Friday. April l2. I963 SCARLET AND BLACK By lonN M. cuosscrr (classics) It is true that personal crises drive us to philosophy. in the harsh particularities of our daily lives we seek the shooting and justifying generalization. Most such generalizations take forms of proverbs and truisms, the small change of philosophy, But sometimes a personal crisis of such intense magni- tude confronts us that we can- not be content with traditional Wisdom; such wisdom seems to us merely crudential, the re sult of conventional and uncrit- ical thinking -— for in our own sense of anguished wisdom we feel as alienated as Achilles. We abandon the standards of our society, of our age, of our culture. of the world and na< ture, and tom instead inwards in order to find there some flaming and pure standard. That source of inner ethical wisdom is, generally, called conscience. Now the "war" in Vietnam ls just such a personal crisis for most Amerlcaus, and espe- cially for the young men of the country, who are belng asked, and ordered to run the risk of making what is called “the su- preme sacrifice" for a cause about which many have doubts. We should observe that they are being asked only to run the risk of making such a sacri- fice; were it absolutely certain that each young man would have to die or be maimed — or to kill and to maim — the problem would admit of a much easier solution, at least in so far as ethics is concern- ed. Few of us have difficulty in making, decisions where the choices are clear-cut; it is in that imprecise area of doubt and uncertainty, of darkness and bewilderment, that our souls become lost It has seemed to me, in the course of the past few years, that more and more w ll mean- chdfibhll' did ddhbblhhch that mere fact lies reason to challenge the popular notion that consciences are individual, that each man has his own, that it is unique and personal and hence beyond public scru- tiny. Those who take their stand on conscience cannot, in all conscience, make con- science a mysterious entity. Historically, etymologically, logically “conscience" is a form of knowledge, and of shared knowledge. The natural questions arise: (1) what is it knowledge of; (2) with whom is it shared? The oldest definition of con- science which I know of in the Western world is that given by Antiphon, the Greek orator and statesmen, in the iitth century before Christ: “to know with oneself that one has not Com- mitted a homer-tin". The word hammla — which Aristotle uses to define tragedy and which means “mistake." So conscience in our oldest defini- tion, then, means “knowing with oneself that one has not made a mistake," or —— in later Christian terms — that one has not sinned. As modern clergyman and atheist unite on this point, so did ancient pagan and Chris- tian. The permanence of the definition is a striking Confir- mation of the continuity to be found in Western civilization Both those who support and those who attack what the United States are doing in Viet- nam act as they do because they do not wish to have a se- rious m' take or sin on — or rather 'n" their Con- sciences, They do not wish to do what is wrong The roots of the desire for a clear conscience may be “con- Now 1 would suggest that we confine the analysis, for now, to the word “mistake,“ for the Christian term “sin” is too con- troversial for rational discus- sion. All of us, however, will admit that we make mistakes — or practically all of us: there will always be someone who will deny any proposition But mere denial is not an argu- ment, and if anyone wishes to deny that he makes mistakes, and to follow out the conse- quences of his argument, I shall be glad to accompany him down to that dull spot-la. Let us, then, take as tme that men make mistakes; and let us follow out the conse- quences of that argument, We shall not, I fear, much like where it takes us, but beggars for truth cannot be choosers. Mistakes are not subjectiv if you add up your bank-state- ment incorrectly, you cannot avoid either the fact or its con- sequences by claiming that 5 and 3 equal 8 or 9 at will. You may rename 5 and 3 and 8 and 9, but the reality will not alter — unless, of course, we elect to practice the solitary and insane solipsism of Dustoy- evsky’s “Underground" man or collective — and equally insane k solipsism advocated by O'Brien and the Party in Or- well’s 1984. In short, to know that you have made a mistake (hamam’a) is to recognize that reality is objective and that propositions accurately made in accordance with reality are true, A clear “conscience,” then, consists in knowing with one- self that one has not made a mistake, that is, that one's pro positions and actions have been made in accordance with the The question is pertinent. in answering it, we should begin by observing this tact: if ethics are not objectively grounded statements about reality, then the word "con- science” is not applicable No one who denies that objectiv- ity of ethics can claim to be guided by his conscience, for he will be saying that he has conscious knowledge of what is unknowable. I am perlectly willing to stop here My principal point in writing was to get those who misuse and abuse the word “conscience” to stop their de- graded and debas'lng arglo ment. If all those — like the editor of the Pterodactyl or the spokesman for the Vermont Council of Churches —- who ap- peal to conscience in opposing the action of the United States in Vietnam will substitute such word as “feeling” or even “op' on," a great and neces- sary step forward will have been taken in progress toward a solution Conscientiously speaking, such persons ought not to use the word “can- science." Such an alm may seem trlv~ fall to some, a mere qiilbbling about words. But Words, the icons of ideas, have conse- quences: men who are willing to fly to Canada or to desert to Sweden are surely engaged in some serious decision and ac- tion. “Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all," Hamlet says: he is speaking in his most famous soliloquy in Shakespeare, in English, in the World, which begins “To be or not to be, that is the question.“ His specific problem is sui. cide. Page Thirteen not separate the two. for both are forms of self-knowledge, man's goal at least since the Delphic oracle. Canada and Sweden may well turn out to be forms of “that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller re— turns"; and those who elect to “hear those ills we have” but rather to “fly to those we know not of.” will they, for making the choice, be better off? “Ay. there’s the rub." i run arguing that only by a full examina- tion oi the word "conscience” can the rub be smoothed out, or at least made tolerable. Are "consciousness" a nd "conscience" no more than “the pale cast of thought," as a result of which we are “sick- lied o'er"? Is the action —- even if it take the form of a decision not to act — as found enterprise of great pitch and moment? The doctrine smacks of mere existentialism, and atheistical existentialism at that — the exact opposite of Hamletfig Christian conscientiousness. We must never forget that Ham- let’s problem arises irom pro- found awareness of the super- natural, from a ghost. Once again those whose “con- sciences” deny the existence of objective and real and true standards — whether grounded in a "better nature or God” —- cut the ground out from under their own feet. In a recent issue of the so« called Grinnell “underground" paper, the editor Richard Schneirov devoted every page to advocating resistance to the draft. Two editorials appeared in that issue: in one, the edit- tor supported his own candl- dacy for a post in the student government; in the other, he stated that resistance to the FIRSTii'LL COLLECT ALL THE PEOPLE who DON'T atom in PEME,.. nau- os,5llt. now but You PREVENT homo [MR 1:]; lF memo? ing citizens have justified their unsure commitments [or or against the “war" in Vietnam » aptly symbolized in the con- ventional and traditional beast- imagery of hawk and dove — by appealing to conscience. The conscience is treated as a kind of ultimate arbiter on su- preme ethical questions. Yet upon asking many men and women What the con- science is. I find that few have any sense of what the word means, or what it is that the word denotes. Many of the very same people who appeal to the conscience deny its bio- logical and physical existence; they assert that there are no absolute moral standards; they argue against the existence of God or the soul; and — ironi< cally _ iind themselves being counselled and supported by men who dilier with them point for point on each of these mat- ters. Clergymen and atheists find a common ground in con- science. clearly such a funda< mental term deserves some critical attention, Though etymology be a frail reed tor the thinking of man to lean on, we must clutch any reed in the winds of doctrine. Both in Greek and Latin, the word “conscience" means, lit- erally, "to know with.” And in ditioned” — as we say nowa- days, where we really mean “taught" (paideia) — but it is a “conditioning” that dates back at least 2500 years, to the wellsprings of both GrecoRo man and JudanVChl'istian cul- ture. The desire for a clear or clean conscience is the essence of conscience. it will be a legitimate and touchy problem for those who wish to explain away con- science as mere “condition- ing,” as a holdover and hang. over of the sl‘rcalled “Puritan eLl'lic," to explain how such a phenomenon arose by chemical processes, Its presence in the lives of most men is Vivid enough; we may remember Huck Finn’s plaintive observa- tion: “A person's conscience ain't got no more sense than a yeller dogr" nature of things. Since reality is objective, mistakes will be universal. With this admission, with this recognition, one must abandon the whole notion of conscience as something indi- vidual, personal, merely sub- jective, Conscience truly does become a matter of ‘knowing," and of “conscious" knowing — the roots of the word ”con- scious” are the Same as those Of “conscience,” Such is what is meant by “knowing with oneself.” Thus far, however, we have used examples drawn from the simpler elements of reality, those that are mathematical and quantitative. (me might ask here, “What of ethical matters? Is there an objective reality here? And if there is not, then your theory falls down." “Being" and “suicide," how- ever, take various forms, from physical death to that “liiedn- death” celebrated in Edward Everett’s story “The Man Without A Country.” Philip Nolan may be a pale and min- uscule Hamlet, but he fits the genus — and so do the vari- ous kinds of modern youth who burn draft cards, who go to jail, who flee the country, and who desertt We cannot dismiss them merely because they are epig— onl. when Hamlet uses the word “conscience." he means pri- marily “consciousness," “re- fle c t i o n,” “introspection," “brooding," “though ” but secondarily the Christian Con- cept of “conscience" is hover- ing and haunting his sollloquy and situation. indeed, we can drait was ”a matter of personal conscience which boils down to the question of how far a per- son should go in opposing what he considers evil.” The editors statement re- sembles, in general, that made by most at the “selective con- scientious objectors” — as they call themselves — in the word “personal” and in the clause beginning “boils down,” the editor reduces conscience to a questlon of individual decisionl all sense of “knowledge" is lost But suppose l were to de- cide that Mr. Schneirov was eVll ._.. would I then be justified in conscience if i were to kill him? If Mr. Schneirov means what he says, he would have to, in his dying gasp, defend CROSSE‘IT— (Continued on Page is)