monday, September 8, 1375
daily nebraskan
Hon - .
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Wanted soon: oneaammiSTrator
to fill Brecken ridge empty shoes
Dear editor,
The article captioned "Nigerian hopes coup solves
economic, tribal woes' (Daily Nebraskan, Sept. 5) made
interesting reading. But John Ofie Ukandu, who wrote
the article, erred on four points.
the second coup, wjhich he describes as "brutal and
unwanted, was not directed agamst "the Ibos of Biafra."
The truth is that the second coup, which brought General
Yakubu Gowon to power, wss directed against all the
people of eastern Nigeria.
Statistics reveal that minorities in the east suffered more
casualties than the Ibos. Top military officers of minority
origin in the east were slaughtered alongside their Ibo
counterparts.
Nigeria is not the third largest supplier of crude oil to
the United States: it is the No. 1 supplier (Time magazine,
Aug. 4, 1975). Nigeria overtook Canada and Venezuela,
who were first and second suppliers, respectively.
Finally, it does not matter to whom Nigeria's economy
is attached. As an economist, John should realize that
Nigeria, being in the "sterling zone," is bound to attach its
economy to that of Great Britain, its former colonial
master.
What John, I and other Nigerians should concern them
selves with is equitable distribution of wealth to 80 million
Nigerians. Whether or not Nigerian economy should be
attached to the British seems immaterial.
Brune Ekaidem
To not much of anyone's surprise, Adam
Breckenridge was named acting UNL chancellor
Saturday by NU President D.B. Varner.
Breckenridge, a capable teacher, surely will be as
competent as acting chancellor. After all, he s had
plenty of experience as interim administrator in a
variety of UNL offices.
But while Breckenridge is the acting Zumberge,
who will be the acting Breckenridge?
The vice chancellorship for Academic Affairs
stood nominally empty for 13 months before the
search committee's nomination of Breckenridge
was accepted.
Now Varner says he may ask the veteran UNL
official and political science professor to "wear
two hats"-or, in more appropriate metaphor, fill
two persons shoes-until a yet-to-be-selected
search committee for chancellor fulfills its task.
Such a move could affect the quality of Breck
enridge's leadership in both positions, especially if
the search group, despite Varner's Dec. 1 deadline,
bogs down as. badly as did the Academic Affaire
cornrnittee.
We hope the process of selecting a search com
mittee for chancellor will be rapid and wish good
speed to the group in choosing a replacement for
James Zumberge.
However, we hesitate to support Varner's sug
gestion that Breckenridge be asked to shoulder a
double burden.
Though naming an interim replacement for
Breckenridge in Academic Affairs would prolong
UNL's game of musical administrators, of which
we are all tired, it might be a favor to the new
acting chancellor-and to students at UNL.
Rebecca Brite
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes letters to the
editor and guest opinions. Choices of material
published will be based on timeliness and originality.
Letters must be accompanied by the writer s name,
but may be published under a pen name if requested.
Guest opinions should be typed, triple-spaced, on
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subject to editing and condensation, and cannot be
returned to the writer.
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1
Pirsig 'sacrifices quality for quantity'
But it is possible to produce reductio ad absurdura
Vw dis,ance bcimsn people has nothing to do
SK--"' ' ' ""E & to be nitpicking If logic was
between arts and rds Dad, h tumbling down
himself with a named nonentity, not with a person T , ,uthor claim8 that no one except himself has turned
ted for the fiction 7 ' upo, KXlu 1 his oraggadoclo only. reveals nrsig 1
J&4Jivc tj jucn twent eth renrurv nhilosopners w
PirsigH fundamental ohilosonhieai n.,il 1- .... tudwig Wittgenstein. Rudolnh Cirnan or AJ. Aver and the
kU I: Wween 8ubJect,
8y Bruce INelson
Autumn's touch has graced the campus. The melancholy
rain and extra greenness in the grass portends the death of
summer. Hopefully that natural death will take with it the
summer fads.
One of those fads is a book entitled Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. When 1 arrived
on campus two weeks ago, I found it the 'In" book to read.
And as with many books, once it became a fad, no one will
look at its critically except nasty dd cynics.
Pirsig! paperback attempts several things, and in the
process sacrifices quality for quantity. The major theme is
one of reconciliation: the father with his mentally un
balanced past, with his son and with society.
The narrative lurches between advancing the plot-i.e.,
traveling from town-to-town-and philosophic reflections.
The constant traveling, upon which everything is hung,
reminds one of Ketouac's On the Road or Nabokov's
LoUta
The author disavows the book as a novel, calling it
instead "An Inquiry Into Values. This was
wise, for fictionally it is weak. ' For sxamnle. Pirsis write! tht tw . .
The plot and philosophy jump back and forth with little . are useu, inductive and deductive," Induction is "reasn i
integration, and of the book's page read like a consumer from particular experiences to general truths DelHru
protection manual-Informative for the cyclist, perhaps, but inferences do the reverse." ' wcaucuve
boring for the rest of us. But anyone who has read the Logic 110 texthn t
Even worse, many of the narrator's reflections are as Choice and Chance knows this is "one of th
profound as a Sunday School teacher's platitudes. For widespread misconceptions of logic." m
example, "Buy good tools as you can afford them and , lite author errs again referring to reductio ad fiK.,
youll never regret it." or, "If you want to save money, "This form of argument rests on the troth ihTif T
dont overlook the newspaper want ads. And, "Its para- inevitable conclusions from a set of premises r k 2
doxical that where people m the most closely crowded. . . then it follows logically that at least one of the L.mi
the loneliness is the greatest. The explanation, I suppose, is that produced them is absurd." pnuses
til
- rH
I
L nmo
cynics corner
If the phucophical lectures compensated for the fiction w!
its problems could be overlooked. But they don't. f
logical posiUvists,
object, classicism-romanUcism and rationalism-empiricism ,ReardlcM. lg finally works out his thesis-anUthesU
In discussing these dilemmas, the author manages to diaJectLlc Md ca" hi synthesis "quality," QuaUty is the
commit faccual errors and logical mistakes.
something by which we know what is good and
Perhaps the logical mistakes hurt iha m t. uuj- beautiful. It precedes intthfngi nA .nvtial thoufiht.
calling it prides himself on his logical mind. Indeed he brags of his . Hs is 811 3 tells us. !ie refuses
probably earlier self as a "knower of logic." h 1 to define quality because In rfHnin mmcthlnz becomes
suoiect to the rational process.
k dos not want to do this despite his earlier thought
wat anything undefined, does not exist. Oh well!
Kobert Pirsig's underlying problem is that, as most
people, he wants to reduce everything to good or bad,
right or wrong, black or white. When this doesn't work
ft0 tnei force it. How many times must it be said that lite
IS more COmnle than kn
Cyrtic'i Quote of the Wetk-Polonius: What do you read,
my lord? HamletM Words, words, words, (Hamlet, IW
