Hello; J. Wilke

JOAN WILKE IF YOU'RE FAMILIAR with English detective stories, you know that "hello" is much more than a salu tation. It's a surprise! It's what every good English detective says when he stumbles upon a previously overlooked, won derful, important,. delightful little clue that is sure to unravel the whole mystery. That's why "hello" is such a fine greeting - whether to a stran ger or an old friend. It's the ex pectation of discovery. The an ticipation of some new and won derful revelation ... or some new meaning in something long fa miliar. Freedom is the only philosophy that treats life realistically - as a mystery that will unravel surprise by surprise. Only freedom can accommodate the day-to-day surprises that arise from truth and error, wisdom and Miss Wilke is an advertising writer. folly, the simple and complex, the limited and limitless. It allows for disappointments and failures as well as success.

Everyone benefits freely (and willingly!) from success when it happens, but no one is forced to share another's failure unless all futures are bound up through a collective. So freedom magnifies and spreads success and minimizes and confines failure. Collectivism does just the opposite. Freedom offers no pat answers to pat problems because it always anticipates some new discovery or variation. Collectivism proudly asserts it has the answers, and concretizes them into laws, thereby perpetu ating the old and obstructing the new. Freedom treats life as a proc ess, not a thing. A continuous hap pening, not something that hap pened. So it is an invitation to life, 3 4 'THE FREEMAN January not an encroachment on it. It is a beckoning, not a coercive force. It recognizes life as a series of be ginnings. All forms of materialistic col lectivism treat life as though it's over, in the sense that it is pre dictable. It is so preoccupied with the present that it rejects the past and considers the future a projection of the present.

It worships "change" but, being oriented to the current situation, considers change simply a rear rangement of existing conditions, intellectually contrived and polit ically manipulated. It never an ticipates real change ... only repe tition of existing conditions. In limiting life to its own pre dictions, it necessarily brings about the conditions it predicted, since life only repeats itself when restricted. Freedom recognizes that life's secrets already exist and lie un discovered, waiting to be stum bled upon in a series of delighted "hellos." Collectivism drearily lim its itself to the idea that what is discovered is what exists, so it me chanically distributes the accumu lated surprises of the past with out allowing for the continuing surprise of new discovery. Freedom is nourished by expec tation. Collectivism cannot survive without fears . . . real or imagi nary . . . grouped together and therefore exchanged' and exagger ated in such hand-holding gath erings as unions and pressure groups or any combination formed for the force that will allay its fears.

The future is determined large ly by the choice individuals make between expecting the best or the worst. Whereas fear paralyzes, expec tation energizes. The most remarkable person I know . . . and the freest . . . al ways seems to have this air of anticipation about him. When he comes through a door or around a corner, he has the manner of one who has heard a firecracker go off and has come to see what the celebration is all about. He's in a state of perpetual "hello!" With his attitude, I doubt that he's ever disappointed, because he 'would see the most ordinary thing with extraordinary delight. His attitude strikes me as that which is most appropriate for a free man. ~ W. ALLEN WALLIS ONE of the special privileges of a university president is the oppor tunity to hear, or to hear about, a large number of speeches on aca demic subjects or directed to aca demic audiences. Sometimes a group of things has a pattern that is not revealed by anyone of the things alone.