Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-02-04
Chies
end People
Behind the
Tensions
BY ROBERT ]. LEWIS

HISTORY is a sort Of end
Ia less chain, as Mr.. De-
mosthenes Lakis has proved.
On Thursday, we hailed a
taxi to take us to the Int
rior Department. On Friday
at the same hour and at
the same place-we hailed
another taxi to take us to
The Star Building. AS it
turned out, Fridays taxi was
the very same one we had
used on Thursday and Mr..
DemoSthenes Lakis was the
driver.
This surprise coincidence
led to a conversation which
disclosed Mr.. Lakis is q
reader, a thinker and-like
all Greeks we have meta
man with a sense of history
who understands that the
present is always linked to
the past.
1t was a short trip, but we
did manage to make clear
our admiration for the
Greeks, that sometime we
wanted to visit this ancient
land and see its glories, and
that we immensely enjoyed
the life and spirit and music
of the film, Never on Sun
day."
1t was Mr.. Lakis who re-
membered, and somehow
mentioned, that it was Pro-
tagoraS, a Greek, who for
mulated the classic tenet of
the humanist code: Man is
the measure of all things"
BY this time we were
alighting from the taxi and
Mr.. LakiS was saying he
would mail us a copy of a
magazine called Pictures
from Greece"
IF you visit Greece" he
said, "be sure to go to the
islands, where you ride on a
donkey and the life is peace
full and quiet"
So
AS GREEKS WELL KNOW,
it is easy to understand why
thoughts of Protagoras could
put some perspective on the
most recent events of our
Promethean age.
How can man avoid be-
ing crushed by the complex
tiles of modern life," people
are always asking.
To answer such a question,
the student has only to turn
to the past, and to Protago-
ras' statement, 2,400 years
ago, that mans works should
be related to man if they are
to be good.
To the Greeks land to the
world, for that matter) Pro-
metheus is the symbol of the
creative spirit, the "let's-get-
going and do = something"
school that wants plenty of
action to improve our life
and our environment.
(Prometheus, if you recall,
was a Titan tabled to have
made men out of clay, to
have stolen fire for mans
use, and to have been en-
chained in torment by Zeus
for these effronteries to the
godS.)
In our own age, we all, in a
sense, are Prometheans. We
believe in progress, in getting
things done, in new ideas,
in new methods.
But present-day Prone
theanS seem to be divided
into two types.
Some want to get things
done just for the sake of
great accomplishment, and
without much regard to the
possible adverse effects on
human values and the hui
man spirit.
Other thoughtful men-as
Moses HadaS, a great scholar,
once put it-are haunted by
misgivings" about some of
the inhuman aspects of
progress. They wonder
whether our environment is
not being made too imper-
sonal, too unrelated to mans
comprehension and enjoy
ment. They want progress.
But they believe it should be
achieved and measured on a
human scale.
II 4 \
UNDERSTANDING THIS,
1t is a bit easier to have some
perspective on the tensions
and battles in Washington
over such matters as the ex-
tent to which urban renewal
powers should be used, and
where; the size, character