Professors Express Moderate Disillusion With Culture of West

Professors Harry T. Levin Phillips E. LeCorboiller, and Carl J. Friedrich expressed grave doubt that the technological progress of western civilization had had a beneficial effect on its culture, at an Adams House Forum last night.

Levin said that although advances in recording and printing techniques have brought great works of art closer to us, these same advances are also responsible for the distribution and popularity of joke box music and comic books. The present demand for abridgements of worthwhile literature, the commercialization of folk arts, and the popularization of classical music is definitely indicative of our entering the age of the cult of the slob," the concluded.

LeCorboiller disagreed with Levine He felt western technology has given us many of the comforts we have a right to expect, particularly with regard to recent improvements in agriculture and medicine.

At the start of the twentieth century, according to Friedrich, both the bourgeoisie and the socialist and communist reformers believed that their respective philosophies, combined with technological improvements, could bring happiness to most of mankind. "But the bourgeoisie and the socialists have now had their chance, and are disillusioned," he said.