(00:00:00) A memorial service is being held today for the late Mulford Q Sibley. They put a cool science Professor from the University of Minnesota died last month in this hour of midday. We remember Mulford Q Sibley first in a speech he gave upon his retirement in June of 1982 at the University and then later in the hour some excerpts from an interview and Colin program. He did that very same year at the Minnesota Public Radio studios here in st. Paul. We begin with Mulford Q Sibley's lecture, which is entitled my last lecture. (00:00:34) I was puzzled for our time as to what to speak about on this occasion. And then I thought that how Chase was always very much interested in conviction and convictions and the basis of conviction in politics. And in other Realms so that I decided to make a brief statement about how I came to my convictions in terms of experiences. I've had a good many students who have asked me questions of that kind and so for just a few moments, I'd like to share a few thoughts along that line. They will necessarily be Inadequate obviously and I call my remarks a standpoint. In the belief that each of us has to have a standpoint from which he or she looks at the world. You cannot stand no place you must stand someplace and this is particularly true of course of human beings the angels as far as I know do not need to formulate a standpoint. It's given for them. They know exactly how to do their harps. The beasts on the other hand are guided more or less directly by factors outside themselves. It's only human beings in a sense who have to reflect on their experiences and to take a position to define a goal to attempt to become autonomous are self-governing because they're constantly being pulled back to a denial of this task and have to emerge once more in the Quest for autonomy. And as I shall suggest this process is duplicated in the community our own experiences as human beings seeking to become free. Has a parallel or have a parallel in the community which seeks to emerge from traditional sacred societies to political communities in which debate and discussion become the basis of order. I'd like to say a word first of all about my particular background because I think that often interests students and then suggest three poles around which I tend to think in terms of convictions. I think all of us must reflect the times on how our outlooks have been shaped and conditioned by early experiences. Psychoanalysis and such groups as the Jesuits have taught us the childhood experience is very vital in helping us understand a man or a woman. I should agree with them but also emphasize that while our childhood experiences and particularly our relations to our parents helped build the Frameworks within which we initially think each of us also has the capacity to transcend those Frameworks and to construct Frameworks, which can legitimately be called personal do not belong to anyone else. We are not merely the sum total of all our antecedents. In other words human personality potentially is also a creative whole creative hold of ho Ellie that can shape its parts. I grew up in Missouri and Oklahoma in a physician's household and among the factors, which I most deeply influence which deeply influence my subsequent development and Outlook were my early religious experience my parents beliefs and values and my social and educational environment. Religion in my early experience was highly emotional traveling preachers for example and healers and the perspective. I obtained upon religious experience was quite different from that which I subsequently attained my parents beliefs and values. I'm sure played an important role in the working out of my own life my own Outlook my father although born into a religious family had many agnostic elements in his makeup. He tried very much to be honest with himself and took great pride in the family motto on our coat of arms sa calm were Dairy. And he took Delight in giving me the translation to be rather than to seem to be a republican in politics. My grandfather had been one of the founders of the Republican party in Southern Illinois. He was frequently highly critical of particular Personalities in politics. Thus although he was a veteran of world war one he resigned from the American Legion in high dudgeon one day and never never rejoined till the end of his life. My mother was a much more highly disciplined person and I think from her I obtained a strong streak of puritanical Outlook. And I don't object to this. I think the Puritans in many respects have been sold down the river by their critics and I would like to put in a word for them. Of course. My neurotic Tendencies are also perhaps they're due to my puritanism my early social and educational environment. Undoubtedly had an important effect on what I was later led to believe an early memory of mine was the ringing of the Bells and the blowing of the whistles which signaled the signing of the Armistice bringing an end to World War One a little later when I was in the fourth or fifth grade. I believe I was reading in the history book about the Battle of New Orleans the book pointed out rather glowingly that while the British had lost a great number of men the Americans presumably under the good generalship of Andrew Jackson had lost only a few What a wonderful Victory. I remember being very puzzled in a maze that any book could praise a so-called Victory which was won by taking human life and this left a deep impression on me. But of course you can always ask the question. Why did it leaflet leave a deep impression on you wasn't there something there to start with and where did that something come from later on in high school and college. I was to encounter the segregation laws of Oklahoma. They completely separated the races in school and provided that while teachers could not white teachers could not teach blacks and blacks could not instruct whites how I ask myself. Could this be reconciled with what I took to be the values of religion? At for some reason I found very few students asking questions of this kind and my college history teachers strenuously defended the segregation laws as history goes. This is only relatively recently and when we somehow sometimes doubt the possibility of progress, I think we can say that there has been enormous progress in terms of the problem of racism since those days. It was also a period when at Princeton University a little later many undergraduates cynically organized a veteran of veterans of future Wars and began demanding pensions while they could yet. Enjoy them for the future Wars. They said they would be killed in the future Wars. They would be killed and wounded seemed to me a perfectly reasonable request. Matcha. My adolescence was experienced during the Great Depression on my father was very much devoted to the so called free enterprise system and although I classified myself as a republican until immediately before I was graduated from college. Charlie after my graduation. I moved very rapidly in a socialist Direction. I was eligible to vote for the first time when Franklin Roosevelt was running for his second term. I could not support Roosevelt. For he seemed to me to be taking us into war with his big Army and Navy program and his acceptance of all the militaristic clichés, which have characterized American politics ever since and which are now being exacerbated by a great admirer of Franklin Roosevelt in the White House moreover. It appeared to me that he was doing little that was fundamental in remoulding and economic system under which there were at least 15 million unemployed and there were still nine million when the war came when the war economy came. So I cast my first ballot for the late Norman Thomas while I was not yet formally a member of the Socialist Party. I was moving rapidly in that direction since that day. I have supported only one major Party candidate for the presidency. Guess who that was. I should maintain should mention one other facet of my early development which would play an important role in the evolution of my Outlook when I was about a sophomore in high school and was reading a wide variety of books. I was browsing through the public library one day and came across a volume by the late sir, Oliver Lodge a Nobel Prize winner in physics called Raymond. It was an account of his alleged communication with his dead son who had lost his life in World War 1. I was so fascinated and impressed the thereafter. I began to build up a library on psychical phenomena, and my interest is not declined to this day. By the time I was one or two years out of college the vague outlines of my tentative Outlook had emerged since that time I should say. I've been working on the implications of the Outlook but have am constantly re-examining it for I've been impressed since my high school days by Socrates proposition that the unexamined life is not worth living. If you ask me now where I stand on the major issues of life and death and we can't come to grips with life unless we grapple with death. I would say that they might be divided into convictions about personhood convictions about politics and convictions about ultimates our religion. First of all personhood one of the my central experiences is that the self I am now is not the self I ought to be although I must build on what I am now we go through life seeking to discover what we ought to be and never completely finding it but this Quest is basic to the achievement of human personhood the psyche and body are intimately interrelated the latter limiting the farmer and what it can do and the farmer having a capacity to shape the ladder to its ends at least in a measure we come into this world is Wordsworth said trailing Clouds Of Glory, each of us has at one time lived either in the spiritual body alone or in a combination of spiritual and physical bodies. Our experiences in this life can be used to enhance our sensitivity to the universe and ourselves are contrariwise. They can be employed to desensitize us and make us less aware. The main purpose of life is contemplation of nature contemplation of ourselves and contemplation of others as ends in themselves. In our personal encounters with others, we helped discover ourselves while at the same time assisting others to find themselves. The highest level of this personal encounter is what we usually term friendship and it becomes the basis as Aristotle suggested for the community where friendships are less rich. Where are their only watery the basis for Community is destroyed and perhaps this is one of the things that's wrong with the Contemporary World. Perhaps the most drought dramatic and most intimate form of personal encounter is the sexual relationship. While sexual experiences perceived immediately as physical attraction the physical attraction is merely a kind of sign of something Beyond it and even the physical pleasure can be appreciated more if it is tied to mental and spiritual Affinity because human personhood is so many cited and Deep full sexual fulfillment is 44. Perhaps most individuals best discovered in a lifetime relationship yet human beings vary so widely that it seems to me that an ideal Society will Envision many farms of the sexual relationship the equivalent of polygyny polyandry group marriage as well as monogamy. This becomes one of the important themes that seems to me if one is two. Study seriously the problem of human (00:14:24) personality. (00:14:29) Equally, however, the experience of sex can lead us to under some circumstances to experience New Dimensions of the evil the false and the unaesthetic. This is not untypical of Life as a whole the most characteristically human experiences may move either in the direction of an affirmation of values are in a denial of them indeed. There is a sense in which one cannot fully appreciate the good the true and the Beautiful unless one has at least a nodding experience with their reverse. I think it was st. Thomas Aquinas who once suggested that we ought to at least shake hands with the devil or words to this effect in order to know what he was about. I became more impressed by the potential become more impressed by the potentialities of human personality the longer I live in those who are seemingly most articulate and insensitive one will often find the possibilities for love great creation and enormous power at the same time often those who are most intelligent and best educated in a formal sense will through pride in their alleged superiority. Sometimes commit the most Monumental of blunders and rationalize the most cruel of deceptions. As in the intellectuals the best and the brightest is they have been called who planned and executed the war in Vietnam part of the mystery of human personality, of course lies in its capacity to be transformed The Sinner can be converted into the st. It has happened. Now, the experiences of a good liberal education can literally liberate us from fear from Prejudice and from blind obedience to custom our rulers. I have great confidence in genuine liberal education and very much deplore the Contemporary tendency to question its value. We need more not less liberal education the kind of education which subjects all institutions and beliefs to careful scrutiny. If we are ever to Grapple successfully with the enormous political problems, which confront Us in the coming generation liberal education must continue throughout life. It must be the kind of education which not only passes on a tradition but also encourages men and women to criticize the tradition. We ought not to expect from life and he full achievement of our goals for ourself yet. This should not mean that we ought not to have goals. I cannot understand the Viewpoint which seems to depreciate goal-oriented persons to be sure we must be constantly aware that in the achievement of personal goals. We must be careful not to inhibit the attainment of the goals of others for we are indeed members of one another but to discover goals for ourselves and it is in itself a worthwhile task one should with which recognizes our imperfections as we are and which seeks Perfections as what we should be. We live at the juncture of time and the Timeless and this both limits Us in what we can achieve and should remind us that our worst frustrations are not final. If a purpose of life is the discovery of ourselves of others and of nature, then the ancient caution that we should not regard a central the mere accumulation of material things takes on a new meaning although in my own life. I'm always failing in this respect. I know that I should limit my material once both for my own sake and for the sake of others a culture which exalts simply spending and consumption is undermining itself. This is my own puritanical strain, if perhaps of the if perhaps of the structure of the economic order in because of the structure of the economic order, my income is high I should give a substantial part away for civil social educational and other purposes. Indeed if someone through no fault of his own is wanting and I have more than I need Saint Thomas Aquinas argues and I should agree with him that the person who is in need. If I do not share legitimately can sees what he needs of mine for his own use. This is a principle which I suppose surprises many of you are not familiar for example with the moral theory of the mediaeval saint. The ultimate frustration for each of us is death. Whatever our beliefs may be in the survival of the human personality after death. The physical body does die. We do Decay and all Earthly life relatively speaking is but a momentary flash awareness of the reality of death and courage to face it honestly or indispensable if we are to understand life if we did not fear death as the Polish philosopher Vincente leutis laski argues, we might be more courageous in standing up to social evils and tyranny. It is our fear of death that often keeps us from being outspoken and allows the Tyrant to rule. When we forget that we are mortal physically we tend to emphasize things that in the ultimate scale of values at least as I see them are unimportant Prestige and glory and attachment to material things. Although it is extremely difficult to do each of us ought to live as if he or she will die tomorrow. Some of the most important discoveries in the future perhaps await Us in the field of psychical phenomena the dimensions of human personality and such phenomena as telepathy Clairvoyance out of the body experiences psychokinesis and communication with the so-called dead are far more significant in my judgment than the nature of the rocks on the moon are the precise composition of the polar caps on Mars as important as those are yet, we will spend billions on space exploration and almost nothing on psychical and similar research. Come now to the second pole around which this paper is built that is Politics the achievement of what each of us should be as a person is intimately tied up with politics in religious terms. No one of us can be completely saved and less others to are on the road to Salvation as William Blake one of my favorite poets once put it the starving dog at his master's gate bespeaks the ruin of the state. So closely are we tied to one another particularly in a complex civilization that issues of politics that is of justice and definition of freedom demarcations of power direction of the economy problems of War and Peace are also to become personal problems for each of us each ought to discover where he or she stands in the political scheme of things and how he or she can best contribute to the tasks of political that is of deliberate conscious artery of human Collective Affairs the overwhelming political challenge today, is that of deliberately creating a world order. Embodying diversity in unity and unity in diversity. Both poles must necessarily be recognized in these tasks. It is indispensable that full freedom of oral and written expression be not only recognized but also encouraged and I'm disturbed by certain tendencies in the Contemporary Administration in that respect because I suspect that we're in for a day of increasing repression unless we resisted For my own part as I suggested earlier, I am a Democratic decentralized Socialist and sometimes I add anarchist. By this I mean that I have no confidence in the so called free enterprise system that obtains in the United States. Neither. Do I have confidence in the despotic state capitalist system of the Soviet Union while time does not allow me to defend my beliefs in detail. They would include the notion of a planned economy for Democratic ends difficult as that is in which the major instruments of production including land and distribution and exchange our own socially, although not necessarily govern mentally the idea of a vast expansion of so-called free goods and services and which we have not only free parks and playgrounds and schools but also free medical service legal service and possibly even free bread by free. Of course, I do not mean there would be no cost. But rather that one would not personally pay for what one used any more than one today pays fees for the use of the public. Parks usually, I think it's an outrage for example at in the distribution of Medical Care in the United States a very ill person is often confronted by a bill for heavy medical bill at the very time. He's he or she is trying to recuperate from an illness this if anything would exacerbate it seems to me the illness and I'd like to see the medical societies carry on a crusade for a rational system of the distribution of Medical Care in this country. It's about a hundred years overdue. No word about my pacifism. It is grounded in religious ethical and practical consideration. My religious convictions tell me that human life is to be respected that we ought not to kill human beings. Deliberately. My ethical experience moves in the same direction my study of history and politics leads me to believe that all war has been impractical in the sense that it can never contribute overall to the kind of political world that I think desirable. I was a conscientious objector and World War II and early opponent of the war in Vietnam one of the stupidest as well as the most immoral Wars in history and I shall oppose every future war no matter what its alleged objective. Even if it is the rescue of 750,000 sheep in the Falkland Islands. One of the highest obligations we can have today in my judgment is to refuse to enter the military forces of any country to help erode militarist ideology, which has been growing in the United States since World War Two and particularly in the last two years and to attack the notion that military so-called defense can defend anything valuable. That's an illusion in my judgment and I'm interested in noting that the late military historian Walter Millis and one of his last essays calls the essay the uselessness of military power. This is my Walter Millis not by a nut like myself. Pacifism does not imply refusal to resist evil but rather an insistence that evil must not be opposed by methods, which only compound the evil. And that could be expanded of course almost indefinitely. In general I should stress the importance politically of an individual's Readiness to disobey for conscientious reasons obedience in our society tends to become to habitual to unreflective. Ultimately. The only way to check tyranny and most of mankind today lives under at least semi tyrannical and despotic regimes. The only way to check tyranny is through Mass refusal to obey the Tyrant. You're seeing some very good examples in Poland. The end result of the police situation is not yet in don't get discouraged about it. There are no tyrants as one 19th century writer put it there are only slaves and that I believe and I see in myself the very slavish tendencies that lead to the creation of tyranny. It may be that Utopia will never be attained. But each of us has an obligation in his or her own way to attempt to achieve it. And now a concluding word about the third point that is ultimates Emily post was once asked what should one Converse about in polite Society. She replied by suggesting that one should never discuss religion or politics for there were two controversial. My response would be to ask what else is there to talk about? Wow, this is an exaggeration. Obviously one immediately thinks of questions involving art and music and education and sex and Science and so on still it seems to me that religion and politics are very fundamental in any world Outlook and is Gandhi used to say they cannot be sharply separated from one another this creates one of the great political as well as constitutional problems as I've indicated earlier. My religious views were undoubtedly affected by my family experience and Adolescent development. They are still in process of development, but I should say that in general. I have moved away from far more fixed professions of Faith to a much greater Reliance on constantly renewing religious experiences gained through meditation and reflection. Pharmo professions of Faith tend to become Frozen unfortunately, and we frequently idolize the words or the formula but not the reality religious experience is more nearly a process of seeking and hoping to find opening a way for the ultimate to break in on one and to help one integrate one's life integration is related to wholeness which is related to what might be called spiritual health. Since my early days, I've never understood how one could be an atheist and any literal sense of that term for it has seemed to me that to deny the existence of God are the gods implies far more knowledge on my part than I could possibly have. I can understand an agnostic position. I don't know but I don't know anything anyway, so I could easily admit that but to assert flatly that there is no Supreme Being for example, if that's what it means to be an atheist. I would find beyond my competence to make any such statement. In the end the most impressive thing about my religious experience is the sense of mystery. It seems to me at the heart of it. as a Convert to quakerism which emphasizes religious experience rather than forms of words. I get more and more impressed by this. That religious experience involves a sense of mystery at the heart virtually of everything and the Mystery grows. The more one reflects on one's religious experience. I would say religious experiences very closely akin to aesthetic experience. To the extent that I have grown in knowledge and wisdom, and I sometimes doubt whether I have it all. The mystery grows and deepens at the heart of my own religious experiences a feeling of awe about everything. That is seems to me for example, if you if you look at the story of modern physics. Which is so far gone beyond the sort of mechanistic model that we were familiar with in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is especially true that the the world seems to be suffused with mystery. The mystery grows and deepens at the heart of my own religious experiences a feeling of awe about everything not merely about the Supreme Being but also about all being and all existence. and even about the magnitude of both good and evil, there's a kind of all about the power of evil sort of like the doctor motioning to his colleague to come and look at this beautiful case of cancer, you know one Fields full of all at the enormous power of evil, but equally so at the enormous power capacity for good in human beings they coexist It's hardly necessary to add that this sense of awe is Central as we reflect on personhood the political challenge of building a world order. And the human religious quest in seeking the ground of all being and ultimate concern. Thank you (00:33:02) remarks by the late Mulford Q Sibley political science professor at the University of Minnesota on the occasion of his retirement at the university the talk that you heard was called my last lecture Mulford Q Sibley died last month. The memorial service is being held for him today. We conclude the our with excerpts from an interview and Callin program that I did with. Dr. Sibley in our Studios at Minnesota Public Radio in st. Paul during the summer of 1982. Do you have any idea doctor Sibley how many students you must have seen passed through your classes over the years? (00:33:42) Well, it works out as a hundred to a hundred and fifty to two hundred every term. So say six seven hundred a year times 30 years or whatever the figure what would be (00:33:53) wow, that's a lot of people. Do you know of any of your students who have gone on to become famous political leaders in our country? (00:34:05) Well, I'm told that John Anderson was a former student of mine at the University of Illinois who became a member of Congress. For example, Walter Mondale always greets me as a former student and I think I did have him in class at one point a good many others whose names. I forget right now who are fairly well-known in politics. (00:34:27) I suppose you don't remember them at the time where you didn't know then that the (00:34:31) to know them at the time. That's the that's the situation of quite often. (00:34:35) Yeah. It's always hard to predict which ones are going to go on. (00:34:38) Yes. Yes, it (00:34:39) is. I guess of all the activities that you have been known for over the years and all the positions that you've taken on issues. Perhaps you're interested in peace and the peace movement is the best known. I wonder if you think the world is now closer to peace or farther from peace than it was say at the end of World War Two. (00:35:01) I think it's about at the same point on the one hand. There's been a great development of weapons of war but on the other hand, there's been a growth of Peace Consciousness. It seems to me as compared with a few years ago. The nuclear freeze petition would indicate this it seems to me world is a very dangerous place particularly when it relies on weapons of war but I'm as optimistic as I can possibly be I suppose given all the circumstances about our ability perhaps to transcend some of these difficulties in the next few years. I'm certainly hoping that will do so (00:35:40) there have of course been many wars since 1945 Korea Vietnam several in the Mideast the recent conflict in the Falklands to name just a few But there has been no World War obviously and no use of nuclear weapons anywhere. Is that just plain good luck or do you think there's some reason to have confidence in our leaders for having the sense to avoid them? (00:36:05) I think it's the grace of God and I suppose that's in a sense my confidence it is though interesting that so long a period has elapsed since the end of World War II much longer than the period between World War 1 World War 2 in terms of a World War. We've had many other Wars as you point out but and it may be that our leaders are learning a little wisdom. But as long as they maintain this confidence in military might as a way of protecting themselves, we're going to be in danger. I think this this ultimate faith in the military is misplaced from my point of view and unfortunately, most of our leaders don't agree with me. (00:36:51) All right. We have other listeners with questions. Go ahead please you're (00:36:54) next. Mike won't peered terribly naive question. But given that the Reagan Administration currently is waging what appears to be an unrelenting class war against the poor in this country. I find myself Disturbed and without any sort of foundation in coming to grips with class analysis all the people. I know who profess class analysis up a very static fairly simplistic notion of it that seems to boil down to Simply pedigree. I'm wondering if you could give me some basis on which to comprehend this sort of class Warfare going on now. (00:37:28) Well, I don't know exactly what you're getting at. But I tend to agree with you in your judgment of the administration. Certainly. I think this Administration basically reflects the interests of about the upper five percent of the population or even less and it doesn't bother to disguise its objectives. It seems to me in considerable measure so that it reflects to an even greater degree. Then previous administrations a kind of class bias. It seems to me but beyond that I think to get into the details of an analysis of this sort would take me a whole hour and I don't have that. (00:38:10) All right. Thank you very much for calling. How do you accountant for the fact that President Reagan was elected with the help of the number of certainly blue collar or Union people and that he continues to maintain at least a fairly reasonable standing in the public opinion (00:38:26) polls. Well, I think that's partly due of course to the level of Consciousness political Consciousness in the United States that is much of it was a clever job of salesmanship. It seems to me on the part of the administration lack of awareness on the part of millions of people of what was going to happen in such an Administration. On the international side, of course, there's not too much difference between the present Administration and the Carter Administration The Carter administration had embarked upon a vast expansion of the military to so as between the two parties, I don't think we ought to exaggerate the differences that exist between them. (00:39:10) We'll take our next caller. Go ahead please you are on the air. (00:39:14) Yes. I have a question for dr. Sue because regards of the the East Movement I've been thinking that perhaps the most Salient issue of this whole Affair is the fact that there's no way that I've ever heard to conclude a world war war with. The Russians are war with the with the Chinese that is to say bye-bye Invasion or occupation. This is the sort of thing that really makes you know the idea of a war with the Russians foolish and I'm curious if dr. Sibley has any comments on this whether this is an issue, which is ever really been brought up with. (00:39:55) I'm not quite clear that what the issue is in your could you could you expect could you state restate what the issue is? (00:40:01) For example? To bring to bring a war to a successful conclusion. You pretty much got to make you know, your enemy do what you want to do. So you've got to invade or somehow bring them to heel and the notion of invading Russia or for that matter the Russians invading us as preposterous. Well, it doesn't seem that they could ever do it. They've got a hundred thousand men trying to hold down Afghanistan. It's not even the size of West Virginia. (00:40:28) Well, of course, you're right about that point the whole business about it. The Russians invading United States is absurd even if we were disarmed completely the Russians couldn't get control of this country. As long as we were opposed. We simply carry on a campaign of nonviolent resistance. This is one of my real objections to the whole military policy the notion that in the modern age, you can defend a nation by War are by military force. This is this is the premise that has to be attack it seems to me so I think you're exactly right. I might add to up to your comments the observation that the United States invaded Russia at one point in history. Russia has never invaded this country. We invaded Russia you remember back in the Wilson Administration right after World War One (00:41:18) highly unsuccessfully. (00:41:20) Yes, (00:41:21) I wanted to ask a question. I slightly different subject. I've been reading some Robert Bly the put Robert Bly little bit lately where he talks about. I think for several years has been studying thinking about a new kind of masculinism that in essence saying that some of the feminine images that have been projected on men during the 60s and the 70s is only part of a picture of what it means to be a male and that we need to recreate some new images of maleness and I'm wondering if you've done any thinking about that lately and if you have any (00:42:05) comments, I've had I've had some thoughts about this. I can't even talk about it very much. It's true that the culture shapes tends to shape the role that each sex plays in considerable measure, I also Of course if there's a native important distinction our biological and psychological distinction between the two Sexes think what factors are present in some ages, for example, it's very unmasculine for the male to weep in the 18th century. However, in many parts of Europe it became fashionable for the male to cry about deep Deep Emotions, for example today, of course, we just turned that around much depends. I think upon cultural and Social Development the role at each in connection with the role that each sex will play including the masculine sex. I do think that the notion that the mail for example ought to be hard-nosed sometimes even the image seems to be brutal for example, not tender that this is an image that I would hope would be Be eliminated. (00:43:22) There go ahead please you're on the air (00:43:23) Professor Sibley. I'm calling from Minneapolis, and I'm wondering And why do you feel the Reagan? Ernest the registration for the draft and how can we help end registration? (00:43:37) I think it's pressing so hard because it's another propaganda device to get Americans aroused about the Soviet Union to make them cognizant of the administration's feelings that we ought to be tough with respect to the Soviet Union. You will remember that Reagan denounce the draft during the campaign. He's just turned right around and I was registration a draft done. He's done a flip flop. How can we oppose it? Well, I think there are many ways. We can oppose it for those of draft age. Of course. There are always the possibility of refusal to register for those of us who are not of draft Age We ought to give every moral support to the young man who are trying to stand up to the military machine in as many ways as possible for example education is important. I think of the public try to get the message for example of a peaceful world and on militaristic world into the schools so that at least they hear it often today, they don't get it and they do get military propaganda. These are some of the ways it seems to me we might use (00:44:50) don't you think? Dr. Sibley that the Soviet Union is at least as responsible for the increase in militarism for the threat to war the threat to peace that that there is in the world as any other country perhaps more so (00:45:02) II think that that militarism is not peculiar to any one nation, unfortunately invades the thinking of Many Many Nations one saw that for example recently in Great Britain, the the idealization of the Armed Forces, for example, the Reliance on force and violence for instance. This is not peculiar to Any Nation and we have to oppose it wherever it exists in the Soviet Union in the United States and Britain in Argentina and so on we need a vast movement undercutting militarism all over the world (00:45:39) had a question for you and that relates to The the invasion of for groans. Now what I was wondering is should the United States have remained neutral in that conflict. And if so, what could it have gained as opposed to taking sides and what could it what would have been the wiser move considering that both sides will actually appear spoiling for a chance to fight into might say vent or aggressive tendencies. (00:46:10) Yes. I think the United States ought to remain a neutral wherever military violence is being waged it on the side with either side in the Falkland case. I think it should have taken the issue to the United Nations and have proposed a solution somewhat like this that the UN might have taken over administration of the Falkland Islands and a point the governor of the Falcons with the consent of the population so that both Argentina and Great Britain would be excluded such a proposal. As far as I know was never made and when the United States eventually began to side with Great Britain it in a sense repudiated that role which I think would have been a much more constructive role. (00:46:54) Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:46:56) Yes. I'm calling from Winona Minnesota doctor and the last Reagan press conference. There was a question directed to him whether or not in view of the resignation of Hague is Secretary of State whether there would be an upheaval and foreign policy or dramatic change in foreign policy and the president answered it in this way said that this would not be the case because foreign policy basically was generated by him and that he was the one that upon advice generated the current for policy that we experience. My question. Dr. Is is do feel. This is a viable way of of generating foreign policy of even that much responsibility and one man's hands primarily. And if not, What would be a better way of generating foreign policy for the United States? (00:47:47) You've posed a very important question by the Constitution. Of course, the president is given very sweeping authority to conduct foreign policy and we have to recognize that on the other hand the powers that he has by the Constitution have been greatly expanded to by custom and public opinion public opinion, which says that we have to support the president in foreign policy. No matter what he does. For example, the notion that my country right or wrong. We have to combat ideas like that which tend to strengthen the presidency in foreign policy. I think that a democratic foreign policy involves much more involvement by the people of the United States and by Congress, then we now have we shouldn't rely upon menarche called foreign policy making as we do in considerable measure today. This will this will entail a vast development of public Consciousness about the methods of foreign policy the means by which foreign policy will be conducted. We don't have that Consciousness today. It's a lack I think in this country as it is now the president can virtually take us to the brink of war and then demand a declaration of war go ahead with war without a declaration. The Vietnamese War for example is never declared even though the Constitution says a congress declares war for example, many of the president's acts in the past in foreign policy in my judgment have been illegal and yet he's never been held accountable. (00:49:27) One of the results of the Vietnam War of course was an attempt by Congress to get more control over foreign policy. I think particularly of the War Powers Act you think that not enough has been done or has there been at least some? Taken in that direction. How do you evaluate this at? All? (00:49:45) Right for a while there seemed to be a reaction against Vice Presidential Power particularly in connection with the Vietnam War II agree with you have passage of the War Powers Act. It seems to me now though. We've gone back someone in the other direction. We're relying upon the great man Theory again thinking that there's a peculiar wisdom in the president when there isn't the president's just as stupid as you and I are stupid and just as wise no more no more. No less. It seems to me. We have a long distance to go to have a genuinely Democratic foreign policy made and shaped by public opinion. But part of the responsibility isn't the public has simply refuse to use the authority that it already has and until we can do that. There's no way of curbing this tendency to a monarchical foreign policy. (00:50:41) I'm calling from frost. Up in North yes, and I like to ask the professor twice. He has mentioned that matters of our government deal with propaganda efforts against the Soviet Union, but he kind of has left it hanging as to where our major enemy for lack of a better term might be if it is not the Soviet Union. Is it militarism in general as you have alluded to? (00:51:14) Yes, I don't like to think in terms of enemies. I don't think the United States has enemies in any particular parts of the world. When I alluded to the Soviet Union said we place too great an emphasis on it. I had in mind for example the conflict between North and South between the developed world and the underdeveloped world as equally important for example, and we hear very little about that the fate of the of the world in a sense in a sense turns on what we do about the relationship between the developed and the underdeveloped world. It is not a problem of American Russian relations in my judgment for example, and so there are many other issues in the world aside from the American Russian question. I object to the administration's trying to force us into a kind of box in which we say that the main issue is the conflict between the United States. In the Soviet Union, I don't believe it at all. There are many many other political conflicts that are equally important. But again, I don't like to think in terms of enemies except to remind ourselves that the major enemies I suppose you could say if you want to use that term are cold and hunger and malnutrition and maldistribution of income in the world. There is where we should place the emphasis not on trying to create hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States. (00:52:44) Next listener standing by go ahead, please. You're on the air. (00:52:46) Hello. I'm calling from million. Was my question is prompted by mr. Sibley's lectures on TV on Utopia and I watch this spring and my question is this do you think the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are in the tradition of utopian sinking and then can this be the conflict between socialism and the u.s. Be seen as a struggle between two different utopian Visions? (00:53:16) I think there's much to be said for what you've just said that the founding fathers had a kind of vision of what this country should be. It hasn't turned out to be what they said. It should be in many respects but they did have that vision and obviously it seems to me a socialist vision is an attempt to establish some kind of Utopia. In fact, we we can't operate in politics. We can't be political beings without having Some kind of vision our Utopia in mind either implicit or explicit if we're going to be rational human beings. We simply required regardless of what our political label is, (00:54:00) you mentioned a bit earlier that you believe that even if we did not have military power there would be a civilian kind of power that could counter aggression and so on. I've been very interested in what you have written in your book The Quiet battle and what Gene sharp has written about civilian based nonviolent defense as an alternative to War as a functional attorney alternative to violence and conflict resolution. Wonder if you could elaborate a bit more fully on the basis of that kind of view, and also if you might indicate what other resources might be available to us for learning more about it. (00:54:36) Well, that's a good question is pretty broad question. But basically what I would Advocate would be that a nation would be defended very much for example as Gandhi conducted his It's against British rule in India and our Martin Luther King conducted the Civil Rights Movement. This would involve the use of the strike for example, the non-violence strike of demonstrations of at Point Civil Disobedience, and so on. These can be used in domestic controversy these techniques so to speak as well as an international controversy the method of military violence in my judgment, as I said before has had its day and it's fail we simply have to turn to methods such as you indicated that are reflected in gene Sharps books, the politics politics of non-violent action in my book called The Quiet battle and Greg's book The Power of non-violence, for example, which explores the whole possibility of non-violence in many areas of human existence including the problem of And CM cases book called nonviolent coercion. There's a there's a considerable literature in this field which individual should become acquainted with it seems to me (00:56:03) dr. Sibley. Mmm-hmm. Yes, my name is Doug and I just have to say by just getting to know you both as a professional and as a friend, I think you're one of the best examples of how young man should live his life in to change his world and tomorrow with just and peaceful world. Thank you. And my question is is not a political means but in both your classes and in private, you mentioned how your marriage to your wife. Marjorie has been one of a One of Heaven on Earth. I just wonder what you say would be the secret of a successful marriage. (00:56:36) Well, that's a very broad question. I'm not sure I have I think it would depend partly upon the two people who are (00:56:43) involved but for you and your (00:56:44) wife for me and my wife common a common value system, I think is very very important Mutual Toleration the attempt to have common interests for example in which you reflect your value system religious or political so that you can work together and outward look at things rather than constant inner introspection at is a marriage can be killed if it looks too much inward. It seems to me you also have to look outward and of course a constant awareness that you ought to tell your partner how much you love him or her constantly. I think this has to be put in words as well as an ax. It's Not easy. It seems to me to build a successful marriage. (00:57:35) The late dr. Mulford Q Sibley in an interview and listener participation program here on Minnesota Public Radio back in 1982. That was the year. He retired from teaching at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Sibley died last month a memorial service is being held for him today.