THE NATURE OF MAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 21

THE NATURE OF MAN

N a series of five talks beginning this Saturday, March 2, from 3YC, a number of speakers discuss in turn the question What is Man? Working on the principle that to know what a thing is one must know what it does, the speakers discuss man as revealed by his functions of thinking, creating, believing, existing, and the ordering of his lot as a "social being." The first talk examines the proposition that Man is a rational being in the light of past and present beliefs and events, from the principles of reason that moulded Greek thought, up to the age where rational man is equated’

with technological man. This latter identification is suspect to Dr. J. L. Moffat, who says: "In my own opinion there’s nothing remarkably rational about Science. May we not wonder if science is now more interested in power than in knowledge? And, consequently, whether it may not

have its roots in the irrational rather than in the rational part of our natures?" Artistic Man (3YC, 8.38, Saturday March 9), by John Oakley, of the Canterbury School of Art, deals with the creative urge that distinguishes man from his fellow animals, and how it has been used throughout history. "Art is primarily an expression of happiness, "a product of passion in leisure. When the passions of a race are fully occupied with the business or the troubles of life art must languish." The last three talks, Man as a

Religious Being, Existentialist Man, and Political Man, all deal in some way with religion, morality and the social order, with Man’s urge to freecom and fear of loneliness. The speakers are the Rev. M. Peaston, Professor R._ T. Sussex and Professor N. C. Phillips. What is Man? will be heard later from other YC stations.