Pleading that mankind turn the achievements of science “to manys benefit and not to his destruction, “Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold today based such a plea on the philosophy of Prof. Martin Buber, world famed Jewish thinker.
Mr. Hammarkjold’s remarks citing Dr. Buber were delivered in the course of a formal address at Cambridge University, in England, where the UN chief was awarded an honorary degree. The text of the address was issued here.
Referring to Dr, Buber as “one of the influential thinkers of our time,” Mr. Hammarskjold quoted from an address made by the Jewish philosopher in New York, in 1952, when he deplored the increase of mutual mistrust among men. As a result of the growth of mutual mistrust, Dr. Buber warned, “one may foresee in the future a degree of reciprocity in existential mistrust, where speech will turn into dumbness and sense into madness.”
Mr. Hammarskjold told the Cambridge assemblage that he quoted these sentiments because, out of the depth of his feelings, Martin Buber has found expressions which it would be vain for me to try to improve.” Through Dr Buber’s words, said Mr. Hammarskjold, be wanted “to draw attention to the aspect of the troubles of our time.
The “troubles” identified by the Secretary General “are fires all around the horizon, and they are not fires announcing peace.” The trouble spots, he said, are “Korea, China, indonesia, Kashmir, Palestine, Hungary and North Africa.” Dr. Bubers’s “personal history and national experience,” declared Mr. Hammarskjold, “have given him a vantage point of significance.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
