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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 19. 3rd August 1972

Sickened and Amused

Sickened and Amused

Sir,

Last Salient published some excerpts from the "Boy Advises Girl" column of the Sports Post to illustrate how gullible this newspaper is.

I have tried hard to see just what is so vastly improbable and unlikely in these made-up stories that would require gullibility to believe them. Take the first one. If the existence of a 20-year-old guy who has short hair and a girlfriend who had taken drugs and does not like his not being "with it" enough appears something so fantastic to the two authors of the hoax, then I suggest it is they who are gullible, not George Antiel.

What are they amused by? George Antiel being "saddened" and "sickened" by the drug addiction? The person concerned could have been a heroin addict, and, however harmless the other drugs might or might no be, heroin Is destructive. Is it really so amusing to find people saddened at the thought of young people fucking themselves up??

The authors find it sad that "so many troubled people do not have access to more personal forms of counselling". They also reproach George Antiel for dispersing advice on topics he knows very little about. Apparently they haven't read the answers to their own creations, where he suggests getting medical advice and approaching the personal and authoritative counselling services the use of which they are advocating.

Another objection is that Antiel is moralising. Admittedly, holding that health is "something to be treasured, nurtured and never to be abused"might be seen as a matter of personal values only, not to be imposed on anyone else. I don't want to argue the reasonableness of it here. But even if it is a value judgement only the authors are most probably members of the New Generation which proclaims the necessity of committing oneself to principles and values.

What I primarily object to here is not an abuse of another man's sincere, I believe, attempts to help others. It is the narrow-mindedness and intolerance, another thing the new generation is meant to be against, with which it was done. I only hope that no one will ever have to be advised by the authors of this hoax.

Vladimir Halama.