Newspaper Page Text
2
MAY, 1965
The Panther
The Clark Panther
A journal of college life published from October to June by
students of Clark College, Atlanta, Georgia.
A promoter of school spirit by encouraging projects and ef
forts among student groups and individual students.
A medium through which an opportunity is provided for stu
dents to obtain experience in newsgathering, reporting, review
ing and writing.
An instrument for fostering friendly and constructive criticism
of campus activities.
Leondria Epps
Editor
Robert Holloway
Feature Editor
Jacqueline Bennett
Co-Editor
Gloria Lester
Sports Editor
Patricia Hudson
Secretary
Ellen Magby Wan Hakeem
Advisors
ScUtariailcf Sfrea&itty—
Expression of Opinion A Sin?
By Carrell Smith
During the past year since I have been at Clark, I have
noticed an annoying situation existing in various classrooms. In
my observation of different classrooms, 1 have discovered the
lack of orderly student disagreement between students and with
the faculty. I believe it is absolutely essential to disagree in
telligently with another student or an instructor providing the
person who disagrees is reasonable in his thinking.
Usually when a student participates in class discussion and
he opposes other opinions, there is an enormous amount of
clamoring and harsh criticism carried on by many other students
before that person is able to state his position. Is this the honest
way to disagree? Of course not! Disagreement and mistreatment
of this nature are thwarting, and they weaken the motivation of
a student. Most important is the extremely disrespectful attitude
displayed toward a fellow student. That some young men and
women of college level would indulge in such activity is both
heretical and inconceivable. Nevertheless, the problem is prevalent
and we must eliminate it. If we disagree with a student or an
instructor, we should first allow him to finish his statement, and
second, to be acknowledged before we express our disapproba
tion in regard to his statement. The time for making disparaging
comments about a student between neighbors has ended; let no
ambiguity exist as to where you stand on a specific situation; let
your disapproval be exposed to everyone in a classroom in an
intelligent manner.
The Free Thinkers Speak Out:
Why Not Music?
Why not music? Is this a legitimate question? Well, on Clark’s
campus I think it is. Let's see why:
There have been several students who have said, ‘1 really
miss the programs we had last year, and I wish we could have
more’. Well there has been two programs which the students
on the campus did not attend in full numbers. They were the
band concert and the opera and if the students were so thirsty
for culture, they would have attended. But instead they chose
to stay in the dormitories and claim they were studying, which is
not true.
I think that the students can not really be blamed for this
cultural apathy, I feel that the school has tried to feed them only
one kind of culture and that is Bach, Shakespeare and Rembrandt.
This should not be. There are people who will not go to the af
fairs just to get even with the school. I advocate a more diver
sified program of events, and this is when a change will be seen.
The dilemma of the arts is not limited to Clark's campus but
the nation in general. Cultural apathy is a problem that the late
President tried to help by having his administration to take a part
in and sponsor certain cultural programs, and at the same time
diversified ones.
As I conclude this short paper, I would like to say that it is
evident that until the cultural programs are diversified and at
tempt to meet the taste of a majority of the students, it will always
be “not music for me’’ on the Clark College campus.
The VALUE of VALUES
By LYN PALADINO
Lamentable is the everyday human situation of the child who must
be taught, even after repeated parental admonitions, the difference
between wrong and right. Unpardonable is the everyday societal situ
ation of the adult who, ostensibly a reflective, rational, concept-making
being, has not learned the difference between wrong and right. Clearly
the latter needs to appraise his values and nurture his values, allowing
them to come to full flower. Were he to commit wrong deeds fla
grantly and continuously, he needs expert assistance, not condemna
tion. Condemnation is pitifully weak refutation. Psychologists and
penologists, in their attempt to define the elusive word “psychopath,”
are agreed on the workable definition “a person who does not know
the difference between wrong and right.” Some pragmatic psycholo
gists believe the psychopath is “one without a conscience.” Granted,
the term “psychopath,” both its denotation and connotation, defies
stringent and precise meanings. But for the observer to adopt a faked
stance of objectivity in asserting neither the wrong deed, nor the
perpetrator of the wrong deed exists, because one clear definition is
nonexistent, is utterly fallacious. Proving the negative is not tanta
mount to disproving the positive; it is an appeal to ignorance and the
observer may believe what he wishes to believe.
Minimum space requirement hampers detailed analysis of morals
and ethics. The following compendium in the realm of values is
offered as background only. Since general agreement is lacking in how
(or what) a value is to be defined, one must provide the area of
accord, even if for the sake of semantic clarity. The term “value”
referred hereafter will mean “that which satisifies a human need”
or a human desire. Judgments are of two kinds: factual and value.
Factual judgments describe observable characteristics of a thing, i.e.,
“The height of Mt. McKinley is 20,300 feet.” The truth or falsity
of the assertion can be checked for authenticity — consult a current
world atlas or climb the mountain. Value judgments appraise the worth
of objects, i.e.. “The paintings of Picasso's Blue period are superior
to the paintings of Klee.” Here the judgment cannot be corroborated
nor negated because the qualities of Picasso's paintings evoke appreci
ative responses in the viewer. No two viewers experience the same
emotion awakened by the idea and the object; that is, the idea
embodied, as it were, visibly in the object.
Although philosophers have made great strides in their herculean
attempts to codify values, new difficulties emerge in a rapidly chang
ing world, necessitating changes in the scale of values. Again, general
agreement between two individuals, even a modicum, seldom if ever,
is achieved, because values themselves are interminable in their variety
and undergo constant transmutation. Some of the more cogent values
that concern all men are economic, social, character, aesthetic, intel
lectual and religious. These are classified human values. The ancient
Greeks, especially those of the fifth and sixth centuries B.C., who lived
in the republican polis rather than in a government of centralized
tyranny, believed three values superior to all others: beauty, goodness
and truth. Their reason? These values are self- sufficient. Truth does
not depend on something else for its worth because it is a good
in itself. Truth, therefore, is said to be an intrinsic value. A value that
is utilized as a means to an intrinsic value is a con-comitant and
insufficient unto itself, and as such, is extrinsic. The former is to be
preferred to the latter.
The moral quandry, yes. even chaos of our age, adds further
confusion to two old viewpoints to the problems of morality. One
is the unremitting pursuit of man to retain some moral code, custom
or tradition, complacent in his own cultural security — the appeal
to authority. The other is diametrically opposite from authoritarianism
— ethical relativism. Authoritarian ethics asphyxiate progress and
growth in a changing society: they induce the individual to accept
custom and tradition as the only standard. To coerce tradition is
to subserve the individual in a society. Although many traditions and
customs are beneficial, group morality is an immature stage of moral
ity. The ethical relativist alleges that there are no common standards
among individuals. Anything an individual believes good is good —
for him. Whatever is right at one place is wrong at another place
because there is no absolute standard. Doubtless, morality is relative
to human needs; yet to assume no standard for a morality is untrue.
Where then does an individual find the moral law as standard?
Immanuel Kant's “categorical imperative” recognizes in man a sense
of duty (“I ought”) which emanates from man’s innate nature. The
moral law is the will controlled by reason. John Stuart Mill's “utili-
taranism” is "the creed which accepts as the foundation of morals.
Utility or the Great Happiness Principle . . ." and . . . "holds that
actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." Jeremy
Bentham’s ethical theory espouses “. . . the greatest happiness of
the greatest number." He asserts, also, that man is a “pleasure-seeking,
pain-avoiding" creature. Because Bentham’s theory antedated Mill’s
theory, the latter added a qualitative standard to the pleasure doctrine
that modifies and extends the former’s position. Individuals, Mills
states, with cultivated faculties, are not satiated with the primal pleas
ures of the body alone; they seek the loftier pleasures of the intellect,
the moral, and the spirit too.
Does one find the answer in Kant, or in Mills, or in Bentham? Does
one coalesce the sense of duty theory with the happiness principle
for his standard of values? These questions are imponderables until
each person seeks and finds the solution that is commensurate with
his own human needs and desires. Greek thought influenced Kant.
Mill and Bentham discovered the happiness principle in Epicurus,
an early Greek exponent of hedonism. Turn to the Greeks and reflect
a moment.
Inscribed over the temple of Apollo at Delphi was the favorite
aphorism of the Greeks: “Know thyself.” Such a rule of life invited
speculation. On the literal level of interpretation the rule reminded
the healthy-minded Greek that he was a man subject to the limitations
of martality. On the ancillary level of symbolic implication the rule
meant to the Greek the realization of all his powers — physical, intel
lectual, moral, and aesthetic. Values all, they were to be developed
and refined to the highest possible degree. The Greek ideal of the
individual was self-realization. The Greek was to be a rational, respon
sible human being capable of developing and satisfying human desires
that ultimately led to freedom, individualism and self-realization. At
this point one is cautioned not to confuse the Greek ideal with the
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Uiiit prom Spring
Alice Henderson
Beautiful spring knocked at my
door
All dressed in green and colors
galore,
Red, blue, yellow and green
were parts of her color scheme.
Her golden hair was shining like
the sun,
It made me want to play and
have fun
Her feet were of a dark green.
The most beautiful green I had
ever seen
She was the image of the beautiful
of queens,
And looked as if she could catch
any king
Whether it was the king of
Winter of the King of Fall,
Beautiful spring could capture
them all
Oh, how my heart dazzled with
joy
To see such a woman who
traveled so far.
Through fall and winter she did
toil.
Badly beaten and badly soiled,
But how amazing it was to me.
To see how beautiful she could
be
Unharmed by the hardship of
the past.
Her raving beauty will forever
last,
Spring only comes but once a year
But everyone knows when she's
near,
For the flowers appear in color
ful blooms
And the sun is very warm at
noon,
I was as happy as a bumble bee
Because she came just to see me
Her eyes were glittering like stars
in the sky
I smiled as she silently stood by,
She smiled and said, “How are
You?”
And then disappeared into the
blue.
But then all of a sudden from
within the sky
A large blue and white hand
waved good-bye,
But I could not say anything
you see
For at the moment she’s all
around me,
With the birds in her arms
And the bees in their nest
Beautiful spring, I love you best.
^Jlie ^Jorment op (peniu.S
I suffer—truly suffer.
I suffer from that unquenchable
thirst for knowledge, for
learning—to know.
I learn.
Still, I drag on and on and on
and on and on . . .
I find no peace within myself.
I need more. Must have more.
Knowledge, learning.
Chaucer to Sandburg, Shake-
spear to Poe,
I read, read—read ’til the
clock’s hands close in on
midnight. Another day.
Gone. No relief.
I must have more.
Why this writhing, this pain,
to be endured only by the
gifted? Why, Fate, Why?
Is it such a crime to be
endowed? Why these stern
consequences I suffer?
No answer. Silence.
Still I trod on and on, suffering
as though inner peace were a
luxury to be had only by the
gentry. Why, Fate, Why?
Still, no answer. Silence.
Doomed, tormented, no
hope . . .
Dallas Roland Wingo, Esq.