Seventy-First Year EDITEDAND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH.* Phone NO 2-3241 The Anatomy of Protest "Where Opinions Are Free Truth Will Prevail" Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. UNDAY, MAY 28, 1961 NIGHT EDITOR: ROBERT FARRELL Why Not Sell Out: The Purpose Withi Process IN MANY WAYS, Life magazine's recently publicized search for new articulations of this nation's purpose touches a sore spot. Public anxiety is roused by the implied question. Is the national purpose lost, then? Has it changed? Why national purpose seems vital is evi- dent. The world is divided against itself. In the United States, the war is so far ideological, but its accompanying guilt and anguish are un- mitigated. The term "national purpose" does not distinguish between two separate but re- lated sources of concern: motivation for na- tional survival and the framing of personal purpose in a world marked by the coercive pressures of conflict. Widespread doubt is poor- ly satisfied by, "A nation should not mean, but be." The physical problems of our society are being solved. We are on the whole a rich, liter- ate, conscientious and vigorous nation. A vocal minority of the population, recently shaken awake, have taken in hand, specific troubles: segregation, McCarthyism, foreign policy. Our national devotion to perfecting an institutional compromise between free enterprise and social welfare, elite leadership and popular represen- tation, has brought us near what some call the "end of ideology." We are a historical phenom- enon of political practicalism among the na- tions of the world. The stage is set for Utopian pursuits. BUT THE UNITED STATES is cast as the protagonist of a drama on a wider stage. As self-styled defenders of free thought and' individual rights against totalitarianism, we can no longer contain either our problems or our solutions within national boundaries. The conflict cannot be meaningfully resolved. With- in his role the actor doubts the value of the opus, and begins to wonder how early the play will fold. It has no social or esthetic message. Intellectuals who grasp the broad issue cease shouting. "When' there is no cause to be be- trayed, there is no point in shouting 'treason'." What they see in various analyses of our be- havior, from their vantage points in Berlin or Cairo or Boston, is no more germane to na- tional purpose than ever before. The presiden- tial election and its aftermath dramatize an overriding concern with the nation's image: both candidates and most of the electorate miss the vital point for their future. A totalitarian society contains its own pur- pose. If the maintenance of the state is a priori, the submersion of the people must be rationalized to this end. The individual is bound to the state by ironclad ideology, terror and force. Our democracy rather envisions the state as a means to preserve individual freedom in so far as common institutions can. This is to reduce the national purpose to a process, or a system of processes. It is impossible to work backward from a process to a reason; purposes are imposed on processes, not inherent in them. The vacuous definitions of national purpose now on sale in hardcover prove it. They are based on extensive quotation from public docu- ments and reams of interpretive material writ- ten to analyze American society. Left unan- swered is the question, "Freedom for what?" The exercise of freedom devolves not on the state, but on its inhabitants. WFIGHT t maintain freedom, we work to have leisure, we study to prepare ourselves --for what? The member of a free society faces a unique problem of choice. His actions are directed not by heritage, not by higher author- ity, but by his decision, if he chooses to make it. In order to make this manifold choice ac- tual, not mechanical, he must accept the stag- gering task of discovering and creating real alternatives of conviction and action. Only as an individual can he frame his purpose or the nation's. He can resolve the separation of the two purposes neither existentially nor by ref- erence to natural law, but by some course between them which depends on his capacity to integrate his understanding of himself and the world. He also has the option of abdicating his unique problem of choice. Millions do so un- consciously. Those who consciously forfeit both the opportunity and responsibility of choosing are sellouts; only they know what and to whom they are selling out. As soon as realization of the true range of alternatives comes to the individual, his exem- plary and relational life begins. He must accept the immediate organizational structure as his milieu, with the option of changing or exchang- ing it. It must be to him a theoretical and working model without and within which he can live. A UNIVERSITY--this University--is one of the best theoretical models to use in de- veloping the power to realize alternatives and to choose among them. It is required of one here, as it will always be, that one want, ex- pect and attempt to know everything discov- erable about the structure and oneself within &1 i1i gai.y it. Is the administration-student relationship vertical and authoritarian behind its contrac- tual, non-directive facade? Is the bureaucratic system of the University rotting from the top down? Are various pressures exerted on the student to conform, to accept rote "midwestern" or "cosmopolitan" values? Are students en- couraged to "develop themselves as individ- uals" at the expense of examining the insti- tutional situation they live in? Has the Univer- sity something to gain by masquerading as an artificial, "incubatgr" society? Do conservative yet permissive administrative and academic policies veil a tragic dearth of educational and programmatic vision? Are the exigencies of economics, politics and alumni pressure used to excuse the crumbling stature of a University that failed to show fight this year on the issues of NDEA money and loyalty oaths, speaker pol- icy, appropriations and internal inconsistencies of university policy and practice? These questions can-and can't-be answered "yes".or "no." Three years at the University have convinced me that they are not artificial questions, but questions so significant as to be unanswerable once and for all. Above all, they are worth asking. They have shaped my image of the University, which is not its public image. Ultimately, I think the joy and trouble of holding all information relevant to the sheer desire to know everything can change from a naive, spongelike assimilation process into a directional and fruitful pursuit. Choosing a role on campus which demands partisanship as well as information is also a limitation. It is the only limitation which has positive signifi- cance. But I have found that within an organi- zation exist other tensions and pressures to distort and create images. Only by acknowledg- ing and attaching values to these pressures can one hope to see beyond them. THE PROCESS within a process which Y think infuses purpose into the individual and state gives life a picaresque quality. Ad- ventures must be sought and faced, issues must have response, choices must be made. The thread of choice runs through all one's days; sometimes it is a drab thread in a colored pat- tern, but sometimes it is the last, only thread holding the weft together. The tension which must be preserved between individual partisan commitment and individual commitment to objective extension of knowledge can nev- er be resolved by a common-sensical, eco- nomic, political or personality-oriented sur- vey of the issue at hand to deter- mine the expedient. It cannot be resolved by limiting the field or direction of one's infor- mation-seeking to the point where it merely affirms one's interests and beliefs. It cannot be resolved by using the everyday necessity to compromise for communication's sake as an alibi for becoming committed to a compromise itself. It cannot be resolved by maintaining a private, clean, ethical position concurrently with a public, ambiguous, no-comment position. And I think it cannot be resolved by accepting existing conditions and channels of information and action. Ultimately, it can be resolved only, arbitrar- ily; but when the crisis arises, the individual has to use his entire background of principle and action as a frame of reference within which to plot the next point in his individual ethical progress. If he is honest both in striving for objectivity and in carrying principle into ac- tion, crises will come. He must then be ready to expect a telephone call that will lose him a job or a friend. He must be ready to jeopardize his reputation for objectivity and responsibility, or his social standing. He must resist the temp- tation to value these potential losses too much, as well as the counterpressure to count them as valueless when they are gone. Either course would divorce him from the realities of his predicament; it is not existential because it is not self-definitive, nor a priori, because it is not deterministic, but exists where these di- mensions intersect. AS A CONTEXT for this predicament, the University community is no more artificial than any. We face the same issues that demand choice. Deciding whether to use money paid for with an oath of allegiance is much like decid- ing whether to accept a good job with an or- ganization whose principles one cannot re- spect. Deciding how to treat minority group members in a campus living unit is much like deciding whether one will permit them to live on the same street in a community. Deciding whether student government should consider issues impinging on the University from out- side is much like deciding what one's future concern with public affairs will be. Self-con- scious awareness of the principle implicit in everyday problems is the only aspect of deci- sion which is often lost when the university experience is ended, and the burden of proving its relevance is on the individual. A "liberal" student does notturn into a "con- servative" adult automatically, nor is a "com- mitted" individual naturally subsumed in a "great uncommitted electorate," nor is any gen- uine form of commitment focused by heredity or environment on one issue. The honest in-, dividual, I think, has no alternative but to ac- tualize his princinles when he deems it neces- (EDITOR'S NOTE: Following is the first segment of a two-part editorial) By THOMAS HAYDEN Editor THE late-night giggling, intellec- tual passions, angry tirades, and occasional peace which seem to have characterized my under- graduate career fit no neat pat- tern; hence the traditional edi- torial Summing Up must be in some ways non-thematic-all I can think of as being perhaps rele- vant to a reading public are cer- tain things I have come to guess are true about me and other things which I believe true about the University of Michigan. What follows in this first sec- tion is about me and only pro- visional since I may choose at a future time to disown myself: * * * I HAPPEN TO WORRY about justification and I find more and more these days that the recorded answers are not personally satis- factory. I ask why a student should give himself up to social or poli- tical struggles outside the academ- ic world, why for me nonacademic journalism has been such a need, and I look to any one of the numerous paragraphs spilled out in defense of action: ... the role of the student involves a commitment to an educational process that ex- tends beyond classroom trin- ing. It involves also the at- tainment of knowledge and the development of skills and habits of mind and action necessary for the responsible participation in the affairs of government and society on all levels. He must be prepared to face the challenges of modern life and he must be willing to confront the crucial issues of public policy that affect him beyond the class- room and that determine the course of his society ... A justification of this type suf- fices usually. But following the failures or the tremendous and LETTERS to the EDITOR United Fund *. * To the Editor: THE PURPOSE of the United Fund is to furnish money to help the needy. Those administer- ing this aid are not supposed to mix any "sectarian" propaganda with it: people simply do not donate to UF for this purpose. Protestant welfare agencies do not apply for admission to UF, since they do unavoidably exert some influence. For the same reason, they feel that the Catholic agen- cy ought not to be admitted. There are three reasons why Catholics might want a hand in UF: 1) because they do not like the present distribution of funds to various types of aid, 2) because they feel that some needed type of aid is not being given, or 3) because they would like to have greater means for giving aid with sectarian propaganda than they now have. If 1 or 2 is the problem, let's know about it and find a non- sectarian remedy which will not reduce total contributions to UF. Such questions are almost un- mentioned in Michael Harrah's re- cent article, which instead points out important "truths" like the "refusal" of the March of Dimes to join UF (supposedly because of UF unfairness in membership); and thefact that many charities in UF are sponsored (or is it "boosted?") by labor unions or other special interest groups ob- jectionable to many. -Roger Schlatter, '63 The Forest.. . To the Editor: WOULD LIKE to call to your attention this statement in Sun- day's Daily (Problems of Free Speech, By G. Storch): "The dis- tortions and misrepresentations of fact only deceive and harmfully misinform the people .. . " It is strange indeed that the Daily can see through the com- ments other people make, but when asked to take a good look at their own policy, they can't see the trees for the forest. -Harvey M. Kabaker, '64 ISA *** To the Editor: RARELY does the Daily publish something like the report on the International Students' As- sociation. The reporter's zeal for ameliorating the work of the ISA is, indeed, very commendable and after all he uses such fashionable terms like "integration of foreign students," "passing resolutions," making "protests" etc., etc. And there can be no complaints about the prose of the article. But the contents of the article make one wonder. Can it be that people who have known the work of the ISA or have worked in the futile expenditures of energy that are necessarily part of the poli- tical dynamic, I will lie back and think, frightened somewhat, about the superficialities of those justifi- cations. Why must we be prepared to face these crucial challenges? Why me? It won't do to argue that if we all don't become pre- pared the social order will collapse all about us. The assumption of such an argument, totally unjusti- fied, is that everyone will slough off into the same unpreparedness which characterizes me. Again, why must I act? I sometimes think the blanket answers apply to groups but don't supply the real answers for the personally re- sponsible individual participating in social action. Yet I recognize that the broad justifications usually given do strike at and vaguely impress themselves upon more meaning- ful chords within myself, and I recognize that those chords-call them unconscious needs, if you must-are somehow closer to the true character of justification. When I emit a political expression or commit a political act, to what extent can there only be a psy- chological explanation? If my personality functions most com- fortably in a relatively chaotic context, for example, am I justi- fied in intellectually preaching that men enter into my psycho- logical condition? Is it after all a psychological dissimilarity which prevents human cooperation and, if so, can there be intellectually- contrived means of effecting co- operation? I suspect that a valid response to the question "Why Care and Act?" is that of a friend: It's all rather paradoxical, because I must give up the hope of a reason before I am really free to act, and then my action again demands of me a reason for its existence. The only final answer is that I have time between my birth and my death and when I ac- cept my freedom to choose the means by which I use the time then I have no choice but to also choose to cease looking for justification for my choice, at least so long as I am acting. Sartre calls it the 'en soi' and the 'pour soi'. Camus calls it the absurd. I don't call it anything because that is the easiest way to run away from myself and I get along with myself only occas- sionally when we meet. '* * * WHEN I began college I operat- ed on a single premise: I would try not to avoid doing anything which was both interesting and possible. It was difficult, if not entirely impossible, to recognize that others did not operate in a similar manner: they preferred occasional relaxation to what they perceived as wild behavior on my part. They rested, turned off their brains and muscles, and liked it, called it "leisure." Meanwhile I read everything I could find and have time for in the humanities, I wrote non-fiction and bad fic- tion, I participated in athletics and attempted all the possible hu- man passions. This was a revolt, in part, against those who wished to impose their need for such conditions on other men by trans- forming their needs into restric- tive regulations which had no other base but in their own per- sonal inability to contend with turmoil. Two French verbs, "faire" and "etre," became personal guide- lines; they mean, respectively, "to do" and "to be," but somehow more inclusively than in the Eng- lish. I used to write them habit- ually at the beginning of papers or scratch pads I used for schedules. The point, by this time coming clear to me, was simply that doing and being were non-moral terms, except in the special normative sense of implying that my total action ought to give the two verbs the fullest and most complex meaning possible. This was the essential imperative. * * THEN one spring I was faced with the possibility of editing The Daily. I had paid the idea little analytic attention, thinking that when and if it came I would ap- proach it with all my energy and that would suffice. In order to seek the position, one is supposed to fill out several forms, includ- ing a long statement of reasons for wishing to be an editor. I talked with some'others, my peers, and after much talking and think- ing and remembrance of the early day, it became very clear that to become an editor meant willing the creation of a fantastic set of physical, mental and moral limi- tations. For example, it became really necessary-faking would never do -to attend and understand what other persons wanted, what they were saying and thinking and feeling. And it became necessary to trust others with responsibilities and in turn to accept their trust. It meant I could no longer pose as the omnipotent, isolated ar- bitor; it meant answers and reso- lutions had to be reached with others. All this was not a sudden suspend students as they did last spring, and realize that some per- sons don't even believe there is a problem for every individual to answer, implicitly or explicitly: why should there be limitation on human action, physical, mental and moral and how is limitation to be determined? The why has been coming clear, slowly: because people want help with their busi- ness or because they want to share in something I want, or be'cause I want their help or their sharing, and finally, because without limi- tation there is no possibility of human relationship, but only per- sonal suspension apart from hu- manity which amounts to denial of doing and being. *- * * I pondered this question of Why for a long while, feeling a little like the man who sits in front of one mirror looking behind him into a mirror in front of him (Action is socially useful, that's why we should act. But what is the utility of utility, and what, furthermore, is the utility of util- ity of utility?") and seeing him- self reducing into an infinity of images. That man, watching him- self recede, or watching his jus- tifications retreat before the re- lentless WHY, rises finally to shatter the mirrors, to shout: I must espouse this thing, this value, and I admit there is no ultimate answer that will satisfy the in- quisitors. And as for the extent of limita- tion, I am willing to believe that death and physical suffering are limitations enough on man; and apart from their inevitability there should be no limitation save that which we consciously impose or to which we consciously consent. Listen to the poet Auden: Nothing is given: we must find our law. Great buildings jostle in the sun for domination; Behind them stretch like sorry vegetation The low recessive houses of the poor. We have no destiny assigned us; Nothing is certain but the body; we plan To better ourselves; the hos- pitals alone remind us Of the equality of man. Children are really loved here, even by the police: They speak of years before the big were lonely. And will be lost. And only The brass bands throbbing in the parks foretell Some future reign of happi- ness and peace. We learn to pity and rebel. I do not believe that men will- ingly decide to hurt themselves very often, unless it is to prevent the hurts of another. And I don't believe we very often decide to give up our right to pursue what- ever we desire' the most. But everywhere there are forces curb- ing our aspirations and many of these forces are neither sought nor welcomed by those who feel their effect. They come from out of the society for which we are all responsible; they come from men who would kill others that they themselves might not be kill- ed; they come from institutions no longer humanly controlled, such as churches or governments or managerial "classes" which do not measure hurt or restrictions in human terms. * * * THE TASK I SEE, then, is one of liberation and it implicates us all. "The heart of liberalism," Hobhouse writes, is the understanding that pro- gress is not a matter of me- chanical contrivance, but of the liberation of spiritual energy . . .the development of will, of personality, of self- control, or whatever we please to call that central harmoniz- ing power which makes us capable of directing our own lives ... Individual liberation, i.e., the free- dom of the elitist who wishes nothing to do with humanity, is a sterile freedom and nothing more than transmigration, which is too like death in its limitation on action. No longer the isolated arbiter, I must pursue the elimi- nation or arbitrariness insofar as it results in pain or self-deface- ment or unwanted barriers. Why? Not only because liberty is a necessary condition of a vig- orous society, not only because equality of social opportunity leads to certain material and aesthetic benefits, not only because we are endowed with the foggy thing we call human dignity, not only be- cause consciousness of choosing and of context are distinctly hu- man characteristics and cannot be coerced or destroyed without denegation of man, but also - psychologically or existentially, call it as you wish - because I must make this choice or accept self-immolation. Now not every man faces a personal crisis of having to draw lines and in effect tell his an- tagonist: "I will not cooperate with you in this terrible thing." Some men, particularly in totali- tarian political systems, are so affected by institutionalized terror that they positively compete to demonstrate their loyalty to their arbiters. Even the McCarthy period in America brought traces of this tendency toward not simply si- lence but positively toward con- formity. For men of this sort, immolation or loss of self-respect never con- sciously occurs because the terror has been internalized, euphoria has replaced freedom, and respon- sibility to the conscience of the leader is identical with respon- sibility to one's own conscience. * * * BUT FOR OTHERS, including myself, there is an autonomy sur- rounding conscience which is the most precious of properties because it is ,witness to our uniquely hu- man capacity for conscious and responsible decision-making and guiding of our lives. Because of this belief we are faced with the problem of separating, defining, and prioritizing our responsiili- ties to ourselves, to the state and to society - and living in eternal conflict (for the strict totalitarian, there is no essential conflict be- tween his will and the will of history or of the leaders.) Max Weber defines the problem as a continual dilemma between an "ethic of responsibility" and an "ethic of cnoscence." Someone else has recently called it a choice between joining the Party of Or- der, which stresses duties to so- ciety, or the Party of Freedom, which stresses the rights of man. In either case the dilemma is re- ducible to a choice between ac- cepting or rejecting the placement of one's conscience in subservience to a general will as expressed In law, customs, ritual, or through government or a single or mul- tiple set or institutions. The prob- lem is complicated tremendously the moment one accepts the sug- gestion that only on some oc- casions is there a conflict between the individual and the group which is so serious that: 1) if the individual subjects him- self to the group by choosing some form of reconciliation rather than an uncompromised position of di- sent, some measure of his self- respect will be permanently smashed, 2) if the individual chooses to abide by his conscience, the con- sequences will be physically or socially destructive to him, 3) a combination of both oc- curances would result. "Some" signifies the need to be selective, to draw one's line not before participation in any form of social action but to draw the line in the midst of social situa- tions. The latter approach is by far the more difficult. In such situations, it is sometimes neces- sary to remain with one's con- science, which means a decision to relentlessly attack arbitrariness wherever the arbitrariness is per-. ceived to be of such magnitude that one's integrity would ir- retrievably give way were he not to respond. * * * -A FINAL complicating remark: pain and abstraction are too com- plex to determine in the abstract or to approach with completely inflexible operating principles; they are to be understood sub- jectively, from situation to situa- tion, and this leaves responsibility for final judgement not on God, the Ten Commandments or fi- mutable principles, but on the living, changing, social, organio single mind and strength of man: the question here is not whether a god exists, or an eternal set of principles or a life after death; the question is whether or not man in history has even achieved consensus on these question and, if not, how is the existence of god, natural law or life after death going to help us improve our col- lective life on this complicated earth where, regardless of the existence or non-existence of free will, we suffer through "choices" and their consequences. If the answer is only that re- ligion provides us with assurance, I do not yet need to live my life with assurance of the ultimate rightness of my decision. Yet with- out decision or judgment, no mat- ter how severe the complications, there has been a failure and a tacit deference to the decision- making powers of death. I cannot justify my life very easily without maintaining a rela- tionship with others now living, nor without judgements and deeds. Postponement of decisions and ac- tion amounts to refusal to dis- tinguish life from death. And once we have acted 0 liberate men so that they may judge and act and perhaps avoid some hurt, then we have acknowledged and rejected despair and pain and impotence and isolation, and have affirmed doing and being within their pro- per limitation. SIDELINE ON SGC: Liberals' TacticsDeplorable By JUDITH OPPENHEIM Daily Staff Writer THE TWO COURSES of possible evil open to Student Govern- ment Council-what is said and what is done-are usually clearly distinguishable, and lately it seems that the evil of the former is a greater threat to the Council than the evil of the latter. The evils are committed by two distinct groups (boundary lines are arbitrary and membership is on occasion interchangeable). The so-called "conservative" members are generally responsible for the tangible legislative evil that is done. The so-called "liberals" commit nearly all of the verbal evil. They constantly speak out of order for love of hearing their own wise- cracks (they are witty), swear colorfully and expertly -- not to emphasize points, but to antagon- ize their "opposition"-and are rude beyond belief to both the chair and the "conservatives." A third group of Council mem- bers is comprised of the four women who, ideally, should act as a buffer between the two warring factions since they are uncom- mitted to either side, with per- haps one exception. The fact that both the liberals and the conserva- tives need the women's votes does not in the least make them alter their tactics in an attempt to woo rather than coerce them. The re- sult is that the women, although they sometimes make the most cogent points of the evening, sel- dom bother to speak because the servatives, insult them to the point where every liberal onlooker is ashamed to agree with those at. the table even politically, and then become exasperated whenthe con- servatives hold more firmly than ever to their positions. This is the standard operating procedure at SGC meetings. Usu- ally the issues are not controver- sial enough to make a prolonged death struggle worthwhile and the question is settled in the interest of moving on to other orders of the day. It is understandable that tempers shorten as the night lengthens, but if members would stick to business through the first part of the proceedings, they would not find themselves staring groggily at a half-completed agen- da at two a.m. THE SHENANIGANS began Wednesday night when James Yost, '62, brought in a tin-can telephone ensemble for Roger Seasonwein, '61, and Philip Power, Spec., to use for out of 'order, trans-table communication. The whole -incident and the necessary reaction took about five minutes. The disturbance was not Yost's fault. If Power and Season- wein had been able to contain their comments until the recess they would not have been disrupt- ing proceedings sufficiently to. warrant the introduction of the telephone. Power's crack about the dubious privilege of eating Michigan Union food, raised during a discussion of the inexcusable sum spent on tion of the rules of commc decency occurred at about 2 a. when Seasonwein introduced motion which permits Daily Edit Thomas Hayden, '61, to attend ti National Student Association Co gress with alternate status th summer. The debate was over a porti of the amendment originally it troduced stating that Hayde should receive no compensatic for the Congress. Seasonwein the wished to amend the motion offer Hayden some compensatic Protests over Seasonwein's actic arose, during which Arthur Rose: baum, '62, said he considered tl maneuverdcontemptible. Granted that Rosenbaum's pro test was neither civilly phras nor warranted, Seasonwein's ei suing rage, during which he a cused Rosenbaum of hiding d liberately the day before the mee ing so as not to hear Seasonweir explanation of his intentions w totally uncalled for. AS USUAL, when Seasonwe launches one of his tirades, it w all the other "liberals" could do placate the opposition enough keep them from defeating worthwhile motion just becau they would all have' liked strangle Seasonwein. As it was, the discussion of t motion, which involved persona ties, was entirely out of order the meeting and should have be carried on in executive sessik Members were too busy sileni and verbally hating one anoth to consider this, however. I