4e £ft n ailij
Eighty-two years of editorial freed6m
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Behaviorism: Needing love as well
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
By ROBERT WAINESS
T FINALLY GOT to B. F. Skin-
ner's lecture at 4:00 p.m., right
after my French class, and just
as he was finishing. But I did get
there in time to hear University
Professor James McConnel speak,
and as I got a summary from a
friend that Skinner's speech was
the usual, "If we don't make.our
selfish values more universal ones
we will all perish," I think I got
a pretty good idea of what went
on. Anyway, I'm an old McConnell
disciple, so I pretty much know
the rap.
Now this friend and I were talk-
they point out, has a highly inef-
fective statistical success record.
THE OTHER methods are no bet-
ter for producing visible change in
a large and varied sample of "sick"
people. Behaviorism takes the bull
by the horns and says to the gen-
eral public, "You tell us what
you want this individual to be ike.
We'll condition him to be lik
that, and he'll be happy abi)t it."
The method they use is something
we could all use to learn a bit of,
and that is positive reinforcement.
This says that by encouraging rnd
rewarding the desired behai;or in
FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1973
A super mistake
IT WOULD BE hard to find a federal
project that has received more unan-
imous criticism than the proposed "Super
Sewer" system planned by the Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA) to treat
garbage and waste.
The plan, officially known as the Michi-
gan Water Resources Commission's Plan
II, would have the city-along with other
communities in eastern Washtenaw,
southwestern Oakland and southern
Wayne counties-close its sewage treat-
ment facilities and move all wastes by
pipeline to a common treatment plant
at the mouth of the Huron River on Lake
Erie.
The plan has been roundly criticized
by University students and professors,
local environmentalists, concerned citi-
zens and local politicians from across the
political spectrum.
THE MAJOR CRITICISM of the EPA
plan is that it may not work. It is.
very possible that one goal-the reduc-
tion of pollution in the Huron River-
would not be achieved by the plan.
The city's treatment plant provides
more complete sewage treatment than do
those of some communities upstream on
the Huron River. The "Super Sewer"
would close down the Ann Arbor plant
while leaving those upstream alone. Thus,
argue the critics, closing down the city
treatment plant would not affect the
pollution level of the Huron River.
At the same time the system could
worsen the pollution situation in Lake
Erie, especially in the immediate vicinity
of the treatment plant.
SEVERAL CRITICS have charged that
the plan as conceived by EPA has not
been analyzed closely enough to deter-
mine the costs and environmental impact
of such a far-reaching plan.
At present, funds for the "Super Sewer"
are not available due to Presidential im-
poundment of environmental funds. How-
ever, funds will probably become avail-
able eventually, so the EPA plan is not
a dead issue.
We find the "Super Sewer" plan to be
ill-conceived and poorly researched. A
more acceptable and effective alternative
should be found.
t< . . P.. .
"Behaviorism takes the bull by the horns and
says to the general public, 'You tell us what you
want this individual to be like'."
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obstensibly humanitarian bThavior-
ists, condition mankind to stop 6e-
stroying themselves?
THE MOST popular argument -s
that this sort of power can b° ill
used. This is true, but everything
from physic power to atori n pow-
er can be misused, and that's no
reason to stop using them. F o r
that matter, a tractor, hoe, or plow
can be misused. That is not the
answer.
Doesn't man have the right to
try to get other men to think
right" and "good" thoughts? Of
course he does. We do that with
our children even before they can
talk. We have newspapers, maga-
zines, schools. Behaviorists - like
Josephine the plumber - just want
to get us out of the kitchen -
they'll do the job we try to do, and
do it better. What is there to be
afraid of?
Well I happen to be one of those
fuzzy-headed "up in the clouds"
thinkers who won't be content to
stick with the "observables" that
behaviorists so love, and insist
on "inventing" all sorts of subtle
interactions that go on between
people on a non-physical level. I'm
one of those people who says you
can condition - quite successfully
-all sorts of specific behavior pat-
terns, but when it comes to the
long term, when it comes to the
effect a behaviorist makes on his
whole environment and the people
around him over time, he is who
he is and not what he does.
I believe that if a basically sel-
fish and egotistical person raises
a child with al the right positive
behavioral cues, the child will
grow to be a screwed up neurotic
adult.
ing as we left the lecture, and
we were trying to pin down just
what it was that we didn't like
about behaviourists we have known.
The theory sounded good, and we
both could not argue very well with
eager proponentsofit. Yet there
was something about it that we
didn't like.
We had both been McConnell
groupies when we were freshmen
- she even more than I - and
we both moved away from it. We
were both turned on to the Mc-
Connell carisma at first, and by
the simple and seemingly foolproof
theory of behavior modification
that hs advocates. What the be-
haviorites are basically saying is,
"Let's get psychology down out of
the clouds and into some sort of
workable relity." Psychoanalysis,
someone and ignoring the undesir-
able behavior, those actions which
are undesirable are more or ;less
forgotten while the desired be-
havior comes to the fore. T h e
whole conditioning experience is
a pleasant one, the behaviocr is
changed, everybody is hapy. Re-
ligion has been saying this f o r
years. Love,. they say, Zonquercs
all. They were simply ,od behav-
iorists.
And we might as well learn be-
havior modification, say the be-
haviorists, because we are all un-
consciously conditioning and being
conditioned by others every mo-
ment of our lives. And it works:
We can see it in the la", we can
see that in every day life. We'll
do most anything for a person whl
really seems to care: We are in
love with love. So why not, say our
B. F. Skinner at Hill Aud.
THE MOST IMPORTANT posi-
tive cue, I think, is that warm and
friendly feeling stuff called love-
something most behaviorists choose
to ignore and something I've never
felt from any behaviorists I ' v e
known. Behaviorists will say that
love only matters in that it is ex-
pressed as pgsitive reinforcement,
but I would say the feeling-is one
that really communicates on its
own, and in fact communicates
more strongly in the long run than
the physical actions.
Robert Wainess is a junior re-
ligious studies major at the Uni-
versity.
Using POWs
to defeat amnesty
Price controls needed again
PRESIDENT NIXON'S Phase III eco-
nomic policy is continuing to hurt
the food budgets of two hundred million
Americans. For the second month in a
row the Commerce Department announc-
ed that wholesale prices made their big-
gest jump in 22 years In March. The
February Increase was also the largest
in 22 years.
The price of meat and other farm
gpods increased 6.1 per cent, and the
price of processed foods jumped 4.6 per
cent, the highest increase on record.
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It is ironic that the announcement p
was made during the week-long nation-
S.
Jaw th,
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Editorial Staff
CHRISTOPHER PARKS and EUGENE ROBINSON ne
Co-Editors in Chief pa
ROBERT BARKIN ..................Feature Editor in
DIANE LEVICK.................Associate Arts Editor th
DAVID MARGOLICK.......... ..Chief Photographer 5.5
MARTIN PORTER. Magazine Editor un
KATHY RTCKE ....................Editorial DirectorUf
ERIC SCHOCH ....................Editorial Director Ge
GLORIA SMITH ..........................Arts Editor he
CHARLES STEIN........................City Ed'tor fo(
TED 'STEIN ........................Executive Editor
MARTIN STERN..................Editorial Director
ED SUROVELL ........................Books Editor n
ROLFE TESSEM ......................Picture Editor br
the
Sports Staff th
DAN BORUS III
Sports Editor, Pr(
FRANK LONGO
Managing Sports Editor str
BOB McGINN ............... Executive Sports Editor
CHUCK BLOOM..............Associate Sports Editor i
JOEL GREER... . ............Associate Sports Editor 1
RICH STUCK ............. Contributing Sports Editor
BOB HEUER...........Contributing Sports Editor Ne
NIGHT EDITORS: Jim Ecker, Marc Feldman, George
Hastings, Marcia Merker. Mark Ronan, Roger Ros-
siter, Theresa Swedo, Robin Wagner. Ed
STAFF: Barry Argenbright, Jeff Chown, Clarke Cogs- Ar
dill, Brian Deming, Leba Hertz, John Kahler,
Mike Lisul, Mike Pritula, Bob Simon. Ph
Dear U.S. Taxpayers:
See the urban mass
transit crisis?
ide meat boycott, which has had only
ixed success in reducing meat prices.
onic because wholesale price increases
re usually not reflected in retail prices
r a month or two. In other words, the
arch wholesale price increase will
,use increases in retail prices in May
'June despite the meat boycott.
It seems that stringent price controls
food are quickly becoming necessary,
ecause Phase III just hasn't worked.
hen he introduced Phase III, the Presi-
ent announced that his goal in 1973
ould be to keep inflation down to a 2.5
r cent increase.
UCH A GOAL seems impossible now,
especially if the government, whe-
er it be the Congress or the President,
fuses to enact strict price controls.
Several labor contracts are up for re-
wal this year, and with food prices in
rticular and all prices in general shoot-
g up, it would be highly unlikely that
e various unions would settle for the
per cent wages increases "allowable"
der Phase III. AFL-CIO president
eorge Meany said as much yesterday, as
called for stringent price controls on
od.
Clamping a lid down on prices over a
ng period of time can be harmful to
e economy, it is true. But it seems to us
at in the face of the failure of Phase
and forthcoming union demands the
esident has little choice but to impose
ringent ,controls.
By JAMES WECHSLER
A MID HIS MOUNTING sea of troubles,
from Watergate to the supermarket and
from Capitol Hill to Cambodia, President
Nixon may derive some narrow satisfac-
tion from the signs that his hard-line
performance on amnesty is a smash hit.
To those of his more erudite supporters
who envisaged his second term as a time
of domestic concilation, this must appear
a hollow, shallow triumph. The diversion-
ary thrust is one of the oldest tactics in
Richard Nixon's political playbook.
The evidence of success in his anti-am-
nesty crusade is clearly spelled out in Har-
ris' poll, showing 67 per cent of those
interviewed now oppose a general amnesty
compared to only 53 per cent in June of
last year and 60 per cent in August. While
there is broader support for a condi-
tional amnesty that would require two
years of national service, there is a 49-43
per cent majority against even that pro-
posal. As Harris notes in analyzing the
figures, "there is little disposition to be
kind or charitable."
WHY ARE ATTITUDES harsher now,
after the troop withdrawals and a Viet-
nam peace agreement?
The answers are not too elusive. On the
one hand the Administration had staged a
massive promotion campaign in behalf of
the returning POWs; in doing so Mr. Nixon
has skillfully placed them in an adversary
relationship to those who resisted the war;
it is good guys vs. bad guys, and no ques-
tions, please. He has not only articulated a
Letters: C
To The Daily: merely r
THE LETTER from Bonni Kap- tivism t
lan in the April 3rd Daily regard- shown t
ing the cancellation of the film the New
Boys in the Band by the New World and show
Film Co-operative makes several gay peo
assumptions based on serious mis- film.
conceptions of the content of the -
film and the reason New W o r 1 d A
decided not to show it.
First of all it should be clearly
understood that there was no pres-
sure applied by the Ann Arbor Gay To The D
Liberation Front as an organiza- PRESI
tion. The opposition came from back his
members of the gay community. gram li
There was in fact some support 5.5 per c
for the showing of the film from the healt
certain members of GLF. When tion indu
some of us learned that New Yorld tory con
was going to show the film, we met is partic
with some members of the co-op employe
to state our reasons for not want- a part-ti
ing the film to be shown. Those Wages
reasons were quite clear. pecially
First of all, the film hardly re- sicians a
presents, as Ms. Kaplan intimates, they pos
a relevant social commentary" in this a
about valid gay lifestyles. What it and in p
in fact represents is the s a m e year pre
hostile anti-gay pathology that is categorie
stated over and over again in usually v
films, books, and articles (such as meet edu
the full page "straight look at job is s
homosexuality in last week's it is qui
Daily.) The film is in no way a dent, for
significant film (at l(at in terms tion opp
of it's relation to gay people). The come. Y
pressure was applied not because sonnel in
we are oversensitive, insecure, hy- limitedi
pocritical, or because we h a v e wages.
a distorted perspective as Ms. Kap- With t
lan charges, but rather because phenome
we view the film as a step back- sident Ni
wards for gay people, a film that it on cor
forces us backwards into the Kraft- to limit r
genuine sense of national relief over their
safe return; he has transformed them into
conquering heroes who, by remaining in
prison, somehow enabled us to achieve
"peace with honor."
THE TRUTH ABOUT some of these mat-
ters will remain murky for a long time.
What is extraordinary about the Admin-
istration's propaganda exercise is that it
seems to have nourished the delusion that
the exchange of prisoners that invariably ac-
"Mr. Nixon has skillfully placed (the POWs) in an ad-
versary relationship to those who resisted the war; it is
good guys vs. bad guys . .
aemv: i:.: : n: Ss..v::w: r <":"?"i:" iY.' ":: sms J.; isti ".:yy. ssii .. ".:v :.: .....v::.,,. vr.#Emisilm ".v-: :"vlisv:::.::.:v:::r.- a
cant improvement?
Obviously the only way they could pre-
tend to 'know" such things woutd have
been as a result of the briefings the; re-
ceived from U.S. officers en route to their
appearances before the TV camera;.
SIMULTANEOUSLY a number of highly-
advertised POWs testified with certainty
that the antiwar movement in the U.S.
had delayed the consummation of the peace
and their emergence into daylight. Again
It was ostensibly in deference to that
sentiment that the parade scheduled here
for this Saturday was initiated. Unfortun-
ately the committee sponsoring the event
insisted on designating it a "Home With
Honor" procession, thus seeming to exclude
from it - among others - those disen-
chanted veterans who do not regard their
service in Vietnam as a memorably honor-
able adventure. The organizers of the event
also forgot to extend an invitation to the
Gold Star Mothers, an oversight that they
said yesterday would be remdied.
Any public endeavor that primarily serv-
ed to call attention to the benign neglect
that so many veterans have received since
their unheralded homecoming would be a
worthy mission. But "Home With *Honor"
has the sad sound and portent of another
effort to present a partisan revision of
history while also providing a field day
for antiamnesty rhetoric. Perhaps some of
its sponsors will make a serious attempt to
mute that demagogy.
IN THE LONG RUN, when the full mea-
sure of immediate dividend has been ex-
torted from the POW exploitation and the
crusade against amnesty, Mr. Nixon will
confront the bitter aftermath of the dis-
cords he is perpetuating. It is not a joyous
prospect.
James Wechsler is editorial director of
the New York Post. Copyright 1973 by
the New York Post Corporation.
companies any truce was a justification for
the war itself, or at least proof that the
conflict was worth prolonging through Mr.
Nixon's first term.
These dubious propositions have been em-
broidered by the rhetoric of some of the
POWs featured on television. There have
been those, for example, who have declared
that they "know" our terror-bombings of
the North last December finally induced
Hanoi to come to terms.
But how could men who were still intern-
ed in prison camps while the bombings oc-
curred possibly "know" anything about what
was taking place in Hanoi's top councils?
low could they "know" that the agreement
reached after those bombings was a signifi-
ancelling
those who interviewed them were gener-
ally reluctant to ask them how they could
"know" that was the case.
It is, however, surely plausible that the
effect of such utterances on much of the
American audience was to fortify Mr Nix-
on's declared hostility toward those he in-
discriminately characterizes as "deserters."
As the warm emotional response to the
POW arrivals was steadily converttd into
a political production, there were some who
began to ask why there had been no com-
parable reception 'for hundreds of thous-
ands of other veterans who had come back
earlier - many of them physically maimed
and mentally shattered.
I
"Boys
in the Band"
L
'oIa y's staff:
ews: Penny Blank, Dan Borus,
Duweck, Charles Stein
itorial Page: Eric Schoch
ts Page: Richard Glatzer
oto Technician: Stuart Hollander
M ike
a'f
See the heavy tax burden
you Carry for metropolitan
problems? __
re-enforces all of the nega-
hat you have traditionally
owards gays. My thanks to
World for recognizing this
wing solidarity with radical
ple in not showing t h e
Harry Kevorkian
April 3
Medical wages
Daily:
DENT NIXON has drawn
mandatory Phase II pro-
miting wage increases to
cent with the exception of
:h related fields, construc-
stries, and certain manda-
trols on food. This move
ularly harsh on medical
es and students working on
me basis..
in the medical field, es-
wages concerning non-phy-
re even lower paid since
sess no degrees. Included
rea are medical students,
articular, third and fourth
-medical students. In these
s part time employment is
very important in order to
ucational expenses. Once a
ecured in a medical field
te beneficial to the stu-
it provides many educa-
*rtunities as well as in-
et the student, like all per-
the health industry, is
in the increase in h i s
he cost of living spiraling
nally due to inflation, Pre-
xon sees fit to put no lim-
porate profits, but rather
medical wages. It is ludri-
ey, in comparison with past years,
even though a slight raise in pay
has occurred.
It is time President Nixon is
stopped from continuing his ridi-
culous wage freeze and begins to
reorder this country's economic
priorities.
-Clifford Devine, Med'74
March 27
Teaching
To The Daily:
I WISH TO ADD to the discus-
sion in Sunday's Daily of the com-
parative weights of professional re-
sponsibilities and their relationship
to tenure. My own experiences in
the English Department and those
of my friends have shown Profes-
sor Fader's comment that teaching
"becomes automatic" to be t o o
true, too often. He probably meant,
however, that there is not real
work involved in teaching (I hear
that he is naturally good) com-.
pared to that involved in scholar-
ship.
But to some of the faculty "auto-
matic" means that they just don't
care. They satisfy the teaching as-
pects of their positions by tossing
out tautologies or playing o t h e r
academic games during class time,
then assigning picayune papers to
be graded by someone else.
Ambition has made them forget
the love and joy in appreciating
the skillful use of the language
that attracts students to literature.
They do all this just to be able to
crawl to their elitist havens to ham-
mer out of literature some pub-
lishable hunks of academia that
few will ever read.
a pinnacle of scholarship this Uni-
versity wishes to be, its Raison D'-
Etre still remains education. More
administrators should remember
that.
Enough of this. I only wish to add
(by way of an excuse for not sign-
ing my name) that I am currently
under the academic control of no
less than 6 members of the Eng-
lish Department, plus one TF and
an indeterminable number of grad-
ers, most of whom are much more
helpful than the professors.
-Name withheld by request
Tenure
To The Daily:
TO THE LSA Executive Commit-
tee: It was with a sour taste in
my mouth that I read of tenure re-
fusal to assistant professors Rae-
burn and Mullin. The picture is
that of disgustingly sterile ma-
chinations directed irrationally at
the careers of two teachers.
I cannot vouch for Mullin, but
I had Raeburn as lecturer for Eng-
lish 432, Contemporary Novels, last
year, and found his class consist-
ently rewarding. Despite the size
of the class (75-125 students), he
displayed a gift for intimacy and
care about the material covered
which I have found to be some-
thing of a treat in my undergrad-
uate career.
I don't know what obscure jour-
nal, lying on what dusty untouch-
ed library shelf may not h a v e
been written for by the two as-
sistant professors in question, but
I'm convinced that one of them,
Too many dogs
To The Daily:
PEOPLE WHO get a vicarious
bang out of the idea of a dog orgy
on the diag or who think that a
happy animal is a humping ani-
mal seem to be totally unable to
see beyong the moment to the
results of such free-wheeling can-
ine carnality.
There are currently 25 million
unwanted dogs (and an equal num-
ber of cats) in the United States.
This means that for every pet dog
there is one unwanted dog. Tak-
ing puppies to the Humane Society
with the assurance that they'll be
adopted is only a wishful delusion.
Nationally, Humane Societies
have to kill 25 million animals
every year because there aren't
homes or food for them. In Wash-
tenaw County it's an average of
over 500 dogs per month. But don't
storm the Humane Society; these
animals are the lucky ones. They
don't have to face freezing, star-
vation, disease, guns, highways, or
falling into the hands of c r u e 1
humans.
The problem is enormous but the
solution is simple. Female animals
should be spayed and males neu-
tered. It's not a cruel act but an
act of love. And it's an easier de-
cision to make than to have to
decide which dogs alive now should
be put to sleep to make room for
the thousands, born every hour.
Freedom is a beautiful thing,
whether it's enjoyed by a human
or an animal, but the freedom to
have sex on the diag for two ani-
mals is meaningless if it consigns
their offspring to the super-f r e e
life of starving, diseased strays or
See the massive highway trust
fund? There was a bill in
Congress to giveyousome of that
money to help solve, our 'urban
transit crisis.
*I
Al
See some of your
congre ssmen?
They voted against giving you
that money and helped
defeat the bil1!
T-a' t - i
t9
nice to ~ ha~ve these men
I