Wisconsin College of the Air; Introduction to the human enterprise; 23; Philosophy and the human experience

A lot of the upper reaches of the Ohio where the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains Hanmin one of America's beautiful streams. You're sometimes awake at daybreak to find that a heavy mist has obligated the landscape leaving only a narrow circle of it dimly visible about you. When this happens you may resign yourself to the weather and wait for a change or you may do what you have on hand with the best chair you can muster calling to the neighbor whose shadowy form you can see though you cannot be sure what he is about. As you keep busy the mist rises. You see the river rolling on toward the Mississippi. Then you see the opposite shore are the houses of the city the taller buildings the towers of schools the steeples of churches highest of all. Slowly the mist climbs the hill hangs for a little like a torn veil on their summit then vanishes disclosing a blue sky.

And the work you began in the fog. You continue in the sunlight. That quotation is an excerpt from a baccalaureate address given at the University of Wisconsin by Professor Max Otto. And with that we begin the final broadcast in our college of the Air Corps philosophy and the human enterprise. The lectures and discussions which we recorded in the classroom are finished by Professor Otto has consented to prepare a final program especially for the listeners who were not with him in the classroom but who nevertheless participated by means of these broadcasts. This is Ray Stanley speaking professor out of to start with I want to recall the beginning of this series of broadcasts. You remember you were very enthusiastic about the idea. How do you feel about it now. I feel much better about it than I dead. Or perhaps I should rather say I feel very different about it from the way I felt at the time you referred to.

Why do you say different rather than better. Well because the whole situation has changed since then. When I was reluctant to let the class electors be recorded I felt as I remember telling you that I was being asked to permit persons outside the class to listen to him who might be quite an interested or just interested in what we were doing or might even be antagonistic to what we were doing. It seemed to me that that would be taking an unfair advantage of both the class and the teacher. It would be letting us down. And what changed your mind. I never did change my mind in that respect. That's the funny part of it. You persuaded me to allow the class exercises to be recorded and to postpone the question of broadcasting. I agreed to go ahead on that basis but I kept on feeling opposed to the whole business right along and up to the very end.

If we had a way of peeling off layers of experience as we can the layers of a nanny and I suspect you would find the original reluctance still there in full force. But you said you felt better about. I beg your pardon. Different about it now. Yes I did say that and I meant it too. My feelings are different but they are different because they object toward which they go out now is a different object. There's nothing puzzling about that is there. The explanation may be something like this. You're a good psychologist Ray Stanley. You said to me at the beginning let's not try to settle this question by argument. Let's take the recordings and see what happens. Then later on you said let's broadcast a few of the recordings and then decide how many of them to broadcast you were as I said before at another

time disarmingly persuasive. The result was that in due time a fresh set of experiences blotted out or buried the feeling of reluctance which your proposal had originally aroused. So when you now ask me how I feel. I think of this complex of superimposed experiences that followed the broadcasting and therefore naturally I say I feel different complex of experiences now. What do you mean by this new super imposed complex of experiences. Right here I mean I lumbered things first of all. I became acquainted with the personnel of the radio station. Heretofore this had been a mere name or at best a building stuck away behind science hall with a high tower radio tower reaching up into the

sky. Of course I'd often listen to what came out over the air from that building but that did not make me acquainted with the people who arranged the programs did it. Anyway the whole thing was vegan dam and abstract but now as I just said I got acquainted with the people who made their home make mate and make their radio programs go. And I was cheered by the fine spirit I came in contact with. There was something unusually friendly about the place from the receptionist at the door as you entered right down to the basement where the recordings were made. Perhaps you do not realize how unusual this is. This friend in the US. Many institutional places I go in to make me feel of the people who move around there or sit around there are awfully near-sighted. I have to suit do something drastic to get them to notice my presence.

They seem awfully preoccupied. No I didn't say busy. I said preoccupied and that's not the same thing. And when finally they do see me they are remarkably casual or indifferent about as if they were saying oh here is that thing again. Even worse they sometimes act as if I had a placard on me reading warning smallpox. Now this radio station was altogether different. People that were spontaneously pleasant and informal and disposed to help me find my way around. And not only me either. I watched them because I was interested in it. And that's the way they behaved toward everybody. Yes they were busy they all seemed to have something important to do but there wasn't that front of heavy preoccupation they did not seem to resent being

interrupted for a moment or two to help you out. Now you can see can't you that I could not have counted on this being part of the assignment I had committed myself to. I've talked about it as much as I have because it seems to me of real importance and I hope that this condition will not be changed as the radio enterprise expands and grows. I would consider a tragedy for this fine atmosphere to be squeezed out. Well we'll do our best to keep it that way Professor Otto. All right friendliness that's part of the complex. Go on what's the rest. Warren pretty soon I was introduced to another kind of experience which proved to be deeply satisfying to me. I began to hear from radio listeners from different places in Wisconsin from Illinois from our some of the listeners were former students who were glad to continue philosophy where they had left off when they were in college. But there are also

people I had not known before. Their interest was infectious. My own interest increased. The best thing about it all was that the radio listeners were making our classroom recordings into an opportunity to study philosophy and I am to have a weakness for philosophy some as I've just suggested and studied philosophy before some not always wanted to but never had. And who are now fulfilling that unfulfilled desire. All of them had a lot of experience of life to draw upon and what they said had the backing of this experience. Among these radio listeners were students who had been members of the class just completed. Some were professors in the university. I learned of students who were at work on some of the broadcasts assigned by professors. One college professor out in the state listened together with his class in philosophy regularly once a week throughout the

series and then together they analyzed and criticized the problems taken out. Might have done me some good to have heard what they said. Well I'm a little surprised that you're surprised professor I hadn't really expected such a response would be forthcoming. Well perhaps in a vague kind of a way I may have but certainly not in this specific solid substantial living form. Certainly not in that form. The radio audience had been a formless kind of thing. Now men and women of various ages in various situations in life rocked out of this formlessness and actualized themselves as living human beings voicing ideas and showing attitudes. I can't tell you how much nice contact with such actual listeners has meant to me and I know that they will continue to refresh me for a long time to come. One of the responses excuse me I was just going to say I learn

from them got ideas from them and new attitudes also. My question was this or where the response is always in agreement with you are the teaching of the course. No they were not by any means I was in agreement. Sometimes I read flack disagreement but they were almost in the spirit of learning and investigation. They wanted to know these radio listeners and there is one thing especially that to me was rather striking. I never received a word for or against or about a broadcast from what we usually call a crank or a crackpot. So there are two factors in the complex of experience you mentioned before. Were there others. Yes there were others. And it was late at least one more that I might mention. The strangest and most unexpected thing that happened to me was that I myself became one of the most attentive and critical lessons to the broadcasts.

It would take quite a while to describe just what I did experience in this respect. There I was sitting at home listening to a man talking who was evidently in some way myself yet in another way I wasn't myself at all since I was obviously listening to him and this man to whom I was listening. Moreover I was saying things then and there which had been said weeks ago in another place. I've never gotten over the mysteriousness of this. It would take much more literary art than I possess to convey even partially the psychological actuality of which I am speaking. And I won't try at any rate not now. Well listening as a member of the radio audience rather than as as a lecturer What things did you observe about the recordings. For one thing I was disturbed by was

this. I came upon certain mistakes which the lecturer made. For example he said Chase when he meant case Charedi Jackson case one of the outstanding authorities on early Christianity with whose name is perfectly familiar he had John do it traveling in South America when the man he was really talking about was Charles Darwin. He said that in 1859 1959 we would be celebrating 100 time of our history of Charles Darwin's birth when he meant that it would be it would be the centenary of the publication of Charles Darwin's book The Origin of Species. These are samples and of course I couldn't help but notice the topics were left unfinished for the radio listeners which had been more fully considered in the class especially on Fridays when we had a free for all give and take on what had taken place earlier in the week.

But important as it years to get things right and to make discussions as complete as possible and to guard against overstatements which is another thing I noticed. These were after all surface disturbances much more important for these things. I was led to think about differences between former students in class and now between the students and this class I mean and those in the classes that I've had in former years. And I got a Clara conception. Then I had had of what I believe to be good teaching. And I found myself more convinced as I went on listening of the importance of philosophy for students in college and from men and women outside of college and what the objectives of philosophy should be. There's no reason I suppose why radio listeners who are not engaged in philosophy as a

profession should know where the philosophy is in the critical position just now. Nevertheless the fact is of considerable importance to them to all of us the present fashion and philosophy is to follow the lore of intense technical specialisation. This is one of the great evils of the present day in all areas of endeavor. In line with this trend professors of philosophy are turning away from those broad rich interests which have characterized spiritual leaders of the past. Well the radio listeners and I soon discovered were not interested in technical for philosophical speculation they were interested in the philosophy of life in something of the range and depth that is true of life itself. They were not interested in learning to play an intellectual game to put it in the phrase they were interested in learning how to find their way better than they had been able to do

toward a more comprehensive a more meaningful conception of human existence. And they made this fact very clear. They were good humored about it but at the same time they were in dead earnest. How could I read what they wrote to me or listen to what they said to me without being profoundly impressed by the validity of their searching. And did you find this same interest. I have this interesting living philosophy active among your classroom students. Yes I did decide it. I remember that one factor that made you hesitate in the beginning was the students themselves. They were well a new generation who had come to college and she retired from active teaching. You said a moment ago that you found these young people different from those who have been in your classes in other years. In what respects were they different and several respects. One of the interesting differences was the fact which gradually dawned on me

that the numbers of the students in the classroom Mary how large a proportion I never stop to find out. They look just as young as ever and just trying is ever no different from college students I had met before. But every now and then I'd find that I was talking to a husband or a wife they would quote each other to enforce a point before the course had proceeded very far I wouldn't have been greatly surprised if they had rolled into playpens. A number of instances. Husband and wife took the course together. One of the most impressive memories I have is of the way they did this. They carried on a lively discussions with it with each other and they helped each other in the reading as they criticize each other's ideas and then they went on to do an independent job. The papers I received from these husbands and wives were as individual they carried out as if they had known one another. Their friendly cooperative

competition in doing the work assigned or the work they assigned to themselves to do is something I wish I could communicate to the radio listeners who are not there to observe it and who could not read the papers I was privileged to read. All this holds true all of the other people as well as those where the husband was out of the class or the wife was out of class. There was another thing that made a special impression and it disturbed me as much as it impressed me it was the awareness of these students married or unmarried of a world wide moral and spiritual disillusionment which they were up against. Just how clearly they were aware of this or how much it troubled them. I'm not in the position to say but that it was for most of them and inhibiting atmosphere in which they work

and thought and planned this kept cropping up all during the semester. It was a sort of major premise sometimes stated. Most of the time taken for granted in what they did what they said and what they wrote. I often thought in this connection of the students who left the campus to serve in the First World War I had farewell luncheons with quite a number of them. They left with a light heart. They looked forward to a great adventure. I recall how disappointed I was that they regarded their separation from us as a welcome one lucky relief from their meaninglessness and drabness of university education. They waved you a cheerful jolly good bye. Obviously impatient at all the time to be off for the real life in the real world it would hardly be an overstatement to say that they seemed to be leaving

for a fine promising picnic. The student mood had changed by the time of the Second World War of course. The light heartedness had vanished leaving the campus for the Army was serious business. There was a sense of responsibility not a note of idealism in their attitude a feeling of unpleasant but necessary duty to be for a performance. There was a job to be done and they were going on to do it. Now our goodbyes were sobering affairs. No one was throwing his hat into the air. The memory of the First World War made a light hearted optimism out of the question. Not hard to describe in contrast to state of mind in the heart of the students in the philosophy class we were talking about. I wish I knew. I feel it. No doubt about that. I feel it unmistakably. But to put the feeling into words

that's another matter. And to do it was reasonable justice is beyond me. You'll have to wait for a while. This much is clear enough to me. The present college student measures up to any class of students I have known measures up in ability in character and measures up in his desire or desire for his or her potentialities to make life satisfying and admirable. But how can anyone deny that he or she is called upon to do. Work out your life under circumstances that are tough tough in the sense that they were not tough when some of us were young. The wreckage of the great wars I referred to especially to the moral and spiritual wreckage is everywhere about us. How can college students be expected to be unaffected by the flagrant betrayal of

truth of decency of neutral trust and confidence which they witness day in and day out. How can they fail to wonder whether our high sounding moral terminology has any genuine basis in life at all. Whenever I or anyone else defended a moral or spiritual principle in our class I thought I saw a look in their eyes. I have skeptical but also half wistful. It was as if they wanted to believe really wanted to believe but wondered whether an intelligent mature person should believe. If I may add that one of Emerson's famous sentences I would put there out of this way. What the world does thunders so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what the professor said. Nothing that is going on in the world today.

Everywhere in the world and in our country as well seems to me so on so short a result in widespread degradation less misery as that callous just reguard of questions of truth of right and wrong of human brotherhood and the deliberate substitution for such moral idealism of a program of fanatical ruthlessness and brutality vest as the kind of war this is a different kind of world in which the present day students are preparing for a life they cannot resemble very closely those who were in the world as it once was and isn't anymore. They live under conditions of uncertainty and threat of uncertainty. When planning for the future must impress them when they think about it as a form of wishful thinking or Nakayama must speak to them with peculiar appeal.

Come fill a cup and then the fire of spring your winter garment I'll be penitence filling the void of time I was but a little way to flutter and the bird is on the wing. I can see how these differences in the students would lead you to an examination of teaching procedures Professor Otto and a few moments ago you said that in listening to the broadcasts you would got a clearer conception of what good teaching really came down to. Did you come to any conclusions. Yeah so I came to conclusions I came to one conclusion with it's a conclusion I've come to several times before and now I came to it with new fervor. I'll put it in just a word the other day I read an article by a philosopher who was making a study of the connection between research and teaching. He said that research is concerned with the accumulation of knowledge and

that teaching is concerned with the communication of knowledge thus accumulated. Now my mind happy that the time to be on my recent experience with the students in the class and with the radio listeners and consequently I don't know whether to logically consequently bother to psychologically consequently now. Consequently I didn't agree with this analysis. It seemed to me that good teaching is a form of intellectual yes even personal comradeship in his comradeship and the illumination of the landscape and the activities of the life. It is not the one sided handing on of information from the one who knows to the one who doesn't know information of course is important and that was brought out in the course we're talking about. Information is important and the handing on of information is important from the one who knows to the one

who doesn't know. But that's the problem. To education education proper begins when the information leads to cooperate cooperation between the student and the teacher in the development of insight insight on the part of the teacher and on the part of the student. Insight into the particular subject matter. Concerned at that particular time and insight into the whole human undertaking. To go back a few minutes on this program Professor R.. You said you couldn't help noticing that some topics which were fully discussed in class were left unfinished for the radio listeners. That suggests a question that has recurred in the response from some listeners. A question concerning religion. Now in the broadcast lectures you've discussed such human ears as truth beauty goodness right and wrong and so

on. But what about religion as a human value. Well Ray Stanley I hope you know what you're asking. If I go into that subject even briefly I'll be at it for just about the rest of this broadcast. The microphone is yours Professor are you ok. Ours is a critical time for religion. Deflection from religious institutions and forced by state authority has been advertised for the world to see. In Europe and America religion is on the defensive. This is true even among the isolated backward peoples who have managed to adhere most closely to primitive beliefs and practices. Furthermore a more serious danger threatens man than a decline of church religion. It is the aggressive growth of a religion Lestrange religious

idealism can live unchurched of it must yet do its elevating work in society. A bureaucratic church on the other hand competing with other bureaucracies for mastery or for a balance of power will subvert the good influence of the religious spirit in human affairs. The vital and inescapable situation thus created has presented religion with the problem it must solve in the human interest. Religion must willingly enter into a growing togetherness of men in what they seek and the ways and means of their seeking it must willingly become part of the active daily normal business of living. And on this basis work for the best and noblest in human nature. To make this idea more

specific Let us consult two passages of New Testament scripture. One in the Gospel of John and the other in the apostle of James. Not that these passages are to be taken as final authorities are that we are to confine our hopes to their original interpretation. On the contrary we are to transcend their earlier import. We are to search them for suggestions relevant to the present religious exigency John or the writer of John's gospel omits some of the most familiar and best like portions of the Gospel account. At least the best liked on the part of some of us. He says nothing of the Good Samaritan of the prodigal son the rich young ruler or the grandmother get some money or the principle of conduct. The principles of conduct in one seated in the Sermon on the Mount.

But he does tell of events to which no other writer than the one in New Testament writer refers among these is the story of a man prominent among the Jews who came to Jesus for a personal interview. And you came by night probably not wishing to have his visit noised about while he was still uncertain what to think of the religious innovation called The good news there. In a dimly lighted room where big shadows moved and gestures as the two men talked. Jesus spoke the words that have found their way into our language yes. You must be born again. Neka Demus was baffled. The proposal struck him as fantastic. But Jesus was insistent. The wind blows he said. You don't not know where it started. You do not know where it is going and

so as everyone who is born from above his life from the viewpoint of the uninitiated is an insider of all mystery yet its demands in the way of practice. I clare you were not asked to begin again the life you have lived the life in which success is failure and victory is defeat. You are asked to enter upon a new life which you have never yet begun to their and which if you lose you've lost everything. No I want to no matter what you may seem to of one in a line then with this admonition we may draw a preliminary conclusion. Religion is a life a life so different and moral dispositions from the commonly prevailing ambitions and purposes that enter into that to enter into it amounts

to a new birth. So far so good. Religion implies interest climatically opposed to loans ordinarily pursued its aims and rewards are utterly different from the aims and rewards of the on religious life stated in these terms however the ideal is still too general or even abstract. It must be rendered more specific more concrete. The Epistle of James will take us a step in that direction. James had little respect for religion in the abstract. He judged a man's religion by the specific things it led him to valuing to do. Pure religion he declared in a well-known passage. And undefiled before God and the father is less. To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the

world. This quoted passage sets forth two requirements responsiveness to human need and avoidance of degrading influencers fatherless and what those in affliction. What is this but a symbol of distress spotted by the world. What is this but a metaphor depicting the blotting out of a man's finer nature in the contacts of day to day living. A great mystery could be made of this definition by those who are more keenly interested in the conceptual refinements than in the refinement of life. Others will not be much puzzled. They know without being told what is meant what it means to be helpful where help is needed. They are aware of degrading aspects of their environment without having them pointed out and labeled. But we cannot stop with that close at hand

are the familiar religious opportunity and obligation reach beyond the narrower into the wider environment rich and of the world which is after all the context of every man's doing and being the proposer must