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Opinions of The Daily Tar Heel are expressed on its editorial pae.
All unsigned editorials are the opinions of the editor. Letters and
columns represent only the opinions of the individual contributors.
H2ny Bryan, Editor
Saturday, May 8, 1971
S.Mdepit
eecoeragimi
The UNC Young Republican
Club passed a resolution Wednesday
night supporting continued student
funding of The Daily Tar Heel.
.Thursday night Student
Legislature passed a similar
resolution.
Both resolutions were in
response to a bill recently
introduced in the North Carolina
Senate by Sen. Julian Allsbrook
that would prohibit compulsory
funding of The Daily Tar Heel.
The staff of the DTH is
encouraged by the two resolutions
and welcomes similar support from
any other student organizations or
individual students.
The General Assembly must be
shown that students do not object
to funding the newspaper out of
Student Activity Fees for the
several years it. will take to make
the DTH financially independent, a
goal that the present staff is
currently working to achieve.
As was pointed out in a previous
editorial, a referendum to
discontinue student funding of the
paper was defeated last spring,
4,817 to 1,078.
This year that same referendum
would probably be defeated by an
even bigger margin.
What students must realize is
that if the General Assembly does
vote to cut off funding for the
DTH, we will be forced to sell
fj? mi$ m M
79 Years of Editorial Freedom
Harry Bryan, Editor
Mike Parnell ...... Managing Ed.
Lou Bonds News Editor
Rod Waldorf ..... Associate Ed.
Glenn Brank Associate Ed.
Mark Whicker . . Sports Editor
Ken Ripley ... Feature Editor
Bob Chapman . . .Natl. News Ed.
March Cheek Night Editor
Bob Wilson . , Business Mgr. 1
Janet Bernstein . . Adv. Mgr. 1
George Blackburn
!
VU1 UOJALxdU,
In his speech to the Faculty Club this
past November, Attorney General Robert
Morgan advised that the University must
find a way of "re-establishing a
cohesiveness within our society, based
upon mutual respect and sympathy
among our people."
This is, perhaps, the central issue
facing every modern institution and one
which has plagued the creative arts for
some time. The tendency to subjectivism
in recent Western culture has destroyed
the social foundations of government,
religion, and art. This was, perhaps, the
inevitable consequence of man's
intellectual progress and the struggle for
dignity by the masses in Western society
during the Modern era. However, the
immediate result -social fragmentation -is
not one with which men can long be
satisfied.
In 1836.' the French novelist .
Stendhal, attended a performance of
Moliere's comedie 'The- Bourgeois
Gentleman."' During the performance,
half the audience laughed at M. Jourdain.
the would-be gentleman, while the other
half found Dorante, supposedly the
well-bred hero, ridiculous. The result was
Stendhal's proclamation that "Comedy is
impossible in 1836." Whereas under the
respoMse
newspapers on a subscription basis
that would cost each student much
more than the approximately $2.40
he will pay for the paper next year
in student fees.
And the paper would probably
remain on a subscription basis
forever.
However, if funding is continued
for the next few years, the DTH
will be able to become financially
i n d e p e ndent through increased
advertising, and the paper will be
free for everyone.
And it will probably remain free
to everyone forever.
It might also be pointed out that
in the two weeks since the Insight
on homosexuality was printed, the
DTH has not received a single letter
that considered the articles obscene
or pornographic.
One of Sen. Allsbrook's basic
arguments was that students should
not be forced to read such material.
Obviously, no student objected
to the articles, or at . least no
student felt strongly enough about
it to write within two weeks.
Sen. Allsbrook and his
colleagues in Raleigh should take
into consideration the fact that The
Daily Tar Heel has the support of
the student body and that no one
felt the homosexuality articles were
obscene when the bill comes to a
vote. -
jitters to the editor
DTH
To the Editor:
The letter attacking the picture with
the caption, "Hitler would have been
proud," was so absurd that it should not
go by without rebuttal.
Mr. Fox compared the activities of the
Washington protestors to those of Hitler's
Brownshirts, a group of "drug addicts,
homosexuals and criminals." Mr. Fox said
that Hitler used the Brownshirts to
destroy and disrupt the constitutional
government and implies that the "May
Day Tribe" are trying to do - the same
thing in Washington.
Mr. Fox, the Brownshirts destroyed
and killed in the name of a military,
dictatorship which would, when it came
to power, wage a horribly unjust and
immoral war which would cost the lives
of millions. No one did, or could, stop
the Brownshirts and Hitler.
The "May Day Tribe," as you call
them,-were in Washington to disrupt a
government which is now waging an
immoral and unjust war which destroys
hundreds of innocent lives daily. Why?
ILiLVUilil
old regime the "various- levels of the
literate public were forced to associate
with each other at court and thus gained
a common sense of 'sociability,' French
society since the Revolution had lost this
common understanding and had thus
made the comedy of manners impossible.
Stendhal turned to the novel which
could create its own social context and
thus avoid a reliance upon 'common
socialibility' that had formerly allowed
the author to assume that he held a given
number of social ideas in common with
his readers (i.e. had formerly allowed the
author to assume "reciprocal sympathy'
between himself and the reader upon
which the author might base his
presentation of an action with reasonable
certainty that his ..reader would
understand his point if not agree with it.)
One might conclude, that the
increasing psychologism and subjectivism
of the novel is literature's encounter with
the devolution of Western-society in
which there seems to.; be less and less
foundation for association between
individuals. Like the concentration of the
visual and plastic arts upon their basic
elements-line, color, form-unable to
presume these and deal in terms of the
Now that the year is drawing to a
close, it seems we've got so many papers,
finals, and take-home exams facing us
that there just isn't much time to -think.
Much less is there time, it seems, to
think, about such things as life, death,
personal identity, love, reiigionand God.
When we get embroiled in the "tyranny
of the urgent," it is often hard to do
much besides read, writej eat
and-occasionally sleep.
During the year, though, a lot-of
people do think about such things. For
some, the quest for spiritual
understanding is very personal. Their
beliefs are their own, and they go their
own way. Others find personal meaning
in different - religions - on
-ffigRg. SofAg-mrtCr
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Ha HoSH Na Me
.reader
Because no one has the guts to stop
Nixon and his co-horts. The Brownshirts
practiced war; so does the U.S. Military.
The Washington protestors came with the
banner of peace for the people. Any
effort remaining non-violent is justified as
a tool in ending this perverted conflict.
Mr.. Fox's logic is a good example of
the shallowness of thought of those' that
support the war or condemn war
protesters. People are murdered dailyjjust
because this government won't admit a
mistake, and all you can say is, keep
your mouth shut, don't worry about it,
stay at home." 0. "
Think about it, Mr. Fox. Thinkjyery
hard about it.
Robert Welchel
219 James
D.G. activity '
hit by reader?
To the Editor:
"The government would just not let
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superstructures forged of these elements
in classical art, what remains ofifsocial
literature has been concerned? With
establishing or discovering some
irrefutable. foundation for social conduct,
a 'finality of love' or some such principle,
as an alternative to the utter loneliness
:. threatening the future.
Educational institutions during the last
two centuries have undergone a: similar
submission to subjectivism (in soMar as
any social institution can do so)qwhile
pursuing atomistically a new foundation
for sociability. The Merzbacher Reforms
of two years ago abandoned the pretence
of a central educational program foj our
University acceding to the growing
demands of students to be allowed- t,o do
their own thing. This is merely one of the
final phases of the fragmenting process
toward subjectivism which began wFh the
assault on classical education at thLflose
of the eighteenth century. These rfdrms
culminated in the overthrow of religion
and the humanities as the foundation of
"liberal education" in the 1850's.
Since that victory of utilitarian
education and the substitution of
professionalism for humanism (an
empirically risky sort of notion) as the
campus Christianity, , Meher Baba,
various forms of mysticism.
There are those who find what they
want by rejecting religion and searching
for meaning to life in other ways. Some
seek it through pleasure, living only for
themselves. Others seek it through
political involvement, social work or
campus projects.
Then there are those who don't think
much "about spiritual matters at all. It
isn't that they wouldn't be interested, or
even necessarily that they don't want to
know about themselves, their
relationships with other people, or God.
They just don't happen to think about
it. They aren't against religion or for it.
They're lukewarm.
"I know your works," the Bible says.
I HAV Got,
You. Wtye AOT,
Ma,
ref unites Hittler cffSMcIsiini
the protestors do the non-violence thing,"
I suppose it's non-violent to "junk"
cars other people's cars by deflating
their tires and rolling them into the path
of oncoming traffic. It's "non-violent" to
keep others from going to then
jobs. . . to throw rocks, broken glass and
nails into the street a hazard to both cars
and pedestrians. "
Thousands of people commute to
Washington to work. The traffic situation
is appalling at best. What sympathy could
the protestors hope to gain by making a
bad traffic situation worse?
Nixon is doing the best he can to get ;
our boys home and end the war. He can't
do it overnight but he is trying. What's
the point of rioting when something is--.
already being done about the situation
one is rioting about?
In light of the facts, the protestors
look like a bunch of no-minds just out to -cause
trouble. .
Leslie Schneider
26 Rogerson Dr.
(the
excuse for university, educators have
been increasingly reticent to assert that
all students ought to be required to be
familiar with the humanities any more so
than with the natural sciences, and now
reticent to require that all be familiar
with anything at all in particular. The
result has been the specialized student;
plans for independent study and an end
to all requirements are merely further
steps upon the same road.
Our development since the eighteenth
century has been a progress, and one not
merely in technology. The negation of
the individual eventuated by rationalism
and the solipsism inevitable to a purely
empirical metaphysic have been
existentially resolved modern man is
becoming more and more confident that
both the individual and social aspects of
ethics, the factual and rational aspects of .
thought, the physical and spiritual
dimensions of reality are ontologically
grounded in the imperatives of human
being. Western man has proved that he
can neither live negated by universalism
nor isolated by subjectivism.
I would suggest that the apparent "loss
of control" which Iiberationists are
currently lamenting, the feeling that our
n o
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il jlil.ii usls
You are neither cold or hot. Would that
you were cold or hot! So, because you
are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I
will spew you out of my mouth.
Tor vou say. I am ncn, i nave
you
prospered, and I need nothing; not
knowing that you are wretched, pitiable,
poor, blind, naked."
The Bible, obviously, is quite blunt
about the dangers of being lukewarm.
Even the person who hates God, -who is
"cold" to Christianity, is ber off than
the person who just doesn't care.
Why? Because the guy who is fighting
God is thinking, is struggling to find
meaning somewhere, is reaching out for
some understanding of the world around ,
him. He may be "wretched, pitiable,
poor, blind, and naked," but he knows he
I ANb vMAT fAlGrUT-rHAt
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Visitation
bill attacked
To the Editor: 4
The proposed bill before the N.C.
Legislature by Wake Democrat Coggins
- has all the emotional appeal of the former
Speaker Ban.
He will receive widespread support
from the same reactionary forces that
defeated liquor-by-the-drink, abortion
legalization, and have kept North
Carolina the backward state it is today.
Hypocritical extremists keep milk prices
the highest in the nation while subsidizing
; low cost cigarettes.
' The proposal to ban visitation should
strike close to the hearts of all you
apathetical dorm rats who are the least
bit heterosexual. GET INVOLVED. Write
your representative in the N.C.
Legislature. If you plan to stay in Chapel
Hill for the foreseeable
machines- and bureaucracy are taking
over, is not the result of the
dehumanization of man. The widespread
dissatisfaction without cultural situation
- reveals that our present state is not the
result of having become innured to
dehumanized society. Our "loss of
control" is only apparent and is the result
of subjectivization not dehumanization.
Allen Tate compares the modern man
of acition with the modern man of
letters: "While the politician, in his
cynical innocence, uses society, the man
of letters disdainfully, or perhaps even
absentmindedly withdraws from it . . . "
This is true not merely of different men
but of single individuals as well. Our
. public social actions are not united to our
private convictions for we have feared to
act upon so empirically unsound a thing
as value-nothing has been so dreaded as
the charge that one is forcing one's
morals (supposing one still has the need
for them) upon another. Modern men
have been in Hamlet's dilemma; lacking
the certainty needed to act, we have
mused upon the dynamics of static being,
simple existence. But, as with Hamlet, the
realities of actual life are forcing us to
assume responsibility.
n
m
is. He may rebel against religion, but he L?
at least very much alive. He is, above an,
feeling.
The person who is ''hot," who is
trying to find a relationship with God, is
feeling, too, He inherits the promises of
God for "love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control," but he engages
in that struggle to help others when you
want to be helped. As he learns to relate
his faith to his life, to trust God in all
situations, he does suffer, hurt, know
disappointment. But he finds that out of
suffering does come maturity and
understanding. He, too, is very much
alive.
But the person who is lukewarm, who
doesn't think much beyond the confines
of everyday living, is missing out. He nay
think he's doing all right and that he
needs nothing more, but he is depriving
himself of the maturing struggle, the
enrichening growth that comes with
trying to understand and confront man's
spiritual nature.
To be truly alive is to feel, to question,
to search for answers and meanincs.
Maturing does not just happen. We
mature only as we allow ourselves to
experience life. We grow, become truly
alive, only as we learn that we are
wretched and blind and incomplete -and
as we do something about it. We commit
ourselves to change, to faith or belief.
And we reap the results of our
commitment.
We can go through life lukewarm,
without any commitments and with
complete indifference. We can get a job,
make money, and grow old. But to
remain lukewarm is to be spiritually dead.
During the past three years, Soul Food
has been at the center of several stormy
controversies. It has received both praise
and scorn, admiration and contempt.
There have been columns that people
have liked, and they have told me so.
There have also been columns that no one
has liked, including me. Undoubtedly
next year will be much the same.
I have not asked people to agree with
me about religion and Christianity. I ask
only that we think about these things,
that we stir a little bit from our schedules
and see if there isn't' more to life than
what we have.
If Soul Food has caused one person to
think, to budge from his lukewarmness, I
am well content.
future -REGISTER & VOTE.
It's interesting to note that big-monied
Chapel Hill realtors favor this legislation
to aid the apartment grab and sustain a
25 per cent increase in rent. The only
way to beat these SOBs is at the polls.
' Arlan P. Garvey
Carrboro
The Daily Tar Heel accepts
letters to the editor, provided they
are typed on a 60-space line and
limited to a maximum of 300
words. AH letters must be signed
and the address and phone number
of the writer must be included.
The paper reserves the right to
edit all letters for libelous
statements and good taste.
Address letters to Associate
Editor, The Daily Tar Heel, in care
of the Student Union.
dllrec-'oorai
Chancellor Sitterson opened the year
by asking the entering freshman class, "Is
'doing one's own thing' sufficient?" And
answered decisively, "I think not." This is
the decision that men are making, and its
consequences will be reflected by our
institutions even as they reflected the
classical and empirical assumptions .of
previous orders. If our curriculum is to be
updated, it ought not merely to be
brought from 1850 to 1918, it should
come to 1971, to the dawning
post-disillusionment era we are
approaching. The social function pf
education will not be to indoctrinate
students with an historical theory such as
that I have adumbrated here, but merely
to provide a common vocabulary of
learning so that their own discourse about
the significance of our situation will be
voiced in an intellectual lingua franca
rather than isolated in the professional
jargon of the atomized disciplines.
By re-establishing the humanities as
the center of education for all students,
the Babeling tendency of multiversities
(their institutional subjectivism through
departmentalization and specialization)
will be overcome. Education will realize
the individual and social nature of man.