Are We Still Petrified?
Henryk Skolimowski, Professor Emeritus of Humanities
February 2008
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday.
And our present thoughts build our life or tomorrow.
Our life is a creation of our mind.
—The Dhammapada (attributed to the Buddha).
We have been frozen stiff by the ideology of the past government. In fact, we have experienced a small Ice Age. Our minds and institutions have become frozen as the result of the big freeze through which the past government was freezing all-important and original thought.
But now the Ice Age is over. Yet, our minds are still petrified and half-frozen. Where else is a better place to unfreeze the minds and hearts of people than at the University of Michigan? In the past — in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s — this campus was a forum, which allowed the most important debates of the time to be carried out with rigor and conviction. And what a lively place it was! And how scintillating were the minds of students!
How do we reconstruct our society? How do we reconstruct our inner lives so that they are attuned to the imperatives of dignity and freedom? How do we live normal and inspired life outside the freeze?
These are some of the problems. And there are many others. The University of Michigan is a great civic institution. It is proud of its civic traditions and its civic debates. Will the University of Michigan and its students not rise again to the great challenges of our times? To the students I say: your energy, imagination and courage are needed. Don’t you have any?