Southwestern College - Moundbuilder Yearbook (Winfield, KS)

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operate in the lives we live and the decisions we make. There seem to be only a limited num- ber of possibilities concerning the relationship of our values to our lifestyle. One possibility is that one simply lives. without reference to any values at all. However, to live, act, and make decisions implies that there are some things we desire or find valuable. Even to simply go on living implies that we find some value in life itself. The only per- son who exhibits no values is the one who performs no actions tsuch as the mental patient in a catatonic trancey A second possibility that we can imagine is that of one's values and lifestyle being con- sistent. I'm not sure if there is anyone who lives up to their ideals perfectly. However, there have been some in history who have affirmed as a creed, cer- tain values and ideals which many people reject verbally but live in actual practice. Recent examples would be found in the Playboy philosophy of una- bashed hedonism or in Ayn Rand's collection of essays, The Virtue of Selfishness. .i, Bill Lawlwad - Resource Director New Generations For New Days n- The majority of us will find ourselves firmly nestled in a third category I will now set out. This category includes all those whose values and ideals are not perfectly consistent with their practice or their lites- tyle. The lesson learned by the market researchers was that there is commonly a wide gap between the real values which direct our behavior and those that we mistakenly think we cherish, As Socrates loved to put it, it is bad enough to be afflicted with a disease. How- ever, to be diseased and not know it is doubly bad. There- fore, a large dose of painful, reflective self-awareness is necessary to cure the latter condition, whether it be a dis- ease in the body or in our character. I will leave it up to you to document the discrepancy between ideals and actuality in our personal and corporate lives. I will also assume that most will recognize the wisdom of consistency between theory and practice, creed and con- duct, or values and actions. But once we are aware of the disparity, the question remains as to how we resolve it. One solution would be to lower our ideals and bring them down to the level of our actual practice. Thus the status quo would be the measure of our ideals and not the other way around. Though such a solution is easy, it will not be satisfactory. it seems then, that we are led to the paradox of defending the values of a certain amount of hypocrisy. The moral man is not the one who sets his goals and ideals within easy reach. Rather, he is the one who is always aware of the haunting hiatus between his best efforts and the highest aspirations of his soul. William Hazlitt has said, 'Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

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The Virtue Of Hypocrisy by Bill Lawhead Last year, I taught a mini- course in Western Culture II, which had the dubious title of HArchaeological Explorations into the Twentieth Centuryfl The purpose of the course was to critically examine our own decade and culture as though we were archaeologists from another culture and another age. A basic premise was that the key ltartitactsll 01 our soci- ety, those that would give us the most insight into the spirit of this age, were the popular advertisements which saturate the mass media. Why did I suggest we look to popular ads to understand this decade and not the profound writings of contemporary philosophers and intellectuals? Quite simply, philosophers 0f they live up to that namet seek to make clear what our values ought to be. On the other hand, Madison Avenue advertisers are quite untroubled by such ethereal questions and concern them- selves solely with what our val- ues actually are. it was some time back in the fifties that the ad-men first dis- covered that there was an incredibly wide discrepancy between our seIf-images and our real selves. What we think our values ought to be, what we hope they are, or what we affirm they are is one thing and what our values really happen to be is another thing alto- gether. This lesson was pain- fully learned by market researchers after numerous failures in trying to predict what the public would buy. Vance Packard, in his highly popularized look at advertising, The Hidden Persuaders, points out that researchers in this field gradually came to reject three basic assumptions they had made. llFirst, they decided, you can't assume that people know what they want . Second, some marketers concluded, you can't assume people will tell you the truth about their wants and dislikes even if they know them. What you are more likely to get, they decided, are answers that will protect the informants in their steadfast endeavor to appear to the world as really sensible. intelligent, rational beings t . . Finally, the marketers decided it is dangerous to assume that people can be trusted to behave in a rational way. As a result of all this, the llimage- makers' and the Hhidden per- suaderslt have developed a whole science consisting of techniques to motivate us to buy their product or vote tor their candidate. Although this is an over-sim- plification, we could say that the advertiser-persuader uses two kinds of techniques. First, he tries to assure us that we are the kind of persons we would like to think we are. Thus, we are told that if we buy his product we can be confident that we are: at a good husbandrwiferpar- ent by concernedrawarersensi- tive ct rationalrshrewdrjudicious dt appealingrfun-lovingr young Of course, such a list is end- less. However, these are some of the qualities we would like to have and which the ads conti- dently tell us we can have it we buy their product. Secondly, the ad-man attempts to appeal indirectly to those values by which we actually live and make our decisions, even though we may not be aware of this level of our motives. According to Packard, the mar- ket researchers see us as ltbundles ot daydreams, misty hidden yearnings, guilt com- plexes, irrational emotional blockages. We are image lov- ers given to impulsive and compulsive acts. We annoy them with our seemingly senseless quirks, but we please them with our growing docility in responding to their manipu- lation of symbols that stir us to action?' Thus the valueswhich unconsciously motivate us may be greed, status, power, secu- rity, and others of this sort. The purpose of this article was not to llagellate the adver- tisers once more. Rather, I wanted to take a look at the way our values and ideals

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..Hv Gerald R. its '- In the first issue of Abraxas, the interview with President Ruthenberg made mention of Admis- sions a how it can be used as an effective tool to re-vamp the attitudes at Southwestern and enlarge upon present opportunities. All this talk about Admission made us here at Abraxas curi- ous about what is actually happening in the north end of Christy Hall. It really doesn't take much to find out. All you have to do is walk into the office and say, Hey, what's happening'W' and they'll tell you e ttthey being Donna Bean, Rick Johnson, Don Hapward, and the Director of Admissions, Gerald Raines. A conversation with them seems to follow the theme of 'Make A Wishf which is, for those of you unfamiliar with Sunday morning TV: Make a wish, Dream a dream . . . Anything you want to try Just reach out and fly high. In a 45-minute interview with Raines, the year 2000 was mentioned four times HCultural Center for Human Valuest' was the term used to describe a possible future Southwestern. A few years ago, speaking in terms of two years would have been considered long range. In the short while I was in the office, one pro- spective student was lost on campus tat South- western? That's what I thought; another one was given the t'royal treatment, three secretar- ies were kept busy, and people kept wandering in and out wanting to know what was making it in Admissions. In the meantime Raines was using phrases such as ttexciting things about Southwestern, ttthis is a revolution on our oampusf' and Huniimited possibilities, none of which has been heard on campus since Indians held a powwow where Christy is now. This man, who is at the center of Admissions, is quick to point out that the so-called t'ohanges are nothing but extensions of past programs and have been on administrative drawing boards for some time; theytve just acquired a new empha- SIS. This new emphasis could be seen in President Ruthenbergts interview and is carried on in the following interview with Gerald Raines. This inter- view gave me the impression of a man who thor- oughly enjoyed his work and wasn't afraid to let me know it. Most striking is his faith in the pro- grams now being carried out in admissions. This man really believes in Southwestern and if he typifies the rest of the administration, maybe their goals can be reached.