VARIOUS SHADES AND HUES

To The Editors of the CRIMSON:

"Veritas or Committed Men?": how misleading can a title of an article be? (Mr. Arnold's letter appeared on March 3.--Ed.). The alternative to Veritas is not Committed Men, or any men whatever, but Mendacium or Falsum. Think of a parallel phrase, such as, "Democracy or Committed Men." Does one exclude the other? Mr. Arnold implies that to be devoted to Truth means you cannot commit yourself to any particular claims to truth. Yet, Truth is not some pure Essence existing (and accessible) out-of-relation to particular instances of it. You have to decide whether this or that concrete thing is true or not. There is, of course, no guarantee that every decision you will make will be the right one. Yet, you cannot help but make such decisions. The scholar who thinks it is best not to take a stand on a disputed issue has thereby already made a crucial decision, a decision which implies he thinks all the claims to truth with which he is dealing are either false, or not worth his commitment.

There is an enormous difference between the arrogant doctrinaire (who undoubtedly exists in many academic quarters) who feels he has nothing to learn from men of other views and who will refuse to consider facts that may threaten his doctrinal security, and the scholar who commits himself to views he considers correct at the time when they are under his scrutiny. To accept certain theological conclusions no more disqualifies a person from competent scholarship in this field than belief in democracy and voting in election time disqualifies a man from competent research in the field of Government.

Lack of such a commitment is no guarantee against prejudice and preconceived ideas. To have men of various shades and hues on its faculty seems a better way that a school can preserve free and unhampered scholarship with in its walls than to have men without color, whose preconceptions may, by this very fact, be far less obvious, and, therefore, more injurious to the pursuit of Veritas by the students under their tutelage. Marianka Fousek grDv.