SEPTEMBER 17, 1971-
What you see is what you get
Across the Great
By Alan Socol
Yesterday, while trucking
through 68 Dorm, I happened to
wander into the new offices of
the Student Personnel Staff. In
case you're new around here or
had a particularly weird summer
and forgot everything except
your contacts' name, I'll briefly
outline who the students'
personnel staff is. Leading off is
Andy Gottschall, Dean of Stu
dents and not to be confused
with Pretty Bill Lanier (Andy
wears sports shirts). Next we
behold Ken Schwab who you'll
remember from last year's senior
play, 'High School Madness'.
Least of all we find Miss Vicki.
This is your staff. Their job is to
assist the student. I highly
recommend that if you have any
problems at all, no matter how
small they may seem, go directly
to the new Student Personnel
offices in 68 Dorm and speak
with your friends. Go often.
Enough political slander.
Actually I really get very angry
with our Personnel staff. How
ever, when I write about them I
am forced into conservative
discourse due to the pressures of
libel suits. In all fairness, the
Student Personnel Staff has a
very difficult job. It is their job
to see that the assorted inane
social policies from the Path
finder are enforced, much to the
displeasure and chagrin of the
MAO, MEET B. F. SKINNER
By William H. Stringer (CMS)
It is a coincidence that the
United States is taking a fresh
lode at the People's Republic of
China while a book by a leading
psychologist, B. F. Skinner, is
about to be published. For if
there is any large community on
earth which at all approaches the
applied environmental condi
tioning which Dr. Skinner
espouses in his manifesto (a
condensed version appears in the
August issue of Psychology
Today) it is China under Mao
Tse-tung.
The surprising thrust of the
Skinner thesis is that "autono
mous man" - the familiar free
wheeling fellow who believes in
individual freedom and dignity
is outmoded. Why? "It is not
difficult to demonstrate a
connection between the unlim
ited right of the individual to
pursue happiness and the catas
trophies threatened by un
checked breeding, the unre
strained affluence that exhausts
resources and pollutes the
environment, and the imminence
of nuclear war," argues Dr.
Skinner.
So man's behavior has got to
be reshaped, as Chairman Mao
might say. And since (so runs
the thesis) each man and woman
is a bundle of unique behavior
wholly shaped by environment
(nothing else), the way to
improve the whole lot of us is to
reshape and control the environ
ment or "culture" in which
mankind develops. Society must
design a new environment
which, more by carrot (rewards)
than by stick (punishment) will
render mankind well-behaved
students. When these obtuse
policies, such as restricted social
hours, are forced on the students
the result is massive hemmorag
ing in the soul. The question
arises, "What can I, an insignifi
cant, unimportant, non-thinking,
radical Commie student do to
bring about some rational
life-style for myself? The only
answer that you will get around
here lately is that it's 'Easy as a
Bridge at Guilford College.' The
administration will say to you
that they are LIBERAL. That
means that they have coeduca
tional CLASSES. They'll tell
you that they are progressive.
My body cries out in anguish at
such redundancy and insipid
ness. If you're not part of the
solution, you're part of the
problem. If you're not with us,
you're against us.
-not overbreeding, not pollut
ing, not disruptive, and nicely
geared for survival.
China is the only place I
know of where society., i.e. the
government has tried to reshape
behavior (toward strict egalitar
ianism) by altering the whole
mental atmosphere. Where Mao
operates crudely, through self
criticism and punishment, Dr.
Skinner would proceed more
subtly, so that people behaved
well almost unconsciously, with
out awarness of having made a
choice. He would make use of
both behavioral conditioning
and genetic engineering.
His crusading manifesto calls
for his followers in behavioral
psychology to carry his theories
into domestic policy, business,
education, family, every avenue
of life. The idea of manipulating
economic rewards for desirable
social ends is not new.
As this book gets read (its
frank title: "Beyond Freedom
and Dignity"; Knopf) there will
probably ensue an unholy row
with the humanists, for they
hold that man, if allowed, can
make vast and unselfish progress
through reason and enlighten
ment. And surely no one with
deep religious convictions about
man's inviolable individuality
will give the learned doctor
much house room. Granted that
environment does have some
impact on behavior now, and
that an improved ambience
would help men behave better,
still the very downgrading of
freedom and dignity would raise
plenty of hackles. And the idea
of "conditioning out" unsuitable
behavior sounds ominously like
George Orwell's "1984."
THE GUILFORDIAN
Divide
Enough of this lunacy. The
purpose of this article was to
kick off my new column. This
will run biweekly, the good Lord
willing, and be filled with
everything from weather reports
to pornography. I hope very
much to meet those of you who
are interested in getting this
place together. Guilford College
is unique. The seasons come and
go and Guilford remains unique.
The situations remain in a state
of constant drift.
Perhaps this year might be
different. Changes do occur.
I close now only to avoid
getting too spaced. The message,
if in fact there is a message,
might be that forewarned is
forewarned.
All for now ....
Your Minister of Truth
Stanley Bozo
Dr. Skinner, according to
Psychology Today editor T.
George Harris, would say the
trouble starts with man's proud
belief which underlies democ
racy: "The notion that in each
of us there is an ego
- personality, spirit, character,
soul, or mind - that is somehow
free." He would not agree. He
apparently doesn't heed what
the great Biblical prophets say
about man.
One could dismiss all this as
so much balderdash. And this
Harvard psychologist has plenty
of critics. But his theories have
led to the wide use of
behavior-modification programs
in private therapy and in mental
hospitals, to treat behavioral
disorders, in schools to enhance
learning, and in business to
improve working conditions.
When youths or adults go
kiting off into anarchical behav
ior, some folks are ready to try
almost anything that will apply
the brakes. But are there not
wiser ways to sanity? Cannot
self-discipline be learned by men
who have freedom and dignity?
And if there is a clearer effort to
perceive the true "spirit, char
acter, soul, or mind" of man,
will it not be discovered that this
superb individual, man, is
expressing the spiritually pos
itive qualities which are his
birthright under the fatherhood
of God? Even Peking may
discover this someday.
Advertising in the GUILFOR
DIAN can get you where you
want to go, sell you what you
want to sell, help you find
what you want to buy. See
Marc Weiner for Regular Ads,
Sufe Schieder for Personal Ads
White Horse
in the Big City
By Minette Coleman
They call Atlanta the capitol of the South, Peach tree St., the
pride and joy of the capitol of the Peach state, headquarters for the
drug traffic. Almost any day you can walk the area known as the
Strip, a ten block section of Peachtree, and purchase any kind of
pills, grass, but especially heroin, the white horse.
This is what the police and plainclothesmen look for when they
hit the strip. They look in the shops that sell anything from
underground literature to waterbeds, in the in the triple x-raied
flicks, in the bars and night stops. They don't really care about the
prostitutes and the pimps who help populate the area or the dudes
selling 'hot' t.v.'s and stereos. They don't want to bust the straights
who come and get drunk or high off of J's and freak off the sights.
They come looking for the pushers. In the month of July alone in
Atlanta, 10 people over-dosed from bad heroin.
If you've never seen a junkie shoot up then you haven't been sick
to your stomach. You must remember that most of these people got
hooked because they were looking for a new kind of high. When you
get tired of hallucinogens and barbituates your next step is narcotics.
And then comes the needle. I watched a junkie shoot up one night,
mainlining.
He pulled up his shirt sleeve and I could see the tracks running up
his arm. Next he got together his injection paraphenelia-cotton,
syringe and a bottle cap used as a cooker for preparing the horse. It
is cooked, and then placed in the syringe. This junkie held it in his
teeth while he tied a cord around his forearm and pumped his fists
making his arm swell some. Then he injected the contents of the
needle, the white horse. I just watched.
Like they say, you don't really feel it. You don't feel a damn
thing. Maybe not, he wasn't tense or uptight, but he wasn't active
either. I had watched a fellow human being pour pure junk into his
body and wondered what the hell could I do to stop him.
1 wondered would it be better to take the drug away from him or
to let him go through withdrawals. Withdrawals are bad. A person
who needs a fix gets nervous, anxious, has hot and cold flashes, pains
in legs, back and stomach, loss of weight and appetite, dilated
pupils, increased blood pressure, heavy breathing, increased body
temperature, tears and a runny nose and sometimes they are.
nauseous, vomit, and have diarrhea.
Immediately following a fix a junkie seems to be on cloud 8&.
They don't feel, don't know anything, they don't care about
anything. They gather at the corners and talk incoherently. They are
happy for the time they are together. But the more they use, the
more they need.
In Atlanta you can drive through many neighborhoods and watch
the junkies shoot up. They don't really do it in a hiding fashion.
Labor day, Monday the 6th, I was at a fried chicken place in a
ghetto area where a couple were sitting on the side in the half light
shooting up'with a dirty needle. The cops passed them by—they
arrested some people down the street at a party for smoking.
What interested me most was finding out how junkies support
their habit. Most of the men are thieves and the women prostitutes.
Some of the men who are so messed up that they can't do anything
have girl friends that prostitute to support the guys habit. But most
of these professions can't last very long if you're really hooked.
Nobody wants to lay up with a woman who has tracks all over her
arms and her legs or who doesn't know what is going on half the
time. As far as the stealing goes, you lose a sense of time and caring
and sooner or later you get caught. Finally, there is one thing you
can do: become a pusher.
Most small time pushers are junkies because that is the only way
they can support their habit. As they move into the job of pushing
their wares, they get into a habit of not caring who they deal to.
And finally they start pushing to little kids. Nine or ten year old
little kids. Remember last summer when a twelve year old
over-dosed in New York?
Now, common sense tells you that you can't sell dope to kids on
the strip, so you go to their neighborhoods. You can't always push
to rich little kids if you're a junkie; they get their stuff from more
respectable sources—doctors' sons, and rich neighbors. Last resort is
the park and the ghetto, because nobody gives a damn what goes on
-in either one of those places.
Now for those of you that may think I'm being racist in my
opinion of who cares about what, I'd like it to be known that for
years before you kids (white kids that is) took drugs, any drugs,
they've been pushing drugs into the ghetto to little black kids. But
ya'll wait until some white kid O.D.'s to do something about it. Now
the drug problem is out of hand. I know of little kids who have fifty
dollar a day habits. And where is a little kid going to get up fifty
dollars a day?
Horse is junk. But junkies are people. Somebody pushed them
into this world, 'cause man, didn't none of us ask to be here. When
life becomes a habit it's just no fun anymore. Ask just about any
junkie who quits the habit, it's a bust, man. It's no fun to stand on
the Strip waiting for the man with the horse. Some times you get
high for the hell of it and you don't know a damn thing about the
content of the drug. What's the junk cut with? Do you really know
about drugs? Only one thing, everybody gets off on something.
Like junk?
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