Volume 14
Number Four
ewournal January 30, 1982
The debate that wasn't: Giamatti and the Moral Majority
UpcoMiNG
A en-JANUARY 6 FEbRUARY
Feb 2 APPle 3 Fineemintz 5 Good Rats 6 The Crayons 7 Moonlieht Drive 9 MYstery Tour 12-13 The Meade Bros. Band 16 B. Willie Smith 17 Rust 20 Beau Bolero 21 WillY & the Poor BOYS Jan 27 Roeer C. Reale & 23 Fountainhead the Reducers 25 805 26 Mystery Tour 28 The Free Lance vandals 29 Joe PetTY Pro.iect 27 Arizona Maid 30 Mystery Tour 28 EU!ht to the Bar
300 YORK STREET •
NEW HAUEN
•
CONCERT LINE: 177·1431
Does Yale Know Us? the f ourth in a series of employment messages Filling these shoes has made us successful. Since we began consulting in 1944, men and women with a special combination of talents have joined us to help solve problems for our clients. Many of the services we offer as employee benefit consultants involve adapting actuarial science to the needs of large employers. Satisfying these needs requires more than textbook solutions. It demands intellectual creativity and a strong aptitude in mathematics, along with common sense and the ability to work well with others. If you think you can fill these shoes, contact : Dominick Cardace, Partner, Kwasha Upton, 2100 North Central Road, Fort Lee, New Jersey 07024 .
Can you fill these shoes?
2
•
Pub/ishn- Ed Bennett Editor-in-Chid And y Court Designers Heidi C allison, Matthew Gaynor• Busirws Manager J eff Foster Production Manager Jane Hinson Photo .Edilor R ollin Riggs Staff Serena Collison • , Geoff Hayward•, Paul Hofheinz, W alter Jacob, J im Lowe, Tim M isner• , Geoff Pope, Alex Savich•, Sloan W alker• •elected Decernher 8, 1981
Friends Edward B . Bennett, Jr. Nancy R . Bennett Peter B . Cooper Sherwin Gold m an Brooks Kelley Lewis E . Lehrman Nicholas X . Rizopoulos Richard and Deborah Sears Richard Shield Thomas Strong Alex Torello Allen and Sarah Wardwell Daniel Yergin The Nm1 Journal, a monthly magazine of news and comment, is published by The New Joumal at Yale, Inc. Ten thousand copies of each issue are distributed free to all members of the Yale University community.
Office hours Monday-Friday 1-3 p .m . in 105 Becton Center. Phone 436-4525 Cover photo by R ollin R iggs Copynght
Yak, Inc.
C>
1982 by The New Journal at
~
.January 30, 1882
TheNewJournal In this Issue:
4
Letters: Women's Studies
5
Comment: The Law School; Language Requirement
8
Giamatti, the Moral Majority, and the debate that wasn't
12
An interview with Kingman Brewster
18
Proflle: Schoolfield: a scholar who dabbles in decadence
22
Research: Why women work for less
25
Sports: The team that Taylor built
28
Theatre: Two theaters, two strategies
31 Books: Rhyming for a reason
About this Issue
Since our masthead lists many new names this issue, we decided to explain what it all means. The people listed as friends contributed money or time to The New Journal and we wanted to give them special recognition and thanks. For example, Nicholas X. Rizopoulos ('58) has been an ally of The New Journal since 1967, and has most recently provided useful advice and helped us raise funds. Peter B. Cooper ('64 Law) is a New Haven lawyer who handles our legal affairs free of charge. Heidi Callison and Matthew Gaynor have been elected as the magazine's new designers. Both are senior Art majors concentrating in graphic design. They designed much of our December issue and are
responsible for the changes in this ISSUe.
We've also elected several new Staff members. People are eligible for Staff after they have worked on a variety of aspects of the magazine for two issues. This brief trial period gives people a chance to see what we're all about before making a commitment. It also gives them a sense of exactly what's involved in publishing a magazine. There is a great deal involved, and we are constantly looking for creative, aggressive people to work with us. We're especially looking for experienced photographers and people with a background or interest in business. If you are interested, call Photography Editor, Rollin Riggs at 432-0470, or Business Manager, Jeff Foster at 432-0050.
3
Food is Good Drink is Good
We serve both ..... . comfortably.
¡Letters _ _ _ __ Regarding Women's Studies
..--
PRINTING -
e ,..,_
..__
COPYING
e
,...,._.,_ T,_-. ,_
WE NOW PAINT T-SHIRTS AND CARRY A FULL LINE O F OFFICE AND SCHOOL SUPPLIES.
789-1800 1207 CHAPEL STREET NEW HAVEN, CONN.
The New Journal thanks
Hilary Callahan Tony Caplan Suue Gavin Malt Hamel
Newsweek Jan Oschmwitz Beth Wahl LelUJ Wardwell
4
Sir: I read with interest Lisa Clark's essay ("Dispelling doubts about Women's Studies," December 5th) and was disappointed that she did not deal with the misgiving which many of us feel about universities granting degrees in subjects like Women's Studies: namely that such courses of study are too general and allow undergraduates to study a number of loosely connected topics without ever learning a discipline. It is agreed on all sides that knowledge has so expanded in the modern world that some specialization is necessary. Under these circumstances, the great value of an undergraduate education lies in the opportunity to learn one subject well: its vocabulary, its grammar and its literature, whether it is Japanese, physics, economics, music or anything else. Studying a hodgepodge of subjects such as "witch burnings, female poets [and] Freudian analysis" will not prepare one to speak or write as intelligently about any of them as a degree in history, English or psychology will. If one desires "to look critically at the world and its systems," then let her or him read philosophy or politics. If students would be "aware of their relationship to the world" and of "human connections between individuals and within society ,'1 let them study sociology. But with a degree course so general as Women's Studies a student is in danger of becoming a jack (or Jenny) of all trades and master of none. All this is of course a criticism not specifically of Women's Studies but of all the very general degree courses which go under such names as "American Studies" and "British Studies." To be sure, specialization is
not an unmixed blessing. But whilst exposure to other disciplines is desirable, putting together a degree from a cafeteria line of subjects is not. I do not wish to suggest that any of the subjects which comprise the Women's Studies degree are pseudosubjects, or that the study of women and their concerns is not valid; quite the reverse . I would simply argue that study of specifically women's subjects, which cut across several disciplines, is best left for graduate study, for theses and for books, after a solid undergraduate degree in a discipline such as (say) biology or one of the social sciences. Yours faithfully,
A. W. T. Snodgrass, Yale Law School
• The New Journal welcomes article proposals and letters to the editor. All letters for publication must be signed and addressed. Send all correspondence to: 3432 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520
Comment _ _ __ How law school limits one's view Steve Epstein In September, 1980, Dean Wellington gave his annual welcoming speech to the incoming Yale Law School class, 'my class. All I remember of Dean Wellington's speech was his assertion that we would no longer be poets or pianists, that now we would learn to be lawyers. My immediate reaction was refusal: I would continue to write, and I hoped every musician in the Law School continued to play. But later I learned that Dean Wellington did not mean that law school should ftll every moment of our lives; in response to a student protest of the prior year, he meant to inform us that Yale Law School intended to teach law, and had no obligation to teach anything else. For me, though, Dean Wellington's words remain a symbol of the central problem of law school life: the tension between sincerely studying law and being able to escape the law student's limited world view. Walter Jacob Our professors tell us they intend to teach us to "think like lawyers," which elusively about law, because occur- lost when emotions, intuition , and emmeans to rationally apply legal rences outside the legal framework pathy are abandoned. But law school categories to human situations. Two have become less significant than those thinking has a fascination which crowds out the non-rational. What can kinds of everyday thought aren't part within. As I write this, I am acutely con- be thought of in legal terms is thought of that process: non-rational thinking and thinking outside the legal system. scious that my ideas sound speculative, of in that way. What can't be thought Intuition, emotion and faith have no that I can't prove them, and that of in legal terms isn't thought of at all. Dedication to ideological convictions use in legal thinking. And morality, therefore they are un-law-student-like politics, and other ideological systems ideas. But if you think like a lawyer, is also discouraged b y legal thinking. In law school, we learn that any view are irrelevent to legal decisions such as you won't get angry: a jury's determin~tion of guilt or in- Let's try w understand our areas of difference. or action which isn't overtly illegal is You won't fall in love : justifiable as far as the legal system is nocence. Admittedly, the reason for having I don~ have tirru to get involved with him/her concerned. As a result, we become cynical. If any point of view can be judges and lawyers "think like lawyers" ril]ht now. supported or attacked , it doesn't matis to prevent anarchy. But in studying You wo n't be amazed: law, we start to think that way all the The sun is coming up, I ought w eat ter which side you're on. And if either side is acceptable, you may as well time. It's hard not to; once you think breakfast. Dean Wellington's words remind me work for someone who will pay a lot of like a lawyer, everything can be dealt with quite neatly and rationally. Mter that you can't be a poet or pianist money. Last year, a lawyer from a a few weeks of school, law students ¡go without getting angry, or falling in public interest group in Washington, to fewer concerts, read fewer novels love, or being filled with wonder. D .C. spoke of a survey which found and newspapers, and talk almost ex- Something essential to human life is that 80 per cent of entering Yale law
5
Prerequisites for a language requirement Jim Lowe students say they want to do public interest work, and that 80 per cent of graduating Yale law students take lucrative jobs with firms and corporations. Of course, there are law students who act on political ideologies; in October, 40 of them picketed a panel discussion of terrorism which was dominated by conservatives and chaired by the CIA's Chief Counsel. Some law students (and professors) continue to pursue their artistic interests; Professors Boris Bittker sculpts, and Professor Charles Black paints. And some law students even fall in love. The effects of law school, though, can be invidious. Until recently, I had thought that my interests outside law school kept me from being affected. But a friend of mine read a draft of this essay and informed me that it aptly describes the way I think. So law school frightens me. It makes sense that law school teaches me to think like a lawyer, rather than like a poet or pianist; I'm learning to analyze, define, and argue legal issues with great effectiveness. But a byproduct of the learning process is that my ideals and other aspects of my humanity are clouded. The question I ask myself: When I graduate, and receive a diploma conferring significant power in our society, will I still have non-legal qualities and convictions on which to stand?
•
Steve Epstein is in his stcond year at Yale Law School.
6
The choices you will malce during these next years at Yale will on?J be versions of choices you will malce once you graduate. You lcnow best what you want . . . Learning how to malce informed choices is one way to describe education; in fact, this is what we hope will go on while you are here.
These are the words of President A. Bartlett Giamatti in his letter to the freshmen in this year's Old Campus. Yet at the same time that these words were written and distributed to the class of 1985, a committee of Faculty and Administration officials was considering limiting the choices President Giamatti wants us to be able to make. At present the University Course of Study Committee is considering instituting a foreign language requirement for
graduates and also possibly setting proficiency levels for applicants. If these requirements pass it will not be the first time in recent years that the college has put restrictions on the academic freedom of undergraduates. Just three years ago the Group IV distributional group requirement was added, and more recently the College has reduced the number of Residential College Seminars that can be taken. There are a number of problems with such a language requirement proposal. Of greatest concern to me is the restriction such an additional require- • ment would place on the academic freedom of Yale students. I have nothing against the study of language, indeed I studied French for six years, and I agree that it is an important part
~ Amity
GMAT ll. !J LSAT ... Jj MCAT ~
jill
•
~'
I
....... of an educational experience. However, I also think that it is important that each student be able to choose whether he or she wishes to study a foreign language. As President Giamatti said, making choices is an important part of our education and the College should thus provide as many choices as possible. Additionally, when a student is forced to take a course, his attitude will almost definitely be poor. Also, in imposing a language requirement, the University could only force a student to take one, or at the most two years of a language. How much actual linguistic knowledge can be gained in such a short time, particularly by a student who is only fulfilling a requirement and has little motivation? In addition, where would non-language, particularly science, majors find the time to fulfill such a requirement? It is ludicrous for the College to believe that this extra time will just appear for students. Other courses will have to go untaken. And as languages are at this point in Distributional Group I along with English, those trying to fulfill distributional requirements may forego English in order to satisfy this new requirement. This could be disastrous. Those in support of the language requirement claim that the study of language is an integral part of a liberal education. Well, communicating in the English language is a critical part of surviving in American society, and thus seems slightly more important. All this could be a reason to create an additional English requirement that would further restrict academic freedom. In addition to graduation re_.. quirements, the Committee is considering whether to institute profici~n cy levels for applicants. There is a serious problem here. This proposal is
clearly discriminatory. There are public school systems in this country that cannot possibly afford to offer foreign language instruction, and even Yale requiring such training for admission will not change the situation. Yet despite these problems there is a good chance that some form of requirement will be placed in effect. Thus, I would like to make a suggestion for the levels that might be required. These levels should take into account students who already have some proficiency and those who have limited time due to major requirements. Harvard appears to have developed such a fair system. There the university will exempt from the language requirement those with a foreign language achievement score of 560 or greater and/or a score of three or better on a language Advanced Placement Test. Students unable to meet these restrictions must take one year of a language of their choice. If there must be a requirement, this seems to me to be a fair system. I hope that the University Course of Study Committee will keep these words in mind as it considers whether to further restrict the choices available to undergraduates in their educational careers here at Yale.
•
REVIEW PROGRAMS
18 Hour seminar for Feb 20 LSA T meets in New H aven Feb 12, 13, 14, 8 week classes for April MCA T begin Feb. 21
call now for free brochure
(203) 789-1700
•
THE YON
and now I can have it for on ly $11.00! Half year subscriptions
~
available at
Jim Lowe is a .freshrrw.n in Morse.
The
•
Yale Daily News Building The opinions expressed in this section are those of the individual writers. The New Journal welcomes comment on Yale and New Haven issues. Send proposals to 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, CT. 06520.
202 York Street
436-{)825
7
The debate that wasn't W. Hampton Sides
8
More than four months after President A. Bartlett Giamatti released his controversial address to the freshmen on the perils of the "new coercion," the Moral Majority was still furious. Cal Thomas, Vice President and chief spokesman for Moral Majority, Inc., spoke stridently in his cramped office in Lynchburg, Virginia: "I think Dr. Giamatti's refusal to debate Dr. Falwell or myself- where he made these unsubstantiated and scurrilous charges- is not in the great tradition of Yale University as a .seat of free thought. "I think he is a chicken and I would be happy to call that to his face. The low class of his remarks leaves me nothing to fear from a personal and even intellectual confrontation with him and I would renew the challenge. I think we could present Dr. Falwell up there (at Yale)-and he's interested in going- if Giamatti would simply stop hiding behind the intellectual equivalent of his mother's skirts, and come out and fight like a man." The Political Union invited President Giamatti in September to debate Jerry Falwell or Cal Thomas at Yale, but Giamatti promptly declined. "I have said what I have to say on this topic and see no point in pursuing the issue any further at this time," wrote ¡the President in his letter to Dan Williams, former Political Union Vice President for Debate. The P. U. was not the only organization calling at Woodbridge Hall after the address. Major network programs such as 60 Minutes, Donahue and Today phoned the President for interviews, sensing an ideological storm brewing along the news horizon. But Giamatti flatly turned these offers down, distressing those who had envisioned a profitable controversy ringing from the gothic towers in New Haven to the church-steepled hills of southern Virginia. "I presume that 60 Minutes was intending to cut taped interviews of Falwell and myself to present them like a debate," said Giamatti. For over three months Giamatti maintained a conspicuously low profLle. Between the release of the speech and January of 1982, he made only one public reference to the Moral Majority, which occurred on December 18
m a Today show interview about the President's new book,'The University and the Public Interest. So, long after the liberals applauded and the consl!rvatives raged, after some had speculated that the President's fulminous attack on the Moral Majority was politically motivated and others claimed he had not done his homework, the question of Giamatti's silence still remained. If the Moral Majority posed the threa.t to liberal education that the scope of Giamatti's charges and the strength of his language indicated, they why did the president not continue to speak out against these "peddlers of coercion"? In his first interview about th= Moral Majority since the address, Giamatti explained his silence. "I saw no point in swapping dogmas with Falwell or anyone else from the Moral Majority," he said. Giamatti felt that the debate devised by the P. U. "would go nowhere" because there was no pre- • arranged central issue. He said he did not consider himself an authority on the Moral Majority: "I don't know whether the Moral Majority is a foundation, a movement, a legal entity, a political action committee- clearly it is all of these things." He admitted, President Gia11Ultti explained his silmce after the speech. photo: J.D. Levine
,,
Union's original plan. The GiamattiFalwell conflict had all the makings of a classical debate from the very beginning. The New York Times immediately played up the address as a new oflntoler•nt eplrlt fensive in the "ancient battle of creeds," "That wasn't a speech about the Moral pitting secular h u manism against Majority, although the newspapers rel igious fundame n talism. Time the inflammatory issue with certainly interpreted it as such," ex- jumped plained the President. He claimed that an inset story on Giamatti that was in the address he was not concerned headed "A Humanist Hits Back." with the Moral Majority per st, so Newsweek read the speech similarly, much as with a "spirit , a gtist, an aura and then two months later presented sweeping the country today that legit- Jerry Falwell in its regular "My Turn" imizes intolerance . . . The Moral column. Newspapers and magazines Majority was only a kind of illustrative throughout the country were restaging example of a strand that is pressing the age-old square-off between the people in a direction that I didn't think William Jennings Bryan and the Clarence Darrow of the 1980s. was useful to liberal education." Although the likelihood of any sort And while the President wanted to make public these concerns, he was oi personal confrontation between wary of acquiring a reputation for be- Giamatti and Thomas now appears ing a "single-issue president." He was slim, The New journal was able to talk concerned with the Moral Majority privately with both men about some of only insofar as the organization related the issues raised in the freshman adto the broader subject of liberal educa- dress. G iamatti in his high-ceilinged tion, his primary interest. office in Woodbridge Hall and In fact , Giamatti did not rule out the Thomas in his tighter, messier room at possibility for a debate with Jerry the Moral Majority Headquarters Falwell in the future, provided that the voiced many of the same concerns, but topic be confmed to the principles of a the two men raised widely different liberal education. Giamatti recognized arguments about how to interpret the that Falwell, aside from being Presi- freshmen address. dent of Moral Majority and a minister, is also an educator in the process of lmpoelng mor•llty? building Liberty Baptist Colege on the Giamatti believes that the Moral Maoutskirts of Lynchburg. "I have never jority frames its arguments m been shy about talking on the prin- dogmatic language and forms its ciples of a liberal education, and I will judgments out of a rigid moral cast debate anyone on the subject," said that discourages open discussion and Giamatti. The President also men- legitimizes the blind imposition of law tioned William Buckley as a possible by decree. "(The Moral Majority) candidate for debate on the subject of would displace law with polyester mysticism," he wrote, "and would education. The Political Union is pursuing a presume to impose a final, complete, debate that will feature Giamatti and arbitrary contour on society, and the another spokesman for liberal educa- behavior of individuals." But Thomas argues that a moral tion, probably Buckley . *I can only say that there is a good possibility that viewpoint lies at the root of almost all Giamatti and Buckley will debate this legislation . "The idea of an imposition term," said Andrea Charters, current of morality is silly," said Thomas. P .U . Vice President for debate. She *Because all law is the imposition of also said that either Jerry Falwell or somebody's morality to the exclusion of Cal Thomas would probably appear at someone else's. We have laws against Yale this term to speak about the murder, incest, rape, cannibalism, among others; there are a lot of people Moral Majority. However popular a debate between walking around the streets who'd like Giamani and Buckley will be, it will to rape people. There are some that serve as no substitute for the Political do, but there are others who don't rather candidly, that he had done no special research on the organization for his address, but had relied instead on "what I had already read or seen.
~
F:
photo courtny Moral Majority
Cal Thomas, vice-president of Communications for Moral Majon'ty, Inc. because they are constrained by a law against it. Somebody's morality is being imposed to keep them from doing that." Thomas believes that "secular humanist" legislators in Washington and in state capitals have imposed their morality on the United States for decades, while the majority of Americans have silently watched the steady erosion of traditional, profamily values. Giamatti, however, emphasized that his concern with the Moral Majority was not so much with the substance of its views as with the manner in which it presents them. "The Moral Majority has identified some tremendously important moral and social problems. I don't, however, happen to agree necessarily with the terms in which they frame their debate. I said in the speech that most of their positions I fully agreed with and held them too. But when you shove people into rhetorical comers and push them around, that does not allow much room to differ . . . It was a style, not a condition, that I was arguing against," he explained . Thomas denied that the Moral Majority uses coercive tactics or religious pressure to gain supporters. He repeatedly stressed that Moral Majority, Inc ., is not a religious organization, but a political one, composed of a variety of faiths , and even agnostics. "'t doesn't matter a twit to us whether they go to church-we want them on the issues," said Thomas. The Moral Majority has never advocated mandatory prayer or the
9
Glamattl turned down offers to appear on major network programs, such as 60 Minutes.
dogmatic teaching of Judeo-Christian group in this country. So I have to faith in the schools, Thomas said. "But think that his charge was deliberate. when we say we're not going to allow Now, as for what his motivations were that, we must also say that we're not for it, you'll have to ask him. But I cergoing to allow the humanist philosophy tainly think they were political." - that you evolved from a primordial The Moral Majority is officially a ooze, and then later descended from pro-Israel and pro-Civil Rights monkeys- to the exclusion of any organization, Thomas pointed out. He other viewpoint, [or] that you can take took pleasure: in showing his growing God's name in vain but not in worship pile of "hate mail" from members of the in the schools, [or] that we will invite KKK and the American Nazi Party every group including the homosexuals accusing the Moral Majority of being into the schools to promote their "damn nigger lovers" and a "jew lover" lifestyles, but no other person to say organization. "We get it from both that's morally wrong. While we would sides, you see," said Thomas. certainly oppose any sectarian imposiGiamatti argued that he had never tion through public law of a particular accused the Moral Majority of racism religious faith, including the Christian or anti-Semitism, but believed the faith, we must say that discrimination organjzation uses the same unqualified and intolerance cut both ways." language and unquestioning rationale that the KKK and the Nazis use. "I Lloenalng bigotry? never said in the speech that the Moral In his address, Giamatti accused the Majority was the Ku Klux Klan . . . If Moral Majority of licensing "a new people want tQ take hard positions that meanness of spirit in our land, a say 'I'm right and you're wrong,' or 'I resurgent bigotry that manifests itself am t1le only one who has captured the in racist and discriminatory postures." truth'- that's entirely their right under The President wrote that the Moral the Consititution. But people who do Majority is "of the same spirit" as the that give other people who hold c;ven Ku Klux Klan, anti-semitic organiza- crazier views a sense that it is O.K." tions, and other terrorist groups. The problem posed by Giamatti's statement •nd•ngered plur•llam? here was how to interpret it. When he Both Giamatti and Thomas talked at said "licensing bigotry," did he mean grea,t length about the concepts of "condoning" or "accepting" or pluratism, but differed on how to something closer to "encouraging" or define and apply it to American socie"assisting?" To complicate matters ty. While Giamatti adamantly coneven further, Giamatti provided no demned the Moral Majority for evidence to support any kind of ·con- threatening the ideal of pluralism, nection between the Moral Majority Thomas credited his organization for and the KKK. encouraging it. "'f anything, the Moral Thomas said Giamatti associated the Majority is only furthering the ideal of Moral Majority with the KKK to at- pluralism by mobilizing previously intract media attention. "I think he is active people," said Thomas. using the phrase 'Moral Majority' to "Pluralism," said Giamatti in his ofcover a broad range of what he regards fice, "is simply the sense that the as political sins," said Thomas. "Ob- strength of the society derives from the viously, he is including under that ban- capacity of people of various backner Nazis and the Klan , which he men- grounds and beliefs of all kinds to extioned, and every other perversion he press them freely and to have the right can think of. I think this is intellectual- of that expression protected." In his ly indefensible. He certainly knows the speech he wrote, "Pluralism does not difference, being an educated man, abide absolutism, decree and complete between the Ku Klux Klan and the moral certitude." Thomas differed: "Pluralism has: Moral Majority, a hate group and an organization which is trying to pro- been redefined by the political liberals mote principles that are of interest to to mean there is no truth. That's not whites, blacks, jews, gentiles and what 'pluralism' means. 'Pluralism every other kind of faith and ethnic means allowing the widest possible
.
10
~~
participation in a debate, political or whatever it is. But then, somebody has to make a decision. "And we're not talking about professors standing up in class and saying, 'You must accept Christ or Buddha or Mohammad as your personal savior or your religious symbol.' We are talking about- and this is where we think the major institutions have failed- the philosophical truth that there is such a thing as truth." Giamatti countered, "Cal Thomas has every right to his opinion- and his , expression of his opinion is all part of a I pluralistic society. But I think that when you get somebody asserting that some people are evil and are doing the work of Satan, that that is not encouraging open debate. It depends entirely upon how seriously you talk about Satan and evil."
The aeoul•r
unlveralt~
• Like many evangelicals of the Bible Belt, Thomas is suspicious of the ideal of liberal inquiry embraced by the country's universities, and largely blames educators for the nation's moral decline. According to Thomas, the universities and colleges have adopted the "religion" of secular humanism to the exclusion of all other doctrines and have purposefully promoted a valueless philos9phy that scorns the traditional mores of family sanctity, public decency, ethical living and the tenets of Judeo-Christian faith. "In our opinion," said Thomas, "many of the professors in these institutions are filling the minds of students with certain 'facts' rooted in secular humanism. When you put young people in a classroom where they are told certain 'truths' day after day by a professor, who is their leader for that particular time, and who expects certain responses on the test papers or dissertations, they will reform their thinkin.g. It is a kind of programming almost." Giamatti was puzzled by Thomas' embracive term 'secular humanism.' "I don't know what it means. When people tell me that secular humanism is a new and particularly virulent evil- my problem with that is not that I don't believe there are things that are evil, but that it doesn't make any sense as a term. Christian humanism makes
AP
Dr. ferry Falwell, president of Moral Majority, Inc. wanted to debate Giamatti at Yale. plenty of sense to me as a term because it is historically identifiable. It's a grand code word that these people use. "But this kind of interest in designer labels," continued the President, "this kind of Sassooning, th.is Gloria Vanderbuting of our time - I don't happen to believe in designer labels regardless of where the designer comes from ." Labels or no labels, Thomas was convinced that the nation's universities have drifted from their original values. "The fact is, of course, that Yale University was founded upon solid Judea-Christian principles, as were Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth. Today these institutions may teach their students how to function well in society in terms of how to make a living, but that's the bottom line. However, if it is viewed that men and women are in their totality more than how much money they make or their position in society, that there is a spiritual or moral side to them, then it seems incumbent upon such institutions to teach students not only how to make a living, but also how to live ."
right when he said that the Political Union debate with Falwell would "go nowhere," just as the classic "monkey trial" debate between Brady and Drummond went nowhere in Jerome Lawrence's famous 1955 play, Inherit the Wind: Brady: I'll tell you whaJ he's trying to do.' He wants to destroy everybody's be/Uf in the Bible, and in God.' Drummond: You know that's not true. I'm trying to stop you bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United St.aJes.l And you know it.' And so the debate will continue.
•
W Hampton Sides is a sophomore in Ezra Stilts.
...........
When Thomas condemns the "secular humanists" for the corruption of our God-fearing republic, and when Giamatti roars at the "peddlers of coercion" who are out there tinkering with the ideals of education, they are only exchanging broadsides and accusations in the kind of rhetorical war that only leads to stalemate. As in too many debates, neither side is making much of an effort to understand the other point of view. Perhaps Giamarti was
11
An Interview with Kingman Brewster
Fonna Yale Presidrnt and Janna Ambassador to Great Britain, Kingman Brewster holds the distinction of having hero attacked by both Spiro Agnew and ]my Rubin. Finding Brewsta too libaal, Agnew once called on Yale alumni to ask for Brewsta's resignation. Finding Brewsta not libaal enough, Rubin stood on the green during the May Day rallies and yelled, "F--k Kingman Brewu. • Brewsta was prtsldent from 1963 to 1977, a period of turbulence and transition. Under his administration, Yale not onry became co-educational, but also weathaed the stonn of the May Day protests portrayed in the documentary Bright College Years. From 1977 to 1981, Brewsta saved as ambassador to Great Britain dun"ng that nation's swing Inwards Thatchaism, and a period of mounting social tensions that lata lead to riots. Now back in New Haven, Brewsta lives a Jew blocks from the Yale campus. Kingman Brewsta today. Hans-Peter BlamannfThe New Journal
TNJ: I'm in terested in what it feels like to be back in New H aven. Brewster: Oh, well , I can give you a differen t a nswer now than I would have g iven you a month ago because we've just been back to Englan d for th e fi rst t\me since we left the e mbassy a nd we realize how fo nd we a re of th e place. We love it over there, but I say that because, of all the places we could be, I'd rather be back h e re in New H aven than anywhere e lse for two reasons. One is I'm spoiled . I've spent all m y time at university campuses, except for th e war and the e mbassy, a nd I would miss the diversity of opin ion and the ch a nce to argue continu ously with everybody you m eet. Secondl y, when you get as old as we are, it's j ust a h eck of a lot m o re relaxin g to com e back where if you stumble d and fell o n the pavement peop le would pick you up. If you're in a community wh ere you h ave a lot of frie nds, a lot of acquaintances, whe re you're known , it's a heck of a lot easier to han dle the ree n try problem. TNJ: Do you get over to Yale frequently? Brewster: Well, it's more o f a semisocial circu it. I've been trying to stay out of Yale affairs, turning d own invitations to appear before common rooms or the Political Union or whatnot, because I am very eager to make m y return here as a civilian you mig ht say, with no sense of ide ntificatio n with o r responsib ility for u niversity affairs. I do not wish to be a kind o f sh adow o n Bart G iamatti's Yale. On the other h and , I lind it impossible n o t to return to Yale as we instead of they. TNJ: You're sentimental. Brewster: It is very m uch we
12
TNJ: Would you teach over there? Brewster: Well, I didn't want a facu lty appointment I did not want a Yale appoin tment.
TNJ : Were you offered one? Brew ster: No, no, heavens no. TNJ: Where are your efforts d irected now? Brew ste r : I'm writing a book.
¡~
TNJ: On what subject? Brewster: Well, the book is about h ow to keep American society open, free and mobile, and at the same time face the ch allenge of big government, big business and the slow down of economic activity. I t's also about how to keep A merican society volu n tary in spir it in the face of large organizations photo courteay Newsweek and in the face of a slow down of 1964: Brewst" in a photo that rruuJe the cov" of Newsweek. economic activity. England now and the period of unrest aware of the speed of change. When I TNJ: Was your book at all inspired by in the late '60s? was chosen as president in '63, if Brewster: No, I think it's quite dif- anyone had said, "well by halfway your experiences in England? Bre wster: I n part, yes. The ideas ferent. th rough your term you'll be dealing didn't come so much from being in with earthquakes that threaten the exEngland, but I got a new perspective TNJ : How? istence of the whole place," I would which made me realize how unique Bre w ster: Well, I think the period of have said, "don't be ridiculous." And among n ations the United States is. unrest in England is very much a func- likewise if when I went to England Suddenly I became aware of the fact tion of prolonged u nemployment going someone had said, "during the course that ours is almost unique, with the way back to the collapse of some of the of your ambassadorship there will be a possible exceptions of Canada and port cities like Liverpool and Glasgow 180 degree turn in the direction of Australia, in starting afresh with no and Newcastle. In England you don't British public policy- both domestic feudal tradition and within an infinite have anything like a home-grown and international," I would have said, amount of space and an infinite minority which has been oppressed for "don't be ridiculous." I think the main amount of resources, so the whole centuries the way we do. The kind of way in which it affects me is to be spirit is one of fresh start, a second struggle for black self-respect and black aware of the very limited validity of chance, mobility, whereas in a con- identity had a lot to do with the mood any predictions about fundamental fined island society with feudal tradi- of the late '60s. But most of all, the ac- social trends and the fact that, at least tion, people really do expect to die tivists of the '60s, when America was in my time, the changes have been abwhere they're born and there's a great mostly middle-class, were affiuent kids solutely extraordinary. deal of local loyalty and with it m uch who were the last spoiled generation. I less tradition of mobility and spirit of mean it was before the recession of '71 TNJ: You use the word "earthquake." and it was at the end of a really Do you think Yale could have been change. TNJ : So England provided a contraSt? unusual boom so its economic and pulled apart? Brewster: Yes, a contrast. You realize social circumstances were just the op- Brew ster: Yes, and many universities how distinctive our feeling of elbow- posite from the British. were; that is, Harvard and Columbia room and mobility is, but also how difin particular were terribly polarized ficult it is going to be to maintain that. TNJ : Twice in your life you've been in an official position during a time of T NJ : Did you see yourself as part of T NJ : Do you sec any parallels betwe~n great social unrest. How do you think the glue that kept things together? B rew st er: Oh sure. Well not just me, the kind of economic, ractal and soctal that's affected you? :iisruption that's taking place in Bre wster : Oh, I think it makes you but I think there were a lot of people
13
I do not wish to be a kind of shadow on Bart GiamaHI's Yale.
.,
with different kinds of responsibilities not just in Woodbridge Hall, but some of the colleges masters and some of the alumni. I think my role was made a lot easier by the fact that there were really no sectors of the university that I didn't know intimately by somebody who is known intimately by. me. That's very important in a situation of trouble, when vou have a few malevolent charact~rs around- and most of them are not- being able to make up your mind what the difference is between a knave and a fool is crucial, and there's no clear way of doing that if you don't have that kind of situation where there's someone you can turn to who really will know the individual about whom you're trying to make a judgment. TNJ: I recall seeing the film Bnght College Years and hearing Jerry Rubin at
the podium yelling one sort of obscenity or another. How did you feel personally about that? B rewster: Cy Vance and I went over to Ezra Stiles-to hear Abbie Hoffman. We thought he'd be the most obscene and I guess it was Jerry Rubin who was talking about "Kingston Brewer" or something like that. It's not that they were without convictions, but I don't take any of that personally. The students, on the whole, were magnificent. I don't mean that in terms of their support of me, but their support of the institution. And of course Mr. Agnew's speech calling for the alumni to get rid of me was a great help as far as students were concerned. If Agnew's against you, you can't be all bad. And so that was a happy coincidence. The great failure of course is if you make some horrible mistake and you feel that you were personally responsible for things going wrong.
APRIL, 1970-Students present Brewster with a petition supporting his presidency, after . he was criticized by Vice-President Spiro Agnew. AP
14
TNJ: But you never felt that? Brewster: Sure, sure. I was terrified that something would go¡wrong and it would be my fault. And one of the reasons that I wanted to be sure that we had an expert witness in the corporation in town was so that if things did go wrong the corporation wouldn't have to rely on me as their only witness to sort of explain what happened, and so we got Cy Vance. It was a delicate relationship all around because in a curious way- although the Chief of Police in New Haven was very helpful and very cooperative and very bold -the mayor was terrified and very hostile to Yale. TNJ: Who was this? Brewster: Bartholomew Guida, who was not an evil person, but he was really terrified of this thing and did not want to cooperate with Yale. Sam Chauncey and I went down to talk with Guida and the Chief of Police and it was quite clear that we just were not going to get any cooperation at all and so we saw the Chief afterwards. He said, "now, I've been instructed not to cooperate with you, but I'm not gonna pay any attention to it." And so we had total cooperation with Jim Ahearn and that .was absolutely crucial so that he would not invoke any confrontational activities until we had exhausted the possibility of keeping the adversaries apart. It could have been a Kent State situation if we hadn't had that cooperation . ..Jn addition, we did, before the actual, occasion, succeed in getting the National Guard to stay out of the downtown area and lots of different people take credit for that but that's all right. TNJ: Was that your decision? Brewster: Well, yeah, it was the result of when Cy came here and advised us about preparations. We got in touch with the representative of the Depart-
..-1
ment of the A rmy, w ho the National Guard has to report to, and we h a d a meetin g with h im a n d it was agreed that he would try to get th e National G u ard to stay o u t o f the way. I n the !meantime J ohn H e rsey and Bill Coffin ~a nd that group, w h o h ad been in touch with the C hicago Seven crowd, also made efforts to persuade the National Guard to stay o ut of the way. TNJ : Y ou once said that you were skeptical of the ability of the Black P anthers a n d . . . Brewster: A black revolution ary. TNJ: . . . to receive a fai r trial in this country. Do you still feel that's true? Brewster: I think that situation's imp roved a lot. Some people claim that my statement was never intended to be a public statement, because it was made at a faculty meeting which was closed, and was leaked. TNJ: Don't you think it's naive to expect that it wouldn't be leaked? Brewster: O h , I didn't expect it wouldn't be. TNJ: Well then you expected it to be released in the course of a public statement. B rewster: Well, I made it even though I knew it was likely to be public. TNJ: H ow did the alumni react to you r re m ark? Brewster: F irst telegram I received- I w ish I knew who sent it-said, "Sp iro A gnew, w h at class was he?" T his was w hen Agnew told the Yale alumni they should ask for my resignation, as though the president was appoin ted by the alumni, but the telegrams we received were about 3 to 1 supportive. T here were a lot of people who were turned ofT by a great many different things of which my statement was just one. Some people were turned ofT by
Brtwstnpoor education. Some people were turned ofT by a more aggressive admissions policy that would let people from a greater variety of backgrounds in schools. Some people were turned off by my anti-war stance and some people were turned ofT by Coffin. Some people were turned ofT by so-caUed Black P anther statements, and so -it's very hard to measure these things.
photo courtesy New•WHk
pus at the University of New York , you have to say to the alumni that he who would commission the composer better not try to call the tune, just the way you have to tell the students that ours is not a business in which the customer is always right.
TNJ: Alumni might differ with you on that. There was a lot of pressure on you, R. I nslee Clark, the D1rector of TNJ: You had conflicts with a lot of Admissions and Henry Chauncey, Jr. alu m ni . when you initiated your new admisBrewster: Well, some. sions standard-when you attempted to broaden the base of students and the T NJ: Do you think that was because number of alumni- aiTtliated students that you had fundamentally different went from 20 per cent of the class to 14 values than they, or that you were un- per cent of the class. ble tO communicate your precise pur- B rewster: Oh, I . . . alumni won't object, but that's different from pressure: poses to them? Brewster: No, I think they disagreed. that is . . . A good u niversity stands halfway between the generations. The older TNJ : The money stopped, didn't it? alumni, who have a nostalgic image of Brewste r: No. the u niversity that they think is their university, and the younger students, TNJ : It slowed down? who have their own image of what a B rew st er: Well , it's hard to tell. That's university ought to be, are bound to one of the hardest things to tell becauc;e diverge; and it's not surprising that the some people, who had been turned ofT admmtstratlon of an alert university because they thought Yale was getting sometimes gets stretched between these dull and parochial and ingrown, came two. As I said at the inauguration of to life and unzipped their pocketbooks my friend Ma.n in Meyerson when he because of these changes. co-edubecame chancellor of the Buffalo cam- cation, or a broadened admissions
15
First telegram received said, "Spiro Agnew, what class was he?"
base, or my speaking out on con trover¡ sial issues. So it's wrong to say that an exciting university which alienates some alumni is going to lose more than it gains. TNJ: In terms of a dollar amount, that's what happened in that period. Brewster: No. TNJ: The facts I've seen Brewster: You could tell preliminary facts about cause and effect; that is, to say that the alumni fund kept going up anyway. But to say that bequests or major gifts declined, that's very hard to attribute to particular policies in the context of the onset of inflation and recession. TNJ: In the early '70s the percentage went back up again, rather dramatically , from 14- per cent to 20 per cent. Did concern for alumni fund contributions play a role in that increase? Brewster: No, I don't think it was alumni fund contributions. I think it was the fact that Worth David, with the admissions committee of the faculty and the admissions committee of the corporation, was aware of the fact that alumni at least deserved to be looked at twice. I think that it was in part a consequence of trying to overcome the insensitivity that lnslee had shown by seeming to not give a damn at all about alumni relationships. We had always felt that, other things being equal, the alumni sons or daughters should be preferred. And I think that's still probably so.
16
TNJ: I'd like to hear more about your book. Brewster: One of the sources of my interests was an awareness of the importance of enabhng society to invest in the education of its oncoming generation. It occurred to me that this was probably going to outpace available
MAY. 1977: Aftn- Yale's 276th commencement, Kingman Brewster is sworn in as U.S. AmbasJ Cyrus Vance. Mrs. Mary Louise Brtwster lwlds the Bible. resources, at least outpace state tax systems, state universities and private contributions. When I was in England, I had a chance to give lectures. One was on the politics of supporting the arts and one was on how to support health care. A couple of others dealt with my ideas on better and worse ways of government support of education. And I became aware of the fact that conservatives don't pay enough attention to the importance to a free society of being sure that people's capacity is not underdeveloped, whether in terms of health, education, creative ability, minimal standards of living, housing and so on. But it's also true that liberals, or progressives, can underestimate the danger of having a citizen rely on favors from the state. Therefore the question is how to devise techniques which don't abdicate the responsibility of the state for developing the citizen's capacity and don't make the citizen a dependent ward of the state. I don't think there's a single answer, but I think that there are a variety of answers in different fields.
thought if we could demonstrate what its potential was and what its bugs were, perhaps the federal government would make it possible for all institutions, at least at the graduate level. Tuition postponement would allow the student to get an advance for the cost of his education and spend that advance if he undertook an obligation to pay it back through the tax system. This would mean that the government wouldn't have to deal either with the student or with the institution. The student in effect would be able to invest in his own education and only have to pay it back in proportion to his income for as long a period as was necessary. And I still think it's a far better system than either a kind of means test administered by the government or having the government make grants either to individuals of institutions, which in effect creates an artificial market. This is simply illustrative of the search for devices which take advantage of market mechanisms but which would still permit the government to see to it that no one was excluded from the opportunity to get the education that he TNJ: In education, what are some of had the motivation for and had the these answers? talent for.
option is preferable either to grants nr loans. We decided to use it becauc;e we
TNJ: What are you going to do after you finish your book?
new this fallPower THE PURPOSES OF AMERICAN POWER An Essay on National Security Robert W. Tucker, The Johns Hopkins Unrversity UP\
ulor
lo
GreaJ Briroin by Secrerory of State
Brewster: I enjoy the work I'm doing in the law firm. Whether I would ever want to take that up full time, it's too earl y to say. TNJ: Do you have political ambitions? Brewster: No, definitely not.
We have reached a major tummg point in Amencan fore1gn poltcy; a penod of withdrawal and of passivity has come to an end. Tucker portrays the vis1ble decline of American power and position as havmg led to a greater dissattsfacuon over policy than we have expenenced in a decade. Notes. bibliography. CONTENTS: 1. A Critical Juncture. 2. Amenca in Declme: The 1970s. 3. The Significance of the Present Debate. 4. The Arms Balance and the Pers~an Gulf. 5. The Two Contamments: An Argument Retraced.
200 pp. September 1981 $12.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-03-059974·1 $5.95 (Student E.d1tion) ISBN 0-03-059976-8 A LEHRMAN INSTITUTE BOOK
TNJ: You've been denying that for 15 years. Brewster: Also never got to it!
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR ROBERT W TUCKER'S PREVIOUS BOOKS
TNJ: Yes, that's true. Brewster: With each passing year it becomes more convincing. There aren't all that many left. But, no, I have an increasing interest in public affairs, obviously bound to after the last four years particularly, but also the years that went before. But I think politics is a profession and the notion that you can come into politics from the outside and be effective is quite r idiculous. ·
''A cogent challenge. rad1cal yet ~o~r. ro th~ recent and current onhndoxy ot
TNJ: If not politics, what then? Brewster: The practice of law is not a bad solution. Or maybe I'll write another book. I've got to prove I can write one book first. I have not on the • whole planned ahead very much . Everything I've done has come to me as a great surprise and I've beenknock on wood -lucky enough with each one of those opportUnities. •
The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy "Tucker, as rough-mmded a rattonaltst as tht:} come. we1~h, rhe con\'enuonal and radical v1ewpomts agam:.t each <lther tn lmlltant anJ relentle:.slv nhJeCtt\'e style ... An extremely tmptlrtant txx)k:' The New Isolationism American fore1gn poltcy:· Swnk) HujfTTILinn
The Inequality of Nations wprofessor Tucker~ luc1d, forceful. unortht>dtlX and 1mptlrtant ar~menr should commue the debates engendered b, h1s ear Iter essays on th1~ ~uhJeCt. To w tnduce greater equaltty tnto International relations. the author ms1sts. wtll ~ qu1xotic and counterproducuve:·
rr,
521 Fifth
P&U.Gla PUBUSHE.AS New York. New York 10175
A~nue
17
Profile------~
Schoolfield: a scholar who dabbles In decadence Hol ly Lyman
"Impalement as Pastime: Reflections field, a Professor of German and Scanon Dracula in Literature." The impec- danavian Literature who's had an excably dressed speaker had a reasonable ceptional career in both languages. He voice, tinged with a German accent, received his Ph.D. at Princeton when and didn't look like an expert on any he was 23, writing his dissertation in sort orcruelty. His focus was historical one term, and he was tenured at 29. and lirerary. "A solidly researched "Everyone in the field in the world piece of s<:h9Jarship," recalled graduate knows who he is," German Professor student Mar]) Kadan who organized Jeffrey Sammons said. He's been the lecture. But somehow at times the decorated by the Finnish government audience couldn't stop laughing. for cultural services to Finland, and Maybe it was -the bloody marys that he's published translations of works the German Club, which sponsored from four languages. A few students the speech, served. -~aybe it was the think he's crazy, but no one falls asleep terrible puns: "I have no stake in this in his class:' lecture" and "Vlad the lmpaler was really beyond the pale." But the fun- German 77b (35069), Decadence. niest thing was the contrast between George C. Schoolfield T, Th the speaker and his subject. "What he 11:30-12:45 was saying was grotesque," Senior Readings in continental decadent Birgit Baldwin recalled. "But he's such literature of the fin tk $ieeu: among others, a model esthete and satanist from a polite, genteel person. If it had been France . . . a hair·feti s hist from someone you'd expected it from , it Belgium .. . a senile satyr from wouldn't have been so funny." Holland . . . some algolagniacs from The speaker was George C . SchoolDenmark . . . an inventive ichthyologist ..,.
Professor George Schoolfield
Ann Chien/The New Journal
..
18
"'A· A ' •1A •A TlJLIJAA
from Sweden ... Austrian elegant and necrophiles . . . Ability to comprehend German required. For advanced studmts.
That course description, from the 1975-76 bluebook, wa~ Schoolfield's parody. Schoolfield does teach one course called "Decadence" and another ("Scandanavian Fin de Sieclej on Nordic decadence. But don't let the name fool you. "Students expect perversion and degeneration. That's not what concerns me at all," Schoolfield said. His courses examine decadence as a literary movement in the 1890s d ominated by a sense of coming to the end of a century, a civilization, and the world. "When I first started reading the literature, I thought, 'this isn't decadence.' Then I realized it's all about decay ," said Senior Bibi Ford, a student in the Scandanavian decadence course. Schoolfield's scholarship, however, ranges far beyond the 1890s. "He's a one man comp-lit department," graduate student Andreas Hausler said. Sammons described Schoolfield's translations as extremely graceful. "I think his translating work has been important. Very few can translate from German to English well, and he can." Schoolfield has three specialties: Neo-Latin and Baroque literature with an emphasis on German Baroque, Modern literature up to 1920 with a focus on the German lyric poet Ranier Maria Rilke, and Scandanavian literature with a focus on Finland's Swedish-speaking authors. (He refers to their work as "Swedo-Finnish"). "Any one of those would be enough for us," Sammons said. "He's got an unbelievable range." "I don't have the seriousness to spend my life with a single thing," claimed Schoolfield. His recent interest in the 1890s, he said, had many sources: a revie~ he wrote on a book about that period, his biography on Rilke, the cuh of the musician-genius in German literature in the 1890s and "the particular brilliance of SwedoFinnish literature slightly later on." ._. Finland's Swedish authors, he said, were "a cultured minority with a strong sense of being swallowed up . . . They were the owners of a decadent sen-
sibility." He has a general interest in dying languages and cultures, which often produce decadent literature. But he emphasized that the Swedo-Finns now have more respect for the Finnish majority and their literature i!i thriving. Scandanavian studies have probably been Schoolfields' most genuine interest. As a child, he put together the Viking cutouts on the back of toasties boxes. He was 14 when the Winter War in Finland occured, and he recalls sitting beside the radio with his father, listening to broadcasts direct from Finland. The Finnish resistance "showed that a small country could stand up to a totalitarian monster . . . It was genuinely heroic," he said. "It made a deep impression on me." He still regards Finland as a "brave little country sitting on the edge of Russia." He also likes "the whole idea of a bilingual literature, a bilingual country . . . I wonder if it's coming from a mixed background myself." His mother, although a native English speaker, had a German heritage and spoke German, as did other family members. In his family, "it was accepted that being German was a good thing. My mother remembered World War I and the silly anti-German feelings that existed then. But she was quite proud."
Life of â&#x20AC;˘ aoholâ&#x20AC;˘r As a child, George Schoolfield did a lot of reading, but he was not entirely serious. He loved Bram Stocker's Dracula, which he read when he was ten or eleven. "I still remember the book-an orange book with black letters." He also read Frankenstein, but liked Dracula better. "I liked the action and the scary parts." He was always studious. "My ;Jarents taught me to be in awe of learned people," he said. In high school in Charleston, South Carolina, he liked Latin. "Loved it! From the first word!" His school was "the usual- second rate. The Latin teaching was wretched, but I loved the subject and learned a lot on my own." When he entered the University of Cincinnati at age 17, Schoolfield was
plunged into a dying German culture. He lived in boarding houses run by German landladies while World War II was in full swing, and one of his landladies tried to persuade him not to register for the draft. "She said, 'you don't want to kill your German brothers.' She had the whole scheme cooked up . . . A real lunatic, I'll never forget her. She used to hold little Nazi meetings in the basement . . . I thought they were just silly." He did register for the draft, anyway, but was deferred because of pneumonia. "I would have made a terrible soldier." Music and the German language brought him into contact with a more romantic part of Cincinnati culture . He played the French horn and took courses at the Cincinnati Conservatory. Most of his friend s were German musicians. In the summers he went to the zoo opera. "The tenors would hit the high notes, and the seals would start barking," he recalled. He ate in restaurants where people spoke German until a stranger entered. "It was a life not possible today.'' He sees some "unscientific parallels" between German-American and Swedo-Finnish culture, but stresses the cultUres' different fates. He studied German partly for practical reasons: it was a recognized field that he was good in. During his freshman year, he decided on a career in academia. He had considered becoming a professional horn player, but concluded that he was better at scholarship. After four years in Cincinnati earning a B.A. in Classics ('46) and an M.A. in German ('47), Schoolfield entered Princeton and found it "duck soup. Little Western innocent turns up at the Ivy League. I was scared of the intellectual competition, but that was no problem. That was the happiest discovery of my life, I suppose." When he enrolled in Princeton's Department of Modem Languages, Schoolfield was already "firm in my mind about going into Scandanavian matters.'' But, because he wanted to make a living, he studied mainly German. Practical matters also forced him to complete his doctorate in two years. 19
"Students expect perver!Won and degeneration. That's not what concerns me at all."
"My father said I had to get ofT the payroll and out into the real world." So in 1949 he wrote his dissertation, left Princeton to teach German at Harvard; then married Gloria Della Selva. He's glad he completed graduated school as quickly as he did. "I must say I feel sorry for graduate students. You see them here, year after year . . . I wasn't humiliated the way they are." He had some difficulty finding a scholarly niche that would include his various fields. Nonetheless, his career progressed to include positions in Scandanavian studies as well as German. He taught at Harvard, the University of Buffalo, Duke, the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Pennsylvania before coming to Yale in 1969. His teaching was interrupted by several leaves of absence to work abroad. It was on one such leave that Schoolfield suffered a frightening accident. In 1967, when he was living in Finland as a Fulbright Research Fellow, the cap of a soda bottle he was opening exploded into his face, immediately blinding his left eye and threatening the sight of his right eye. After several operations, his left eye was cosmetically repaired and the sight of his right eye saved. However, he still has trouble studying in the evening, which he attributes to the strain on one eye. His blind eye cannot control the light that hits it, so in the bright room he usually wears sunglasses.
â&#x20AC;˘"Iâ&#x20AC;˘
A n unuaual Schoolfield cares about his teaching. "There's no question that his preparation takes long hours." Kadar said. His intellectual method in class although eclectic is often historical and positivistic. "You read one poem written in 1650, and he gives twenty handouts to show you sources and themes," Hausler said. Schoolfield finds his notes from previous courses "stultifying to look at. You have to come back fresh every time." He added, "I put myself to sleep working out what I'm going to say," in class the next day. He works at home, getting up as early as 4:30 when he has a publishing deadline to meet. "I'm sil-
20
ly about preparation," he said. "It has to be done carefully all the time . . . It's like playing an instrument. The better you get, the harder you work." His undergraduate teaching is a virtuoso performance. "The lecture flies . . . You can never fall asleep in that class," Ford said. Before class, Schoolfield tries to make himself nervous and eats a candy bar for energy. ("I'm a Snickers addict, but Milky Ways or Three Musketeers will do.") Once an undergraduate class begins, he's on the move-hurrying between the podium and the side blackboard, or rolling his arm in a little circle as he describes a point. "He always comes up with quips. He keeps your attention," Sophomore Tarek Sherif said. Although Schoolfield conducts his graduate seminars far more calmly, he again is often extremely entertaining, amusing the class with jokes or historic gossip. But Schoolfield isn't just an enter- _ tainer. His close readings and historical analyses depend on a quantity of knowledge that sometimes intimidates his class. He wants students to talk, and his manner helps the class to relax. "Joking and eccentricity make what he knows seem less formidable," Junior Lawrence Hobbie said. Schoolfield also has a great memory for students' intelligent ideas. "If someone made a good point, he'd bring it up in another class," Hobbie recalled. Both undergraduate and graduate students describe Schoolfield as encouraging and kind. "He'd lend you his entire library," Hausler said. Sherif added, "some professors make you feel small, because they're intelligent and you're not. He's willing to help you." Students who aren't inspired to study by Schoolfield's classes and encouragement are goaded to do so by his exams, which- both he and his old students agree- are extremely difficult. His graduate exams routinely last for eight hours. "I suffered from being cut off after two or three hours. They've got the time," he explained. "They complain. But I'm so kind to them the rest of the term." Several students described him as a syrn-
Please Your Valentine with a classic gift from
The Owl Shop
pathetic grader, and he concurred. "I've always believed in stern exams, generously graded." Schoolfield believes that, after all the work he's put into his teaching, undergraduates should come to his classes more often. He remembers and comments in class on students' absences. "I like Yale undergraduates. I'd like them better if they came to class more," he said. "They disappear for three weeks, you think they're dead . Then they come in and act as if nr-::1ing's happened . . . I regard it as a personal insult if a student doesn't show up. I take it so much to heart."
o...oula and deoadenoe Are Yalies decadent? Schoolfield said he couldn't answer this question. "I know nothing about the private lives of Yale students-thank Heavens!" He jokingly assures students in his decadence courses that they are all -. decadent. They can find out whether he's right by examining decadent character types. The typical decadent hero, Schoolfied said, comes from an old family. He goes through periods of extreme lassisitude,' varying with periods of extreme energy. He is very learned; he constructs an a rtificial world for himself based on the learning of the past. He has special living circumstances. Does this sound familiar? Schoolfield said that it reminded him of Dracula. The well-known vampire comes from an old family, experiences states of extreme indolence or activity, sleeps in a coffm. Dracula also represents the decadent idea that the old are stronger than the young, Schoolfield said. Dracula. is a handsome old man. In fact, Schoolfield added, Stocker's Dracula was extremely popular with the Victorians mainly because of its strong erotic overtones. Schoolfield has also examined Dracula's historical ancestor, a Romanian Vlad who committed mass impalements and other tortuous murders. This Vlad Dracula became unpopular in Romania mainly because he converted in prison to Roman Catholocism. After his death , a legend grew
up that he had been in league with the devil. His name "became a metaphor for terribly bad activity," and although he had not been a vampire, the Dracula legend grew to include vampirism. "We've attached a humorous air to Dracula . . . Audiences have this ftxed picture of the guy in the black cloak and nubile maidens." He tries to make his audiences realize the suffering that the original Vlad Dracula caused. He added,"' feel uncomfortable giving the talk." Schoolfield gave the first of his three Dracula lectures to the Ladies Aid Society, a discussion group of obstetricians and gynecologists. "I kept asking myself what would be a nice subject," he recalled. He has also given the talk at the University of Virginia, as well as at Yale.
Who Ia George Sohoolfl•ld? "The first time I saw him, he looked like a character," Sherif said, recalling the first Scandanavian fin-de-sieck class he went to. He added, "Some air about him made me want to stay." Students say that the more they got to know Schoolfield, the less eccentric he seemed. "He's very sane, actually," Hausler said. "I don't know anyone who's as pleasant to talk to as Schoolfield," Humanities Bibliographer George H. Vroomen said. Schoolfield has been known to brighten up a class with a personal anecdote, and his students quickly become aware of his interests in opera and movies. He's accessible, friendly, and alert. "He pay's attention to you, • Vroomen said. But Schoolfield's students and colleagues also describe him as a very private person. "He's got many more interests than he'll talk about," Baldwin said. Graduate student Jay Lutz added, "he's a very striking personality. He's friendly, but maintains a distance." Earlier this month, Schoolfield left for a semester's leave of absence. When asked what he planned to do during that period, he answered, "it's a secret project."
•
Holly Lyman is a senior in Purson.
• Fine Quality Briar & Meerschaum Pipes •Pouches, lighters, humidors and other accessories •Unique tobaccos blended by hand on the premises •All the world 's finest cigars • Music boxes, figurines, russian boxes • Perugina chocolates, lammy writina instruments, and much more
Phil's HAIR STYLES Complete Styling Services for
Men and W omen THESE FINE HAIR CARE PRODUCTS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE:
REDKIN ROFFLER
NEXUS U NICORE
Appointments 865-9182 865-9 187 82!/2 Wall St. 284 York St.
21
Research ________ The paradox of ¡ working women Geoff Hayward
22
Dr. Faye Crosby, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale, is confronting a paradox. Studies show that today's working woman faces persistent and often overt sex discrimination. A survey conducted in 1978 by the U.S. Department of Labor revealed that white females who work year round, fulltime earn just over 59 per cent of the salaries of full-time working men. Even after adjustments are made for differences in education and years experience, the bottom line remains the same: women are pa,id much less than men for doing the same work. But studies also show that the average working woman is content with her situation; she will have no more complaints than the average man. The paradox becomes all the more perplexing when one realizes that the women who are the worst off are generally the most content. Crosby's study supports others in showing that the average telephone operator, secretary or bar and grill waitress doesn't believe that sex discrimination has anything to do with her. The only women who are really angry about discrimination are those in high prestige occupations- those who, one might think, have the least to complain about. Even more surprising is that although almost all women are concerned about sex discrimination in general, almost none will admit that they themselves have been its victims. "It is as though," observed Crosby, "every woman considered herself to be the exception to the rule of sex discrimination." Why do women who are fully conscious of sex discrimination remain so blind to its impact on their day to day lives? In 1976, Faye Crosby began research to investigate this question. In a book to be published this summer by Oxford University Press, she tells the story of her research and presents her findings- findings which were often just as surprising to her as to anyone else. Crosby's inquiry was guided by a contemporary theory of psychology called relative deprivation. The theory
works from the premise that a person's feelings of satisfaction or discontent have very little to do with his or her actual fortunes. Most theorists agree that to feel truly unhappy with one's present situation one must both want something better and feel that one deserves something better. The theorists claim that we gauge what we want and what we feel we deserve by comparing ourselves to people in our social group. As we change social groups we gain new expectations. "Often," explains Crosby, "this means that actual gains are accompanied by psychological losses." Crosby devised a scheme which would test relative deprivation theory. She selected 400 white men and women between the ages of 25 and 40; all were living in Newton, a suburb of Boston. Newton is unusual as a suburb because of its affiuence and was chosen largely because it offers such a high density of professionals. The questions asked in the inter- ~ views focused on the grievances of the workers. How often, for example, had they felt some sense of grievance concerning their pay, working hours, or job responsibilities? Workers were asked to compare themselves to their co-workers. "In view of your training and abilities," one question read, "is your present job as good as it ought to be?"
Plndlnga The answers revealed some unexpected reversals in public opinion. A study conducted in 1967, just a decade before Crosby's study, showed three per cent of the people questioned felt that sex discrimination was a problem in America. In Crosby's study, 97 per cent of the men and women interviewed felt that sex discrimination was a problem. The message from Newtonites was clear: women deserve the same pay for the same work. Yet this was not the case. Crosby compared a group of men who had prestigious jobs to a group of women having jobs of high prestige (the "prestige" of an occupation is â&#x20AC;˘ established using NORC, an accepted standard based on public opinion).
"Since the second world war there has been a gradual thaw In traditional gender roles. Now the ice Is coming crashing down." Although the women were on average slightly better educated and had on average slightly more prestigious occupations than the men, the men were being paid roughly $10,000 more per annum than the women. Objectively, this sounds like a clear case of sex discrimination, yet the women involved had few complaints. "The working women in our study," observed Crosby, "are aware of and upset about the extent of sex discrimination which faces most women on the job. Yet they appear quite naive about the extent of sex discrimination they themselves must overcome." Of the 163 women Crosby
surveyed, only five expressed strong personal grievances about sex discrimination. The most obvious reason for this apparent lack of concern is offered by relative deprivation theory: women see little gap betwen their actual and desired job rewards. In fact, among those with high prestige occupations, only seven per cent mentioned money as a gratifying aspect of their jobs. On the other hand, 50 per cent listed accomplishment, and 42 per cent listed interpersonal relations as the most important aspects of their jobs. Crosby suggests that many women may accept lower paying jobs in exchange for a
Psychology professor Faye Crosby Rollin Rlggii/The N - Journal
greater sense of accomplishment. The findings roughly confirm this relative deprivation theory. Most women did not want any more from their jobs than they were already getting, and most women did not feel that they, as individuals, deserved any better. However, relative deprivation theory fails to uncover the source of this apathy. Crosby suspected deeper factors were at work.
Solving the puzzle In a follow-up study, she took a group of the most aggrieved women and compared them to a group of the least aggrieved. "What," she asked, "prevents a woman from recognizing herself as a victim of an injustice she knows to exist?" Her study suggests there are psychological barriers: "The step from knowledge of the group situation to an understanding of one's own situation, which is a small step logically can become a chasm psychologically." Crosby made three important observations which help explain the nature of these psychological barriers. Our feelings of justice, like our feelings of need, are determined by comparing ourselves to others, Crosby said. So while women compare themselves as a group to other groups in American society and conclude they are victims of discrimination , an individual woman will normally compare herself to other members of her own group (i.e. other women). She concludes that she is treated no differently than anyone else, and the true nature of the discrimination eludes her. In fact, among the women most content with their jobs, all but 21 per cent compared themselves with other women. Among the most discontented, 60 per cent compared themselves first of all to men. Crosby also noted that "individual suffering, unlike group suffering, appears to call for individual villains." When a person realizes he is suffering, sub-consciously he looks for someone to blame, someone who has intentionally done him harm. "Logic," Crosby observed, "permits us to recognize cases in which one individual suffers through the fault of no person or per-
23
"What ," Crosby asked , "prevents a woman from recognizing herself as the victim of an injustice she knows to exist?"
sons-not even himself; but psycho- some reversals in public opinion which logic yearns for primitive symmetry." underscore h ow rapidly the woman's By recognizing that she has been un- role in the work place is changing. The fairly treated, a woman runs the risk of tremendous increase in single parent perceiving her colleagues as enemies. homes has been eating away at tradiRather than admit that she has been tional gender distinctions. Women stabbed by one or more of her peers, a have been forced into the working woman will often deny that she is world and men must spend more time bleec;Jing. attending to household duties. Crosby This fear of conflict has another believes that as more and more women aspect which gives rise to Crosby's become th e bread winners, they will third o~servation. By defining herself become more conscious of their status as a victim, a women invites denigra- relative to men. tion. Social groups in general have lit· All this ch ange has come so quickly tle sympathy for ·the underdog; we that very little research h as been done would rather blame the individual for to interpret its effects. Crosby's work is his suffering than blame ourselves or ·pioneer research into an as yet unseen our group. "The typical working revolution. She chooses a suitablt woman," Crosby pointed out, "may see domestic metaphor to describe the herself as the lucky exception to the significance of this revolution. "It is discriminatory rule because at some like defrosting a refrigerator," she said, level she realizes that to do otherwise "for a long time it seems th at nothing is simply courts further problems." happening. But after enough of its sides have been exposed, a whole Blologlc•l e x pl•n• tlon? chu nk of ice suddenly tumbles down. _ Does the fact that women are willing to Since the Second W orld War there has work for less than men suggest some been a gradual thaw in traditional inherent psychological difference be- gender roles, now the ice is coming tween the sexes? Crosby does not en- crash ing down." tirely rule out the possibility of a biological explanation, but she points P'uture re•••roh out that the difference between the at- Next summer Dr. Crosby will publish titudes of low prestige and high the conclusions she has drawn from the prestige women is far too great for Newton study. In her next project she biology to be the most influential fac- would like to examine h ow divorced tor; if it were, all women would have women and single mothers feel about similar attitudes. A more likely ex- their jobs. Are they just as placid about planation, she says, is that work at- their working conditions as were the titudes are largely determined by social women of the Newton Study? Or have pressures. they gained through their indepenThe paradox of contentedness ap- dence a new self-awareness? plies not only to women but to other social groups as well. One of the first uses of the relative deprivation theory Geoff Hayward is a junior in Davenport. was to explain why, before the equal rights movement, black males refused to see themselves as victims of racial discrimination. The "Uncle Tom" and the faithful servant would not believe that whites wished them harm.
•
Unaeen revolution What do these findings bode for the future? Will women suddenly wake up to the inequities they suffer and vocalize their grievances? Crosby thinks not. However, her work reveals 24
Sports _ _ _ ___
The team that Taylor built Mark Mcintyre
It is several weeks before the collegiate hockey season is to begin, and Yale's head hockey coach Tim Taylor sits in the empty bleachers of Ingalls Rink talking with a visitor. Taylor maintains a strict rule against being late for practice and now, though he is trying to be polite and entertain his guest, he checks his watch frequently. "Have you seen Hoc/cey Magazine's preseason predictions?" the visitor asks. "No, I don't think I have," Taylor responds. "They don't say much about us." "Good." "That's the way you like it huh?" Varsiry hoclcey coach Tim Taylor
"Yeah, we'll just have to sneak up on them," Taylor says, staring straight ahead. A born-again Yale hockey program has been sneaking up on "them" for quite awhile now- since 1976 to be exact. That was the year Timothy B. Taylor, a Harvard man, left Cambridge to begin a reclamation project that makes other efforts to rebuild teams look like an afternoon with Tinker Toys. The real task set before Taylor nearly six years ago is completed. No longer does the Yale hockey team begin a season with nothing more to look forward to than the possibility of securing victories against the few inRollin Riggs/Yale Dally News
25
"Where I'm from It's unheard of for Yale to be defending Ivy champs."
ferior teams on its schedule, and the slim hope of stealing a win or two from superior foes. No longer do Yale hockey players take recruits aside and encourage them to go elsewhere. No, those days are gone. It does not matter, really, that Taylor-coached teams have lost more games than they've won, or that they've never emerged victorious from an ECAC playoff contest (they've only been in one). What is important is that Taylor has given respectability to a program that had wallowed in mediocrity for more than a decade. In 1976, Taylor inherited a team that had won just five of its previous 48 outings, and in the 11 years prior to his arrival had averaged nearly 17 losses a season. This season, for the first time since the Ivy League was formally organized in 1955, Yale is defending an Ivy title in hockey. "You know, where I'm from it's unheard of for Yale to be defending Ivy champs," said assistant coach Mike Gilligan, a Boston native who came to Yale this season after leading Salem State to six straight ECAC Division II playoff berths. "Yale is beginning to attract some of the premier players it needs to remain a perennial contender. As some of the younger players develop they'll give us the depth we need to emerge as one of the better teams in the East, and maybe in the country." About Yale hockey's extraordinary progress under his guidance, Taylor will only say that each season the team re-evaluates its goals and that his personal aim is to make the Elis "as competitive as possible." Taylor exudes confidence, but he does it quietly with a calm, firm resolve. That same purposefulness was in his voice when he came to Yale as a tall and slender, boyish looking man of 34. He greeted the local press and Yale alumni with determined statements: "I intend to tum things around right away in terms of attitude and desire to win" . . . "I plan to devote every moment to the Yale hockey program" . .. â&#x20AC;˘rm going to teach a system" . . . "I wouldn't have come here if I didn't think I could do thejob . . . " 26
I wouldn't lw.ve come here if I didn't think I could do the job. As a senior at Harvard he captained a Crimson team that rolled to a 21-3-2 record on its way to the ECAC championship. In six seasons as Harvard's freshman coach, Taylor's teams compiled a 79-28-1 mark. Why, then did he leave? "I did a lot of soul-searching," Taylor said. "I had to resolve in my own mind that I wanted to be a head coach. I figured Yale would be a good place to launch a career." "I realized there were two things I had to do to turn this program around," he said recently. "First, we (Taylor and then-assistant coach Ben Smith) had to instill a feeling of winning. We had to get the players thinking positively. We were able to do that, I think, even in our first season when we were still losing most of our games. The players weren't down at Rudy's getting stiff and talking about what a jerk I was. T hey weren't making excuses about why they were losing. They were beginning to take pride in their program. "Second, we had to recruit. We simply had to get more Division I players on our roster. We've spent countless hours recruiting." I plan w devote ev"Y moment to the Yale hockey program. The son of a wealthy newspaper publisher, Taylor could have devoted himself to learning Daddy's business. He even looks more like an executive than a rink rat; that is, until you notice the faded crescent scar slicing across his chin. But dedicate himself Taylor has done. He is intense, by his own admission, sometimes too intense. Never one to picture himself as a nine-to-five businessman type, Taylor begins each day during the season shortly after 8:00a.m. and usually ends it about 14 hours later by watching game fllms either in his cramped office at Ingalls Rink, or at home where he has a videotape player anatched to his televsion. As a consequence, Taylor's wife, Amy, watches a lot of hockey too. "There isn't any other channel to turn to," she said. Perhaps as a result of his selfimposed frenetic schedule, Taylor is no
longer boyish looking. A generous curl of hair still tumbles across his forehead, but most of it is grey now. Taylor, it seems, has matured as perceptably as his hockey program. I'm going w teach a system. Taylor coaches a style of hockey that rejects the traditional National Hockey League mentality of dumping the puck into the corners and chasing it. Instead, Taylor emphasizes aggressive forechecking, puck control, and motion. It's great hockey when executed properly, but it's a difficult style to perfect, especially for college teams whose personnel changes radically from year to year. As a result, and this is perhaps the most frequently heard criticism of Taylor's teams, the Elis lack consistency. One night they'll simply dazzle an opponent, the next night they'll look like stumble-bums. Taylor's "system" is unique and relatively complex, at least at the collegiate level. He is able to teach it because he is, in the words of one Yale player, "a consummate student of the game of hockey." In the spring of 1981, Taylor served as an assistant coach for Team USA in the World Hockey Championships; last fall he was selected to a six-man observation team of the International Ice Hockey Federation at the Canada Cup Series. It is no coincidence that Taylor's coaching tenets have been influenced by the European brand of hockey. "To a certain extent, I think our style of play reflects what Tim has learned from watching and studying the Europeans," said sophomore forward Dave Williams. "We tend to set up our offense from behind the net more than our opponents. We also use what you might call "situational playsâ&#x20AC;˘ and we adjust them depending on the rink we're playing in or the team we're facing ." I don't intend wend up at the botwm ofthe Ivy League. Yale won its first game under Taylor, a good omen but not a particularly meaningful one. Taylor's Elis went on to garner six more victories that farst season, three of therrt against a hapless Pennsylvania team. Little more than a year later Penn officials axed the hockey program,
Taylor has given respectabili· ty to a program that wallowed In mediocrity for more than a decade .
• reasoning perhaps, that if the Quakers couldn't beat Yale they didn't belong. "That first season was hell at times," said Smith, who is now an assistant coach at Boston University . "I can remember being in tears · after one game up at Dartmouth. We got clobbered that night and I just sat in the locker room wondering when we were ever going to be able to beat those guys." Under Taylor, the Yale players may have begun to feel like winners, but they still weren't winning. Neither Taylor's sophisticated c oac hing philosophy nor his unflagging dedication prevented the Elis from enduring yet another dismal, frustrating season. Instead, that first season simply proved a popular coaching adage, namely, that "you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit." We htui to recruit. Recruiting is a .. naughty concept within . so me Ivy League circles. In his speech to an alumni convocation in· April of 1980, Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti recommended that the league "discuss restricting recruiting by coaches to oncampus conversations and visits . . . I believe it is demeaning to the profession of coaching when one has to spend so much time traveling and wooing off campus." Taylor has spoken out sharply against Giamatti's speech. "Recruiting is absolutely necessary," he said. "Many athletes from lower and middle income families look at Yale as an elitist institution. Usually they don't even associate athletics with Yale . We have to show these kids what Yale has to offer both educationally and athletically. The top athletes wouldn't be here unless they were recruited." Ironically, it was the Yale administration, by allowing Taylor to hire Smith as a fuU-time assistant, that provided Taylor the freedom to recruit ambitiously. He now has two fulJ-time assistants, but Yale didn't even have a fuJI-time haul coach from 1965 to 1972. Giamatti may want excellence in athletics, as he frequently professes, but Yale would have never achieved it-at least in hockey-without successful recruiting.
Taylor, who admits that it's relatively easy to sell Yale to a prospective student once you get him on campus, delegates most of the on-the-road recruiting to his assistants. These trips result in frequent long-distance telephone conversations between coaches to evaluate which players might be interested in Yale and, more importantly, which players the admissions office might be willing to accept. In December, assistant Bob Richardson made a scouting trip to Minnesota. As he filed out several reports, Taylor perused a long, detailed grocery list of high school talent. Taylor and Richardson briefly discussed each player: "I think we can kiss him good-bye .. . Well, Eddie Kilroy says he's good . . . Can he play . . . Logan? . . . Vino? . . . You know, Richard Vino. Can he play? . . . I called Logan the other night . . . I think you've got to get in to the household of that kid . . . Well, I heard that guy had a visit at Cornell and he said that he didn't want to go to a school where he had to study hard . He said he just wanted to concentrate on hockey . I don't think he's our style . . . That kid seems pretty naive . . . I know he did well on his SAT's . . . does he have the speed? . . . I know he's not pretty looking yet but he'll come along . . ." Last season's graduating class was Taylor's first crop of recruits. In four years they compiled two winning records ( 13- 12-1 in 1978-79 and 14-12-llast season), upset an unbeaten Boston University squad that went on to win the national championship, lost to Harvard just once in eight meetings, and earned an ECAC playoff berth, Yale's fU'st since 1967. It was the loss of 10 seniors from that class which luJJed most people into believing that this would be another rebuilding year for Taylor. Instead of rebuilding, however, Taylor reloaded. "That we lost 10 seniors was kind of a misleading statistic but I didn't tell any people otherwise before the season began," Taylor said. "Two of those seniors were not regular starters, two others missed m ost of the season with injuries, and another had kind of an off
year. We figured we would be able to replace them." "Our concern," said Gilligan, "was whether we'd be able to handle the added pressure of being defending Ivy champs. We knew everybody would be gunning for us." The Elis have responded with a capable arsenal. Captain Dan Poliziani and junior Bob Brooke, considered two of the best players in college hockey, and senior Joe Gagliardi, Yale's top goal scorer a year ago, provide an offensive attack perhaps unparalleled in Yale history. Meanwhile , freshman Peter Sawkins, a seventh-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings in june and the latest of Taylor's prized recruits, had combined with sophomore goalies Paul Tortorella and juniors Bill Nichols and Dave Tewksbury to bolster a once porous defense . Tortorella allowed just 10 goals in Yale's first four ECAC games, and he played spectacularly in the Elis' first loss of the season, a 1-0 heartbreaker against a perennially tough Boston University team. That loss, probably more than any of their wins, demonstrated how far the Yale hockey program has come in five years- and how far it still has to go. "I don't think we've seen a team that we can't beat," Taylor said, after the B.U . game. "But then again , no one is afraid of us either. Realistically, we're not a Division I powerhouse yet. We're a good team . Sometimes, a pretty darn good team."
•
Marie Mcintyre, a senior in Jonathan Edwards, is a former sports editor of the Yale Daily News. He has wriUtn sports arlicles for the Boston Globe, New Haom Register, and Stamford Advocate.
27
Theatre _ _ __...... Two theaters, two strategies Antonio Mercado
â&#x20AC;˘. . . it was not our purpose to entertain the city of New Haven. We were functioning in a university and therefore wanted the same privileges as a laboratory scientist or a literary researcher. It was our responsibility, I thought, to explore, to experiment, to develop new techniques, to rediscover neglected works- in short, to perform the theatrical equivalent of basic research. Besides, New Haven already had its own community theatre- the Long Wharf - R obert Brustein, Making Scenes.
The Long Wharf and the Yale Repertory theatres have played leading roles in the regional theatres' movement since its very beginning. But how have these two major repertory companies co-existed, for more than 15 years, in New Haven- a city of less than 150,000? Possibly because they have used two different strategies to assert their reputations and attract the audiences. The Yale Rep, having Robert Brustein as its founder and artistic director for 13 years, received local and national attention for the polemic and often disturbing nature of its productions; the Long Wharf, directed by Arvin Brown since 1966, conquered a large constituency from New Haven and its surrounding areas through the com-
bination of an eclectic repertory and a highly professional standard of production. The idea of a resident theatre company had a different meaning for each artistic director. Brown emphasized its character as a regional theatre; he tried to bring to New Haven the excellence of Broadway productions, and thus created a quality "consumer theatre" -a Circle-in-the-Square outside New York. For Brustein, the adventurous ideal of a resident company was the very opposite of a consumer theatre, and essentially anti-Broadway in its cultural concerns and aesthetic values. According to him, the Rep was a "seminal theatre," a company aimed at innovative concepts and techniques which could be considered controversial, but which represented a significant contribution to the development of the theatre art. Until recently, the two theatres were the dramatic correlative of the towngown duality, and it was not difficult to guess a theatregoer's tastes and views according to his or her subscription. Instead of the established playwrights cherished by the Long Wharf (Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Noel Coward, Neil Simon), the Rep gave its audiences European avant-garde Uarry's
Lloyd Richards, Dean of the Drama School and artistic director Theatre
28
of the
Yale Repertory
Rollin Riggs/The New Journel
Ubu, Brecht's Baal), young American dramatists (Sam Shephard, Bob Auletta, Chris Durang), and unusual stagings, such as the production of Aristophanes' The Frogs in the swimming pool of Payne-Whitney gym. Brustein admitted recently in his book Making Scmes that he respected the Long Wharf "for its craft and competence," but added, "I didn't find it a very adventurous theatre. The basic style of the Long Wharf was domestic realism- plays in which people discuss their problems over hot meals- and this made it a congenial resting place for the middle-class New Haven population, lulled by the sight of familiar lives on stage." Actually, there were mistakes and shortcomings on both sides. The Long Wharf succeeded in complying to the tastes of a huge constituency of about 15,000 subscribers, but lacked clear artistic guidelines to define the company and its aims; for some time, it faced a sort of "identity crisis." The Rep, on the contrary, never reached the mark of6,000 subscribers and often operated with half of its seats empty; but it boasted the monopoly of dramatic truth and went through a peculiar loveit-or-leave-it phase. Today the situation seems quite different: time and experience have bridged the gap between the Long Wharf and the Yale Rep, so that the town-and-gown dichotomy is no longer a dramatic conflict-onstage, at least. The Rep, under Uoyd Richards' artistic directorship, has balanced its repertory and become less controversial in its production concepts, so that the campus' limits are no longer the University theatre's boundaries. As Richards said in a recent interview, today's Rep is "a repository keeping alive the old, as well as giving birth to the new and innovative." One artempt at innovation is the Winterfest, now playing at the Rep. This festival gives four young American playwrights an opportunity to see their new works on ~ stage, even if they are still works-inprogress. The Long Wharf, in turn, has grown increasingly selective and daring in its choice of plays, partly
â&#x20AC;˘
Arvin Brown, artistic director of the Long Wlulrf Theatre.
ChrlatOI)her Uttle
-------------------------------
because the audience itself, with the passing of the seasons, became more demanding. The theater now takes more risks with new playwrights and controversial works: Stua~s, Ammcan Buffalo, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, The Blood Knot, and Lalceboat are some recent examples. Like the Rep's Winterfest, the Long Wharfs Stage II, which opened two years ago, provides an opportunity to perform new works that could be too commercially risky for the main stage. Though the two companies are closer than they have been in the past, they still retain the distinctive features which have shaped their reputations. The Rep is still a theatre of ideas, while the Long Wharf puts a priority on entertainment over cultural concerns.
Works by Bernard Shaw, for instance, figure in both theatres' repertories -but in very different ways. The Rep staged this fall one of Shaw's most polemic texts, Mrs. Warren's Profession, w~ich was banned in New Haven in the beginning of the century because of its "'immoral" subject-how decent people make a good living out of prostitution. Shaw writes in his preface to the play: . rich nun without conviction are more dangerous in modnn society than poor women without chastity. Hardly a pleasant subjÂŤt this! I must, howeoer, wam my ruulns that my attacks are directed against themselves, not against my s14ge figures. The Long Wharfs Shaw, scheduled to run from May 20 to June 27, is
29
Until recently the two theaters were the dramatic correlative of the town-gown duality.
much more genteel and pleasant. The Doctor's DikmTTUl is a stimulating and skillful comedy, in which a doctor who happens to have just one place at the hospital must choose which of two patients will be admitted for cure- and the choice is to be made between a great artist and a mediocre doctor, that is, a healer of souls and a healer of bodieJ. A vital theme, indeed; brilliant as well as harmless, this intellectual exercise on applied ethics has nothing of the aggressiveness of Mrs. Warren . Characteristically, the Long Wharf combines the wish to play Shaw with the wisdom to play safe. The Rep's attempt to present universal subjects and social concerns achieved a coherent balance of feeling, thought and myth this season: a basic theme- the meaning, nature and value of the human life and workpervaded its three first plays . Chekhov's Umk Vanya questioned the meaning of an unfulfilled life, wasted out in irrelevant and obscure work; Shaw's Mrs. Warren~ Projtssion discussed the morals and the very nature of work and profit in modern society; Richard Nelson's Rip Van Winkle, an American "epic," dealt with the transition of an agricultural society to the world of factory and industry, and therefore from self-independence to interdependence. The individual's problems are thus placed against a more general backdrop: the social context, philosophical concerns and historical change. The Long Wharf, on the contrary, focuses on the individual, brings his personal drama and psychological problems to the proscenium , and dims out the lights on the social, ideological or historical settings. In the 1981 season, John Hopkins' This Story of Yours dramatized the mental and emotional disintegration of a cop accused of killing a supposed pervert; the beautiful revival of Peter Nichols' A Day in the De41h ofjoe Egg showed a couple who desperately tried to overcome the heartbreak of raising their spastic child; and Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, an American "classic," followed a dockworker's tragic path from unconscious passion to self-
destruction . In upcoming plays, the same differences are evident. With Lalceboat, the Long Wharf brings the introspection of young author David Mamet, while the Rep welcomes back the humanistically committed SouthAfrican playwright Athol Fugard with his new play Master Harold . . . and the Boys. In comedy, the contrast is still more striking: Noel Coward's Waiting in the Wings at the Long Wharf, and Shakespeare's Love~ Labour's Lost at the Rep. These distinctions appear not only in the choice of the repertory; they are evident also in the work of the dramaturgs or literary managers of both companies, as expressed in their program notes. The Long Wharfs program provides merely the basic information for an event considered as selfsufficient and complete in itself; the Rep's more substantial program notes , suggest that such experience should go deeper and further , even beyond the theatre walls and the actual time of the performance. Ultimately, the Long Wharf informs the audience so that it may fully enjoy the show; the Rep, more demanding, provides the means for the audience to become more critical and active. This is not a simple matter of style or of taste: though things have changed over time, two different conceptions of the theatrical experience are still at play.
â&#x20AC;˘
Antonio Mercado (M. F.A . 78) is a theatre director and critic in Brazil and a Doctoral candidate at the Sclwo/ of Drama.
'¡
•
Books----Rhyming for a reason Lelia Wardwell
Rhyme's Reason by J obn Hollander 1981 Yale University Press 54 pp. There are rhythms like this that you'll frequently meet, They resound with the pounding of regular feet, And their anapests carry a narrative load (The hoofbeats of horses, of course, on the road).
What does an English professor do when he is asked to explain a specific verse form in a poetry class? If, like John Hollander, the English professor is also a poet, he may simply write his own example on the blackboard , instead of providing a formal definition or quoting an example from another poet's work. Hollander often writes his own demonstrative verse for his classes, he said, out of "a funny kind of laziness," which comes from writing verse since he was 14. Hollander's examples are verse fragments, written in the poetical form of rhyme, structure or rhythm which they explain. He recently published some of them in Literature as Experience, an anthology he worked on with Irving Howe and David Bromwich . Now he has reprinted his work , along with a brief text of definitions and explanations, in his own book, Rhyme's Reason. Rhyme's Reason is not a theoretical examination of poetry. It is a short, informative book which explains and illustrates formal elements in English verse . Hollander describes characteristics that have existed in poetry from ancient Greek verse up to modem forms such as free verse, popular song and even the Blues. His text is simple and clear, and his verse graceful. His blues example is especially witty:
Hollander does not consider Rhyme's Reason a major achievement. He called it his "fun little book," a project which took little time and effort on his part. He decided to write it because he realized that most students (including English Majors and many of their teachers) are not familiar with the formal elements of verse he has worked with all his life. He wrote in his introduction, "The most popular verse form in America today . . . is a lcind offree verse without any special constraints on it except those imposed by the notion - also generally accepted- that the stnp the lines 11l.tJke as they run down the page (the familiar strip with the jagged nght-hand edge) not be too wide.
Poetry, he said, is too often identified by its "hemline" rather than by its sound.
•
Lelia Wardwell is a freshman in Calltoun
Now a blues has stanzas, stanzas of a funny lcindYes a blues has stanzas of a eery funny lcind; ( Do that line again, singer, whik you 11l.tJke up y our mind) . . .
He also gives an example of a one line poem: "The Universe. •
31
Now Available At the Co-op
OUT-OF-PRINT SEARCH SERVICE Have you looked for an old favorite or a needed book for reference and discovered that it is no longer available? The Yale Co-op will now search for any out-of-print title. Simply fill out a form in the Book Department. Our staff can assist you. No general requests please, we will search only for specific titles. Most searches take from 4-12 weeks. However, if not available at first, your request can be kept on file for up to five years. If a copy is located, the price ¡will first be quoted to you. Prices are determined by availability and condition; OP books often command a premium price. There is no obligation to buy when a price is quoted, but should you accept the quote, full payment is required at that time. It may then take several weeks for the book to arrive. All books offered are sold on a first-come, firstserved basis, so it is best to respond as soon as possible.
All SAlfS ARf FINAl NO RETURNS AllOWED For in-print books not in our 40,000 title stock, ask about our "7 Day Search" (no fees) or Special Orders (postage charge added).