WE ARE PEOPLE AFTER—ALL"

By Kevin Gauthier

’ Well, Dear Readers, I suppose you have noticed over the past mo or three weeks that the pages of this honorable tabloid lave borne a strikingly sim- ilar message frcxn several different authors, that message being that something has happermed in recent years to change toe natmie of this university and the students who attend it. Woe to those of you who found those deliberations disquieting, for they continue this week. (Incidentally, my apologies to anyone who took my article last week too seriously. I regret having caused. you anxiety; but my advice ‘ to anyone who was pertmjaed by such light-hearted intellectual meanderings is that you find your sense -c~f humour, Son, for life will be so mudi easier with it than without.)

Anyriay, to continue the train of thought that

has occupied. this author for the past three weeks, I think we might have arrived at a point where we can draw a few cenclusions and even, perhaps, forward a humble opinion as to what might lie ahead. The problem, simply stated, is that the typical liberal arts education for which this uni- versity, (and. many, many others like it) was founded is suffering from two maladies, they being 1) such an education is considered to be, at best, - quaint, and at worst, useless, by the highly indus— trialized society which exists in North America t today, and 2) yound people, under tremendous pressure to exploit the system for what it offers, have little time or inclination to diversifi their basic "trade skills" education, and thus the traditional discip— ‘ lines which comprise the humanities, (political science, philosophy, languages, etc.') are left to ~

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aging academics and idealistic Artsies for preser- vation. ‘ ‘ v -

But let's be realistic; ‘Iegardless of ho» a

growth can be promoted in business, or how much the

wonders of nature can bey'exposed through the formu- lae and equaticiis of science, I refuse to believe that this world no longer has use for political science, or philosophy, or fine arts. It may well be that a completely industrial society, those only purpose is to produce more and more material wealth,“ would no longer require a population experienced in such areas of thought; but such ‘a society muld no longer require real people, either, just human pro—' ductive machines. Fortimately for all of us, our society has not yet degeneratedthat far. But it

is heavily industrialized. So, following the model, we today stress achievment in the skills necessary for success in the workplace, while at the same time

v we pay hollow lip-service to the "archaic" virtues

found in liberal arts disciplines.

['hus, we See universities increasingly becoming institutes of higher learning. in business and the sciences, while the humanities suffer a lingering death. ,

Fine. ‘So modern society discourages arts training. Big Deal. Modern society’can sit on its industri— alized backside and grow old along with me. I, for one, do not particularly appreciate the direction this society is taking, and so long as I have a mind of my own, (however feeble it may be), I refuse to be dragged around where I don't want to go. 'So, here I am at the University of Prince Edward Island, in my senior year, studying political science. And despite my appreciation for all the marvelous things I have learned about men and society, I probably will die a man of very modest means, whose most profound re- gret was that I had nothing else on which to use my knowledge of men and society but for pacifying drunks while tending bar in some nightclub in Toronto. >

But, maybe not.» Maybe society will come to realize once again the value of an education in the~human— ‘ ities. It seems that we need to strike a balance, I so that the demands of industrialization and the demands of our human nature might equally be satis? fied. The problem today is that the scales are tipped too much in one direction, because of the weight given to the demands of industrialization. Let's not forget that we‘are people, who need to understand ourselves and eachother; forgetting that little detail will eventually mean allowing our— selves to be lead like cattle into the slaughter-

‘ house — satisfying the needs of the master animal,

in our case the industrial society, and being spit out like so much garbage when we no longer satisfy the taste for flesh. Saund gruesome? You bet. '

ANO THER . WO RL D

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