European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 31, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Monday january 31,1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 Hothead should learn control from monkeys William Raspberry stump Tail monkeys and Rhesus monkeys have this interesting difference the former Quick to anger Are just As Quick to Calm Down and make peace. The latter fiercely violent and Quick to confrontation rarely bother to reconcile afterwards preferring instead to sulk after the fighting is Over. Would t it be interesting if the stump tails could teach their Rhesus cousins How to get Over their anger and work at peacemaking it is what Counselor from organizations like the american arbitration association and the Center for dispute Resolution have been trying to do in schools. Children they believe need to learn to talk out their differences and look for nonviolent ways to resolve them joint projects peer juries that sort of thing. If monkeys could be taught to get Over their tantrums and make up with one another would t that be encouraging for their human cousins guess what it s being done. Scientists at the Yerkes regional primate Center in Lawrenceville ga., induced stump tails to raise eight Rhesus juveniles for five months. The results were fascinating. The Rhesus monkeys about 22 months old at the be ginning of the Experiment never stopped fighting each other. But by the end of the study they were reconciling just As often As their stump Tail  instead of sulking Lauran Neergaard re ported for the associated press they uttered Low sooth ing chatter and brushed against each other after a fight. They also increased their everyday Friendly  nor says Frans de Waal who ran the Experiment was it just a matter of physical imitation. The two species use distinctly different gestures of rapprochement. It was Clear he said that the Rhesus monkeys really were learn ing peacemaking skills from their social environment. The obvious conclusion is that if monkeys can be taught to reduce their natural violence or at least to make peace afterwards surely human beings can learn to reduce their socially induced violence. By the Way the Yerkes study published in last August s Issue of child development was no matter of turning Macho monkeys into primate wimps. They still fought when provoked they just got Over it sooner. I la get in trouble for saying so but i think at least some of our efforts at violence reduction Are aimed mis Guidelly at ridding Young men of their aggressive  just May be that the male urge to aggressive behaviour has social Utility in controlling the environment protecting families defending communities. The prob Lem is How to keep the urge socially useful and within reasonable  Many american communities it clearly is out of control. Rough House play and such socially directed aggressiveness As in athletics or military service or police work have Given Way to unbridled deadly and often childrens Juarea mindless violence. Young men who might protect their neighbourhoods now terrorize them instead. Individuals and gangs remain sworn enemies Long after the basis for their Mutual enmity has been forgotten and there is Seldom any Effort at peacemaking unless the warring gangs Are both threatened by some outside Force. But while it i primarily Young men who account for the violence that threatens Pur cities most Young men even in the roughest neighbourhoods manage to keep their violence in reasonable Check. The question for scientists primate and social is whether the Over aggressive ones can be induced perhaps by Chang ing their social environment to return to acceptable norms. The answer still in t Clear. Aggression is a Normal part of life de Waal believes. The trick is knowing How to reconcile Hov not to let it get out of hand. Nobody knows How children learn that or if very antagonistic children can learn it. I think this indicates they  de Waal by the Way thinks the stump tails urge to Settle differences peacefully May be a survival mechanism. They May innately sense a need for Unity he speculates because they Are a highly endangered Spe cies. Now Why docs that phrase sound so familiar c Tho Washington Post Clinton seizes Issue of values from right Wing the teleprompter had hardly stopped rolling the president had barely glad handed his Way out of the House chamber when the analysts and politicians All began deconstructing his text. Health care crime welfare they waded through the words looking for portents about policy and clues about  from my listening Post Way out Side the chamber and Well beyond the Beltway i was most conscious of the voice Bill Clinton used. Not just the words of policy but the underlying sound of values in our toughest neighbourhoods on our meanest streets in our poorest Rural areas we have seen a stunning and simultaneous breakdown of Community family and work the heart and soul of civilized  cant renew our country when children Are having children and the fathers walk away As if the kids Don t amount to  am telling you we have got to Stop pointing our fingers at these kids who have no future and reach our hands out to  that Long ago the language of values was spoken almost exclusively by conservatives. Not anymore. One of the striking things Clinton has done since he came on the National scene is to give progressives and moderates permission to use the most potent words in our moral vocabulary. Despite Bimbo eruptions de spite appoint ments that blew up in his face like trick cigars de spite a Houdini ability to get him self in and out of traps time and again he has drawn Power on in the that Ellen Goodman voice. What a change that is. Back in the 1980s, the right Wing took Over the word values the Way they had taken Over the word  when Ronald Reagan spoke of Wel fare he was talking of welfare  Law and order were code words for racism. And those who criticized sleaze wanted to ban Judy Blume books. As late As 1992, Dan Quale talked of single mothers Only to pin a Scarlet a on Murphy Brown. Marilyn Quayle divided women into Hillary Clinton like liberals and those who do not wish to be Liber ated from their essential natures As  for a Long time the very word values was suspect As a code used by the Radical right. In the face of this Many others were Tongue tied. Those who believed in a woman s right to choose found it hard to criticize any Choice. Those who did t believe in Pun Ishing teen age mothers found it hard to decry Young motherhood. It was hard to worry out loud about children Home alone without seeming to blame working mothers. Not even Tipper Gore could worry about sex or violence in music without being tagged As a Cen Sor. Gradually we Are now finding a Way to the Center. Not Drifting right to some presumed political Center. Reaching Down to a psychological Center. Finding a voice there. This is the native Tongue to the Man from Arkansas. Values provide the link with which he connects health care welfare Reform crime jobs. These issues Are Are girds to Shore up an infrastructure rocked by the earthquakes of so Cial change. Language of course in t everything. There Are questions about Many of Clin ton s policies that Chart change and not just about health care. Will welfare Reform emancipate people from the system or merely de institutionalize them setting families adrift in a sea of unintended consequences can any government ensure the ethic of work or will that ethic be downsized in a ruthless world Economy no matter what Are communities the humpty dumpty of America or can they be put Back together when Clinton talked about such values some regarded it As treacly rhetoric the spun sugar of politics. But this is clearly a Man who sees values a glue. It holds him to the Public and to policy. In just Over a year this sometimes Rocky administration has staked out the common ground of change. It can be an unsettled turf. But it s a lot easier to build on when you speak a common Lan Guage. C Tho Boston Globe