Sedatives or Solutions
Project Commitment II
November 17, 1971

Mr. Gipson, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Baxter, and fellow "“do-gooders" of Tippecanoe
County: Project Commitment II is at an end, and—all things considered it has
been a remarkable experience. It has demonstrated that within the fabric of
our society there is a substantial number of people from all stations in life
who care about their fellow man, and who are willing to devote six evenings to
the discussion of, first—prejudice and racism — and now justice. But this even-
ing, as we conclude our deliberations, one question remains to be asked, one

devastatingly ultimate kind of question; namely, "So What?"
It was asked last night on the editorial page of the Journal-—Courier:
gently, to be sure — but neverthcless — "now what?" where do we go from here?"

I think there is validity in talk: especially the kind of talk that occurs
around the tables at Project Commitment. Hopefully it makes us sensitive to
how the world looks to people who are different from us, racially, socially,
economically. That's good. And yet if our talk has been an end it itself,
our time has been poorly spent. In fact, talk can sometimes be a sedative—
talking about a problem can be one of the ways I avoid seeking a solution.

So ~ this evening we come to a turning point: a time for the talking to stop
and the work to begin. And upon the results of this evening hangs the entire
validity of the entire project.

Our theme is, appropriately "Justice in Action". Ahat does it mean?

You have spent five sessions talking about justice within the perimeters of
five different social institutions. And I would guess that you are every bit
as hard presaed to define justice now as you were at the beginning. Justice

is one of those words that does not lend itself to easy definition. What is
justice in acrion? That depends very much on who you're asking. Obviously,

to the administrators of Attica prison, and to the inmates of that institution,
Justice means two different things. What is Justice for the criminal?

Is it punishment? Is it rehabilatation? What is justice for the poor, the
young, the black, the American Indian? I+ depends on who you ask. In the
classic Billy.Budd, Herman Melville sets out the problem with relative defini-
tions of justice. Young Billy, a tongue-tied boy aboard ship, was unfairly
accused of helping to plot a mutiny. Finally after endless provocation Billy
struck his accuser and the blow accidently killed him. Everybody knew that the
death was accidental - and the ship's officers were ready to acquit Billy of
any crime. But then, the captain, a stern disciplinarian, convinced them that
their duty was stringently +o apply the articles of war particularly that pro=
vision regarding the striking of a superior officer. So they hanged Billy.

The law was obeyed. Justice was served. Or was it?

That's the whole problem with justice. It all depends on who'se ad-
ministering it, and behind that, who defined it in the first place. And you
and I have a whole lot of trouble nailing it down. The multi-media presentation
which began our series of meetings was cloquent at this point. If my memory
serves me correctly, there wore very few people who seemed to know what justice
is. And more significantly there were very few people who thought that the
Court House was the symbol of justice in our community.

Well, perhaps it can't be defined. Perhaps the best we can do with the
word justice is what the late Hugo Black did with the word pornography. He
said he couldn't define it, but he knew it when he saw it. Perhaps justice
goes so dceply to the heart of what it means to be human that we can't ever
eonfine it to verbal definition. Perhaps all we have is the visceral feeling
that it isn't happening in certain situations.

And yet, we're not just playing intellectual games here. Justice is
defined for us ~— not academically or theoretically — but personally, by a great

wea es
debate I hear raging is blissfully ignorant of the facts and instead depends on
platitudes and stcrcotypes. Welfare recipients are not lazy. telfare recipicnts
are not getting rich at the expense of the tax payer. There is a valid debato
about the effectivencss of the system-to-do what it was intended. But that
debate rarely takes placc. Knowledge is the answer herc-—cold hard facts—who'se
on welfare and how much they're getting. snd to participate in the debate de-
mands that we, at least know what we're talking about. If it's Justice we're
after - and if love has anything to do with Justice, wo must begin to sce people
as people-not categorics, statistics or social problems. We've screamed at cach
other long enough in worm out stercotypes. Policemen are not pigs: ADC mothers
are not lazy: Colonels are not fascists: Blacks are not dirty: students are not
revolutionaries: But, they are all people.

Second, to get involved in my neighbor's justice demands toughness, tenacity,
courage. Our numbers are not great compared to the population of our community.
And to expect that a social revolution will occur because we're here tonight is
naive. To get involved means to be ready to accept defeat time and time again.
It means to live in the valley of discouragement when it secms as if no one
really cares. It moans, and this is perhaps hardest of all, to live with the
cynicism of others. JI addressed you initially as "do -— gooders" and I meant that.
People like you and me are known sometimes as “blecding—hearts" as “do-gooders?
and the intent of that description is that somchow we aren't with it, that
we're trouble makers, that we're naive and not tuned in‘to the real decision making
criteria of our culture. That hurts - the scorn end derision of important people
hurts down deep where we live. Ao be it. Jet's muster the courage to withstand
that scorn, and instead of flinching at the epitaph "do-gooder" -— let's wear
it with pride.

Third — altruism. To be involved in my neighbor's justice means that on
a deep personal level, religious - if you will, I must come to see that neighbor
as a person of worth and dignity. We are in the midst of a revolution in our
culture - and one thing that scems to be emerging is a rediscovery of the beauty
and value of the individual human life.

"Everything is beautiful, in it's own way" the popular song puts it. find
before that Albert Camus said it poetically: "There is in this world beauty,
and there are the humiliated; and we mst strive, hard as it id, not to be un-

1 neither to the one nor to the other’ We need a vision—a lofty ideal-
and I would suggest that there is none lofticr than the intrinsic worth of
every human being.

Our neighbors are in need. People all around us are hurting and bleeding
in ways that we have beon discussing for several weeks. And now wo nust make
answer to the simple but profound question, “So What?

We can go from this place this evening on one of two roads. One of them
is called sedatives: the other solutions. The word scdative is a medical term
for a drug that relieves pain or irritation. The root word is sedate; and one
of Webster's definitions of scdate is ‘uninfluenced by that which desturbs®
Project Commitment has been designed to disturb and hopefully it has succeeded.
To remedy our disturbance we can seck a sedative: we can return to the never—
never land of television every evening and business as usual every day. We can
be sedated by the illusion tkat our prohinms will solve themselves if we ignore
them long enough. We can roturn to the apathy that has come to characterize
middle class America, William Sloane Coffin, talking to the graduating class
at Harvard put it this way: "I think passivity is the chief neurosis of America.
By this I mcan the way we tend to allow socicty to make our significient choices
for us, and reserve for ourselves only the inconsequential ones. The result is
that the average Amcrican is now a Hamlet in a supermarket: to buy or not to
buy, that is the question".

One road is called scdatives - and it leads away from the all the probloms-—
all the hurting people ~ all the complex issues - it is the way of case and com—
fort and respectability. I+ is also, I would suggest, the way you and I may