Rienzi Reply
I am frequently dismayed when
reading letters to the editor, usually
written in response to editorial
comment or to letters from other
readers, to note how often and how
widely they miss the point. An
instance, among many, is Mr.
Rienzi's letter in your Feb. 25th
issue replying to Prof. Danielson's
position on the ROTC unit here at
U.Va.
My purpose is not to express
allegiance to the views of either of
these gentlemen, but to question
the manner of Mr. Rienzi's reply. It
is clear, of course, that he and
others see the ROTC as a means of
altering their military obligations,
with which I have no quarrel.
Having been drafted myself some
years ago, I sympathize wholeheartedly
with his sentiments.
What I must ask, however, is
why Mr. Rienzi considers personal
attacks upon Mr. Danielson - a
pacifist by the standards of the
most exacting purist - to be either
necessary or desirable. For example,
he makes repeated and pointlessly
sarcastic reference to "the
learned assistant professor of mathematics."
Apart from a desire for
personal denigration, what is the
purpose of this sort of thing? As
Mr. Rienzi so visibly never bothered
to find out, Mr. Danielson would be
the last to aspire to a psoture of
inflated self-importance. It may
amuse Mr. Rienzi to try out his
courtroom techniques on some
contrived victim, but to those who
know Mr. Danielson and his convictions,
it is little more than tasteless
exhibitionism. Why did he feel
moved to introduce this tone? What
does it have to do with the matter
at issue? If he wished tolerant men
to act "reasonably," why has he so
effectively cut off "reasonable"
discussion by this deplorable device?
What reader of Mr. Rienzi's
letter would now expect a "reasonable"
statement from him, in the
sense in which he professes to use
the word?
Again, Mr. Rienzi has imposed
the least creditable construction
upon Mr. Danielson's statement, in
suggesting that his principal grievance
is the disruption of his classes,
and that he proposes something
akin to a student riot as a stimulus
to a change of university policy.
Does Mr. Rienzi know this to be
the case? I am less concerned with
the untruth of these insinuations
than by Mr. Rienzi's very evident
indifference toward finding out
whether they were true before
setting them up for attack. Why, I
repeat, did he not ask someone
about this, particularly Danielson
himself? Were one to adopt Mr.
Rienzi's own mode of response, one
might suppose that he deliberately
avoided finding out, lest he deprive
himself of an opportunity for some
trial-lawyer histrionics, a little display
- just for his own kicks,
perhaps? - of the rhetoric of
special pleading. Unfair? Probably.
But then, why did he go about it
this way?
May I propose that to act
reasonably implies not merely to
act with appropriate restraint, but
also to act in the light of some
understanding of one's motives in
so acting. Could an appeal be made
to the potential writers of letters
such as the one discuss here that
they ask themselves first why they
find themselves moved to personal
attack, the approach which involved
diminishing the stature of
the other person, rather than, say,
to an open discussion of the idea
involved?
Every responsible thinker who
reflects upon the current scene
pleads for open public discussion of
the myriad issues which confront
us. Such discussion is indispensable
if we are ever to free ourselves from
the mess we are in. To foreclose
discussion, communication, understanding,
cooperation by reducing
discussion to epithet and invective
is the furthest thing from what
anyone recognizes as "reasonable"
behavior.
Phillip M. Allen
Grad Engineering
