St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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nore the complementary truth that direct lk experience undisciplined by technical reason can also be a treacherous master, ‘a leading to slovenly mysticism and, ul- timately, to a breakdown of communica- ’ tion. Both forms of thought are as nec- Ta essary to create understanding of reality as both sexes are to create new life... The search for the sacred in nature, ny the third major theme in the student movement’s system of ideas, has many of « the same characteristics as the concerns with reason and the nonrational. There is the same partial truth, the same unreal- istic turning of one’s back on what has ey already been accomplished, but also there is the same unerring aim at one of the most dangerous and critical imbalances in our American culture. The point can be conveyed, as my colleague William Bar- rett points out, by contrasting a windmill with a bulldozer. The windmill has to Ui ricdate iteelt to the wind and the terrain. To fulfill its function as a windmill, it makes use of the region even as it accommodates itself to it. It uses + the wind in such a way as not to consume it. The wind continues on and remains the wind. The windmill can use the wind only by giving itself to it; it lets the wind be wind. The bulldozer is a human artifact of a very different kind. Its name appropriately conveys the idea of power: It does not accom- modate itself to the objects of nature, but overpowers them. It bursts through obstacles, pushes them aside, levels them ... It is in this sense that the student ‘movement rejects the sharpness of the dichot- omy between man and his environment, deval- uing the artificial works of man and el- j the | all ent | sil evating instead the natural environment to the status of the sacred. It should be clear, then, that the great idea embodied in the student move- ment, the mass media to the contrary, is not that of political revolution in the classic sense of an overt transfer of power from those who now wield it to those who carry out the revolution. Since the early 1960s, the campus has served as incubator for two kinds of social change—one political, the other cultural. Up to now, the two have inter- penetrated each other, with the political side being the more prominent. Our re- search has shown that the tide of poli- tical radicalism on campus shifted direction in 1971, receding from its 1970 high. Although the number of students who identify with the New Left has not di- minished significantly over the past sev- eral years, the campus as a whole is far less politicized today than in previous years. The question now is, what will happen in the future? . . - Has the major thrust of the campus- led political revolution merely paused be- | fore renewing itself or has it entered a period of decline? How deep are the roots of student political radicalism? Our interpretation of the student move- ment suggests that the campus-based poli- tical revolution is over for the fore- seeable future, while the cultural revo- lution—the new naturalism—will continue to grow at an ever increasing tempo .. . Great ideas work by a covert underground process. Just when the students have aban- doned their evangelism and activism, the seeds of the idea that now flourishes on campus have taken root in the larger culture. Before the decade of the 1970s has passed, the new naturalism will become a powerful force, nationwide in scope. April 1, 1972 Copyright, Saturday Review, Inc. 41

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also thrives. The relationship between them is Consciousness III cannot thrive unless Consciousness . symbiotic, not mutually exclusive. esting; at least some of the old stereo- types are being rethought along fresh lines... The task of restoring, preserving, and creating new forms of community has haunted Western civilization since the Middle Ages. It is as if the great victories won in modern times by Protes- tantism, individualism, rationalism, sci- ence, and industrialization all were gain- ed at a terrible cost—the sacrifice of community. In the headiness of newly won freedom, democracy, and material progress, the cost was minimized. Yet, as our mod- ern history unfolds, the elan of our tech- nological materialist society wears down. A terrible loneliness and a sense of iso- lation break through at the society’s greatest points of vulnerability. In our present culture, many of the human bonds of community bonds seen as so necessary to the spirit as to be constitu- tive of all that is humanly natural, have come apart... Perhaps no aspect of the students’ cultural revolution is as poorly under- stood—and as widely misinterpreted—as student mistrust of rational, conceptual, calculative, and abstract modes of thought... The student movement reserves its most brutal shock for those logical-mind- ed managers, technologists, engineers, professors of business administration, planners, accountants, experimenters, and quantifiers for whom rational, orderly, and logical methods are the royal road to truth. To these professionals—and they are the men who keep our society running— student disdain for rational procedures is incomprehensible. In such attitudes, should they be generalized, they see the destruction of all they have built. And they are probably correct. Even within the counterculture itself, the disdain for technique takes its toll. Commune-baked bread is often hard, flat, and taste- 40 less; the belts fall apart (and, after all, how many belts do we need?); and commune-based law firms that reject disciplined thought win few cases. As our society is presently constitu- ted, service to one’s fellow man, of- fered with compassion but without knowledge, can be a menace to both giver and recipient . . . Unless the cul- tural revolution is to be confined to enclaves of elitist dropouts with well- heeled parents, it must somehow learn to coexist with the technological thrust of our society. If the new nat- uralism is to have a constructive im- pact on the society, it must presup- pose the existence of an affluent econ- omy with a technological base. Charles Reich to the contrary, Consciousness IU cannot thrive unless Consciousness II also thrives. The relationship be- tween them is symbiotic, not mutually exclusive. With these qualifications duly reg- istered, we come to our main point, namely, that the student critique of the rational, the technical, and the abstract is not mainly a negative rejection of these methods. Indeed, it is not a vote against them but a quest for other modes of understanding .. . The mathematician Marston Morse onc said, “The creative scientist lives in ‘the wilderness of logic’ where reason is the handmaiden and not the master .. . it is only as an artist that man knows reality.” Morse’s viewpoint, shared by many creative scientists, often after long introspection about how their discover- ies were actually made, is that the logical, orderly, abstract processes of explicit reasoning are merely the sur- face manifestations of rationality. They presuppose other, less well-organized forms of experience that arise out of an immediacy of involvement, a total en- gagement of the mind and senses with the subject being studied. This type of in- volvement is the opposite of detachment and sequential logic. Without it, tech- nical reason is doomed to perform its sterile operations in a vacum. Reason is trivial when cut off from its grounds in direct experience.

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the president and faculty of St Edwards University cordially invite you to A, Convocation honoring Joan Ganz Cooney President, Childrens Television Workshop Creator of Sesame Street” and the third recipient of the St even Serie aw Quest Tuesday April, [TH a+ 8:00 p.m. The Atrium, Moody Hal| Reception Aferwards