Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind; The great disenchantment, part two

I think specifically the civil rights problem. We dream. A few years ago that the whole problem could not be solved by a few long that seemed to be in a scandal. All we needed to do was to issue a legislative recall of the year that everything would be fine. As a result of that we were shocked when we discovered that that wasn't enough. We had not actually thought the problem through either we as individuals nor we as a nation because it was not purely a legal problem of segregation or desegregation or free schools or busing or any of the rest of it. It was an economic and social logical problem that reaches deep in the power structure. And we were not prepared. We're still not prepared to cope with it in any rational way. We're making piecemeal approaches to it here

and there and we've got a sense of the magnitude of the problem. They have begun to be a little bit frightened about the exercise of quote Our quote. I'm not so much disturbed about black power as such as I am about the festering violence which lies along the UN organized who are still caught up in the US dream of rising expectations seeing that they aren't getting any place and making those soap bubbles tangible and durable things in life. If we ever made a mistake in our national history it was in the ceiling the problem was like this could be easily happen and this is a reason or one reason for our disenchantment.

We leave before we love. Now I do not mean that we should not think in the steps that we did but certainly there should have attended that serious and searching examination of the economics of the problem as they affect employment. I have talked to many of my friends who say we're not interested in desegregation as such. We are interested in having a piece of the action. Give us a challenge give us job not leave breaking the jobs that never get jobs of take care of ourselves. I think that's part of the answer. I don't believe that our industrial or economic machinery is now geared up to providing those jobs or that our social order has realized how gigantic is a problem involved

disenchantment. Yes partly at the fringe of impetuosity partly the fact of dreaming without a blueprint of fulfillment. Before I could go on exhausting yours I was exhausting my catalogue of. Reason as of the genesis of these troubles and the reason for corresponding moral defeat is always there. Unfulfilled dream I was reading an article by Michael Lerner as I recall he said he rather expected at the end of the World War of the more aware you like to listen to sweep over the country

resentment against the colleges for their progressive side for the fact that academic life inviting sanctuary if many people would disagree. I would not be at all surprised if that was true. I would guess that those of us who believe there is a certain validity in the intellectual approach to life are going to find a hard going after this war because a mood of pragmatism and conservatism always at 10:00 is the ending of any war. If such an anti-intellectual ism does come then scarring or hatred of the school the university contempt for the of the rest of the nonsense then you will find that our own progress as a nation has been slowed about abortion

they might fall into isolationism which. Is not an intelligent one but which is a line drawing in the all of our resources and an angry protest against things as they are throughout the world. I submit that we will never find safety in that approach. We will never find it. The expansion in the mind of national consciousness in anti-intellectual ism and the hatred in the things of the mind. Just as we shall never find fizzles of the physical security and trying to draw the covers over our head and shutting out the world. This isn't chump and that becomes perhaps the price we pay for progress. If there were no dreams which were too grandiose there would be no dismay.

But there would be nothing accomplished towards realizing the dream unless we are prepared for disappointments and this is usually means we must still. Dream or avoid putting those dreams in terms. So in a way that they can be realized. I think that as a nation we have a hard time ahead of us. I see no possibility of an easy smooth time either they have more ATMs today or tomorrow because we've not yet found our place in the world and we have not yet found our place in our own social architecture. We are still a family. The chances are the rancor and

dissension will be our lot for a good many years to come. Perhaps intensified. Certainly exacerbated by the war by the tensions created. But if we are to surmount them there must be again they re mobilizing the spiritual strength of the American people and they must be prepared to accept not disenchantment but lack of Postville for no dream can ever be realized in its great and shining amplitude. If we don't set our sights higher. Then we shall accomplish nothing. Our disenchantment will be correspondingly less. But we have to keep on. Incurring the risk of this union. If we are to keep on growing I went out of her as a practical matter suggesting that if our political leaders were to avoid

the dangerous clichés of overstatement and exaggerated promise then we might have a more realistic view of the problems that we face and set ourselves to the right task. Of solving. So we reckon this job is merely the other side of the coin agree. I bet it is always possible to do something about those conditions of which we complain that perhaps the acid which I suppose deeply into our souls and survival as a brave real hope signing a generous and dominant people for the American. Peoples stuff of dreams

is reality. As border stone rock we dream greatly in order that we may live greatly. And if disenchantment comes in the shoulder that burden. I'll be very glad to answer any questions. Thank you very much. You heard radio and television commentator George Hamilton COLMES As he spoke on the topic. The great disenchantment. This was another program in a series of peace love and creativity the hope of mankind. On our next program Lionel Landry director of the Asia Society will speak on a subject most of mankind. These programs originate at the Cooper Union in New York City and are recorded by station WNYC. The programs are made available to the station

by the national educational radio network.