Panorama

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Part of Panorama

Title: Panorama
Issue Date: Volume XX (Issue No. 8) August 1968
Year: 1968
Language: English
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extracted text: THE PHILIPPINE MAGAZINE OF GOOD READING PANORAMA needs intelligent readers of: 1. Informative materials 2. Interesting ideas 3. Enlightening opinions 4. Broadening views 5. Controversial thoughts 6. Critical comments 7. Idealistic suggestions 8. Humorous remarks 9. Serious statements 10. Meditations on life and work. All these are either original productions or selective adap tions and condensations from Philippine and foreign publica tions. Usually brief and compact, lasting from two to ten minutes to read, each article offers a rewarding experience in one’s moments of leisure. Relax. with Panorama. We say this to the busy student and the teacher, the lawyer and the physician, the dentist and the engineer, the executive and the farmer, the politician and the preacher, the employer and the employee. PANORAMA is specially designed for Filipinos — young, middle-aged, and old, male and female, housekeeper and houselizard. on Special rates for new and renewal November 1, 1966: subscriptions to begin 1 copy ..................................... 1 year ..................................... 2 years .................................... Foreign rate: .......................... 50 centavos P5.00 P9.00 $3.00 (U. S.) For one year’s subscription of 5 pesos, a person receives the equivalent of 12 compact pocketbooks of lasting value and and varied interest. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon") St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines THE PHILIPPINE MAGAZINE OF GOOD READING Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Post Office on Dec. 7, 1955 Vol. XX MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 8 TRAINING THE MIND Present educational systems do not encourage in stu dents a conception of education as a lifelong process. Nor is any system of public education notably successful in giving a substantial number of students a mastery of the major fields of knowledge or the essential communication skills. These are serious shortcomings; but by far the most important defect is the failure to develop to any great extent the intellectual capacities of students. Amazingly little effort is made by the educational systems of Western nations to set the mind of the student in motion — to provide him with the kind of education that will enable him to cope with new situations as they arise, help him to sharpen his critical judgments, develop more fully his creative talents, and show him how to go about producing new and better solutions to his own and society’s problems. Ironically we are now witnessing an effort on the part of some of our most highly trained experts to explore fully the potentialities of the newest computers while the poten tialities of the human brain — a far greater instrument — go unheralded and largely unexplored • • • It will always be important for students to know the great ideas, the great works, and the great events in the history of man. Nevertheless, this is not the only or even the primary objective. It is equally certain that the direct training of the mind itself must assume prime importance. — By George Gallup, from The Miracle Ahead (1964). ■ A general explanation of the obstacles in the way of a healthy growth of Philippine society today. BARNACLES ON OUR SHIP OF STATE The rise and decline of once great nations have much to show us what basic po licies and practices new and small nations should, in a general way, follow or avoid. Here apparently lies the sig nificance of the statement that history repeats itself. In an article appearing in Newsweek of July 29, 1968, the distinguished economist Henry C. Walich anlyzes the cause of the decline of Britain which until not long ago held the leadership of the world financially and mi litarily. As the nation that started the industrial revolu tion, Britain succeeded in reaching the topmost seat in the industrial society and for about two centuries served as the financial center of the world. She was able to pro duce the most dynamic poli tical and economic system of all her contemporary states; and thus she practi cally enjoyed undisputed ma terial and military predomi nance over the whole earth. Prompted by her success other countries gradually adopted her instruments and methods in the pursuit for material improvement. Thus the results of the British in dustrial revolution spread out over a number of Eu ropean countries, the United States, and Japan. It is largely for this reason that the monopolistic position of Britain started to disap pear. Her financial super iority was thereafter slowly undermined. She suffered a variety of economic re verses of a serious nature. Consequently, she was forced to devaluate her currency several times after World War II and to devaluate again a few months ago. When we remember that the British pound had served as the world standard of the monetary value of other na tional currencies for several decades, the repeated deva luation of the pound has become patent proof that England’s role as a financial giant in the international 2 Panorama economy is practically gone. She has not been able to im prove her balance of pay ments from its unfavorable level in spite of the drastic changes she has been adopt ing in her fiscal and mone tary policies and in spite of the changes in her govern ment policies since the last World War. She has liqui dated her world-wide empire and has withdrawn her mili tary forces from different stations where they proved useful in preserving order and in maintaining peace in many sensitive regions in the globe. She has lost her ter ritorial possessions which once encircled the earth. She no longer occupies the front line position as a sovereign power in the civilized world. In our dream of making our country great, as our President has hoped, we should attempt to discover some of the principal and fundamental causes underly ing her diminishing strength and her decline in material importance. Professor Wallich has presented some tan gible and basic grounds which should interest the Filipino who seriously ex pects to see his country pros perous and to avoid the in sidious elements of weakness at this early history of his nation’s independence. Pro fessor Walich suggests that an increasing sensitiveness of the social conscience could well contribute to the decline of a nation’s power. Per haps we might interpret this term as meaning the super sensitiveness of the social conscience which political and popular sentimentalism sometimes carries to extremes. In the case of Britain, one cause of this condition was the ill-effects or the atroci ties of the laissez faire policy as practiced by her indus trial leaders and traders over generations in the past. They touched, Wallich in sinuates, her sensitive social conscience. As she toned down the harsh effects and ruthless methods of that sys tem, she weakened consider ably the toughening in fluence of "the process of natural selection and the sur vival of the fittest.” The concern for full employment by which everybody is as sured of a job produces an illusion of a happy life and general contentment. It has a tendency to prevent people from resorting to their own individual resources to solve August 1968 3 what are just problem of the normal affairs in one’s life. The welfare state, which England had eventual ly established, lacks much of the challenge which private individuals in a free society should face and answer to show their potentialities and capacities for self-help and independence. Together with it has been her policy of state ownership of several of her basic industries, remov ing them from the hands of private enterprise. All these practically obliged her to adopt an extraordinarily high rate of income taxation which has discouraged the drive for competitive produc tion in the private sector. She must have realized this impractical policy when after this year’s devaluation she decides to adopt sales and indirect taxes to remedy her financial troubles. Professor Wallich sees ana logous conditions in the United States which could be the causes of its growing social and economic problems and which may worsen when they are not recognized and avoided by her leaders on time. The recent American concern “over poverty and discrimination/’ if it should scar beyond sensible limits, may have an effect analogous to the British concern over the oppressive results of un regulated laissez faire on the less economically able ele ments of the country. It could become an incentive to individual thriftlessness and irresponsibility. The examinations, in addition to expanding public sector, the increasing government inter vention in private enterprise, the mounting preference shown by younger Americans for government jobs over posts in private occupations and business — a distinctly notice able phenomenon in American life and society since the last World War — all these demonstrate symp toms of general economic and social debility which tend to reduce gradually the vigor, the initiative, the crea tive urge, and the once vaunted skill and indepen dence of the individual Am erican. The Philippines has not yet grown beyond the preli minary stages of industrial growth. The Filipinos may not succeed to go far beyond these initial stages. They may or may not be able to experience for a long time 4 Panorama a satisfactory social and eco nomic development sufficient to elevate the life of the ma jority of the population. These doubts find some jus tification in the policies and practices of our government which are analogous to those pointed out by Professor Wallich as factors responsi ble for the decline of Britain and for the difficulties which America is now experiencing in international trade and finance. Considering that the Phil ippines has not quite reach ed what is called the take off stage of development, the retarding influence of these practices and policies may not be immediately percep tible. But even just as they are now .being applied, they would prevent her growth, slow down her slight dev elopment, and may even cause a condition of paraly sis in her potentialities for stronger growth. An erro neous conception of social justice could lead the nation to disaster. The danger is perceptible in the practice of Filipino political leaders to imitate and adopt Ameri can social policies and legis lation prematurely and in discriminately. Considering the almost overwhelming ambition and desire of the educated popu lation of our country to en ter politics or to be in the government service; consider ing that only an insignificant fraction of our total popula tion has chosen to go into private business or into other kinds of private occupations because they prefer to be employed in the different branches of our Civil Service, it is not difficult to foresee a dark future for our peo ple who are being habituat ed to prefer a life of ease to one of struggle. Our gov ernment encourages this con dition. No wonder that in the last Civil Service Exam ination over 500,000 persons, male and female, of different ages and varied educational attainments, eagerly took part in all provinces in order to qualify for unfilled govern ment positions. The great anxiety of passing those dozens of other government professional and vocational examinations, is responsible for the frequent irregularities reported as committed by their participants to secure the highly coveted appoint ments to posts in the igovern•ment service. August 1968 5 With our top-heavy bu reaucracy, with Civil Service employees receiving higher salaries than those working in the private sector but with lower qualifications and lighter duties than those de manded in the latter field, the general attraction of the public posts to most people tends to be fairly irresistible. To this should be added the general feeling that public positions are most desirable because they assure security to one’s future. Getting a government job has well-nigh become an obsession of our youth. When all these things are taken into account, when even activities which should be left to the private sector are being, taken over by the government, taxes have to be raised again and again to meet the heavy expenses all these conditions require. This again makes the situa tion more and more unbear able for the private sector, which is being depleted to day of able and enterprising elements. Obviously, taxes have to fall on the few eco nomically productive persons who are naturally made to support the burden of em ploying public servants both the useful and the useless. No amount of miracle rice and wonder corn could be sufficiently produced to pro vide the people with food and other necessities much less to enable them to raise their standard of living when the population is top-heavy with drones who form and exist as barnacles of the ship of state. The higher the salaries of the economically unproductive elements, the heavier the burden of taxa tion becomes; and the larger the number of these super fluous civil and military of ficials and employees, the higher the tide of infla tionary conditions in this country rises. The inevitable result is exorbitant prices of things and harder conditions of life. The eventual result ing situation is a state of in creasing public disorder and crime. Our metropolitan dailies are full of advertisements for men and women needed in private offices, industries, shops, trades, and other ne cessary enterprises. These positions form the active and productive sector of the country. They usually re quire better skills, more tho rough educational prepara Panorama tion, and more serious dedi cation to work and duty than what is demanded in most government jobs. The requirements for civil ser vice eligibility are simple and often merely formal and routinary. In many instances the youth frequently shuns the private occupations and enterprises and prefer to en ter positions in the govern ment civil service or in gov ernment-controlled corpora tions which are often obtainof political leaders and inable through the influence fluential friends. Our pri vate enterprises are being gradually deserted by ele ments who are needed to strengthen the foundations of a democratic society. And the ship of state rapidly and dangerously accumulates bar nacles, so to say, that hinder the normal rate of its pro gress. — V. G. Sihco, August, 15, 1968. SOUND ADVICE Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man.... Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.—HAMLET August 1968 7 ■ This is an exposure of the crimes, corrupt prac tices, and violent methods now used in practically all the countries of the world and a general sug gestion for a cure. The author is a distinguished Italian leader and writer. FORCE AND CORRUPTION IN POLITICS In a world which for the most part is weary of mur ders, betrayals, and useless death, a more direct rela tionship can be established between the human con science and the movement for change, provided that this movement is as forceful as it is nonviolent. Moreover non violent action is also revolu tionary in that, with its pro found appeal to the human conscience, it sets in motion other fordes which use other revolutionary methods. Everyone who aspires to the new makes a revolution in his own way. One gets more inspiration for struggling for a new world from the writ ings of true revolutionaries than from those of the true quietists. In contrast, those who think that war is the highest form of struggle, the way of evening out inequalities, still have a very limited vision of man and of humanity. Any one with genuine revolu tionary experience knows — and must admit — that in order to change a situation one must appeal, whether explicitly or tacitly, to moral rather than material consi derations, for they take pre cedence; that a call for more clearly defined principles and a higher morality has a powerful force; and that revolutionary action is, there fore, also that which helps to evolve a new sensitivity, a new capacity, a new cul ture, new instincts — human nature remade. To succeed in building a world of peace we must have the boldness to embrace the new, however incovenient or dangerous it may be or seem to be, to immerse ourselves in undertakings bigger than we are. The powerful, the Panorama exploiters, the real outlaws can hardly maintain them selves in their positions un less they are supported and defended by those who have sold out to them. But there is as yet no sufficiently clear and widespread undertanding (and this is one of the best indications of the ambi valence and inadequacy of the traditional religious) of the need not to collaborate with and to boycott insane initiatives. How are we to explain, for example, that even per sons of undoubted ability and professional rectitude will consistently work for newspapers which, behind their facades, are readily seen to be mean, false, even murderous? The process of self-justification is often ex tremely primitive: the yalue of the work performed is judged by the price paid for it, and the' recipient’s moral opinion of himself is based on what his stock is quoted at. Another easy alibi is to say that one will burrow from within, be a Trojan horse. Very often, this am bivalent attitude is support ed by the excuse of technical specialization or the myth of pure science. This is who it was possible to build and operate Buchenwald, Aus chwitz, and Mauthausen. Is there also at the bottom of all this a certain costly moral naivete? By accepting money and power where these are most easily to be had, people may think they are doing right by coming to grips with their own pro blems first. Thus in various parts of the world first-class minds are being wantonly misused to produce and cle verly advertise mediocre or useless or harmful products; immigrate to countries which scientists by the thousand can offer them better re search. In many areas, mem bers of parliaments will change parties four or five times, sometimes ending up on the opposite side, merely in order to remain afloat; while leaders who have reached high office through popular support will sell themselves to the highest bidder, with an effect on the confidence of the voters that can be easily imagined. It is because of this widespread readiness to sell or barter oneself that the client system August 1968 can rise to the national and international levels. To choose according to need and to one’s conscience, to reject any occupation or opportunity that will involve one in exploitation and as sassination, or merely doing something one does not be lieve in, is a basic prerequi site for smashing the client system, from the level of the street to that of international affairs. To exert leverage you must have a solid point of support. This elementary principle of all strategy makes it neces sary for the nonviolent revo lutionary to be especially careful in his choice of ful crums. . His disklike and hatred of his personal ene mies will exert no leverage, buti his just indignation at intolerable methods and si tuations will. He will exert no leverage if his support is rotted through, but he will if he relies on the solidarity of those who are most concern ed and best informed; he will exert no leverage by resort ing to savage cunning or lies to destroy the adversary, but he will if he is the best spokesman of the common interest and if he supplies unimpeachable evidence to show that the masses are being oppressed and strang led by inhuman minorities. Exerting leverage by using as support the highest laws of morality and the best laws on the statutes, or, for that matter, even minimally de mocratic laws, has this ad vantage: since they are laws, even though they may not in general represent the highest points of culture and mo rality, anyone who is shown to be a violator of the social contract is by the same token shown to be a true outlaw. To know exactly what action they ought to take, the peo ple must know beyond any doubt, without any precon ceived notions or supersti tions, who the real outlaws are. Why is it that tortures, poisonings, abuses, electoral hanky-panky, and large-scale waste are generally kept secret or are at least camou flaged, even when those who practice them^4U£~sotidIy~in power? Because those who practice them fear the force, the weight, of the condemna tion of others. Public opinion, especially if duly aroused, can make the 10 Panorama distinction between the fa ther whose children are hun gry and who picks a basket ful of tomatoes in a field that does not belong to him, or the Negro driven by hu miliation into getting drunk or throwing a Molotov cock tail, and those who bear primary responsibility for in tolerable situations. The public has sufficient intuition to realize that some court sentences are a mockery of justice and to guess by whom and how those sentences were purchased, but it has difficulty in fitting isolated facts togther until they form a picture. Does a police force resort to torture? No morality to day can sanction torture. The practice must be docu mented, denounced case by casej on an ever increasing scale; in this way, despite the obvious difficulties, the police and their conduct will be identified as being out side the law. Is there wide spread exploitation, insecurity of employment on such a scale that the unreflecting masses accept these things as being almost natural? A wealth of precise documenta tion must be published and charges leveled systematical ly, until their weight becomes crushing. (Some of the poor est countries are given to grandiloquence; but is there not a law on the books, vague and general as it may be, which guarantees em ployment and which can be used for leverage?) Are there shady political deals which prevent the ex pression of the people’s true needs? They must be docu mented case by case, coun try by country, region by re gion, systematically and on an increasing scale, without taking it for granted that these things are already known, until the people’s eyes have been opened to them (photographs can be useful here). Is there waste of every imaginable kind? We must learn to use for leverage the economy-orient ed mentality of our times, Jrom the local level to the general level of interest, do cumenting the stupidity of wasting enormous energy and enormous wealth and of fail ing to develop existing re sources. There are veritable mon sters in our midst. They are no mere dragons 50 feet in Aucust 1968 11 length, spitting fire at thirty paces out of two maws, burn ing down a house or two, and terrorizing the crowd in the village square. These veri table monsters of ours, re plete with the flesh and blood of their victims, have electronic nerves and sinews of steel; their poisonous breath blots out the sky; their excrements pollute ri vers, lakes, and seas. They can spread terror thousands of miles away; they can spit fire over an area of hundreds of square miles and burn to ashes in an instant millions of human beings and cities it has taken millions of men thousands of years to build. And one maw of the monsters can threaten the other; its claws can meet in combat. The most horrendous fanta sies of the past, from the vi sions of the Apocalypse to the many monsters imagined by artists or dreamed up by the commercial horror-mon gers to distract a well-fed public from its boredom, are so naive in comparison as to make us smile. It is not enough to know, not enough to document, not enough to denounce. We must not only deflate these monsters by not feeding them and n ot allowing them to feed on us. We must clearly realize, we must know in every fiber of our being, that we have;built these monsters and that we can destroy them. Who are the more nume rous, the people in whose in terest it is to bring about major changes in order to arrive at a world fit for all, or the people who think that it is in their interest to main tain the status quo? If we succeed in interpreting and expressing the deepest needs of thousands, millions, and billions of human beings and help them to gain precise knowledge of themselves and their problems, to start con structive action of every kind, from the lowest to the high est level, and to make their weight count, we shall have succeeded in setting in mo tion a practical revolutionary 12 Panorama force. New people, new groups who reject second hand thinking and second hand living and who are committed to making a bet ter world, already exist. We must lose no time in recog nizing them, meeting them, comparing experience with them, and forming new or ganic fronts together. — Da nilo Dolci, Extracts from Saturday Review, July 6, 1968. THE DISSENTING ACADEMY For most Americans, a declining measure of intellectual independence in the universities is prob ably of no more concern than the discontinuance of a favored line of groceries at the supermarket, and probably for the same reason. Higher education offers commodities to the customer who rarely re gards academics as individuals whose services should include social and humanistic criticism. As John Kenneth Galbraith has suggested, the university is growing great as a servant — not as a critic — of the industrial society. . . . The engagement of aca demic intellectuals in government policymaking and as consultants to industry, the growth of the gov ernment research contract, the very success of higher education can be as dangerous to independence as overt political pressure. — Peter Schrag in Saturday Review February 17, 1968. August 1968 13 A CHINESE SCHOLAR VIEWS BUSINESS The word "business” con veys the idea of being busy. To us Chinese scholars, and in fact to all Oriental phi losophers, to be busy is dis tasteful. Why should we al ways be busy? What is it all for? Are we too busy to live? I think one can live much better without being busy, and I am sorry to see that there are many people in the world who are too busy to live. Are we too busy to die? Death is forever awaiting us, and >ve do not have to speed its approach. I can never understand or be accustomed to modem western life, especially the American business man’s life. Every one is busy every moment — hurry, rush, pull and struggle. One of our popular T’ang dynasty (618-906 A.D.) poets once expressed his lamenta tion in the following lines: "All events are experienced with too much anxiety. No one ever takes time to rest before he dies.” We Chinese believe that human life is composed ol two phases: the positive or active, and the negative or passive. It is vastly im portant that we should bal ance them well. We have always been carefully taught to apply our positive or ac tive forces inwardly, that is to say, spiritually, ideally, mentally and morally. The negative or passive forces should be directed to oppo site ends. In other words, we should sublimate our possessive ins tincts toward the acquisition of knowledge, virtue and in visible property, the ambi tion for conquest should be turned to the conquest of ourselves — our own evil thoughts, our bad habits and our vicious practices; the fighting spirit should be led toward literary and artistic 14 Panorama contests or muscular and physical training. In our outward and material life, we prefer to live simply, humbly and economically. We have also been taught that, when in government position or any official ca pacity, we should conduct our positive or active forces toward public utility, and our negative or passive for ces toward private ends. The things which belong to the community or which are for the good of the public must be well taken care of, improved and perfected, while one’s private belong ings are negligible from the eyes of a statesman or phi losopher. Now, consider some basic theories held in the psycho logy of the western business man from the viewpoint of a Chinese philosopher. First, we find in this country a firmly established money standard; in other words, a dollar-and-cent measurement of human acti vities and their values. I cannot agree that material conditions are the only de termining factors of history. I can still less agree with the idea that national welfare and personal success are in dicated mainly by the nu merical figures of incomes and expenditures. More pernicious yet is the growing conviction that everything is purchasable with money or that every phase of civilization can be valued only in terms of merchandise. Money, though a very convenient means of life, is certainly not the end. Why should we sacrifice every thing, even our lives for the accumulation of money, and reduce ourselves to machines and mechanisms? Unless there is some property in a nation or in a person that cannot be corrupted or bought^ by money, that na tion or that person is not worth living. Second, the belief in the struggle for existence by the creation of a busy and noisy world is increasingly un bearable. It is necessary to work earnestly and diligent ly: it is also necessary to work with ease, quiet, and good taste. The best effi ciency test is not how to exert one’s ability and ex haust one’s strength, but how to preserve them and recreate them. August 1968 15 So, a restful night is of importance to a working day, and the leisure hours are invaluable to the busy minutes. Until one knows how to regulate his labor and tranquilize his mind, he does not live but simply exists. Here again we must not mistake means for ends. Strife is but one phase of life: it is neither its final aim nor its original pur pose. Third, we notice a ten dency to promote luxury and extravagance for society as well as for individuals, and thus bring about the habit of money spending. One of the greatest American busi ness men, has emphatically admonished the American youth to spend all the money he can ipake and then al low himself to be driven by the burning desire for new wants, that he may be in duced to make more money for its realization. He ad vocates that the standard of life for both society and in dividuals will be lifted by more money spending and more money making. To be sure, such a poli cy does actually enrich the state, but it inevitably dis turbs people’s minds and menaces also their moral and physical orders. This in turn reacts upon the psychology and social condi tions of the community. So cial unrest, insanity, crimes, and revolutions are its na tural outcomes. Fourth, a new maxim is current in the business world, that discontent and dissatisfaction are the mo tive forces for improvement and progress. Mr. Kettering, President of General Motors Research Corporation, wrote recently in Nation’s Business: “Jn our particular line our chief job in research is to keep the customer reason ably dissatisfied with what he has.” It is a plain truth that if people are dissatisfied with the things they have, they will always long for some thing else and try to get it if they can afford it. In this way the business man will always make his money out of those who are striv ing harder and harder to catch up with the fashions and styles. Such persons are life-long slaves of their material de sires and vanity illusions. They are forever burdened by the increasing weight of 16 Panorama their self-made harness and lashed in the most merciless manner by the whip of an invisible master day and night. Death will be their only deliverance. Of course, it is possible that they are satisfied so long as they ful fill their desires? But how long will this last? There are always more desires, and always something else more desirable. Aside from all this indi vidual torture, the waste for society as a whole is also very great. We must work, and work hard, for spiritual realiza tion, mental enlightenment, moral perfection and cultu ral attainment. But in all matters that lie outside of ourselves, we must learn to take them lightly; to enjoy then! if we happen to be with them — possession is, however, not necessary — and to be still content if we must live without them. Life is always easier and hap pier for those who desire less, and depend less upon, things outside of themselves. Furthermore, we must work and work hard, for the improvement and the ad vancement of the communi ty, the state, the nation, and above all, for humanity, for it is humanity that will live long and not we. When we work for the benefit of hu manity, any merit surely lasts, but when we work for the benefit of ourselv.es, all merits become void upon our death or before. Therefore, we do well to apply our positive or active forces toward that which has a spiritual significance and is good for mankind, and our negative or passive forces to ward that which has only material value and is good only for ourselves. Only those who possess spiritual wealth can overlook material wealth; only those who love humanity know how to deny themselves. — By Kiang KangHu, condensed from The Nation’s Business (Novem ber, ’29). August 1968 17 EMPTY HOURS Although regular work is man's greatest blessing — for the worst material misfor tune of life is to be out of work — we really know noth ing of the personality of in dividuals during their work ing hours, any more than we can understand their abi lities and ideals when they are asleep. For during the majority of working hours, the inner man is asleep. If you enter a factory and see a vast room filled with busy -men clad in overalls, you cannot even guess at the real nature of each indivi dual: If you enter a bank, and see the white collar bri gade deeply engaged in neat penmanship, you might for a moment imagine from the similarity of their tasks that they resemble one another; but of course you know the facts are quite otherwise. If you wish to know anything concerning the personality or inner nature of these persons, you must see them outside of office hours. The moment the day’s work is over and the worker is free, where does he go? What is his conception of a good time? What use does he make leisure? For, except in the rare instances of crea tive work, it is leisure alone that reveals or betrays the man. I will go further. The use of leisure eventually deter mines the fate of an entire community, or of an entire nation. The Roman Empire was destroyed, first, by too much leisure, second, by the wrong use of it. In the United States nearly every body works; and it often happens that the richest in dividuals work the hardest. Almost any wealthy young man would be somewhat ashamed to admit that he had no occupation, that he was doing nothing. Perhaps we carry this social require ment too far; but at all events it is better than gen eral idleness. 18 Panorama It is dangerous to make prophecies, for in history it is so often the unexpected that happens. But the signs of the times seem certainly to indicate the coming of more leisure. Factory hours used to be ten or twelve hours a day. Now the aver age working day is eight hours; and it is highly pro bable that during the next decade the average work day will be six hours, with Sa turday and Sunday entirely free. If, by education and increase of refinement, Am erican men and women will make a profitable use of this leisure, the coming gen erations will be more civil ized and more happy than at any previous period in his tory. The real business of life is Life. Food, clothing and shelter are not life — they are the means of life. With many laborers the daily work is not life: it is once more the means of life. Men and women live in their minds. If leisure means laziness, if leisure means only bodily pleasures, if leisure means only attendance at games and sentimental motion pictures, the mind stagnates. The radio may be a means of education and of eleva tion, or it may be destruc tive to the intelligence of its owner and a cause of insa nity to his neighbors. Do you listen to Walter Damrosch or to slush? The motion pictures, well chosen, may be a source of delight and instruction com bined; but the motion pic ture habit is a bad habit. The automobile is a servant more efficient than the genii in the Arabian Nights; but it can also accelerate the al ready too swift pace down the primrose path that leads to the everlasting bonfire. Fortunately there is an al most universal desire for education; and people are beginning to see that true education is neither easy nor swift, but means resolute ap plication of mental energy over a long period of time. The public libraries are an enormous factor in modem civilization. It is often said that every person should have a hobby. I say that every person should have some definite avocation, the mastery of something, whether it be the tools of a carpenter or the language of a foreign coun Aucust 1968 19 try. It is astounding what some men accomplish in their leisure. John Stuart Mill was a clerk in the East India Office. He became one of the world’s leading authorities on political eco nomy. Not every person in the world can become such ,a personage. But every person can become a personality. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Inter esting thoughts can live only in cultivated minds. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental develop ment, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays at the theater, good company, good conver sation — what are they? They are the happiest peo ple in the world; they are not only happy in them selves, they are the cause of happiness in others. — By William Lyon Phelps, con densed from The Delineator, May, 1930. THE ADMIRABLE JEWS They are an ancient people, a famous people, an enduring people, and a people who in the end have generally attained their objects. I hope Par liament may endure forever, and sometimes I think it will; but I cannot help remembering that the Jews have outlived Assyrian kings, Egyptian Phar aohs, Roman Caesars, and Arabian Caliphs. — Benjamin Disraeli 20 Panorama ■ This article explains the causes of university stu dent riots, particularly those in Columbia and Paris. SAVAGE RAGE OF STUDENTS Columbia University is an institution of great academic power and performance. It has not been served well by its chief executive officers since before the days when Dwight David Eisenhower used its presidency as a dry run for a bigger job. Its trustees — all men of position, distinction, financial re sources, and significant con nections — oversee the gov ernance of the collection of colleges and graduate schools as though it were a “conglo merate” enterprise dealing in real estate, weaponry, and pharmaceuticals. They are in occasional communication with Grayson Kirk, who has served as Columbia’s pres ident since the winter of 1951. Before troubles early this year, he had been con templating his happy retire ment. President Kirk is known to have been on speaking terms with several members of the senior faculty, but he has never evinced any press ing need for their support and counsel in the conduct of his office. The senior fa culty, able and respected scholars all, in their turn have rarely indicated that they felt grievance because of their consequently light work load. They have been known on occasion to socia lize with some of the junior faculty and a few especially bright graduate students. The junior faculty — most of them aged thirty, plus or minus five years — fraternize more freely with the students, share some of their insecuri ties, many of their dreams, and most of their anger against society in its various middle-aged, middle-class as pects. The male graduate stu dents have spent their under graduate years sometimes in search of a “field” or “ma jor” but always in a struggle to maintain a grade average high enough to withstand August 1968 21 the military draft and to as sure themselves a place in one of Columbia’s prestigious graduate schools. Now that they have achieved graduate status and have some notion about the best way to spend their lives, they are uncom fortably contemplating their imminent exposure to the newly democratized opera tions of the Selective Service process. This plight is shar ed by the graduating seniors of Columbia College and every other healthy young university man in the coun try. Most of the students and some of the junior faculty share with their fellows else where in the world an insa tiable eagerness to make this world a little safer to live in and a little more generous to live through. They are gen erally better-educated and more intelligent than preced ing student, generations. They are less conforming, less respectful of mere au thority, and more openly cri tical of anyone or any group that diminishes (in their judgment) the possibilities of improving the human condition. They hate the war in Viet nam; they hate malfeasance in high office; they hate so cial and economic inequities; they hate compromise or ex pediency and deferral of payment on any moral debt. They believe that the world can be made better now, and are convinced that they could do the job, if they were bet ter educated — but they feel that they have been vic tims of pedagogical malprac tice. They have abundant and heavily documented evi dence. The protesting students have allies among the mid dle-aged, middle-class wielders of power and none more articulate than Harold Howe II, the United States Com missioner of Education. In a recent address to the Am erican Association of Univer sity Professors he used lan guage almost as harsh as the student’s to present a bill of indictment every bit as pre cise as they would offer. He accused the professors and their associate administrators of neglecting the campus world to the detriment of their students: “The profes sors are largely responsible for the student’s disenchant 22 Panorama ment with their world.” He accused the administrators of being “inadequate, and unreasonably inflexible” in their approach to the needs of students. He said that the professors do not teach very well and what they teach is not very relevant to the lives of their students. Finally, in warning the universities to initiate and accept change, the commissioner declared that he had learned from experience “. . . that the best way to accomplish anything is to aggravate somebody sufficiently to get him in terested in taking action.” Columbia, as one of this nation’s ancient seats of learning, possesses a substan tial — though, of course, in adequate — endowment, al most half of which is in Man hattan real estate. This is some of the most valuable acreage on the planet. Since World War II, the university has been increasing its hold ings in its near neighborhood for almost prudential rea sons. It is in a period of very rapid physical growth. It has to attract talented and finicky new faculty, and must therefore make its sur rounding community attrac tive to them. Unforuniately for this purpose, the sur rounding community on the south, east, and north is Har lem, mostly Negro and Puer to Rican and nearly all very poor. Every act of reclamation by the university is seen, with almost complete justification, to be an act of depredation against the poor of the neighbood. Most of the belated attempts by Columbia, even with the alert largess of the Ford Foundation, to improve conditions of life for its sur rounding poor have not been met with cries of joy. It is almost irresistible to suggest that the causes of student unrest at the Sor bonne are generically related to those at Columbia — high academic pressures to meet the scholarly demands of “ir relevant” courses, overcrowd ed classrooms, unresponsive a d m i nistrators, antiquated and inappropriate rules and regulations, and, of course, the demand for “particupatory democracy.” The French university sys tem, they declared, is sup posed to be for free inquiry, but the Government wants the university to serve the August 1968 23 needs of business and indus try. The students say that they do not want to become tomorrow’s policemen; they do not want to become part of some impersonal world machine. Initially, the population of Paris, which has rarely been sympathetic to students, went about its daily affairs mutter ing about the behavior of les fils de papa, the pampered sons of the petit bourgeois. The administration of the university became increasing ly anxious, most especially about a tiny group of ultra rightist students known as the Occident, whom the admi nistration feared might at tack the activists and preci pitate a riot. Thus on Friday, May 3, the Rector of the Sorbonne closed that ancient institu tion for the first time since its misty beginings in the thirteenth century. The stu dents responded with even more vigorous protests, and the administration, acting precisely as did that of Co lumbia University, called in the police, committing in the eyes of the students and the faculty an unpardonable sac rilege. Never had the hallowed precincts of the Sorbonne been so desecrated. What followed was the feared bloody riot, in which thou sands were injured, scores seriously, in which the “flics” the Paris police who have a capacity for brutality unmatchable in this country, stormed the hastily erected barricades in the streets of the Latin Quarter. The French students, who, unlike their American counterparts, do not hesitate to do battle with the police, turned to the traditional weapon of revolutionary streets, the pav ing stones. When the smoke of the first engagement clear ed and the people of Paris understood what had hap pened, they rose in support of the students, and the trade unions joined in a now united front to present Gen eral Charles de Gaulle with a 10th anniversary present of a general strike that has pa ralyzed the commerce and industry of France. Both American and French students are clearly reacting against a profound malaise in their countries. The French students sees his gov24 Panorama emment wasting its substance in attempting, quixotically, to become a significant nu clear power, at an intolerable cost to the quality of life in France. The American stu dent, with the unavoidable evidence of the Vietnam war always before him, and with the so-called war on poverty faltering on every front be cause of what he sees as wrongly diverted funds, is in a savage rage against his government. Youth needs allies with older necessary skills than it possesses. It needs people with practical knowledge of social plumbing. It needs the help of middle-class, mid dle-aged artisans who will not “study” them, who will unself-consciously join in the “restructuring” that every society must continually be about if it is to become fairer than its history. Today neither Columbia, nor the Sorbonne, nor any significant center of learn ing in the world is a true community of scholars. The “savage rage” of youth has given the universities the promise of an option to be come such communities — to the extent that they enter fully into the world in which they exist, to the extent, in Robert M. Hutchin’s phrase, they are willing to assume the salient role of critic of the society. It is for them to provide the data on ethics that the politician, the states man, the priest, the soldier, and the city planner can act upon to make this world safe for the humane use of hu man beings. — By Frank G. Jennings in the Saturday Re view, June 15, 1968. August 1968 25 WHAT IS SEATO? The South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) cele brated its 13th birthday on September 8, 1967, with the dedication of a new and permanent headquarters building in Bangkok by His Majesty Phumipol Adul yadej, the young and popu lar King of Thailand. Where did SEATO come from? It was born in Mani la in 1954, fathered by eight nations faced with, or con cerned with, an aggressive communist threat against the very -existence of developing nations in Southeast Asia. Many of these had come into being after the Second World War and were struggling with politi cal, social, and economic problems in efforts to build a secure life for their peo ples. In this time of change and insecurity, communist lead ers exploited social unrest and nationalistic feelings among the peoples of the region. Communist move ments, directed and aided from the outside, kept try ing to take over, sometimes by direct external aggres sion, sometimes by insur gency. In the Philippines, in the area then called In dochina, in Burma and the Malayan peninsula, the threat reached critical pro portions. In 1949, Mao Tse-tung’s communists se cured control of the whole Chinese mainland. In June 1950, the communist North Korean army invaded the Republic of Korea in a bold effort to seize that new na tion. The effort was thwarted, after a fierce struggle, by the forces of several nations under the United Nations aegis, end ing in an uneasy armistice in 1953. By early 1954 the com munist-led Viet Minh had seized much of the north ern province of Tonkin and had advanced into Laos, driving^ toward the border of Thailand. Thailand made Panorama an urgent appeal to the United Nations Security Council for a team of peace observers to investi gate developments along its frontier with Laos. This reasonable request obtained nine affirmative votes and one abstention, but was vetoed by the Soviet Union. In July 1954, the Geneva Agreement was signed, divid ing Vietnam at the 17th pa rallel and ostensibly ending the conflict in Indochina. There was hope among peo ple throughout the world that this could mark the be ginning of a new era of peace. Still concerned about the communist threat on its northeastern border, Thai land decided to have re course to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This article authorizes col lective defense treaties. The Manila Conference of September 1954 brought the representatives of eight na tions together to find a way to meet the threats to free dom in the area, since the Soviet veto nad prevented the UN Security Council from taking effective ac tion. Their answer was a collective defense organiza tion which included Austra lia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, the United King dom and the United States. The representatives of these eight nations drew up and on September 8, 1954, sign ed the Manila Pact which brought SEATO into being. What is it all about? In short, SEAlO’s mis sion is twofold^ On the one hand it aims to stem di rect, overt communist ag gression by creating and maintaining the necessary military defenses or deter rent power. How does SEATO work? A Council of Ministers, comprising the foreign min isters of member nations, governs SEATO. It meets annualy to determine poli cy and to review the pro gress of SEATO activities. The meetings alternate be tween the various capitals. The last meeting was in Washington in 1967, the next one will be in Welling ton in April 1968. The Council of Ministers is represented at SEATO headquarters by Council Representatives, consisting of the ambassadors to Thailand of each member nation and August 1968 27 a representative of the Thai Foreign Office. The council representatives meet month ly with the Secretary-General of SEATO to review poli cy, programming and plan ning and to consider SEATO projects. The Secretary-General, who is the executive head of the organization, is res ponsible to the council when it is in session, and at other times to the council represen tatives. He directs a staff of international officers. Under the Council of Mi nisters are the military ad visers. These are officers of member governments at their theater command or chief-ofstaff level. They meet twice yearly to review the miKtary situation in the area and to approve the work and plans of the Military Planning Of fice (MPO), located at SEATO headquarters in Bangkok. The MPO plans are tested in annual prog rams of military exercises — maritime, amphibious, air ground and command-post. They provide for a combina tion of fighting forces which understand each other’s me thods, weapons and lang uage. Thirty-four exercises have been held over the past 11 years. SEATO has no standing forces, as in the case of NA TO, because this is consi dered unrealistic in terms of the strategic situation in Southeast Asia. It relies instead on the rapid combi nation of forces trained to work together and has de monstrated in actual maneu vers that these forces can be speedily assembled and efficiently coordinated to carry out concerted actions. SEATO is not concerned with overt communist at tack alone but also with countering and preventing communist subversion. As sistance to member nations in this field is a primary consideration of the Secre tary-General of SEATO, Lieutenant-General Jesus M. Vargas, former Chief of Staff and former Secretary of De fense of the Philippines. General Vargas operates from firsthand experience in fight ing insurgency. He played a leading role in breaking the back of the communistled Huk’s attempt to seize power in the Philippines more than a decade ago. Secretary-General Vargas places high value on 28 Panorama SEATO’s civil program. “Security is essential,” he says, "but progress in the social, economic, and related fields is imperative. It is axiomatic that military strength alone is insufficient today to en sure national security. The armed forces are a shield but behind that shield must be a strong economy coupled with social progress.” Over the years, SEATO has striven to strengthen the nations of the area in vital social, economic and cultural fields through pojects carried on by SEATO or by mem ber nations, either indivi dually or collectively. SEATO has sponsored a number of studies on the requirements of its Asian members for skilled labor for their developing indus tries. Two technical train ing schools were established in Pakistan as models for. the training of technicians throughout the countryi In Thailand, the skilled labor project provides nearly half of the technical trailing fa cilities available in the coun try. Twenty vocational schools have been established on the basis of existing car pentry schools in major pro vincial towns in Thailand. The SEATO Technical Training School in Bangkok offers a course for future technical supervisors, fore men and skilled workers in the Thai armed services schools and workshops. This is a bilateral project by Aus tralia and Thailand, under SEATO sponsorship. Similar projects have been under taken in the fields of educa tion, health, tribal research and community development. An outstanding project is the SEATO Graduate School of Engineering in Bangkok, a unique regional school open to graduates from all countries in Southeast Asia. It offers courses in five branches of civil engineering, leading to a master’s degree, and the school has now been expanded into the Asian In stitute of Technology, which will become independent and shed its SEATO sponsorship. SEATO is also concerned with health problems, and has sponsored a medical re search laboratory and a cli nical research center in Bang kok. The first deals with research into the causes and treatments of diseases which ravage the area — malaria, haemorrhagic fever, liverfluke. The second, the August 1968 29 SEATO Clinical Research Center, seeks improved meth ods of diagnosis of the ma jor diseases of Southeast Asia and is doing research on the treatment and medical man agement of patients. Another project is the SEATO Cholera Research Laboratory in Dacca which has become the world’s ma jor institution of its kind. The cholera laboratory has already made notable ad vances in the treatment of the disease and continues studies into its causes and prevention. — By W. W. Copeland in the Free World, February, 1968 issue. KITCHEN Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks of a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is getting them clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of our epoch. — Honore de Balzac 30 Panorama GENTLEMEN, ON GUARDI Awit once remarked: “Duel ing benefits no one but the doctor and the undertaker.” But in spite of the many drastic edicts against it, duel ing lasted many centu ries. Religions are always strengthened and fortified by persecution, and dueling has also had its honored mar tyrs. However, dueling is not a human tradition; primitive barbarians have always been ignorant of it, and indivi dual combats, legendary or not, were actually only the result of sudden quarrels or episodes in the rivalry of two tribes. David and Go liath, and Hector and Achilles are examples. Curiously the origin of dueling, if not religious, is at least mystical. The fana tical faith of the Middle Ages held that in any armed encounter between a guilty and an innocent person, the latter, even though the weaker, could not fail to triumph, because heaven permitted no injustice. In Germany during the Romantic era things were done with the proper fune ral decor. Before the com bat an open casket was placed in the middle of the field in front of which the accused and the accuser kneeled in prayer and medi tation. Dueling then was a veritable theatrical spectacle. One was not even obliged to fight one’s own battle. If a man were rich enough he could hire a substitute to appear in his stead, as was the custom in China in re gard to criminal executions. In France, under Charles V, one duel became a popular legend. It told of a battle between a dog and a man: Aubry de Montdidier, a friend of the King, had been mysteriously assassinated in the vicinity of Montargis. The victim’s dog displayed such ferocity towards a cer tain Richard Macaire that August 1968 31 everyone decided he must have been the assassin. The King, therefore, ordered a judicial duel between Macaire and the dog. Although armed with a heavy stick Macaire was conquered by the beast and confessed to the crime which he expiated on the scaffold. It was once a custom to fight six against six, against all comers, about anything. This was called “hurling a challenge to the winds, and any one who cared to might accept it. Under Henry III and Henry IV, the French aristocracy lost 8000 nobles in such duels. This was the period in which Cyrano de Bergerac challenged any casual passer-by who seemed to avoid his gaze. “When I see the chance for a good duel,” he. said, “I never let it go by.” Women, too, have ex changed pistol-fire. In the 18th Century, two mis tresses of the Due de Riche lieu — Mme. de Nesles and Mme. de Polignac — fought each other under the trees in the Bois de Boulogne. “Fire first,” said Mme. de Polignac. Mme. de Nesles fired and missed. Mme. de Polignac fired in turn. The ball grazed Mme. de ‘Nesles’ ear and she promptly fainted. It is notable that in modern times the women who fight (usually with hat-pins and scissors) always try to mar each other’s faces. It seems to me, however, that women have their real duels not with weapons, but with their eyes. After the Nineteenth Cen tury had broken down class distinctions, the bourgeois believed they could elevate their social standing by wielding the foil, the sabre and the sword. At the time veritable social laws existed about dueling. There was a distinction made between the duel of “first blood,” which was halted by the se conds after the first scratch; the duel to the death in which the seconds did not interfere until one of the ad. versaries had fallen; and the ferocious duel which was be gun with the pistol and finished by the sword. The offended person was allowed the choice of weapons. The adversaries, armed with pis tols, were separated by a given number of paces, and then would turn and fire at command, or would walk toward each other firing at 32 Panorama will. After the encounter the adversaries either shook hands or refused a recon ciliation. If one of the ad versaries was killed, a little comedy took place before the courts in which the survivor was always acquitted. The reconciliation was followed by a repast in the open, or in a cabaret. (There are instances where these feasts have been ordered the day before.) The lions or dandies of the Boulevard de Gand fought for the merest triffle: Under Napoleon III, the young Due GrammontCaderousse, a consumptive and a gay liver, overhearing someone blaspheme the Holy Virgin, challenged the blas phemer: “I do not know the Virgin, but you have in sulted a woman and you shall answer to me.” In the meantime the cus tom of dueling had crossed the ocean and began to be practiced in America. The first encounter took place in Plymouth in 1621. As the adversaries were domestics, the authorities were mer ciless, condemning them to exposure for twenty-four hours in the stocks of the public square. Later, Castle Island, in Boston Harbor, became the popular dueling ground. The most famous encounter took place in 1804: Colonel Burr, VicePresident of the Republic, fought and killed General Hamilton. But many other duels occurred which re mained more secret and more primitive. Sometimes the opponents were let loose to hunt each other in the forest. The first to see the other fired. A singularly terrible form of duel was popular in Me xico: the two adversaries, stripped to the waist and armed with knives, were left in a darkened room to hunt each other out. Or again they entered unarmed, while a poisonous snake previously left there by the seconds de cided the victor. Certain duels in Europe, which occurred around 1900, took place in deserted gar dens from which reporters were excluded, unable to scale the high walls. These were called duels passionnels. It was permissible at that time for a betrayed hus band to take the law into his own hands and fight with his wife’s lover, under the eyes of a private detec August 1968 33 tive. Sometimes two lovers dueled — unknown to the husband. Nowadays men in public life no longer settle differen ces on the field of honor, not even in Spain, which lost its last glamorous duelist in the person of the great liberal novelist, Blasco Ibafiez. The duel, with all its tragic, comic, and unexpec ted aspects, has been well exploited in literature and particularly in the theater. Melodrama has thrived on it. There are plenty of duels in Hamlet and in nearly all the plays of the Elizabethan dramatists. How many dramas, how many plays could never have been concluded without a duel! Today, dueling has almost disappeared, even among the student corps at Heidelberg. It has been forbidden by Mussolini in Fascist Italy, and in France other sports have taken its place. The young men of our generation have fought too much to begin again killing each other off in twos. Democra cy has given the death thrust to dueling — By Paul Morand, condensed from Vanity Fair (September, ’30). JUSTICE DELAYED The most galling and oppressive of all griev ances is that complicated mass of evil which is com posed of the uncertainty, delay, expense, and vexa tion in the administration of justice. — Jetemy Bentham 34 Panorama OBJECTIONS TO LAUGHTER “Laughter” is a word, we are told by the philologists, that is a distant cousin of Greek words meaning “to cluck like a hen,” and also “to croak.” But we need go no further than our every day speech to haVe it brought home to us that when we laugh we do some thing that puts us on a level with, the lower animals. We say of a laughing human be ing that he “bellows” or “roars” or “cackles” or “crows” or “whinnies.” We say of one man that he "laughs like a hyena” and of another that he has a “horse laugh.” Perhaps it was their real ization of the essential ani mal nature of laughter that led so many philosophers, saints, and authorities on be havior to condemn it. Plato, for instance, declares that the guardians of the state ought not to be given to laughter, and that persons of worth must never be represented as being overcome by laugh ter. As for the saints, though many of them have been cheerful men, few of them have been conspicuous for their hilarity. Some of them have even thought it was a sin to laugh, believing, with Saint Basil, that laughter was the one bodily affection that the Founder of the Christian religion “does not seem to have known.” Among more wordly au thorities on behavior we find the same thing. Lord Ches terfield, the greatest English gentlemen who ever left de tailed instructions as to be havior, declares emphatically in one of his passages that a man who wishes to be re garded as a gentleman must avoid laughter above all things. Everyone knows the passage in which he warns his son: “Lord laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh, since the creation of the August 1968 35 world. A man of fashion and parts is, therefore, only seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.” In a fur ther letter, Lord Chesterfield writes: I am neither a melan choly nor a cynical dispo sition; and am as willing and as apt to be pleased as any body; but I am sure that, since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh. But it is not only the phi losophers, the saints, and the authorities on manners who have belittled laughter. That the ordinary man cares lit tle for laughter can, I think, be easily proved. Consider, for one thing, literature. Today three out of four of our best-sellers are writers who depend for their effect scarcely at all upon humor. I do not for get that Dickens, the perma nent best-seller of English literature, was a humorist as well as a. tragic sentimen talist. But, taking a general view of popular literature, we shall be safe in affirm ing that it is easier to be come a best-seller with a book that does not contain a single laugh than with a book that, in the language of the reviewers, contains a “laugh on every page.” No novelist ever suceeded in be coming immortal through alone. And even master pieces of comedy are most ardently appreciated, not for comic, but for serious rea sons. Laughter cannot play more than a small part in a man’s life. The very essence of laughter is surprise and a break in the monotonous continuity of our thoughts or our experience. It is a physical appreciation of the suprising things of life, such as the spectacle of a man falling suddenly on ice, or sitting down on the floor in stead of a chair. Such things makes us laugh, of course, only if the results are not too serious. If a man died as a result of any of these accidents, nobody but a sa vage would think it funny, however, suprised he might be. What makes us laugh is a mixture of the shock at an accident that looks as it might be serious and the realization that it is after all only a hundreth part as serious as it might have been. Panorama We can see, then, why saints and Utopian philoso phers are on the whole hos tile or indifferent to laugh ter. The saint and the Uto pian philosopher have a vi sion of a perfect world in which accidents do not hap pen. Laughter is a confes sion of the sins and silliness of the world, but it is also a kind of genial acquiescence in these sins and sillinesses. To the saint, the stumblings of man are tragic, proving that he is not yet an angel. To men and women with a sense of humor, the stum blings of man — even on his way to perfection — are largely comic, proving that he is only a human being after all. We may deplore, if we like, the saint’s lack of humor, but in this I think we may be wrong. He has a vision that we have not. Our sense of humor is only a compensation for our lack of vision. We should never have possessed it if we had remained in Eden. It is the grace of our disgrace — a consolation prize given to a race excluded from Paradise. Laughter, even when salt ed with derision or bitter ness, is a form of play. As with play of all sorts, one of its chief function is to saints and Utopian philosoing formulae of our daily lives. Comedy gives us, in deed, a new and surprising pattern of life — a pattern that is a lampoon on the pattern to which we are ac customed. Mrs. Malaprop breaks the pattern of the or dinary use of words, and as a result her “allegory on the banks of the Nile” still sets the theater in a roar. Lear in his nonsense verses breaks the pattern of intelligible speech, and we love his non sense because he enables us to escape for the moment from the iron rule of sense. People do not laugh when a cock crows, but I have heard the gallery laughing uproariously when a man in the audience imitated a cock crowing — he was breaking the pattern of human beha vior. The amusement many people get from talking and performing animals may be explained in the same way. The parrot that swears is not behaving according to the monotonous rules of bird life. Lord George Sanger amused thousands of people some years ago by introduc ing into his circus an oyster that smoked a pipe. This August 1968 37 would not have been amus ing but for the fact that oysters do not, as a rule, smoke. All the comic writers from Aristophanes to Shakespeare, from Swift to Lewis Carroll, have broken the pattern for us in a comparable way. They have taken us when we were tired of looking at life as though it were a series of demonstrable theories in Euclid, and have torn all those impressive triangles and circles into small pieces, and have dipped them in color and put them into a kaleido scope. Laughter, then, springs largely from the lawless part of our nature. Hilarity is a kind of heresy — a cheerful defiance of all the laws. At the same time a reasonable defense of laughter may be founded on the fact that men who are lawless in this way are not the greatest lawbreakers. Murderers and thieves are, for the most part, serious men who might have remained law-abiding citizens if only they had had a great er capacity for laughing. It would be going too far to claim that all laughers are virtuous men and all non laughers criminals. But it is probably true that the laughing man, if he is vir tuous, will as a result of his laughter be less offensively virtuous, and if he is vicious he will be less offensively vicious. Laughter gives a holiday both to the virtues and to the vices. The worst thing that can be said against laughter is that, by putting us in a good humor, it enables us to tole rate ourselves. The best thing that can be said for it is that for the same reason it enables us to tolerate each other. — By Robert Lynd, condensed from The Atlantic Monthly, March, 1930 KISS When women kiss it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands. — H. L. Mencken 38 Panorama CAN ONE INFLUENCE AN UNBORN CHILD? Every human being has within him two essential mar terials; first, the kind of life stuff called “body cells” which go to make up the various members and organs of the human body; and se cond, the kind of life-stuff called “germ cells,” which have nothing to do with mak ing the body and whose sole function is to pass on the family and racial life streams from one generation to the next. Thus, not even out of his parents’ flesh and blood, but out of their hereditary germ cells the baby comes. Every father ought to un derstand this fact, because it will increase his realization of his importance to his children. No mother can any longer think of herself as overwhelmed by the task of “making” her child; she is the trustee of something far finer than she could pos sibly make single-handed. This means that while the mother can no longer hope to produce a preacher by reading sermons, she need no longer fear that if frightened by a mouse or what not she will deposit a “birthmark” in the shape of a mouse upon the child. By the time the baby sees the light of day he has al ready been influenced by three different prenatal cur rents. He has received from the family germ cell his ra cial characteristics, such as the general body type, the form of face and head, and capacities or aptitudes for certain mental and tempera mental developments. He has, in the second place, been affected by the physical characteristics transmitted by both his parents to these germ cells to which his parents’ bodies are hosts. The germ cells are not August 1968 easily affected by any of the ordinary ups and downs of the parents’ well-being. But long continued abuse of the human body may injure them. The germ cells may be poisoned by alcohol, phosphorus, lead, and certain chemicals, or by the toxins of certain diseases — most serious of all by syphilis. The influence of nutrition upon the germ cells is pro bably greater than has been realized until very lately. It is thus essential that every man, as well as every woman, who hopes to see his family line continue strong and healthy, should do his part to preserve his racial inheri tance conveyed by the germ cells. In both these types of in fluence the parents have an equal share because they act upon the single germ cell it self and not upon the child who has already begun a new life out of the union of two cells, one of which comes from each parent. From that point on what ever good comes to the child is its mother’s gift, for at the moment of conception the influences that can touch the cells while independent have completed their work and all other gates of gifts, save the mother’s, are closed. And yet there is no other phase of human life in re lation to which so many fal lacies have existed and still persist. It fs true that the mother can influence the well-being of her unborn child, but it has taken humanity multitudes of gene rations to find out how and why. There is just one channel through which the mother can reach the child, and that is through her blood. Science has never discovered any nervous connection, for nature has surrounded the child with a protective me chanism which is a perfect and complete as anything in life. The mother’s whole task is one of nurture and nutrition. Her duty is to supply the child with food and to carry off waste pro ducts. Both of these come and go through the blood. Through this channel, too, in spite of its protective me chanism, the unborn child may actually be poisoned by certain chemicals, including alcohol, lead and others, and by the toxins of certain diseases. 40 Panorama But the cases in which such poisoning occurs are proportionately exceedingly few; the great source of ma ternal influence is through nutrition. Most mothers have been told by physicians that they must eat plenty of vegetables and milk, and that they must guard their diet. But not all of them know that, since there is no nervous connection what ever, it is practically their only way of meeting their responsibilities. For there is nothing but the two blood streams and even these do not actually meet, as they are carried along in systems of tubes. The mother’s job begins and ends with safeguarding her own and the child’s nutrition. And yet credulence in so-called “ma ternal impressions” is so much a part of folk-belief that it is hard to cast it en tirely aside. A graduate student in a great university reported that she had known a case in which a mother, frightened by a circus ele phant, gave birth shortly af ter to a child with a long trunk-like nose; and another, in which a little girl was born with her right hand gone at the wrist five months after her mother’s brother had lost his right hand at that point. These are typical of the sort of “true stories” we still hear. But science proves such things cannot be done. Peculiarities of structure oc cur so early in prenatal life that the mother could not influence them, for she doesn’t know anything about what is happening. And, since there is no nervous connection there is no con ceivable way for such im pressions to reach the child anyway. The greatest spe cialists of today agree with the observation made more than a half century ago by Darwin’s father, who was an exceptionally observant and shrewd physician. He was in the habit of asking the women in. his hospital to re cord before the baby’s birth any experience of their own which might influence the child. As a result of hun dreds of these records he re ported, “Absolutely not one case (of maternal impres sions) came right.” “But,” someone says, “how would you explain the case of the mother who studied coun terpoint while her baby was August 1968 41 on the way and whose son grew up to be a talented musician; or of the mother who took up Italian, and whose child early developed an astonishing skill at lang uages?” Science would explain these and similar cases not by mysterious “psychic” ma ternal impressions, but by two very well known in fluences — heredity and en vironment. The son of a woman who studied the technique of music not only received an hereditary mu sical endowment from the same ancestral source from which his mother received hers, but grew up in as atmosphere of musical culture, his every aptitude encouraged and trained. And, so jvith the linguistic prodigy. But though the mother has no more chance of tele pathy with her child than have "his uncles and his cousins and his aunts,” it is not true to say that her emotions cannot affect her child in any way. Any grief or worry or fright sufficient to affect her own health will react on her child, just as any other detrimental in fluence will react upon it, through her blood. To sum up them: In the mother’s care lies the pre servation of something greater than herself. Hers is the last and greatest of the three sources of the gifts,of life — from the racial inheritance, from the influence of both parents upon the germ cells, and finally from the moth er’s care, which should be as sane, and thoughtful, and happy before the child is born as after. — Dr. Thomas D. Wood and Zilpha Car ruthers, condensed from the Parents' Magazine, Septem ber, 1930. 42 Panorama DO ANIMALS THINK? It used to be believed by scientists that animals were guided in their actions en tirely by instinct, by natural impulses supposed to arise from long-ingrained habits in the race. The hive bee makes its cell without any instruction, and the cuckoo of her own accord lays her eggs in the nests of other birds. However, in more re cent times, naturalists have come to feel that some sort of reasoning process does go on in the brains not only of the higher animals, such as dogs and monkeys, but of lower creatures, such as the snake and even the fish. All appear to be capable of hav ing “ideas.” In his work on The Des cent of Man Darwin quotes this story: “A pike which was separated by a plate of glass from an adjoining aquarium, stocked with fish, often dashed himself with such violence against the glass in trying to catch the other fishes, that he was sometimes completely stunned. The pike went on thus for three months, but at last learned caution and ceased to do so. The plate of glass was then removed, but the pike would not at tack these particular fishes, though he would devour others that weje afterwards introduced; so strongly was the idea of a violent shock associated in his feeble mind with the attempt on his for mer neighbors.” Darwin also makes men tion of a snake which was observed to thrust its head through a hole in a fence and swallow alive a frog on the other side. On account of the swelling made by the body of the frog in its neck, the serpent was unable to withdraw through the hole, and had to “cough up” its prey. A second time the frog was swallowed, with the same result, and a second time it had to be disgorged. August 1968 43 On the third occasion, how ever, the snake seized the frog by the leg and pulled it through the hole, after which it was able to swal low it in comfort. If this is not an act of reason it is certainly difficult to ex plain it in any other way. Rengger, a German natu ralist, states that when he first gave eggs to his mon keys in Paraguay they smashed them and thus lost much of the contents; but afterwards they gently hit one end against some hard body, and picked off the bits of shell with their fingers. Sometimes lumps of sugar were given to them wrapped up in paper, and occasional ly Rengger would put a live wasp in the paper, so that in opening it a monkey would get stung. But any monkey that suffered in this way would never afterwards open the bag without first holding it to its ears to dis cover if there was any move ment within. Sir -Andrew Smith, a noted zoologist, himself witnessed the fol lowing incident in South Africa. An army officer had frequently teased a certain baboon. The animal, seeing him approach one Sunday dressed up for parade, quick ly poured some water into a hole and made some thick mud, which it dashed over passed by. For a long time afterwards whenever this baboon saw this officer it made signs of rejoicing. Female monkeys have been observed carefully keep ing the flies over their in fants, and both male and female monkeys do not hesi tate to adopt and care for orphan monkeys left unpro tected. One female baboon observed by Brehm had adopted a kitten which one day scratched her. This as tonished her very much. She proceeded to examine the paws she had always found so soft, and presently disco vered the claws, which she proceeded to bite off, evi dently considering them dangerous. According to Darwin, dogs, cats, horses, and pro bably all higher animals, and even birds, have vivid dreams, which is shown by their movements and the sounds they utter, and he is of the opinion that from this we must admit that they have some power of imagina tion. 44 Panorama Colonel Hutchinson, in his work Dog Breaking, tells about two wild ducks that were “winged” and fell on the farther side of a stream. A retriever tried to bring both of them at once, but could not do it. Although never before known to ruf fle a feather of a wounded bird, she then deliberately killed one, brought over the live one, and returned for the dead bird. Elephants, of course, are famous for their sagacity, and when they are em ployed as decoys for the capture of wild mem bers of the species it is apparent that they know well enough what they are doing when they deceive their un tamed brethren. Indian ele phants are also well known to break, branches off the trees and use them for driv ing away flies./ Animals, too, have their ideas about property, as those know who have watched a dog with a bone or birds with their nests. This is also a common characteris tic with monkeys, and Dar win tells of one in the Lon don Zoo which had weak teeth and was in the habit of breaking open nuts with a stone. After using the stone it always hid it in the straw, and would not let any othei monkey touch it. Baboons have been observed to pro tect themselves from the heat of the sun by putting straw mats over their heads Language is supposed by many people to be one of the chief distinctions between man and the lower animals, but many animals are cap able of expressing their de sires and emotions by dif ferent sounds, and possibly enough these constitute the rudiments of language. Dogs bark in different ways to express different things, and monkeys make many differ ent sounds which rouse in other monkeys the emotions they are intended to portray. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, believed that dogs could be taught to speak, and claimed that a Skye terrier he had was able to say and under stand a few words; and Dar win has stated that, as re gards articulate sounds, dogs understand marly words and short sentences, although they cannot utter a single word, and that in this res pect they are at the, same August 1968 45 age o£ development as in fants between the ages of ten and twelve months. Mr. Charles Cottar, writing in Forest and Stream, tells of keeping some Colobus monkeys in captivity, and of becoming convinced of their ability not only to reason but to talk with one another. They were kept in a struc ture made of poultry wire, and one of them, a half grown female, learned to break the wire by continual ly twisting it with her hands. She made an opening large enough to creep through, but finding no forest at hand, stayed among the bushes and crept back into the enclosure at night. Fi nally she refused to come back, and a snare was set for her, consisting of a bent pole, a string, and a springing device as used by the natives for the purpose. It was bait ed with a piece of green corn. It worked twice — and that was all. For, after being twice caught by the hand, the monkey would reach below the rope, turn the loop carefully asi'de, seize the corn, and running to the top of the cage would display as much knowing mischief as a spoiled child. When several other members of the same tribe were brought from the woods, some six months later, and put it in the same cage, the monkey that had learned to break the wire immediately taught the trick to the new comers. It appears to be the case that animals, especially in their higher forms, are en dowed with very similar in stincts, emotions, intuitions, and senses *to those of man, and intelligence and reason ing power seem to result from the combination and interplay of these with one another. The more the ani mal advances the more com plex these become. And, indeed, man’s own under standing is supposed to trace its origin to some such hum ble beginnings. — By F. B. M. Clark, condensed from Chambers’s Journal (London) (August, ’30) 46 Panorama THE PHILIPPINES' FIRST NEWSPAPER AUGUST 8 is a forgotten date. Few of us know that on this date in 1811, the first Philippine newspaper, Del Superior Govierno, (Of the High Government) came out in Manila, marking the birth of journalism in this country. Many historians considered this event highly significant since the 19th century was regarded as the most deca dent period of the Spanish regime in the Philippines. Although an accurate ac count of how the newspaper got ■ started is unknown, a major event in Europe which had a relative proximity to the Spaniards in the Islands, as well as the Filipinos, seemed to have motivated the eventual publication of the paper. This major event was the invasion of Spain by the French army of Napoleon in 1809. The Spaniards in the Mother Country fought for their homes and their inde pendence. Hence the event had a close consequence to the colony. To satisfy the Spaniards’ and Filipinos’ solicitude and quench their thirst for news about the invasion, the colo nial government put out Del Superior Govierno with Gov ernor-General Manuel Fer nandez de Folgueras as edi tor. “The High Government is desirous,” the editor wrote on its front page, “that all the inhabitants of the Phil ippines, who have been loyal and patriotic, should also hear the good news in the English gazettes that were received from Bengal. For this reason, the High Gov ernment has procured them in order to extend to all who made possible their victory over the French Army. Be cause of this victory both Andalucia and the Island of De Leon have been reco vered.” August 1968 47 The maiden issue con tained 15 printed pages with a blank last page, and mea sured 138 by 232 millimeters in size. After the first three num bers, the editor announced that the newspaper would appear once a week; but the schedule was never followed. Only when European news was available did it come out. Besides the irregular date of its publication, the pre mier newspaper had no de finite number of pages. Each issue contained seven 15 pages with the last page always blank. The embryo of Philippine newspapers lasted only six months with 15 issues pub lished. On Feb. 7, 1812, the last number came out with the potice: “If new and in teresting materials are re ceived, this newspaper will be continued weekly. In the meantime it will be suspend ed until some correspondence is received.” The “meantime” suspen sion proved to be forever, for the paper never appeared again. But its end did not mean the demise of Philip pine journalism. In less than a decade, five other newspapers came out. They were La Filantropica, El Filipino Agraviado, Noticioso Filipino, Ramillete Patriotico and Ramillete Pa triotic© Mpnilense. Years, later, still more newspapers came into being but disap peared like ghosts. Today, the difference bet ween Del Superior Govierno and a modern metropolitan daily is big. In the status quo of contemporary society, the principles and tech niques of news gathering and presentation, and in physical appearance, the differences are conspicuous. But like blooming flowers, modern newspapers started from a sprouting seed. — By Alexander R. Rebusora in The Weekly Nation, Aug. 7, 1968. 48 Panora ma Panorama Reading Association PANORAMA invites the educated public to join its Association of Readers. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION is dedicated to men and women who appreciate the variety and quality of its articles as sources of liberal ideas. PANORAMA READING ASSOCIATION includes stu dents, businessmen, professionals, proprietors, employers, and employees. It is also open to clubs, schools, and other ac credited organizations. PANORAMA has been in existence for over Thirty Years. PANORAMA provides excellent material for classes in history, government, economics, political and social studies, lite rature, and science. It may be adopted for secondary and college use. PANORAMA is not a fly-by-night publication. It was bom in March, 1936. COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. Inverness, (M. Carreon) St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Contents Training the Mind ...................................................................... 1 Barnacles on Our Ship of State ........................................... 2 Force and Corruption in Politics ........................................... 8 A Chinese Scholar Views Business ...................................... 14 Empty Hours ................................................................................... IB Savage Rage of Students 21 What is SEATO? 26 Gentlemen, on Guard ................................................................. 31 Objections to Laughter 35 Can One Influence and Unborn Child? ............ 39 Do Animals Think? ...................................................................... 43 The Philippines' First Newspaper ........................................ 47 THE COVER — Politics has a way of nibbling away the people's confidence in their government.