Awake!, October 22, 1958
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What Nope for Perplexed Humanity?
Pressures Toward Materialism
Nature’s Sharpshooters
The Overpowering Urge to Communicate
OCTOBER 22. A958
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
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"Awake!" uses the regular news channels, but is not dependent an them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, in scores of nations. From the four corners of the earth their uncensored, on-the-scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journal's viewpoint is not narrow, but is international. It is read in many nations, in many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—-government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—why, its coverage is as broad as the earth and os high as the heavens.
‘1 Awoke I” pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, to championing freedom far all, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by the failures of a delinquent world, reflecting sure hope for the establishment of a righteous New World.
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CONTENTS
Ungodly Russia's Triple Defeat
What Hope for Perplexed Humanity?
Pressures Toward Materialism
The High Price of Fighter Planes
Nature’s Sharpshooters
The Overpowering Urge to Communicate
Customs and Rites in Martinique
That Wonderful Birthday Suit
—Our Skin!
Languages Today
Variety in English
"Your Word Is Truth”
What Healing Power in Prayer?
Jehovah's Witnesses Preach in Al)
the Earth—Burma
Watching the World
Ungodly Russia’s
TRIPLE
TRIPLE
TRIPLE
Defeat
ODAY ungodly Russia holds her head high. She shows herself superior and
victorious time and again. Her sphere of influence is ever widening, especially in Asiatic lands, many of which appear to be in a quandary as to which way to turn, to the East or to the West. She is besting the Western powers in her propaganda for peace, for a summit meeting and, according to reports, with her exhibit at the Brussels International Fair. She is excelling in putting artificial satellites in space, her latest Sputnik being about a hundred times as heavy as the heaviest one that the United States was able to put in space up to that time: 3,000 pounds as compared with 38.43.
However, there is one field of human endeavor in which she has little grounds for boasting—whether she knows it or not —that of religion. Not in the way the superficial observer of human affairs may be inclined to think: that of her letting up on the persecution of popular organized religion and the resultant increase in church activity and memberships. That does not .represent a defeat for her but merely a change of strategy. She is as fully dedicated as ever to the destruction of religion, and is proceeding toward that goal with more refined and, she believes, more effective weapons. Popular organized religion has suffered the defeat in that it has agreed to mouth the Communist peacepropaganda line for the crumbs of freedom to practice a strictly ritualistic religion.
Then in what way has ungodly Russia suffered defeat as regards the field of religion? In three distinct aspects. First of all, as regards her getting along without religion. According to her propaganda line communism is based on science, reason and intellect; religion is based on feeling and emotion. But is her communism so disassociated from emotion, religious feeling, as she would have us believe? Far from it' Does not Russia have her shrines, her holy places; does she not display the bodies of her prophets, gods or saints, and do not her faithful devotees make pilgrimages to see these, even as they in times past made pilgrimages to see the bodies of religious saints? Has she not named streets and squares after them and has she not replaced religious icons, images and holy pictures with those of her holy men?
Ungodly Russia has its own holy and inspired writings, the works of Marx and Lenin, which all the faithful swear by,
which are considered infallible and which are more revered than studied. Communist partisans in all parts of the world display the ardor of religious zealots, very much governed by emotion rather than logic and reason. Communism demands unquestioning loyalty, unselfish devotion and self-sacrifice, all of which is very much like a religion, but which does not make much sense from a materialistic and scientific standpoint So ungodly Russia has not dispensed with religion; she has merely exchanged the religious gods of the people for the political god of the state.
Her second defeat she has suffered as regards religious principles governing marriage and the home. To show her contempt for these she took children away from their parents, made divorces very easy and simple to obtain and gave children born out of wedlock the same standing as those born within it. But all this reacted so disastrously that she had to do an about-face on all three points: She has had to admit that “nobody will be able to replace the parents—the loving father and mother." (Atlantic Monthly, February, 1952) She has made divorce exceedingly difficult to obtain and has decreed that children born out of wedlock must be branded as fatherless all their lives, even if the father is known. The New York Times, May 23, 1958, told of the agitation afoot to ameliorate this situation. But that she would go to such extremes is a glaring admission of defeat for her policies.
Her most signal defeat as regards religion, however, has been administered to ungodly Russia by none other than the witnesses of Jehovah. In spite of the most ruthless measures employed against them, the witnesses keep on increasing by the thousands. Underground and in the Siberian work or slave camps these keep witnessing. They have tom the hypocritical facade of religious liberty from the face of ungodly Russia.
Khrushchev theorized: “Profound, patient, skillfully arranged scientific-atheist propaganda among believers will help them in the long run to free themselves from religious delusions. On the other hand, penalizing administrative measures of any kind . . . can only harm, can only lead to strengthening and even intensifying their religious convictions.”
The witnesses of Jehovah have proved the truth of this latter part of Khrushchev’s theory. His applying “penalizing administrative measures” against them has indeed resulted in "strengthening and even intensifying their religious convictions.” Then why does ungodly Russia keep on persecuting the witnesses, as noted in the New York Times, March 27, 1958, which told of several witnesses of Jehovah being arrested on the charge of espionage? Because Khrushchev fears the truth; he knows that his “profound, patient, skillfully arranged scientific-atheist propaganda” is no match for the Scriptural and logical arguments of the witnesses.
To keep up his hypocritical front about religious freedom he fantastically charges the nonpolitical witnesses of Jehovah with espionage. But.it all amounts to another defeat for ungodly Russia in her all-out war against religion.
NO NEW PLAN NEEDED
< Jan Christiaan Smuts, the South African soldier and statesman, once said: “Fundamentally the world has no need of a new order or a new plan, but only of an honest and courageous application of the historic Christian idea?'
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WHAT HOPE FOR PERPLEXED HUMANITY?
Wilt nudMr war destroy civilization? Or will if be growing population that causes world famfrwc? Wbcri hope it there for a tofution to man’s dilemma?
m a world of bewilderment and moral wandering without parallel in modern times,” said Raymond B. Fosdick, one-time head of the Rockefeller Foundation. Both world leadens and those who follow them are perplexed. They are disturbed about the prospects of another war, the constant ravages of disease and death, and the increased problem of feeding the human race. These are problems that demand a solution but that perplex those who seek ft.
Everyone who keeps abreast of the news is well aware of the fact that political upheavals such as those recently staged in Lebanon provide the spark that could easily explode into World War III. Fear that it. may happen is everywhere, and the distress is increased by the prospect of annihilation in nuclear war if it does. Speaking in Israel, scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer pointedly stated that the powers of destruction man now possesses are “far too deadly to be used if human society is to endure at all.”—New York Times, May 21, 1958.
In an open letter to Eisenhower and Khrushchev early this year, Bertrand Russel expressed despair when he said: “Never before , . . has there been valid reason for such fear. Never before has such a sense of futility blighted the visions of youth. Never before has there been reason to feel that the human race was traveling along a road ending, only in a. bottomless precipice.” (Look, January 21, 1958) He speaks for a frightened and perplexed world.
Even if war could be eliminated and death due to disease further decreased, is the alternative more desirable? It is feared that unrestricted population increase will produce world-wide famine. Several years ago it was reported that “almost two-thirds of the world’s people today are starving.” (Science News Letter, September 5, 1953) Although men and organizations have continued to struggle with the situation, the New York Times recently reported: 'lA United Nations soil conservation expert warned today that ‘civilization is running a race with famine, and the outcome is still in doubt.’ ” Where is there hope?
Why Mankind Is Perplexed
The prospects appear bleak to man because he has so often been deluded with counterfeit hopes that failed to materialize. His longing for peace and security has omrseb ’ntm \u lo'how almost any signpost that points to them. But time and again those directions have taken the world
dawn a dead-end street. Today men long for a change, but their confidence that it will come is dead. They lack hope, because the expectation of obtaining what they crave is not there.
The Bible ferrets out the one responsible for the situation when it says: “The god of this system of things has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.” (2 Cor. 4:4) Through his false religious, political and other visible agents he has repeatedly held before the people the prospect of a better tomorrow, only to dash their hopes to the ground. Many have become so embittered that now, when it is set before them, they unbelievingly shun the very thing they seek. But there is no need for you to make the mistake of spurning God’s provision because of what the Devil has done.
Guided by God’s spirit, the apostle Paul speaks of those who have no hope as ones who “were without God in the world.” Jesus himself said in prayer: “Righteous Father, the world has, indeed, not come to know you.” (Eph. 2:12; John 17:25) Many may acknowledge that there is a God, but that does not mean that they know him. To know him we must know his name, his attributes, his purpose, and what he expects of us. If we do really come to know and believe him, we will no longer be without hope, because it is “God who gives hope.”—Rom. 15:13,
Basis for Hope
And what assurance does God give that he will take a hand in the affairs of men to bring the peace and security they so much desire?
Before the question is answered we should have clearly in mind the fact that man’s plight today is not due to God. Jehovah created man perfect and made every provision for his happiness. Trouble came when the human pair broke with God, when they independently set their own standard of good and bad. “They have acted ruinously on their own part; they are not his children, the defect is their own.” (Deut. 32:5) So in this perplexing time if we sincerely want divine guidance, we may not do merely what is right in our own eyes and then pray for God to bless us. We must listen to God as he speaks through his Word, the Bible, and then follow his counsel. He shows us the way out. —Prov. 3:5,6.
After man first plunged into sin, Jehovah God promised a righteous Ruler to deliver those of mankind who would prove to be obedient. (Gen. 3:15) All his promises since then have been directly related to that prophecy. By such events as the flood of Noah’s day he gave foundation for faith in the promise that the wicked will be completely wiped out of existence. (Matt. 24:37-39) At his appointed time, set centuries in advance through the prophet Daniel, he brought forth Christ Jesus as mankind’s deliverer and anointed him to be king, (Dan. 9:24-27; Gal. 4:4) Through Jesus’ death the legal basis was provided to ransom believing ones for life in God’s new world. Now, since A.D. 1914, we have seen clearly fulfilled the visible evidences foretold by Jesus, at Matthew 24, that mark his heavenly presence in Kingdom power. We are living at the time when God is bringing in a new world of righteousness.
Never has even one of the promises of Jehovah God failed. His Word never returns to him void, but it accomplishes what he pleases. No wonder those who know God and his purposes are confident in their hope, though surrounded by a perplexed world!—Isa. 55:11.
What the New World Will Mean
By faith they see a righteous government now operating in heaven and soon to bring everlasting blessings to obedient mankind on earth. The king of that heavenly government is not one who is so remote from the circumstances of his subjects that he fails to appreciate their needs. He is "not one who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in all respects like ourselves, but without sin.” (Heb. 4:15) He himself came to earth as a man, "produced out of a woman,” and here he proved his integrity to his heavenly Father. As King he continues to serve God faithfully, and the spirit of Jehovah guides him.—Isa. 11:2.
You may feel that even in a new world wars are inevitable, since we have had them for thousands of years. It is true that there would probably be no hope for a change—that is, except for the fact that the “God who gives hope” and whose promises have never failed has purposed to make a change. In fact, the change has already been made in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of those in the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses on earth who have abandoned the strife of the old world. It is his judging among the nations that puts in motion the program to convert weapons of war to peacetime purposes, “neither shall they learn war any more.” True, man cannot do it, but God can, and right now he is doing it. —Isa. 2:4.
In that new world man will not be “running a race with famine” in an overcrowded earth. Far from it. God's program is to “fill the earth,” not overcrowd it. (Gen. 1:28) With war gone, there will be no squandering of countless thousands of millions of dollars on programs of destruction while the needs of the people are neglected. Earth’s produce will be used for the blessing of mankind. “The earth itself will certainly give its produce; God, our God, will bless us.” Jehovah ‘will open his hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.’ (Ps. 67:6; 145:16) While the nations of the world today are limited in resources for reconstruction and development, Jehovah is the Creator of heaven and earth, and his ability to provide for his people is unlimited.
So sure is the hope of life in the new world that even death cannot take it away from those who love and serve God. When their loved ones die, they do "not sorrow just as the rest also do who have no hope.” They “have hope toward God . . . that there is going to be a resurrection of berth the righteous and the unrighteous.” And this hope sustains them.—1 Thess. 4:13; Acts 24:15.
Since the new world is God’s, only those who love and worship him as he instructs will be there. Have you carefully studied the Bible to know that he approves your worship, or do you simply do what you sincerely think is right and then pray to God to bless you? We must listen to him if we expect him to listen to us when we pray for his blessing. Jehovah’s witnesses will count it a privilege to help you to gain from your Bible the knowledge you so much need. Those who know God and believe his Word are not perplexed at what they see happening in the world, because they have the hope that God gives.
Also there will be . . . anguish of nations, not knowing the way out . , . But as these things start to occur, raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.—Luke 21:25, 28.
pressure is on to make you conform, To what? To keeping up with your neighbors in the possession of gadgets, to being pleasure-seeking, to being pre-occupied with selfindulgence, to being unduly sensitive to social pressure, to being among the thousands who are conspicuous consumers.
PKESSURES
TOWARD
MATERIALISM
Make no mistake about it: Marketers and advertisers are emphatically serious in their effo make you conform to the consumption tern. Though the United States is parti lariy affected by the pressures for co sumption, people in other parts of the world may also be affected; hence all can benefit from knowledge of a campaign that can cause you, even unconsciously, to be overly concerned with the material things of life.
“Certainly Americans have become more preoccupied with their role as consumers in recent years,” says Vance Packard, widely known author of The Hidden Persuaders. “The pressure has been on,” he says, “and will continue to be on, for them to consume more and more?*1
Cunningly, every attempt is being made to make you yield to the pressures for consumption of material goods. “The public,” says Vance Packard, “is being probed in depth through the use of techniques largely borrowed from the psychiatric clinics?’1
So the psychologist has been called into the camp of the commerciajists. What are the deep-down motives for people's buying things? The psychologist finds out. Then the marketer applies the advertising pressure in a most effective way. This scien-title, psychological approach to selling goes under the name of motivation re-search. Obviously, the manipulative efforts of marketers, no matter how enticing their advertising, are not entirely responsible for the materialistic way the masses think. Nonetheless, their efforts are having substantial effect and the well-prepared pressures they apply are
ing more insidious day by day.
es, the marketers by their advertising diums are deliberately encouraging ma-ialism; let us not forget this. Let us eep in mind what Dr. Ernest Dichter, resident of the Institute for Motivational Research, told marketing people some months ago. “He stated the problem with considerable candor, ” said Vance Packard, reporting on Dichter’s speech. "He told marketing people they were confronted with the problem of permitting the average American to feel moral... even when he is spending, even when he is not saving, even when he is taking two vacations a year and buying a second or third car. One of the basic problems of this prosperity, he said, is to give people the sanction and justification to 'enjoy it and to demonstrate that the hedonistic approach to life is a moral, not an immoral, one. This permission given to the consumer to enjoy his life freely, the demonstration that he is right in surrounding himself with products that enrich his life and give him pleasure, Dr. Dichter said, must be one of the central themes of every advertising display and sales promotion plan.”1
This may well be the first time in human history that such a powerful and subtle campaign has been waged to get people to think materialistically. Every year now at least $12,000,000 is spent in America on research to ascertain the public’s motives in buying! Vance Packard cites one periodical of the advertising world that reports that by 1965 no major campaign will be launched before prospective customers and the product have been analyzed by psychologists.
Dread of Nonconformity
What have the psychologists found to make the commercialists’ pressure more potent? One discovery that the marketers are capitalizing on is the common dread of nonconformity in external things. Prosperity heightens this dread of nonconformity in a sinister way—it paves a road to materialistic living. “In a period of prosperity,” says Harper’s magazine, “nobody dares not to seem prosperous.”2 The marketers are exploiting these tendencies up to the hilt. “Advertising inculcates an interesting concept,” says educator Alan Valentine in The Age of Conformity— “that social responsibility includes keeping up with one’s neighbors in the knowledge and possession of gadgets.”
Another way pressure is put on is to induce people to believe that material goods are to be deemed far beyond their utilitarian function—they are to be viewed as status symbols. As Russell Lynes writes in Harper’s magazine: “Prosperity produces . . . curiously empty values. ... It produces strange kinds of personal economic competition in which symbols like the automobile and the freezer represent a burning desire for status.”2
Much advertising thus extols, not so much the useful quality of a product, but its function as a status symbol. Almost any kind of product can receive the statussymbol treatment, not just clothing and automobiles. Notice the you-need-this-as-a-status-symbol concept in the following advertisement by a book club: “What do your books say about you? Books are born gossipers. Sitting innocently on your shelves they reveal much about your taste and your background. Undoubtedly, you acquire books that speak well of you.”
There is no doubt that a surprising number of people have amassed shelves of books that they will probably never need or even read. But the books may impress others. This spending of time and money to impress others has been called “conspicuous consumption.” Professor Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase to express the thought that some people readily spend money and effort quite uselessly in the pleasurable work of inflating their egos. Women, along with men, join in the emulative chase. An article in the New York Times of February 4, 1957, predicted: “The career girls who marry this year will spend an average of $200 to dress themselves for the ceremony —from underpinnings to veil. In some cases it is well beyond what a realistic budget would allow, but the girls accept the expense with pleasure. ‘More often than you would think, the girl who lives in a cold-water flat is the most extravagant bride,’ said one bridal consultant,”
“Americans,” says A. Kent MacDougall of the Passaic Herald-News, “don’t like to admit that many of them are mixed up in the emulative chase, that they waste time and money to impress others.”
Another way pressure is applied to keep one on the merry-go-round of materialism is by wearing a product out in your mind. This art is known as “psychological obsolescence.” Styles and new models are of prime use in making a product seem worn out in your mind. Undue conformity to this tactic of the marketers leads to irrational behavior, says Vance Packard. In fact, he calls it “the deliberate encouragement of irrational behavior.” He explains: “What is the morality of deliberately encouraging us to be wasteful of the nation’s resources by considering any product more than two years old as obsolete?”
“Marketers,” he continues, “no longer are willing to wait until we wear out their product until they consider us prospects for a replacement. Products just don’t wear out fast enough. ... To accomplish this they increasingly have been seeking to make us style-conscious. This involves a two-step strategy. First you make people realize that ‘style’ is important in the acceptability of a product Then you switch styles. This strategy was first tested in the feminine apparel field where it has held sway for a good many years in making a woman feel ashamed of everything in her closet more than a year old. Now it is sweeping into the men’s apparel field.”1
Following Habits of Others
Advertising may put on the pressure, but still that pressure is weak in comparison with social pressure. Look magazine recently commented; “The most powerful molding force of the present age, social pressure.” ‘ Undue conformity to what the neighbors think is far more likely to make one a materialist than the lure of advertisements. So sensitive are some to what their neighbors have and do that there has come into prominence the phrase “the other-directed man,” because his actions are dictated by those of others.
In The Lonely Crowd David Riesman says the other-directed person has "exceptional sensitivity to the actions and wishes of others.” Just how serious this can become is indicated by Riesman’s words about the other-directed person: “Nor does any ideal of independence or of reliance on God alone modify his desire to look to the others . . , for guidance in what experiences to seek.”
Will Herberg, in Protestant—Catholic —Jew, says of the person who overly conforms to habits of others; “Instead of possessing a built-in gyroscope to keep him true to his course, the other-directed man operates with a kind of built-in radar apparatus which is ceaselessly at work receiving signals from the person’s ‘peer group’ and adjusting him to the situation indicated by these signals. The other-directed man is . . . dreadfully afraid of being too ‘different,’ of getting too much out of line with his ‘peer group.’ Indeed, the greatest horror of the other-directed man, that which renders him so acutely uncomfortable, is to feel ‘unadjusted’ and ‘unsociable.’ ”
Interestingly, the other-directed person may drift on the ocean of materialism unconsciously, as Will Herberg says: "The operative law of life of the other-directed man is conformity and adjustment; the built-in radar that characterizes other-direction sees to it that such adjustment to a fluctuating environment is generally achieved quite unconsciously.” The person who operates mainly by a built-in radar is described as being especially numerous in suburbia. “Other-direction has already become prevalent in the new suburban middle-class society.”
Social Pressure
How does social pressure work as to this matter of keeping up in the knowledge and possession of gadgets? William H. Whyte, Jr., an editor of Fortune magazine, has made a thorough study of some suburban neighborhoods. He reports his findings:
“It is the group that determines when a luxury becomes a necessity. ... In the early stages, when only a few of the housewives in a block have, say, an automatic dryer, the word-of-mouth praise of its indispensability is restricted. But then, as time goes on and the adjacent housewives follow suit, in a mounting ratio others are exposed to more and more talk about its benefits. Soon the nonpossession of the item becomes an almost unsocial act—an unspoken aspersion of the others’ judgment or taste.
“At this point only the most resolute individualists can hold out, for . . . the group . . . punishes them for not buying. Item by item, the process is constantly repeated, and the norm never stays still. As soon as a certain range of items becomes standard in the neighborhood group, its members grow restive for a new necessity. What it will be is only partly determined by national trends; even when neighborhoods are identical in age and income levels, they can vary a lot in the luxuries that are being turned into necessities. .,. .In some blocks hi-fi sets are considered an affectation; in others, only a stone’s throw away, they are almost mandatory.”*
Thus we have a curious situation; Advertising indoctrinates the public with a materialistic concept, and then the public enforces this concept on itself! How ferocious can this materialism monster get?
Social pressure gives the monster sharp teeth. The monster can now devour not only one’s finances but also one’s time with the greatest of ease. The time devoted to social activity in certain neighborhoods is enormous. Pertaining to this matter were a number of speeches given recently at a seminar of alumnae at Smith College; the New York Times report said: “Many participants said it was considered ‘shameful’ not to join groups in the community. Suburban life holds more pitfalls in this area than city life, they reported. While not doubting the usefulness of group activity, they said they deplored the stigma attached to the nonjoiner.” '
Those who conform to the many facets of social pressure—do they find the happiness they seek ? In his study of suburban social life writer Whyte says: “Even the most outgoing . . . confess that the pace of court life occasionally wears them down. ... To gain privacy, one has to do something. ... But there is an important corollary of such efforts at privacy—people feel a little guilty about making them. Except very occasionally, to shut oneself off from others like this is regarded as either a childish prank or, more likely, an indication of some inner neurosis. The individual, not the group, has erred.”4
Nor is privacy the only thing missed. In an interview one suburbanite said: “I don’t want to do anything to offend the people in our block;. .. But then, once in a while, I think of myself and my husband and what we are not doing, and I get depressed.”
There is no doubt that many persons are overdoing social life to the detriment of their spiritual life. "They sense that by their immersion in the group they are frustrating other urges,” said the interviewer, “yet they feel that responding to the group is a moral duty—and so they continue, hesitant and unsure, imprisoned in brotherhood.”4
Co-operating but Not Surrendering
How is one to cope with social pressure? The Christian cannot surrender to the crowd. Time is precious; it must be used wisely. The crowd wants surrender. Will it be satisfied with anything but surrender? Writer Whyte found that a neighborly co-operation, though not a surrender, had solved the problem for many. "Those who seem best able to steer their own course care about the good opinion of the group,” he says. “Unlike the deviate, they pay the little surface obeisances to the group. . . . Such people . . . have less friction with their neighbors than might be imagined. , . , Although they may draw a firm line at intimacy, they are good about baby-sitting, returning borrowed lawn mowers, and the other neighborly graces.”4
Writer Whyte also found that those who were best able to resist social pressure and stay true to a course they themselves set were those who were engrossed in some meaningful activity.
In this day of world-wide materialism each person who is conscious of his spiritual need must be on guard. The pressure is on. It comes from many quarters, from neighbors as well as marketers. Yielding to the pressures will consume not only much of one’s finances but also much of one’s time. And a materialist, we must remember, is not one who merely possesses material things. Rather, he is one who is so preoccupied with materia) things of life—whether good or bad—that he neglects or has no time for taking care of his spiritual life in the Bible-prescribed way.
What are we to do? We can not, we dare not steer our course mainly by a built-in radar, endlessly receiving and adjusting to other people’s whims and wishes. Let God’s Word be your built-in gyroscope to keep you on the right course; let it be the most powerful molding force In your life, not social pressure. “Quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and complete will of God.” —Rom. 12:2.
REFERENCES
1 Address delivered November 26 tn Chicago at the luncheon of the national convention of the Religious Education Association, as reported in America, Decern her 14. 1957.
- Harper's magazine, June, 1956,
E Look of February 18t 1956,
4 William Ji Whyte, Jr.> 7%^ Ata*1,.
chap. 26.
* New York Times, June 16, 1957
The High Price of Fighter Planes
The B-52 bomber has long been considered America’s most expensive combat plane, costing $8,000,000 each. Now an all-weather fighter plane costs even more. The New York Daily News of April 10, 1958, reported: “The Navy is spending $9.9 million on a new single-engined jet fighter plane, $1.9 million more than the cost of a B-52 hydrogen bomber. . . . The Navy has placed a small order for the Chance Vought F8U-3 Crusader. The price appeared to be a record for fighter planes. ... Its elaborate electronics equipment accounts for nearly half of its cost.”
are as incredible as those of nature’s sharp-
the grim determination of a gunman loos-
shooters. How odd the animal with the disconcerting habit of firing saliva salvos; how mysterious the insect with the deadly squirt gun; how lightning-fast on the draw the snake whose aim and potent ammunition make it nearly the most dangerous reptile in Africa; how weird the creatures that open fire from the eyes and the hips, using blood as bullets; how incredible the fish that is both a sharpshooting sniper and an antiaircraft gunner!
Before examining some of the improbable exploits of nature’s sharpshooters let us look at the abilities of an animal well known for his aim and ammunition—the skunk. This furry marksman does not preening his pistols in their holsters. If the opponent does not act on the warning, this four-legged marksman prepares to squeeze the triggers by compressing the muscles near the pit of his tail. He whirls his swivel hips into firing position, takes aim over his shoulder and fires. His pistols fire either separately or simultaneously, and they are loaded with enough ammunition for six rounds of rapid fire. Usually only one shot is enough, for the skunk’s aim is accurate and the ammunition is as effective as an atomic shell.
After a skunk has opened fire, the effects are perceptible for more than half a mile in all directions. It is the smell. One who has smelled the effects needs no deSo sharp is the skunk’s marksmanship that he rarely misses his target, even at a range of ten to fifteen feet!
tend to be fast on the draw. He does not have to. Most creatures respect the skunk’s sharpshooting ability and do not goad him into using his two potent pistols—two large glands located strategically under the tail.
When pushed too far the skunk takes definite action. Yet before opening fire he raises a battle flag:
scription. It is so wick
edly malodorous, so noxiously potent that victim of
a direct hit is ingly and suffocatingly routed. Since skunk sharpshooters aim for the eyes and face, woe betide any creature who presses this pistol-packing polecat into a showdown fight!
Saliva Salvoa and a Deadly Squirt Gun
That camel-like creature, the llama, is not generally as reluctant to open fire as the skunk. Whenever the llama feels it has taken enough nonsense from any human, it lowers its ears to a horizontal position and fires a salvo of saliva. The aim is for the face and eyes, and llama aim is remarkably accurate. To be the victim of a direct hit is most unpleasant, since the liquid ammunition, made up of saliva and food undergoing remastication, is malodorous and irritating.
Almost anything that really annoys a llama may come under fire. At the beginning of the twentieth century the London Zoo had a famous llama marksman. This llama disliked top hats with such an antipathy that whenever a wearer of this fashionable headgear strolled within spitting range, the llama opened fire. Almost invariably the top hat received the garden hoselike force of the saliva salvo.
Impressive as llama marksmanship is, the tiniest of nature’s sharpshooters, the termite, does not need to feel inferior. The exploits of the termite soldiers with the deadly squirt guns are amazing enough. Protruding from the termite soldier’s head, the squirt gun is loaded with a sticky liquid that gums up attacking ants, leaving them helpless and virtually petrified. Invading ants receive the lethal fire right in the face. How does the termite aim his gun? Ah, that is the mystery. Many species of squirt-gun-armed termites are blind! Yet their gluey bullets gum up the enemy every time.
Fastest on the Draw
Like a villainous, trigger-happy gunman is the spitting cobra. This sinister snake is unusual in three respects: (1) It may be the fastest of all nature’s sharpshooters on the draw; (2) its brace of pistols may be loaded with the most potent ammunition and (3) its aim may be the most accurate at close or long range. It is not surprising, then, that Raymond Ditmars says, in Snakes of the. World: “The spitting Cobra comes close to being the most dangerous snake of Africa.” This serpent sharpshooter can “effectively eject its venom to a distance of eight feet or more and thus reach the eyes of a standing person. It is the type of attack which usually strikes the victim as a complete surprise. Moreover, it is administered in an instant, the snake rearing and ‘spitting’ upon slight provocation.”
The spitting cobra believes it is best to shoot first and look the situation over afterward. Thus one encountering this snake sharpshooter hardly has time to duck. Writing in the Bulletin of the Antivenin Institute of America, Arthur Loveridge tells of a hunter’s experience in Africa: “A friend of mine was crawling through some grass to obtain a final shot at a hartebeest which he had wounded. Suddenly up rose a cobra before him. He had presence of mind to tightly close his eyes and received the venom upon his eyelids. . . . After a careful sponging with a wet handkerchief he opened his eyes and was none the worse for his unpleasant experience.”
Too bad, though, for those who have not even time to close their eyes! Intense pain and temporary blindness follow, but if proper treatment is promptly taken the blinding affliction subsides in a few days.
The spitting cobra’s two heavy-caliber pistols are its twin fangs that discharge venom outward rather than downward. When a cobra opens fire it all seems to happen in a flash; the jaws open and close so quickly it is like a snapping motion. Out shoots the poisonous bullets accurately aimed for some victim’s eyes.
Ammunition is no problem for the spitting cobra. He has a built-in armament works that turns out poison cartridges in amazing quantities. “With two specimens on exhibition in the Zoological Park,” says Ditmars, “it was necessary to remove the cobras every five or six days as the glass was so showered during their ‘spitting’ at visitors it was impossible to see through it. , . . The area of the glass most thickly spattered was on a line between the heights of the snakes’ heads when reared in irritation and visitors’ faces.”
Lingual and Blood Bullets
Firing bullets of poison seems a little crude to the chameleon and the toad. Why not use artillery to bring home the bacon? That is the way they feel about it. Both toad and chameleon have rapid-firing guns. They fire lingual projectiles—their own tongues.
Woe to the fly that lands within range of the chameleon’s artillery’ A pink, clubshaped tongue begins to protrude; then bang! the chameleon fires and a fly vanishes. At the tip end of the chameleon’s tongue is a knob equipped with a gluey secretion. The chameleon’s aim being accurate, the lingual bullet hits the target, sticks to it and so retrieves the prey. A good-sized chameleon may shoot a fly as far as twelve inches from its nose.
The toad is also fast and accurate. Says Jean Rostand in Toads and Toad Life: “The emission of the tongue is accompanied by a dry harsh noise, like the crack of a whip, a noise very characteristic of the toad. Large toads can catch prey four inches off. The speed of lingual projection is considerable. The double journey, there and back, takes less than a fifteenth of a second.”
The so-called homed toads, really lizards, are unique in their ability to shoot from the eyes. When frightened these creatures fire bullets of blood from the comers of their eyes, doing so with the most extraordinary suddenness. Does this sound improbable?
“Perhaps the most improbable story connected with the homed lizard,” says Osmond Breland in Animal Facts and Fallacies, “is that they squirt blood from their eyes when they become excited or angry; yet it is true. I had one of these little reptiles in a jar one day when a student who was interested in reptiles came into the laboratory. ... He reached into the jar to get it, and almost immediately let out a surprised shout. ... I looked, to find him grinning from ear to ear, holding the lizard with one hand, and pointing to his red-spattered shirt front with the other. To this student, the soiling of a white shirt was a small price to pay for seeing a homed lizard squirt blood from the comers of its eyes. I immediately collected some of the discharged material, and an examination under a microscope showed that it was unquestionably blood. This occurrence is thought to be the result of a rise in blood pressure which may take place during fright or anger, and which causes the capillaries near the corners of the eye socket to rupture, squirting blood for some distance.”
What is the range of these bullets of blood? About five or six feet. A fusillade lasts nearly two seconds.
But the toadlike lizards have no monopoly on using blood for ammunition. A midget sharpshooter in Algeria does the same thing. “An Algerian locust uses its own blood as a side arm,” writes Frank Lane in Nature Parade. “It shoots, like a practiced Texas gunman, from the hip. There is a pore between the first and second joints at the base of the leg. This pore
can be opened when danger threatens, and a blistering stream of locust blood ejected to a distance of 20 inches.”
Fiahdom's Versatile Sharpshooter
Dwelling in the streams of Thailand and other East Indian countries is probably the most incredible sharpshooter of them all —the shooting fish. This finny marksman has several names, such as Toxotes and archerfish. Whatever we call him, he is a sharpshooter par excellence.
This fish is particular in its eating habits; it likes to lunch upon insects that do not live in his element. Marksman Toxotes has an amazing way of bringing these delicacies within his reach: he shoots insects down with bullets of water.
Most of the time Toxotes wins his living by sniping. When his keen eyes perceive a prospective meal perched on a plant overhanging the stream, the sharpshooter maneuvers into position. Before opening fire with his ingeniously-designed automatic weapon, Toxotes closes the range by swimming backward or forward. It always seeks the best position for a shot. Having acute aterial vision and eyes that can be directed sideways, upward and backward, though not downward, fishdom’s sharpshooter is admirably equipped for sniping. Finally Toxotes stops. He fires. The aim is so accurate that one shot usually is enough. If other shots are needed he has an inexhaustible supply of ammunition available. The liquid bullet drenches the insect and down it tumbles into the water to provide a tasty tid-bit for this uncanny marksman.
Once in a while fishdom’s sharpshooter craves meat on p
the wing. He decides to shoot down a flying insect. A single aquatic bullet is hardly enough for this kind of work. So Toxotes turns his weapon into an antiaircraft gun. When a flying insect comes within range, Toxotes opens fire with a stream of water that brings down the insect, and again marksmanship pays off with a succulent morsel.
How is it that the archerfish is both a sniper and an antiaircraft gunner? Toxotes' mouth has a deep groove. All he has to do is put his tongue against the roof of his mouth and the groove turns into a miniature rifle or cannon barrel. To prepare for action Toxotes merely compresses his gill covers and a clip of water ammunition is placed into his automatic weapon. “The thin rounded tip of the fish’s tongue acts as a valve,” explains Frank Lane, "and the fish can thus expel the water in a single drop, a succession of drops, or, if the valve is left open, in a continuous jet.”
At a certain range the archerfish never misses. Hugh M. Smith, former fisheries advisor to the Kingdom of Siam, says: "In my experience in Siam the distance within which the fish could always be depended upon to score a direct hit was three and a half to four feet. A much longer effective range has been recorded. Two fishes in the New York Aquarium could without difficulty hit a small cockroach at a measured height of five feet above the water.”
On some occasions, Smith says, he has seen spent water bullets splash on the ceiling of a veranda about twelve feet above the river. Speaking of this same veranda, Smith says:. “On two occa
sions to my personal knowledge, when my friend sat on the veranda . . . smoking a cigarette, his attention was attracted by well directed shots which extinguished his cigarette.”
Yes, incredible are the exploits of nature's sharpshooters!
The Overpowering Urge To
COMMUNICATE
ierentiates man so completely from the lower forms of animal life than his desire to speak intelligent’ ly and his ability to communicate his thoughts over great distances and in various ways to his fellow man.
In no other form of animal life can there be found so strong an urge to communicate as there Exists in man. This driving impulse has forced him to rebel against the limitations of time and space. It is one of the greatest contributing causes behind the rapid progress in communications made by man in recent years, bridging greater and greater distances in less and less time.
Man's desire to communicate with his fellow mait is so overpowering that not even the double deprivation of blindness and deafness can completely wipe it out. The astonishing fact is that without any training whatever a blind deaf-mute will make every thinkable and unthinkable at-
tempt to break through that almost impregnable barrier that separates him from the rest of the world. We have Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller as examples. Regardless of location or circumstance man instinctively seeks to communicate with his fellow man.
While other forms of life have various ways of communicating among themselves, still none of their methods can be compared with what man has developed for his cwu convenience. None of them in the true sense of the word are talking animals. Take the chimpanzee for an example. Even though it is very much like a human child when it is young, still it cannot be made to talk. On the other hand, it is quite impossible to keep a human ehUd from talking, it is believed that if children were left alone to grow up they would in due time create a language of their own, but not so the chimpanzee. Even though this animal is brought up in a human family and subject to the impact of human speech from its very birth, still it does not and will not accept language as a means of expression. It will not even burst into baby talk. It is just not in the beast to talk or to want to talk.
Speech sets man apart. It makes man different from all the rest of the lower creation. Man not only talks but loves to talk. He is a gregarious creature anxious to communicate his ideas to others of his kind. In this way he is very much like his Creator, Jehovah God.
Communications Before Man
God who created man also created speech. In fact, God was the first to com-TfiraAcate. V&taAd ages before man was created, He spoke to his only-begotten Son,
OCTOBER 1958
the Logos. This One, God used as his representative Spokesman, or his channel of communication, to communicate His will to ail other intelligent creatures of the universe. Not only did God endow his heavenly sons with the power of speech and the ability to communicate with one another, but he also created them with abilities to express themselves beautifully in song as well. The Bible tells us that at the creation of our earth “the morning stars joyfully cried out together, and all the sons of God began shouting in applause.” —Job 38:7.
When about to make man Jehovah communicated his desire to his Son, saying: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” The first man Adam was created with the power of speech. It is recorded that Adam conversed or communicated with God and with his wife Eve in the garden of Eden. Adam spoke perfectly and his speech was perfect. He did not speak in unintelligible grunts and groans as generally believed. Adam even waxed eloquent as a poet when he first laid eyes on his beautiful wife Eve, saying:
“This is at last bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh.
“This one will be called Woman, Because from man this one was taken.”—Gen. 1:26; 2:23.
The Starch of Communications
As men began to spread over the face of the earth, the human urge to communicate with other men made itself felt. Kings and rulers desired to keep in touch with their armies and subjects. Families and friends longed to hear from one another. The need arose for a system of communication and the genius of man was put to work to make this possible.
Letter writing began. Private and secret messages were hurried on their way by speedy runners. Soon thereafter riders were employed. Rafts and sailboats cut across water barriers. Later on man’s messages took to the air. The carrier pigeon was entrusted with the responsibility of flying special messages over forests and lakes to designated spots. Progress was being made, but communications were still far too slow to satisfy man.
Time and space were intolerable barriers. Pitted against the unrelenting drive in man to communicate, these formidable enemies reluctantly gave way little by little. First came the wheel, then the steel track and then came wings. Letters^ messages, packages, etc., traveled swiftly by rail and on highways; still these were not fast enough to appease man’s war on time and space. Electricity was harnessed. An entirely new system of communications was developed. Words traveled on the wings of electricity in the form of “dots and dashes,” or clicks. Airplanes were used. Electronic facsimile transmission now offers almost instantaneous delivery. Still the urge in man is not satisfied.
The human drive to conquer time and space in the field of communications is well outlined for us in the 1956 edition of The Encyclopedia Americana, which says: “The human voice, once limited to the range of hearing, is sent speeding to the farthest comers of the world by radio. The signals of earlier generations, by trumpets, bells, drums, and guns (all limited by the range of hearing), and by beacons, smoke, flags, semaphore, and rockets (limited by the range of sight), have been outmoded by the submarine cable, the telegraph, and telephone, whose only limitation is their network of wires, and even this limitation has been overcome by radio.
“Pictorial representations, unrivaled as recorders of events, have shown a similar progress, from the laboriously produced drawing, to the photograph and motion picture, to television. The development of photography, which is essentially ‘frozen’ communication, since photographs and films repeat their messages as often as they are viewed, is paralleled by the phonograph record and the wire ortape recorder, which freeze sound for the same purpose.”
Whistle Talk af La Camera
Despite the great advance in communications there are still locations on earth where modern methods are not used, in fact, are quite ineffective. One such place is La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, Here the land is so mountainous that two points only some 500 yards apart, as the crow flies, may be as much as an hour apart on foot. The terrain makes modern communications almost impossible to establish. The proposition would be expensive, while the people, financially speaking, are poor. So the islanders perfected their own means of communicating with one another. They whistle-talk. Here in La Gomera a whole race of people, some 30,000 of them, converse with one another over long and short distances by means of whistling; they whistle-talk—and' in Spanish at that.
The language is called silbo (Spanish for “whistle”), while the whistlers are called silbadores. The whistle language is not a mere code or signal system but a version of Spanish. A practiced silbador can whistle intelligibly about everything he can say in the Spanish language. In a few minutes the news of the day can be whistled clear across the island. A good performer can be heard and understood three miles away. This is a good deal farther than one could possibly shout his message. They claim that some silbadores have been heard eight miles away, as incredible as it may seem.
The silbo language is quite flexible. The people casually whistle-talk and even tell jokes. However, not many silbadores will use the language at close quarters. Some will, mainly to show off before strangers. In town the people will frequently call to each other in the street by whistling rather than speaking their names.
It is claimed that the silbo language is easy to learn and understand. Before a child becomes a year old it can understand its name in silbo. One Gomero said that the language is so easy that “if I didn’t know it I could learn it in one morning.” Strangers to the language have picked it up in three weeks’ time. It is doubtful if one could learn a difficult language such as Russian or Polish in that same length of time. Yet before they are nine years old children whistle-talk quite fluently. And by the time they are twelve they become experts at it.
We are reminded by Andre Classe that “the silbo of La Gomera is by no means the only whistled language in the world, but it is the most explicit. Other whistled forms of communication, found in Mexico and some parts of Africa, are made up of the tones, isolated from the other elements of speech, and convey meaning by a kind of musical accent (as Chinese languages do). Generally speaking,” writes Classe, “these other whistled languages are far less accurate, less explicit and more limited in power of expression than the silbo.”
Whistle-talk no doubt serves its purpose in communications, but where distances are great and accuracy of statement is all-essential, then television, telegraph, telephone and radio are by far more effective and much easier on the breath. With the flick of the wrist modern communications bring the news from people around the world right into one's own living room.
The latest dramas and the most soothing music come to man in the natural tones of high fidelity and color. Time and space have practically been eliminated* Is it possible for man to improve on what he has already achieved? Where will this insatiable urge to communicate drive man? Will satellites and space platforms mean new systems of communications on earth? Where does the future lead? What does it hold for man? For the answer to these questions we shall have to wait and see.
Gy "Awa koi" correspondent in Guadeloupe
I ^THOUGH modern civilization has penetrated almost in every part of the island of Martinique, still old superstitions hang on. Some planters still check the shape and position of the moon before planting. There are people who will never eat bananas or cucumbers after pressing or after a good walk. Okra, which is eaten as asparagus, is considered not good for men, because eating it is believed to take away a man's courage.
(I. Some happenings in everyday life will be accepted as infallible omens. A bird on the doorstep is a sure sign the day will bring visitors. Hitting a stone with the left foot will prevent a serious move. If your right hand is itching, that is to remind you of an old debt If your left hand itches, that is an indication that some unexpected money will be paid to you.
d. To make sure all their products will be sold in the market place, vegetable sellers will keep some salt or garlic at the bottom of their pocketbooks. Averting fate requires that one bum some rubber on Friday at 3 p.m.
A pregnant woman will never cut down a tree for fear that it would shorten the life of her child. In the country, after the birth of a child, the placenta will be buried at the foot of a young tree in order that the child might be strung. A child born in December will not be registered until the next month so that it will get one more full year of life.
Death involves many peculiar customs. Some will stop their clocks and veil their mirrors when someone dies. The aged often get their coffins ready. Others will lay aside gome boards of mahogany or other wood for burial purposes. Women will set aside a nice dress as well as a sheet in preparation for burial. There are people who believe evil charms can cause death and that magicians can ferret out the responsible ones.
On All Saints’ Day, November 2, Martiniquans light candles on the tombs of all their deceased ones. They believe that the souls of the dead get permission on that occasion to come and spend a few hours around their tomb before going back for another year, d Entering a new home is not a casual thing. A thorough cleaning first takes place with some special herbs crushed in some sea water and a few drops of gasoline. Another cere' mony is enacted to drive out the evil spirits. Then some salt, bread and coal are to be brought in first; the salt to give flavor to everything in the house, while the bread and coal are to maintain warmth and life. The bed position cannot be across the boards of the floor, because it would form a cross. In the country prayers against sicknesses are written down and hidden in the mattresses. <L On New Year’s Day ladies and girls wear new dresses with red or pink peas so that they will have money all year round. A blue dress is never worn, because it Would mean misery to the imprudent one. A broom is not used on New Year’s Day for fear of sweeping luck away. Rain on Good Friday js said to heal all kinds of diseases.
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