Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR SHELTERS AND SURVIVAL Your October 30 issue carried two pieces which help perpetuate the illusion of a profound moral difference between individual and community fall-out...
...The Roche article is particularly ironic in that the author belabors the thesis that to "go it alone" when an entire human group is in peril is to court disaster for all...
...Apparently, he is ignorant of the social process known as the "self-fulfilling prophecy...
...We urge them to judge Russia not by its words but by its deeds...
...Sydney, Australia P. Wilenski CHRISTMAS WEEK IN THE CAPITAL Washington editor offers pleasant suburban home 20 minutes from central D.C., in exchange for pleasant Manhattan apartment...
...The important moral distinction is not between private and public shelters, but between war and peace, and a brief look at the technological and perceptual world of 1961 should indicate that any shelter program increases, significantly if not heavily, the probability of that act of profound immorality: nuclear war...
...His formula of heavy U.S...
...DEAR EDITOR SHELTERS AND SURVIVAL Your October 30 issue carried two pieces which help perpetuate the illusion of a profound moral difference between individual and community fall-out shelters...
...As one brought up on a farm, I have had opportunity to notice the pragmatic philosophy adopted by a herd of swine when danger threatens...
...military commitment in the area plus a policy of "stimulating an honest enthusiasm for general betterment in the hearts of Asia's political and intellectual leaders and encouraging those leaders to establish real communication with the masses," is a familiar mixture, though with the ingredients in somewhat different proportions...
...Dec...
...He accuses Walter Lippmann of holding the view that "the U.S...
...The supply of Western arms to proWestern, often semi-dictatorial regimes out of touch with the people, plus economic aid in the hope that the support of the people will thus be gained, has been tried and found wanting in countries now under Communist rule...
...Detroit Raya Dunayevskaya SUPPORT FOR NEUTRALS I hope it is not too late to comment on Robert S. Elegant's "Primer on Southeast Asia" (NL, September 4-11...
...The real issile is not whether we burn and choke together or alone, but whether we must accept that obscene fate at all...
...That these popular movements should be neutralist is inevitable...
...If it is insane for one family to seek its own survival at the expense of another, is it any less insane for a nation to do so...
...San Francisco Jack McDonald FOOTNOTES TO MARX May I append a footnote to the Felix Morrow-Richard J. Bernstein exchange about the "American" discussions of the "young Marx" ("Dear Editor," NL, November 13...
...But if the struggle is seen as one between the forces of freedom and democracy on one side, and of totalitarianism on the other, the establishment of strong neutral governments, based on popular support, would be a major triumph for American foreign policy, and the best defense, under the circumstances, against Communism...
...They all move together, instinctively or reasonably, in the direction of what they consider to be herd or community safety...
...There are no members of the herds afflicted with anything resembling individualistic or super-hog attitudes...
...The best single study of Marx' early Manuscripts is the recently published book by Robert Tucker, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx (Cambridge University Press...
...Here in the wooded hills of Monterey County, California, herds of wild pigs, descendants of tame ones released some years ago, are today facing the threat of extermination by alien hunters, in herd or community formation...
...and China...
...Is the Russian professor any less human than the American businessman...
...The author also suggests the specious argument that if fire insurance doesn't add to the likelihood of fire, then sheltefs-as-insurance don't increase the likelihood of war, as if nuclear war were analogous to any other "act of nature...
...As a matter of fact, how does one morally distinguish between the slaughter of a stranger in the next block and one in Kiev...
...must accept the loss of Southeast Asia"—is it America's to gain or lose...
...New York City Daniel Bell For the record, I would like to correct Felix Morrow's remark that my work testifies to an "original debt to [Sidney] Hook...
...In "Do-it-Yourself Survival," John Roche makes this argument explicitly, and in his all-too-probable "Shelter in the Jungle," Eugene S. Schwartz implies the same distinction...
...In this struggle the democratic neutrals are on our side...
...KE 8-5253...
...Whoever may have learned at Hook's feet, I certainly was never among them—neither in fact nor in theory...
...They sense the issue and, united, resist all outside attempts at intrusion and slaughter...
...26-29, but exact dates flexible...
...Surely it is far better to give support to, and ensure the economic viability of, neutralist regimes which are backed by the people and which, while they refuse to align themselves with the West, are also antiCommunist and provide a far more solid barrier to the growth of Communism...
...Never does one of them linger behind to hide under the trough until the commotion ceases...
...Yet when they apply this criterion to the activities of Western countries (even since World War II) in Southeast Asia—their only concern, after all—they find little encouragement to join the Western bloc...
...The crux of the matter is that Elegant regards the struggle in Southeast Asia as one between the U.S...
...It is a distinguished book and a distinctive contribution to the debate which is engaging the world of scholarship on the meaning of Marx' early work and the reasons for its neglect...
...5705 North 22nd street, Arlington, Va...
...Roche asserts that "either we have a community or we have not," and it may be that his is too restricted and artificial a concept of community...
...I would respectfully ask, on behalf of my inarticulate contemporaries, that Roche retract this unfortunate analogy in his otherwise excellent article...
...Ann Arbor J. David Singer Mental Health Research Institute, University of Michigan John P. Roche tells us that it is the task of our leaders "to enunciate the precious values of community against a philosophy which is only appropriate for a herd of swine...
...But the real struggle of importance to Asians and probably Americans is that between democracy and dictatorship (of which Communism is only the worst style...
...Elegant wants to look at the world situation as a power struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs—a situation in which America finds India neutral while dictatorships in Europe, South America and Southeast Asia are its friends...
Vol. 44 • November 1961 • No. 38
