-
michael), and the resultant prob-
lems of continually being one-
down.
Palfrey is cowed by underlings
at work; has his girl taken away by
a lecher (Terry-Thomas); embar-
rassed at tennis; caught in a plush
restaurant with his pockets empty;
and swindled by automobile deal-
ers Dunsten and Dudley, the Win-
some Welshmen.
Alas, poor Palfrey, an admitted
failure, enters Potter's (Sims)
school of Lifesmanship vyhere he
becomes versed in the arts of
Gamesmanship, Woomanship, Par-
tymanships, Carmanship, etc.
The last half is then devoted to
Palfrey's revenge, as a bona fide
Lifesman, and finally to .a moral
epilogue,,
The combination of Potter's
theory and the acting ability of
the Messrs. Sims, Carmichael and
Terry-Thomas, along with a host
of equally familiar bit players,
makes this one of the best imports
yet. (Are these films ever shown in
England?)
See this one if you can, it runs
through Saturday.
-Harold Applebaum
LETTERS I
to the
EDITOR
Goldwater.. ..
To the Editor:
IF THE OPINIONS and views of
the majority of our campus
"leaders" are similar to those of
Jon Trost, President of the IFC,
and Howard Mueller, its vice-pres-
ident, then it is no wonder that
there is so much apathy on the
part of the students as regards the
SGC. When such a reactionary as
Sen. Barry Goldwater states sol-
emnly that the fraternity system
deters Communism, and they con-
cur with him, I wonder what has
become of intelligent stpdent lead-
ership. One statement which Mr.
Trost made is quite remarkable:
"Communists on campus make the
least strides in the fraternity sys-
tem because it is contrary to the
principles of Communism. Where
fraternities exist, there is little
appreciation for what Communism
offers' Since Mr. Trost p'resented
no figures on subversives in frats
vs. subversives not in frats, we can
only assume that he is an excellent
example of the dominating char-
acteristic of the fraternity sys-
tem as a whole; that is, the prin-
ciple of no-think. Contrary to what
Sen. Goldwater says, fraternities
do no encourage brotherhood and
the importance of the individual.
About "brotherhood," -all that
needs be done is refer to the bias
clauses which appear in many fra-
ternity constitutions. Fraternity
men are only concerned with
brotherhood in regard to "wine,
women, and song." I did not see
any of them picketing Cousins or
Woolworths last year, and the fra-
ternity men whom I have talked to
seem to have little or no knowledge
of these things or what they stand
for.
What is, really ludicrous is the
claim that fraternities encourage
the importance of the individual.
To the contrary, in a fraternity
it is not the individual hember
that counts but the Fraternity it-
self. All effort is "for the good of
The House." Better marks must
be gotten by all so that The House
has a high overall average, You
must not do anything to dis-
credit The House. Everyone has
to pitch in and work for The
House, Every "individual" must
wear his pin. THIS IS INDIVID-
UALITY?
* * 4
AS I SAID, Mr. Trost's claim
tho fh A4r...
Rocks
FROM A BAR brawl beginning
to a roaring, singing finale
that looks as if it were lifted
from a Broadway stage, "North To
Alaska" rocks its way through two
hours of the gayest slapstick to
hit the screen since the Keystone
Kops.
Complete with barrels and
bottles, mud, broken windows and
pratt falls, this situation comedy
based on the Alaskan gold rush
days goes a long way to prove
that there. is still a place for this
type of humor in the entertain-
ment world.
THE PLOT itself has little chal-
lenge from the time that John
Wayne faces female lead Capu-
cine in a John Alden-meets-Pris-
cilla situation, thus fating them
for an eventual pairing after the
proper time and trials elapse.
Capucine does a sensitive job
of portraying the unlikely figure
of a call girl gone straight, while
Wayne plays his usual straight
role, seemingly untouched by the
unaccustomed hilarity around
him, until he pledges his troth
to the fair damsel in the middle
of a muddy Nome street with the
populace cheering him on.
THE ONLY DISCORD struck
was the intrusion of one, of the
least likely people to grace the
gold rush scene-a ducktailed,
sidebsurned prospector named Fa-
bian.
The youthful singing star was
dropped into a harbor'and a creek
on separate occasions and a few
more feet of water in either case
would have saved the viewer a
few moments of nausea.
Fabian's rise as a singer start-
ed when his voice was doctored by
voice technicians. The magicians
of the silver screen working with
the same subject showed them-
selves somewhat less adept.
But this was a minor distrac-
tion in the array of characters
paraded into the film. They rang-
ed from a Swedish logger's wife
that could have been the female
counterpart of one of Shaw's ir-
rascible old men to a furry white
dog that might have been bor-
rowed from a recent Walt Disney
movie.
Throw them all together into a
barroom fight in the Alaska of
1900, add Ernie Kovacs (as a vil-
lain yet!), stir well and you have
a highly digestible evening.
'-Mike Gillman
AT THE MICHIGAN:
Alaska
I
OFFICIAL
BULLETIN
I
Tne Daily officral Bulletin is an
official publication of TheUniv 1 -
sity of Michigan for which .The
Michigan Daily assumes no editorial
responsibility. Notices should be
sent in TYPEWRITTEN form to
Room 3519 Administration Building,
before 2 p.m. two days preceding
publication.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30
General Notices
Regents' Meeting: Fri., Dec. 16. Com-
munications for consideration at this
meeting must be in the Presidenrts'
hands not later than December 6.
Foreign student scholarships: Appli-
cations are now being accepted for
second semester, 1960-61. Forms are
at the scholarship office at the grad-
uate school, Glen Alt, College of En-
gineering; and Prof. Thomas G. ries,
School of Business Administration.
?Marcel Marceau here Monday night.
The great French pantomimist, Marcel
Marceau, will be presented in Hill
Aud. Mon., 8:30 p.m. by the Platform
Attractions. Tickets are now on sale
at the Aud. box office 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
All students are given a 30%, reduction
on tickets.
Events Thursday
Tomorrow at 4:10 p.m., the Depart-
ment of speech will present ARIA DA
CAPO by Edna St. Vincent Millay in
Trueblood Aud., Frieze Bldg. Admission
will be free.
University Lecture: "The Seven
Against Thebes of Aeschylus," by G. R.
Manton, University of Otago. Thurs.,
Dec. 1, 4.10 p.m. Aud. A, Angell Hall.
Radiation Laboratory Lecture: "Ra-
diation Laboratory's Studies of the
Surface of the Moon" will be given by
W, E. Fensier and T.B.A. Eenfor of
the Radiation Laboratory, on Thurs.,
'Dec. 1, at 3:15 p.m. in E. Engineering,
2084.
M. 301 Analysis Seminar: Prof. J. L.
Ulman will speak on "Functionals As-
sociated with Norm Asymptotgcs" in
243 West Engineering, Thurs., Dec. 1
at 2:00 p.m.
Doctoral Examination for Theodore
Nichols Ferdinand, Social Psychology;
thesis: 'Sexual Identity and Political
Ideology," Thurs., Dec. 1, 5609 Haven