Brentwood College School - Brentonian Yearbook (Mill Bay, British Columbia Canada)

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political options, and limited reasonably only by con- sideration for the equal rights of others we call freedom under the law and while you accept it today without question as being your essential birthright, I think it is important for you to realize that it is only in very recent times that it has been enjoyed by western man: and that even today, over much of the earth ' s surface, freedom under the law as we understand it is an alien concept. But as it has evolved in western society, starting perhaps with the Renaissance and then galvanised by the Industrial Revolution and as man has broken loose from the shackles which for so long held captive his inborn genius, suddenly a vast pent up reservoir of initiative and inventiveness burst forth upon the world and within a few generations has transformed it from a medieval society into the infinitely complex environment which we share today. And this vast and sudden outpouring in the products of human genius is accelerating at a rate which is well nigh terrifying in its ultimate implications. As a matter of fact in the ten years of the seventies when youwho graduate today will be laying the foundations of your business and professional lives, in these ten years there will be more new inventions, new products for you to adjust to and assimilate than during the entire period of 170 years from 1800 to this date. But unfortunately, and this is where the rub comes, this quite staggering rate of scientific and technological advance has not been accompanied by a similar progress in our un- derstanding of the moral implications of our own in- ventiveness. Because make no mistake about it, almost every thing that man invents does carry with it a moral implication, a choice as to the manner and occasion of its use, and in this regard we seem to have failed pretty dismally. We appear to have become too clever for our own good. Or to put it another way, we seem to have let our brains go to our head. And so with this contrast, this paradox between our technical competence on the one hand and our moral or spiritual inadequacy on the other has come this very un- derstandable mood of puzzlement and frustration indeed sometimes of despair, which all of us share and which is particularly felt by young people. Now this is certainly not the first time in his history that man has been confronted by this type of moral dilemma, 16

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The physical environment, which I know you have been taught here to cherish as man ' s faithful and necessary companion in the partnership of existence, you will see more frequently treated as some nondescript serf to be insulted, demeaned and if necessary broken into submission to man ' s immediate profit. Seeing all this and much else besides which will offend the sense of fairness, the compassion and wisdom which you have learned here at school you will, I know, feel not only sudden anger but also I suspect an impulsive desire to shatter the whole sorry scheme of things to bits and then, as old Omar says, Remould it nearer to your heart ' s desire. And let me make plain that this reaction is not confined to young people. There is certainly nobody here this afternoon of whatever age who at times these days is not overcome by a sense of frustrated rage at the sheer massive imbecility of the world and who does sometimes dream of starting the whole experiment over again with a new set of ground rules. One of the many myths popularised today is that discontent is an ache found only in young hearts. So believe me none of us who is older would wish in any way to moderate your determination to put as much right as you possibly can and as much as the world will stand. All, perhaps, that we do ask is that you first give some thought to what it is that has gone wrong so that you will not throw overboard those things that have served mankind pretty well until now and will serve you well also if you will but give them half a chance. Now as we look at this society into which you are about to step and in which so many dreams seem to have gone astray we are struck, I think by a rather curious paradox. Through countless centuries, as your studies will have told you, man has been engaged in a struggle to liberate himself from the oppression and tyranny first of tribal chiefs, then of priests and kings and latterly of dictators of one sort or another. At each new step along this path to freedom man has also learned that as he has gained his liberties he has had to condition them with certain self-imposed limitations. These restrictions have been found necessary not because they are good in themselves but because men and women, being human and therefore frequently selfish, cannot be trusted with absolute freedom. This system of liberty of choice, both in our economic and 15

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although the scale and context are different for us. What is interesting I think is to observe that he seems to be reacting today in somewhat the same way as in past predicaments. One such reaction is to turn his back on the whole thing. This is the oldest of all responses to situations with which we feel unable to cope. We pull the sheets up over our heads in the hope that the shadows on the wall will go away. Some of our young folk today think they invented the technique of dropping out. It may be that in older and simpler societies it was possible to live in honest isolation from the community around one. But to pretend that in today ' s highly inter- related and inter-dependent world such detachment is possible let alone morally valid is to perpetrate a fraud and a delusion. Please do not misunderstand me. It is perfectly legitimate that at times in our lives we should wish to draw aside from the mainstream of events so that we may think through our next steps in relative detachment. But that is a totally different thing from refusing to take any reponsible role in life and then attempting to validate our refusal with philosophic argument. I do not for one moment believe that the option of deliberate disengagement from the challenges of life is one that will appeal to any graduate of Brentwood. However, there is a second and on the surface at least more excusable response we can make to the problems of the world around us. Having assessed their scale and complexity we can decide that, much as we would like to become in- volved with their resolution, our own resources are too limited and frail to permit our making any significant con- tribution: so that rather than doing some one thing, however modest, we do nothing at all. We fail, in other words, to lend what have been described as the stubborn ounces of our weight. Essentially we decide to leave it to others, and you see the trouble with this response is that more probably than not the others are leaving it to us. Indeed I am tempted to say there are more people today leaving more things to more others than ever before in the history of human affairs. And so in the event nothing gets done at all and sooner or later this or that problem becomes so critical that government of one kind or another is forced to step in and take over. And this of course is where the trouble starts. Because when, through our own default, or our fears about our own 17