Stephen Oberbeck

Mr. Oberbeck is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner, on leave from Newsweek, Inc. This article may be published, with credit to S. K. Oberbeck and the Alicia Patterson Fund. Marciana Marina, Isola D’Elba—I read the news today, oh boy! Not today, actually, but recently: John Lindsay has lost the primary in New York. He says he was defeated by “fear” and “hate.” Later, he says he is for a coalition government. “If you’ll have coalition government in Now York, then why not in Paris at the peace table,” quips an English tourist over coffee. Ho, ho, ho. Harold Wilson hasn’t been doing so well with the trade unions, and the Englishman is trying to stick me for the after-dinner brandy. I am very glum, because I think I know what the media will make of the attractive John Lindsay’s defeat. They will weep along with him. Not, thy will be done, O common herd, but: how can we circumvent the know-nothings? But Lindsay’s success or failure is secondary to the apparent problems of race

Mr. Oberbeck is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner, on leave from Newsweek, Inc. This article may be published, with credit to S. K. Oberbeck and the Alicia Patterson Fund. Marciana Marina, Isola D’Elba—The part that media play in the twin currents of revolution and reaction now swirling in the United States is a phenomenon missed by many Europeans. They have not yet experienced the problems that go with proliferating media forms as we have in America. The impact of electronic media was felt clearly in France during the riots of last spring. The recent French elections depended heavily on T.V. The same things are true in Germany, the Scandinavian countries and Italy to a lesser extent. T.V., and more importantly radio, played a decisive part in the resistance of the Czechs during the Warsaw Pact invasion. There can be little doubt that, as Europe has been eagerly soaking up American methods of management and marketing, she will likewise adopt the manners and methods of our media especially in politics and news reporting. This will

Marciana Marina, Isola D’Elba—It might be well to begin with some words of writer/critic Kenneth Tynan, written in April of 1967 after a trip to Czechoslovakia: “The Hungarians showed their hand too soon, and were savagely slapped down. The Poles embarked shortly afterward on an artistic insurrection that had its moments of glory on stage and screen but before long the authorities flexed their muscles and it was safely quelled. “The Czechs were biding their time,” Tynan continued. “Historically, their culture had always looked westward, and they waited until Soviet policy had decisively turned its face toward a reconciliation with the West. Then—and only then—the Czech artists began to raise their voices, secure in the knowledge that the days were past when retributive Russian tanks might rumble through the streets of Prafrue.” Most people felt about like the Czech artists and Tynan did: the world was changing, the Soviets were mellowing, the moment to start some long-needed reforms had arrived. I never got to Prague during the intoxicating period of its “Spring,” when the wine

Lausanne, Switzerland—There is a comfortable symbolism in rioting college students storming the school’s computer center and wrecking one of its expensive machines. This has happened in several North American institutions. The symbolism is comfortable for journalists; uncomfortable for college deans. The students recognize that the computer epitomizes what they protest so shrilly: power, impersonality, mechanization, a trend towards reading the individual out of the system. You can’t fight city hall when city hall has retreated into the storage units of a computer bank. And there is small satisfaction in battling the endless ranks of the megaversity’s punch cards. These feelings are not necessarily true, or even realistic, but our world’s events are not yet rooted in man’s rationalism and potentiality for perfection on which the Future Businessmen base so much of their prophecy and policy. Backtrack “The Future Business: I” closed with a disconcerting number of questions. Before touching on the subjects of instincts and faith, a few responses are braved below: If anything like 5% of society ends up formulating ultimate policy in the

“Technology is governed by scientific principles, some of which are understood…”—Sir George Thomson Lausanne, Switzerland—The Future Business (FB) is not telling it like it is, but how it’s likely to be—if everyone cooperates. It grows daily in importance and prominence. It is vastly comprehensive and often mysterious. It deals in words and concepts that seem almost magical. It changes the pattern of our lives daily. Today, its focus is on the Aladdin’s cave of Science and Technology, where presiding genies show us treasure beyond belief. But the dazzle of tomorrow’s glittering means can blind one to the ultimate ends such treasures might also bring. Then, too, judging from any of today’s news, there seems to be some sort of Parkinson’s Law involved in this FB: as rosier futures are forecast, a host of unforeseen troubles seems to “fill in” the present. The vision of tomorrow’s orderly progress is flawed by today’s chaos. There are questions we would like to ask the genies before they slip back into their bottles. But the future beckons. Will we