BROADCASTING AND DEMOCRACY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 528, 5 August 1949, Page 5

BROADCASTING AND DEMOCRACY

Sir,-"G.H.D." would be more helpful if he would not solve vast Spiritual and economic problems in abstract terms. Nor will many people accept what he says merely because it is uttered with majestic authority. On principle I object to the wording of the thesis "Secularism leads logically to Communism." Not even "G.H.D." knows this for certain; it is merely opinion, and if "G.H.D." cared to argue that "Seculatism tends to lead to Communism," he would be much more. logical, wouldn't he? All we are entitled to say, with our limited knowledge, is not "All secular people are/have been Communists," but "Some secular people are/ have been Communists." But perhaps "G.H.D." will not argue about people and things instead of about abstractions. I do not automatically agree that "if you deny that God is the goal of human life, the next step is to subordinate the individual completely to the community." "G.H.D." goes too fast. He must define. For instance, there have been many Gods, and we are entitled to ask whether belief in the God of Bishop Barnes, or of General Franco, or of Hiawatha, or of Brigham Young would be -adequate to save us from getting completely submerged in the community. What too does "G.H.D." mean exactly by "the next step?" What is "complete subordination?" Suppose I am prepared to admit that God is the goal of human life, would that on its own satisfy "G.H.D."? In his second paragraph, "G.H.D," implies, if I interpret him correctly, that what values we have are the remains of the spiritual wealth accumulated by our ancestors.. Am I to ‘suppose that we are incapable of creating spiritual values? Or can some people still do it? If so, what are the qualifications necessary for being a creator of values? . 2 Of course I have plenty more questions to ask "G.H.D.," but if he could put me on the right lines with the above I should be grateful, One must begin

somewhere.

C

(Sumner),

Sir-May I take this opportunity afforded by your columns to advise your correspondent "G.H.D." to brush up his logic. His criticisms of Sir Thomas Hunter in The Listener of July 15, despite a verbal appearance of profundity, fail to convince because they rest upon the wild assertion that "Secularism leads logically to Communism," which is explained by a piece of reasoning which would find a place in a casebook of political irrationalism. "Secularism," we are told, "leads logically to Communism, for if you deny God is the goal of human life, the next step is to subordinate the individual completely to the community." This deduction is a step requiring seven-league intellectual boots, It has nothing to do with either logic or experience. Perhaps "G.H.D." denies that Christians, from Calvin to Franco, have not always been backward in repressing individualism to attain to God, or believes that the great secular thinkers since the Renaissance have all. been groping towards Marx? There are, I would suggest, an unhappy grey shade of men between "G.H.D.’s" white and black, who do not believe that God is the "goal" of

society, and who survive in the middie of his "next step," unaware that Communism is the only means to their ends. It is his duty to prove to these the error of their "makeshift" and "transitory" ways.

KEITH

SINCLAIR

(Auckland).