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Pige 2 - Tuesday, April 6, 1965 DTE EMtorM Page I Opinions cf the Daily Tar Heel are expressed in its editorials. Letters and columns, covering a wide range of views', reflect the personal opinions of j their authors. . v - -; --- j II Jubilee Andb: The Booze The statement issued yesterday by the Graham Memorial Activities Board regarding the removal of "Jubilee" to Kenan Stadium and the barring of alco holic beverages is a straightforward, "no nonsense" statement of policy. As such, it may mark the beginning of the end for an outstanding UNC social event. From its conception, "Jubilee" has been an overwhelming success. The joyful, hand - clapping folk ballads and solubrious jazz renditions blended per fectly with the traditions of gaiety and light - hearted frivolity w h i c h are wrapped up in the words "Springtime in Chapel Hill," and thousands turned out to listen and to languish. Ironically, it is because "Jubilee" is so successful that it may not survive. The basic problem is an old One. alcohol, and its use and misuse. For when the thousands came to listen many of them also came to drink, and many a cooler, shared a blanket with a Carolina gentleman and his date.- In the beginning, there were few prob lems; . the drinking went unnoticed of ficially and the gentlemen, for the most part, were gentlemen. Last year, however, a few the ex ternal few who respect no standards of conduct became too enthusiastic, and on at least one occasion the inebriates shared the spotlight with the perform ers. Heaps of beer cans and bottles lit tered McCorkle. Place following both evening shows, and misconduct was ap parent in other areas of the campus during the weekend. One of the most unfortunate aspects of the situation was the presence of a num ber of servicemen and other outsiders who showed their lack of respect for. the campus and its traditions by acting in .a rowdy and occasionally obscene man-' ner. When ."Jubilee" for 1964 had ended, the DTH assessed the situation editor ially, noting that further misconduct could cause the ultimate demise of one of the campus' finest events. Now it appears that the final appear ance of "Jubilee" may be closer at hand than we suspected a year ago. If GMAB proceeds with its plans to move to Kenan Stadium and squelch all alco hol, it virtually will insure a decline in attendance. Anyway you look at it, a splintery seat in Kenan Stadium is far less desirable than a soft spot of Gra ham Memorial lawn, and the atmos phere evoked by the past "Jubilee" cel ebrations necessarily will dissipate. . This is not to say that something should not be done; the barring of out siders, regretable , as it is, seems rea sonable, especially since many of them demonstrated last year their disregard for the welfare of the University com munity. Neither is this a plea for the unpoliced consumption of alcohol. Those who dis turb others and display their own lack of standards should not be part of the "Jubilee" audience. But the function of. regulating alcohol could be performed as well by hired students who would re port offenders as by moving to the un lovely emptiness of Kenan Stadium just to "bar the door." Finally, GMAB has demonstrated . by its. statement a lack of ultimate confi- dence in the students of this University. We believe that they can police them selves and allow "Jubilee" to retain its atmosphere. They should be given an opportunity to do just that. The Offs And Ons Of Television , The latest report of the Harris Survey (administered by UNC graduate Louis Harris) tends to reinforce a conviction held by several million bored Ameri cans; namely, that disenchantment with' television is growing, especially on the part of the affluent, better educated American adult. . :. The survey discloses that a majority of adults would like to see more news, musical - variety, live news specials, comedy and dramatic shows on tele vision. They would like to see fewer soap operas, horror comedies, rock 'n' roll and detective programs. ; Unfortunately, "says Harris, this ma jority is not likely . to get its way, be cause television .executives are in terested in what people DO watch, not what they say they will watch. Arid the regretful - fact is; that those who now " watch longest; and most regularly like what they see (an obvious conclusion if there ever was one) and can be counted upon to digest-more of theisame if it is served up. . Thus we have all the makings of a vicious Video circle: the more shows there are for the lower income, less ed-' ucated groups, the more they watch, while the college - trained, more afflu ent viewers drift away. "While the three networks are. in competition," says Har ris, "it is entirely possible to win the largest share, of audience at any given hour by appealing to a minority which likes a particular kind of show." i 1 II if 1 m I! If 72 Years of Editorial Freedom Fred Seely, Hugh Stevens, co-editors; Mike Yopp, Ernie McCrary, managing editors; Pete Wales, associate editor ;. Larry Tarle ton, sports editor; Fred Thomas, night editor; Mary Ellison Strother, wire edi tor; John Greenbacker, Kerry Sipe, Alan ' Danov, staff writers; Pete Gammons, asst. sports editor, Perry McC 'arty, Pete Cross, Dill Lee, Tom Haney, sports writers; Jock Lauterer, photographer, Chip Barnard, cartoonist; Jack Harrington, bus. mgr.; Betsy Gray, asst. bus. mgr.; Woody Sobel, ad. mgr.; Jim Peddicord, .asst. ad. mgr.; Tom Clark, subscription mgr.; John Evans, circulation mgr.; Dick. Baddour, Stuart Ficklen, Jim Potter, salesmen. . Second Class postage paid at the post office In Chapel IBII. N. C Subscription rates: $4.50 per semester; $Slper year. Printed by the Chapel Hill Publishing Co., Inc: The Associated Press Is entitled exclusively to the use for republica tion of all local news printed in this newspaper as well as all AP news dispatches. 5 - i 1 That the Harris Survey appears to be highly accurate does not make it less saddening to read, for throughout its conclusions about television, the ques tion of the majority's taste is left un answered. This is not the fault of the Harris Survey;! it is. the fault of numer ous Americans, including those who watch television, and7 those who pro duce its daily fare. ' The human sponges who watch tele vision and soak up its offerings with neither criticism nor , realistic . apprais al must be assigned part' of the . blame ; their lethargy and shameless conformi ty to anti; - intellectual standards makes .' it easy, for - television's producers to "please" by sending down the electron ic pipe an institutionalized heap of gar bage that is seldom meaty or meaning ful. ; '-. j ;;; - v:;":'. - : But if the; docile audiences commit sins of ommission, the originators of the orthodox orthieon images falter at a much - more responsible- levelIn decid ing in favor of the narrow minority, they are deciding - also in favor of the color which offers the greatest stimulus to their aesthetic sensibilities greenback green. It is far easier to produce pro grams to suit an insensitive minority than to challenge the tastes and intel lects of those who want to be inspired or stimulated. If the cycle proceeds unchecked for too long, however; the producers' up keep may become their downfall, , for as the affluent and energetic leave tele vision to seek entertainment elsewhere, they take their advertising market with them. It is ironic that the viewers who are most likely to . be receptive to new ideas and who have the most money to spend are the ones that television's blight is driving away. If .a sufficient quantity of them escape, it seems like ly that the sponsors "may become inter ested in where they have gone, and tele vision will be forced to consider the majority. . Unfortunately, however, the day of such a wonderful fusion of intellects and purchasing power is apparently far dis tant. In the meantime, those of us who feel we are being shortchanged will do best to leave our sets cold and unblink ing except on those rare occasions when television rises above its own shoddy : standards- Difficult, you say? Certainly but after all, we're right, and a ma jority of Americans feel as we do. - - Just leave1 that button at the place --marked "OFF." ".' " ' - Racial Calm Deceptive iiH Editors' Note: The author, former ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, teaches at the Institute - for Advanced Study and is visiting professor of History and international af fairs at Princeton.: This article is taken from the spring, 1965, issue of "University: A Prince ton Quarterly.'. By GEORGE F. KENNAN I suppose it's only fair that I should be asked to lead 'a dis cussion of "the ethics of anti communism." The' last 37 'years of my life have been preoccu pied mostly, in one way or an other, with the problem of inter national communism. And it seems to be that I have stood pretty much in the center of the brickbats that fly back and forth in this connection. I have a respectable collec tion of abusive and sometimes unprintable letters from people who think that I haven't been anti - communist enough. On the other hand, I am one of the few Americans who have had the distinction of being thrown out of Stalin's Russia on charges of being too anti - Soviet. And I can remember ; a cer tain week, in 1950, when the walls of Rio de Janeiro were decorated with hundreds of great tar .inscriptions saying: "To death with Kennan." These were inscriptions put there by the local communists. I was buried repeatedly in effigy at that time, incidentally, by Bra zilian communist students, who did me the moving courtesy of putting a white cross on the lit tle black coffin they used for this purpose. Nobody can be blamed for be ing exercised about internation al communism. There has been plenty to be exercised about. I think a healthy capacity for moral indignation is essential to understanding what communism is all about. In our Embassy in Moscow, when we got a new young offi cer assigned to us who had been trained in the Russian language, if, on first confrontation with' the Soviet newspapers in the morning, he didn't rise from his desk and go storming around the office saying "Look what these so-and-so's have said today!" if he didn't do this, he was no good to us. It was a case where you had first to be capable of getting angry in order, to under stand what was up; and then you had to learn to control your anger. The Soviet leaders obviously do not wish us well. Their ideaol ogy forbids them to do so. If . they had their way, little would " remain, I am sure, of our world position or of the things we val ue here at home. But ' despite all this, I must say that I - find the . term 4 'anti communism"a very misleading one.: , . - . .. 1 First of . all,- if you are going , to talk, today, about anti-corn-" munism , you - have to begin by ' answering - the - question: - anti whose - communism? Karl Marx's, or Lenin's, or Stalin's,'; or Mao's, or Gomulka's, or even Tito's, since he himself insists on using the term?: : . : j These are by no means identi cal. Not even the communists themselves, pretend any longer that they are. If all you .s ay is that you are "against commun-' ism," you haven't made your self very clear. You cannot simply say "I am against them all" because in some respects the various " out looks - that- go by the - name of communism are not just differ ent but are actually in conflict with each other, so that you can't be against one of them in all its aspects without being, by implication, in favor of another one in those same aspects. . . , . Suppose, then, you pick a cer tain communist country let us saythe Soviet Union and say "When I "talk about anti-communism, it is this country - I mean and it is the communism of this country I" am against." But there are two things you could have in mind when you express yourself -this way: One, the present reality of the Soviet system with its internal institu tions and practices; the way the regime treats its own citizens, and. so on. Or, .two, its. external behavior:, things .it does on the world "scene .which 'affect ad versely, ourrintecests- and tthose of world peace, and which strike us as unjust or.MeceitfuLor ag gressive, r. V,, .-''..""; Now' these two' .things are not; the same:; We may not like the internal practices and institu tions of the Soviet system, but so long as they don't have ex ternal effects that damage-our interests, they are not really our business. , . Unless we . have such dreams of grandeur that we picture our selves as fit to rule the world, which I think very few of us do, then the golden rule is ob viously going to apply here: We must agree to let Russians be Russians, and not try to substi tute our conscience for theirs. Perhaps you simply like to use the term "anti - communism" to record your, abhorrence of the theory and practice of govern ment which you understand to prevail in Russia. You can't mean, surely, that you are against- all the institutions and practices of the Soviet system. There are a great many things that take place under the au thority of, and in the .name of, that system that are not at all reprehensible: Schools are taught, people heal the sick, sci entists pursue the quest for knowledge. Perhaps these things serve communism to some de gree; the regime has often tried to make them do so. But this is not all they serve. Teachers teach, as they do here, because this is their pride -and their profession and they feel it important that young people should be taught. Doctors heal for similar reasons. And scient ists pursue their research be cause, like scientists every where, they have learned the nobility and the excitement of the quest for knowledge. Obviously, it is not all fea tures of communism that we are against .only certain ones. But the sweeping term "anti communism", does not . suggest this. . V : And if we take lust those things that we do definitely dis like in a communist system such things' as governmental hypocrisy, denial of civil liber- ties, the deliberate use of the big lie, automatic abuse a n d "Campus Chest, Huh? denigration of f alien statesmen then we have to recognize that it is not in communist coun tries alone that such things are to be found; nor are. they made ,any worse, just because they go under the banner of com munism. . - ' .. : ; Yet this, too, the term anti communism" does not suggest. It is; in fact, definitely mislead ing in this case? because it seems to carry the implication that we think these evils are confined to a single political sys tem in a single part of the world, and that all other civilizations are wholly immune to them. But suppose we turn for a mo ment to that aspect of interna tional communism about which we do have a right to protest: to the behavior of communist regimes as actors on the world scene. Here again, we come up against such variations among communist governments. ; We have our problems with the , Yugoslav government, but I am here to -testify, after just spend ing two 'and a half years in that - country, that the . way it con ducts itself in international af- : fairs ; is ; as different ; from the conduct , of the Chinese Com munists, or of Yugoslavia's Al- r banian neighbors, as night is from day. The attitudes taken towards us by such diverse re gimes as say the Soviet one, the Cuban, the Chinese, the Hun garian, and the Polish represent quite different problems for U.S. policy. To try to sum ; up our response. to all of them by say ing that our policy is one of "qnti - communism" is simply not meaningful. - I can think of certain non communist governments whose behavior towards us and to wards the international commu nity generally in recent years has been by no means superior to that of certain communist governments I could name. Do we . really wish, by using the term "anti - communist" to obscure all this: to leave the implication that falsehood, mal- ice, cantankerousness, irrespon sibility, territorial expansion ism, and aggressive behavior, either do not exist in the be havior of non - communist states or are reprehensible only when they go by the name of com munism? If not, why use the term "anti - communist"? Why not be specific? Why not op pose these phenomena, as such, ; wherever we encounter them? Now how about anti - com munism as a term relating to political forces within our own national life? ; Never strong -in .membership or even in voter support, the American Communist Party nev ertheless gained considerable . moral influence, especially in in tellectual ! circles, during the 1930's. This was primarily a re sult of the shattering effect of economic crisis and the loss of confidence in "established Amer ican values which that crisis oc casioned. The communists were greatly aided by their ability to identify at that time with anti - fascist groups, generally, particularly, in the case of the Spanish Civil War.. They capitalized extensive ly on the revulsion to fascism which swept over the liberal West. . : With the development of the 99 - r r 1 N Vk 'F ' -iv: - , K r' k v Ay . :: m ti ni.... 1.. t n i m,t. .n , , ; i - - i - " ' x so - called cold war in the late 1940's, the strength and influ ence of the American Commu nist Party began to decline rap idly. Even at the time of the anti - communist hysteria in the early 1950's, it already was a very minor force in our society. Today it is a tiny and pathetic little band of people embracing, I suppose, not much more than five thousand members, if that or something less than one hundredth part of one per cent of our adult population. It is no exaggeration to say that the in .fluenee of the American Com . munist Party today in our so ciety is negligible. If you were to comb the country, you would r have a hard time finding a less influential group. I have had many occasions, in the past 40 years, to know and observe people who were communists. Some of themnvere indeed brutal, treacherous and dangerous people. But others were idealists: people acting out of the deepest bewilderment and - despair and misguided courage and desire to find the right an swer. I must .confess to you that deeply as I have disagreed with these people, and profoundly as I have deplored the methods and tactics to which they were led to subscribe, . there have been many ins'tances where I have had more respect for them, in . all their error and all their hopelessness," than for many pillars of respectable American society, vegetating in the smug ness and selfishness and super ficiality of their particular brand of philistinism. To err, as we all know, is only human; and there is not one of us who does not do it with the greatest of regularity. -To err with courage, with con viction, with self - sacrifice, and out of the agony of the soul, can at least be said to be trag ic. But to err out of cowardice, of complacency, of jealousy, of vindictiveness, or of greed, has not even this to. be said for it; and I am not prepared to be lieve that error of this sort is any more acceptable in the sight . of . God just because it clothes itself in "anti - communism." The Marxist - Leninist ideolo gy was based on some serious misconceptions; and the meth odlogy embraced by its adher ents, under Lenin and Stalin, was in many respects evil and inexcusable. But no movement of our time, I am sorry to say, has more to show in the way of dedication, hard work, and self lessness, than does the move ment that goes by the Leninist Marxist name. We should not forget this; and when it comes to the American Communist Party, in particular, we should not be too self-righteous in our condemnation of men who have been made what they are by the stamp of cir cumstances and circumstanc es, in many instances, for which every one of us in my genera tion, at least, bears a share of the blame. - Now there are many people who, when they use the term "anti - communism," have in mind not the little American Communist Party of this day but a whole variety of. tendencies and conditions they associate with the word communism: ten dencies and conditions support ed by far wider circles than just the members of the Communist Party: such things as the in crease in the powers of the cen tral government, the high de gree of paternalism which seems to them to be reflected in the existing social - security ar rangements and other programs of social benefit, an inadequate degree of military aggressive ness in foreign policy, absence of demonstrative patriotic ferv or, and so on. And to this I would just like to say that these are of course views you can hold: these ten dencies and conditions do exist in our society, for better or for worse, and it is perfectly all right for an American citizen to be against them, if this is the way he sees things. But what all this has to do . with com munism is not apparent. Communists, it is true, can be construed as being in favor of these things to some degree, but no more so than millions of oth er people; and to suggest that all of these tendencies in our so ciety most of which, to the extent they have been realized at all, have been realized through the operation of our democratic processes, and largely by act of Congress are simply the result "of some refined and diabolic Communist intrigue, by means of which tens of thousands of influential citizens, government servants, and legislators are affected with out knowing it, is not only to propagate a preposterous ab surdity, but it is also to do a profound disservice to the na tional cause. . In individual psychology the sense of being the innocent vic tim -of r unseen conspiratorial forces is often the beginning of, and a symptom of. mental ill ness. In political life it is the beginning of totalitarianism, which is only a form of mass psychosis: the social equivalent of mental illness. So true is this, and so dangerous are the conse quences of yielding to this sort of escapism, that one ought to reject such suggestions even when the available evidence might seem to support them. I cannot warn too strongly those of you who are students against associating yourselves, ever, with the suggestion that your personal troubles or thos3 of the society to which you be long are attributable only to dimly - sensed conspiratorial forces, wholly external to your selves, beyond your- power of comprehension or influence, whose hostility you have done nothing to deserve. To accept such suggestions is a sure path to irrationality, to illusion, and to disaster. Evil is an omnipresent sub stance of human life: around us and within us as well as with out us. In a way, it is all cf a piece, just as love and truth are all of a piece. When we struggle against it we must al ways regard that struggle as in part an overcoming of self. We cannot for this reason identify ourselves self - right eously with all that is good and clothe Whatever opposes us in the colors of unmitigated evil. But this we tend to do when we try to make out of an im permanent semantic symbol, such as "anti - communism," the expression of a personal and political philosophy. We all have in mind the events that have taken place in Mos cow in the recent past. They have constituted in effect a third great crisis in the transfer of personal power from one set of hands to another in the history of a regime which has no ade quate constitutional means of achieving such a transition. I have naturally had to think about this, and I have talked with friends, who, like myself, have spent many years in the study of Russian communism. All of us, I think, have the impression that this recent se ries of events really marks the end of an epoch. It marks the final fading, as a political re ality, of that aura of excitement and inspiration and authority which Moscow was able to radi ate, in the wake of the Russian Revolution 01 1917, over rest less, discontented elements in the western world. Russia remains, today, a great power, as she was before 1917. She remains a problem to us, as she would have been be fore 1917 had we then been an active participant in world af fairs. But the importance of Moscow as a source of inspiration and authority for the communist par ties of the West, and even for the communist parties now in power in Eastern Europe, has been extensively and probably decisively shattered. Whoever, then, tries to make anti - communism into a politi cal or ethical philosophy is ad dressing himself to the past. He is talking about things that were, not' things that are.JThis is, as we all know, an unbelievably endangered world in which we live. The ultimate problems created by nuclear science and by overpopulation by man's new - found ability to destroy his habitat entirely or to make it intolerable by multiplying himself within it beyond the point of endurance stare us in the face. I To 'neither of these problems does mere anti - communism even suggest an answer; and the morbid preoccupation with this term can scarcely be ex plained otherwise than as the reflection either of an inability to free one's self from the anxie ties, the seizures, or the night mares of the past, or a lack of the requisite manliness to face the reality of the present. I think it is high time that we, all of us, threw off these shackles, emancipated ourselves from the power of vague seman tic symbols, and turned our faces resolutely, with all the realism and the honesty we can muster, to the problems of the present and the future. H ti LETTERS II The Daily Tar Ueel solicits l letters to the editors at any l time and oa any subject. f AH letters must be typed DOUBLE SPACED and must H be free of libel. The editors i 1 1 reserve the right to edit for length. Letters should be f i II submitted at least two d-ys prior to date of publication. 5 t
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 6, 1965, edition 1
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