The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 25, 1969 Page: 3 of 8
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to all concerned
It is an amazing accomplish-
ment that in at least 6000 years
of rather advanced civilization,
humanity has yet to discover
thf miracle to cure to age-old
international frictions and in-
ternal social ills. The list of
great minds who have applied
their intellects to the theories
and practicalities of Utopias is
a Who's Who of notables in
every field of science, art, and
letters. Yet practical politics
has an insatiable appetite for
the abstract irregardless of the
pedigree of the author.
The social history of man
reads like a plague. Each Mar-
cus Aurelius begets a Com-
modus, each Rousseau a Napol-
ean. Quite recently the world
toi'tuously survived the bar-
baric mania of an ancient civ-
ilized people only to witness the
rise of yet another totalitarian
suppressor of the creativity of
the artist and the originality of
the scientist.
Men with common goals and
similar heritages can reach the
moon, but the sum total of col-
lective humanity cannot live with
out reviling his fellow man and
International understanding
succumbing to isms and other
mental pitfalls. The fact is that
there will never be world peace
unless a true world society is
somehow established. Only with
the diverse heritages tied to-
gether in a common belief in
man instead of clan can this
universe ever be rid of organic
manias.
There is hope for this planet,
and it approaches closer to re-
ality with each succeeding day
as more children are educated.
As Robert McNamara says in
his book, The Essence of Secu-
rity,
"All the evidence of history
suggests that man is indeed a
rational animal but with a near-
ly infinite capacity for folly.
His history seems largely a
halting but persistent effort to
raise his reason above his ani-
mality. He draws blueprints for
Utopia but never quite gets it
built. In the end he plugs away
obstinately with the only build-
ing material really ever at
hand: his own part-comic, part-
tragic, part-cussed, part-glori-
ous nature. I, for one, would
not count a global free society
out. Coercion, after all, merely
captures man, Freedom capti-
vates him." The solution then
would seem to be education,
freedom, and democracy for all.
It certainly sounds deceptively
simple. The trouble is that these
illustrious terms, "education,"
"personal freedom," and "de-
mocracy," mean different things
to different people and nothing
to others.
The philosophy is nice, but
what does it mean in real
terms ? Where does the United
States stand in relation to
world politics and the goal of
a free society?
Given the international en-
vironment we inhabit, our na-
tion has done a good job fur-
thering the cause of understand-
ing. It need not be recounted
in detail how we reduced our
armaments and refrained from
practicing nuclear blackmail af-
ter WWII only to have our
naive idealism shattered by the
blatant aggression in Korea.
And then, how about our super-
vision of the resurrections of
Japan and West Germany into
healthv democratic states. There
are many other positive success
stories such as the Marshall
Plan, the Peace Corps, and the
United Nations. This country
has taken definite, constructive
actions in its relations with oth-
er nations. Instead of conquer-
ing, we healed.
We get up tight about com-
munists basically because most
of us happen to like democracy
—the way we define it. The
other side is trying to solve the
world's problems by bringing
everyone under the thumb of to-
talitarian regimentation. The
only sane course of action for a
rational person dedicated to the
principles of the Western De-
mocracies is to opppose totali-
tarian aggrandizement when-
ever and however it attains such
proportions as to threaten in-
ternational security; i.e. the
policy of containment.
The West has time on its
side. If we hold the line long
enough, in a prudent manner,
there seems little doubt that the
temptations of Western society
will eventually become too much
to resist. In fact, the great re-
vision is already under way in
the U.S.S.R.; it is very inter-
esting watching commissars and
generals squirm because the
idea of freedom is coming into
its own. They had better be
prepared for several more Czec-
hoslovaks in the coming years.
The North Koreans, the North
Vietnamise, and the Chinese
have yet to learn what the
Russians have come to accept
—peaceful coexistence. Their
subversion must be met if they
are to learn that communism is
not to be allowed its interna-
tional desires.
Fortunately, an ism has a
fatal flaw. Unless it matures
into something that it really is
not supposed to be or is able to
focus its peoples' attention on
war, play upon their fear of
foreigners, and control com-
munication, it is doomed be-
cause of the idea of freedom.
Yet sit back and allow an ism
a few successes and soon even
the leaders of the ism will start
believing- their own propaganda
and then there will be BIG
trouble.
EDWARD R. DYKES
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Murray, Jack. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 25, 1969, newspaper, September 25, 1969; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245061/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.