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Show Notes From The Underground The Forward Look By GORDON IRVING Lately I have been moved to write serious columns. I have again become a crusader for truth, justice jus-tice and the American way. I have always had a St. George-eager-to-slay-the-dragon complex, which I suppose accounts in large measure for my admiration for Mark Twain, who seems to have hated hypocrisy and injustice as much as any man of whom I have ever heard. In the past two weeks I have attacked what seem to be the faults of honors students, athletics, and Greeks, and strangely enough there has been no response. At times like these I first wonder if anyone reads the Chronicle. Then I assume that a good many do read it and that once again I have encountered our most prominent characteristic : APATHY. As I understand it, silence sil-ence in some contexts is held to be assent; on this campus silence merely signifies indifference. Although Al-though I have known this for a long while I now find myself strangely angry about it. Time Heals All Wounds? I have been apathetic myself many times. So I understand how it is that students can be so inter ested in their own affairs as to be largely indifferent about what goes on at the University. But it does little good for the future of our society so-ciety if today's students carry with them into tomorrow their exclusive exclus-ive interest in their private affairs and their large-scale indifference toward civic affairs, cultural and social concerns and politics. The University is a sort of microcosm which contains all of these things, at least in embryo. Of course it is easy enough for Joe Student to say that he will do an about-face after graduation and suddenly become the Good Citizen. But if he builds an habitual apathy today it will be difficult for him to change tomorrow. Look at his parents: they perhaps are even more apathetic than their son because be-cause they're older and more settled set-tled in their ways. Then it's also easy to say that one is not interested because his efforts will have no effect. Yet one can never accurately predict what the future effects of one's actions will be. Great things can be done by small groups of determined people. Ten per cent of the citizenry, citizen-ry, organized and devoted to a cause, can sway presidential elections, elec-tions, legislatures, powers and principalities. Confidence in the future fu-ture and in one's fellow man can pay off, opinions of the cynics to the contrary. An apathy based upon pessimism can accomplish nothing. It leaves the door open for people with interest to run things just the way they like. Success Requires Work We can have a bright future. We have the materials and the potential poten-tial to build the brightest and shiniest shin-iest golden age ever known to man. We may be on the threshhold of the elimination of poverty, starvation, starva-tion, fear and ignorance. Most excitingly of all, it may well be possible that tolerance, liberty and desire for a scrupulously fair treatment treat-ment for all may become the social so-cial and political hallmarks of the new era. I think these are possibilities. possibil-ities. But they won't come true automatically or inevitably. These things must be fought for and worked for and lived for. Without a strenuous effort our age may be the bleakest and most boring of all the ages of man. Apathy can lead to just such a future. The possibilities for a beautiful future are enchanting, captivating-I captivating-I for one want to live in that kind of world. I intend to fight for it the best way I know how. |