Postgraduate Course for the Class of ’47 ... What Is Our Future Survival ? Less than a month from now the Class of ’47 will have left the incubator. Armed only with a diploma and whatever knowledge and attitudes we have acquired during our four years in the com paratively insulated security of campus life, most of us will, for the first time, try standing on what jive ourselves are. What is ahead for the Class of ’47? For most of us, life after college will consist of £ series of postgraduate courses—courses not listed in any academic catalogue. We will be doing a lot of lab work—in how to get along with people, how to “adjust,” how to be “happily married,” how to hold a job, how to contribute fo “the life of a com munity,” how to be "good citizens, and finally, perhaps, how to die. The Class of ’47, and this entire generation, will need another postgraduate course—also not listed in university catalogues. This course is called “Sur vival I and II.” And a certain O. Istris, in an article, parts of which are here reprinted from the June issue of ’47 The Magazine of the Year (Copyright 1947 by Associated Magazine Contributors, Inc.) gives us a short introductory seminar on the subject: (Re printed courtesy of Walter Ross; publisher, ’47) * * * It is almost impossible, is it not, for you even to play with the possibility that, for some ages to come, yours may be the last generation of civilized man. Yet unless you play with that possibility and incorporate it into your thinking, you are unpre pared for life. Jt does not matter that you are a Phi Delt or a Theta. It does not matter that your father is hold ing ready a desk for you in his brokerage house. It does not even matter that you are an All-Amer ican fullback (much less, of course, that you are a Phi Beta Kappa). Unless you realize that you are part of a civilization, which DURING YOUR OWN TIME must either change or die, you are unprepared for life, and your college career has been a waste of effort and money. You are young ... It is easier for a young man to accept the possibility of a basic change in his club regulations. So 1 will now repeat what a IT iWb icqually platitudinous predecessors on the platform have always said: You Are The Hope Of The Future. What Future? Here, as some see it, is one possible future, sketchily outlined in three general statements: 1. A fairly large proportion of the world’s in habitants will during the next decade or two die premature and unnatural deaths. 2. The technical and industrial base on which “advanced” people like ourselves rest will be grave ly and perhaps fatally disrupted. 3. The system of ideas and incentives (call it Western Civilization) which is what really tains us will be wrecked, to be replaced by a new system. This new system will offer the richest nourishment to near-paranoiacs and human auto mata. >{c * Toward these three statements—actually they are indivisable—you may adopt one of these atti tudes : Oregon ^Emerald MARGUERITE WITTWER-WRIGHT, Editor GEORGE PEGG, Business Manager BOB FRAZIER Associate to Editor JEANNE SIMMONDS Managing Editor BILL YATES News Editor BERNIE HAMMERBECK Sports Editor DON FAIR, WALLY HUNTER Assistant Sports Editors walt McKinney Assistant Managing Editor BOBOLEE BROPHY and JT’NE G0ET7E Assistant News Editors BARBARA TWIFORD Advertising Manager PHYLLIS KOHLMEIER Executive Secretary lev'll junto, WlrtU a •tuvv^lut'UVf MEMBER — ASSOCIATED^COLLEGIATE PRESS ASSOCIATED PRESS WIRE SERVICE Entered as second class matter at the postoffice, Eugene, Oregon. FIRST, YOU MAY REJECT THE STATE MENTS AS ABSURD. In that case you will endeavor to lead much the kind of life that our present culture holds out as desirable. You are probably familiar with the main features of this kind of life: commercial competi tion ; the accumulation of money, objects, and in surance policies; the pursuit of passive diversion (spectacle-sports, movies, radio, etc.); clique-gre goriousness (the club, the fraternity house, the labor union, the church); attainment of respecta bility (well-dressed wife, well-mannered children, well-invested securities); the shunning of political activity together with a liking for political conver sation; a preference for angle-figuring over rational thought; respect for law', automatic gear-shifts, order, cleanliness, mother, individual initiative, business, people like ourselves and all successful folk like radio comics and any kind of leader with top-flight Neanderthal minds. There is nothing harmful about this life. There is only one thing the matter with it: unless the evi dence is false, you will not be allow'ed to live it much longer. * =i= * SECOND, YOU MAY ACCEPT ' THE STATEMENTS WITH RESIGNATION AND PLEASURE. If yrou are resigned, your cue is merely to drift along in a kind of mild coma. If you should welcome these statements, not with resignation, but with approval, you need have no fear of standing alone. There are quantities of people, known as realists, in all countries who have already in their minds written off one or more atomic and ultra-atomic wars to come. It is a grave error to assume that all men love freedom. Many have a deep passion for dictator ship. Many more have a deep passion for servility'. The first group loves irresponsibility; the second, no responsibility. Both groups—how expensively this was rehearsed for us in Germany' between 1933 and 1945—MUST hate detached thought and wmat is loosely' called culture. The reason is clear: if one thinks long enough one is bound to conclude that freedom is good. Rlato said it long ago: "As there are misanthropists or haters of man, so also are there misologists, or haters of ideas." And the two, you might add, are one. Perhaps you are such a misanthropist-misal ogist. Do not hesitate to confess it, for you will find yourself in the company of some of the greaa^ est and most famous men in history. Indeed, the world has been owned and operated by such men, the power men, the strong men, the shrewd men, the angle-figurers, the accumulators. If you feel in yourself an irrepressible dislike of, or contempt for, the people who do not resemble you in race, color, religion, manners, economic back ground, social behavior; if you are confident that the application of sufficient force will solve any problem; if the idea of violence subtly fills some of your unconfessed dreams; if the notion of obey ing a “superior" supplies you with a secret comfort; if in your judgment mankind has worked itself into such a complicated mess that salvation can come about only through the imposition of “orderif you are heartily sick of the words nobody under stands, such as democracy, freedom, justice; if you are intrigued by the words everybody understands, such as success, power, security; if in the depths of your heart you feel that the ideal men. from Socra tes and Jesus down to your own philosophy pro fessor, are a procession of futile windbags—then you will probably be a happy and useful citizen of that future state so well characterized by H. G. Wells as a human termitarium. In that case I would urge you to work as hard as possible to bring the next war about, making sure that the “victory" will be ours. And you must fight the enemy at home—that enemy is the de tached intelligence. You must, for example, vigorously attack those men and women who are subject to the absurd de lusion that there is some nobilitv in every indi vidual. You must—but you hardly need specific counsels; your own sound, healthy instincts will tell you which side to choose, which men to cul tivate, which measures to support. And should the atomic bomb miss you, and the killing emanations and germs and poison gases and clouds of fire— should you survive all this, I predict for you a bril liant future. Yoy will end up as master or slave, and in either case you will feel jyst dandy. * * * However, it may turn out that you wish to serve as neither master nor slave—for both are servile, each being the prisoner of another unnatural rela- ■ tionship. Schooled, as I presume you have been, in the methods of inquiry, you may prefer a third alternative. You may prefer to INVESTIGATE THE STATEMENTS. You will then seek to determine, first, the de gree of probability of their truth; and second, the methods, in case that degree is found dangerously high, of averting the catastrophe they picture. Very well. We will start with some dismal news. You have just spent four years in an atmos phere of books and studies, at least in part. You are doubtless eager to step into what is loosely called “practical life.” There is a catch to that eagerness. To determine whether or not that “practical life” is to continue (otherwise there’s not much sense in rushing into it) you will have to go back at once to the verv thing you have just left behind: the world of studies. There is nothing harder than fundamental think ing and that is the requirement for this course, which we may call Survival One and Two. Those who do not care to elect this postgraduate course need listen no longer. To the die-hard rest of you : first you must stud^ something you cannot see, touch, taste, smell, or hear: the atom. To do this read Selig Hecht’s book EXPLAINING THE ATOM (The Viking Press, 18 East 48th St., New York). After 12 hours of study you will know more about atomic energy than virtually all of our representatives in Congress, most of our other officials, and most of our militarv leaders. For you will know that there is unfor tunately no "secret,” as supposed, to the manufac ture of atomic bombs. Next you must study Hiroshima, You must study the meaning of the event which newsreels and pic ture magazines, since they do not make a specialty of reflection, are not quite able to convey to von. ^ our study of the meaning of Hiroshima can best be started by dropping a postcard to the National Committee on Atomic Information, 1749 L Street, N.W Washington 6, D.C. asking for a list of their study materials. As a consequence to your reading you will come to many conclusions about the bomb. One of these conclusions will be that it is less a weapon of war than a method of genocide. ’K’Tfo tie research into the history of inventions will show you that the atomic bomb is merely one of a serje* of more lethal weapons to come. This is the preliminary work required in our course. The curriculum of advanced studies are for you to decide. I will, however, outline two general conclusions that your elementary studies are apt to suggest to you. Jje ifc hirst, Hiroshima symbolizes one of the most crucial events in recorded history: man’s formal announcement of his ability and apparent willing ness, to make an end of himself. Tou will conclude that, if suicide is to be avoid ed, a fundamentally new relationship will have to be established among men, nations, and the phy sical energy that science has released. That new relationship you yourself have to determine. This will take laborious reading, plus a great deafTr un compromising thought. There’s no easy way out. ^ our second general conclusion will be that the most sensible—if also the most frightening—state ments about the meaning of Hiroshima seems to have been uttered by the “impractical’’ men, suclt*r as scientists, educators, philosophers, and writers. By the very nature of their jobs (research into (Please turn to page seven)