Tuesday, January 28, 1986
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
NsbraMcan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lob ITS
Important to
Last January UNL Chancellor
Martin Massengale set up
the Commission on General
Liberal Education, leaving it with
this question: "In the context of
our distinctive role and mission,
what do we consider to be the
desirable qualities of an edu
cated person?"
Not surprisingly, the commis
sion concluded that an educated
person should be schooled in the
traditional areas of the liberal
arts. Their report emphasized
that this consists of thought
processes and basic knowledge.
The commission concurred
with the Chancellor's notion that
"the success of a general educa
tion program depends not so
much on the curricular structure
but on the commitment and
enthusiasm of the faculty." The
commission emphasized "faculty
involvement" and held that
"faculty are at the center of
renewal in education."
While the emphasis on teach
ers' roles is justified, the analysis
is too simplistic. True education
occurs through contact between
faculty and students. While
teacher enthusiasm certainly is
necessary for a good learning
environment, students are re
TiraWic court
No-shows are unnecessary expense
Nearly 40,000 Nebraskans
fail to appear in traffic
court each year. It's a prob
lem that costs taxpayers thou
sands of dollars in paperwork
and personnel.
To control the problem, state
Sen. Yard Johnson of Omaha
introduced a bill this session to
suspend the driver's licenses of
people who miss court dates for
traffic-related violations.
Although the bill is based
heavily on assumption, it could
be the right solution to a large
problem.
LB 153 would suspend, after a
20-day grace period, the driver's
licenses of people who fail to
appear in traffic court. Trans
gressors would have to pay a $25
fee to reinstate their licenses.
The bill also would require
$130,000 needed to hire 10 addi
tional employees to handle the
extra work of reinstating licenses.
That figure appears to be large,
but the return from such an
investment could eventually bene
fit the state.
Currently, when someone
misses a court date, court em
ployees often have to issue a
warrant for arrest. Law enforce
ment officials must serve those
warrants. Court employees then must
spend more time rescheduling a
new court date.
Paulette Miller, deputy clerk
of the Lancaster County Court,
said her office spends a signifi
cant amount of time reissuing
warrants because of no-shows.
She said personnel in her office
could be reduced if the problem
Vicki Ruhga, Editor, 472,1766
Thorn Gabrukiewicz, Managing Editor
Ad Hudler, Editorial Page Editor
James Rogers, Editorial Associate
Chris Welsch, Copy Desk Chief
education
sponsible to bring forth this
commitment from teachers.
The report indicated that an
educated person should be active,
rather than passive, in the edu
cation process. But the report
missed the central importance
of positive student posture within
the educational context.
Faculty and students equally
must care about developing the
thought processes and basic know
ledge fund identified by the com
mission. The next stage of the commis
sion's report seeks answers from
the university community:
1: What existing programs at
UNL already meet the goals of
liberal arts and general education
outlined above and might be a
basis for further development?
2. What part of the current
curriculum could be modified to
allow greater emphasis on gen
eral education?
3. What new approaches and
programs would strengthen gen
eral liberal education?
The commission invites peo
ple to submit questions, com
ments and more formal responses
to commission chairman Gerry
Meisels, dean of the College of
Arts and Sciences, 1223 Oldfather
Hall.
was reduced.
Johnson's bill has the capabil
ity to eliminate no-show prob
lems and financial losses. The
$130,000 would be made up
through the cost of reinstating
licenses of people who fail to
appear for their court date, said
Gerry Pankonin, staff attorney
for the state Department of Motor
Vehicles.
Problems with LB153 lie in
the assumptions of the bill.
Proponents say it will decrease
the number of Nebraskans who
fail to appear in court. They
assume revenue will replace the
initial $130,000 investment.
For these reasons, senators
should shelve the suspension
idea this year, and reconsider it
again at next year's session. In
that time, the idea should be
tried in a county or municipality.
Senators should monitor the pilot
program carefully and then revise
a bill for statewide use.
The entire problem however,
could be easily reduced if people
with traffic tickets would make
more of an effort to show up for
their respective court dates.
Courts generally will revise a
date to best accommodate the
person. It's up to Nebraskans to
plan a date that will be conve
nient for them. Through respon
sible, voluntary compliance on
Nebraskans' part, Johnson's bill
wouldn't even be needed.
Maybe then senators could
spend their time discussing some
of the more important problems
of the state.
ndlin
Noblest of all studies lacks esteem in
Aristotle fled Athens so that Athens
might not "sin twice against phi
losophy." (Socrates was polite
ly asked to kill himself.) Yet, some
of my best teachers at UNL sin against
philosophy regularly.
Tim
Karstrom
For instance my favorite chemistry
professor states that Democritus and
his fellow pre-Socratic atomic theorists
were engaged in "almost idle think
ing." If the first theories of atoms were
produced by idle thinking, then per
haps we should do more idle thinking
in hopes that our thoughts may have
equivalent usefulness in the year 4500.
My favorite resource economist once
suggested that the scientific method,
and therefore, any real science worth
discussing, originated with Francis
Bacon (1561-1626) or his contemporar
ies. Many scientists, however, speak
less of a formal method, and more of
habits of curiosity and investigation
that have ancient roots in the Middle
East, China and Mesoamerica.
My favorite math professor recently
referred to Descartes, the father of
I... 'fl
Black value crisis now in open
The poster on the wall of the Urban
League office in Detroit carries a
direct message from one black
generation to another: "Don't Make A
Baby If You Can't Be A Father."
A black machinist interviewed by a
Washington Post reporter says forth
rightly and for publication: "We're not
Ellen
Goodman
living up to our ideals." "We" are
blacks.
A black community worker talks
into the television camera and into mil
lions of homes about the breakup of
black families: "If the parent is 17 or
18, uneducated and unmotivated, fool
ing around, wanderin' around what's
the child going to learn? See, I'm
not even talking about racism, maybe
later on we'll get back to that. But I
think we're destroying ourselves."
The old conspiracy of silence that
kept blacks from criticizing their own
in public has been broken. At first ten
tatively, and now openly, they have
begun to air their troubles, especially
family troubles. Even in front of white
folk.
(8
modern philosophy, as a "mathemati
cian," period. Descartes enjoyed
mathematics and was good at it. His
famous appendix on "Cartesian" coor
dinate analytical geometry was meant
as an example of the application of
reason. But the idea was so powerful
that we now live on a Cartesian plain in
both senses.
These sins against philosophy are
sins of omission. They arise from a con
fusion of terms, the eternal struggle
between curiosity and wisdom, and the
tyranny of 50-minute classes.
Philosophy, as a teacher kindly
pointed out to me in my last semester
of formal philosophy, is not the love of
knowledge, but rather the love of wis
dom. Philo means love, and sophy is a
form of sophia, which means skill or
wisdom.
A doctorate means that its owner is
skilled andor wise in hisher field.
Tenure is granted to professors in order
to prevent sins against philosophy and
philosophers and to provide for a free
marketplace of ideas. A free market for
ideas will, we hope, allow us to make
wiser public decisions. When tenure is
granted we should expect honest and
learned opinions from its holder in
return. Apparently this notion is an
ideal. Milton Friedman has stated that
only retired professors have the secur
ity to truly speak their minds. In fact,
those with the courage of convictions
Two decades ago, an assistant secre
tary of labor named Daniel Patrick
Moynihan wrote a report on the Negro
family, warning that: "The evidence,
not final, but powerfully persuasive, is
that the Negro family in the urban
ghettos is crumbling." The report was
attacked by civil-rights leaders who
feared that such talk would allow
whites to blame blacks for black prob
lems. Even Martin Luther King Jr. said,
"It wasn't the right time." The entire
subject became taboo, and the family
kept crumbling.
Today, the willingness of blacks to
speak among themselves and with
whites is both a measure of trust and
despair, of much progress and of terri
ble slippage. There has been enough
progress that blacks don't fear being
lumped with the "underclass." There
has been enough slippage to make the
situation of the poorest one-third of
American blacks desperate and
threatening.
In 1965, when Moynihan wrote his first
report, one-quarter of black births were
out of wedlock. Now 58 percent are
born to unmarried mothers. Nearly half
of all black children under 18 live with
one parent. When Moynihan, now a
senator, returned to the same themes
last spring, he said: "Social policy must
flow from social values and not from
1
US WORKS FOR
KKIWK
phy
acacfemic world
will speak their minds, and those of us
with nothing to lose might as well.
Philosophy since Kant has earned a
reputation for being technical to the
point of narcissism. It is. But we all
want to become skilled at something,
and most of us will eventually become
wise or die. The most profound state
ment on epistemology I ever heard was
spoken by a key-punch operator who
said, "... 'cause the computer, you
know, doesn't have a mind." I think she
was right, but I don't know why.
This prejudice against philosophy I
have heard from a plethora of authori
ties, from Marshall Mcluhan to instruc
tors of Greek, who are unsurpassed
even at dying. Therefore, the prayer of
Socrates:
"Dear Pan and all ye other gods
who dwell in this place,
grant that I may become fair within,
and that such outward stuff as I have
may not war against the spirit within
me.
May I count him rich who is wise,
and as for gold,
may I have so much of it
as only a temperate man
might bear and carry with him.
Is there anything else I can ask for?
The prayer contents me.
Karstrom, a UNL civil engineering stu
dent, also has a B.A. in philosophy from
the University of Colorado and a M.S. in
agricultural economics from UNL.
social science."
It is "values" that are being talked
about by black leaders as well: The
values lost to a subculture of 30-year-old
grandmothers and young men who
are disconnected "free-lancers." The
values lost in a self-perpetuating and
self-destructive life cycle of poverty.
First grass-roots blacks and then
black clergy and academics broke the
taboo. The leadership followed. In 1984,
the National Urban League and the
NAACP held the first "Black Family
Summit Conference." Now this subject
is a centerpiece for one study after
another and for the mass media. A deli
cate centerpiece.
The troubles of the black "third
world" of U.S. urban life are not exclu
sively those of values, or morals. There
is a relationship between racism and
the economy the enemy without
and the erosion of self-esteem and fam
ily the enemy within.
But it is a mark of security that
blacks are willing to take a risk, to
outline the hopelessness, violence and
despair of the underclass, without re
treating to defensive rhetoric. And it's
also a measure of the catastrophe.
1986, The Boston Globe
Newspaper Company
Washington Post Writers Group
Goodman Is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
columnist for the Boston Globe.
1.