Samuel D. Cook - "Do We Really Believe in the Value and Dignity of the Human Person?" (October 11, 1970)

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	(choir singing)	0:38
	(upbeat organ music)	2:20
	(energetic organ music)	3:39
	(choir singing)	4:22
	(lively organ music)	4:39
	(gentle organ music)	5:37
	(choir singing)	5:39
	(choir singing)	5:49
	(choir singing)	6:01
	(energetic organ music)
-	All of us are in need of being made acceptable	6:20
	as we come before the presence of God,	6:23
	by reason of our imperfections	6:27
	and those things in our lives, which make us unworthy.	6:30
	The way we become acceptable to God	6:35
	is to acknowledge our need of his forgiveness,	6:38
	to acknowledge the fact that we are unworthy people	6:42
	and that we need to have a healthy relationship	6:46
	to our heavenly father.	6:50
	May we therefore unite our hearts and our voices	6:53
	and our unison prayer of confession and for pardon.	6:57
	Let us pray.	7:00
	Most merciful, heavenly father,	7:02
	we have done a little too advanced that I kingdom on earth	7:05
	to cultivate a true brotherhood of man or to live by love.	7:08
	We have allowed selfishness and crudeness to blind us.	7:13
	We have sucked holidays from the	7:17
	ethical principles of Christ.	7:19
	We have tried to believe that we could so evil	7:22
	and not reap evil. Forgive our sinful stupidity, oh God.	7:24
	And restore us to righteousness in Jesus Christ.	7:29
	Amen.	7:34
	The scriptures say to us and to all man,	7:37
	that as far as the east is from the west so far,	7:40
	has he removed our transgressions from us.	7:44
	Amen.	7:49
	(organ music)	7:52
	(choir singing)	9:06
	(choir singing)	10:38
	And do not fear those who kill the body,	12:19
	but cannot kill the soul.	12:21
	Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.	12:23
	I'm not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them	12:27
	will fall to the ground without your father's will.	12:31
	But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.	12:34
	Fear not therefor you all have more value	12:38
	than many sparrows. Matthew 10:28-31.	12:41
	(organ music)	12:50
	(choir singing)	12:56
	(energetic organ music)	13:12
	(choir singing)
-	The Lord be with you.	13:30
	Let us pray.	13:33
	All mighty God by whose wisdom the earth was founded.	13:42
	And the heavens established	13:46
	now has taught us that wisdom	13:49
	is more precious than rubies.	13:51
	That it is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon it.	13:54
	We therefore gather here,	13:59
	do now pause to give these thanks	14:02
	that the founders of the church	14:05
	and of the university	14:06
	fulfill their obligation to impart the treasures of faith	14:09
	and knowledge to succeeding generations,	14:12
	and that they gave us a place whereby searching wisdom	14:16
	and faith may be found.	14:22
	We thank thee that by their planning and sacrifice,	14:25
	we have come into a great inheritance of truth.	14:29
	We thank the specifically that we can go to the library	14:35
	and check out a book and read it, study it,	14:39
	and know the truth, the facts, the knowledge, the wisdom,	14:44
	which the author has labored	14:49
	and put into that book.	14:52
	And that we can check out another book,	14:56
	and yet another and another.	14:58
	2 million of them.	15:00
	Oh Lord, we have been blessed.	15:04
	We thank the for teachers who can help us to understand	15:08
	these books and more than what is in books,	15:10
	but we thank the old God that thou are personally the	15:17
	fountain of all truth,	15:21
	whether the truth of biology or the truth of theology.	15:24
	And we are delighted that we are free to learn any	15:29
	and all truth without being afraid	15:34
	that this truth or that truth will be irreverent	15:37
	because now art, the author of all truth,	15:42
	we thank for you God	15:47
	or enough uncertainty about what is	15:50
	going to happen tomorrow,	15:53
	so that we can greet each day with	15:55
	fresh expectation.	15:58
	But we thank thee for enough certainty	16:02
	about they providential care of the future	16:04
	so that we can face the future with faith and with hope.	16:08
	Our heavenly father,	16:18
	we offer under the, our intersessions or our fellow man,	16:19
	we pray for all sorts and conditions of people,	16:26
	those whom we know, and those whom we have never seen,	16:30
	never shall meet in this life,	16:33
	but who are also the objects of thy love and care	16:36
	and who therefore have a claim	16:41
	upon our concern and our prayers.	16:42
	We thank to the,	16:47
	that we can come to the end prayer for them,	16:48
	knowing that I love of them as far greater than ours.	16:52
	And so we pray for the wives and the children,	16:58
	parents, the brothers, and the sisters	17:01
	of all who have been killed in Vietnam,	17:04
	whether of our nation or of any other nation.	17:09
	We pray for those who are still alive,	17:14
	that they may remain alive.	17:18
	We pray the two so work in the hearts of all men,	17:23
	that the hostilities, the killing, the hatred,	17:29
	they come to a swift end.	17:33
	Our father, we pray for the alcoholics,	17:39
	for the members of their family, of their employers,	17:45
	those who meet them on the highways	17:50
	or the drug addicts,	17:56
	and those about to become addicted to drugs	17:58
	that they may have wisdom and grace to be wise.	18:03
	We pray for those who,	18:11
	because of decisions they have made or have not made,	18:12
	have now lost their self-respect.	18:15
	Grant that they made through thy grace,	18:20
	and through thy support regain the respect of themselves.	18:24
	We pray for those who are confused by unexpected situations.	18:32
	Those who are confused by unwanted temptations,	18:37
	we intercede for those who are so sick,	18:44
	that they oppose all social change.	18:47
	For those who are so sick,	18:51
	that they feel they must destroy society.	18:54
	May all sick people find health in the.	18:59
	We pray for those who have not yet found anything to worship	19:06
	greater than themselves.	19:10
	Granted, they may get a vision of the, of Jesus Christ.	19:14
	Oh Lord. There are so many people for whom we should pray.	19:21
	Those who are overworked,	19:27
	those who have more responsibility on their shoulders	19:30
	than can be discharged by any one person	19:33
	and yet who are expected to fulfill	19:36
	those responsibilities regardless.	19:38
	Give them grace to be faithful	19:42
	and to forgive those who put	19:45
	too much responsibility on them.	19:47
	We pray for those who are poor	19:51
	and therefore whose ideas are not listened to	19:54
	because their financial weight is not impressive.	19:58
	We pray for those who are discriminated against	20:04
	because they are wealthy.	20:06
	Whose dedicated labor and sacrifice are seldom appreciated	20:10
	because of our blind prejudice against anybody	20:14
	who has more of this world's goods than we have.	20:17
	Grant them grace, to forgive us.	20:21
	The patience to continue their dedicated labors.	20:24
	Oh, God help all of us to be less critical of others	20:29
	and more critical of ourselves, less prone to generalize,	20:32
	more inclined to be helpful.	20:37
	Oh God, we are in need of prayer ourselves.	20:44
	Keep us from assuming that this year is going to be just	20:52
	like every other year.	20:58
	Keep us from presuming that our professors	21:02
	are supposed to do for us,	21:06
	what we should do for ourselves.	21:08
	Keep us from getting preoccupied with things	21:13
	that are of surface value	21:19
	and not of intrinsic and internal value.	21:21
	Oh God.	21:26
	As we think of thy son, Jesus Christ,	21:27
	and of his dedication and his courage.	21:32
	We know that he had the courage to commit	21:37
	his spirit under the,	21:40
	and we wonder how fully	21:43
	or completely we have ever done that ourselves.	21:44
	Or even if we actually did it at some time in the past,	21:49
	how much of that commitment has eroded away	21:53
	between then and now.	21:55
	How much of that commitment has not been explored	21:59
	in terms of its meaning or society.	22:02
	Help us to face our own predicament.	22:07
	Squarely and honestly,	22:09
	in this hour of worship.	22:10
	To see our escapes and dodges for what they are,	22:13
	and to understand the selfishness	22:15
	behind our rationalizations	22:17
	and to acknowledge with new candor,	22:20
	how uncommitted our spirits are,	22:22
	but how committed they must be.	22:25
	If our lives finally are to have any meaning,	22:28
	We make this prayer in the name of him	22:34
	who has taught us that better prayer to say,	22:36
	when we pray our father who art in heaven,	22:40
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	22:44
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	22:48
	Give us this day, our daily bread.	22:52
	Forgive us, our trespasses	22:55
	as we forgive those who trespass against us,	22:57
	and lead us not into temptation,	23:01
	but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom	23:03
	and the power and the glory forever.	23:07
	Amen.	23:11
-	My dear friend, Dr. Wilkinson	23:34
	and my other friend, the duke.	23:38
	Perhaps you'll understand how the delighted my wife	23:42
	and I are to be in your presence again.	23:45
	Thanks for all your sense of community.	23:49
	We are delight to be home again.	23:52
	No age said Heidegger	23:59
	has known so much and so many different things	24:02
	about man as our own.	24:07
	Yet no age has known so little about what man is.	24:11
	A new principle of Western culture	24:19
	is that our belief in the dignity	24:24
	and value of a human person.	24:27
	It is a belief that is old,	24:32
	but ever young.	24:34
	Conservative,	24:37
	but revolutionary.	24:38
	Liberal, but radical.	24:40
	Progressive, but expressive of the deepest longing	24:44
	of the human heart and spirit.	24:48
	The most relevant to the human condition is not necessarily	24:52
	the newest, nor that of the widest currently.	24:58
	Now, belief in the value and dignity of a human person	25:04
	is one that is honored more in breach	25:10
	than in observance.	25:13
	Most of us pay lip service to it.	25:16
	Few of us take it seriously,	25:19
	a few of us to make it a part of our being	25:22
	in the daily encounters of life.	25:25
	One thinks our own,	25:31
	Something Camus said about	25:33
	giving generosity and justice to the dead,	25:38
	but do you know why we always more joshed and generous	25:43
	towards the dead, asked Camus,	25:48
	the reason this simple.	25:52
	With them, there is no obligation.	25:55
	They leave us free and we can take our time.	25:59
	Fit the testimonial in between a cocktail party	26:04
	and a nice mistress.	26:08
	In our spare time.	26:11
	In short.	26:13
	In a sermon's priest enlist chapel on September 27th,	26:16
	the reverend Dr. Wilkinson asserted	26:22
	that in terms of actions,	26:27
	the actual encounters of life,	26:30
	Christians, are	26:33
	and I've always been a Monarch.	26:35
	John's by that same standard.	26:39
	Those of us committed to believe in the value,	26:41
	and dignity of the human person	26:45
	and an infinite of tests (mumbles).	26:49
	Abstract fidelity, is no fidelity at all.	26:53
	For it costs us nothing.	26:58
	It generates and nourishes, no restraints.	27:01
	It imposes no concrete obligations.	27:05
	The vast majority of us have selected particular	27:10
	realistic and exclusive views of the value and dignity	27:15
	of the human person.	27:21
	We made belief in the value of the human person,	27:24
	a function of income, social status, race,	27:27
	and other forms of power.	27:32
	We affirm the dignity and value of this man or group.	27:35
	And we deny the dignity and value of that man, or group.	27:41
	The proof of our beliefs is not in our professions,	27:47
	but in our actions, not in our creeks, but in our beings.	27:52
	We tend to respect the value and dignity of man as person	27:59
	only when it is convenient, self-serving, or in quote,	28:05
	"Prudent or practical."	28:12
	Now, what is the meaning of	28:16
	the value and dignity of a human person?	28:17
	Is a proposition about self being,	28:22
	about self containment on the deepest level of life.	28:24
	It is to assert	28:30
	that the solitary individual	28:31
	is an intrinsic residency of meaning,	28:34
	and worthwhile ness.	28:37
	Independent station,	28:39
	achievements, social processes and evaluations	28:41
	and institutional configurations.	28:45
	The doctrine of human dignity and worries	28:48
	points to a level of meaning and being	28:52
	beyond historical calculations.	28:56
	Beyond our acts of good and evil beyond our utility,	28:59
	beyond our moral ambiguities, human dignity is what is left.	29:03
	When man has been stripped of all	29:11
	that on which he is strippable.	29:13
	when he has been reduced to his irreducible minimum,	29:15
	the essential self is that quality	29:19
	or essence, which remains	29:20
	when the human person is naked	29:26
	before the all tell being itself.	29:28
	Is that which stands when all else has fallen.	29:31
	For human dignity and value are written in the constitution,	29:37
	of the universe,	29:41
	the very nature of things.	29:43
	Here's the prime old ethical ground	29:46
	on which we all stand as level.	29:49
	There are no hills, and no violence.	29:52
	We are all on the mountain top of human dignity	29:54
	and worries.	29:58
	Well, there are no elect, and no condemned, no high,	30:00
	no low, no masters and no servants.	30:02
	No whites, and no blacks.	30:06
	No privileged and no deprived.	30:09
	No rich, and no poor.	30:11
	No celebrity.	30:14
	The ground on which we stand is level.	30:17
	We are all just persons, just simply human beings.	30:21
	Our value as person therefore	30:27
	is general, but unique.	30:33
	Common to all, but special.	30:34
	Universal, but particular.	30:36
	Inclusive, but exclusive.	30:37
	Human, but divine.	30:39
	But to achieve moral requirement,	30:42
	it's universal respect for human beings.	30:45
	When we treat man and our daily encounters	30:47
	as ends of themselves. And not as me.	30:52
	As Con put it, in his categorical in Paris.	30:58
	So ask to treat humanity whether in your own person	31:03
	or in that of any other.	31:07
	In whatever it takes as an end	31:10
	and never as merely a means.	31:15
	Now the intellectual and spiritual sources,	31:20
	I believe in the,	31:22
	worth and value of a human person are million.	31:23
	Various systems of philosophy have elaborated	31:30
	the meaning and structure of this belief.	31:32
	What Christianity, like Judaism,	31:36
	has the great virtue of grounding,	31:39
	the dignity and value of the human person	31:44
	in the transcendent realm, beyond the space, time continuum,	31:49
	anterior to when independent all the relativizes	31:55
	and contingencies of existence beyond the flux and flow	31:59
	of historical phenomena.	32:05
	Christianity anchors	32:08
	the value and dignity of the human person.	32:10
	In the untold logical rail	32:13
	in the character or being itself.	32:17
	According to the Christian faith,	32:22
	the worry about value and dignity of the human person	32:26
	are rooted in the creative and redemptive love of God.	32:32
	(mumbles)	32:40
	It's not to be found by looking at him.	32:44
	But by looking at his creator.	32:48
	Men therefor are not required	32:51
	to merit that value and dignity,	32:53
	they inherit them.	32:56
	They all presuppositions of what it means to be human	32:58
	and what it means to be a child of God.	33:02
	Thus man, dignity is thy received.	33:06
	Dignity. It is a gift of him.	33:09
	The dignity of man is conferred. His worth is bestowed.	33:12
	Says that God	33:19
	the creator does not create humanity,	33:20
	but he creates each individual separately.	33:23
	He has called the by name.	33:27
	He knows you personally,	33:31
	especially as you are not an example, but a person,	33:33
	a self which cannot be exchanged for any other.	33:39
	Thus, we are not creatures of mass-production,	33:44
	or the craving for expanded technological efficiency.	33:47
	Ah, the product off and obsession with increasingly	33:54
	cost making equivalent of the GNP.	33:58
	Qualitative and unity in consideration to	34:01
	govern our creation,	34:03
	and they call us by name.	34:07
	Not nearly Howard,	34:09
	but Howard Wilkinson.	34:11
	Not nearly Silia,	34:14
	but Silia Fields.	34:16
	He call us by name.	34:19
	To be a person is to have a name.	34:23
	Individuality means in essence,	34:26
	that we know our name.	34:30
	What is a human person anyway?	34:35
	What is the difference between a person and a thing?	34:38
	It is impossible to think deeply of the human person without	34:43
	a profound sense of awe and wonder.	34:47
	To begin with,	34:51
	a person is an awesome unity of mystery,	34:52
	meaning and infinite possibility,	34:55
	but he's an ultimate mystery about the human person.	35:00
	After reason has exhausted his labor of analysis,	35:03
	explanation, and evaluation.	35:08
	That is always a call called mystery,	35:11
	and wish the human person is shrouded	35:16
	some elusive quality.	35:19
	Some element that is defiant of rational intelligibility.	35:23
	A person of calling possesses self-consciousness,	35:30
	self knowledge, self identity.	35:33
	A person said is also capable of self transcendence,	35:37
	he can stand outside himself and make him serve	35:41
	an object of knowledge.	35:44
	Therefore becoming subject of knowledge.	35:45
	Knowing and known, creator and creature.	35:47
	By the moral and intellectual autonomy and	35:53
	authenticity about the human person,	35:56
	a radical freedom about man.	36:01
	A freedom which stands above,	36:05
	and in a sense defines all the structures of life.	36:07
	Person hood is a given of existence.	36:14
	One does not, one cannot prove one's humanity.	36:17
	Personhood is a qualitative category	36:23
	rather than a quantitative one.	36:26
	It is incommensurable and beyond quantification.	36:29
	One cannot be more or less of a person than another.	36:33
	To fail to appreciate the equal selfhood of another.	36:40
	Is in the end	36:45
	to fail to appreciate the full dimensions	36:46
	of our own self worth.	36:49
	In contemporary American culture,	36:52
	there are several major forces militating	36:54
	against the dignity and worth of the human person.	36:57
	Into mind, quickly calm	37:02
	blind and insidious technological forces,	37:04
	but he rose into the rights of privacy.	37:07
	The Bob Rick appeal	37:10
	to irrationality for not her season	37:13
	primitive instincts and fears,	37:16
	and force and violence by some defenders	37:18
	and some attackers of the establishments.	37:21
	The mind is the man for conforming.	37:26
	Orthodoxy of one kind or another, and standardization.	37:30
	Worthy of special emphasis on racism, poverty,	37:36
	neglect, and subordination of students	37:40
	by colleges and universities	37:43
	and the parallels weakling	37:45
	of the fragile bonds of community.	37:47
	These phenomena are of course vital and linked,	37:51
	and they feed upon each other.	37:54
	Reference must also be made to the oppression	37:58
	of Indian Americans, Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans.	38:00
	Racism means irreverence, contempt and scorn	38:06
	for human life.	38:11
	It is forever at war with any belief in	38:13
	the dignity and worth of the human person.	38:17
	Racism falsifies existence by amazing the particularity	38:22
	of one group.	38:28
	The center and source of meaning and value for all of	38:30
	human life.	38:33
	Racism, and war.	38:35
	Support in age human life to human life.	38:38
	The one, the right own evil caused racism.	38:43
	One form of original sin.	38:46
	Raise your later alienation said Kelsey.	38:51
	Stands alone among	38:55
	the forms of human conflict founded	38:58
	in the question of being itself.	39:02
	You see original sins	39:05
	seems much more than a political economic	39:06
	and sociological theory.	39:09
	Ray sees them either radical, doctrine of man.	39:12
	A philosophy of human existence,	39:16
	the quest for meaning.	39:19
	It's also an anthological prayer.	39:21
	Racism is the prototype of all human alienation,	39:25
	because it is the one form of social conflict	39:28
	that separates human being as human being	39:33
	at the level of being itself.	39:38
	But the ultimate evil of racism is that it makes white life	39:42
	precious and sacred,	39:46
	and black life cheep and propane.	39:48
	Racism therefore makes normative and obligatory.	39:52
	Reverends for white humanity.	39:56
	Had he reverenced for black humanity.	40:00
	The logic of racism is genocide.	40:04
	Now the existence of poverty, starvation and malnutrition,	40:11
	in this rich land,	40:15
	the gross national product of almost a trillion dollars	40:18
	is on a front to the daily demand,	40:24
	and to the conscience of a conquerer.	40:27
	Respect for the worth	40:30
	and dignity of persons require the elevation of	40:32
	the rights of person over those of property.	40:37
	The rights of persons are primary,	40:42
	those of property secondary and derivative.	40:44
	The rights of property are not self-justified.	40:49
	The rights of persons are.	40:53
	The rights of property	40:54
	received that justification.	40:56
	Only entering the vast abilities,	41:00
	ability to the rights of the human person.	41:02
	We need bread for the body as well as roses for the soul.	41:07
	Now on the whole,	41:15
	students have justifiable complaints	41:17
	against colleges and universities,	41:20
	as well as the larger society.	41:22
	For the most part,	41:27
	institutions of higher learning have treated students	41:28
	more as things than as persons.	41:31
	More as means that as in	41:35
	more as objects than as human beings,	41:37
	more as passive receptacles,	41:39
	then as creative participants in the life of the dialogue.	41:41
	Not always, but all too often,	41:46
	they have been depersonalized and dehumanized.	41:49
	At least at the basic level of being and self hood.	41:54
	Instead of making students the center	41:59
	of the educational process,	42:01
	we have tended to make them the periphery.	42:04
	Indeed, they have been perceived	42:09
	by a few of us professors as intruders outside of,	42:11
	or detract us from the real enterprise	42:17
	of learning and scholarship.	42:21
	Institutions of higher learning,	42:24
	on the whole, have assumed	42:27
	about the role of students, either exhausted,	42:29
	then the acknowledgement of and subservience	42:33
	to the in exhaust of a knowledge of professors,	42:35
	the infinite wisdom of administrator	42:38
	and the divine revelations aboard the trustees.	42:42
	That day is gone,	42:47
	and all to have a good.	42:49
	Learning, freedom, growth, responsibility, and maturity,	42:52
	requires significant participation in these	42:57
	central decisions and encounters,	43:00
	affecting the content direction	43:02
	and variety in form of human experience.	43:03
	The exclusion of students from meeting full participation	43:07
	in the total life of institution of higher learning	43:12
	does more than demean and under prime them of their view.	43:16
	It also demeans, diminishes,	43:21
	and falsify the life of reason,	43:25
	as well as the adventure raw,	43:29
	the liberation and cultivation all the human mind.	43:32
	And we're all losers therefore.	43:36
	Reform to give students the right out participation	43:40
	in the structure and process of governance	43:43
	is a rational imperative,	43:47
	but the sharing of power is also necessary	43:50
	to the transformation of colleges and universities,	43:55
	into genuine communities for the pursuit of learning	43:59
	and experimentation in morally and social ambiguous culture.	44:02
	I am not asserting.	44:08
	Please note,	44:09
	that students all do have an equal votes.	44:11
	Or veto power.	44:15
	The largest social concerns of students	44:18
	and other young people are fully justified.	44:20
	By humanism, idealism and commitments	44:24
	are the best hope for a better world.	44:28
	They not simply telling by ill of something.	44:31
	They are saying something which will enrich	44:33
	and enlarge the quality of human life,	44:36
	but meet the sometimes angry voices	44:39
	and violent rhetoric our sensitivities and vision.	44:42
	Suggestive of something precious and redemptive.	44:48
	They are insisting among other things	44:53
	that we declare war on social and moral hypocrisy.	44:56
	That we take seriously,	45:02
	our ideals of freedom, social justice, dignity,	45:03
	and quality, equality, the value of the human person.	45:08
	We have wondered in the desert	45:14
	of collective and individual hypocrisy.	45:16
	We will find fresh water to satisfy our foods	45:20
	in the backyard of our national ideals.	45:23
	We will be at home with integrity.	45:26
	Fortunately,	45:30
	a lot of young people have the courage	45:31
	of their parent's conviction	45:33
	and this accounts for much of the generation counting.	45:36
	During the vigil here at duke in 1968	45:42
	and out of Monmouth king,	45:44
	one of my students called me	45:47
	and asked me to call her parents	45:50
	to talk to them because they were upset.	45:54
	Very upset by her participation.	45:58
	The vigil, you will recall,	46:02
	was concerned with making life better	46:04
	for the least that they were do.	46:06
	At the end of the conversation	46:10
	this sensitive young lady said to me, almost pathetically,	46:12
	"Dr. Cook.	46:18
	I am only trying to do	46:21
	what my parents have always taught me to do."	46:24
	Now, the vigil was, I think,	46:31
	a model of creative protest	46:33
	combining rational or non-violent methods	46:34
	with a passion for social justice.	46:37
	I shall never forget Isarob, 1968.	46:42
	When 12 or 1500 duke university students	46:48
	were on the court.	46:52
	Dressed in their Sunday best.	46:53
	The fellow came out and prayed.	46:56
	Harman Smith delivered a talk.	46:59
	Harmon said,	47:04
	"God is not fair.	47:05
	He is alive, and well.	47:09
	He owned the court.	47:11
	I've always thought about that.	47:14
	I walked across that court numerous times.	47:16
	After this place,	47:18
	this, this land is holding.	47:19
	But I had to laugh too about Harmon too, I said to myself,	47:22
	the best proof Harmon	47:25
	that God is not dead	47:26
	is that you came from Mississippi.	47:28
	Oh,	47:32
	Harmon tell God that if he wants to stay alive and well,	47:33
	he'd better stay out of Mississippi.	47:38
	When I witnessed, the commitments,	47:43
	the idealism and the humanism of some of these young people,	47:46
	I knew that there's hope in the world.	47:53
	I got a better understanding of human love	47:56
	and human actions.	47:59
	And sometime I want to say glory, glory, hallelujah.	48:02
	But in seeking to make this world better,	48:07
	students and other young people,	48:11
	must avoid the very hypocrisy and humanistic pretension	48:13
	that they are properly rebelling against.	48:17
	Some of them are guilty,	48:21
	of their own special brand of apocalyptic hypocrisy.	48:24
	More or all nothing humanistic to see.	48:29
	The old game is to respect the value and dignity of man	48:33
	in the abstract and in general,	48:37
	and to ignore them in the flesh and blood	48:41
	of concrete encounter	48:45
	in the day to day struggles, and engagements of life,	48:47
	but I have no significant and meaningful respect for	48:52
	man in general or in the abstract.	48:55
	But test is how we treat and respond to this man	48:59
	and that man, in our daily engagement.	49:03
	Pho, as well as friend,	49:08
	opponent, as well as supporter,	49:11
	others who shout a different vision,	49:14
	fellow students, professors, deans, presidents,	49:17
	trustees,	49:21
	and other defenders of the status quo	49:24
	are equally human beings.	49:27
	And therefore on the same	49:29
	qualitative plane of significance.	49:31
	It is outright hypocrisy to offend the dignity of man	49:37
	in the abstract,	49:41
	and to ignore it in the concrete.	49:43
	That is perversion.	49:45
	And as William Earnest Hawkins said,	49:48
	"Perversion of the best	49:50
	is the worst.	49:53
	Violence, senseless destruction,	49:56
	other forms of naked coercion, fanaticism,	50:00
	and aimless disruption than confrontation or self-defeating.	50:03
	I am aware of course of the violence,	50:08
	the overt and covert coercion,	50:12
	and the intransigence in justice,	50:14
	insensitivity and moral hypocrisy of the status quo.	50:16
	Young people must offer us something back,	50:23
	something higher, something nobler.	50:26
	Reason, integrity, conscience holdings.	50:31
	People love their community.	50:36
	Violence introduces moral ambiguity	50:38
	in the struggle for a more humane society	50:43
	and thou for give the status quo an unnecessary	50:46
	moral propped diversion and camouflage.	50:49
	It plays into the hand of the forces,	50:54
	of reaction, oppression, and repression	50:56
	as Martin Luther king said,	51:00
	"Increases tragic bitterness and as deep	51:03
	but darkness to a night already devoid of stars."	51:07
	All of us and especially young people	51:13
	should learn something from the tragic fade off	51:18
	the Kennedys and Dr. Kings,	51:21
	three men who embodied the best idealism and humanism,	51:23
	America has known.	51:27
	Violence simply is not the way of humanism	51:31
	and idealism.	51:33
	Is not the way to a better America.	51:36
	We are in danger of failing to recognize certain	51:40
	unities and continuities of life.	51:43
	We, all of us,	51:47
	must recognize one,	51:49
	the unity and continuity of means even is.	51:52
	The means William Paul,	51:56
	and Martin Luther king used to say so eloquently,	51:57
	effect and reflect the quality of our ends.	52:01
	Unity and continuity of protest and affirmation,	52:07
	the CNN construction,	52:13
	the fence and quality	52:15
	protests for what? Defense of the status quo for what?	52:16
	Action, reaction, and repression for what?	52:20
	The unity and continuity of rhetoric and reality.	52:25
	Word and deed. Tongue and consequence.	52:29
	Epithets, stereotypes, and character too are	52:32
	the forms of dehumanization	52:34
	and an invitation to wax off inhumanity.	52:38
	And call men fastest pigs and snobs, thugs.	52:42
	Long haired animals, bums.	52:47
	Just to dehumanize them.	52:50
	Persistence to preach hate and expect love.	52:53
	Division and polarization and respect,	52:59
	unity and reconciliation	53:01
	raises a man and respect law and order	53:03
	for social climate is crucial.	53:06
	Words invite trigger, and stimulate deeds.	53:10
	And finally,	53:17
	we must recognize the unity and continuity	53:17
	of belief in the value	53:21
	of the human person and the beloved community.	53:23
	Our country is in deep trouble, apprehensions	53:29
	and doubts, and despair,	53:33
	drive in and haunt us like angry and vengeful ghosts.	53:38
	Various forms of polarization, fragmentation and tolerance,	53:43
	fanaticism, insensitivity,	53:47
	and alienation signify	53:49
	the weakening of the sense of community.	53:50
	The feeling that we belong to each other,	53:54
	the sense of human solidarity,	53:58
	mutuality and essential relations.	54:01
	In times of crisis,	54:05
	we are apt to forget the common basis of human life.	54:06
	Our differences are trivial in comparison	54:10
	with our similarities	54:14
	and common needs and aspirations.	54:16
	Man belongs to man.	54:18
	And Paul Tillich was right when he said	54:21
	that means a reunion of the separated,	54:24
	but healing the wounds, the reconciliation,	54:29
	of the fragments of our society, tolerance,	54:34
	the repairing of torn tissue	54:37
	and the elimination of tragic injustice.	54:41
	Our desperate need of the land.	54:45
	Brief is the life of man.	54:49
	We are rather dense of this world for only a moment.	54:52
	And our brief moment is simply too precious	54:58
	and too uncertain.	55:03
	To spend it on ill and hate,	55:06
	and estrangement from our fellow,	55:11
	we simply cannot go wrong,	55:16
	the way we are in this country.	55:19
	Genuine community must be built upon the bedrock	55:23
	of respect for human value and dignity.	55:26
	Genuine community is a living situation of persons.	55:31
	Only men who are capable of true less than	55:36
	vow to one another.	55:40
	Can truly say we with one another.	55:45
	The essence of community,	55:49
	The union of persons in love,	55:53
	there is no genuine community,	55:56
	except a community of love.	56:00
	Genuine community enriches, deepens,	56:04
	and complete self hood.	56:07
	What frees us from solitude said Gaspar,	56:10
	is not the world,	56:14
	but the serpent was in as in to our ties	56:17
	with others. That is why Martin Luther king said	56:21
	that injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere.	56:25
	We are called in on an inescapable network	56:32
	of mutuality tied in a garment of our destiny	56:36
	What affects one directly,	56:38
	affects all indirectly.	56:41
	The crisis in our land	56:46
	threatened both self hood and community,	56:49
	but we are not the conspiratorial victims	56:54
	or the forces of evil and dones.	56:58
	Lawrence Cohen once said,	57:03
	"While history shows many cases of the defeat	57:07
	of good causes by brute power.	57:12
	It also shows	57:16
	that good causes are more often defeated by neglect.	57:19
	In the pursuit of the right,	57:24
	than by the positive forces of evil.	57:30
	The Supreme tragedy of our time	57:33
	is not the power of the forces of evil,	57:38
	but the failure of men of goodwill	57:42
	and the bankruptcy of positive forces,	57:46
	but any profound sense,	57:50
	perhaps this is the best of all possible worlds.	57:52
	Royce Roy once said,	57:57
	the best world for the moral agent	58:00
	is one that needs him to make it back.	58:05
	Let us pray.	58:12
	Heavenly father from who to turn is to fall	58:16
	towards whom to turn is to run of the game.	58:19
	In whom to dwell is to find peace, dignity and value.	58:23
	Help us in our daily lives	58:29
	and constant environments.	58:31
	To respect and to cherish all of our children.	58:35
	Help us to take seriously	58:40
	the simple and compelling fact	58:41
	that human value and dignity	58:44
	are rooted in thy creative and redemptive love.	58:47
	And as we crush the fallen wound,	58:50
	the least of our fellow, the man father's down.	58:54
	We have Christ the defined and wounded lead.	58:59
	Name of the father men, the son, and the holy ghost	59:06
	even Jesus Christ, our lord.	59:10
	Amen.	59:16
	(lively organ music)	59:19
	(choir singing)	59:41
	(upbeat organ music)	1:00:09
	(choir singing)
	(gentle organ music)	1:01:48
	(choir singing)	1:02:08
	(choir singing)	1:04:11

Item Info

Title:

Samuel D. Cook - "Do We Really Believe in the Value and Dignity of the Human Person?" (October 11, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4wp9z813

Date:

October 11, 1970

Speaker:

Cook, Samuel D.

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0541
ref6285_vxc
uachapelsermaud
duke:628579
dcrau002530
ark:/87924/r4wp9z813
112131b7-4458-4469-954a-a63e31324e8f

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Samuel D. Cook - "Do We Really Believe in the Value and Dignity of the Human Person?" (October 11, 1970)

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