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OPINION

Page 4

Thursday, January 9, 1986

The Michigan Daily


Edid £dmsan igan t
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan

Institutional patriotism blues

Vol. XCVI, No. 70

420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board


Support sanctions

PRESIDENT REAGAN'S de-
cision to declare a national
emergency and break economic
ties with Libya is an appropriate
action to take against a country
that supports terrorism.
However, a gradual decline of
trade with Libya since 1978 has
resulted in a mere $300 million of
United States investments in that
country. Alone, the United States
does not have the leverage
necessary to affect Libya's
economy, though the sanctions are
an important symbolic statement.
Reagan has called on Western
European countries to take a stand
and impose sanctions but these
nations, most notably West Ger-
many and Italy have declined.
Reagan's sanctions are an en-

couraging first step. Further, his
order that Americans living in
Libya leave the country ap-
propriately reflects the
seriousness with which the United
States views Khadafy's support of
terrorism. However, Reagan has
not ordered United States com-
panies with foreign subsidiaries to
leave the country. In addition,
Reagan's allusions to possible
military action is distressing. The
United States ought to present an
example of non-violent coercion in
the Middle East.
The administration must focus
on persuading Western European
countries, through economic sup-
port and compromise, to join the
United States in a non-violent con-
frontation and effective deterrence
of Libya's terrorist policies.

By Robert Honigman
THE UNIVERSITY suffers from a
peculiar illness I call institutional
patriotism. As it grows sicker it feels better.
This means that the healthier it thinks it is,
the worse off it really it.
Perhaps the best way to describe what
happens is to use the story of the peddler
and his horse. Once there was a peddler who
went with his horse from house to house
selling goods. He and his horse were quite
poor and slept together in a barn. But one
day the peddler showed up wearing new
clothes and told his friend that he was no
longer sleeping in a barn with his horse but
had a room of his own. "You're looking
marvelous!" the friend told the peddler.
The peddler explained he had discovered a
great secret. Instead of giving his horse oats
and grain, he gave his horse grass and hay,
and with the money he saved he could now
afford to rent his own room and buy better
clothes. Another few months passed and
this time the peddler met his friend and an-
nounced that he was getting married. He
had made another wonderful discovery. By
feeding his horse straw instead of hay and
grass he saved so muchrmoney that he could
now afford to get married. Now a full year
passed, but when the peddler was seen
again he was dressed in rags, thin and
emaciated, pulling his cart behind him.
When his friend asked him what had hap-
pened, he said, "Just when things were
going really great, the horse up and died."
The peddler is the cognitive or rational
part of all institutions. The horse is the
average member of the institution. When
institutions are small, there is a lot of in-
formal feedback and communication bet-
ween the people who run an institution and
the people who are served by it or live
within it. It's an organic relationship, and,
in effect, the peddler and the horse sleep in
the same barn. But as the institution grows
it develops interests and needs that are dif-
ferent from those of its average member. It
wants to grow and develop, but to grow
and develop it needs to accumulate resour-
ces. So it takes away resources from its
average member and invests them in in-
stitutional growth, which makes the peddler
feel good and inclines him not to notice the
Honigman is an attorney in Sterling
Heights.
Wasserman

discomfort of his horse. Of course
sometimes a bigger and better institution
does bring in more feed for the horse - so
it's not always a simple case of a zero sum
game. In fact, it's easy for the peddler to
believe that as he grows wealthier he can
make more for the horse and everyone will
be better off. That's the most common
rationalization of people who suffer from in-
stitutional patriotism.
Here's an example of how it works in the
University. During the GEO hearings in
1978 University President, Robben
Fleming, testified that he strongly urged his
deans to stop using graduate students as in-
structors because people complained about
its effect on undergraduate classes. But his
deans refused to take his advice. What was
the matter with the University's reputation,
asked the University attorney? Why
couldn't it attract graduate students
without offering financial assistance?
Harold Shapiro, who also testified, ex-
plained that the University's competition,
its peer institutions, offered assistantships,
so Michigan had to offer them too. No
pretense was made that this practice was
good for undergraduates. Nor was it even
based on the need of graduate students for
financial assistance. Rather it was based
solely on what was good for the University
and made necessary by competition.
Clearly, what was good for the University
was different from what was good for
students.
Higher tuition, larger class sizes and
more research benefit the university but of-
ten erode the quality of student life. What's
worse is that the peddler tells the horse to
cooperate in the peddler's ambitions in the
mistaken belief that what is good for the
university is good for the average student.
Yet institutional leaders truly believe that
the institution is growing healthier and
stronger as they impoverish the average
member. It's not a matter of absolute truths
or lies, but 48 percent truths which are
mistaken for 53 percent truths. The good of
the individual and the good of the group do
overlap. Nobody can look through the filter
of their own self-interest and make objec-
tive disinterested decisions - not me, not
you, not anybody. So it is in these shades of
gray where human values are lost.
For example, Joseph Stalin is seen by the
world as a cynical brutal tyrant, murdering
people on a mass scale. But in fact, if you

look at him closely, you see that he really
made the institution "The Soviet State" his
paramount concern. He collectivized farms
and used terror to accumulate capital in or-
der to transform a backward agricultural
society into a modern industrial
technological society in as short a time as
possible. All systems of belief that do not
recognize and reward human selfishness
ultimately work on fear - for they have no
rewards to distribute - so he had no choice,
and he did what we call murder with a
single-minded lack on imagination that was
machine-like in its stupidity and lack of
humanity. But he did not do it for himself;
he did it for the good of his country.
What is so important to recognize is that
Stalin was less of an evil man than we
popularly believe, and more of merely a
stupid man doing great evil out of good
motives. Because all of our institutions are
filled with similar people, and we tolerate a
great deal of brutality and callousness in the
name of the public good. Go back to a totally
different context, the world of the 19th cen-
tury capitalists. They were obviously selfish
and grasping. Yet we tolerated them
because, like Stalin, they accumulated
capital and created new wealth. In other
words, they operated with many of the same
rationalizations as Stalin. "We must be
brutal because we are in competition with
others. We must sacrifice the interest of the
average person and the individual for the
good of the group. Whatever is good for the°.
average person or is good for humanity."
If the above statements were engraved in
marble or brass somewhere that students
pass every day, underneath I would add:
"Your moral education consists of learning
when these statements are true and when W
they are false."
The peddler is as stupid in real life as he is
in. our story. He really thinks that he is
promoting the welfare of the horse along
with his own. He thinks he's in a better place
to judge what's best for others than they
themselves. And unless some mechanism of
democratic checks and balances stops him,
the peddler will be as brutal, stupid and
unimaginative as Stalin or any 19th century
capitalist. The peddler has the old Roman
values of self-discipline, rationality, and .
authority. The horse has the early Christian
values of spontaneity, sharing, and feelings.
When the peddler despises the horse, you
know that you're in a corrupt institution.

Nuclear madnes

S

THE UNITED STATES Navy
announced Monday that in the
event of a conventional war again-
st. the USSR, it might attack Soviet
nuclear submarines. The goal of
this strategy would be to increase
American strength relative to
Soviet capability and to force a
resolution on American terms.
However, by unduly provoking the
Soviet Union in the midst of an ar-
med conflict, American strikes
against nuclear stockpiles would
sharply increase the risk of
nuclear war.
From the beginning of the Cold
War to today, the US and USSR,
while rarely hesitating to attack
nonnuclear countries, have
riefrained from direct warfare
against each other primarily
because of the obvious danger of
escalation toward nuclear war.
Should fighting break out between
American and Soviet forces, the
World will be closer to destruction
than at any point in history. The
first priority in such a grave
situation must be to diffuse the con-
flict as quickly and peacefully as
possible. Neither side can afford to
goad the other into nuclear
reprisals.
The Navy's strategy is irrational
by any standard. Just as no sane
speculator would invest a life

savings in a stock where the
possibility of meager profit carried
the risk of personal bankruptcy, no
lucid strategist would consider a
plan that risked the survival of the
human species for minimal
military gain and a stronger
negotiating position.
Despite the fact that both the US
and USSR possess the capability of
destroying the world many times
over, leaders in both countries
assume that a sufficiently stronger
power would be more likely to in-
stigate a nuclear war. Accor-
dingly, if either nation lost part of
its arsenal, it would likely expect to
be attacked by nuclear weapons,
and might retaliate.
The balance of power between
the superpowers remains in tact
largely because of. the shared
belief in Mutually Assured
Destruction (appropriately called
MAD).
When under attack, it is natural
to strike back. The authors of the
Navy's plan should put themselves
in the position of a besieged nation
possessing a huge cache of
nuclear arms, and ask themselves
how they would react. Expecting a
commander in such a high
pressure situation to make a
rational decision is an insane gam-
ble.

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LETTERS:
Defend freedom to choose abortion

To the Daily:
On January 22, 1973, the United
States Supreme Court voted to
put an end to thousands of sen-
seless and painful deaths from
back alley abortions. On that day
in the famous Roe vs. Wade
decision they voted to legalize
abortions throughout the United.
States. Today that precious right
for a women to determine the fate
of herown body and life is under
attack.
Right wing religious and
political groups are organizing a
well financed and very
sophisticated movement against
abortion rights. Medicaid funding
for abortions for poor women has
been lost in all but thirteen states.
So called "sidewalk counselors"
and "family life counseling cen-
ters" are harassing and
physically and emotionally
threatening women who do seek
abortions.
The Ann Arbor Coalition for
Women's Rights seeks to preser-
ve abortion rights, and increase
access to contraception and con-

traception education. We place
the very highest value on life. We
support the lives of women who
are living today. We defend
women's right to choose when
and if they want to have children.
We advocate expanding social
services to aid women and men
who do choose children. We want
each and every child brought into
this world to be a wanted, plan-

ned child.
The right wing is organized and
public with their intentions. It is
long overdue for those of us who
fought to win abortion rights and
who value the rights we won to
once again make our views
public.
We would like to invite all in-
terested in supporting women's
right to abortion to attend a rally

on the U-M Diag on January 22 at
Noon.
-Ann Arbor Coalition
For Women's Rights
Judy Levy
Julie Quick
Julie Moss
Lori Peters
Dawn Chalker

Jan. 8

People need education on famine relief


Lord

To the Daily
This letter is not being written
in response to any particular ar-
ticle, but rather to a series of
editorials which seem to keep
recurring on the topic of hunger.
Everyone seems to at least agree
on the severity of the problem
and on the fact that the public
must be educated.
.However, the facts, or what
seem to be the facts sometimes
contradict each other in such a
way that it is hard to figure out an
appropriate response. I am
mainly talking about giving aid to

famine relief. Although this
seems to be the thing to do, it is
not the answer - far from it. Ac-
tually, much of the money being
given to famine relief is not
reaching the people who need it.
And although it may help a little,
aid and charity giving alone will
never alleviate the problem.
What happene
To the Daily:
Most Americans don't realize
that some of the most beautiful
beaches in the world are only a

Yet if people are giving aid,9
they are willing to help. I think
one step lies in re-educating or
educating people as to where the
roots of the problem lie. A con-
sistency in what is being taught is
of vital importance.
-Andrea Schneider
December 2
'd to freedom?
couple hundred miles from our
shores. Cuba's world-renowned'
beaches are now populated only
by Canadians and Western
Europeans. Why is it that
Americans are absent?
The Supreme Court in 1984
ruled than any American seen
soaking up the sun in Cuba will be
subject to a $50,000 fine and up to
ten years in jail. So while we can

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Don't neglect women politicians

To the Daily:
I am writing in response to the
recent article, "The two types of
politicians" by Patrick Lester,

political careers of men. Women
hold prominent positions in
government. Mayoral and
Congressional positions are

then he is stating that women in
politics do not have the faults
which their male colleagues do.
Women are by no means ex-