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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 24, 1973)
r Commentary \ Just another way to get stoned? SEARCH needs a degree of legitimization By STAN FINK Fired off by the Beatles 10 years ago, the music explosion continues unabated. First it was Rock and nothing but Rock, but then taste ex panded. The new young music audience investigated other music, searching for exciting sounds. They helped launch a Blues revival, and stimulated interest in Soul music and Jazz. Finally, they became eclectic, favoring everything from ragtime to Sobotnick’s electronic time. Interest in music spread from young people to all age groups until now we witness a nationwide awakening to music. An interest that is reflected in unprecedented record, tape and stereo equipment sales. But where do the universities stand in relation to this music-culture ex plosion9 And, in particular, what is the prevailing attitude here at the University of Oregon? Any severe culture change boggles a University. It is an institution with a settled tradition and as such has dif ficulty responding to and ac commodating change. To get a University to change usually takes dramatic, visual and even unlawful action. Everything else goes by un noticed. Political and cultural changes — that was our script of the 60s. The script of the 70s must be society’s ac commodation and assimilation of these changes. Nothing new, so to speak, is happening in the 70s. It is a period of reflection and structuring. Figuring out what to do with the massive events of the 60s. How to structure the new ideas into a new type of society. The culture explosion of the 60s was partly implemented by the ex perimental college. Here the principle of heterodoxy as opposed to a narrow orthodoxy was sought. In the ex perimental college, such as SEARCH at the University of Oregon, teachers and students explored new areas of learning and learned in new ways. For a while such an experimental college looked like the ideal way to eventually ac commodate change in the university curriculum. But it did not turn out that way. The history of SEARCH shows that the University was willing to let people do their thing so long as the regular structure of the academic departments remained unaffected. That is, SEARCH is not really serious education. It is merely a playground appealing to a certain fringe group. Just another way to get stoned. To get down to specifics, let us take the case of the School of Music here at the University. This happens to be the one with which I am most familiar, having taught SEARCH courses on and off since 1969, through the school. From the very inception of the ex perimental program, the School of Music was one of the most cooperative on campus. It sponsored some avant garde courses including a Survey of New Musics, Rock and Roll, Jazz History, Urban Blues, African Folk Music and others. At first it was skeptical, but later more or less for mulated an ad hoc policy of allowing just about anything to be tried. This was good and encouraged ex perimentation. Some of these courses caused the school problems. Still, it kept on with the experiments. As a result of these efforts, for the first time students who were not music majors were brought within range of their offerings. But this was as close as they got. The School of Music likes to refer to these types as dabblers; people who play a little guitar, smoke a joint and freak out. They are on the fringe and the department wants to keep them there. For a SEARCH course can get you credit hours but not group requirements nor departmental credit hours leading to a degree. None of the SEARCH courses, therefore, are really taken seriously. Music majors are not encouraged to take them and very few do. They are too busy getting their degree requirements fulfilled. Who can blame them? SEARCH courses are obviously for dummies, not for serious music students. Secondly, there is the SEARCH in structor. Most SEARCH courses are taught by students once or twice and that’s it. Kind of a wham-bam-thank you-ma’am and you never hear of the course again. But some are taught over and over again by the same people. These are natural instructors who can fill up any room on campus, no matter how large. They have a charisma and a way of dealing with their subject which is new and exciting. Some of them are graduate students, others already have one or more degrees and are ex perienced teachers waiting to see if the University will take them seriously. These instructors give the University prestige and create FTE through enrollment. Yes, these courses help pay everyone’s salary. But SEARCH in structors are not paid. Why not? Because the departments will put no money in their budgets for SEARCH instructors. They are pinched already and know that SEARCH courses will be taught anyway. A few SEARCH instructors have applied for instructorships in various departments and have received payment mostly on a per course basis. Thereafter they cease to be in SEARCH and become, marginally, part of the department. This should be one of the goals of SEARCH; to persuade departments to hire the best SEARCH instructors so that the University will be permanently affected, so that the new ideas of the 60s can really become a part of the University structure. At the present time, things are at a total standstill. SEARCH should be moving ahead with new steps toward legitimizing its curriculum and toward persuading departments to begin to hire the outstanding instructors who wish to be hired. The various depart ments must begin to take new ideas seriously and allow them to affect their degree programs. This will all happen, but how many years must we wait? Fink is a graduate of the University and instructor of “History of Modern Jazz.” ---Commentary— The reasons for American support of Israel By LEAH MAHER. KEN SCHACHTER, and BETH KURREN American support of Israel has become a heated issue since the start of the war in the Middle East. Our support is necessary for Israel to come to terms with her neigh bors and secure the right to exist in peace. Now objections are being raised against that support. One objection stems from the fear that Israel will become another Vietnam. There are two simple reasons why this will not happen. First, no non-Israelis are allowed to fight in Israel’s armed forces. Those American civilians who have gone to help Israel in this war are allowed only to help keep the country’s economy going. They harvest crops and work in public facilities such as schools and hospitals. That is all. At no time has Israel ever requested the aid of American manpower. The second reason is that Israel is not an ignorant/helpless country under military dictatorship, as was South Vietnam. It is a highly industrialized democracy with no desire for more aid than is absolutely essential. The South Vietnamese people for the most part were illiterate and ignorant of what they were supposed to be fighting for. The Israelis know why they fight: for their survival as a state and as a people. Another objection raised is that of the Fear of an oil blockade by the Arab :ountries. Such a blockade has already :>egun, and no catastrophe has resulted.' The fact, as Senator Henry Jackson of Washington has stated, is that only four percent of the oil consumed by the United States comes from the Arab countries. The third objection to American support of Israel is based on statements which include the terms “Israeli expansionism” and “Palestinian refugees.” Israel is not interested in expanding her borders. She merely wants the right of every country to establish officially recognized boundaries. No such boundaries have ever been settled upon, because the Arab nations have never recognized the right of the state of Israel to exist. The Arab leaders and press stated their intentions toward Israel after the United Nations granted the right to form the state in November of 1947: AL KULTA NEWSPAPER, CAIRO: “150,000 Syrians will storm over the Palestine borders and the mighty Egyp tian army will throw the Jews into the sea if they dare to declare their state.” JAMIL MARDAM, SYRIAN PREMIER: “Stop talking, my brother Moslems. Arise and wipe out the Zionist scourge.” IBN SAUD, KING OF SAUDI ARABIA: “There are fifty million Arabs. What does it matter if we lose ten million people to kill all the Jews? The price is worth it.” The reason this war is being fought is that the Arab nations have never changed their goals, and such wars will continue to occur until Israel is given the right to establish boundaries through negotiation with the Arab countries. The Palestinian refugee situation is a pitiful one. It was created when Arab leaders urged the Arabs in newly-created Israel to flee before their attack on the infant state began. In retrospect, Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London) stated, “'Riis wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irrespon sible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could only be a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country.” (The Arabs. London, 1955, p. 183) The vast majority of the Arabs who fled did not even leave Palestine. They merely moved to the sections of Palestine which had been allocated by the U.N. to the new Arab state. No new Arab state was ever formed. Instead, Arab leaders have kept these refugees in pathetic squalor and prevented their rehabilitation. They have pacified the refugees by offering the hope of returning and taking "vengeance” on the Jews of Israel, to whom blame for the refugee situation has been transferred. The refugees are being used as political pawns by Arab leaders, who have done nothing to relieve their distress. There is an important reason for America to support Israel. Israel is a democracy, the only one in the Middle East. This kind of reasoning has become unpopular since Korea and Vietnam, but here is an instance in which it is the truth. Israel has a background similar in one respect to the United States. Both coun tries were founded as havens for people who had nowhere else to go, who wanted only to live peacefully with their own religions and customs. A theory has been advanced which states that if both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. refrain from aiding the Israeli and Arab states, the war will be contained and shortly ended. That is true, for the Arab countries have other sources of supply, and Israel does not. Out of all the countries of the world, the United States is the only one both willing and able to offer aid. Many countries are unable to help because of economic inability or a fear of losing their oil supply. Others, like the Soviet Union, have nothing to gain by aiding a democracy. The support of Israel is finally a matter of principle. Israel will stand alone against her enemies if necessary, but the military aid and negotiating power of the United States will ultimately bring about a more immediate end to the war. A balance of power between Israel and her neighbors must be established. A strong Israel, aided by American support, will force the Arab countries to recognize Israel’s right to secure and permanent borders. Israel has had to fight for survival since the day of her creation. She has earned our help. Maher, Schachter and Kurren represent the Support Israel Committee of the Jewish Student Union.
