Books in Review
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
Books in Review Catholic Clear Thinking Review by JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY A CATHOLIC LOOKS AT THE WORLD. By Francis E. McMahon. 334 pages. Vanguard Press, New York. $2.76. IMMODEST if the author had...
...I recently heard a very eminent writer who has been infected with the virus of Communism refer to the editors snd writers of The New Leader as "the dead people...
...Van Dusen Kennedy, Columbia University Frees...
...When layoffs take place it is the slower worker rather than the speed ball who will be "hit with a time check...
...The case for freedom snd faith, for dynamic democracy and essential brotherhood, has nowhere that I know been in our time more forcefully set forth...
...3.00...
...Freud's emphasis is upon the individual and therefore appears as the end-product of an individualistic epoch, while Pavlov's behaviorism is adaptable to group usage and can fit in with a collectivized form of organization...
...Without in the least minimising the evil influence of individual Catholics, Dr...
...The book would have gained much by not including the short essays of Saroyan and.Miller, which serve only one function apparently — that of advertising their friend Hiler's work...
...and ji/am Pope Pius XI, in 1938, "It is not possible for Christians to take part in anti-Semitism...
...The "artist" whom Hiler ia telling to be patient ia himself or a reflection of himself, and no one else...
...He takes The New Leader ("an excellent paper in many way's") gently to task for an instance of sweeping generalization, as I have earlier discussed it...
...While he is aware that no simple solution to these problems exist, his work will help students, labor and managaV ment to an understanding of one of the more difficult issues in the contemporary labor scene...
...Hiler's half-hearted united front with the surrealists is one result of his confusion on this basic question...
...AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS...
...If that happens, Technocracy may cease being a joke...
...I was surprised recently to find that Technocracy which, like ether people I suppose, I had assumed to be a fad of the Great American Depression that had long ago gone into the discard, was still flourishing, possibly better than some other more publicized movements...
...The Art of the Future Review by MILTON HINDUS WHY ABSTRACTT By Hilairt Hiler, Henry Miller and William Saroyan...
...Why Abstract...
...VI, 260...
...Kennedy has examined the general views of labor leaders and labor conventions, he has also sought to ascertain the views of the rank and file...
...Are we going Into a managerial situation ?" Hilar asks himself at one point in the discussion, and his answer is: "It looks probable...
...But he is especially keen in his thoughts as to why so many liberals showed an affection for the Russian "experiment...
...Florence Petersen, Harper A Bros, New York...
...Francis E. McMshon is on* whose life ia a reminder that one must ever guard against the easy lapse into thinking of persons lumped into groups, and then characterising those groups by their noisieet or most obnoxious members...
...As it is, his violence is expressed in the statement: "I believe that representational painting is not dying...
...The title ef this book asks a question, Wkt Abitrmett, whieh has not yet been ss-s ami ad...
...Kennedy has performed a useful service...
...McMahon is not taken in by the specious opening wedge of anti-Semitism, with its, oh of course...
...The author is unable to think vary straight (otherwise he would never have included Saroyan and Miller in this book), but he tries so hard that the intensity itself becomes attractive...
...With the opening of the atomic era, we may find Technocracy or some other movement which resembles it, possibly In conjunction with nativist political sects, playing a major role on the American political stage...
...it's dead...
...she American scene who will unite the newer force of technics with some older human concept to produce a political explosive, matching the potentialities of the atomic bomb...
...American Labor Unions contains a considerable amount of useful information on American labor unions...
...is a bid by an artist who consciously speaks for himself rather than his profession to an elite within the community which be thinka is destined shortly to attain power such as no other group has evea dared to hope for...
...Beautiful" is that which is scientifically organized, and nothing else...
...Psychoanalysis is by nature very complex, while the conditioned reflex is the essence of simplicity...
...The "people,in key positions" whom he intends to influence art the engineers, who represent his social elite and to whose standards the artist as well as the rest of the population will conform more and more in the future...
...It is a handy reference source for a large number and variety of facta...
...While Dr...
...If a book on art ever deserved to be called socially significant, this is it...
...Second, Hiler should ask himself if the self-styled avant-garde ii not headed in the opposite direction from the one in which he wishes to go, if it is not headed away from instead ef towards collectivisation as he desires...
...Spiritually, we are Semites...
...At another point, he speaks of our entering "the neo-technic epoch...
...It is indeed hard for the artist in our time to live (Mayakovsky himself committed suicide s few years after writing these words...
...This book reminds me of the words quoted by Barmine in One Who Survived and written by the Soviet poet Maya-kovsky to commemorate the self-inflicted death of the poet Yessenin: "It is easy in our time to die...
...First, that his lack of discrimination between Freud and Pavlov is very ill-suited to a partisan of technocracy (using the term not as the name of a particular movement but as the description of a social form...
...For his valiant deeds, his open stand for freedom, Dr...
...IMMODEST if the author had chosen it, en apt title a reader might set for this book is "A decent man looks at the world...
...Instead of the first rate outstanding volume she could have given us, she has chosen to write an elementary factual compendium...
...THIS is a very bad book, and yet I find it more interesting than'a lot of better ones...
...A more fundamental objection is that incentive methods of wage payment encourage dependence upon individual effort rather than upon collective action, and thus loosen the loyalty of the worker to the union...
...He leaves no doubt in the mind of any impartial reader of the chapter "Christianity and Democracy" that—a*., every student of English and American history should know—totalitarianism is a godless heresy, that democracy is rooted in, its elements are grown from the Christian faith...
...Thus, those that think of Catholics in terms of Father Coughiin are likely to think of Jews (or to have their counterparts that think of Jews) as either bankers that run the world, or Communists that would like to run it, or the wretched race that ran the rest of the world into war...
...Contracts while protecting union members against underpayment should not hamper progressive firms from raising output All in all, Dr...
...Kennedy believes that the unions must train specialists in time and motion studies and in methods of job evaluation so as to enable union leaders to understand the procedures for setting incentive wage rates...
...reference to "good Jews" and "bad Jews...
...Hiler could not have chosen two writers who were more neurotic or less capable of fitting into any world, past, present or future, than Saroyan and Miller...
...If he had the temperament of Trotsky and worked in the tradition Of Marx, he would deal in "iron brooms," "dustbins of history," and such images...
...3.00...
...McMahon has had a taste of persecution in this land...
...One section of his book analyses the Catholk stand in world affairs...
...Of more general interest, after the analysis of "the failures of the Christians," is the author's examination of "the failures of the Liberals...
...Unions and Wages Review by PHILIP 7AFT UNION POUCY AND INCENTIVE WAGE METHODS...
...He divides the opposition to incentive wage payments into two types...
...The three principal parts of this statement are the terms "artist," "people in key positions," and "beautiful...
...ting and retiming of jobs...
...He is more Interested in facts than in name-calling...
...McMahon quotes the Papal See, in 1928, against anti-Semitism...
...2.60...
...it is harder to live...
...While the reviewer has scant sympathy for the windy metaphysical cogitation of the "social forces" variety, h« feels that the usefulness of this book has been sharply reduced by the author's reluctance to venture the slightest explanation of many subjects which she could, in the reviewer's opinion, easily have given...
...By including them, he defeats his own purposes, for it is impossible in such company to take him very seriously...
...The kind of inspiration which made Hitler unite into an effective team the hitherto opposed steeds of nationalism and Socialism is not beyond a counterpart of his on...
...He thus speaks with a voice that should be heeded...
...thia manner...
...While insisting that, in every group, the good should be sifted from the bad, however, Dr...
...Some of the opposition is due to suspicion that employers are seeking to "nibble" away rates by constant restudy...
...I have a few suggestions for Hiler which he may And stimulating to further thought on his subject...
...It is hsrd f*r him to live because the means of communication between him snd his fellow-citiaens, so easy and natural in another time, has become strained to the pofst of impossibility in our own...
...A second group of Objections are based upon the injustice and uncertainty of the techniques used to determine incentive wages . Based upon time and motion studies and job evalutions, the objective validity of incentive rates are frequently challenged...
...The artist lives in California, where the movement of Technocracy is .strong, and he may either be a conscious member of it or else have been influenced by friends of his who are members...
...Considering the widespread existence of collective bargaining and the importance of incentive wage methods in strategic industries, Dr...
...JnWN Policy and Incentive Wage Methods is an examination of incentive methods of wage payment and the reactions of the organisations of labor to these methods...
...Workers also argue that incentive wages tend to lower the quality of work, and this system encourages an Increase in the ratio of scrap and spoiled work...
...Vet the author finds that not infrequently unions will object to changes in rates even when the contents of the job have been altered...
...The final paragraph of the book concludes with these sentences: "The artist must be patient It is my opinion that it may be possible to convince a sufficient number of people in key positions thst the postwar world must be beautiful and colorful as well as streamlined and hygienic...
...A New Directions "Book Published by James Laughhn...
...XIV, 838...
...He is serious, however, in his study of the position of art and the artist in Italy, Germany, and Russia under their totalitarian set-ups...
...In making thia bid, he assents to dropping overboard almost every eon-temporary artist with the exception of the very few that he accepts as members of his own party...
...Why is it that all people who share in a total way of thought settle with their opponents verbally in...
...of Nazism, in 1937...
...Part of the difficulty arises as a result of the lack of knowledge or lack of sympathy for the techniques used...
...First are a group of general objections founded on the fear of unemployment, and that incentives "are an invitation to thoughtless workers to work themselves or their co-workers out of jobs...
...He discusses the Pope's vigorous condemnation of Fascism as early as 1931...
...Miss Peterson has, however, deliberately avoided any type of analysis or even much explanation...
...By their deeds ye shell know them...
...This should be compulsory reading for every "liberal," and would make excellent material for courses in logic and in current events, for our growing youth...
...He has stated the issues and illustrated them with a wealth of detail...
Vol. 28 • November 1945 • No. 47
