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"(Congratulations! You scored a victory over Communist propaganda. Your article on "The Negro's Push for Equality will win a lot of readers for you in Asia. Reading the same lines from a Red magazine would have created a lot of ill feeling toward your great country in the minds of Asians. As such your article is worth its weight in gold.
RONALD M. D'SILVA Bombay
The Individual in America
Sir:
After reading closely your great conclusions on the state of man today [May 10], I am certain that here is one committee that could have written Hamlet.
MARY TAYLOR HALLAM Dallas
Sir:
The feature is one of your best, and a brilliant analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of modern America, and an indication of the elements needing development. Inis diagnosis shares none of the unrealism of classical individualism or of socialistic collectivism. In particular it reaffirms the basic principles of sound philosophy, the Judeo-Christian revelation, and American constitutional tradition. "
JOSEPH E. HALEY, C.S.L. University of Portland Portland, Ore.
Sir,
Many thanks for the thoughtful article, "Lincoln and Modern America."
Among many perceptive comments was a reference to depth psychology−Man is guided not by conscious will but rather by unconscious drives." This is a popular misconception about psychoanalytic theory.
Present-day ego psychology (of which the late David Rapaport is father and prophet demonstrates to many in medicine that individual "freedom" is really "guaranteed from any tyranny by the environment became of these drives. Similarly, man is no an automaton because of the impact of environment on the reality testing mechanisms: the memory, motor, perceptual and threshold apparatuses. The upshot of this is that man has the potential to find ways to satisfy his drives in constructive, nonaggressive ways which need not destroy him.
JOHNL. KUEHN,M.D. Fellow, Menninger School of Psychiatry Topeka, Kans.
Sir,
¶Wright Mills is described as an "angry, narrow sociologist" and Erich Fromm as "a Marxist culture quack."
I do not object to criticism of these distinguished thinkers; I do feel badly that no evidence or explanation supported lese statements. This is intellectual "dirty pool.
Fromm and Mills have made rather significant contributions to the quest to unravel the complexities of human society 11 these men have overstated their cases (the only real "sin" of which they might be guilty), the originality of their thought must partially exonerate them.
HOWARD KUTCHAI Birmingham, Mich.
Congratulations on your cover story on individualism. We debated the subject and agreed that no society, not even our modern one was, is, or will be able to destroy the principle of man's own way of thinking and acting according to his own private ideals. ST. ANDREWS' SCOTS SCHOOL DEBATING SOCIETY Buenos Aires
Lincoln's Eyes
Sir'
I have always been under the impression that President Lincoln had blue eyes rather than the grey that you show in the May 1 cover portrait by Robert Vickrey. Perhaps your sources would confirm this?
PAYNE THOMAS Fort Lauderdale, Fla.