VOL. 6, NO. 6
DEC. 4, 1964

Society need not crumble
Would you report a friend for cheating in class? Do you have the right to tell someone else what to do? How much would you risk to aid a stranger?

To help America's 23 million teenagers learn how their contemporaries feel about the perplexing problem of being "your brother's keeper" in our modern world, Seventeen Magazine tape-recorded a round-table discussion among three girls and two boys on this question that is as old as Cain and Abel and as new as today's headlines.

All the panelists agree: "If you think you can help a person, then by all means . . . you should try." - Cheyney Ryan, high school junior.

"There's doubt in my mind whether I'm qualified to be anyone's keeper, even my own (but) even though I'm not perfectly qualified to give help I'll give it anyway." - Tom Ehrenberg, college freshman.

However, "When there's a conflict between your own interests and someone else's, choosing may be difficult and sometimes you may have to be realistic rather than idealistic. You can't on every occasion think of someone else before you think of yourself." - Cheyney Ryan.
 Does being your brother's keeper mean telling someone else how to live? Here, the young people disagree. College sophomore Mary Cone points out that, at college, the question of being your brother's keeper is likely to come up in connection with the social rules, like curfew. "When people decide to break them," she says, "I don't think it's your business to interfere . . . Everyone has the right to learn from his own experience . . . I don't think anyone of college age wants to be given rules on how to behave by one of her peers."

Most agree that when it's a matter of life and death, you must interfere. If a boy has too much to drink and insists on driving, "I'd take the keys away, forcibly if necessary," Tom maintains.

If someone is attacked on the street, are you morally obligated to jump in and help? Yes, the teens believe. Cheyney feels that "helping would be a natural instinct." "What might happen to you shouldn't even enter into your decision," says Kathy Lyman, high school senior. But "there has to be an element of realism about it," Mary points out. "If I saw a man being struck by another man ... what I would do is create a scene!"

"If we have no concern for people around us, society will crumble." - Kathy.