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Opinions expressed in Salient are not necessarily those of VUWSA.
The last issue of Salient was a day late. Publication was postponed to allow a special executive meeting to consider the possible deletion of part of an article included in the issue.
The article, which was subsequently published untouched, referred to a proposal from a private firm to assume control of Focus, the N.Z.U.S.A. magazine.
Mr
That Mr Curry did, is an indictment of some of the advice which was offered to him. That the major proponent of the advice to censor Salient was the publications officer demonstrates the latter's inability to view executive press relationships in their full perspective. The publications officer has traditionally been the one voice that publications such as Salient can rely upon to present an enthusiastic defence of their efforts. The reluctance Mr Thomson has shown to undertake this responsibility, has not gone un noticed.
But back to Tuesday night. The editor of Salient stopped publication and an executive meeting was set for the following day.
At this meeting a bare quorum of eight executive members decided to make no recommendation to Salient and the issue was printed forthwith.
While one can understand but not necessarily agree with the attitude of the principals of Industrial Communicators in their bid to censor Salient, the actions of the editor of Focus, Mr
Any attempt to censor Salient on grounds that are not valid in a court of law should be stopped with the decisiveness demonstrated at the executive meeting at the S.R.C. meeting on the Friday.
The chances of this incident being relegated to obscurity have been hampered by Mr Rennie's apparent facility to perpetuate student quarrels. The only thing worse than a politician who takes himself seriously is a student politician labouring under the same handicap. Mr Rennie made an admittedly heavy handed satirical article on Focus into a potential law suit involving an exchange of correspondence over a three-week period from three different lawyers, on many varied grounds, and before making any sort of personal approach. So much for student solidarity.
But the question of Focus remains. What will happen to it? The last few weeks have demonstrated that if the student body wishes to have any say at all in the development of their magazine, they had better be quick, lest a handful of senior students shape it to fit their own destiny.
An editorial scholarship from Rothmans is made available annually.
Editor: Roger Wilde.
Layout and design:
Assistants:
Contributors:
Reviews:
Typist:
Photographers:
Secretary:
Business Manager:
Advertising:
In Salient 14 Roger Lawrence attempted to raise two issues in relation to payment of students for services rendered to the Association. Conveniently these were expressed as the "narrow issue" (i.e. payment to me as Editor of Cappicade 69) and the broader issue" of payment of students generally.
I do not deny for one moment that Mr Lawrence is entitled to state these views but in proceeding to the broader issue via the narrow one he has built his house on the proverbial sand. At the outset he is reasonableness itself granting both the quality of Cappicade and the fact that it made a lot of money $4400 if anyone is interested). He then indulges in generalisations which ruin any semblance of argument. For an encore he resorts to speculation and total inaccuracy of observation. I will illustrate.
"Editing a 'Cappicade' is Fun"—From this one might almost imagine students queueing up for the job. If Mr Lawrence bases this observation on his own attempts in this capacity than I feel bound to note that if Cappicade '67 was fun to edit it was purgatory to read.
"There is precious little work to be done in the way of layout." I fail to see the basis of this remark considering that "Salient" pays $500 to its technical editor for this minor chore. In my case the job was made doubly onerous by the fact that the Printers' Union cut up rought about my attempting it all. What finally happened was that I had to lay out the magazine (64 pages) at home and then stand over so-Called compositors to explain what was wanted as they blithely ripped the layouts to bits in a pathetic attempt at perpetuating a dying craft. Even so I did not resort to full-page spreads of "
Now we come to the core of the matter wherein the Publications Board meeting which approved the fee was berated for its omissions. How a writer can in one breath admit that he was not present during the relevant part of the meeting then attempt to justify his argument with a potted version of what might not have gone on is beyond me. For in fact comparisons between 'Salient' editors and 'Cappicade' editors were made and the compulation of the $100 figure was given by myself and was supported by a comparison with last year's payment and that if the payment to this year's "Masskerade" editor. The size of the profit was also considered an extremely relevant factor by the meeting.
It seems strange also that Mr Lawrence reserves his wrath for the editor alone. He omits to mention that the Distribution Manager was paid $70 for what amounts to considerably less leg and paperwork. The fact that I had spent many weary hours trying to establish a budget prior to publication (which itself came a record week in advance of itself) is also not mentioned largely because Mr Lawrence never look the trouble to find out. A business manager was found only at the last minute by which time I was spending 12 hours a day working on the magazine itself or actively promoting it. (Barrie Watts' review was surely responsible for an increase in Wellington sales).
Finally, his reductio ad adsurdum—"How about appearance fees for speaking at Forum?"—serves as a fitting swan-song. He has already admitted the principle of payment of student editors therefore by this stage the question can only be how much? not should there be any at all?" In answering the first question Mr Lawrence's opinion can only be recorded as dissent against the unanimous resolution of a well-attended Publications Board meeting which considered all the facts not just the ones it might have cared to consider in a vacuum.
As to the broader issue it is my view that if a task is its own reward then there will be no shortage of applicants on a voluntary basis. If there is what amounts to a business venture then the Association will have to speculate if it wants to accumulate.
All Letters Submitted For Publication Must Be Signed With The Writer's Own Name. No Pseudonyms Will Be Accepted Save In Exceptional Circumstances.
When will Salient again become a publication mildly representative of student opinion"
First, the double spread, very pretty, but the beauty of the poor cover is impossible to read.
Second, the tendency to focus on one issue, arbitarily deemed of vital concern to the majority of students, for approximately 80% of an Salient "V.U.W. Student' News paper".
Please Mr. Editor, give us some edifying tales, reviews, safe sanitized homogenized and pastuerized verse, faculty and club news, and juicy gossip. Because I hate polltics, especially student politics, petty politics and pseudo-politics (and so do at least ten other people I know).
I am sick of O. G. and pals, drawing their net (how tiring) for more weary sympathies for the repressed-Student-leftist and friend-of-the-worker—as if they give a tinker's cuss whether "workers" and students see eye to eye, ear to ear, hand to mouth, pay rise to pay rise, brand political perspective to broad political perspective, etc.. etc., etc.
A little light humour and wit would work wonders for Salient. If, however, it continues to print the present unmentionable, then Salient dies, suffocated by the unbearable stench of the excrement.
Salient dies not from the heart but from the nose!
Louise Follick.
As a non-student reader of Salient I appreciate the Quality of current literary, art and film reviews, and the penetrating appraisals of out-of-the-way cultural affairs, which are ignored by the dalies.
In a fit of temper last year, I dubbed the two local papers — "Blundell's Bugle" and "Riddiford's Rag"; my tamper has gone, but the melody lingers on, and I hope This oral lampoon nicks fast, and gains currency.
They deserve plenty of caustic criticism; their impudence and boorish standards are a scandal. Crammed with folios of foundation garment and furniture ads, and leavened by piteos pap which passes for criticism and feature writing, numberless opportunities for informative journalism pass them by, unheeded. They give an abysmal service to readers in a capital city who want something more than weather reports, London-centred cable news, sport and classified advertisements.
As a student I wrote for Salient, and — a few reservations aside—its quality now seems better than ever. Many people outside the university have expressed pleasur at the standard of some reviews and cultural futures, and it would be a shame if its distribution became haphazard with copies being wasted.
About 10-30 people I know— who live in the provinces—would be delighted to be on your mailing list, given opportunity. Your advertising manager should pursue such circulation, as it is meaningful to his clients.
True, students pay for the printing; but surplus copies should never be burnt or otherwise wested, as off-campus readership is clearly bneficial to the university. A continuing liaison is better than an annual "Open Day".
I also suggest that two or three honesty-box street stands be constructed, brightly painted and labelled for use in the city. Boxes in the station area, Lambton Quay and Courtenay Place (with a one or two-cent price tag) would be a sound overture towards better public understanding of university affairs.
Providing the student body agreed—the revenue from street tales could be paid into a fund for the establishment of a literary or journalistic scholarship — or similar awards.
Brian Bell.
Like more than few other people I am getting rather tired of one of the contributors to your paper. Mr.
His attitude towards the Socialist Club is typical of his general political attitude. Initially he tried to prevent the affiliation of the club to the Students' Association and to obstruct its activities. When this fulled he alternatively feigned lack of interest and toyed with sectarian to deface a large poster that the club had on display But in spite of his opposition the club continued to develop its activities and organisation, and although these are still rather small scale if was enough to throw the ineptitude of Mr. Gager's own miniscule Spartacist Club into sharp relief.
But at bottom this was only belated recognition of the fact that students gravitaing owards socialism and Marxism were no longer gravitating toward him. He entered the Socialist Club simply in order to rescue his former position. He has simply taken up what he hopes will prove to be a more strategic stance from which to assail those who initiated and organised the Socialist Club, with the same old unsubstantiated smears—"the fake left", "pseudo-Trotskyists". "Pabloite revisionists", "stained with Stalinism", "vulgar Marxists", and many others. His latest article (Salient 14) carries the implication that the Socialist Club is some kind of hippie outfit, and in the Salient before that he linked it with Hitlerite activity.
But that is nothing out of the ordinary for this sectarian windbag. The need to bring forward evidence to substantiate one's claims, the need for clarity of exposition and for consistency of thought—none of these rate high on his scale of values. What does rate highly on this scale is his own "cleverness". But here also—and fared badly. All he has got to show from his "revolutionary" efforts to date is a defunct fan club.
M. H. Fyson
Hats off to the students of Victoria.
The article in "Forign Affairs" by
They helped prevent the militarisation and commitment on any large scale, of New Zealand youth in this war of American aggresion.
They played a significant role in forcing the chiefs of the U.S. military/industrial complete to take the first (as yet minor) steps to pull out of Vietnam and end the frightful carnage there.
In so doing, they aided the cause of freedom and national liberation in S.E. Asia.
They will not regret it. Self-government, higher living standards, better health and education in these Asian lands, even though requiring revolutions for their achievement, do not threaten New Zealand, but on the contrary provide us with expanded opportunities for trade and cultural exchange.
That the students did this in the face of the sinister growth of Brigadier Gilbert's secret police, and the possibilities of victimisation and discrimination in their future careers, speaks volumes for the moral courage, as well as the moral judgement of today's generation of youth.
Ron Smith.
"Salient" faileth not in supporting
"Inside Illingworth"—"Homosexualproposals" "Up the Wall"— "The politics of frustration" "Committee Briefs" and eek! "The End". For absolute baseness one can go no lower in muck than "The business" of a demonstration. My God is nothing sacred in you students?
Andy McEwan.
With typically childish glee, "Outside Left" has "discovered" that there is no difference between a ceremonial burning of The Reporter and Nazi book burnings. I would like to ask "Outside Left" two questions:
(a) Can he not distinguish between the token burning of a few copies of a magazine, and the Nazi's wholesale burning of all copies of the books they wanted no-one to read?
(b) Does he make the same objections to the burning of their draft cards by youths in the United States today?
"Outside Left's" principal raison d'etre seems to be to titillate his sycophants at the expense of those of us who are genuine socialists. Actually his malicious cockle, rather than annoying us, simply makes us yawn.
G. F. Fyson.
I Beg to inform you that I would like to correspond with a young girl (17 to 20 years old) of your university.
I am French and I will follow studies to Laval University in Canada, next July. I speak French, of course, English and Spanish and will study diplomatic administration.
I like intellectual activities, music of today, sports, friendship, reading and travelling.
New Zealand is a wonderful country and I hope to visit it and stay if I have facilities after my studies in Canada.
I shall prefer a young student who knows German or French, but if they cannot, it does, not matter.
I hope and think that relations are fructuous between foreign students.
22, Boulevard Vaubau,
Noumea,
New Caledonia.
I Am brassed off and to are quite a few other freshers I know. Why aren't there any dances this year so that students can meet others easily. Surely the Students Association could use some of our $13 for a few dances on Friday or Saturday nights.
S. J. Thomson.
I Wish to correct several typographical errors in my article "Once History. Now Mythology" in the June 25 issue.
The phrase in the final paragraph "everybody might as well do their own thing about their own incomes" should not be included in the sentence in which you printed it, but in the succeeding sentence, where it should end the sentence prefaced by the word "otherwise".
The phrase "genuine student work unity" should read "genuine student worker unity".
In the phrase "this is not to say that growth should not be exported" the word "exported" should read "export-led".
There were other typographical errors in my article, but I would appreciate the three listed above being corrected, since they materially affect the meaning of the article.
Bank of New Zealand
Build Your feature banking association with the BNZ ... for both Chque and Savings Accounts.
Bank of New Zealand
Executive can only censor Salient on legal grounds.
The President of the Students' Association can delay the publication of Salient for 24 hours, giving Executive time to discuss the matter.
This will be the effect of a motion from Owen Gager, seconded Gerard Curry at the SRC meeting.
The necessity for a clear position was demonstrated recently when a decision was made to excise passages from Salient on non-legal grounds said Mr. Gager.
Mr. Curry said it was merely formalising the existing arrangement but there was a need for a clear arrangement.
Motions proposing a licensed restaurant or a chartered club to be included in the Student Union Building were lost by an overwhelming margin at the first SRC meeting recently.
Speakers felt that a large percentage of full-time students would be unable to use the facilities because they were not 18 years of age.
"If the drinking age comes down we will be in a better position to consider changes", said
"In the meantime we must serve the greatest demand."
The space will be used as an extension to the present cafeteria.
The appointment of student representative on Council met with considerable debate.
Only two applications have been received.
Speakers felt that further applications should be called because the two-year period of representation was too long to regret a party choice.
Many of the audience began to drift away as the discussion became inconclusive and tedious.
Almost twenty minutes was spent deciding the form the motion calling for nominations should be in.
"Judging by the way applications have been handled by the Executive so far, this matter would have received similar treatment", said
I am sure more names would be forthcoming if students learnt the SRC would be making the nomination."
A motion was passed inviting further nominations for the position and advising that they would be judged by an SRC meeting.
Two remits for Winter Council were approved.
Motions urging reform in the law relating to homosexual offences were passed including one that NZUSA become a corporate member of the NZ Homosexual Law Reform Society.
A motion was passed that "in view of the current serious shortage of general practitioners NZUSA urge the Government to take action.
"In order to ease the short-term situation, the Government do implement a revised assisted immigration scheme to attract doctors from overseas developed countries, such scheme to be on similar lines to that operated for professional workers immigrating to Australia.
"In order to solve the problem long-term, the Government do either considerably extend the training facilities, or do set up a third medical school in the Wellington area, and in either case do continue to keep a close watch on the doctor staffing situation in New Zealand in order to continue expansion as required."
All literary contributions to student magazines are to remain the properly of the writer according to a motion moved by
"When one is a successful poet and looks back and sees a yarn published in Salient or Argot, one should be allowed to pluck it from there and include it in a collected works or something."
What could be more democratic than the Statutes Revision Committee taking submissions on the Security Intelligence Bill?
Suddenly we become all responsible and submissive. Anybody can make submissions—and Everybody is there—putting their submissions, cheered silently by their fellow-travellers on the sidelines.
Answering the hostile questions cleverly ("can you name any foreign country which docs not have a security service?" "We are talking about a Bill for New Zealand now"), and the fixed questions succinctly ("Would you like the word 'subversion' removed from the Bill?" "Yes").
Chairman
Then sums up the situation in a few mis-chosen words, recites his line—"We will give your submissions careful consideration"—and calls the next witnesses.
"Miss
And we laugh with our readers.
It's even more democratic to see Sir Leslie come in and lake his place. The way his bum flops down on both sides of the wide Parliamentary chairs is delightful. And as Nordy goes out for a pee we feel parliamentarians are quite human too.
Then of course there is the Press Gallery. The ears of the Public. Hearings open to the press. But keep the rabble out.
Let their very own representatives, sitting there so quiet and knowledgeable and responsible tell them what happens They'll tell them all they need to know. And anyway, what responsible person believes the Dominion is run by the Security Service?
And when the Bill is passed next month, unchanged? Well, it wasn't for want of trying.
The following poem is in reply to the poetry published in Salient 15.
"Frankly the poem reeks", writes
"But so does the subject.
"Unlike some, I consider treating diabolic subjects in angelic terms makes for high satire.
"Why brush a corpse with violets when you can kick it in the head?" the letter said.
If you favour increased overseas aid, this is the way to say so to the Government. Proceeds to the University of the South Pacific. Collection booths—Student Union, Hunter, this week.
The Socialist Club would like to protest at the use of its name in the heading to an article on the ceremonial burning of "The Reporter"– The burning, although initialed and organised by indivduals, who are members of the Socialist Club, was not an official club activity, and it is a mystery To us who you should think that It was. Make sure next time, please !
Owen Hughes,
Treasurer,
Socialist Club.
The next meeting of Te Rangitahi , a club which discusses social and political issues, will be held on Sunday at 8.15 p.m. at 75 Kelburn Parade.
"Te Rangitahi" which means '"the new net" was formed originally to promote peace, disarmament and Human Rights.
lts activities are mainly confined to discussion groups though the club participated in the demonstration at the South African Embassy and presented submissions to the Statutes Revision Committee on the Security Intelligence Bill.
Students are too well treated by both the police and the Courts, claims the New Zealand Police Association, the "trade union" of the New Zealand Police.
"There is a general feeling that the Courts are too kind to students". Mr
He was repealing the theme of an editorial in a recent issue of the association's news-letter, entitled "Liberty or Licence?", which said that "recent student excesses, particularly during Capping week celebrations are rapidly changing the climate of public opinion against them, even in this so-called "permissive society" we seem to have obtained.
"The Court", said the editorial. "have generally been over-tolerant towards student's. The inconsistency can be amply demonstrated throughout the country.
"Recently one Magistrate in discharging a law student thief without conviction, refused suppression of his name, saving that the Law Society should know what they are getting.
"This suggests that the profession should still find him acceptable because he has no conviction, but apart from that, would a labourer have got this preferential treatment? Other examples are endless.
"On the other hand, and more encouraging, another magistrate was reported as saying that 'students who got themselves into trouble when they should have the sense to know better could hardly expect the Court to treat them differently from other members of the community?
"Our standards may be changing, but an offence is an offence no matter who commits it. Surely things have got to a sorry stage when one of the students involved in the latter case can quite seriously claim, after having unlawfully converted a vehicle, that he thought that the police would not treat it as a criminal matter.
"Serious students who are not playing around with their opportunities do not have the time to blow up Waitangi flagpoles, convert vehicles, dabble in drugs, or publish obscenities, With the spotlight on the cost of our educational system, isn't the taxpayer entitled to ask that where students on public bursaries are involved in criminal activities their bursaries be cancelled?"
The editorial also refers to what it calls "public drinking orgies (mostly by under-age students)" and the apparently associated evils of damage to property and the slate of capping processions.
"Why", asks the editorial, "should floats for example be vetted for obscenities by the police?'", and it goes on to claim that this is a "service" which it compares with warning a thief about to commit a burglary!
Mr Lee, who is himself a graduate part-time student studying for an L.I.M. at Victoria, said that he felt the attitude of many students was completely wrong, When they plead to a magistrate the damage that a conviction would do their careers, they have a totally wrong approach.
"A student can't afford to jeopardise his career". Mr Lee said. "If he holds it dearly, he must learn that the professions demand standards, and lack of a criminal past is usually one."
If students were really concerned about their futures, he said, they would not be before the courts in the first place.
The editorial suggested that lecturers may play a part in bringing students into conflict with the police. It said:
"Undoubtedly a minority or more aptly the "lunatic fringe' (sometimes actively supported by their mentors) is responsible for most incidents, and as with most identifiable groups, the inevitable result is that the majority have to endure indiscriminate blame."
Commenting on this statement Mr Lee told NZSPA that the individual policeman's attitude was very important.
"The approach in one student should not be on the basis that they are all trouble-makers", he said.
NZUSA president Mr
He suggested that by over-emphasising this matter, the wider issues of criminology might be being ignored. He believed that students formed only a very small proportion of those coming into contact with the police.
Referring to last year's opening of parliament disturbances. Mr Rosier said that all the rioters were lumped together, "and the papers called them students."
Mr Rosier said that he was sure many of those concerned were not students, and it was unjust that blame for their activities should fall on a particular section of the community through careless reporting.
He said he had noticed that the news media tended to refer to many different classes of persons as "students", and said that NZUSA would be considering the suggestion which had been made they should make representations to the appropriate authorities on this matter.
(The Labourers' Union is understood to have protested earlier at the indiscriminate labelling of arrested persons as "labourers" on police charge sheets, and as a result, those who are not members of the union are now classified as "workmen".)
The Police Association statements coincide with what one Wellington lawyer called "a general hardening of attitudes towards student offenders".
This was exemplified by the latest issue of Truth, which criticised the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Mr Hanan, as well as the Secretary for Justice. Dr Robson, for what it considered to be over-lenient attitudes.
Though the newsletter referred to the police as having "been well served for many years" by various ministers of justice, it was elsewhere noted that the courts depend upon Parliament for indications as to maximum penalties for various crimes.
But in the main it was the courts which suffered the association's strictures.
"In the final analysis the courts will rule on the matter and herein lies the dilemma for the police," the editorial said.
The New Zealand Police Association is considering the possibility of legal action against the Otago University Students' Association (OUSA).
The complaint is believed to arise from an article in the OUSA capping magazine purporting to advise students on their dealings with members of the police force.
OUSA has already apologised to the Dunedin superintendent of police, and this apology received publicity in the press, radio and on T.V.
But the Dunedin police association has asked for the matter to be taken further.
In a reply to the Police Association. Otago University Vice Chancellor Dr
The Medical Aid Committee Tor Vietnam, which has just been formed in the University is frying to divert the proceeds of 1% AID to their funds.
"The money should go where it will serve some useful purpose," a spokesman said.
The Committee sends medical supplies to the Red Cross of the "liberated ureas "of Vietnam. "Four-fifths of the people of South Vietnam live in NLF controlled ureas," the statement said.
"An American Congressman, Clement Zabocki of Wisconsin has reported that in some search-and-destroy missions there ore six civilian casualties for one Viet Cong," they said.
"More than 600,000 South Vietnam civilians have been killed since 1961.
"If the aid is sent to there areas it goes directly to those people who need it most, an effective aid to the building of a better life for the people of South Vietnam," the statement said.
Mensa
is an
International Organisation
The sole requirement for membership is that one's score in a standard intelligence test be that of the top 2% of the general population. Please write to:
Mens A
38 Abbot St., Ngaio
Ring Mr. Craigie
27/89-866
Victuallers
Reginald Collins Ltd.
Wholesale wine and spirit people. Vintners to the Students' Association. Carry stocks of all brands of ale, spirits, table wine (from 55c), sherry in flagons ($1.60) or quart bottles.
Free Delivery—Collars located at No. 3 Ballance Street
(Customhouse Quay and)
Downstage Theatre Cafe
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At 8 p.m. - Coffee 7.30 p.m.
Guitarist Val Murphy will play before and after performance.
Suit Hire
•
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Barry & Sargent Ltd.
Opticians
118 Willis St. - Tel. 45-841
Sports
The Sports Depot
(Witcombe & Caldwell)
tong-standing connoction with University sport. Every one of Vic's 24 sports catered for.
Suit Hire Service
Suits For All Occasions
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First Floor
Dominion Life Arcade Willis St., Wellington
Phone 42-275
H. W. Moss Ltd.
Wholesale Wine And Spirit Merchants
89 Thorndon Quay
Open Saturdays
Daysh, Renouf & Co.
Members Wellington Stock Exchange
National Mutual Centre
Featherston Street
Tel. 70-169
Hotel St. George
The "Seven Seas Bar"
Best In New Zealand
• Nearest to University.
• Modern, comfortable surroundings.
• Cool, bright, fresh beer on tap always.
• Food available from our "Food Bar", 11.45 a.m. to 2.30 p.m.
• Mixed drinking—all facilities.
Entrees, Cold Buffet, Vegetables, Hot Pies
Jazz, Man!
The literature on jazz music and musicians is growing by leaps and bounds. Some of the best is to be found in the American Library, 28 Waring-Taylor St., Wellington.
Left
Right
The Hero of today's society is often the liberal.
He is the man to whom social, moral and political problems art serious matters—worthy of at least a letter to the editor.
If pushed, he will join in a protest, a march, or even a demonstration, to show his "concern" to the world.
He is a man of moderation, or so he would have us believe, and he eschews the solutions of the political right and of the left.
Yet with all this, he is coming under increasing fire from both conservatives and socialists. Each regard the liberal with contempt, but does he really deserve this contempt?
Is he possibly something worthier—a moderating factor, perhaps, in our divided society —or is it simply that the derisive phrase "wishy-washy liberal" has some meaning?
It is regrettable, but none the loss true, that the typical liberal shows qualities of indecision and woolly-mindedness that are reflected in his political attitudes. He is usually in a abilities, but his contact with the problems that call forth his liberal attitudes is likely to he ephemeral.
He is often aroused by no more than the casual conversation of his colleagues: but he feels the necessity to take up a position and to defend it, and the position from which there are the easiest intellectual escape routes is usually the liberal one.
In this way a shallow acquaintance with the facts is one of the main characteristics of a liberal. The few limes that he is found to have an intimate knowledge of his subject, will reveal, under closer examination, that this knowledge is so specialised that it becomes somewhat unreal in its application.
We have such situations as that in which a senior official of the Canadian High Commission in Wellington. Mr
After this authoritative statement, it must have been a trifle embarassing for him to learn that Liberia—also on the African continent has legal provisions which prevent any European from owning kind, practising in the professions, or taking part (including by voting), in politics!
Liberals have usually the same political attitudes as the proverbial Irishman: mildly "agin the gov'mint."
This position is almost always the easiest to take in a casual argument: destructive criticism is so much more simple than suggesting constructive solutions. A tendency to ossify into a position of acidulous waspishness soon develops, and in a while the automatic reaction of resentment becomes evident after any government action of consequence.
The government is then blamed for its "credibility gap".
Yet credibility gaps can exist in the mind of the recipient as well as in the words of the spokesman. The Omega affair exemplifies the creation of this syndrome, compounded equally of fear and frustration, but mainly self-induced.
When the affair first blew up, early in 1968, with exciting revelations of the imminent peril of nuclear catastrophe in which Christchurch was being placed, the government reacted slowly. It appeared to find it hard to believe that such nonsense could be believed by supposedly intelligent people.
First statements by the Department of External Affairs in defence of its position were somewhat fumbling, and did not always seem to comprehend the antagonism with which the Omega proposal was meeting.
Why should they have been prepared? No other country had protested, and both the Solid Union and China had agreed to the use of the assigned V.L.F. wavelengths. No wonder the government found it difficult to deal with the capacity for self-delusion inherent in the liberal mind, fostered in several cases by reports which depended for their argument on demonstrably false background material.
Later some of the scientists who wrote so glibly in the early stages of the dispute were shown to have deliberately distorted their source material, and in some cases had actually invented it.
Yet the liberal publications which had originally been so happy to carry their lies were not willing to print the refutations that followed. Particularly to blame here were Canta, Salient and the Journal of the Public Public Service Association.
Thus was demonstrated a third failing of the liberal mind.
Liberals, resting, as they so often do, their ideas on an inadequate basis of research, usually react in a characteristic way when their beliefs are called into question.
Their realisation that their errors have been picked up usually results in a hardening of position; verbal violence may, in extreme cases, actually turn to physical violence in a frantic effort to convince themselves, if no-one else, that they have a sole monopoly of truth.
(The writer has had some personal experience of this reaction. When in 1968 he was unwise and unkind enough to print in Salient some quotations from a speech made by Mr
Liberals and others who read in this manner resemble nothing so much as cornered rats, which, realising in desperation that there is no avenue of escape, finally turn
This consideration of the weaknesses in the liberal's personality should not lead one to suppose that his activities are always ineffectual.
The liberal virtue—in the purely pragmatic sense—is the capacity for selective indignation This ability to choose a matter for concern, and to follow it relentlessly, is at once the tactical strength (while the logical weakness) of the liberal's method of operation.
Accompanying the action are all the while shouts of "fascist, racist!" which has become the modern version of the huntsman's "tally ho!"
(For those who do not know the jargon of liberalism, one becomes a fascist by pointing out the inconsistencies in argument, the dubious irrelevancies, the moral flounderings, and sometimes the overt lies that so often are the basis for a liberal hypothesis.)
We can see this in the common liberal attitude towards South Africa—a country which suffers from the shared detestations of all liberals. A common argument presents the fact that some of the government leaders of the 1960's were, thirty years ago, against the intervention of South Africa in World War II. Ergo, they were Nazis. And this is one of the reasons why, in 1969, one should hate them!
Now remind a liberal that one of his folk heroes, the late Senator
Or, to give a more up to date example, there is the fascinating ease of F.B.I. head J.
When that news came out. Washington revelled in the sight of the liberal news media frantically backtracking.
We should not loose sight of their first reaction. The shouts of "muckraking," and "smear." That filled the air were the authentic liberal voice. Was not the beatification of the Kennedy's in progress, and is not is blasphemy to question the qualifications for sainthood?
One is also reminded when considering the capacity for self-delusion which mingles with the selective indignation inherent in the liberal protestor's motivations, of the cartoon which appeared in a recent issue of the London Evening Standard.
It showed the Nigerian delegate to the United Nations, surrounded by a pile of human bodies; presumably some of the decimated Biafrans. The caption reads: "Mind your own business, let's talk about Rhodesia!"
This attitude has penetrated, without any protest, into the higher echelons of the United Nations. No one could accuse the Anti-Slavery Society of racialism or fascism, or indeed of anything other than the wish to protect human rights, But when the Society's invited observer sought to raise at a conference in Dakar the question of the Southern Sudanese, the secretary (a senior official in the U.N. Human Rights Division) told him that if he attempted to do so, he would at once advise the chairman to send him packing.
The same blindness prevails in attitudes on Viet Nam. Liberals everywhere "expose" the government of South Viet Nam: corruption, censorship and totalitarianism are the normal charges. In contrast. North Viet Nam is presented as a friendly peasant democracy, under the benign leadership of Ho Chi Minh, whose smiling "Uncle Ho" image is continually peddled, and whose poems are required fillers in almost any liberal magazine.
Yet how many liberals—especially the ones who think it chic to wear those little enamel Viet Cong badges—remember that only last year the North Vietnamese government passed a law punishing any criticism of the war, or of the country's leaders, with death?
How many remember the methods by which Ho established himself in power? His treatment of the North Vietnamese National Assembly is typical, of the 444 members elected in January 1946, only 291 remained on October 28, of whom only 37 were opposed to Ho Chi Minh.
Further weeding-out ensured that, by the end of the year, there were only two delegates left to criticise the regime. Those who were elected to oppose were "missing", or were arrested on trumped-up charges of common-law crimes—despite their technical parliamentary immunity from arrest.
It is not surprising that there was little difficulty in securing the adoption of the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam on November 8, 1948.
With that business done, the North Vietnamese assembly had no need to meet again for another seven years—and then only did so for one day's sitting?
Yet this is the country that out liberals champion.
Perhaps, just occasionally, it is the liberal who has his values mixed?
Instances of the use of selective indignation by liberals could fill this article. It might be a little unfair to look too closely at the words find actions of that senile doyen of liberalism,
Which of our ex-Cnd liberals, with the walls of their rooms adorned with talismanic photographs of the decrepit philosopher, would admit to remembering him slating: "Either we must have a war against Russia before she has the atom bomb or we will have to lie down and let them govern us ..."
"Anything is better than submission".
Better "dead than Red."
Dr Strangelove is not really so far distant from the liberal mind as that film's director would have had us believe.
One could consider the liberal faith in the United Nations as a power for world peace— a faith that persists despite the fact that troops operating under the U.N. flag brought more misery to the Congo than did fifty years of colonial "exploitation".
Their faith remains, even after it has become apparent that as a body the U.N. can never preserve peace, because so many of its members are interested in fomenting "wars of liberation"—the new jargon which replaces "holy war" in the liberal lexicon.
Typical liberal-supported groups such as the U.N. Associations throughout the world, ignore the incredible failings of the parent body, while praising many of the actions that have contributed to world tension and unrest.
The "Committee of 24", dealing with colonial and trusteeship territories, exhibits the qualities that liberals find little difficulty in supporting. With one voice they slate that the interests of the inhabitants of various countries should be paramount—and with another they condemn the people of Gibraltar and West Irian to incorporation under the rule of fascist and neo-fascist regimes.
The liberal mind is everywhere. Spouting its ill-formed opinions, waving its banners, it arrogantly asserts its right to dominate free thought everywhere. International organisations around the world, especially student organisations, are full of them.
An obvious example is ISMUN (the International Student Movement for the United Nations) whose Secretary-General said in an NZSPA interview that he saw right-wing views as needing to be excluded from his organisation. These views, he said, might include racial discrimination. When asked whether ISMUN would be likely to apply the same rules against the left, in considering Poland's anti-Semetic racial policies, he made it clear that situations automatically lost their connotations of racialism when practiced by the left.
It is not often that even a liberal will state such hypocritical views in to direct a manner.
Then we can look at Isc, the now disbanded non-communist international student organisation, which recently published a handbook for student journalists. Throughout the handbook (edited by
It is indeed Ironic, as well as tragic, that one of the contributors to the handbook. Transition, is now in prison. Where? Not in South Africa, but in Uganda. The offence? Criticising the government.
Religion is often considered to be one of the fountainheads of modern liberalism. Everywhere today pious clerics persist in giving their foolish advice, which if followed, would result in death and extermination for millions. How has religion developed in this way?
Christianity is today thought to be a liberal religion. Its foundations are in the more authoritarian aspects of the Jewish faith, and its survival has been ensured by the fact that very few of its proponents have actually followed the liberal side of its leaching.
The history of many of the Christian Churches of the world is a history of hypocrisy: a liberal facade with authoritarian enforcement. Times are changing, however.
Now that many of the religious leaders of the present day are moving towards a greater implementation of the ideals they have always professed, their churches are steadily declining in influence.
Clerical liberals exhibit the same kind of moral blindness in choosing subjects for condemnation as do their lay brothers. Classic examples can be seen in the World Council of Churches, which at a conference in Genoa issued the following statement: "We ask America to stop the fight against Communism."
If this incredible suggestion were acted upon the World Council of Churches would not survive more than a few years, for communism cannot allow religion to remain in any position of strength. In their blindness, they are attempting to cut their own throats.
Regardless of one's personal attitude or religious beliefs, it would seem somewhat pointless to ally oneself with the protagonists of the above statement, yet this is what the liberal leaders of the World Council of Churches have done. A case of the blind leading the lame?
The role of the news media in distorting the presentation of the facts is worth looking at briefly. Liberal journalists, and liberal subeditors, can do as much to swing the news in support of their beliefs as can the most rabid communist or fascist censor with his blue pencil.
In many ways their activities are the more insiduous, for the liberals are scarcely aware of the extent of their actions. Nearly everyone can recognise where the more dogmatic slantings of ideologically committed editors and censors have operated, while the liberal influence however, is so much harder to identify.
The danger becomes particularly great when the channels of news communication are limited, as in New Zealand. With each and one evening paper, and the only other source of news being the N.Z.B.C., we are, for a western country, very susceptible to any re-writing of the news.
Examples are plenty, for those who care to look. After the riots in Chicago during the Democratic Party's nominating convention, a commission was set up to report on the causes and effects of the violence, especially in view of the fact that the police had been extensively blamed for accentuating the riots, rattier than calming them.
The conclusions of the commission were that, while the police had over-reacted, they had done so in the face of strong physical attack. Instances were given of police being attacked with various weapons, and of them retaliating in an over-enthusiastic manner.
It can be proved that the wire services sent a full report of this to New Zealand. Yet when the story appeared in The Dominion, the only instances recorded were those showing police in an unfavourable light. Can it be that the sub-editors concerned had decided that the Wellington public should not be shocked by reports of good little liberal kids clubbing and razor-slashing police?
Whatever the reasons, it is painfully clear that a certain overall picture was established in the minds of readers of The Dominion: that of the Chicago police being entirely at fault, rather than the findings presented by the investigating commission, which suggested fault on both sides.
Much of the distortion that occurs is of a minor nature, but the effect is cumulative. In the course of a news—not feature—report in the Evening Post recently, the following sentence appeared.
"A strong white backlash vole kept Mayor Sam Yorty in office in Los Angeles." The rest of the report dealt with quite different matters.
The reader might well be forgiven for being left with the impression that the white citizens of Los Angeles had voted on racial lines— for a white candidate—and as there were more white than negro citizens. Mayor Yorty won.
An actual breakdown of the pool figures shows a different story. Precinct by precinct analysis indicates that over 95% of the negroes in predominantly negro areas voted for
Who were then the race-minded voters? According to the news report in the Evening Post, the "strong white backlash" was responsible for Sam Yorty's win. But facts—conveniently omitted—tell another story.
The dubious role often played by the student press should not be forgotten. We have already looked briefly at the Omega affair, and noted the liberal postures enshrined in the Isc Handbook for Editors: it is worth zeroing in on the activities of one particular organ of the student press, Salient.
In particular, Salient's attempt at miniMcCarthyism, with all its nauseating insinuations, smears, and use of guilt by association, deserves to be remembered—with shame. In Salient 2 of this year, a from page article written by the editor alternated to victimise a Victoria University graduate employed by the External Affairs Department.
How many students would wish all their past activities paraded before their employers and the public activities that took place in their student days, without a thought to the future. Indeed, this was one of the main concerns of several participants in the Security teach-in held during Term II Victoria this year.
It is a principle, recognised in practice by courts of justice in New Zealand, that university students are particularly susceptible in their later years to the results of their youthful behaviour. For this reason, students obtain many concessions from the courts; suppression of names, and acquittals with costs are commonly used to protect those who would otherwise be prevented from entry into one of the professions by a criminal record.
Yet Salient deliberately set out, despite warnings tendered well in advance, to try and wreck a person's career, by dragging up a letter written by him as a student, and showing it to his employers. That it failed is due only to the level-headedness of a Government department in refusing to be panicked into unjust action.
I do not wish it to be thought that in any way I condone the attitudes expressed by the victim of Salient's attack. It should not be necessary to write this. But there are those —often liberals—who will carefully examine the political and moral beliefs espoused by a victim of circumstance before they decide to involve themselves. The moment they do this, their protestations of concern become a sham.
They have proved that they are only using general beliefs in the rights of the individual to further their own political ideals, under a mask of total hypocrisy. They are, of course, behaving like normal liberals.
The intolerance of many professing liberal ideals towards those whose ideas or beliefs are at variance with their own has already been explored. It may not yet, however, be realised to just what astonishing lengths this venom can go.
At a Special General Meeting of the Victoria University Students' Association held in late April this year, various people showed their willingness to apply standards of censorship which would have brought a cynical smile to the faces of George Orwell's 1984 propagandists.
The movers and seconders of three different motions sought to use the sanctions of the association to punish one of Victoria's most eminent graduates, the Chief Justice of New Zealand, Sir
And all this in a university, supposedly that most "liberal" of institutions, devoted to the free acquisition of knowledge by free debate in a Tree society!
Thus it becomes apparent that in the liberal stale one is not only not permitted to criticise the "right" views, but one must actively parrot them to the exclusion of all others. Said the mover of the first motion, with regard to a reported remark of Sir
One would not accuse some of those active in this rather sordid little affair of being "liberal" in any sense of the word. But others had pertained to the attitudes and outward appearances of the campus liberal, and as such they must be judged.
When the S.G.M. of the students' association voted overwhelmingly against these three motions, it threw out the spectre of thought control, as practised by our juvenile liberals. But the warning was clear: in their own search for the perfect world, liberals have no hesitation in trampling on the rights of others.
For those who are not convinced, or for those who would wish to apply the suggestions outlined above in their own manner, to see if the liberal threat is nearly as bad as I have painted it, I would suggest two further fields of study. One is a genera! topic, the other is more specialised.
The first is the liberal attitude towards demonstrations. Consider the justifications advanced by liberals for short-circuiting the democratic processes with a touch of violence, all in the best possible cause, of course. Watch how the liberal, secure in his belief that he is the "conscience of the country", ignores the rights of our freely elected representatives in parliament to run the country during their term of office.
He knows, does our liberal, shouting at the back of a mob of students and workers outside parliament, that his cause is so righteous that it must prevail—and heaven help he who stands in the way. Encased in his coccoon of arrogance, he can happily forget that the majority of his countrymen have shown that they want a particular policy, or are content to let a certain group of men decide for them. Our liberal has the right to change this, he thinks, because of his superior moral attitudes.
The other suggested study is the agitation over the N.Z. Security Service, culminating in the submissions to the statutes revision committee. All the usual groups are there, from the civil liberties outfits to the student "representatives". The study should not forget that peculiar orgy of mutual back-patting that went on under the guise of a teach-in, at Victoria, referred to earlier, during the course of which several speakers contended for the "Most-spied-upon" prize. (It appears to be a point of liberal pride to have one's telephone lapped—or at least to imagine this.)
He who follows this more particular study could well end up believing, unless he demands proof at every stage, that 50% of New Zealanders live in dread of a midnight knock on the door, and that the cellars of the Security Service offices in Wellington's Taranaki Street are in fact a rather well kitted-out torture chamber. Alas for wishful thinking. No-nne has yet come forward to substantiate this. Do I hear a liberal somewhere saying that this is because the Service is so efficient?
"The end justifies the means" may have been a Jesuit motto, but it is true of liberals as well. By their actions liberals show how false is their alleged devotion to the ideals that liberalism professes to adhere to.
Although it gives them strength, the technique of selective indignation is also the weakness of liberals. The logical fallacies that inevitably stem from over-use of the selective process, coupled with the lack of theoretical framework, expose them to the derision of both the left and the right.
It is sometimes claimed that when a liberal grows up, he moves towards either conservatism or socialism. The implied definition of liberalism in that statement assumes the infancy of political development in the liberal position.
The liberal is "underdeveloped"—the word being, of course, the liberal substitution for "backward". He is underdeveloped in that his political stance has no stability, for it has no framework.
Bearing this in mind, it becomes easy to understand why so much of the liberal's glitter is mere dross. His intentions are so often golden, but the basis is lacking.
To sum up.
The liberal illusion is: that man is intrinsically good.
The liberal delusion is that
The liberal delusion is as contrary as its definition, for liberalism has its counterpart in the animal world, with the ostrich, who hides his head in the sand to make the wicked world go away.
The liberal constructs his fantasy-world in his own image, selects the facts that seem to prop up the shaky edifice of opinion on which it is founded, and ignores those deemed inconvenient. Unfortunately, the "inconvenient" facts are as mortar to his rubble— which is why no edifice, no civilisation, no philosophy, no complex rationale of human behaviour, has ever stood the test of time if constructed in a wholly liberal mould.
Centre Design:
Ascent, a Journal of the Arts. Edited by
Ascent has received on the publication of its three issues to date, heavy criticism from all quarters of the cultural community. Most of the critics of Ascent have made the mistake of comparing it with overseas publications or seeing it as the product of a particular groups of established artists thus retaining a conservative and unadventurous approach to the arts.
True too, until this third issue of Ascent, declaring itself to be a journal of "the Arts in New Zealand", there has been predominantly articles on Art as such, and the other cultural activities of the community have been pretty well ignored. Even this latest issue with an article on Jenny McLeod's production of "Earth and Sky" and a rather unimaginative article by Ascent has once again concentrated on the visual arts with only cursory mention of anything else going on in New Zealand or elsewhere.
But for all that it must be realised chat this is the only journal of its kind in New Zealand, in fact the only one which has looked like being a success in non-financial terms of course) since the approximately fifteen years publication of Arts in New Zealand.
The specialisation of Auckland as a centre of art activity, and to some extent Christ-church, has meant that those of us who live outside these centres have become reliant on visits to these cities and occasions exhibitions. New Zealand's professional artists, however much success they are gaining in their own localities, need to have their work seen and talked about out-side their immediate environment outside the community of other artists.
Ascent has neglected to some extent this part of its role by not providing a correspondence column, although such irregular publication might make this proposition difficult. Its extreme modesty has even failed to provide us with an address or any statement of editorial policy in any one of its three issues. This lack of apparent editorial control presents an unnecessarily bland, inscrutable face to the reading public, and fails to put the content in proper perspective.
The Caxton Press has made an attractive, if conservative, job of lay-out. The reproductions are of high quality. The price of Ascent although it compares unfavourably with overseas publications such as Studio, Artforum and Art International, is reasonable considering the relatively small circulation of the magazine, the lack of advertising, and the quality of production. Technically therefore, it is safe, and in fact a great deal better than most New Zealand publications of a similar nature.
What then of the content, It is quickly obvious that the standard of the commentary and article does not come up to the standard of the reproductions and illustrations. Except for a number of the directors of the Auckland Art Cillery who have broiught art to a wider public, and some few individual reviewers in city newspaper's, there have been few competent critics of New Zealand art. The ability to explain an artists' intention and value to a wider audience, is a particular talent even more necessary today when Western civilisation treats art as a commercial commodity.
This lack of a Berger, Greenberg, or the like has left New Zealand at the mercy of the mediocre critic, the rich indiscriminating patron, and the people with vested interests in the sale and production of art. Therefore, in Ascent, longer, more perceptive reviews of an artists' work may have been more valuable than sketchy outlines and disinterested comment.
Mark Young's synthesis of Hotere entitled "Love plus Zero/no Limit" has the admirable intention of being a different style of review but the author has so much allowed his style of writing to dominate that it reduces what he is saying to second place. When the lyricism begins to flag, and ideas run thin, an explanation of Hotere's work is still found wanting.
The introduction to The Performing Arts in New Zealand is the nearest Ascent has come to explaining itself—and this by someone I presume is an outsider. Talking through the magazine in the third party is no substitute to a statement of policy.
The article by
The book review section is useful but both books reviewed are on Art unfortunately. The reports from the four main centres give a brief resume of activities in each area, and while again dealing almost exclusively with Art and being well written and intelligent, they should never intend to be major articles in themselves. Whether, if what appears is going to continue to be an animal publication; reviews of long-past exhibitions is a particularly good idea must, I suppose, be left up to the editors to decide.
There are several examples where reproductions of an artist's work is shown with no apparent tie-in to an exhibition or text. While it is important to show an artist's work, a little more than straight re-producting of photographs is required.
There is an essential difference between working as an artist and writing about art. They are both important functions and very often, except in cases like
Ascent is still finding its place in the publications of the arts. It is making a worthwhile attempt and is doing the positive "something" instead of the all-too-often "nothing". It therefore deserves credit for its very existence, for its stumbling infancy, and for what can only he hoped, a richer and more mature adolescence.
Jeff Nuttall: Bomb Culture. Published by MacGibbon and Kee, London.
Jeff Nuttall's Bomb Culture will anger and confuse many of the Left. The anger will come from his many wild and subjective statements on polities, literature, art and even Culture itself. The confusion will rise from the number of transitions and contradictions Nuttall makes in his explanations and opinions.
But one must be wary of rushing out of this book with hasty judgment conditioned by years of programmed studying and thought process conditioning. Nuttall is, in a sense, anti-university and anti-academic, though his ability of spontaneous, subjective thought has reached a further stage than most do at university. The only danger perhaps in this type of thinking is a lack of perspective. This is Nut tail's major weakness.
To a New Zealander Nuttall's book has no specific relevance except in its interest in literary and political terms. Most of the names, happenings and movements mentioned will be familiar to those regularly read British journals of kaliedoscopic hues. Basically, however. Bomb Culture is an intellectual odyssey of an important period in British history, a period which is more influenced today by international affairs at most periods till now.
It begins in the late fifties with the gradual growth of the nuclear disarmament movement and the reaction against what is popularly termed the Establishment—what essentially gave birth to the New Left.
Nuttall came after this generation and much of the vituperation in his book is directed at them and their like.
Nuttall's involvement with Cnd and what is now termed the Underground has been a constant one yet one which has enabled him to both see it integrally and analytically. The Underground proper was launched in 1964 with the return from America of novelist Trocchi and the attempt to start an international intellectual revolution. This revolution took on a number of forms which encompassed drugs, anarchism, sexual liberation, and madness viewed a la
Nuttall describes how this movement Functioned and how he became increasingly critical of it. This he does most successfully in a detailed description of several key episodes which led to his ultimate break from it.
This detachment has not, however, changed his committment or ideals—only his orientation. His conclusion about society is remarkably different in tone from the opening of his account, which is a melange of strung-together quotations, opinions, hatreds and generalisations about Art and Culture, including the "Sick Culture". His conclusion is somewhat different: drugs, nihilism, madness, may all be effective weapons to fight society, but they offer no alternative to it.
The bomb culture is one which used an ultimate weapon not purely for survival's sake, but in a grotesque expression of self-gratification. Here Nuttall draws a distinction between VE Day—where the defeat of Nazism and Fascism marked the end of a crusade against the forces of darkness— and VJ Day—where the celebration was of nothing but the weapon itself after one war had finished and the new one begun.
Nuttall draws no political evidence for this, but doubters will find it amplified in the many radical analyses of the origins of the Cold War by historians like
The main trouble with Bomb Culture, suggested above, is not what Nuttall reveals of his account of his experiences— but his perspectives. Nowhere does there seem to be more than a superficial appreciation or understanding why or how society is structured. Thus the end effect of Bomb Culture is one of unique inside critique of the Underground through a combination of retrospection and "as it happened diary extractions. Once one has plodded through the first part which is hardly illuminative, the second part is rewarding indeed.
I have not seen any of Nuttall's own work except his poetry published in a recent Penguin Modern Poets,, but it appears that his early work was a reflection of his admiration for International Times. Bomb Culture tells us a lot about Nuttall and the movement of which he was part—let's hope that he can use his accumulated knowledge and experience in a clearer manifesto of intent and action.
"War and Peace", adapted for stage by Alfred Neumann, Erwin Piscator, and Gruntram Prufer.
His stage adaption docs not attempt to
The documentary technique of the play failed either to shock or illuminate. The approach was one with which the audience was familiar, and us a result the climax, presented as it was, was received with the same impassivity as the evening television news.
It remained for the human interaction and situation to engage the audience. It was at this level that this production, with its use of narrator, "triple stage", and unabashedly open scene changes, was most successful. Not only did the play's resolution make the ambivalence of human endeavour evident, but the "pawn-like" quality of the cast, as it moved to and from appointed places, underlined this. Individual actions were demonstrated, both by the plot and technique of the play, to be governed by external factors, with Chance as the "narrator-director". The conflict between the progressive and the conservative, between the confident and the nihilist approach to life was presented in a way similar to that in Marat/Sade. The cast enacted a ritual. The actions and the conflicts were indicated by a narrator figure, yet the play generated its own ever-increasing impetus; action and reaction building a self-sustaining dramatic tension. The universal implications of the theatrical action were admirably conveyed by this technique. Such a comparison to Marat/Sade, while not completely valid, indicates not only the strengths of this play, but also the weaknesses in this particular production. If, as happened here, the tension and credibility lapses, the whole rhythm is broken.
The production trailed rather than surged to its conclusion, with the quality of the acting in some of the final scenes verging uncomfortably on the pathetic.
Nevertheless, there were some very fine performances.
If the difficulties in presenting such a "realistic and objective approach to theatre are considered, the cast made an interesting and commendable effort: unmarred by bad cues, and forgotten lines. The tedious phrase and word repetition, strangely evocative of movie advertisements, was handled well, especially by Natasha who must have wearied of repeating "'Forgive me".
The setting, central to the whole dramatic objective of the play, stood or fell with it. It was marred by seemingly unnecessary paraphenalia at the back of the stage, which lessened, rather than increased the realism. The using of "skittle" soldiers for the battle at Bordino was thematically telling and technically pleasing. The setting, like the production as a whole, was a mixture of the extremely good and the jarring. The costumes were excellent, having both economy and style.
The production indicates the gathering strength of the New Theatre Club. Much imagination, though and hard work was evident. It is inevitable with a play of such conceptual magnitude that weakness alone; the quality and strength of many of the parts is undeniable. Perhaps if this potential had not been so evident in the parts, then the whole would have been more completely satisfying.
A Cynic told me that burnt steak and congealed eggs, (on a finger-printed plate); is the national dish of Australia. By throwing-in a fly-spot ted menu, etched with stains of Worcestershire sauce, sounds of drunken thundering, and a juke-box—you would have the setting for the city bachelor's most familiar downtown meal.
In piecarts, 'chew'n'spews, and provincial 'greasy spoons' we eat some fish with rubbery eggs, but steak and chops are probably our most-ordered protein dish. For economical protein meals, legumes and beans are a neglected province of our cookery. True— a scarlet pustular ooze, universally known as "baked beans", is forever slapped onto toast from cans in snack-shops, and hotels, fur ones' teeth with fibrous green things in Victorian dining rooms; but the vegetarians seem to keep the rest.
Students should go after those packets of dried beans, etc., in the vegetarian shops. They store well, and naturally lend themselves to a variety of dishes that can be reheated for successive meals. Lentils are high in protein-value and everyone recognises the red ones in soup mixes—but don't miss that splendid "green lentil" or "Greek lentil".
Once tried you're sure to delight in its flavour—and beautiful soups can be made with little else than green lentils, onion or garlic, herbs, and a little butter. Launch-out blending this stock with other black or dark things such as—black pudding, smoked eel, salamis, bacon, ham, pumpkin or celery. Include lentils in curries and stews, combine its thick stock with fried or poached fish; or sieve it, and place it alongside any traditional roasts or casseroles.
Fishermen swear the only way to cook paua—is baking it in the shell by an open fire near the sea. This shellfish is difficult to present. Its flavour hovers between the polarities of oyster and asparagus—and the texture causes problems.
To avoid these and break-away from all that pounding, butchering, and frying, I thought about that famous American shellfish stew—clam chowder. I took paua, combined it with something equally dark (and not overwhelming in flavour); green lentils in this ease—and paua lentil chowder was bom. The last sentence is not a farrago of self congratulation—I want to drill you to follow how these recipes evolve from contemplation and commonsense reasoning.
Paua Lentil Chowder
Pauas, greek lentils, salt, black peppercorns, garlic and/or onions, a thickener—such as cornflower, oatmeal or breadcrumbs, cracker biscuits, suitable herbs.
Lentils are soaked, boiled, set aside. Minced pauas are simmered in salted water with onions and pepper until cooked. Add lentils, simmer again using thickener to suit yourself, stir the herbs in last.
Serve—garnished with crumbed cracker biscuits. The following herbs blend well:—Sweet basil and fennel, or chopped mint and parsley, or grated lemon peel with thyme.
If you have a sweet tooth, and are tired of stodgy puddings, try this original national dish—based on tree tomatos or tamarillos.
Tamarillo Rice Pudding or Paella Tamarillo
Remove the pulp from tamarillos and chop it in a basin with a knife and fork. Set aside. Rice is fried in oil with a few raisins and a pinch of grated lemon peel thrown-in last. When piping hot—remove from heat. Quickly stir in the tamarillo pulp.
Serve immediately with a dollop of ice cream—and be proud of it—as a unique Antipodean delicacy. To make it an iron-clad Kiwi patent (and cunningly thwart plagiarism by jealous European chefs), you could decorate the carmine hillock with shavings of verdant Chinese gooseberry.
Noshingrog
by Turns, P. 12
This week students are being asked to give one per cent of their incomes to an overseas development project. The gesture is not charitable, but political. Aid is the issue. Overseas aid given by New Zealand is substantially less as a proportion of national income than the aid given by any other developed Western country except South Africa.
New Zealand has largely turned in upon itself and left the impoverished peoples of Asia and the Pacific to nurse their own problems.
This does not mean that New Zealand is unable to help. Rather, it reflects governmental apathy and lack of political leadership on the issue.
In this amosphere, a highly-organised, vigorous and imaginative pressure group was born early this year. Drawing together some university staff, students, churchmen and economists, and blending with them some political methods borrowed from Amsterdam, One Per Cent A.I.D. (Action for International Development) smung into action in March 1969.
As President
If it works, the Self Tax Scheme will be a gleaming new weapon in the arsenal of New Zealand aid activists. Better still, it will have released from Government coffers a flow of funds for aid far more in keeping with the real urgency of the development problem than the present trickle of assistance.
New Zealand today offers roughly 0.3% of the national income as overseas aid. One Per Cent A.I.D. is asking that this be increased progressively to reach one per cent by 1973.
What are the chances of this spunky little organisation pulling off such a substantial increase in the aid figure? On the basis of performance to date, they may not be as slim as a cursory glance would suggest.
The aid petition bears over 27,000 signatures, and seven and a half thousand people have pledged one per cent of their own incomes.
Victoria's Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Professor
One Per Cent A.I.D. has been returning persistently to the headlines in recent months, and earning editorials in big newspapers across the country.
No less than six Cabinet Ministers have felt obliged to defend the Government status quo on aid: Messrs. Holyoake, Marshall, Muldoon, Hanan, Shand and Thomson. This prominent showing reflects the increasingly broad base of the aid movement and the respectable image that One Per Cent A.I.D. has wisely cultivated for itself.
Its bi-partisan political lobby, its strong Church support, and its recruitment of respected national figures such as Sir
This means very close co-ordination with bodies outside the university, and foregoing the student's ingrained ivory tower isolation from the wider community. For example, One Per Cent A.I.D. made extensive use of Church Youth movements to circulate the petition in suburban areas, stirring grass-roots community consciousness of the aid movement at the same time.
The ground has been thoroughly prepared for the political impact of the Self Tax scheme, and students may expect favourable comment from various quarters. This will be a pleasant change for us and will, of course, add to the publicity generated by the whole operation.
When the money, comprising one per cent of the income of as many students as possible, has been collected, it will be forwarded to the Prime Minister amid considerable fanfare. The hint will be dropped that the Government could well follow the students' example.
All this is rather unfortunate from the Prime Minister's point of view since he is not legally permitted to accept donations of this nature. The donation will be tagged with a special proviso asking the Government to establish a bursary fund for Pacific Island students to attend the University of the South Pacific which has recently been established in Fiji. He will regretfully send it back with a polite letter.
The next stage in the game is for One Per Cent A.I.D. to forward the money to Fiji themselves. This project has been chosen after careful consideration by One Per Cent A.I.D. as the final resting place for the funds it has raised. The potentialities of this project deserve closer focus.
The University of the South Pacific is a territorial university serving the entire Pacific Region. Founded in 1968, it has had a great many ties with New Zealand since its inception. In the first place, it stands on the site of what was an R.N.Z.A.F. base, and site improvements to the value of two and a half million dollars were financed by the New Zealand Government. Its Vice-Chancellor, Dr
In May of last year, a Programme Planning Seminar was held by the University to determine the areas of greatest social and economic need in the region to which a university could contribute. Accordingly, three initial schools were instituted this year: Natural Resources. Social Development, and Education. The emphasis on regional thinking in the planning of the courses is instanced by the School of Natural Resources. Areas of study which will come in for special attention at this school are those which have a special bearing on a tropical, island economy, ecology, oceanography, soil science, and micro-biology. Hopes are held for the eventual establishment of a Centre of Tropical Ecology.
Regionalism is foremost in the thinking of New Zealand-born Dr
The hope, then, is that the university will act as something of a regional catalyst. Unfortunately, this gives rise to a major problem, and this is the point where One Per Cent A.I.D. enters the picture.
The problem revolves on the question of financial assistance to students to attend the university. Bursary assistance is hard to obtain: in fact, curiously enough the good student from a Pacific territory would find it easier to obtain a scholarship to attend a New Zealand university than to get one for his regional university in Fiji. For Dr Aikman, as for Sir
The project is a clear and definite target for the funds raised by One Per Cent A.I.D. It is one which students in particular can understand and sympathise with. Furthermore, it seems to symbolise the kind of assistance One Per Cent A.I.D. feels New Zealand should he offering to the developing countries.
When graduates from the
It is clear from the foregoing remarks that all money donated under the Self Tax Scheme during this week will have a two-fold value. First, as a political instrument, it will be manipulated to focus pressure on the Government to increase its own aid-giving. The money that would be released for aid purposes if this is even moderately successful will far exceed the amount originally donated by students. The technique has been successful overseas, notably in the Netherlands and Sweden. Secondly, as an economic instrument, the money will be directed to a worthwhile project that will have significant impact on the progress of development in the South Pacific.
This article has attempted to examine both of these aspects. In a judgment is to be made on One Per Cent A.I.D.'s effort at this stage, it is that the scheme looks as though it deserves a fair try-out.
A guide to eating and drinking in Wellington
Mamma Mia! I go to da Giovanni's other night and whatta do I getta? I expecta da real Italianos who speaka da language wid da mouth full of ripe olives, and whatta do I getta? Bloody University students making money on the side by waiting on table. The standard of service was good, students notwithstanding.
The food is real Italiano—just the ticket for those who like pasta (and I do). It ate a succulent, spicy meat ravioli which had me clamouring for more. One complaint. When you eat food which weighs heavily on the stomach you need a side order of stand to break it down a little. It certainly wouldn't cost the management much, and it would perfect the food side of things.
The wine? Fairly pricey. In my travels around bars and licensed restaurants I have struck two glaring anomalies which are found everywhere.
First, the exorbitant price of white vermouth over a bar when it is the cheapest spirit wine (no. I won't enter the controversy as to which it is) in the bottle store. Secondly, the fantastic price of Chianti in a licensed restaurant. Is it perhaps the name which hikes the charge? It certainly can't be anything else. Chianti, restaurant owners and eating public know, is a cheap, raw wine. It is really ludicrous to hock it off (no pun intended) at $5.50 a bottle as some restaurants do.
They have a band at Giovanni's. A pianist too. He doesn't seem to belong to the band, in fact I think he must have been the chap Len Deighton was writing about in "Funeral In Berlin" when he wrote: "He fell his way among the black and white keys like something had changed them all around."
Overall, I like this place. It's happy. The Management should be happy with the money they must be making. The same crowd own Orsini's and the overflow from Orsini's find their way down to Giovanni's. Oddly enough, the food at Giovanni's is miles better than at Orsinis.
Four points.
* * *
Yes. I've been there. And it failed to appeal. Cigarette waving young easies from Martinborough with their camel coats, and junior executives trying to be dashing. It's a Bradshavian nightmare. Perhaps I'm getting old, but I don't like my food cooked by a death ray, either.
I think we'd better go back to the Royal Tavern after the novelty has worn off. But it sure don't promise well.
* * *
I went on a bar crawl of a slightly different type the other night; namely, a hamburger bar crawl. I came out of it with a very upset stomach. Not from the vast quantities of burgers consumed, but from the fact that the young lady who was driving us had this colour blind thing, and couldn't distinguish red from green, Chrrist!
Anyway, I found where the best burgers in town are. Just before you get to the Windjammer. The burgers are fantastic, and very cheap. The place is clean, with a minimum of the troughs off at which so many establishments of this nature seem to go in for. proprietor.
Three points.
* * *
Once upon a time there was a tavern which was relatively unknown, except to locals. It was scruffy, and didn't make much money. The owners were very sad about this, so they spent thousands of dollars doing the place up and suddenly it became very popular. I and my friends went there almost every night, and most of Saturday too. The atmosphere was friendly, and the hosts were most obliging.
Then a funny change came over this tavern. The proprietors were making so much money that they felt that they didn't need to be friendly to the regulars any more, as people would drink there regardless. So the regulars left. And after a while, the gay young things who had caused the profit to soar left too, and the tavern didn't make nearly as much.
The regulars are starting to drift back again, and the pub is settling down into the old pleasant atmosphere. The Leopard pints upstairs slide down easily once more and Karl the barman is back to his cheerily snarly best.
But watch it. Western Park. A pub in the suburbs is built round regular drinkers, not fly-by-nights who are now found at the
Four and a half points.
* * *
Ye Gods! Shades of the Seddon Memorial Restrooms in Manga-weka! All this and more raced through my head as I squeaked open the door of the Great Wall Cafe in Ghuznee Street one Sunday. The only other person in what I look to be the dining area was a coal dust impregnated old fellow who in grinning toothlessly at me allowed a substance not altogether dissimilar to 100-year-old egg to issue over his grizzled chin.
I thought the room was turning black, but in fact it remained unchanged. Nothing if not game I sat down, and was presently (and pleasantly) served by an aged Chinese gentleman. Admittedly it was a Sunday, but I didn't expect over half the menu to be off. By smiling at me again, the coal miner indicated just was was on the menu, and I settled for a very large and well cooked feed. Tasty and cheap. But if I go there again it will be in blinkers. Jeez!
Three points (for the food).
Martin Fisher, a second year BA/LLB student and
The Dorne Cup meeting was held al the Trentham Memorial Park in near perfect conditions with fast times being recorded in both junior and senior grades.
The junior team finished seventh in team placings in their grade.
Martin (Che) Fisher's effort was particularly outstanding when one takes into account that he went to a ball in Napier the night before and hitchhiked back to Wellington at 6 a.m. on the day of the race.
There was over 300 competitors in the senior 5-mile race with
First home for Vic was
Close behind was
With the addition of
This was an improvement on last year when Vic finished seventh.
Vic's old rivals Massey finished well down the list in eighth position with their first man home being Bruce Hill in 45th place.
However, it was without the services of
Otherwise it would undoubtedly have been higher up in the team placings.
Vosseler Shield
The juniors here again achieved the best individual placings.
Peter was placed sixth with a time for the 3 mile course of 18m 36s. Eric was two places further back (18m 58s.).
Both runners should, if they mantain their present form, have a reasonable chance of making the Wellington junior cross country team for the nationals in August.
The senior race was two laps of a 3-mile course around the tracks on Mount Victoria.
This race is recognised as being the most testing on the Harrier calendar in the Wellington Centre.
Some 200 runners started but only 158 managed to finish.
Out of 12 teams competing, the seniors again held their fourth placing in the teams event (the first eight runners home counting).
First home again for Vic was
The other five runners to count were
The next race on the club's syllabus is the club championships on Saturday. 12 July, at Paekakariki.
Also run in conjunction with this is the annual competition with Massey for the Paekakariki Cup.
This should prove an interesting contest as Vic will be at full strength and keen to avenge their defeat by Massey earlier on in June at Palmerston North.
In a fast and energetic game, characterised by aggressive shooting and good defence,
Mrs
A large croud fully appreciated the speed and skill displayed during the game and was quick to applaud good play.
Results 25 June:
Final placings in the "Knock Out" competetion: Lower Hutt 4, Johnsonville 3; Taita 5, Law (staff) 0: St. Pats 5, Law 3: Tawa beat Weir (N.N.): Fiji 5, Weir (A.S.) 2: Treasury B 9, Treasury A 2;
Scots beat El 1; Samoa 6, Geography 4.
Lower Hutt 1, Johnsonvilla 2, Samoa 3, Geography 4, St. Pats 5, Law 6, Tawa 7, Weir (N.N.) 8, Taita 9, Law (staff) 10
Results for 19 June: All Stars 42, E.L.I, 22; Hargtaugh 24, Weir 18; Hutt High 18, Rudman 25; Economics 38, .
Result 26 June: Hutt High 28,
Final will be played on Thursday, 10 July at 1 p.m.—Hargtaugh v. Nelson Staff.
Badminton results. 24 June: Ray 6, Maths 2; Biochem 6, History 2; Hutt 5, Gamma 4; E.L.I. 4, 2 plus 2 2.
A Match between the University Defence Rifle Club (victors at this year's Eastern tournament) and the Smallbore Club was concluded last week.
The first part of the match consisted of a shoot over 300 yards at Trentham (.303 rifles) resulting in a narrow lead for the outdoor club. The Smallbore Club however was too proficient on its home range at Brooklyn (.22 rifles at 25 yards) and ran out winners by a total of 8 points.
Rifles
Scores: Outdoors (.303 at 300 yards):
Smallbore:
Defence:
Indoors (22 at 25 yards):
Smallbore:
Defence:
Totals: Smallbore 934; Defence 926.
The first round of interclub matches was concluded last week.
The "A" team consisting of Mr and Mrs Bradburn, Miss
The "B" team also won its match against Ngaio, but with a large number of shooters in the lower grades, Ngaio was too strong for the "C" team.
University drew 1-1 with Marist at Memorial Park.
The depleted Varsity side was perhaps a trifle lucky to come away with a draw. Marist took a 1-0 lead early in the first half, and it wasn't until 10 minutes from the end that University levelled the scores when
The second team did well to draw 3-3 with top-of-the-table Western Suburbs. After an even first half. University was unlucky to be 2-0 down at half-time. After being under pressure for the first 10 minutes of the second half, University reduced the arrears when
Western Suburbs replied with a beautiful headed goal.
After the restart
For University,
The fourth division team fought out a scoreless draw with Seatoun at Seatoun Park. Both teams had chances, but neither could score, and a draw was a fair result. For University, newcomers
Down in the lower grades the Varsity teams didn't fare too well.
The fifth division team lost 3-1 to Stokes Valley in a fairly even game at Crawford Green.
The sixth division team was hammered 9-1 by Wellington Diamond United.
In the eighth division the "D" team recorded the only win of the week for the club when it beat Wellington Diamond United 6-4.
The other three eighth division teams lost, The "A" team lost 4-1 to Marist, the "B" team was routed 15-3 by Seatoun and the "C" team defaulted to Stop Out.
Results and goalscorers in games played on June 28:
First Division team drew with Marist 1-1 (J. Gallagher); Second Division team drew with Western Suburbs 3-3 (R. Fox, 3); Fourth Division team drew with Seatoun 0-0; Fifth Division team lost to Stokes Valley 1-3 (
Says a lot for student politics that Simon Arnold's position on Executive hasn't been filled yet. Says a lot fur the position too that there has been no particular reason why one should be appointed.
* * *
You never get bored on this paper even when you've read all the copy before it is published. It's fun picking up all the typographical errors, but we had a real field day last issue. That luvverly red and white cover was a surprise for everyone, particularly the editor, who'd asked for a black and white one.
* * *
Remember that brilliant letter on bad immune from Warren Dibble which we published last issue. He certainly practises what he preaches—he appeared in a Dunedin court on Monday charged with using obscene language in a public place.
* * *
For those who like to evaluate things in political terms, Hugh Rennie has suffered a couple of defeats lately. Funny how journalists react to criticism, especially a super-journalist like this one.
* * *
Remember 'Dominion' editor Kelleher (in Candid Keane's one-for-road-Reporter) in his madly relevant rave about the student press? What is it about Salient that allows it to scoop the 'Dom.' by a month on its "Pay rates for M.A.'s" story on Friday?
* * *
Anybody notice that a certain Miss Cederman Accommodation Officer has put in the same report of her portfolio for three months? "The survey results have been found". Anybody notice it was not Miss Cederman who found them, even though they were in the Exec room all the time? Anybody notice nothing has been done about the survey? Anybody notice a certain Miss C. is not pulling her weight?
* * *
It's about time we had another snipe at the Government over Omega. May 7 was supposed to see the decision on Omega. Two months ago that is.
* * *
Students are unable to do Political Sociology at honours level this year, thus leaving an effective choice of only three papers in the second half of the year.
The head of the Political Science Department. Professor Brookes, said:
"The reason that students are unable to do Political Sociology this year, is that they do not have the necessary knowledge of quantitive analysis statistics.
"It is pointless to run on
Honours Course if students have no knowledge or Q.A. statistics, but I only found this out when I offered a test on this subject.
"I was not prepared to offer a substitute at such short notice.
"A wider range was available but nobody could do Q.A. statistics, thus if a narrower range is left, it is not my fault", he said.
Professor Roberts said: "Professor Brookes agreed to offer a Political Sociology course, which is not really part of his responsibility.
"This of course is normally the field of Dr. Robinson who deals with pressure groups, but this being an emergency with Dr. Robinson and another senior away, we did the best we could.
"We admit that it is less than satisfactory from the student point of view but at honour level you must have men in their specialty.
"We regret that we can't offer the ordinary Political Sociology by Dr. Robinson, we regret the short notice, but this does not seriously restrict the choices", he said.
Opposition to the One-Percenters crystallised into sabotage at the weekend when stamped addressed envelopes and two reams of duplicating paper were nicked from the S.C.M. Cabin.
President
"Those who live by the sword will die by the sword," she said throatily.
She ran a hand through her thinning, ginger hair.
"More sheep make light lambs."
"If it is anarchy they have chosen they will be shown no mercy—except if they're liberals over South Africa.
The action received thunderous support from the local Sparticist Club.
A petition signed by President—but—Democrat
"My sister Rose is getting quite famous though," he said.
But the Fyson children in the Socialist Club said that the grass in Abyssinnia was not nearly enough for French fries.
"That is a typical Stalinist boo-boo," they said.
"The degenerated worker-state, dogged by left opportunism, will never beat the All Blacks.
The local National Club said it was delighted with the news.
"What has been done means that the One-Percenters can't advertise their damned campaign"—thus spake
"It saves us the bother of building funeral pyres with them," he said, casually grinding a Bantu under one blood-flecked boot.
He revealed however (or as Mr. Mitchell put it," "It is believed") that the paper had been flogged to feed Country Party cows.
Party Leader Enema, approached for comment said, "Crap".
The first of three seminars organised by the Evangelical Union will be held in the Common Room at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
Titled "Christianity and Science", it will be followed by seminars tomorrow and Tuesday dealing with Christianity with reference to Existentialism and Marxism.
Next Tuesday will see the first of four lectures which will be given by Rev.
He is an experienced university debater, an Anglican minister, a drama and film critic, a writer, and a broadcaster for A.B.C.
The first lecture will be "Man and Isolation" and will be held at 1 p.m. in E006.
On Wednesday "Man and Love" will be held in LB2 at the name time.
"Man and Revolt" will be on Thursday 17 July in E006 and the fourth lecture, "Man and Christ" will be on 18 July in E620.
A "coffcussia" will be held on Friday 11 July in the Common Room at 7.45 p.m. where the subject will be "The Abolition of Religion."
The final event on the programme will be a church service at St. Peters, Willis St., on Sunday 20 July at 7 p.m.
Toddle along to Trentham today and have a shot at the Jackpot — ten thousand brown ones just waiting to boost the student economy. Non-taxable, too. One Muldoon (50c) is all you need to cash in on this jackpot bonanza.
• Sea Boots to win the first by a league.
• Chicken Man has guts enough for the maiden.
• Money on Marnie won't be astray.
• Do or die on Kumal.
• Lord Cheval's a horse and a half.
• Out of the mire Jest-in-Time.
• Only if it rains he'll be hard to Head Off.
• Shastri has life in him yet.
Top Rebel to champion your cause . . put all your gold on Fort Knox . . Mairehau anyhow . . take the whisper, the Inside Story, place your bonds on Thunderball . . play your cards right on Jack of Hearts . . Our Grace, she's a darling . . Lady Donna can stand money on her . .
One of the formative influences of the attitudes and thinking of people today has been existentialism. Bergman said that his early films were intended to teach existentialism, and certainly the existential outlook has had a profound effect on the modern theatre, film and novel.
What is existentialism? It is a word commonly used today and commonly misunderstood. It is sometimes used as a term of abuse, and yet has also been appropriated as a form of inverted snobberv. It is not easy to give a precise definition of the term, as the thinkers who described themselves as existentialists speak with different voices. It is therefore at the risk of over-simplification that the following propositions are put forward as characteristic of existential thinking.
It begins with existence and not essence. In other words, the existentialist rejects the analytical structure of thought based on objective and abstract propositions. Instead he would insist that in constructing his view of the world he begins with himself and his actual existence in the world. After all, I know most about myself and my existence through the choices I make in life. A moral philosophy or system of values should not be deduced from abstract and ideal values. Instead we must begin with man, with ourselves in particular and ask what are the ultimate, deepest and most serious demands which I am confronted with in the choices that I make in life. These values are relative to me and there can be no absolute values, for my experience can tell me nothing of them. Alexander Pope's lines (quoted out of context) most appropriately describe this attitude:
"Know then thyself; think not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man."
It regards man not as a spectator of the ultimate issues of life and death, but as one who is committed to a decision upon them. We are all involved in the business of living and the existentialist is concerned that we should play our part to the full. He has hard words for the cabbage-like existence of many people in western industrial society where the pattern of living is laid down by mass media, and an education system that encourages conformist thinking and behaviour and relieves men of actual involvement in the choices presented by life. This "inauthentic existence", where the choices are made for the individual by outside pressures, is contrasted with the "authentic existence" of open involvement in each decision, for which the existentialist strives.
The Church is criticised for cushioning men against grappling with these ultimate questions by providing them with a set of conditioned attitudes. Particularly hard words are also reserved for the escapist attiude of modern men and women to the realities of death and pain. Death, not sex, is the "taboo" subject for many people today. The streamlined efficiency of the undertaker and the comforting assurance (and isolation from the community) of the hospital ensure that the intrusion of death or suffering into daily life is short and soon forgotten. The existentialist thinkers, however, are very aware of the reality of death. To them, it is something which must be faced and not glossed over. If it brings finality to existence, then surely every moment of life should be savoured to the full and each decision be made "authentic".
Existential thought emphasises the freedom the individual has over his own decisions. There is little life over which I have any control, but I do control this little island of myself. I am what I will myself to be. The existentialist refuses to blame others for personal failure. Too frequently individuals seek to escape responsibility by erecting a barrier of self-deceptive excuses—environment , heredity and community pressures. These factors are present, but the choice is always mine. Sartre would have approved the sentiment if not the trite expression of Henley's lines:
"I am the captain of my ship, I am the master of my fate."
The existentialist therefore stresses the importance of personal decision. Thereby I commit not only myself, but all mankind, for in deciding as I do I commend my choice as a standard to others, and I condemn myself to my own standard. As Sartre said, "Man is condemned to be free."
With this freedom there is an awareness of man's finitude. We are all faced with a gap between what we are and what we would be, between what the world itself is, and what we would desire it to be. The knowledge that there are no permanent values and that life has no enduring meaning gives rise to what has been called "existential despair." The devastating honesty with which the existentialist views what he considers is man's barren predicament is shown by Kafka in The Trial and The Castle, by Camus in The Outsider, by Sartre's No Exit, and by the modern theatre which has been influenced by this thinking. But the existential prophets of our time have not been content to state. They present a challenge. In spite of the apparent meaninglessness of life, man is called to live and must give meaning to his own life through the decisions he makes.
When faced with Sartre's philosophy of despair, it comes as a surprise to realise that Sartre and the modern existentialist thinkers owe the development of their philosophy to the Danish theologian Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard in reaction against the arid speculation of his day emphasised that Christianity is concerned with living and speakes to man in his predicament. It is concerned with the questions of existence—death, the meaning of life and personal relationships. If Christianity is stated as a set of abstract doctrines and articles of belief unrelated to living, the meaning is lost. Indeed these doctrinal statements may be erected into a smokescreen behind which men can avoid grappling with these real questions.
The modern theologians, particularly
Likewise, Tillich looks at the doctrine of sin as the Christian statement of man's predicament—his estrangement from the ground of being, i.e. from what he considers he essentially is and ought to be. Here Tillich and Sartre have much in common in their view of man's condition as one of despair, but the Christian existentialists differ from Sartre in refusing to leave man in this area of despair. Tillich asserts that Being is not empty or "a useless passion", but gracious, and reaches out to man in Christ, who as the new being shows man what God is like (i.e. the true nature of being) and by His participation in suffering and death transforms men and overcomes their estrangement.
The difficulty with Tillich's analysis is that by limiting statements about God to statements about my experience he has stripped the Christian message of much of its substance. By thinking of God purely in terms of human experience I am in danger of simply communing with myself. Theology becomes anthropology. Prayer becomes a meaningless exercise or else simply an expression of concern. There can be no answer to the question of dath for my experience tells me nothing of what lies beyond death. The "God is dead" theologians have pushed this part of Tillich's thought to its logical conclusion. Man is completely alone in the world and must live without asking for any answer to be given to ultimate questions. Furthermore, although Tillich relates the questions men are asking to the answers provided in the Christian revelation, he would regard the historical foundation of the Christian events as of no significance. Again we are left without substance to the faith. Has God acted in human affairs at all, or are the Gross and the resurrection mere symbols of the way in which individual men have given meaning to their existence;
Although I would affirm that the Christian revelation takes men further than Tillich, he opens the door and shows men today where they may begin to understand God—in the areas of their own experience; it is only too easy otherwise for traditional doctrines to be stated and fail to connect with the business of living. We may want to go further than Tillich, but we must not give less meaning to these statements about God and man than he does. The first epistle of John is particularly relevant to Christians today with its stark translation of statements about belief into statements about living.
"He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love." 1 John 4:16.
"No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:12.
The Christian gospel calls men to encounter with God in Christ. In Him new life is offered and we can come in touch with the new creation. As Kierkegaard emphasised, this is an existential encounter as the individual through conscious choice opens his life to invasion by Christ. This encounter is initiated by God who has reached out to man. Apart from God's revelation, man could not know Him, for the character of Being can be known only if Being chooses to reveal itself. In Christ, God intervened in history and demonstrated His love, providing the means of relationship with men by the self-giving and suffering of the Cross. But each individual is called to relate the Cross to his own experience. Pauline teaching in the New Testament places great emphasis on the day to day living of the crucified life in Christ, with its awareness of Christ's act of sacrifice at the cross and our involvement in this act, which means to us death to self and its desires and surrender to the life of Christ.
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me." Galatians 2:20.
For the Christian life is not a habit or a conforming to a pattern of beliefs, but an openness to Christ made real to us by the Spirit in the daily decisions we make. Is not this existential living?
Cutting through the smoke-filled air, the spotlight trimmed a hole of light on the stage. The cabaret drinkers hushed their chatter and sat back expectantly. Standing in the light, the young negress stretched out her arms to the people. The combo slid deftly into a blues beat and the song came on, "I ain't got nobody and nobody's got me." The husky voice projected an ache, a yearning that was answered by the crowd. Most of the young men and their girls felt secure, they got somebody. Older men and wo sighed and wondered how it was that they could still feel the sweet sting of self pity, even when marriage had been rated a success. Everyone who listened was reminded that the hope of happiness lies in other people. For some people, thats no hope at all.
The quality of life and the possibility of happiness is the framework of relationships that each of us owns.. Those who are alone die slowly—in pensioners back rooms, on metho benches, even in big suburban homes. 'I ain't got nobody'.
O Father, may they be one in us, just as you are in me and I am in you".
That's the way we are asked to look at life; as a relationship to God by
The beginning of most lasting loves is a confession. The confession of love liberates us and binds us at the same time in its plea for acceptance. The relationship of marriage is based upon mutual love, mutual acceptance, mutual confession and mutual forgiveness. Relationship with God by
Blues music comes out of human loneliness and lastness. All loneliness comes out of sin, ours and other men's. To get the message, and to confess it, is to sing a new song.