Arizona Western College - El Matador Yearbook (Yuma, AZ)

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El Matador: Mr. Ahearn, do you consider yourself first as an educator or philosopher working here at Western? Ahearn: Neither one. A combination of both or per- haps more of a guide. El Matador: A guide for whom? Ahearn: You see, I don't like the word educator. An educator is one who leads-who leads people. I would rather be one who is considered more of a guide. That word has so many connotations it scares a lot of peo- ple. A philosopher, strictly speaking, is one who is looking for wisdom or more precise, one who wants to be happy. I think that has been my purpose in being here. I feel that it is to try to show people how to be happy. If you are happy, that is it. If you are not happy, you have blown it, you have shot it, hang it up. i El Matador: Do you discuss your moral values during class lectures? Ahearn: I don't think too many of the students know exactly what I stand for. You use the word moral: I really use the word moral for religion and use the word ethics for those in the philosophy classes. We talk about human conduct. We throw out a few cases, a few principles, and we see what type of reactions we get. We utilize essays from contemporary writers, and get the students to react to these and to interact among themselves. El Matador: You really then don't point out your personal moral values in class? Ahearn: No. I will not tell them what is right and what is wrong. This is for them to decide. I get them in- terested in the problem. Everybody has to take a stand on just about everything. I have my own stand. Many of them have no stand, or if they do, they change from one day to the next. I think they have to take a stand on their own principles. They must come up with principles. We can't operate without principles, and they must select their own. El Matador: Much has been written and said about the moral decay of todayis youth and the direction they are traveling. Is it really moral decay or just the trend today? And, what is the direction oftoday's youth? Ahearn: I think that young people today are just more honest. I think that they really want to know what makes me happy, how can I be happy, what things do I do to be happy. Everyone wants to be happy, but they are being honest about it. Maybe they are experimenting a little more. But I think they are more honest than this do-bee generation. They are going to make more mis- takes. In fact, I am leery of the person who doesn't make mistakes because he or she isn't doing anything. They, however, are not morally decadent. It may seem that way because they are far more honest. There is more dishonesty and immorality that goes on behind closed doors in businesses, politics, but there are many good things too that go on in these enterprises. El Matador: Many of today's Roman Catholic priests are labelled as radicals. That is, they are mixing religion with controversial situations, such as, the Vietnam war, celibacy and abortion. What purpose do these so-called radical priests serve? Ahearn: What do you mean by radical? El Matador: Perhaps the word controversial priests is better. As an example, the Berrigan Brothers, do they serve a purpose in the church? Ahearn: In the constitutionalized church, nog but in the church that is the people, yes. El Matador: What purpose do they serve? Ahearn: Well, they are serving as witnesses to the principles that they stand for today. These are the mar- tyrs of today as far as they are concerned. They are Isaiah, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist. El Matador: Controversial questions of this severity are causing a split in the church, are they not? Ahearn: No. I think it is causing people to think a little bit more, and the people who donit like what is going on, then they can leave. They can leave the in- stitutional church and still be members of the church, which incidentally, is just a German word for a gather- ing of people for a common goal. El Matador: Aren't there more and more people leav- ing organized religion and joining a more free-thinking type of religion or more modernistic religion? Ahearn: I am positive. I am convinced this is evident. El Matador: Why is that? Why the switch? Ahearn: Because institutions are failing them. People are looking for freedom but in the past, and this is really Eric Fromls stand in his book, Escape from Freedom, people have always wanted freedom in the past, but in looking for freedom, they have attached themselves to things that make them secure: unions, big organizations, big institutionalized churches. They find that being in- volved in these institutions, organizations, and churches they have sold themselves. They have given up their free- dom for security. So today, people are leaving these organizations because they want to be free. We can see this in businessmen who leave big jobs. Men, who be- cause of their principles, will come out and make it. Take a stand on something, lose their jobs because they P Y' wa me l are abt fre Gr to v for rel 4

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fter do :hat 'uth onit y. I le. I job OHI- ach. lo in s of I can mhies is a hose dha, have ,hing '0dy, love said ns ,in . the hrist- med. Ch is J 1'l0t Bud- 1 th6 hell. 1 11 the came gtllefi ternal Vg lllto get in- l cent' and they were utilizing Paul, who utilized Plato. You know, Paul had a hell of a lot of problems with his sexual life. For Paul, this was something bad, some- thing bad about things that made you feel good. And Augustine latched on to this notion in the fourth cent- ury. He used Plato to help teach Christianity. He was using the language of Plato to help teach Christianity to the pagans, the non-Christians. Aristotle was lost. Aristotle taught a very wholesome outlook in man. Aristotle said man was good, essentially good, basically good. Plato said, no, man is bad: manis soul was in a prison. This sounds like basic Christianity. Man's soul was stuck in his body and it will go back to the land of the blessed someday. Augustine taught the same thing but Augustine said no, man is basically good, but Aris- totle got lost. His writings got lost and the only .writings available for Augustine to fall back on besides the Scrip- tures, were the writings of Plato. And he utilized Plato becaused he was talking to people with a Hellenistic background, a great background. So, therefore, the whole Western world's attitude towards sex is based on Augustanism and Platinism. This is why we have our hang-ups and if it makes you feel good, it is bad. El Matador: Does that mean that Easterners don't have similar hang-ups? Ahearn: No. They don't have the hang-ups thatwe do. El Matador: They wouldn't see a psychiatrist as much as we do if they could afford it? Ahearn: Ideally speaking, all things being equal, they would not need psychiatrists if they are following 'the basic tendencies of their beliefs in their attitudes and ln their feelings. No, Augustine is responsible for psy- chiatrists and psychologists kneel down and say, 'fthanks be to G0d for Augstine and Plato. El Matador: So you believe that each person should establish their own moral judgment, their own moral valueys and ethics to live by and in so doing he is a better man. Ahearn: He does this not by himself, but by living, by bging With people, by pursuing wisdom, by asking QIICSUOHS and by questioning answers. Sure he does this himself. Even manfs conscience is the ultimate norm of moralilk but we donit get it by ourselves. We get it by talking with people. We read, we think, we scrounge Eur minds, and we scrounge other people's minds. We eep flskmg- We spend our whole lives as we search f0f wisdom. What is a wise man? Can an 18-year-old ge WISC? No. He can be in pursuit of wisdom. Can a 0-year-old man be wise? Not necessarily. He is still inthe pursuit of wisdom. But it is the interaction, talking with people that is important. You can't sitdown and read books, and read books, and read books and be wise: take tests and be wise: go to school and be wise, you have got to live. Of course, we get into the area of social involvement, our responsibility to be involved with other human beings. This is where we get wisdom. If you are talking about goodness, this is where we be- come good, happy. El Matador: According to John Locke in A Social Contractf' man came together to form a good life. Just to form a good life so that everyone could live and be happy. He expressed the individual. Isnit that really what a lot of people are doing today? We are affected by Locke, such as, ideas, in our Constitution. Isn't this what religion is forcing people to do? Not coming together but retracting so that they can save themselves similar to what you are ,doing .herethomejf You are retreating out here, sort of like commuting with nature instead of staying in the city. In essence, you are getting away from everything. Isn't this why communes are building up, to bring out the individualness in the individual? Ahearn: Okay. Your question is rather involved. But this is a commune. Any group of people living together is a community. My wife is here and six children and there is another on the way. That is pretty good for seven months of marriage. El Matador: That is very good. Ahearn: I am a very powerful man. El Matador: Fast. Ahearn: This was an accident. I did not plan to have this many people living here. It was an accident. When I bought this house, I did' not 'know Martha CAhearn's wifej. El Matador: You bought this home then for yourself? Ahearn: Oh yes, I didn't have any specific plans. I figured it would work into something. No specific plans. It just happened. I like to be with people, and I like to be with myself. I love myself. I am very fond of myself. D El Matador: But not to the extent of pushing your- self on other people? Ahearn: No. If you don't love yourself, you can't love other people. l El Matador: Just out of curiosity, what astrological sign do you belong to? Ahearn: Leo. El Matador: I thought you WCTC 21 Pisces. Ahearn: You see- I don,t go along with any of these

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hey, that Vl0l'C osed :God iests gion war, illed iests they it in the mar- aiah, erity nk a at is e in- irch, ther- leav- ,king dent. itch? r:0Dle eally omf, ut in 55 to ionS, in- ches free' these Ill See J be' - tllei' want to be free. We want to be free men, instead of secure men. El Matador: Do you think, however, that the masses are really seeking security and not freedom? Ahearn: The masses. Wow. Gee. You are talking about everybody. I want to be free and you want to be free. David wants to be free and Scott wants to be free. Groups of people don't want to be free, individuals want to be free, 8f0l1ps of people want to be secure. El Matador: Where are today's young people going fOr. this freedom, if they are not going to institutionalized religion? Ahearn: They are going out on their own. They are making decisions for themselves. Some of them are cruel and hard and they are suffering. But I also think they are going to make mistakes. In the long run, how- ever, they are going to be a better human being when they finally find themselves. El Matador: What about those returning to the Old Eastern ways of living and the Hare Krishna movement in order to obtain freedom? Ahearn: It is an attempt to find themselves, but I think they are going to be disillusioned because all of these movements began in the East, in India, in North India, and China. The goal of these philosophies is to flow back into a oneness, into a nirvana thus losing your identity. So they are making a mistake here. Many of them are finding this out. You are going to lose your identity. Thus they are confused with the Western way of living, which is an Aristotelian way of life, so they are going to the East. But, when they find out what is really over there, this is the Eastern philosophy, they are going to come back and say, thank God I am a Western, be- cause we have a goal and we are going to be individuals, we are going to be a person. Over there, the goal is not to be a person, not to be an individual. El Matador: The Eastern way oflife is so much slower. It is more tranquil than the Western way of life. If you ask an Easterner, When are you going to get the boat done? their reply is It will get done when it gets done, not before and not afterf' The Western way of life re- quires a specific answer. It will be done by 8 o'clock tomorrow morning? We run on time, and they are just existing. That is one of the reasons why the Westerners can't cope with this or can't relate to it so well. Ahearn: Yes, a simple yes. They are not concerned with it. We live in the tomorrow. This is our big mistake. The Western way of living is not the perfect way of life. We are not living for three o'clock, we are living for six oiclock, or the weekend, or Thanksgiving or Exodus. Some of us are living for the end of the year, for gradu- ation, for marriage, for retirement. Even today, young people think about retirement for security. We don't enjoy this beautiful moment right now. It is a beautiful moment-birds, bees, flowers. This is the moment we enjoyg not next week. Hell, next week will never get here because we will be thinking about the week after that. You know, it is the present moment that we must look for. El Matador: Presently there are five religion clubs on campus this year. Was it always like this or have they just become more active all of a sudden?