The Lambda Fifth Columns: Part 2 (of 4), Winter 1972
This is the second part of a new series of Fifth Columns featuring my columns from 1971 to 1973 in the Laurentian University student newspaper Lambda, that inspired me to write the Fifth Column many years later. They will be presented here in four parts.
The original print copies have been run through an Optical Character Reader to present them in full text (rather than images) here.
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#15 1972-01-04)
By Richard W. Woodley
Where do we go from here?
Do we all say ‘I love you” and solve all the world’s problems. Or do we say that this is romantic nonsense and let us get back to politics where the real answers are - back to the revolution.
Or do we realize that love is the answer. The answer does not lie in simple goal oriented political acts to achieve short term ends. The problem is that we live in a society geared to make love difficult, if not impossible. The answer is in realizing this and directing social action towards the creation of a society where love is possible, encouraged, and practised.
We live within the capitalistic form of advanced industrial society where society’s norms are production and expansion. Personal goals are consumption, competition and profit.
The goals of society have become detached from any human element they may have once had. Presumably, in the beginning society (the political, economic and social system) was designed to provide services to people. However, now the goal of society has become one of simply supporting, reinforcing and expanding the “system” or machine,
This has led to overproduction with its subsequent social costs (one of them being the whole pollution and ecological crisis). As well we have the desire to produce more and more, even. if it requires fighting a war so that we have a need for this production. Tied in with this is the necessity to produce unneeded goods (for which a subsequent “need” is produced by the advertising industry) from scarce resources, while causing social problems (pollution and other problems caused by industrial and city living) simply to provide jobs (unneeded jobs) in a work oriented society.
The expansionist ethic simply means that in the guise of ‘‘saving the economy’’ these problems simply continue to multiply. The problem is simply the result of an artificial social system called capitalism being used for the artificial goal of advancing industrial society, Nobody knows where people fit into this context - except of course as producers and consumers but not as people.
The consumption ethic has led to the modern expression “things are to be loved and people are to be used”, This is seen by the worship of things (encouraged by the advertising industry) which leads people to use other people, to enable them to acquire more things. Things are a measure of success and happiness. As in the economy (where expansion is king) quantity rules. As one commercial puts it “big is beautiful”.
Together with this is the competition ethic. Society worships this. Of course capitalism is based on competition though in modern society it is practically non-existent as far as big business is concerned.
However, it is still the basis for almost all personal and social life. A prime example of the prevalence of this, and the conditioning for it, is our educational system. It leads us to see our social lives in terms of competition with other people. It teaches us to use other people in the competition for things. Even families are seen as competing within themselves (wife vs. husband, children vs. parents),
Competition of course is defended -- on two bases. It is said to create efficiency making possible greater production of things. This is highly questionable when one considers the waste competition creates and the efficiency co-operation could provide. As well it is said to “build character”, What this really means is that it prepares people to live in and accept a society based on competition and things.
Competition has played its part in society. For one it has been the basis for most wars. As well it justifies the use of people for personal gain (i.e. things) by explaining that everyone has the opportunity to compete.
What this all results in is a materialistic society with people being put in competition with each other for the ‘‘things that mean happiness”. This of course is artificial, but it does enable and indeed encourage the system to perpetuate itself.
The key to true humanity is to realize that people are important, not things. That by co-operating rather than competing with other people, all, not just a few, can benefit from the material things of life (which are a part, but a small part of life).
People will then realize that happiness comes from people not from things and people will learn to love each other for themselves and not for what they can give each other.
Can we achieve this society. This will require a social revolution -- a mass social revolution. How do the masses realize that they must participate in such a revolution. Where do we start.
Perhaps it is best to try and start in the middle. To practice love regardless of society’s attempts to prevent it. To refuse to play society’s rules and roles. To love each other. This is in effect the revolution,
Saying ‘“I love you’’ may not solve all the world’s problems but it may solve some of our own personal problems,
And that is a beginning!
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#16 1972-01-11)
By Richard W, Woodley
“I love you”.
By saying this you have decided not to let society prevent you from loving. But saying “I love you” is not enough, you have to be able to love. To love someone that person must be your equal. You may have been able to see through the artificiality of the socialization process and social norms that prevented you from loving before; but seeing through the social norms of socially defined sexual roles may be more difficult, (Though here we will be dealing with love between men and women we do not dismiss other forms of love as any less real or any less valuable.)
For love to be true and full both partners must see each other as equals, Equality does not necessarily mean being the same. But it does require that you reject artificial differences that imply inequality.
Sexually defined roles make love difficult for one can only love someone for themselves and sexually defined roles make the true expression of oneself more difficult.
One cannot be oneself if one is continually concerned with playing ones proper role - which is what worrying about masculinity or femininity amounts to. People worry about their masculinity or femininity because they have been socialized into believing that males and females have their own specific roles to play, They may not feel comfortable playing the role assigned to them, yet they feel they must be masculine or feminine (as defined by society). This creates artificial problems as their ability or inability to play their socially defined sexual roles has nothing to do with their masculinity or femininity.
We all recognize that there are certain physical differences and specific physical sexual roles such as those pertaining to conception and childbirth, These roles are real.
However the socially defined sexual roles are not real. They may have performed a function at one time, as certain religious and moral edicts once did in the ordering of society. But like these edicts they have continued past their usefulness.
One thing the roles do reflect is the society in which they exist. A male dominated society does not simply have different male and female roles - it has unequal male and female roles.
The doctrine of ‘‘different but equal’’, when applied to socially defined sexual roles, is as artificial as the doctrine of ““separate but equal’’ when applied to racially segregated schools, The male dominated society defines the female role as inferior to the male role, The female is given a gentle, passive, non-aggressive role, which by definition was inferior. The female role is defined as dependant on the male role - as a servant to the male role (“behind every successful man there is a woman” - but she had better stay behind him), The female is not to have a life of her own but is to live for ‘‘her man”.
The male, on the other hand, is defined as strong, aggressive, independent, and self-centred. He is the one that is to make it in society. His life is fulfilled by a female (his life exists without her but is fulfilled by her; while the female’s life is for the male, dependant on the male).
From this, of course, comes all the social inequalities of the sexes. Men get the better jobs because they are the basis of society - women are supposed to marry and be dependant. Preference must go to the male because he has a family to support. One could go on forever, but these social inequalities, as important as they are, may not be as important as the problem of inequality in interpersonal relationships.
For people to live in a relationship of love they must be dependant (equally) on each other and must be able to express themselves to each other as they really are. Men must not be afraid of being gentle and women must not be afraid of being aggressive (etc.). One is indeed inclined that both (along with many other feelings) exist in both men and women and depending on one’s feelings, at any one time, one will feel gentle or aggressive (etc.). These are feelings that come from within, not roles that should be defined by society. One must be able to see through the artificiality of such roles and be able to disregard them if one wishes to really love.
Again, I do not go into the broader social questions, but if we can learn to accept ourselves and those we love as people, not as socially defined role players, we will then be able to accept all people that we know and associate with as equals, not as role players, but as people with feelings and personalities of their own (not defined by society).
If we are to love each other as people, we must see each other as people, not as males or females; and see each other as expressions of human feelings, not social roles.
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#17 1972-01-20)
By Richard W. Woodley
As we take our analysis of love and society a step further we see that society does not stop at making love difficult, but also attempts, quite successfully, to dictate completely the form that love shall take. This, in itself, is another factor making love difficult,
Marriage is the place for love and sex. Marriage, though, in actuality has little to do with love. As conservative a magazine as Chatelaine has pointed out that marriage is in fact a legal contract where the wife agrees to provide sexual services in exchange for the husband’s provision of security. It is interesting to note that the husband is considered responsible for the wife’s security even if the marriage breaks down. However if the wife refuses to provide sexual services the husband is released from his responsibility for her security. This is one of the main factors in society that has led to the confusion between love and sex.
Marriage, in fact, is not designed for a relationship of love, Marriage is simply a financial agreement to protect the financial interests of the partners (in actuality mainly those of the wife) in case the marriage breaks down. Marriage is in fact designed mainly with the function of breaking down.
Marriage and the nuclear family are the basis of our society and play an important part in the perpetuation of the competition ethic.
The concept of marriage and the nuclear family is based on (and the basis of) the one man-woman forever theory of love. This is, for the most part, socialized into people. Though there are cases where it may be the appropriate, and sometimes only, way for those that feel deeply that it is what they must have to make their lives livable and worthwhile. However, in all too many cases, the decisions regarding the manifestation of the love an individual feels are made by society and not the individual. How a person wants to manifest their love should be decided by the individual, not by their social role or their society but, by what they feel. If they feel that they love one person and will love only that one person forever - that may be wonderful for them.
However most people do not make the choice; they do not even see the alternatives.
The alternatives are one man-one woman, in a formal marriage and various informal relationships of an infinite variety (man-woman; man-man; woman-woman; man-woman-man; woman-man-woman; man-woman-man-woman; ad infinitum).
However all of these alternatives are labelled as “living in sin”. Which is true, if you define sin as that which is not consistent with society’s norms. However, if you use the more intuitive definition of sin, how can any arrangement whereby people love each other be considered sinful.
Here I must emphasize that I am talking of love and not sex (Which is another complicated matter ‘ altogether, though one which is subject to the same type of social conditioning that love is). These relationships I refer to are not purely sexual relationships. They are relationships whereby the same spiritual, emotional, and personal relationships of love exist among the partners concerned (among all of them for all of them) as exist between a man and a woman in the more traditional concept of love.
As different as these forms of love are from the socialized norms of society, they must not be discounted as immoral or impossible. Indeed a strong argument could be built to suggest that these are more meaningful and better ways of loving, as who can argue against the statement “the more love the better’’.
But no one can say that any form of love is better than another. Love is an inner and personal experience and its manifestation depends on the individual. The important thing is that we all learn to accept people’s love as a good thing regardless of how it is manifested.
Those of us who believe in the one man-one woman forever concept of love must first of all search our souls to be sure that it is what we feel and not what we have been socialized into believing. As well we must not condemn those who express their love in a different manner than us; but we should, in fact, help them and encourage them to love each other in a society which is doing all it can to prevent them from loving.
We must not let society tell us how to love, for if we do it may prevent us from loving altogether.
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#18 1972-01-25)
By Richard W. Woodley
Talking about love in today’s society automatically brings people’s minds to the subject of sex. (For our present purposes ‘‘sex’’ shall mean physical sexual relations.) The two have become confused (not inter-related which they are; but confused - note that the meaning of the phrase ‘‘make love’’ is purely sexual and does not necessarily concern love at all.)
We will attempt to discuss and perhaps understand some of the questions surrounding the relationship between love and sex. At this point it may be helpful to point out my own personal perspective of a twenty-one year old virgin with a traditional upbringing, who has nonetheless developed a rather open mind on the subject (at least theoretically).
What we hope to discuss is the role of sex in life and love in terms of “morality’’ and personal fulfillment. How one sees this role depends on how one conceives of sex. I see basically two conceptions today, which are somewhat contradictory.
One is the concept that sex is simply one of many physical needs and one which provides pleasure. It is simply a human function like drinking, eating, and sleeping. It is seen as a need which requires satisfaction for a full life. Under this concept people have sex when they want to provide pleasure and satisfaction to themselves and others. There is no great moral decision involved. Having sexual relations is like going out for dinner. This follows logically from the belief that sex is purely a physical need requiring satisfaction.
The other view is that sex is the greatest of the physical needs and provides the greatest human satisfaction possible. This view tends to exaggerate the importance of sex in life. It leads to the belief that sex requires marriage (love) with the concurrent misunderstanding that marriage is FOR sex. While admitting that sex is a requirement for complete human satisfaction it restricts the satisfaction of this need to special relationships (sometimes love, sometimes marriage). One of the bad results of this view is the occurrence of marriages for sex.
We have to realize that both of these views are rather superficial.
Of the first, I would have to agree completely that sex is not a moral issue in itself. Morality must come into the question of course as it does in any decision to do anything. One must ask the question “Is anyone going to be hurt by this action (the participants or any third party)?”
Of the second, I would have to agree (purely based on theory) that sex is the greatest of the human PHYSICAL satisfactions and that it has the potential of being (as an expression of love) part of the greatest of human satisfactions.
Sex belongs within love - not because of any moral dictum, but because of its great potential for providing (within love) the greatest human satisfaction possible; that is the greatest intimacy or closeness between two people possible, It cannot live up to its full potential except within a complete love relationship.
A true relationship of love is one where the lovers become one person (one flesh-one soul). They become one in spirit and body. The closest one can get to physical oneness is through the sex act. Together with a spiritual oneness (indeed it can help in the feeling of this spiritual oneness) is where it belongs; is where it can be completely fulfilled.
Love is basically a feeling of spiritual oneness. It can, of course, be enhanced by the sexual expression of it and can be expressed and felt very intimately by means of its sexual expression. But basically it is a spiritual oneness - sex adds to it by providing the closest thing possible to a physical oneness.
Realistically, however, morality must be considered in talking about sex. Though sex may not be a moral matter, many have been socialized into believing that it is. For them it may be in reality a moral matter - for sex, in their case, may cause them harm, through guilt or remorse, and thus become a moral question.
Can people love or express love without sex. YES. I must assert this as love is basically a spiritual feeling - perhaps expressed and enhanced by its sexual expression.
However Virginia Johnson states that sex and love will frequently enhance and motivate one another. As well it has been pointed out that often a relationship of love may reach such intensity that its sexual expression becomes almost impossible to prevent, thereby providing a dilemma for those for whom it is immoral. In these cases it can lead to the sexual expression of love - which may produce feelings of guilt or remorse over one’s feeling of immorality, which may lead to the destruction of the relationship. Or the relationship may be terminated to prevent this.
Again we have an example of how society (social norms of morality) attempts to prevent people from loving - indeed even by attempting to destroy love that exists.
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#19 1972-02-01)
By Richard W. Woodley (with love)
What is this all about?
Perhaps it is time to come back to our original question. Time to reassess and reassert what love is.
Love is not a lot of things that people may say it is. Love is not chemistry. Love is not compatibility. There are no prerequisites for love. Love is not common interests, common philosophies, common aims, common ideas, common likes, common dislikes, common cultures, common desires, common wants, common needs. These may or may not exist in a love relationship, but these are not what the relationship is about.
Love is not sameness. Love is oneness - unity. Love is a feeling, a happening, a knowing that love is. Love is destiny.
Love is good times
Love is bad times
Love is laughing, smiling, crying
Love is the little things
Love is holding hands
Love is not having to say you're sorry
Love is saying you're sorry
Love is feeling
Love is understanding
Love is CARING
Love is knowing
Love is being
Love is walking in the snow
Love is sitting by a waterfall
Love is talking about the future
Love is never giving up hope
Love is unconditional
Love is asking
Love is giving
Love is waiting
Love is forever
Love is waiting forever
Love is poetry
Love is music
Love is always
Love is people
Love is together
Love is people together
Love is people together always
Love is you
Love is me
Love is us
Love is us always
Love is us together
Love is us together always
Love is love
Love is!
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#20 1972-02-08)
At Laurentian University there exists an anomaly known as the college system. This system is used in many large institutions to provide a small unit of identification for students who cannot identify with the factory type atmosphere of a large institution.
At Laurentian this is not the case. Our colleges, rather, provide a divisive factor on campus.
The colleges at Laurentian are based on religious differences with the University of Sudbury being Roman Catholic; Huntington, United; Thorneloe, Anglican; and University College, non-denominational. As well the colleges include arts and science students but exclude professional school students.
The colleges provide a social function for their members for the payment of a compulsory $10 fee. Every student must belong to a college or professional school student council. The professional school student councils provide both social and political functions for their members. The departmental associations for arts and science students do not receive any compulsory fees for the provision of political functions.
Thus we have students divided along school or religious lines for social activities.
What this does is limit the interaction which this system is supposed to provide. Also lacking is financial support for departmental political associations for arts and science students. Perhaps the two functions should be separated with political organization provided by departmental and school associations.
But what of the college student councils? They admittedly serve mainly residence students, who have their own residence councils, but are subsidized by non-residence students. As well their religious basis, and the religious separation it provides, make them, if not racist organizations, certainly undesirable organizations.
Is Laurentian really that big that we have to give up trying to create a Laurentian University community spirit and replace it with a College spirit, I doubt that.
I believe that Laurentian is still a manageable size and that social activities should be aimed at all students and aimed at bringing them together.
Oddly enough College councils profess to believe in this same principle, of bringing all Laurentian students together, and claim to stress college cooperation. The best way for colleges to cooperate is to eliminate the different colleges. But they say that this would destroy the spirit of college competition. And so let it be. If we are striving for cooperation then competition is a contradiction to this. For those who still want competition, such as in sports, it can be provided by other means. But one should remember that it is supposedly ‘playing the game’’ for its enjoyment that is important - not whether UC can murder the Thorneloe Nads.
With this, the present College (and Professional School) fees could be eliminated. A new fee, probably half the present fee would be provided for academic political unions within the departments and schools.
This leaves us with the problem of the residences. They have enough of their own problems. One way of solving both their problems and bringing town and residence students together would be for Laurentian University to take over all the residences. We would then be all Laurentian students, all SGA members.
It would then be much easier for all, Laurentian students to identify with the residences, and much easier to have the residences and their facilities opened up to all Laurentian students. The major benefit would be the unity of all residence students (along with all Laurentian students) in fighting for the change or abolition of residence regulations, and in unity there is strength,
The student body is now divided. The residence administrators are benefiting. The students, both residence and town are suffering. The elimination. of the college system could provide the impetus necessary to create a real Laurentian University community awareness.
We have left our discussion of love, not because we feel that we have solved all its problems for it will always entail problems, nor because it is not important enough to continue to discuss. Indeed - it is important enough to devote one’s whole life to. However it is time to turn this column to other things Hopefully our readers will continue to consider the questions raised. And hopefully they will seek and accept love,
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#21 1972-02-22)
By Richard W. Woodley (with love)
There has appeared on this campus a group which seems to want to split this university into French and English camps. For political reasons this group wants to prevent the adoption of the proposed new constitution.
The proposed constitution will bring the SGA back to the students. The improvements provided in it have been talked about and planned for many years. It is now almost reality. All it requires is a two-thirds vote of fifty per cent of the student body to come into effect. This is critical for the best turn out ever for an SGA vote was forty per cent. Fifty per cent of the students must vote to ratify this constitution.
Among its changes is the provision for Council representation along academic division lines. The SGA’s most important function in the future will be in the academic field - pressure for improved academic regulations, student representation on academic decision making bodies, and organization of academic departmental associations. As well students know best the capabilities and views of those they take courses with and are better able to assess the merits of candidates within their own academic discipline.
Probably the most important change is the provision for standing committees of council. These committees will decentralize power within the SGA. Presently Council tends to act on the recommendations of the executive. With the new system committees in the various areas (academic affairs, student services, educational resources, social and cultural affairs, information and finance) will recommend policy decisions. With this system the recommendations to Council will come from Council committees rather than the executive, which will also allow for more detailed consideration of policy areas, before policy is drawn up. As well it will provide for better representation as Council members will be required to sit on at least one standing committee. In this way people will not seek positions unless they are willing to do some work. As well, by sitting on committees, Council members will be more aware of what is going on in the SGA and better able to serve the students.
Other provisions within the proposed constitution provide for the elimination of language representation, as well as provisions for the recall of the executive, committee coordinators, and council representatives.
The group that wishes to split this campus has jumped on a clause that requires the vice-president to be bilingual. It should be pointed out that language representation (a safeguard for French language representation) has been eliminated. With this move we may have expected some disagreement from the French minority, who would have a legitimate right to feel threatened. But no! The English majority feels that it is threatened by a simple clause, based on function not language.
The vice-president’s function is that of being chairman of council and responsible for council documents. Since we are a bilingual SGA, and since the student body, this year, voted 78% in favour of remaining a bilingual SGA, Council must be bilingual. This does not mean that all Council members must be bilingual but that representatives must be able to address the Council in both English and French and that Council documents must be available in both English and French. For this reason, due to the vice-president’s function, he must be bilingual.
This is not language representation, he need not be French, and he is elected by the entire student body (not just French speaking students - as the present French vice-president is).
Granting that this may provide a slight discriminatory factor against unilingual English (or French) speaking students; if we wish to have a bilingual SGA (and we do by 78%) in a situation where one group is in a minority position, the majority may be required to make certain concessions to protect the rights of the minority.
Demcracy not only implies majority rule but also MINORITY RIGHTS.
What should be borne in mind is that the proposed constitution is a great advance over our present constitution. It provides for a decentralization of power and control, which is especially vital now that the SGA is embarking on business enterprises which will soon be in the millions of dollars.
The constitution is in itself a philosophy, and as such it should be accepted as a cohesive whole. Amendment is provided for, but changes should not be made without careful study as to their effects on the whole philosophy of the constitution. The committee which drew up the proposed constitution studied all its aspects carefully. Changes should not be made on the whims of individuals who have not considered the constitution as a whole.
It is imperative, that if the students want the SGA to be their organization (under their control), that all students make the greatest effort to cast their votes in the affirmative on February 28 and 29!
And love still, very much, Is!
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#24 1972-03 14)
By Richard W. Woodley (with love)
It has been said that ““life is a blind date’’ (Skawski:1972) meaning that we have no choice in being born, or in the environment into which we are born. (Of course the anti-abortionists argue that if we had the choice we would all opt to be here - that remains to be seen - but that is a different question.)
However, ‘‘blind date’’ or not, we still have the choice of what we do on that date, that is, how we live our lives. We can be moderates or we can be extremists (radicals). I opt for extremism.
A person can chose to live a life of moderation. A safe life. A relatively happy life. A life where one avoids being hurt. A life where you trust no one completely and few people at all. You certainly don’t love anyone. And above all, a life where you make no commitments. A life where your own happiness is your main concern and preventing yourself from being hurt of prime importance.
This is what society’s ethic of moderation means, though we may not realize it. For moderation is the guardian of the status quo. And the status quo, right now, is a materialistic, selfish outlook where one’s own ‘‘happiness’’ is most important.
Yet one’s own well being (happiness) is not best served by this outlook. Few people today are truly contented. Those that are have rejected this ethic.
The alternative is freedom. For you can never be free unless you are able to take that one big step and give up your freedom. I am talking of commitment. Commitment to people provides the fullest life possible. Some try to replace it with commitment to causes or crusades. This may be because that is safer. Causes are not human (people) with all the complexities involved. And besides if one is ‘‘committed enough’’ he can shape the cause to what he wants. (Commitment to people may require him to adapt.) But that is not what commitment is about. Commitment is to people.
Commitment, of course, can be painful. In fact it cannot help but be so. Commitment necessarily entails pain, for it requires closeness and intimacy. And people are human and fragile and delicate and sensitive. If any two people are truly close and committed they will hurt each other, For they will let their whole selves be known to each other, and not just their safe public selves. And then the type of inner frustration one often feels within oneself will be felt amongst them. But this is not a case of them hurting each other (though it may appear to manifest itself that way) but rather a case of them sharing each others’ pain,
However, the closeness that commitment brings can be the most wonderful of feelings. It is what true love is, Commitment to another is striving for ‘‘oneness’’ with that person. It cannot be described - it can only be felt. And it is felt by very few in today’s society.
This is extremism. It is extreme, literally, for it is a life of extremes - extreme joy, pleasure, contentment along with pain. An alternative to a life of moderation and moderate ‘‘happiness’’.
The option is yours, but remember: Love is radical. Radicalism is wrong. Love is wrong. So says society.
Perhaps society is wrong!
A loved one’s smile can make you happv!
The Fifth Column (VOL 10#25 1972-03-21)
By Richard W, Woodley (with love) ;
Where have we come from and where are we going? Here we are at the end of the year, or rather in the middle of our lives.
This, I suppose, will be a personal assessment, It may mean little to those who don’t know me, It should mean a lot to those who do and to those I care about. It should mean a little to all who have shared my thoughts and ideas throughout the year, And it should mean something to all of us, for we all share the feelings of being human.
This year has been, I suppose, in many ways a rewarding yet frustrating year. It has been most of the time an empty one, for me personally, yet maybe it shouldn’t have been, Politically it has been an active one, for politics, being my second love, has filled a void in my life. Academically it has been successful, I suppose, yet I wonder if it is worth the effort to complete successfully. After three years of academic work you begin to wonder if you are really achieving anything. You also resent it for getting in the way of more important things - more important learning experiences - such as working with and relating to your fellow students and human beings,
You don’t want to leave because you don’t want to go out into that world, that society that you despise. When you see the inhumanity within this supposedly “‘free’’ environment you wonder if you could stand it outside. When you see the problems trying to make changes in this supposedly ‘‘enlightened’’ environment you wonder if there is any hope for society outside.
And when you work to change that society outside and then see that the system’ is so powerful that it can mould the minds of people so that the people throw away their opportunity for change, you begin to lose hope.
When you see within your own supposedly unstructured environment ridicule made of change and ‘‘democracy’’ - people talking of legalities and refusing to share responsibility you begin to lose hope.
But we are back to the same question. It’s alright to talk but few will commit themselves, They may commit themselves to ideas but not to action.
But what we need is more than that, We need a commitment to principles, but also to people. And a commitment to that one special person is not enough. We have to all commit ourselves to everyone else, and perhaps this is the hardest of all. We have to all love each other.
You begin to realize that we have all been socialized, That our little “free” university world is only an extension of the evil world outside. That we are all part of the system.
The only way that we can change it is by seeing the humanness in each of us and relating to that and seeking to bring that out in each other and reinforce it, Yet how do we do that. On the basis that society has defined it - on a one to one basis. Love is for two people. Not for everyone together, Perhaps that is where we have to start. But there must be a way for us, all of us, to actually love each other, all of us,
We do not know the answer. Most of the time we do not look for it. We just go on playing our roles and spouting the rhetoric of change - and sometimes we even tinker with the system - but the system remains.
In love, I remain, as the world goes on.
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