Clarion Defender_1968-06-13

CLARION DEFENDER The Conquest Of Violence . It is good that the spcmtaneous response of the American people to the murder of Robert Kennedy should be one of shame and guilt over the violence that is disfiguring life in the United States: Out of such revulsion and self-searching may come theknmYledge and resolve todeal fully with all the causes and forms o£ savagery and brutality that have been ripping at theAmerican vitals and that have cut so heavily into the meaning of life in the United States. But the American people ,,.ill misread the meaning of Robert Kennedy's death if they view "it solely rs a self-contained American tragedy. The tragedy is the result of the spillover of vio· lence and volatile tensions from one part of the world to another. In a larger sense, it is the tragedy of a world that somehow became one befo re it became whcle. All t!1c stru;gles, strivings, hostilitie:;, and hopes of a globe teeming..,, ith human bein;;s h<:'.YC become £u~d inside a single arena. To li'-"e i11 the blt.er half of the t\ventieth cen· tury is 1o live at a time when national boundaries are inoperable as lines cf s.;.i:>Jration or protec· tion. All men> \Vh ~· ' cver tl1eir faces or moods, rub together in a way that makes for limitless up– heaval or promise. 'Ve are at the end of the age of purely national or even regional problems. Combustibles for set– ting the globe afire exist every\\here-whether in the interior of .Africa or the I ow lands of Asia or the seedbed of civillza lion in the Mediterram~an. No American Prc~idcnt-indced, no man \\ho aspires to the Prc~idcncy-l:an stanJ aloof from those problems or the tensions they engender. He isexpected to makehis po::.ition knov.-n. His "ie1Ys have the power to chancre historv \vhether or not ,:, _, · they ofl1cially represent United States policy. And so the Whit!c House and its a~pir~ants are a magnet for the arguments or appeal of govern:. ments and their citizens everywhere. Aiso, a target for partisans whose rage and frustration can be attached to triggers. The mood of violence is not peculiar to Amer·. ica. Throughout the enQI'e world people are caught up in convulsive change. The old hlstor· ical rhythms are hardly recognizable. Issues that formerly took a century or more to come to a boil are in constant eruption.Everything is being bunched up-time, space, nations, people, issues. And everything.has a fuse attached to it. The habits of nations, always variable, have bec_ome starkly irrational. Nothing made by na· tions today is in greater abundance than destruc– tive force. Nations have in reserve the equivalent of thirty thousandpounds of TNT for everyman, ·woman, and child in the world. They do not have in reserve thirty thousand pounds offood ormed– icines or clothes or books for every person in the world. Just a single hydrogen bomb now contains more explosivepower than all thebombsdropped from the air during the Second World War put together. Thousan~ of su.ch bombs are now ready for instant use. Day by day the mountain of weapons gro_ws fatter and higher. Evenifonlyonefourth of these weaponswere detonated, theplanetcouldbepois– oned and pulverized beyond the ability of man to cleanse or repair. The assumption that the human race is secure because such power is in the hands of govern· ments is not a safe assumption. Governments are run by men. There is no way ofmaking the seats of po\ver throughout the world open only to those men who have deep convictions about the pre– ciousness of life and who can exercise limitless restraint in the face of limitless provocation or opportunity. Violence in o'Ur world is interconnected. It is chain reactive. It runs from the small to the large and back again, from a half-crazed individual witha handgun tospacearmadas with explosives that can incinerate whole cities, from men 'Wn() have contempt for law to nations that refuseeven. to consider the establishment of law in theworld. Itisimportanttoprotectmenagainstassassinae· tion. It is also- important to protect civilizati9n. against assassination. It is important to protect individuals again.sC readily available handguns. · · It is also important to protect three t,m.ion. peopleagainstreadilyavailablenuclear explosives· carried by cruising spaceshlps qr missiles. The consequences of anarchy in the streetsare· serious. The consequences of anarchy among nations are catastrophic. The control ofviolence, therefore, in the int• mediate neighborhood or in the world at large, depends on the qualityof theme11who arewilling tolend themselves to it. This bas always been the case. Human progress inevitably depends on enoughmen defining the values they want to live by and then backing up those standards by wise and appropriatemeans. . If enough men care deeply about each other, theycanbeginto reconstruct theirworld in a way thafwill be congenial to human life. It will not be easy-changing the dominant atmosphere of vio· lence; reaching the men.who govern television, movies, magazines, newspapers, and books and convincing themof.the direct connectionbetween what they are doing and the cheapeningof life in our society; persuading legislators that guna can kill; creating a groundswell of support all over the world for upgrading the United ~a~ions to a level 'vhere it can bring weapons of holocaust under control, ai1d, what is c1- en more importai1t, controlling the basic causes of ,\·ar itself. It is not easy, but it is neccs~ary. Those who feel stronglyenoughabout lifeand itspossibilities will find a wayof doing \Vhat is necessary. -Norman Cousins THIS -EDITORIAL WILL APPEAR 1N THE SATURDAY REVIEW FOR JUNE 22, 1968. IT IS PUBLISHED HERE AS A PUBLIC SERVICE BY THE McCALL CORPORATION, PUBLISHERS OF McCALL'S, REDBOOK, AND SATURDAY REVIEW.