PAGE FOUR THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1951 _______________________________________________ I I SL Campaigning WITH THE beginning of candidates' open .:.houses tomorrow and the last intensive efforts of Student Legislature campaigners getting underway, the campus-at-large has a chance to sit back and survey from a broad perspective results of past electioneering. In the Legislature's brief existence many, often a majority, of SL members have failed to devote enough time and interest to the Legislature to make it an effective, significant body. Too many of the candi- dates seem to take the attitude that the election involved is only a popularity con- test. They put up multitudes of brilliant- colored posters and appear before hun- dreds of students, but fail to learn what SL's important projects are and what the entire purpose of the Legislature is. When elected the candidates often fail to contribute any new or meaningful ideas to a Legislature that is in desperate need of more active members if it is to secure the recogni- tion and influence which is necessary for it to continue functioning as the voice of students. Perhaps the greatest area of improvement needed among those elected is a continuing contact with constituents in order to inform the campus-at-large with issues and prob- lems faced by SL. If such a relationship had been more fully promoted in the past, SL would not be the brunt of as much scorn and criticism as it is today, and the average student would not, upn hearing of SL, ask "Why have a Student. Legislature?" and "Wat has SL ever done for me?" As the only even half-representative body of student opinion on campus, it is essential that SL continue functioning, and that it begin to act more dynamically and effec- tively. Only through election of more quali- fled candidates can any improvement in SL take' place, and only through more careful , attention to candidates' views and attitudes will voters elect more qualified candidates. -Dorothy Myers DRAMA__ At Hill Auditorium JOHN BROWN'S BODY, the epic poem by Stephen Vincent Bent presented by the University of Michigan Oratorical Asso- ciation DURING the two da's run of "John Brown's Body" at Hill Auditorium, ap- proximately ten thousand people watched three well-known actors and a large speak- ing, singing, and dancing chorus accom- plish what has been called a unique piece of stagecraft, a spellbinding trick of dramatic recital. Before the event is too far beyond the horizon, some of the general and under- standable enthusiasm for this "new" method of dramatic presentation should be temper- ed with some closer attention to what the production of "John Brown" actually achiev- ed. My own conclusion is very little. However "epic," however glamorous, however diverting in its dynamic tensions of sight and sound, "John Brown's Body," as poetry is dull, soaringly sentimental, and metaphorically inept. The dramatic re- cital, adapted and directed by Charles Laughton, and performed by Tyrone Pow. er, Anne Baxter, and Raymond Massey, did not really manage to conceal many of its defects. Their earnestness and obvious professional poise only served to make the work seem offensively slick. What defeats the poem from being a valid epic are a number of things. Of first im- portance 'is the sentimental and completely wooden conception of all the heroes and heroines from the foot soldier on up to Abra- ham Lincoln. The characters are bathed in the multiple legends of the War Between the States and thus make meaningful in- dividual impressions. Lee is allowed to be a figure of marble, Lincoln a weary conglom-' eration of all the past Abraham Lincolns that have been c'onceived. The Benet characters, Jack Ellyat from the North and Clay Wingate from the South, are men without personalities, forged on an anvil where every stroke registered by cli- mate and condition performs all the ap- proved and predictable effects on the re- ceiver. The heroines are even less tolerable. The development of the plot, and the in- terplay between plot and atmosphere, which is the nucleus of any epic work, is completely naive. Aristotle asks for a "dignified theme" as an essential ingredient of the epic. "John Brown's" naivete is.unfortunately never dig- nified; it is simple, but self-consciously sim- ple, constantly incorporating the ,melodra- matic understatment and the naked fact, almost in the manner of true-crime writer, John Bartlow Martin. The atmospheric qualities, an integral ingredient of the performance, as pro- vided by a well-trained voice group, runs into 'the same difficulties. They duly regis- ter the plink-plink of banjoes, the stirring choruses of the battle songs, and the rum- ble-rumble ol turbines in the contrived Machine Age apotheosis; still, all it amounts to icing on top of icing. When you are reciting "Savannah-bandana" rhymes, you do not need to garnish it with VOICE OF THE FACULTY: Mr. Magoo & Popular Arts- A Psychologist's Viewpoint The Old Master XetteP4 TO THE EDITOR The Daily welcomes communications from its readers on matters Of geeral interest, and will publish all letters which are signed by the writer and in good taste. Letters exceeding 300 words in length, defamatory or Mlbes letters, and letters which for any reason are not in good taste will be eondensed, edited or withheld from publication at the discretion of the editors. t (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a con- densation of alecture given by Milton Rosen- berg during last summer's symposium on The Popular Arts. Mr. Rosenberg is an instructor in the psychology department.) By MILTON ROSENBERG NOT MANYYEARS AGO we were singing a popular tune whose reassuring refrain was: "Wishing Will Make It So." We might, perhaps, begin with the title of the song mentioned above and see what insights we can gain from it. Certainly, the title is not itself insightful-it does not clarfy, rather it'reassures by way of deception, as do many items of mass en- tertainment." Wishing, in fact, will not make it so-at least not' in the real world. But a little further on in the song we are told-"wishes are the dreams we dream when we're awake." And here the poet (for when he wrote that line the Tin Pan Alley man wrote with the poet in him) shares with us a significant truth. It was the central proposition of Sigmund Freud's theory of dreams that dreams are wishes. But the 'wishes that show up in dreams are such as the wisher himself can- not openly tolerate. If the wisher will not receive the wish with tolerance and hospi- tality, the wish will cloak its frightening features and present itself at the door of the wisher's consciousness, so disguised and so made over, that the wisher will let him in-with at least the ordinary shows of cour- tesy-and sometimes with the flourishes and smiles of warm hospitality. Such commonplace stuff is known to everyone in this most psychological of all possible worlds. I take time to labor this lesson learned in the first course in psychology because the rest of this article will be based upon a further extension of the contention that unconscious wishes populate our day-dreams as well as our night dreams. The extension is that un- conscious wishes also populate the popular arts. To put this another way, the popular arts contain fantasy-constructions just as do the dreams of the individual. And just as the dreams of the individual may be symbolically reduced and translated to give us a picture of the wishes which the wisher shuts away from himself, just so the contents of popular art may be sym- bolically reduced and translated to give us a picture of the mass of individuals which, by its patronage, makes popular art popular. My purpose in this article is to undertake such an analysis as we examine just a few examples of quantitatively popular art. The objective of such a procedure is to develop, in a speculative way, some generalizations about the unconscious needs and fears of typical' Americans. It should be possible also to shed some light upon the society which provided the experiences which shap- ed these needs ad fears. OUR FIRST EXAMPLE might be that large group of American illustrators whose most famous representatives are Nor- man Rockwell and Stephan Dohanos. Their technique is one of meticulous realism- but a realism somehow pervaded by a certain emotional rosy hue. One might almost label this "tender realism." Somehow the people who move across the popular magazine can- vasses of Rockwell or Dohanos are always loveable, loved and loving. The painting al- ways seems to hint at a life full of friendship and cameraderie, a life lived among people who are all deeply tolerant of each other's idiosyncracies, a life somehow built around a few apparent truths havng to do with the glory of country, the stability of home, the maintenance of the parent-child rela- tionship, the good-will of civil servants, and the security found in humdrum predictabil- ity. One very impressive regularity is that this idealized version of the good democratic life is, in the paintings of Iockwell, Do- hanos and their confreres, almost always presented in the setting of the small or middle sized town. Similarly the magazine stories which these painters often illustrate are stories of the good, semi-rural life. Yet the majority of our people live in cities of over 100,000 population. And in the larger cities one is often unusual in knowing the family in the next apartment, let alone all the people on the block. It would be foolish and false to maintain that tenderness, friendship, neighborliness and static content are not a part of the American reality. But the world of Dohanos and Rockwell is but one of the many known social worlds. It is not in its simplicity and one-sidedness at all true to life as most of us are living it. The power of the tender realists to evoke in us pleasure somehow mixed with nostal- gia is, I think, the key to their success and persistence in the mass media. There was a time when Americans lived in the country{ or small town-when life did in fact have a kind of stability and static security that is often lost in the shuffle of big industrial- ized cities. As the American man moved to the city he moved towards greater anony- mity. The price he paid for his new inde- pendence was a new isolation. Loneliness became something of a mass problem and One of the most effective devices in American advertising is a theme which the hucksters themselves have labeled snob appeal. Its message is "Members of the haut monde, people who really count, buy our stuff-if you are of the better people you will too!" Why does this mes- sage sell carloads of Calvert whiskey, Woodbury soap and DuMaurer cigarettes? The great American culture goal of up- ward mobilty has been invoked to account for the effectiveness of this advertising theme. But as we examine these ads in the pages of the New Yorker magazine, say, we notice that the snob heroes, the members of that other world, are constantly becom- ing less and less like people we have known. They look different-the men unbelievably dandy--the women bearing more than a trace of underfed, wraithlike, consumptive beauty-the situations in which we find them more and more unreal. (For example the one-eyed Hathaway shirt man is dis- covered playing an oboe or puttering with his butterfly collection.) They seem to have become olympians living an unattainable and unknown kind of super-existence. Perhaps this olympian unreality of the snob-heroes of huckster-land reflects an unverbalized conviction that most of us can- not easily rise to aristocracy-that our so- ciety has reached a state of social freezing which has invalidated the Horatio Alger dream of rags to riches. Certainly other hypotheses might be developed but space does not permt a full interpretation. *.* * * ONE LAST EXAMPLE remains. It is the cartoon built around the adventures of that loveable senescent, daredevil-to-end- all-daredevils, the very near-sighted Mr. Magoo. We all treasure high humor. It has be- come something of a rarity in this age of mechanized pre-tested yaks, bifs and su- perbofolas. But we will not treasure Ma- goo the less if we try to search out the unconscious communication which lies be- neath his inspired comedy. In all of his cartoon experiences Magoo is in a desperate situation. He is virtually blind, pitifully weak and very small. He is handicapped by a majestic inability to un- derstand the dynamics of the world through which he stumbles. Yet every time we en- counter him he is face to face with malig- nant and inimical forces of both the ani- mate and inanimate order. The reason that the joke of Magoo's im- probable survival will continue to amuse us is that behind the joke lies a reassurance that we all need. As we watch him we all be- come Magoo. Our own feebleness, our own ineptitude, our own confusions are external- ized for us in the dream-image of Mr. Magoo. The fear of war, the fear of loss of identity, the fear of boredom, the fear of isolation, the fear of our impulses -- all these are aroused in us as Magoo faces his more concrete horrors. But dreams, whether private or public, are wish fulfilling, and it is Magoo's func- tion to still our fears. This he does splen- didly. If this monument to bumbling inep- titude and incapacity always comes through-not only having saved his skin, but with some gain to show for the ex- perience-why, then, we too may rest easy .-the dangers we face are surmountable- nothing can touch us anymore than it does Magoo. With him we are inviolate. Magoo's survival in the face of danger is inexplicable. It seems to us a sheer gra- tuity, totally unrelated to any source of power in the man himself. Running through all the Magoo cartoons there is, I believe, a secret intimation that it is not fate that has saved Magoo . . . but rather that he' saved himself. Magoo has saved himself and we may save ourselves by complete al- legiance to a set of social values and moral conceptions. The values Magoo lives by are those of yesterday's self made man. In comic guise he is American individual- ism in its purest moral form. With a dir- ectness that verges on quixotism he wants. what he wants when he wants it and he goes after it and gets it. And ultimately it is this belief in himself -- this standing squarely for something - that keeps him whole and secure in the face of dangers which - because of his faith rather than his myopia -- are not visibly real. So the underlying serious and uncon- scious message of these cartoons is simply this-to stand securely in an insecure world a man must stand for something. I do not believe that the artists behind Mr. Magoo are suggesting that we should stand as he does for primitive rugged individual- ism. For Magoo after all is treated by them with ridicule as well as love. What they are saying to us and with us is that individual man finds his psychological salvation and fulfillment in committment to purposes and truths that encompass more than himself. As they resonate within us this all-too- often unconscious insight, the men who have made Magoo render us the invaluable service of moral illumination. Whether it r 7 f a NO FINALS?-The final exam schedule was discussed by several campus groups last week, and numerods suggestions were made-- including a proposal to get rid of finals for seniors altogether. A special committee studying the exam schedule situation made an "unofficial recommendation" that representatives of students and faculty get together to talk over abolishing finals for the staid seniors. There were lots of other ideas about how to resolve the conflict between the need for enough study time and the desire to give grad- uates a meaningful diploma at commencement. Among the proposals kicked around by Student Legislature and Senior Board were: 1) Stay with the status quo-keeping a short exam period and no "dead weekend" before exams to allow seniors on the scholastic lower border to know if they were really graduating by commencement time. 2) Go back to the old style longer exam period, and let borderline seniors enjoy guessing if they had made it while listen- ing to commencement speeches. 3) Reschedule the school year. Proponents of this scheme visual- ized both time for study and success in the search for senior certainty. Start earlier in September, have a longer Chritmas vacation and a shorter spring recess and there'll be plenty of time at the end of the semester, they suggested. 4) Hold finals two weeks before the end of the term, with the last week a comprehensive review. 5) ave the faculty turn seniors',,,ades in before finals, and give anyone in danger of flunking an early exam. With all the suggestions floating around and a referendum on the fall elections ballot, there appeared to be a good chance that some solution might develop. But everyone had missed one obvious answer-no finals for anyone. PLUMBERS SADDENED SATISFIED-Local plumbers wandered unhappily around the streets Wednesday muttering about a possible Gargoyle banning. Friday, Garg finally reared its ugly head. Plumb- ers were satisfied. * * * * FAIR PLAY-A breathless former SL member rounded up 600 signatures and handed in a petition before a midnight deadline Wed- nesday. His action put a referendum asking "are you in favor of dis-- tributing a sticker of the 'fair play the Wolverine way' type to Ann Arbor merchants?" on the Nov. 11-12 ballot. . Earlier Wednesday, University officials and SL members met with a representative from the local Chamber of Commerce and decided they preferred a committee to hear discrimination complaints and discuss them with the businessmen involved. RADULOVICH--Charles Lockwood, attorney for University stu- dent Milo Radulovich, Monday wired Air Force Secretary Talbot claiming Air Force procedure entitled him to 20 days to submit a review brief. The 20 days are up today, but Talbot announced no action on the "security risk" case last week. In Detroit, union leaders were taking an interest in the case, and a "Radulovich Defense Coin- mittee" was being formed. BUCKET DRIVE-Twenty strategically placed buckets snared $500 for the World T.niversity Service drive to aid needy students in foreign lands, especially southeast Asia. * * * * HOMECOMIgTG-Sleepy students put the finishing touches to 95 homecoming displays yesterday morning. About 43,000 alumni and visitors poured into Ann Arbor, arriving in approximately 20,000 cars. Local police had their hands full. Small boys had their hands full, too. It was Halloween, but there wasn't nearly time enough to soap all those car windows. -Jon Sobeloff The Missing .997 .. To the Editor: H AS ANYONE seen a Republican around campus? That is the question the Young Republicans are currently faced with as atten- dance at club meetings has just about reached its low point. Yet just one year ago more than 6.500 students in a Daily poll voiced sup- port for the Republican party. What then can be the cause of the dismal fact that, less than .003 of that number have appeared at Y.R. meetings? Could it be that Repub- licans have fled the Michigan cam- pus? This seems unlikely judging from conversations heard at din- ing tables, on the diag, and in classrooms. Obviously Republican sentiment is still strong on campus, but those echoing the views of the G.O.P. fail to realize that the logi- cal place to air them is at a Y.R. meeting. Unless Republicans on campus take an interest in their club, their only representative body may soon face the same fate as the Young Progressives and dis- appear from campus. It doesn't matter what kind of view you entertain to join the Y.R.'s. I personally would like to see new members who believe in FEPC, free trade, and social wel- fare legislation. However, all views are welcomed in the club. About the only general belief we feel all members should have is adherence to the principles of the Consti- tution-which should exclude no one, except perhaps Bolsheviks and McCarthyites. -George David Zuckerman * * * Discrimination Sticker To the Editor: THE STICKER campaign was initiated by the Human Rela- tions Committee of Student Legis- lature last year. Stickers with the slogan "Fair Play the Wolverine Way" were to be displayed in those Ann Arbor stores which don't prac- tice discrimination. Theoretically, the plan hoped to eliminate dis- criminatory practices for students would patronize only those stores which displayed this sticker. A general lack of preparation was evident when the project was presented for SL approval: legal obstacles, reaction of local mer- chants, and estimates of cost had not been fully investigated. The Legislature felt unable to appro- priate funds to a project so in- adequately formulated. Two weeks ago the Committee, none of whose members were on last year's Committee, again dis- cussed the possibilities of the pro- ject. A meeting last Wednesday with members of the Board of Com- merce and thehAdministration re- vealed their genuine concern with the problem of local discrimina- tion; however they felt that stick- ers were not the most effective solution. They suggested an alter- native plan: the establishment of an anti-discrimination board com- posed of members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Human Re- lations committee which would handle each case of discrimination and attempt, by discussion, to work out the problem with the indi- vidual establishment concerned. Unfortunately, any future deci- sions the Committee or the SL makes will be complicated by the confusion about the sticker refer- endum which "SL saw jammed on the referendum ballot." This referendum cannot possibly secure student opinion on the real questiono involved: What is the most effective means of eliminat- ing discrimination in Ann Arbor stores? Had the originators of the referendum been genuinely inter- ested in this question, they would have included the alternative pro- posal. Constructive criticism of SL and its projects is necessary and valid. But when it is based on unreliable and inaccurate facts, the criticism becomes not only meaningless, but dangerous. I hope this letter will clarify the facts surrounding the sticker cam- paign and the inadequacies of the referendum concerning it. --Robin Renfrew Chairman Human Relations Committee DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN srS z #=; > {': .' I ON THE WASHINGJTON ME BUY-GO-ROUND WITH DREW PEARSON (Continued from Page 2) Hillel Foundation activities for the week-end: Sun., Nov. 1-10:30, Council Meeting; 5:00, Hillel Chorus; 6:00," Supper Club; 8:00, IZFA Speaker; 8:00-10:30, Graduate Mixer-All graduate students and sen- ior girls are invited. Gamma Delta, Lutheran Student Club: Supper-program, 6 p.m. Topic: "The Work of a Lutheran Deaconess." Westminster Guild. 9:45-10:45 a.m., .Homecoming Breakfast for Alumni and Students, at the Church. 6:45 p.m. Film: "All That I Have." Roger Williams Guild. Student Class continues its discussion series with "What Students Believe About Jesus," 9:45 a.m. Evening program at Guild House, 6:45 p.m. The Protestant Coun- selor for Foreign Students, will speak on "Worldwide Friendships." Unitarian Student Group. 7:30 p.m., Unitarian Church.. Discussion on "In Search of Liberal Idealogy." Election of officers--all members please attend. Those needing or able to offer transpor- tation, meet at Lane Hall, 7:15. Evangelical and Reformed Guild. 7 p.m., Bethlehem Church Gym. Guild Fellowship Night Party. Theme:. Hal- loween-come dressed for active fun. Wesleyan Guild. 9:30 a.m., Student Seminar-topic: "God: He Made Us But Not Our Mess," 5:30 p.m., Fellow- ship Supper. 6:45 p m., Worship and Program: International Night. A pan- el of three students, a German, a Chi- nese, and an American will speak on: "The Christian Perspective on the World Situation." 7:30 p.m., Fireside Forum in Youth Room. Panel discus- sion: "Ethical Problems Involved in Aid to India." Lutheran student Club. 7 p.m., Prof. WilliamrAlston, Philosophy Depart- ment, will speak on Scientific Methods in the Christian Faith." Episcopal student Foundation. 8 and 9 a.m., Holy Communion Service fol- lowed by breakfast at Canterbury House. 6 p.m., Student Supper Club. Coffee Hour following eight o'clock Evensong. Michigan Christian Fellowship. Dr. Herbert Mekeel, pastor of First Presby- terian Church of Schenectady, New York, will speak on the subject "Wor- thy To Be Lord," 4 p.m., Lane Hall. All students invited. Congregational - Disciples Guild. 7 p.m., meeting in Mayflower Room, Con- gregational Church for a student pan- el discussion on "Gods of the Cam- pus." Coming Events Museum Movie. "Let's Look at Ani- mais" (Adantationsl and "Two Little Deutscher Verein. Tues., Nov,. 3 71 0 p.m., Rooms 3-K and L, Union. A Fulj- bright student from Germany, will speak of his experiences as a prisoner in Russia during the last war. After the talk, there will be a discussion pe- riod and refreshments, followed by German songs. Everyone is invited. The Kaffee Stude of the Deutscher Verein will'meet Mon., Nov. 2, 3:15 p.m. in the tap-room, Urz6n. Mr. E. Dab- ringhaus and Mr. W'.Dyck of the Ger- man department wil,,be present to wel- come all who come. Everyone is invited. International Students Association. First meeting of the House of Repre- sentatives, Thurs., Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m., Room 3-S, Union. The representatives are -urged to attend this meeting in view of the importance q. the business which is to be transacted, All general members are invited to'send any pro- posals which they wish to be discussed in c/o Executive Secretary, ISA, P.O. Box 2096, Ann Arbor, before November 4' 4r~ 1Mtb 4* ~ i~ I WASHINGTON-Earl Warren, who used to look out of his office on Sacramento's palm-tree-studded capital square, now sits in the marbled Supreme Court Buildng looking out on somewhat drabber surroundings, the tired fall foliage of Washington. Across the capitol plaza from the Supreme Court Building is the Congress whose laws he, as Chief Justice of the United States, will have to interpret and sometimes rule invalid. But his office is in the rear of the Supreme Court Building, and he looks out on a row of motley buildings, neither colonial nor modern, erected during Washington's growing pains. The new Chief Justice, however, doesn't have much time to look at the scenery. Suddenly appointed to the nation's highest bench, he finds the other justices have had all summer to study briefs and writs of certiorari. So he is spending every minute catching up. Seldom does he get to bed before I a.m. Seldom does he go out to dinner. *, * * * NORTH KOREAN PILOT REPORTS F THERE WAS EVER any doubt about the use of the Russian air force in Korea, the North Korean pilot who stole a Russian Mig and flew it over to the UN has now dispelled it. This column has now seen a copy of pilot No Kum-Sok's revealing report. Its publication won't particularly disturb the Pentagon, but should seriously disturb the Russians; for it shows in great detail how Sixty-Fourth Year Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan under the authority of the Board in Control of Student Publications. Editorial Staff Harry Lunn.........Managing Editor Eric vetter ................City Editor virginia Voss.......... Editorial Director Mike Wolff.......Associate City Editor Alice B. Silver.. Assoc. Editorial Director?~ Diane Decker...........Associate Editor Helene Simon...........Associate Editor Ivan Kaye..............Sports Editor Paul Greenberg.... .Assoc. Sports Editor Marilyn Campbell.......Women's Editor Kathy Zeisler.... Assoc. Women's Editor Don Campbell.......Head Photographer Business Staff Thomas Treeger.. Business Manager William Kaufman Advertising Manager Harlean Hankin....Assoc. Business Mgr. William Seiden..Finance Manager James Sharp...Circulation Manager f, Telephone 23-24-1 I h_-