The Greatest Issue: Self-Fulfillment
THE SENIORS' VALEDICTORY
DURING the course of our senior year at Dartmouth we have been exposed to a number of lectures and discussions on topics that have been given the distinctive title "Great Issues." Perhaps it would be fruitful as we conclude our undergraduate experience here this morning to reflect for a few moments on the question: What is the great issue facing each of us as responsible individuals?
First let us define a great issue. A great issue is a problem or question facing an individual or a society whose alternative solutions affect the very character or being of that individual or society. Thus, "Shall I go to the movies tonight?" is an issue but it is not great since it has little or no effect on the core of the individual. The acquisition of food, shelter, and clothing is of great importance but is no longer a pressing issue in most segments of our affluent society. Thus to qualify as the great issue or central concern facing us today the issue must be an unsolved question which affects each of us at the core of his being.
It is my premise that this great issue is the responsibility of the individual to pursue a meaningful and productive existence. We have been blessed with the freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; it is now our duty to ourselves and to society to utilize these freedoms to live our lives in a meaningful and productively fulfilling manner.
This responsibility is important in any era, but two major threats or barriers to this pursuit which accompany our modern culture have made it a great issue in our time. The first of these threats is the physical or technological threat of annihilation. Modern science has provided man with the potential for destruction on a scale beyond imagination. The responsibility of the individual with respect to the threat of annihilation enters in the attitude he takes toward the possibility of his continued existence. It is part of the responsibility of the individual to face squarely the fact of nuclear power and to take this into account in molding a positive philosophy of life. An alarming number of people have accepted the fact of nuclear power but have arrived at what may be labeled the pessimistic conclusion. These people express confidence in the worst possible outcome and either retreat into despair or develop a fatalistic philosophy in the tradition of Omar Khayyam.
The opposite and positive approach can be termed realistic as well as optimistic since the pursuit of existence needs as its foundation the belief that our society can and will be spared from a nuclear holocaust. A recent dramatic production illustrates the realism contained within the optimistic approach. After the symptoms of a patient had been diagnosed as a probable indication of an incurable illness, one specialist refused to accept this diagnosis and treated the patient for another possible but far less probable disease. His reasons reach beyond optimism to the realistic viewpoint that there is no positive value in diagnosing a case as incurable when there is any possibility that an alternative curable illness is the true cause of the symptoms. The implications of this illustration for the individual and society are two. First we must use all available energy to oppose the threat of annihilation and second the individual must continue to concern himself with the issues that threaten the meaningful and productive aspects of his existence.
This brings us to the human or psychological threat to meaningful, productive existence: the phenomenon of alienation. Man's alienation from himself may be defined in terms of the unfulfillment of the potentiality of his true nature. Thus the self-alienated individual is avoiding his responsibility to pursue a productive life since he has failed to realize the full extent of his own being.
The prevalence of alienated man in our society is implicit in much of the literature of our time: William Whyte's description of the Organization Man, David Riesman's Other-Directed Man, Erich Fromm's Market-Oriented Man, and Paul Tillich's exposition of the estrangement of the individual from his true nature are only a few examples of the self-alienated man who is not fulfilling the potential contained in his true self. In the midst of a society whose ethos seems to beckon us to concern ourselves with things and not people, with the desire for belongingness and security, and with the escape from one's self into conformity, the individual is pressured from all sides to abdicate his responsibility to fulfill himself meaningfully.
It is here that we must face the great issue. As graduating seniors our immediate opportunity to seize our responsibility is present in our choice of a career. To be true to oneself the most important rule to follow in choosing a career path is in terms of the opportunities it affords to live a meaningful and productive life in accordance with one's potential.
Corresponding to the issue of self-alienation in our society is the problem of alienation between individuals. The shift toward functionalization of roles in bureaucratic structures and the superficiality of interaction in modern communities threatens our society with the loss of real understanding and communication be- tween the human side or true natures of men. Just as it is the responsibility of the individual to himself to recognize the potential of his true self it is the responsibility of the individual to his fellow man to recognize the intrinsic human value of others and to relate to others in an I-Thou rather than an I-It relationship.
We may conclude therefore that the great issue facing each of us today is the responsibility to pursue a meaningful and productively fulfilling life. In doing so we must strive to protect our existence from the threat of annihilation; and we must take full advantage of our existence by fulfilling ourselves in meaningful and productive living. In our democratic society we are given the freedom to decide the manner in which we will fulfill ourselves. But we must realize that this freedom bears with it the added responsibility of choice. As graduates of Dartmouth College our opportunities are almost unlimited. We have the freedom and credentials to choose any life plan. Therefore one of us has the right to blame the system for any future shortcomings, since we as individuals have the final responsibility in the great issue of being.
James T. Hale of Wayzata, Minn., delivering the Senior valedictory.
