How to Behave

Sir: Congratulations on your new department BEHAVIOR [Jan. 10]. For decades psychologists and I daresay other behavioral scientists--have been amused, puzzled and outraged by the tendency to consign or conceal their professional and scientific identity in other departments like MEDICINE, EDUCATION and BOOKS.

Psychology is one of our country's most rapidly growing professions. Over 30,000 of its researchers, teachers and practitioners are presently engaged in the production, dissemination and application of the knowledge of behavior.

Your decision to create this section is consistent with the vitality of the underlying art and science. Beyond achieving the objectives you mentioned, it will serve to highlight for your readers the excitement and the great significance that the study of behavior qua behavior has for almost every aspect of human affairs.

BERNARD SAFER President

New York State Psychological Association Manhattan

Sir: Re "Exploring a Shadow World": In order to achieve a more valuable contribution to sociology, Erving Goffman should study more closely the work of his putative intellectual forebears, Cooley and Mead. Surely social life is more than the banal playing out of prescribed social roles by "normal" social actors. Though social order is based upon a high degree of mutual expectation in role behavior, the viability of social life is fruitfully conceptualized in terms of highly frequent, residual rule-breaking by "normal" persons, as well as by supposed deviants. Are all human relationships as disingenuous as Goffman portrays them?

HOWARD L. NIXON II Pittsburgh

Sir: Goffman's basic thesis is that man's need for public order and unspoken mutual trust manifests itself in even the seemingly most simple social interactions, such as two people passing each other. Several years ago I observed Erving Goffman walking through Barrows Hall on the University of California campus. He ran into another sociology professor who said, "Well, Erving, I haven't seen you in several years." To which Dr. Goffman replied, "It isn't my fault, David."

ANNE MITCHELL Berkeley, Calif.

Upholding the L.A.W.

Sir: A wonderful article concerning the plight of the left-handed person [Jan. 10]. A year ago several friends and I came to the same realization. The result was the formation of the L.A.W. Society: Left-Handers Against the World. We would like to mention two other discriminatory practices perpetrated on left-handed students. One is the curse of the spiral notebook, which is bound on the left side. Designed for the comfort and ease of the right-handed person, it is a cause of genuine pain and grief to thousands of students everywhere. The second is the fact that most college desks are made for right-handed people, forcing "lefty" to go into contortions when taking notes. Thank you for your recognition of this dangerous situation.

KENNETH J. YOLLA President, L.A.W. The Bronx, N.Y.

Sir: It is true that we southpaws are constantly inconvenienced in this right-handed world, but we can always find certain compensations. One is the salad plate, which is always placed to the left of the dinner plate. Another, the brevity of the articles in TIME, which allows us to read it by starting at the back cover and working forward with no trouble.

GARY BERGERON Crowley, La.

Sir: I'm sure that the chap who opened the left-handed shop in London last year won't make a go of it. I would guess that the majority of left-handers would have a hard time learning to use something designed just for them either because 1) they have learned to use most things as a right-hander would, or 2) they have learned to use things in their own gauche-appearing way.

For instance, it never even occurs to me to shake hands or salute with my left hand. I long ago learned to use right-handed scissors with ease. At dinners, when seated next to a righthander, I automatically keep my left elbow close to my side when eating to avoid bumps--and when things are too close at a table, I switch to eating with my right hand, another trick I taught myself long ago.

I always tell fellow lefties who complain to consider those with worse handicaps than theirs and who have overcome and excelled.

BERNARD SCHUKRAFT Oak Park, 111.

Sir: Left-handers are not the only ones who must negotiate a world designed for others. Take, for example, tall people--like myself--who find door lintels conveniently at forehead level, hotel beds several inches too short, and theater seats with just enough leg room to push one's knees into one's face. But that's not the worst of it: we also find that almost all the pretty women are too short.

KENNETH E. EKMAN

Cambridge, Mass.

Greeting

Sir: Had your Essay about eliminating the draft in favor of a volunteer army [Jan. 10] been accompanied by a graph plotting re-enlistment rates against intelligence, I'm quite sure it would have resembled a ski jump.

Take a man doing a highly technical job and punish him because a doorknob is not shiny enough; make him appear in uniform on his own time to hear an official announcement the content of which he knew days before; make him an officer and expect him to believe in these absurdities. The mind boggles briefly and then realizes that the Army is something to be borne and that dignity and fulfillment will have to be sought elsewhere. Exit one valuable man.

Raises, pensions and other such mundane bribes would not have kept him. His price is much higher: individuality. To eliminate the draft, the services would have to adopt an entirely new form of discipline, one in which conformity would be secondary to personal initiative and common sense. Whether such a posture would be militarily effective is a question for the psychologists, but I suspect that "volunteer army" will remain a politician's oxymoron for some time to come.

BRUCE WILLIAMS Glenside, Pa.

Sir: As a former draftee, I know only too well that the present draft system is imperfect and that servicemen are greatly underpaid. But is a highly paid volunteer army really the answer? I think not--the opinion of my political hero William Buckley to the contrary.

Reform the draft, making each and every American equally likely to be called; increase the pay of servicemen, particularly those who make the military a career; and work for peace and understanding and brotherhood in the world so that military forces might one day be unnecessary. But don't adopt a volunteer army. Don't give Americans any more excuse than they presently have for making the other guy carry their load. We are taught that the country belongs equally to all; what we apparently have not learned is that we all belong equally to the country.

CHARLES R. MCDOWELL Phoenix, Ariz.

Sir: There is indeed a strong need for volunteer rather than drafted armed forces. But sometimes we seek such complicated solutions to simple problems that the obvious eludes us. What is needed is a loyal, effective, enthusiastic, patriotic and spirited volunteer. He can be obtained without cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, this plan for raising a volunteer force would undoubtedly reduce our civilian tax burden: 1) extend the present draft law to four years for involuntary service, and 2) reduce the voluntary service requirement to two years. Almost any young man of draft age would be eager to volunteer to serve only two years rather than be drafted for four.

In this way, draft quotas could be cut, perhaps even eliminated. Men could serve honorably on a volunteer basis rather than with the stigma of the involuntary-service draftee. And they could complete their obligation within the same two years that would be required under the present draft law.

JOHN R, RVMMELL Honolulu

Ted v. Teddy

Sir: Senator Edward Kennedy's victory in the contest for Democratic majority whip [Jan. 10] is a significant event in the Democratic Party's move toward effecting a liberal stance in the formulation of party positions on key issues. As majority whip, Kennedy will do much to accomplish a rapprochement of liberal factions alienated in the travesty at Chicago. This is good for Ted Kennedy, for the Democratic Party, for the people.

DENNIS J. KUCINICH Cleveland

Sir: Any perceptive person knows that the majority whip is the prize given to Teddy Kennedy for not rocking the boat at the Chicago convention; given by frantic politicians, not deservedly but because they evidently believe the Kennedy name, not Teddy, to be the light that will lead them out of darkness.

However, in spite of their undeniable glamour and their affinity with the populace, neither Jack nor Robert, with all due respect to their memory, really accomplished much. At least not enough to merit this incessant genuflection. Is it not time that sentimentalism give way to an analytical presentation of their concrete achievements?

JUAN L. BRITO Brownsville, Texas

Fitness Report: Superior

Sir: Mr. Nixon is about to become our new President [Jan. 10]; but I haven't yet heard much about his wartime experiences.

I was Mr. Nixon's commanding officer for a number of months during 1944 at the Naval Air Station, Alameda, Calif.

My command was Headquarters Squadron, Fleet Air Wing Eight. When I first met him in my office, I detected a very eager young lieutenant who was proud of his uniform and displayed a nervous desire to get to his new job assignment, which was as night maintenance officer, third shift.

We had a huge backlog of heavy maintenance checks to perform and a large flight schedule to maintain, in which we qualified pilots and crews for transpacific flights to Honolulu. Mr. Nixon assured me that there wouldn't be another officer or man in the squadron who would work harder or support our mission better than himself. His enthusiasm was over powering. He had something special to give, but I couldn't immediately determine what it was. In about three months, my engineering officer recommended that the third shift be terminated -- much to my sur prise. His explanation was that the young Lieut. Nixon had been so successful in performing, not through technical competence but through the sheer weight of enthusiastic leadership, that the night shift produced so well that they were even performing checks scheduled for the day shift!

Mr. Nixon's quiet leadership techniques took hold throughout the squadron. I am sure that his leadership qualities will stand all Americans in good stead these next four years.

P. F. BOYLE Captain, U.S.N. (ret.) A.P.O., San Francisco Housemaid's Plea

Sir: Your photographs of the backside! of the moon [Jan. 10] recalled an excursion into poetry, in the 19th century,| by the housemaid of Sir Edmund Gosse. After a moonlight evening in as English garden she presented to her master next; morning these immortal lines:

O moon, lovely moon, with thy beautiful face,

Careering throughout the boundaries of space,

Whenever I see thee, I think in my mind,

Shall I ever, oh ever, behold thy behind?

Sir Edmund seemed to think only that the housemaid was indelicate in her expression, and extravagant in her desire. Perhaps she was among the prophets. (The Rev.) ERNEST MARSHALL-HOWSE Toronto

Sir: The three astronauts, representatives of the Establishment reading Genesis while spinning in space, recording scientific data for the ages to come, with faith in God and their fellow scientists, show up the puerile nihilism and obscenity, the physical and mental shabbiness of our youthful dropouts like a bright light in a dank dungeon. Any hippie, yippie, card burner or other destructive zealot who reads your article and doesn't drop in to 1) a bathtub, 2) a barber shop and 3) an employment office, must be completely devoid of imagination and vision.

(MRS.) ANNE RIGGS OSBORNE Augusta, Ga.

Sir: It certainly is a commentary on our society to see that we feel free to send three men, by themselves, to the moon and back, but find it expedient to cover them with swarms of Secret Service agents when they ride down a main street of our largest city at high noon.

FREDRIC A. GRIMM JR. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Muskegon County Muskegon, Mich..

Ultimate Liberty

Sir: The tone of your recent article on the dangers of cholesterol [Jan. 10] shocked me. The ultimate civil liberty in a democratic society is the power over one's own life and death, and I cannot see why the Government should restrict cholesterol any more than it restricts equally "lethal" alcohol and tobacco. Let us have a program of education, by all means, but allow us to "choose our poison." You may have nicotine, and I'll take bacon and butter.

JOHN L. ROPIEQUET, '69 The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore

Two Against Many

Sir: After relishing sweet reviews of my play, God Is a (Guess What?) [Dec. 27] from eight of the major New York critics, your man's bitter but beautiful blast was refreshing. However, it reminds me of a story about George Bernard Shaw. After a curtain speech at the opening of one of his plays, Mr. Shaw was greeted with great applause by all of the audience save one man who expressed his opinion with a resounding "Boo!" G.B. looked up into the balcony where the dissenter sat. Then said he genially, "I heartily agree with you, my dear fellow; but who are we two against so many?"

But, truly, thank you very much for paying any attention to that trifle. It was "an honor that I dreamed not of."

ROY MclvER Atlanta

Novel Title

Sir: In your article "The Year of the Novel" [Jan. 3], the title of Doris Lessing's new novel was inaccurately reported as 7999. The title of Mrs. Lessing's book is--and always has been--The Four-Gated City.

ROBERT GOTTLIEB Editor in Chief

ALFRED A. KNOPF Publisher Manhattan

Mighty Mouse

Sir: In reference to your article, "Is This Any Way to Buy an Airline?" [Jan. 10]: Gentlemen, we are tired. If you have not been involved in a merger you cannot imagine the traumatic shock to the individual employee--the chaos and confusion in trying to standardize and produce a brand new product.

In 14 years I have had the opportunity to study most other airline operations, and we are no more inferior than quite a few I could mention. If fairness is your doctrine, you might mention the long hours put in by our executives; the patient humor and heroic efforts of pur ticket agents, operations and reservations staffs who have lived through this six-month nightmare--that is the real story.

Yes, we are having problems; no, we are not perfect, but my God, we're trying. And pardon us, Mr. Disney, but Mickey Mouse we are not!

M. JAY KEEPING Regional Sales Manager Air West Inc. Los Angeles

Welcome to Havana (Fla.)

Sir: When one of those nuts starts hollering "Havana! Havana!" aboard one of our airliners [Jan. 17], it doesn't necessarily have to go there.

Why not build a typical Hollywood set somewhere in Florida, with a nice 10,000-ft. airstrip and an air terminal with a big sign reading HABANA splashed across the front of it, staffed with a group of Miami Cubans making like Havana Cubans, guns and all? Our airliners could land there in confidence.

This would save a lot of time and trouble, and we could apprehend the hijackers every time--as their plane landed at Havana, Fla., U.S.A.

ED CASTILLO San Antonio

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.