lie-relations work for several machinetoolncompanies told me recently that Inmust get a word processor. But as WalternAbish wrote, “Paper made books possible.nIt also helped prevent illiteracy. Inhave an interest in books and paper. Annoverwhelming interest.” But perhaps myninsistence on pulling a carbide ball suppliednwith ink across a blank sheet is notnPrevaricatorsnVvith its usual high-minded mendacity.nTime, that mammoth factory ofnexpertly processed slants, pontificatesnabout the dismal state of college educationnin America: the all-but-illiteratenstudents, the regression of youthfulnminds, rampant ignorance, etc. Thenauthor of the piece asserts, with thenfinesse of a Ph.D. of prevarication:nCollege officials tend to blame studentnshortcomings on the highnschools, which undeniably neednreform and renewal, but the highnschools can blame the elementarynschools, the elementary schools thenfamily at home, and everybodynblames TV.nIs anyone missing from this list?nWhere are the print media? And for thatnmatter—Time magazine itself? We readnfurther that the decay of academic intelligencenbegan in America in then1960’s:nThe traditional curriculum, such as itnwas, virtually disintegrated duringnthe campus upheavals of the 1960s,nwhen millions of students demandednand won the right to get academicncredit for studying whatever theynpleased. There were courses in soapnopera and witchcraft.nOnce more, we ask: Where wasn46inChronicles of CultttrenJOIRNAI.IS.Mnunlike that of the before-mentionednmachinists who wanted to positionnmachine spindles by hand. Still, I feltnheartened when I noted that the electronicndirectories weren’t being used asnoften as the 236-page directory to IMTS.nMarshall McLuhan would have felt otherwise.nBut, after all, IMTS 82 was a hardwarenshow: you can’ t see software. DnTime’s distress and hand-wringing whennall those sordid things were happeningnduring the 60’s? Can Time’s editors findnin their pages one line protesting thenatrocities against reason that were committednduring the 60’s? And if they cannot,nwhy do they so brazenly refuse tonshoulder any responsibility for what hasnbecome of American education? Andnwhy do they pretend now to be the onlynjust ones in Sodom, knowing well hownthey behaved then?nBut wait a minute. Why should we expectncontrition, when a few paragraphsnfurther, we can read:nThe excesses of the 1960s should notnbe used to besmirch reforms that werenvaluable .They too derived from a distinguishednintellectual tradition. Itsnfounding fathei was Jean-JacquesnRousseau. . . . There is considerablenpower to the idea that a studentnshould be primarily educated not tonhold a job or to memorize literarynmonuments or even to think HkenAristotle, but simply to develop thenpotentialities of his own self—andnthat everyone’s self is different.nSo here we go again. By now, everynobjective student of moral and socialnphilosophy is well aware that Rousseaunwas the arch villain. His ideas, considerednliberating and humane in his time,nengendered 19th-century nihilism andnled sttaight to the Haight-Ashbury ethosnnnand rationale. In the lunacy of then1960’s, the basic principle that educationnis guidance was blasted by mindsnakin to that of Time’s mechanistic compilersnof data and bits of erudition. Thenresult was a drugged, fornicating, “collegian,”nrendered stuporous by thenrelentless pounding of acid rock, whonhad “developed the potentialities of hisnown self.” Apparently, Time still considersna humanoid the best prototype ofnan educated American. The idea thatneducation, besides knowledge, must^JOnconvey a sense of sociomoral obligationsnand responsibilities has yet to sink in atnTime’s editorial offices. DnCan You Trust annAmerican Socialist?nOne Sidney Lens, an editor of ThenFrogressive (a socialist journal in spite ofnits misleading name), writes in ThenNation (another journalistic misnomer)nabout “The Most Dangerous Cliche,”nwhich is how he sees the phrase “Youncan’t tmst the Russians,” at this point annAmerican colloquialism. According tonMr. Lens, those words represent a particularlynpernicious abomination foistednupon our political folklore by some sortnof Republican semantic conspiracy; it isnhis opinion that although we may on occasionndistrust the Russians and theirngovernment, we should actually distrustnour own government and ourselvesnmuch more intensely. And since henaspires to intellectual respectability, Mr.nLens provides exemplifications of ournmutual abuse of trust.nOn the Russian side, he lists the rapenof the Yalta agreement, though he doesnnot call it that precisely (to him, thenSoviets just “did not keep their word”),nand he tactfully labels the Russiannslaughters in Hungary and Afghanistannas “violations” of the U.N. Charter andnthe right to self-determination. But henimmediately reminds us that Stalinnrefused to help the Greek communists inn1947 because of the “spheres of in-n