Letters: Sep. 14, 1970

(2 of 4)

Sir: Despite the protestations of youth [Aug. 17], as a member of the Establishment I refuse to have personal or group guilt feelings. We, too, abhor war and would prefer love and peace, but do Red China and the U.S.S.R. allow us to pursue such noble desires? We, too, are against hunger, poor housing, discrimination and poor medical care, but aren't we the ones who pay the taxes, contribute to charities and hire and help the minorities? We also approve of sex and love, even though the fire burns less furiously, and we supply the youth with the Pill, facilities for safe abortions and medical care for their rapidly increasing rate of venereal disease. Why is the parasite so angry at the host?

ARTHUR M. GREENE, M.D.

Omaha

Sir: I am a longtime admirer of your excellent reportage in other fields, but your coverage of youth leaves virtually everything to be desired.

While you devote most of your space to the Woodstock crowd, you frequently mention the existence of young Nixonites and Wallaceites, and on special occasions you even hint that there are a few scattered wishy-washy moderates.

For all your seeming sophistication, you seem unaware of the attitudes of a majority of our generation. There are among us: pacifists who don't give a damn about ecology, right-wing hippies, speed-freak bigots, Agnew fans who want marijuana legalized, and crew-cut political radicals.

It is quite possible to dislike Ronald Reagan and Jerry Rubin equally, to smoke grass and not feel we have to bomb banks, and to enjoy Hair but still go to church once in a while. We are neither boy scouts nor demonstrators, goody-goodies nor political prisoners. We are liberals and conservatives and reactionaries and radicals. Because we don't fit into the molds you have fashioned, we have somehow escaped notice in the mad rush to publicize youth today.

MARK MCCONVILLE

Camarillo, Calif.

Sir: Author Wilfrid Sheed, in the recently published Max Jamison, commented most appropriately when he said: "I am not against youth as such. They are wonderfully teachable. But that they should be teaching us; that we should invest them with oracular powers, read into their shrugs and moans some great gnostic wisdom—this is an American superstition so crass that one scarcely knows where to begin with it."

ALIDA C. KRATNOFF

North Bergen, N.J.

All About Angela

Sir: Re your reference to Angela Davis' "brilliance" [Aug. 24]: I have only to cite the evaluation of her teaching conducted by the Philosophy Department of U.C.L.A., which found her qualifications "adequate but not exceptional."