4 OPINION Page 4 Thursday, November 3, 1983 The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Vol. XCIV-No. 50 Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Sinclair WNI OaNT WEAR SEATBELTS R ASOZ: "ThE4" S o CON FININJG It The logic of illogic VERY NOW AND then the people running the government set in motion a plan that simply defies all logic and common sense, yet no one else in the government can stop it. Two such moronic plans-the MX missile and the B-1 bomber - continued to roll along after the House of Represen- tatives failed to vote down funding for each Tuesday. The House voted not to delete fun- ding for the MX by a mere nine votes. It also voted 247 to 175 not to restrict funding of the B-1 to a one year period. The votes extended the lives of the defense department's two most dangerous and illogical new weapons. Both weapons are huge wastes of money. Each B-1 bomber is projected to cost at least $200 million, while $438 million will be needed to build ap- proximately 100 MX missiles (that figure ignores funds for research and development) . Proponents of the B-i have been un- able to answer the charge that the plane will be obsolete before it ever taxis down a runway. The defense gurus' rationale for the B-1 seems to be nothing more than the billions of dollars already spent on it. But the MX vote is much more troubling - and more dangerous. The ten-warhead missile is a destabilizing threat that, if it were deployed, would push the United States and the Soviet Union further toward a nuclear showdown. A ten-warhead missile is not a defensive weapon. The MX is too big and too vulnerable to be considered defensive. Because it is so vulnerable, arguments that the missile will act as a deterrent fall flat. Deterrents are supposed to deter because they can survive a first attack in sufficient numbers to inflict damage in response. By all accounts, the MX would not survive a first strike - so if deterrence is the name of the game, why build the MX? Even if supporters of the MX could get around that argument, other logical objections readily pop up. For instance, where does the military plan to put the missile? Every basing mode the Pentagon has developed has been ridiculous. None of them - from the Carter administration's un- derground racetrack to Reagan's "dense-pack" to the most recent idea of putting the MX in old Minuteman III silos until someone can come up with a better idea - offer even minimal protection for the MX. Proponents of the missile also ignore the wisdom of nuclear strategists which argues against multiple, warhead missiles in favor of single warhead missiles. The idea of a flexible response to a Soviet nuclear attack depends on single warhead missiles. If the Soviets only attack with five warheads, responding in kind is possible using single warhead missiles. The MX doesn't offer that alternative. Yet the MX and the B-1 live. If the U.S. military must have nuclear arms and strategic bombers, only one clear reason for having the MX missile and B-1 bomber exists: because they're there. X ; I'' ter- A?.- j'.e I ~2 Competition and cooperation LaBar II 1N y I _... --- ._ By Robert D. Honigman Second of two articles Students, especially if they come to the University from their parents' house, tend to accept the University as the real world - the representative or agent of the world that exists beyond their home. The University seems to them like a large gate which gives entry to the world of adulthood. As a result, students tend to in- ternalize University values and goals. They accept them as a valid standard to measure them- selves against. No one has given them any other standard. IF YOU don't like the Univer- sity then there is something wrong with you - you have the wrong attitude, you're lazy, or maybe you are too sensitive. If you are unhappy, you can blame yourself because everyone is trying their best to give you the best education possible. If you can't adjust to the University where people are interested in you and the system is fundamen- tally kind, how do you expect to make it in the outside world? So in the University, it's very easy to feel that you are a failure. Yet you shouldn't accept the University's values or judge yourself by its standards. For example, numerous studies have shown that there is litle correlation between grade rankings and career success among college graduates. No doubt academic ability has some value, and a minimum is cer- tainly required - but in the out- side world it is far less important than the institution would have you believe. Grades are really a form of discipline, a way of exer- cising institutional authority and making sure that you march in lock step through the system. UNIVERSITY values, in fact, are something you must unlearn when you leave the institution. In the University you learn to look out only for yourself; you learn that the world is a pyramid with the important people and the superstars at the top; you learn that the system's only reason for existing is to support and en- courage those at the top.- But in the real world, where in- stitutions come and go like dinosaurs, you must learn that your health and well being are in- timately bound up with those of the people around you; that society is an organic whole that exists for the benefit of everyone, not just those at the top; and that no matter how strong or capable you are, your children may be weak and fragile, and so for their sake you need to live in a society where the weak and fragile are cherished and protected along with everyone else. You must learn that life as it passes is your greatest treasure, not some distant institutional goal that always recedes; that friendships are mcre important than material possessions; and that sharing is one of life's greatest pleasures. There are hard lessons to learn and nothing in the University prepares you for them. The values and goals of the University are those of a large- scale authoritarian organization. Now you can say that since the outside world is also composed of large scale hierarchical organizations, corporations, government bureaucracies, etc., the value system of the Univer- sity is a good introduction to that world and you are being well trained. BUT NO one imagines that these large scale organizations exist to serve their middle- echelon personnel, much less their rank and file. If you are going to become one of the leaders directing the activities of a large scale organization, one of the elite superstars or giants, then perhaps the University is giving you the proper education - how to work sixty hours a week, handle pressure, manipulate people, be socially responsible, etc. No question about it, the University is an elite institution and it is dedicated to training an elite. But only 1O percent of you are ever going to become superstars or institutional leaders. There isn't enough room at the top and the competition will take years and even decades out of your life, and will get much worse before it gets better. No doubt each of us thinks of ourselves as a potential leader, so we willingly join the University and play the game, and it may not be until the middle of our lives when we wake up and realize that the dreams we were sold will never come true. We are middle-management and will never reach the top, and what's more, the education we received is now obsolete and younger people just graduating have better technical backgroun- ds than us and are cheaper to hire besides. What's left except to feel you are a failure as a person - and perhaps you are because you never learned anything else in all those years. THAT'S THE real rub of University training: You are not merely being given the wrong training, you are being taught to be ashamed of yourself for being normal and ordinary. The things you really need to be a success as a human being are not being taught at the University. You need a warm, liberal education with time for concerts, novels, and friendships - a broadening experience of social interconnections. You need a student government that does have power, the power to veto tenure appointments, for example, so that distant scien- tists and scholars who care little or nothing for teaching un- dergraduates can be denied entry into the University's faculty. You need a president that responds to you and can be voted out of office by you. You need at least half the regents to be elected only by you, so that people who are concerned with your problems and needs and not just the prestige and reputation of the University are at the top. If you go through the Univer- sity without trying to get these things, you will be wasting your University years and getting the wrong kind of education. If you are unhappy at the University, it's probably because you understand what I've been saying without even putting it in- to words. Not everyone should stay and fight, however. In a place where the big fish eat the little fish, the little fish should leave, and leave without regret. But if you are big enough to look out for yourself and want to stay, by all means stay. Accept your- self for what you are and try to grow into what you can be. You won't escape without scars --but you'll be alright. Just don't try to be perfect. Honigman is a University graduate and an attorney in Sterling Heights. 4 LETTERS TO THE DAILY: College is a time for radical thought s P WIL S PSapp 3 To the Daily: Alexander Haig came to this campus to speak on American foreign policy. It is possible to think of him as an intellectual. He is educated and experienced in his field. He is thus an authority. But to a certain extent he is very far to the right. His political views fall, or fell, in line with those of Reagan and of hard-line conservative business interests. One might think that on the campus of a publicly funded can afford to take time out and study thoughts that do not per- petuate the status quo and that are new and uncommon. That is why I hope we can remain as ac- tive as our student counterparts of the past. However, this time around we are faced with a far more dismal economic situation. The questions we ask of it should be of the same critical intensity. BLOOM COUNTY It seemed clear that the house last night, save a few rows, leaned toward the Young Republicans. We congratulate those organizations involved, but contest students should hesitate before adopting those political persuasions. In the competition of the real world, their career op- portunities may someday dictate political thought.. For now let's ask more questions about the society around us. The night culminated with Haig's appalling and sexist attack on a woman attempting to pose a question. He did no less than humiliate her. - Ajit de Silva Claudia Grossman October 20 by Berke Breathed I 1 777--7--777----7---..7. -,I API toA I $ LMIOA.. I I I ,