Blowing the Horns of a Counterfeit Dilemma
| Author | Howard E. Dean |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296401700101 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
5
BLOWING
THE
HORNS
OF
A
COUNTERFEIT
DILEMMA
HOWARD
E.
DEAN
Portland
State
College
HE
PRESIDENTIAL
ADDRESS
is
one
of
those
annual
tribal
rites
which
our
tribe
stoically
endures,
hoping
that
the
punishment
will
be
relatively
pain-
-JL
less
and
mercifully
short.
And
those
who
reluctantly
fulfill
their
presidential
obligations
know
that
they
lay
themselves
open
to
the
agonizing
reappraisal
of
their
brethren.
At
the
close
of
their
talks,
they
fear,
instead
of
bidding
their
hearers
to
lift
up
their
hearts,
it
may
be
necessary
to
beg
them
to
lift
up
their
heads.
Somno-
lence
and
pessimistic
realism
often
go
hand
in
hand
on
these
occasions:
thus,
when
I
remarked
to
a
colleague
and
former
friend
recently
that
I
had
to
give
a
presi-
dential
address,
he
acidly
replied
that
the
only
presidential
address
of
any
conse-
quence
nowadays
is
1600
Pennsylvania
Avenue.
And
then,
eyeing
me
skeptically,
he
added
that
it’s
not
really
the
address
that
matters,
but
rather
what
bells
you
ring
and
who
answers
the
door.
There
is
an
honored
tradition
that
the
master
of
the
revels
at
these
affairs
should
not
report
upon
some
arcane
specialty,
but
should
address
his
postprandial
circum-
locutions
to
points
of
common
concern.
I
follow
this
tradition.
And
to
parry
any
gratuitous
criticism,
I
ought
to
tell
you
that,
with
great
reluctance,
I
have
carefully
banished
from
my
remarks
all
trace
of
brilliance,
originality,
or
profundity.
After
all,
there
is
a
proper
time
and
place
for
everything.
The
situation,
then,
is
perhaps
like
that
sketched
in
a
story
told
by
Paul
A.
Freund:
A
woman
dreamt
that
she
had
been
suddenly
whisked
from
her
bed
by
an
intruder,
then
carried
to
an
automobile
and
driven
far
from
the
city
into
the
depths
of
a
forest.
Finally,
when
the
car
had
stopped
and
the
intruder
carried
her
toward
a
verdant
glade,
she
coyly
inquired,
&dquo;What
now?&dquo;
to
which
the
reply
was,
&dquo;How
do
I
know,
lady?
It’s
your
dream.&dquo;
Well,
today
it’s
my
dream-a
dream
about
our
disci-
pline
and
some
of
its
present
discontents.
You
may
think,
before
I
am
done,
or
un-
done,
that
I
am
merely
dreaming
of
straw
men.
That
may
be,
but
I
hope
you
will
also
feel,
to
use
a
Samuel
Goldwynesque
metaphor,
that
some
straw
men
have
feet
of
clay.
My
remarks
go
to
what
sometimes
threatens
to
become
a
blood
feud
between
the
traditional
and
the
behavioral
political
scientists.
On
the
whole,
I
am
convinced
that
this
is
a
controversy
which
ought
to
be
thrown
out
of
court.
Properly
viewed,
the
behavioral
and
traditional
approaches
neither
conflict
with
one
another,
nor
detract
from
each
other’s
place
or
significance,
for
each
side
has
a
rightful
claim
to
its
domain
within
political
science.
Indeed,
much
of
the
controversy
into
which
we
have
been
plunged
has
grown
out
of
needless
confusion
about
what
properly
belongs
to
each
side.
Yet
the
rightful
claims
of
neither
side
defeat
the
rightful
claims
of
the
other.
To
borrow
from
the
logicians,
the
assertions
made
by
the
parties
to
this
some-
times
strident
dialogue
are
not
contradictories
but
subcontraries:
they
are
not
ex-
haustive
and
they
can
both
be
true.
Now
perhaps
it is
naive
to
hope
that
these
dis-
NOTE :
Presidential
address
given
at
the
Sixteenth
Annual
Meeting
of
the
Pacific
Northwest
Political
Science
Association
held
at
the
University
of
Puget
Sound,
Tacoma,
Washing-
ton,
May
3-4,
1963.
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