My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
Luncheon Speech by Dr. Crandall to the Associated Women Students"State Day," December 3, 1966
Ladies, my fair ladies—I should have danced all night, so that I could have grown accustomed to your pace—perhaps with a "little bit of luck" you can leave me in the lurch and get on to your search on time. Wouldn't that be loverly?
At the moment I'm staggered, if not intoxicated, with the thought; How can I make a hit among all these misses? (Do I hear someone say, well, certainly not with cornball plays on words, professor!)
The one thing I know for sure, I'm on the spot. I'm not so sure how I got here. There are two possible explanations:
1. My congenital inability to say "no"—like Ado Annie in Oklahoma; "I cain't say no"—i.e. I find the requests of the opposite sex irresistible;
2. The other explanation: I'm committed—committed to the ideal that women can be told, should be told, some things by a man. You may call this a crazy commitment. I call it a magnificent obsession.
But, however I got here, I'm here and, like those couples who are the victims of impetuous marital pledges (capricious, conjugal consignments)—instant commitments—we are stuck with each other—at least for the next few minutes.
You see that I am like a standard American male, self-conscious in my humility and humble in my self-consciousness. I'm painfully conscious of my two outstanding abilities: my fallibility and my vulnerability. I'm not only vulnerable because I'm a man talking to the fairer and stronger sex but because I'm a member of the older generation in the role of ambassador to members of an alien land—collegiate culture. It is a role that requires the highest form of diplomatic art and I must watch my "appeases" and "accuses."
But I must repress my compulsive propensity for preamble and proceed to deliver my message in accordance with my assignment. My assignment? To talk about commitment in general. I'm sensitive to this, "type-casting," since it clearly identifies me as the man who can talk about everything in general and nothing in particular.
Now, I've labeled my remarks, Pick a Category: The Conformists, the Cool-one, and the Committed. This implies that you have a choice; It also contains the inference that it is a kind of game (like T.V. quiz shows) and "the name of the game" is finding your name (not necessarily fame!). To put it in more pedantic terms—the problem of personal commitment is part of our search for identity—part of our quest for meaning in the melange of our changing culture—and our place in that milieu. It is a part of our pursuit of the person we aspire to be, a part of finding who we are and attaining a satisfying maturity.
Let me take a moment to put the problem in perspective and in a socio-psychological context. I'm talking about the problem of "adjustment" of the young adult to this world. (I've got to be careful about these words but I don't want to dawdle with definitions—an occupational hazard of professors. However, we must be sensitive to the fact that words are like women—unpredictable, seductive, frequently faithless and full of hidden meanings.)
This process of adjustment is, of course, many-sided, but it has two fundamental dimensions:
(1) finding one's cultural place an attaining the culturally defined roles—of producer, consumer, wife-mother, i.e. achieving the skills for economic independence, making the marital grade—(getting fit to be tied) and acquiring the several faces of maturity.
(2nd) dimension of adjustment—finding one's self—establishing our self-image as a unique person. Some social-psychologists define the human personality as a bundle of attitudes—tendencies to act in a given direction—thus this second dimension refers to the selection and collection of those attitudes which add up to our identity as a person. This involves the acquisition of an integrated set of values and meanings of the true, the beautiful, and the good—(the business of conscience construction)—the formulating of a personal philosophy, finding our reason for being; appropriating ideals to live for and principle to live by—values to give our lives purpose and ourselves meaning.
It is this second dimension: the formulation of meaning of ourselves by ourselves and for ourselves—the painful process of defining what we are, what we mean, and what makes life meaningful. It is this aspect of the problem of adjustment which is central to our discussion. Essential this is the task of selecting the ideals, the values, the notions of the true, the beautiful, and the good from the cultural stockpile which surrounds us—and what a stockpile it is!—Of selecting and collecting those items (raw materials) and constructing a satisfactory self. In a sense the problem of adjustment is the process of fitting some of society into the self as well as fitting oneself into society.
Let us not pretend that there is anything simple about this process but, in the face of the severe limitations of time and at the risk of contracting that dread disease "hardening of the categories." I submit that there are three basic patterns or paths of response one can take: (because it is not a question of whether or not we adjust but what kind of adjustment.)
Passive acceptance of the melange of ideas and ideals in the immediate milieu—an unquestioning absorption of both the official and unofficial (often contradictory) values of the middle-class sub-culture and one's own social group—an easy kind of assimilation by imitation-a sort of self-definition by default—becoming a standardized mass-made product.
This, of course is the hyper-adaptable response of the "other-directed" person playing the roles that others demand—letting the environment call the shots—(the perfect organization—man and his wife). This person is christened completely by the contemporary and immediate culture. For him (her) "the name of the game is to make his (her) name the same" as the rest. He (she) is the conformist.
Active detachment—aggressive aloofness from the dominant ideals and idols of the adult culture—the explicit rejection of the cultural goals—rejection of the standards—success and salvation as irrelevant, inconsistent and meaningless, if not incompetent and immaterial. Viewing the cultural stockpile with cool contempt and cynical disdain, the person pursuing this path, turns his back on this "crazy, phony, mixed-up world" and retreats to the "cool" confines of a private world of his own making—a world in which he can be preoccupied with the highly personal and present satisfaction—the search for identity becomes a quest for kicks—a search for self becomes self-seeking.
In its more extreme forms this type becomes disciples of the "cult of experience" dedicated to achieving the maximum number of sense experiences—an intensification of present, private experiences without reference to other people, to social norms, to the past or to the future—devoted to the esoteric, the erotic and the egocentric—the trivial and the titillating—to "love," liquor, and LSD.
There are the cool-ones (our second category) who subscribe to the principle of solipsism—that the search for self takes place within the self, rather than within society or in public activity or commitment. It is based on the belief that the truth can be uncovered by burrowing within the psyche. These are the ones committed to non-commitment, involved in non-involvement, devoted to non-adjustment. Yes, they are the cool-ones.
Active selection. They are the seekers and choosers, yes and—if not the movers and shakers, who in their search for a definition of themselves as persons, exercise their right of choice from the contemporary cultural cafeteria; who struggle through the confusion of the cacophony of voices; who are convinced there is meaning in this melange—abiding values in the changing world—goals to live for, standards to live by, causes worth fighting for, living for, yes, worth dying for—ideals that make life "a profound and passionate thing."
These persons are not content to let themselves be defined and to wind up as a passive bundle of contradiction, and they reject secession and escapism as a way out to "narcissistic nothingness." (They're leery of leary.) They are concerned in finding the meaningful values in the cultural stockpile and are convinced that they can build significant selves only by finding the significant in their society. They are aware of the magnificent paradox that only by losing one's life (in causes larger than themselves) can one find his life.
These are the committed.
Now, I have left little doubt about which category I think you ought to pick (though you may think I've done some card-stacking.) I've tipped my hand. Therefore, I'm happy to report that there is considerable evidence that more and more of your generation is picking the category of the committed.
Indeed, one can summarize (over-simplify) the recent history of the younger generation in the U.S. by pointing out a discernible trend from crew-cut conformity to bearded beatnik coolness, to conspicuous commitment—from a silent generation to "a sullen generation without a cause" to a student generation with many "causes." We've gone from passivity to proclaiming, parading, and protesting.
The fact is all three categories are well-represented in your generation: the conformist, the cool and the committed. However, I am not going to commit the scholarly sin of spurious specificity and state claims regarding the exact percentage of each type in the current collegiate crop.
I have revealed my biases. I have declared myself to be on the side of the committed. The conformists it seems to me, don't solve the problem of establishing personal identity, rather they actually avoid it through passive acceptance of what is around them—objects rather than subjects. The cool-ones don't solve it either; they seek to evade it and reject everything—threw the baby out with the bath water—and become victims of the solipsistic fallacy of self-sufficiency. They delude themselves in what appears to be a "cool" but it is actually a "frenetic" search for self through a pathetic self-destructive—self seeking. Only the committed are aware of the magnificent paradox—that one who loses himself shall find himself.
So I turn in the final moments, to address some questions to my heroes and heroines—the committed. The critical question: What does it mean to be committed? (Everybody talks about heaven ain't a goin' there.)
Now, the dictionary defines commitment as an act of pledging or assigning or consigning something and as a pledge to do something. In the case of personal commitment it logically follows that the thing being assigned is oneself—and that this involves a personal pledge to act in terms of that assignment. The person (you) is the subject (the assignor) and the object (the assignee of the thing assigned). The terms of the commitment are specified by the principle, the ideal, the value which evokes, justifies and binds the act of commitment. I submit that there are a number of principles, ideals, values in our culture which warrant or justify this act of commitment.
They are embedded in our judaic-christian tradition and in our democratic creed. They include the values of the free and sacred individual, equality before the law, and human brotherhood of ideals, of justice, integrity, and good-will.
But it is not my role to tell you what the targets of your commitment should be. This task has been handled by better men (and women) than I. Rather it is my purpose to leave the question in your minds as to which category you really are in—what your name really is. So permit me in the waning moments to exercise the professorial prerogative of review and of raising questions—a kind of drill on definition.
In my view there are certain Crucial criteria of commitment—certain essential earmarks of the committed:
An act of will—a pledge without external pressure—an active espousal of the principle, the value, the cause.
Has your "commitment" been imposed—prefabricated and pressed on you by group pressure? If so it is a compliance not a commitment.
It is informed and knowing. It involves understanding and understands the involvement. Like the lady in the limerick e.g.
Question: Do you perceive and understand the target and the terms of your commitment and the consequences and knowingly accept them? You don't deserve the name unless you know the rules of the game.
It is a deliberate choice involving the weighing of alternatives. It involves both affirmative acceptance of some principles and positive rejection of others.
Question: Do you know what you're "for" as well as what you're "against" and does the first make sense in terms of the second?
Like love—and it is like love—it "vaunteth not itself and is not puffed up—it beareth all things, endureth all things." By definition it is a giving of self—not a glorification of the self.
Question: Do you wear your commitment like a badge and a status symbol? If so—you want the name—not the game!
The committed man and woman is a man or woman for all season and all climates. Will you be committed in the torrid melting temperatures of conformity—or when the "cool" winds prevail? We are not in a time when commitment is fashionable.
Question: Will yours go out with the mini-skirts? Are you simply committed to commitment—the idea of commitment?
I might end at this point. I must end when we're all feeling "over-committed" but I'll do it by switching to another game—To tell the truth.
Will all the really committed please stand up?
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