Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind; Psychological climate for peace, part one

From the Great Hall of the Cooper Union in New York City. National Educational radio presents the Cooper Union forum series on peace and creativity the hope of mankind. Here now is the chairman of the Cooper Union for Dr. Johnson Fairchild. For some.

People I would just like them personally and with. You. Never.

Ever ever. For 75. Years.

Ladies and gentlemen. I feel quite good that I was and I want to remember and besides it isn't my night that I want to talk about before I begin the formal part of my talk with you. I want to talk about Johnson. I think. Well I want to say first. Fifteen years ago first Like you I remember receiving a letter.

That was signed by Johnson the. Director or something of a coup. I don't want to run. But the letter said something like I can't repeat a word but it ran like this. We would like very much for you to come down to the forum and do something which would fit into our program this coming year. We can't afford to give you the kind of man of your stature and ability but we can't afford to give you the opportunity and the privilege to privilege one. Use the platform and the like turn that Abraham Lincoln used in 1859. And it's true when he wrote back. And he said we give you the opportunity to use that remember this is the place from which Abraham Lincoln began his presidential campaign which ultimately led to his

election the United States and he said in the letter the first thing I could do is I can let you use the lectern of the platform which Abraham Lincoln spoke in 1859. And the second is I can give you a mad audience. I give you what. I give my one audience that won't turn you on just how much you can turn them. And I want you to know what his promise has been. I have never come back without going through the same fantasy. Whether or not I should appear in a store. I walk in here and play Abraham Lincoln. And I go through this fantasy every time I'm invited. And each time I come here I also look forward to getting my address to you so that we can get into the interaction. So that we get down

to the business of relating to one another. And for many years of opportunity not only to have this experience to stand on this war. But also know that I'm part of our. Educational effort one of the most significant and one of the most significant free adult education opportunities in the world. The Cooper Union forum and the courses attached to it the free education courses that this opportunity is one for which I am extremely grateful to John's badguy out and I think that leadership and his organization and programs serve our banks on his 20th anniversary. I want you to know. That I knew what was.

And because it wasn't it was a very special occasion and that he said you will introduce you won't and you will be the first speaker of what is probably the most important question of our time and since you will begin the program he said Go to it. Oh knowing that this was a special occasion I came prepared with my box. And my purse and I hope you don't mind because I am working that program. Now because I think I would like to put up

with you might make. I put it on. I and I.

Now it's easy to say it. And yeah you go to work. But I want you to know I work very hard in trying to think how best to present this almost insoluble problem. What is a psychological climate. How can we create a world in which peace is the prevailing climate. How can we create those conditions of life. For all of us everywhere in which peace not war not aggression not aid but goodwill. Would be the prevailing says nothing. Two thousand years ago peace on earth love thy neighbor and this is the

basis of order humanitarian movement is the beginning of man. And yet in my life I am and I am. But in my lifetime I have gone through almost incessant wars and World War II spent four years in the service. I was overseas. I was left in Manama Mombasa. I did my then a war. And I continue even today the question is is it the hope of mankind. Do we have any. How do we do that and is this just all or is there any effectiveness and we have in some way achieving a climate. Now what's interesting is that at this moment there are various directions various

which illustrate concern are to survive. Just in the last year or two. Two books on aggression and I'm not going to review the African Genesis and the other one you've been hearing about and if you haven't you ought to look at least the reviews of the book. I sometimes think more than the imagination of the critic but that that's another story. But it was the very question that we must have it about is aggression inevitable is inevitable. Is there no alternative is man born to learn to be 0. Even if you believe that there is an aggressive instinct even if you believe that man is born. Even if you believe you

believe that man is born killer. We still must ask our sale was there any way that we educate him that we can be this force that we can really redirect this earth. What's so great about all of the study that they say that. That is its own. That is for no reason except to want to feel like you know it for no reason. African Genesis that it has to do with that is in my house if you use my character that I don't know what the answer is I don't know whether man was good or evil. I don't think we're going to answer that question that he was born good and we create evil in

him that we make him bad that we make him aggressive that we make him destructive of themself and others I don't know but are you born good and that we make a bet on that he was born bad and we make him good. But in either event we have a problem and the problem is what do we do with the reality that man seems to be aggressive but you don't have to go far to see that even though you can walk into any subway and if you can walk in the subway and see these look like human animals human beings you're wrong. Don't tell me we can't help but there is a way in which we live to one another a little more concern a little less angry a little less unfriendly there must be ways to me by women by which this can be accomplished. And I'm suggesting to you that if we don't accomplish it. This is the challenge of the evening forming that regardless of whether I think it and

whether I think there is a hope or it is not. I must believe that there is a hope that there is a hope that war will not. Because at this moment man has the capacity to exterminate himself and so the challenge is what can we do about it. I put the sign up because I am a scientist and I always believe in doing field work before I present and agree before I talk about something I want to have an experience. So I went around the corner here across the street and walked the street called St. Mark's Place. It's the street and if you want to educate and walk that screen any time of the day and night and you will be educated about the subject matter. I am about which I'm going to talk tonight. This is the headquarters of the AP. You don't have to go to the Electric Circus if you don't want to. I recommend. I

recommend an attorney one without taking drugs. I recommend I recommend that you go without you you get a dollar rebate on the cause of that. You know. What I recommended you go there because you will see up a nominee or you walk down the street and see the incurred store bookstore or something like that intergalactic bookstore and you will see the psychedelics get turned on like that and these are the graffiti. And you will see people with long hair and short hair all dressed up in costumes if this were a great big opera like the kind of opera you see in Rome you go to Rome a bears a paragraph and you will see a great big opera they bring on flowers of people and horses and elephants and so on. When you see and I you know there in the summertime you really see a great big opera. This creep had to cross the street on me is a dramatic opera. An opera of our time. You might say it were comic opera if it were

not so sad. And I urge you to go abroad on the street and see ourselves in America. Because those people are us and we are there. Whatever good thing. They didn't grow up no way I like them. They were brought up by you and me. They come from middle class and upper class family. They come from not poor people. We do have some that come out of the poverty groups they come from educated situation and the dropouts in turn are what they call a turn on to be in and raw power. They learned those words from television. Are they going to want to elevate that and maybe it will be God all in color you know so they can afford college TV and these people represent an aspect of us.

And go look at yourself in the distorted mirror to see it because they are one of the sane ones. First of all zap them with that with. Zappa when they say make love. They say we are all loving and we are or are we. We read yes. Violence aggression. Every day you get up in the. Violence. Anybody want to

get an American made anyway. And it was some years ago and everybody. But the hippies say we yakked any violence. Now you can say that coward. You can say that they are doing this because they grab something they do not want to join. Makes no difference what they are rebelling against your engine that they make. You know that's why we have the American Revolution. We had the American Revolution because we said we would not pay taxes that you want to put upon us. We said no taxation without representation. These youngsters the following and

that provision in some way make war. We don't want to go to. We want to live. We want to love. We want to enjoy this one opportunity we have. One and we want to come. Along. That's what they are saying. And they reject every jet you and me and every adolescent group they reject are living in a housing development or to be able to live in order to be out of pocket. They rejected living in houses and traveling in cars and everything and in these boxes they want to break through out of the box they reject the competitive nature of the Sabbath. They reject everything that makes you want I what we are. I don't want to get a little.

But I can form you. They say there isn't anything good about that. Now maybe they go too far. But what there is that maybe we need sane asylum. Is that. What they're saying is maybe we need to protect them from the insanity of the world around us. But I want to believe that we ought to protect ourselves. I don't have to tell you how in this world. I understand that Shirley Temple is going to run. I understand imam and Iran are already going to the governor of California. I never thought I'd live to see a man on a board. In a capitalist state

but this is a very crazy world. This is a world in which the people who want to resign say love the people that we are again. If you read the mass media you will hear that these terrible people are all drug addicts and they don't do anything and they're dirty and they're smelly. Now. There are a lot of dirty smelly people in Harlem because there are no toilets in the house and no water so we don't decide they ought to be locked up. We decide this about because they do something to what they are confronting us with something that we do not want to see. We never like it when the adolescent child rebels against us. We think we old timers know or we answer at the Veterans Administration. Up here in the

region along something they got a group of veterans family American these veterans of the Spanish-American War 75 to 100. And they come every week because the law provides that they are given free medical attention as long as they live. And all of an Egypt taken care of. They come once a week to the Veterans Administration and there in addition to getting medical examinations and have lunch. They have a kind of a group therapy session. I'm interested keep them occupied. Keep them alive and alert so that they don't die. So many people you want I know I get and they're still walking around they don't know what they don't lie down. Now the veterans of the Spanish-American War get together in this group and they go and they get together once again.

And they we live about and they complain and you know what they complain about. They complain about the fact that young people don't listen that President Johnson doesn't listen. Years of experience would tell him how to solve all of this problem to tell all the children how to solve their problems but nobody listens to them and they're sure that if you gave us all the time to solve the problems we would know it and I think every and anybody in the audience who doesn't feel the same way. I think all of you in the audience think that you could run the government better than Johnson. And you could run the government better than Rob you go run about got a better senator than Congressman that you know better than you're young and they don't want to listen to you and I'm going to listen to you. Boy you could come out and live their lives. Young ones are leaving and talk about the young problems later because they haven't. One of the things about the hippie is that they are attempting to

escape from reality. Because the reality is so bad. They are always the pollution the poverty. A racial prejudice the war they are opposed to those things. You want I should be opposed to only we submit to what we say what they say. We can try to level that may not be able to change the situation but we will try to live it. Now warning here is cost. Ways of resisting the submission your indication as to what they should do. And of course we have mixed feelings about them. But this is not the way to solve the problem of war. In my estimation they are escaping into illness into illusion into unreality and not solving the reality problem.