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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSpiritual Implications of Civil Defense SPIRITUAL IMPLICATIONS OF CIVIL DEFENSE Presentation by Dr. L. D„ Haskew, Vice Chancellor of the University of Texas at Sixth Annual Conference Texas Civil Defense Directors Austin, Texas February 22, 1966 An intriguing subject has been assigned for this address. I have had a great deal of difficulty with it because I felt it was of transcendental nature and if handled properly might be beneficial both to the speaker and to those who listened. Yet, an initial difficulty was encountered. The more I addressed the subject, and the more I thought of the occasion and the people who would be here, the more it seemed to appear as the typical human enterprise of dreaming up something that humans would like to do and then invoking the blessing of God upon it. All of which, of course, is about as far from the nature of transcendental reality as one can get. Because of personal convictions and dedications which I shall not take the time to explain, I felt grave trepidation about taking anything that is obviously so human as the task you are engaged upon and using the Will of God as a justification of that undertaking. One might do so with perfect honesty and with perfect accuracy. But, one is opp essed by the fact that through the ages men have not only invcked but also have believed that they were acting in the Way of the Lord to have history prove that they were acting at the direction of evil. We have only to remember the crusades of the Middle Ages, the defense of the institution of slavery in our own country, and dozens of other sad blots upon our history as a race to realize that we humans are open to desperate error when we seek to rationalize our actions by appealing to some divine sanction for those actions, -2- However, eve in that, we find something of great spiritual significance. It is inescapable -- as we examine the history of the human race -- that man has always had internal promptings to be doing the right thing. He has always wanted his actions to have a divine flavor. He has always been drawn, to use a biblical term, toward righteousness. He has sought righteousness, however imperfectly within the limitations of his human nature. Very obviously, you and -- I -- whenever we are gathered together, or whenever we are in our solitariness -- seek from the unknown parts of our beings to be in tune with the infinite. We want to be on the right road. We want to find the way. We want to feel that what we do today has significance in keeping with what this universe is to be tomorrow in the mind of the God who created it and the God who is still present within it. So we do gather and we do address ourselves to this subject in the finest 'tradition of humanity, as participants in mants constant quest to discover who he is and what he is doing here. But more than that, we testify by this very subject that we recognize our own limitations, and we call inescapably upon a power greater than our own to do jobs which are beyond our feeble powers. We come up against propositions, dilemmas, opportunities which we know almost instinctively are beyond our capabilities. We plan. We scheme. We invest our energies in carrying out these plans and schemes, and still realize that our efforts are relatively futile unless something extra is added, something for which we cannot be the source. Most of us arrive in our most private moments at a very healthy sense of great humility because we feel that our jobs are important. When we look at our feeble efforts to do those jobs, we are pressed back to a further realization that the best that we are capable of simply cannot overcome that which we must overcome. Figuratively or literally, we then fall to our knees and seek a power which is beyond ourselves, a power which'is not a part of our efforts but which is directed toward the object of those efforts. This subject to which we address ourselves today is within itself a testimony that you and I feel basically that we are engaged in some divine calling, and that only to the extent that we are do we have any reason for being about that which we are about. One of the glorious things about this universe is that there is no task so mundane, so routine, so minor that it is not part of the divine scheme of things. I had this impressed upon me inerasably when our family was living in Atlanta, Georgia. Twice a week the garbage truck came by. There, the garbage men not only had to stop the truck out at the curb, but they had to (1) get off of the truck, (2) walk up or down your driveway to your back door, (3) pick up the garbage cans, (4) take them out, (5) empty them into the truck and (6) take them back from whence they came. They were paid mere pittances for this labor, As you would expect, practically all of them were Negroes. One day I was out in the back yard when the garbage man came. I stopped him to chat for a bit. T commiserated and sympathized with him concerning the really "terrific" aspects of his job. He said, as only a southern Negro can, "Boss, you needn't be sorry - 3 - for me. What you ought to be sorry for is yourself -- if I wasn't around!" I'll never forget that, As long as a man views his job that way he is in tune with the infinite and he is aided by the infinite. Against this setting, let us Dow take an ethical look at your job, An ethical look on the part of one whose field is, at least partially, that of the academic discipline known as ethics, and whose particular interest is an aspect of that field known as "Godly Ethics." May I present a simple definition of what I mean? "Godl Ethics" is a human attempt to determine the right thing to do in a universe that is created by God and that is responsible to God. And from that point of view I would like to take four looks at your job from four different vantage points. I look as an outsider and that is very dangerous business indeed, fraught with risk of error. My heart is right. My eyes may be wrong. 1, As I look at you job it seems to me that Civil Defense consists essentially of preparing for man -made disaster, which nobody wants to happen! Immediately we confront the ethical problem of whether it is right for a man to invest his life energies in trying to persuade people to get prepared for such disaster. It can be argued logically that when a man devotes his energies to promoting, to enjoining, to making almost moral attempts to get people to get ready for something of this kind, he does two evil things. First, he increases acceptance by people that this disaster is both normal and inescapable. I used to run across this in southwest Alabama where I was reared. There was a strong contingent of people out in the countryside who thought it was evil to dig cyclone shelters because; they said, just as sure as you're digging them you are going to have cyclones. The thought iamother to the deed this reasoning runs. This horrible eventuality that you are engazed in preparing for -- nobody wants to happen. Yet, if people get accustomed to the thought that it's going to happen anyhow, then they are not going to do much to prevent it. Since in this case the disaster we are preparing against is chiefly a man -made disaster, we are actually asking that it occur„ I know you have encountered such thinking many times yourself. I have seen it in writing. I have even seen demonstrations against Civil Defense , "because it is inviting nuclear holocaust." In the second place, it causes people to look at horrors. You do that when you - try to get them prepared. By causing people to look at the horrors of an impend- ing event of this kind, don't you lend yourself and your energies to shaking the foundations-of security, to creating anxieties, and to fostering psychological depression -- which combine to produce a sick society? Aren't you actually spreading disease as you try to get people prepared to survive a nuclear attack? Is it right to engage in your activity? Ethically right? -4 - My answer is a resounding yes, it is! It is, because this is prudential action. A prudential action is always providential action. So far as I can discern, one of the outstanding characteristics of divine providence is the prudential motif. Here you are making it possible, that when disaster does shrike, if it strikes, human beings will have an opportunity to be human instead of to be animal. Our instantaneous reactions in the presence of the unexpected are almost always reversions to our animal nature. The unexpected strips the veneer of civilization from us. We go back to the cave, to the jungle. Our long, biological history almost forces us to employ the survival instincts which have permitted us to survive as a genus of creation for millions of years. Yet by taking thought, by taking thought in advance, man can still be human regardless of what transpires! I don't know about you but I was tremendously struck the other day by a little feature story that appeared in the news. It concerned a young hero, Fernandez, over in Viet Nam, whom you will recall cast himself upon a hand grenade in order that his companions might be spared from the explosion. He gave his life, by holding that grenade to himself and taking all of the slugs into his body. One of — his buddies was being quoted in this story as saying, that a few days before some- one had said: "?That would you do if a hand grenade came bouncing through that window ?" Fernandez had replied: "I would be the first one out of that window!" Then he paused and said: "No, I wouldn't, I'd see if I couldn't cover it so that nobody else would get hurt." Can a man by taking thought add a cubit to his stature? History demonstrates that the answer to that is a resounding yes! That is why man was given the power to take thought, so that he could be human rather than animal in his reactions. So that he could be smart instead of dumb. So that he could be constructive instead of destructive. So that he could be successful instead of fumbling with trial and error. So that he could capitalize upon his ability not only to think but also to know when faced by emergency. In the second place, the answer to the question I have proposed is a resounding "ye:!' because what you are about is•preserving life, and particularly preserving the life of otherwise helpless people. If this is not the law of the prophets I simply cannot read that law or sense that prophecy! You are dedicated by taking thought in advance to the preservation of the most precious of commodities, the most demanding characteristic of this entire universe, the life of human beings. In the third place, some of my psychiatrist friends agree that Civil Defense is one of the matt healthful mental phenomena that we could have at this time. It forces people to contemplate this horror; it makes them get it out on the table instead of burying it in their subconcious where it festers and festers and festers! I have never seen a beatnik Civil Defense worker but I have seen a lot of disintegrated persons who are as they are because they are completely victimized by dark, dank, dismal fears which they shoved down to the bottom of - 5 their backbones. It's what one shoves down to the bottom of his backbone that makes him disintegrate. By applying the science of mental health, Civil Defense pulls out into the open something that is horrible. The horror is not taken away, but the mystery is. Instead of becoming a festering sore it becomes something that we can develop some competence to deal with In your work you are doing your best to entice people to join the company of the ten wise bridesmaids who had oil in their lamps, ready for the event if it arrived. Insofar as I can tell, all ethical teaching, including the greatest thoughts of man, support having oil in your lamps when oil is needed! So it seems to me that what you are doing is right, as I look at it from the first viewpoint. Now let us shift positions and look at your work from another viewpoint. From there Civil Defense is seen as an exercise in regimentation; in making the physical provisions necessary to survive; in getting practice in obedience and in the ordered employment of physical facilities. Can man rightfully dedicate a large share of his life energy to an attempt to regiment other people? Is it possible that you are condoning, if not inciting, a rather tremendous waste of human energy -- which goes into buildings below ground, drills here, putting up warning systems there, doing a lot of other things that are highly tangible -- but may be just "busy work ?" Is such activity a worthy occupation of patriots ? Surely in our modern day intelligence, active patriots can find something more profitable to do than that My answer to that one is that there is! If Civil Defense is made up of warning systems, and shelters underground, and block captains, and organization and so on down line, perhaps "someone has to do it," and the rest of us can be tolerant. But such preoccupation is hardly calculated to give any great spiritual lift to those 'engaged in it, I think you and I know that Civil Defense is not really those things. • The task of building Civil Defense is something far more than a physical task. The real Civil Defense is in the minds and the hearts and the backbones of the people. That, my friends, is spiritual. The danger to this country and to every country is not primarily nuclear fallout but that people don't care to stand up to nuclear fallout! The danger is that people will collapse in the presence of traumatic experience. That people will go practical and say "VIe can't lick them, so let us join them!" If the road is long and tough and if the rewards don't seem to be much different from -what we already have; if we must sacrifice the things that we think most of now -- namely, our boats on the lake and our two cars in the garage and our ease of living -- the easy thing to do and the best thing to do, these people say, is to give in. It is the spirit of man that triumphs always, not his physical body. That was demonstrated over and over again during my undistinguished career as an athletic coach. Time after time, I saw a little fellow who really had no business -6- risking limb at football playing right alongside some great hulk of a boy. The other side would run a play and this little 'fellow would not only take care of his position, but of that big guy's position too. Although this big boy was standing there, he just didn't have the spirit to fight back. You remember that motto that used to go around; "it is not the size of the dog in a fight that counts, it's the size of the fight in the dog." Well, this is the spirit that is Civil Defense -- and the only Civil Defense that the United States of America has! If your job isn't focused on that, on building the will to resist, the will to stand up-. -the will to survive, the will to take all they • have got and come back for more -- then we really don't have any Civil Defense. The Civil Defense director is engaged in building the sheer will to make what is right survive because (1) we are willing to stand up for it. (2) we are willing to keep fighting regardless of how tough the going gets to be. Or is he? Now for a third look. From another vantage point, Civil Defense appears as an undertaking in propaganda and mass psychology directed from above. I'm not going to talk about that one very much. A lot of people resent anything that "comes down" and particularly anything that you can say is "bureaucratic." I don't think either word is bad. But is it right to be engaged in something that can be characterized thus ? Again my answer is yes. So far as I can tell, the kingdom of heaven is a highly bureaucratic organization because it finds it necessary to channel power from above to a place where life happens. The important thing is not so much what channels the power, but what is the source of that power ? And in this country you are acting at the behest of the entire people of the United States! You are, in effect, engaged in a task that has been ordered by the people of the United States! Since that has happened, it seems to me that you can feel that you are not only endorsed temporally, but also that you have something to lean upon when the going gets toughest. That leads to the final look at your job. I perceive that Civil Defense is carried forwa by directors. Spiritually they act under the finest delegation that men can have -- the delegation of trusteeship. In effect, what has happened is this; We people have Said to you, "We are awfully slovenly. We are awfully lazy. We- are awfully busy. We are awfully cantankerous. But right now, while we've got one good moment, we would like to appoint you as our conscience and as our trustee to see to it that we conduct Civil Defense!" This I might add, or must add, is the spiritual earmark of any vocation. When the man in it considers himself as trustee he's got something that nobody can ever take from him. He's got a sense of security on his own part; he's got a sense of " worthwhileness" in what he doe's, because what he does is not for his ends and not even for the ends of his boss. What he does is worthwhile in its own right, because he is acting as "trustee." "Sure," we people say, "when you do exactly what we want you to do, we are going to boot you, we are going to complain -7 against you and we are going to ignore you. That's us! All we want you to do is to still be trustee, to stand up to us and to stand up for the cause which you hold in trust." In so acting, it seems to me, that Directors of Civil Defense are engaged in conducting and carrying out the essence of pursuit of what is right. You have done more than take an oath. You have taken a mantle. A mantle that makes you a trustee for some of the finest spiritual values that man has product. Such is one man's ethical look at Civil Defense in nineteen hundred and ixty eix!