Siegfried Sees Asia, America as Menace To Man as Thinker

The European concept of man with dignity as a thinking individual is now in danger from both Asia and America, Andre Siegfried, Bacon Exchange Professor and member of the French Academy said last night in a lecture.

Although both America and Europe are based on respect for the dignity of the individual, they have different concepts of the dignity, Siegfried said. The whole American continent thinks that an individual's dignity comes from his freedom as a producer to reach a high standard of living while Europe thinks of dignity as his freedom as a thinker to criticize.

Asia in turn differs from both America and Europe in its sacrifice of the individual to the interests of the group, Siegfried went on to say. As America and Asia begin to dominate the world through a mastery of the techniques of mass production, they threaten Europe and Europe's concept of man, he observed.

Europe Source of Ideas

"Yet these very techniques of production could come only from a civilization with Europe's faith in the creative genius of the individual thinker," Siegfried said. The fall of Europe would therefore mean destruction of the source of fruitful ideas and techniques.

Europe fears Asia or America, according to Siegfried, in political, economic, and military rather than intellectual spheres. The great but almost unreciprocated influence of Western philosophy on contemporary Asian philosophers demonstrates Europe's strength in the East on an intellectual piane, Siegfried said.