What kind of adventure stories do you like?

Do you like comic books or are you a mystery story for that. Have you ever read the

Old Testament. Are you looking for second hand violence sex and status.

Are we people or property.

The Syrian people or puppet is produced by the Union Theological

Seminary of New York City in cooperation with the National Association

of educational broadcasters under a grant from the Education know television and

radio center on today's program and titled What kind of adventure stories do

you like.

You will hear the views in the voices of novelist Geoffrey Wagner and

Jimbo theologians Ralph and behold here these are the men who will

analyze some of the concepts created by our modern math and

compare them with our traditional religious values.

Here is the commentator for people or puppets.

The president of the Union Theological Seminary Dr. Henry Pitney the news

is the adventure story basic and essential as a kind of diversion

escape or a vicarious experience. Are we overdoing the

amounts of violence sex and sadism in our modern adventure stories.

The titles of a few Hollywood entries in the 1957 adventure

field may tell us something.

With the dog.

I would find an

incredible shrinking. Don't argue.

Three quarters of a billion comic books are printed and your

readership exceeds movie attendance figures in his

study parade of pleasure. Jeffrey Wagner reports.

It is estimated that Ninety eight percent of all boys and girls in the

USA read comic books between the ages of 18 to 0. Eighty

seven percent of all adolescent boys and 81 percent of all adolescent girls read

them also. Yet 41 percent of all male adults from the

ages of 18 to 30 are fans too. Comic books outsold

life and the Reader's Digest at army camps during the last war by 10 to 1.

A recent survey in a town in the Midwest reported that two thirds of comic book readers are

adult. Matty a menace in a brilliant article on the subject a New Republic

claims that and I quote. In one out of every four American

homes comic books are virtually the only reading matter.

The great majority of comic books are adventure story.

The following examples were chosen because they are typical infantrymen

engaged in hand to hand combat happened there is no ammunition.

Sorry but I am ready. I got

you.

You know respect. OK.

It is death to the tiger.

And show you can I can take your I got nothing

out of it.

One of the war comics are extremely popular. No American has ever killed him.

They are not as popular as the crime and horror comics crime

number 58 dedicated to the eradication of crime

begins with a story in which eight men on the side of justice are killed as

against one killer who in any case dies accidentally by his own hand

as do so many of these criminals. Walking into a target in this case.

For pictures and succession covering almost an entire paid show coppers

getting beaten up crime smashed number 30.

One of the so-called cool crime cops carrying a cover of a girl

being brutally gagged by a man her skirt around her thigh

opens with two well tested women shocked in the first three pictures.

A ballet dancer strangled her partner with the girl's own pigtails

out of a total of 38 pictures of this event.

The dancers understudy is suspected but she knocked out the detective with a dealer

who say.

After this convincing argument that the tech give get the right girl. Now

you will die in the gas chamber. My poor innocent

boy who slapped his nine women employees is burned alive in his

own sweat shop. The nine girls first putting him under a sewing

machine in sticking up his lips in a sickening series of pictures

accompanied by the text in private.

What do you think of such stories. Do they build a climate of acceptance.

What distinguishes the legitimate from the dangerous adventure story

is in the Old Testament filled with viciousness and violence these are the

questions our producer Philip asked of our guest authority.

Dr. Irwin Campbell. Author of the

family and community in Ireland the kind of bigger story and other studies in our

politics. Dr. Campbell is now a professor of education at the

College of Columbia University.

I do not view. The violence. And

sadistic behavior. In. The contemporary mass

media media as being examples of adventure. To

me this represents the sordidness. It

represents a deep basement of the human mind of the human

individual. It represents a kind

of attempt to sensationalize and thus to attract

or to pander to the lowest kind of.

Human emotions. Adventure is quite different.

And adventure is within the context

of the larger social definition which society has it seems

to me that the types. Of present patients to which you

refer. Are much more

evidences of individual variation of

individual apology and as a consequence

do not deserve the inclusion

within the concept of adventure.

Dr. Ro is an ordained congregation of in the grip

of ecumenical studies and director of the program of the religious studies

at the Union Theological Seminary.

There is something to this theory that there is build up

a climate of acceptance. I'm inclined to feel myself

that that has an insulating character about it that is

that children may be exposed to this so much

that they develop a sort of natural defense against it.

On the other hand this may be just wishful thinking. I'm afraid I

don't have any answer as to how we convince the producers of

this material that the flood of it is a real

disservice particularly to children.

Short of censorship which we are generally

inclined to be suspicious of.

I don't know how one can stem

this great tide of material.

I just express a certain hope that it

becomes a sort of cancellation of itself

that so much of it tends to lessen the effect

of any particular item.

Jeffrey Wagner a study on violence in our comic book already has been like

Geoffrey Wagner is a graduate of Oxford and lecturer to look at your City College of

New York and Columbia University. Is the author of the novel and

the parade of pleasure and Wyndham Lewis the art of

Vienna.

That you have so much work. It's illustrated in the book of creative

pleasure. You had to read a lot of these comic books. How did you feel

after reading your laggy number of that today.

Well many of them were very much the saneness to Gallup.

And.

I came to a conclusion which I I think I should have if I read it rewrote parade of

pleasure today in the light of three or four years later I would

make my emphasis a little bit more in this way that

I think the really dangerous and unpleasant ones where the battle

comics which you've illustrated that is the the ones which came out during the

Korean War battle Brady and so forth because there.

You have a distortion with reality. Which is really quite

dangerous and wrong. That is to say the crime does not pay comic at least

in the US as he grows older and more mature. Your child can see that this isn't ready

related to the physical world around him there aren't a mosque a man dashing in and out

of every building and he can test the pictorial representation temptation with

the extensional world. But you can't do that with these war comics the

children haven't seen this kind of thing and perhaps they think that you

do fight a war like this. There's no connected with it or you're just wrong to end and

massacre your enemies and I think if I was rewriting British rock I would really put my finger

on those as being much more dangerous and I believe they have been curbed Greece and.

Dr Perel care or worked out of the Holy Trinity Church in New York City for

25 years. You have large Brown professor of homiletic at the Union

Theological Seminary.

There's no doubt. There's such violence inside of them

in the movies in the comics on the TV screen nor most endless

paperback. Does create a climate of acceptance.

And both juvenile and adult delinquency witness do it.

But it does seem to me that adventure stories have their place.

I pick mine usually just enough to get what I'm pleased to call my mind out of it

squirrel cage. Now you may call that escape. It is

a trip to Miami as an escape and considerably more expensive.

But all this so-called literature. Is certainly a phenomenon of attention and

it's appalling allow aberration and or horror tales and bedlam as a philosophy.

In which work through it must be said usually kicks bite in the

teeth. Is that pandering to the lowest of

such instincts as the psychiatrist so willing to leave us if any.

Blame it on the school churches pulp industry whatever you

like but if the homes and schools and churches do not take up

the crusade in downright earnest and soon. I think by the

way they have made a good beginning. Then we're headed for

more of the same. And I don't like to think of walk on the

heels of it.

Now the Old Testament. There's a lot of violence in there. Brothers

fight brothers in. What is essentially the difference between this

kind of violence that's in the Old Testament and some of the things that die listeners

heard me early part of the program.

Well they have been called here the

climate and framework in which that violence stands in the Old

Testament is the climate really of.

God's redemptive. Act.

That is the Old Testament is the story of God's salvation. That's what it

is primarily it's not primarily as a character.

The greatest galaxy of roads in the world has ever seen.

Moses was a murderer. David we're

going Dogra go back a little bit. Certainly jack up with a cheat.

No way why not a bit of it.

And the violence that emerges is always over again.

This redeeming the will of God which is fear in human life

there is a profound realisation of this fact that

God is jealous not Korea's own glory but for

your sake and my sake that we give not ourselves over

to all kinds of idolatry the worship of false gods and the rest. This

is jealousy. And it expresses itself in violent terms in the Old Testament.

Now is not the violence you see that is the significant thing so much as it

is man's understanding violent

rock which God displays toward evil.

Unfortunately the Old Testament many of its level doesn't

stand with the New Testament stands and

the prescription on the level of the Old Testament is destruction.

Not so in the New Testament the New Testament has thrown an entirely different

light on that situation so that one cannot act any

longer in the way in which man acted in the Old Testament as they thought

they were obeying the will of God.

Nor can one act as man acted it seems to me in the Inquisition thinking that they

obeyed the will of God. That is something that stands over against it all

and that is this Christ with His Word. What I am

and the revelation of the will of God made through him conquers

every last bit of it.

I followed up doctors share his views with our social anthropologist Dr. Solon

Campbell. What about the Bible that's full of a lot of activity.

Is this an adventure story.

Where many peoples of the world the bible is a sacred document in which.

To utilize or rather to apply the term adventure is perhaps

to take away some of the quality of it. So

spirituality. I don't think it's necessary

however. To do this. If we do consider

that many of the accounts which occur in the Bible. Are.

Adventures of the highest order. The plight

of the Jews from Egypt. It is an example. Of the

kind of epic event in the history of a people.

Which in its. Tail. Forms

adventure of the highest order. Furthermore it falls

within the general concept of what I have attempted to present here

that true adventure gives expression to

human values and human frailties the human courage

and invests than the Bible could certainly be viewed as

containing many episodes which are

counted within the realm of high or great adventure.

Dr. Hislop I'm wondering if I asked you why.

You did not like comic book stories assuming you didn't already average

so-call adult westerns and which a hero is always a hero of the

Mickey Spillane story in which not only assurance but it's just a ruthless sort of.

Unrelated vengeance without any kind of questioning at all. Is

this a major difference between the good and the bad adventure

story. This anxiety or questioning within the individual what I do

think the meaning of what I would think of as

realistic and basic

human values.

This is very important. And my

dislike for much of the thing that you mention

is as you suggest based on the fact that. These

people are incomplete as human beings in the

Mickey splain stories. I have read a couple of them.

There seems to be no real human compassion.

And no sense of responsibility

for human life and in the comic books

though I think they differ a great deal. There is this tendency

also to lose the reality of

human values. I think the. I'm not

too inclined to make moral judgements concerning

adventure stories or themes because I

think that. Any attempt to over

emphasize moral values probably destroys the.

The real effect of the story but I am inclined to feel that

the right kind of adventure story should

provide both a scape and some kind

of representation of the values

that are worthwhile in a person's own life. To

put it in terms of an exact instance

and again I go back to my interest in the Hornblower stories when

he is compelled as he naturally is as a naval

commander. To take the life of the enemy

there's a real sense of contrition about it and

the tragedy in which he is involved. And this doesn't destroy the

story. He goes ahead and and does with great

effect what he has to do. But it doesn't leave you

Harley free from the questions that we ought to

raise about war even though war is

adventurous and I think that this is an important element

in the adventure tales. I find myself very much

involved in these stories and if it comes to the

point of my identifying myself as I think we tend to do with a

central character. I just wonder what happens to my values if

this character himself. Has really no concern about

human rights.

Final word among our guest authorities I turned to the man who has made an extensive study in this

area novelist scholar Jeffrey Wagner in the spin lane

fiction such as I discussed fairly fully at the end of my book parade of

pleasure.

It's very evident that for the majority of those books the forces of law and

ethical conduct can stand they're absolutely despised

hamma is constantly making the remarks such as why give these fellows the

decency of a trial. To hell with the democratic process of courts in order they

know all they understand is a strong right. And the policemen are really cute.

At a completely unoccupied set up as prevails and I think that when your

escape slips over into that kind of. Evaluation then I feel so

bad.

Do you know of any such literature was popular use the

word literary plane. In Germany.

There is there anything that might show historically a relationship between this attitude

and what actually happens to a society.

So I would think there's a very definite correlation Sigfried Krakauer his book from

Caligari to Hitler shows precisely. That kind

of. Tendency on the screen that is to have a sort of

private justice rather than the police justice which

is racially and of course on the national level represented by hit

who comes forward as a private just as of on the individual level that's your that's your

spilling my camera hero saying To hell with any rules.

And I think that's of course very dangerous.

What distinguishes the legitimate from the dangerous type of

adventure a story that we've been talking about. The question

that you lost in this to go on a more simple level by saying well what's the difference between the

Mike Hammer story and any of Shakespeare's tragedies written between say 16 1 and

16 5 in which the the stage is just littered with corpses.

Nobody lives practically bloodbath to go on men have their eyes

put out. Women are sadistic and

so forth. Well I suppose the answer is that the

intention behind these works is quite different and that over in a

Shakespeare tragedy all the physical world may be completely disintegrated

Nevertheless you're left uplifted there is a strong feeling of

moral value behind the whole thing. You go out of the the.

The theater uplifted although everybody else may die

and called you die. Nevertheless their values live on what they've stood for lives on

and in the case of the Comic Book Of course there are no values to live on

the books. The story just ends when people die everybody dies a thing comes to an

end. Read it in very large then. I course think this is very.

True the written word which I think is one of my hobby horses I feel is

very. Much linked with morality because I think that literature is to some extent

a repository of morality I mean it's a sort of a test of behavior almost And

that's why I think it's very important for study not simply to get certain stories

out of it but because in a whole systematic study of literature we get

the relationships of man to his society what he should and should not do.

Tragedies when there are certain conflicts between the two and

so forth which ought to guide us. And I live.

An hour of commentary on today's program. Here is the Roosevelt professor of systematic

theology and the president of Union Theological Seminary Dr. Henry Pitney been

doing.

We start with the astounding fact. That almost everyone likes

adventure and mystery tales of some grown not simply young

people or simpletons. The addiction of some of the ablest and

finest minds to detective fiction is

well known and apparently such reading performs a valuable

function not merely a diversion but also a catharsis.

Then we face the added bafflement of the prevalence of horror elements in the

world's greatest literature. Notably the Bible and Shakespeare.

We cannot test such literature by whether it has a moral outcome

in much of the best of it. As in life virtue does not triumph.

We cannot put the test of credibility. Often the more absurd it is the more

enjoyable and refreshing the test of a literary wave is on a

higher plane. But even that is hardly definitive. All

tests appear to fail us. What then can we say to

these things. The intention of a particular work is

one criterion. If it deliberately and maliciously aims to

pander to the crass and cruel the sensual and vicious.

It is going down. Again. The aid and moral

majority of the reader has much to say as to its Probable Influence.

We require no statistical proof. That the great bulk of comic books are doing

our younger generation no good and something desperately needs to be done

about them. This points to perhaps the one sure and

significant conclusion. The only SECAM safeguard.

Against the demoralizing effect of the portrayal of evil even in the

Bible or Shakespeare is strong positive moral

character. As with every other influence which may conceivably

undermine like temptation and seduction of all crimes

the ultimate bulwark as whatsoever is true

whatsoever is honorable. Whatsoever is just. Whatsoever is

pure. Whatsoever is lovely. Whatsoever is gracious.

Think on these things.

That was Dr. Henry Patton even in the president of the Union Theological Seminary and the

commentator Paul this series of people or puppets.

Next week at this same time people or puppets will bring you an authoritative

analysis and dramatic presentation on popular pain tragedy

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I guess authorities discussing this topic will be psychoanalysts early LUMAS you

and your apologist stolen them both but also begin to bark. The

yellowed Facebook and duck of India as people or puppet is written.

Moderated and directed by Philip Galbraith or the Union Theological Seminary in

New York City. Executive producer of the seminary professor John

W. Buckley.

Music by Alfred Brooks.

Your announcer Dean Lyman Armed with this series is made possible by a grant from the

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