Revolution as Theatre

...As Brustein puts it, the liberal faculty member "...is one of the more conspicuous victims of America's habit of worshipping youth...

...Another false analogy that contributes to the erosion of professionalism in the university is that between bad authority (or in other words the abuse of authority) and all authority...

...Dream from the Glands Revolution as Theatre by Robert Brustein Liveright, $1.95 (paper), $5.95 (cloth) "Something," Robert Brustein says in the "Introduction" to this collection of essays, "is eating me...

...Many conservatives are pleasant but they are not entertaining...

...The relationship between teacher and student is mainly tutorial...

...The essays in Revolution as Theatre, all previously published or delivered in public, are exceptions, and this is because they are exceptionally thoughtful and well-written...

...but when you teach the adult, you teach the subject...

...I was delighted to re-read those essays I had read before and to find all the essays conveniently collected in one volume...

...Perhaps it is not their self-indulgence or stupidity but rather their lack of respect and compassion for other human beings which makes the extremists on the Left so unappealing and appalling...

...This, many radicals sense, will never do...

...He devotes particular attention to two analogies that have been promoted by those attacking professionalism and often accepted unthinkingly by those who, at least in principle, support professionalism...

...While the relationship between the administration and the faculty does have certain political overtones, the faculty and administration can no more be considered the elected representatives of the student body than the students-who were admitted after voluntary application on a selective and competitive basis-can be considered freeborn citizens of a democratic state...

...A democracy depends not only on free speech, regular elections and so forth, but also on the confidence the citizens have in democracy itself...

...These students prefer discussion meetings or "rap sessions," where opinions, however uninformed or incoherent, often receive more attention than the subject matter...

...Brustein maintains that many students not only lack but actively resist acquiring the maturity that is essential for professionalism...

...Like many other liberals, "...the liberal faculty member shares the frustrations of the powerless at the same time that he enjoys the privileges of the elite...

...Unlike many observers of campus unrest, Brustein does not catalogue events or issues but rather examines the premises on which many students and some teachers and administrators act...

...My second criticism of Brustein's conception of the current political situation is that his appreciation of the theatrical quality of much radical political action (an appreciation we might expect from a brilliant theatre critic and Dean of the Yale School of Drama) and this action's political unproductivity leads him to underestimate or overlook the damage this action has done to American democracy and the universities...

...They tend to engage in such boring activities as reasonable discussions in peaceful settings...

...Students who make this analogy . "...begin by demanding a representative voice in the 'decisions that affect our lives,' including questions of faculty tenure, curriculum changes, grading, and academic discipline...

...Such activities will not sell newspapers or raise a network's Nielsen ratings and, therefore, they will not receive much coverage...

...Useful" professors occasionally take time out from their work for the government, private foundations, consulting firms, and so on, to declare their devotion to the life of the mind and to denounce those students who are not sticking to their studies...

...They wish to remain amateurs...

...As far as I know, Vice President Agnew has not committed and is not preparing to commit any "inhuman acts" against his opponents...

...The fact is, if mass media organizations are to survive, they must attract and hold mass audiences, and what these audiences want above all is entertainment...

...Even were the cities willing to pay, I doubt that these institutions would be created or last...

...Thus, at one point in an essay entitled "A Matter of Accountability," Brustein warns: "We must beware of those who call others 'pig,' just as we must beware of those who call others 'effete, impudent snobs'-both are dehumanizing the opposition in preparation for committing inhuman acts against it...

...These faculty members are not constitutionally incapable of fighting what they believe to be wrong...

...We also know and it is pertinent that various political movements and voluntary associations-for example, the peace and ecology movements-have affected public opinion and government policy...

...The theatrical activities of the radicals do not encourage that expectation and, to that extent, they undermine democracy...

...Brustein maintains that both these analogies are false and misleading...

...But for political as well as psychological reasons, these faculty members find it difficult to oppose radical students...

...But to call someone a "snob" is only to assert that he has a defect of character, a human failing, while to call someone a "pig" is to deny his humanity and, consequently, his right to be treated as a human being...

...He notes that: "...Paul Goodman has observed, in The Community of Scholars, when you teach the child, you teach the person...

...Brustein believes that, given political repression, freedom of expression should be most valuable not to political activists but rather to "artists and thinkers...

...I have the conviction, and it grows rather than lessens, that we are living in a profoundly decadent society...

...In the book's title essay, Brustein says that, in America, a paradoxical situation now exists...

...He fails to point out or, at least, sufficiently emphasize that for years many professors have been in the brains-for-hire business...

...To compare the state with the academy is to assume that the primary function of the university is to govern and rule...

...One false analogy is that between democratic polities and universities...

...Behind Goodman's observation lies the assumption that the university student is, or should already be, a developed personality, that he comes to the academy not to investigate his 'life style' but to absorb what knowledge he can, and that he is, therefore, preparing himself, through study, research, and contemplation, to enter the community of professional scholars...

...Heaven knows there is enough to criticize on the Right, but Brustein's criticisms often are unclear or unwarranted...

...In noting this, Brustein is referring to the attitude of Americans outside the universities...

...This confidence, in turn, depends on the expectation of each citizen that his fellow citizens will act reasonably and responsibly...

...Thus, the faculty member functions not to represent the student's interests in relation to the administration, but rather' to communicate knowledge from one who knows to one who doesn't...

...Brustein roughly defines professionalism as "a condition determined by training, experience, skill, and achievement (by remuneration, too, but this is secondary...

...He asks "what to do," and he answers that, to begin with, there must be a recognition that political revolution in America is "a stage idea" and a rejection of those who play at acting out this idea...

...Phenomena such as these are not characteristic of a "politically closed" society, nor, I might add, is unprecedented freedom of speech...

...Brustein suggests that there be "purely service" institutions in urban centers for students and faculty who are discontented with the universities and interested in activism...

...While American society needs "a revolution of character," American universities need a defense of professionalism...

...We know and it is pertinent that over the past decade there have been substantial improvements in the political as well as economic conditions of blacks and other Americans, even though some* people who seem to derive perverse pleasure from anticipating catastrophe, insist that nothing has changed or even that things have gotten worse...

...Brustein makes clear the kind of amateurs these students are...

...They have no incentive to leave...

...We can survive and we have survived stupidity and self-indulgence, but a malignant contempt for other people threatens everything that makes life bearable and, at rare moments, beautiful...

...According to this analogy, since seme people who occupy positions of authority are insensitive or even cruel, all people who occupy such positions, including teachers, are insensitive and cruel Thus , there are students who are opposed to lecture courses where teachers, appearing as "authorities," attempt to communicate what they know...

...Brustein notes that this "pernicious utilitarianism" is not now, that historically American culture has not prized the pursuit of truth for its own sake...

...From out of the ranks of these liberals comes what Brustein calls "the cocktail party revolutionary": "Trailing excitement through the corridors of universities, museums, courtrooms, and publishing houses, always certain (in Saul Bellow's words) to enact his 'revolutionary passions against a background of institutional safety,' he dreams fantasies of violence within a context of hedonism, usually stopping short of physical danger or property loss...

...Brustein believes that if professionalism were being attacked only by some young people who are not professionals, it would not be in jeopardy...

...I do not believe that the cities should help to fund these institutions, whose objectives might include, say, the overthrow of the city governments which are supporting them...

...Brustein strongly criticizes the New Left but, being a man of the Old Left, he does not want to give the appearance of ignoring or apologizing for the Right...

...Some students are demanding-and some liberal faculty members are trying to satisfy the demand-khat the curriculum be not only "relevant" but "useful," for example, by performing services for the community in which the university is located...

...Brustein says that on the one hand, curriculum changes of this sort are merely "a harmless waste of time," but on the other hand, they pose a serious threat to scholarship...

...Brustein says "certainly, a student role in university affairs is both practical and desirable, as long as that role remains advisory" but he argues: "Clearly, it is absurd to identify electoral with educational institutions...

...Brustein also often equates the intentions and activities of the radicals with those of their opponents ("two ignorant armies...

...The radicals, however, do possess "passions" and this explains their "weakness for rhetoric and gestures, rather than programs and organization...

...This is not wholly the result, as some people suppose, of the liberal political bias of workers in the mass media...

...But, at least for the time being, many artists and thinkers have stopped doing serious aesthetic or intellectual work (often in order to do work that is more lucrative or politically useful), and the people who have exploited most fully the new freedom of expression have been "militants and radicals...

...But I have three criticisms to make of Brustein's conception of the current political situation in America...

...My third and final criticism of Brustein's political conception is aimed at what at first might seem a virtue: Brustein's attempt to be balanced or fair...

...Not only have militants and radicals been free to say and, to a large extent, do what they want, but as a result of a new receptivity in the mass media to radical political views, they have been seen and heard by millions of people...

...That the reasoning behind this analogy has not been more frequently questioned indicates the extent to which some teachers are refusing to exercise their roles as professionals...

...Brustein maintains that the only revolution that is at all feasible in America at this time is "a revolution of character," and this revolution would require "an act of moral transcendence, humane intelligence, and deliberate will...

...Yet, on the other hand, there is unprecedented freedom of expression - unprecedented not just for America but perhaps for the whole world...

...I recommend the book to anyone who is trying to understand contemporary American culture and politics and the upheaval in American universities...

...Today's amateur, however, seems to love not his subject but himself...

...They have wanted to be "useful" because the more "useful" they become, the more of a chance they have to become famous, powerful or wealthy...

...Terry Krieger...

...Youth is everywhere, confident and vigorous and culturally approved, while he remains the fellow with the glasses and the educated speech, America's fall guy, doomed to reasonableness and prudence in a world of instinct, Oriental mysticism, blown minds, and casual promiscuity...

...Among the things which many people take as "symbols of transformation" or liberation or revolution but that Brustein sees as "further signs of decline" are the thoughtlessness, impulsiveness and meanness of the New Left and the attack on professionalism in the universities (an attack that often is led by members of the New Left...

...Brustein sees decent and intelligent men "stranded between two ignorant armies fl take it he means the Left and the Right], each dedicated to obliterating the other, each identifying everyone else as the enemy...

...It is true that the continuing revelations about government agencies maintaining surveillance over millions of citizens are not reassuring on this point, but these revelations are not all we know or all that is pertinent about contemporary American political life...

...Most essays on contemporary affairs are like contemporary affairs-they don't last...

...Conspicuous among the professionals who are unable or unwiiling to defend the professionalism they are supposed to represent are liberal faculty members...

...Brustein points out that "if the amateur is coequal-and some would say, superior-to the professional, then the student is coequal or superior to the professor...

...Disciplines that are not or cannot be made "relevant," that is to say, fashionable, are losing students, and without students who will become scholars and teachers, these disciplines cannot last...

...He proposes that these institutions be supported by the cities, private donors and "a graduated income tax" on the members of these institutions...

...America, Brustein contends, is a "culturally open, politically closed society...

...In the past, they have resisted-with much success-right-wing attempts to limit or destroy academic freedom...

...He believes the decline of the professional is related to the elevation of the amateur, who now has the status of "a kind of democratic culture hero, subject to no standards or restrictions...

...But in fact professionalism is also being abandoned and even attacked by many professionals themselves...

...Worse, I suspect that some of the very things that are taken as symbols of transformation are themselves further signs of decline...

...He fails, for example, to distinguish between what the government does and what conservatives believe and support...

...In an attempt to please them, he offers courses in "subjects" about which he knows little or nothing but which his students find "relevant...

...No doubt Brustein deplores, as do I, the surveillance of civilians by the military, but the man who is leading the Senate's investigation of this matter is Sam Ervin, who, I am informed by reliable sources, is not a prominent liberal...

...Now, the term "effete, impudent snobs" was not intended by Vice President Agnew as a compliment to those to whom it was applied, and it may have been applied unfairly...

...This rhetoric is intended neither to enlighten nor to persuade anyone and according to Brustein, it indicates that the radicals are not strong but weak and that they possess no coherent ideology...

...On the one hand, there is increasing political repression...

...Many social scientists have enjoyed being social engineers, but while this has meant good times for these social scientists, it often has been bad news for the people who were being engineered into various textbook Utopias...

...The liberal faculty member often adopts the dress, the language, the politics and the social customs of his young students...

...I wish I could say the same for those extremists who use the word "pigs"-as in "off the pigs...

...For example, traditional conservative as well as libertarian political views have received relatively little mass media exposure...

...In any case, as long as the universities subsidize, through zero or nominal tuition, students who are indifferent or even hostile to learning and scholarship, and as long as the universities maintain an environment that is congenial to and even dominated by these students, the universities can expect these students to stay around...

...They are even tempted to join them...

...Liberal faculty members are vulnerable not only to the political appeals of young radicals but to the very youth of these radicals...

...He points out that "...the word amateur comes from the Latin verb, to love-presumably because the amateur is motivated by passion rather than money...

...The first criticism is that Brustein is wrong when he characterizes America as a "politically closed" society...

...It is not clear to me what the content of such an act would be, but presumably it would not be what either radicals or reactionaries have in mind...

...In Brustein's view, the radicals' tough talk and ludicrous posturing amounts not to revolution but to theatre, "a product of histrionic personalities and staged events...

...I should stress here that the mass media have given new attention and prominence to "radical" and not all "unfashionable" or "unpopular" political views...

...The Nixon Administration is unresponsive to protest while calling for social change and powerful enough to ignore and even suppress its opponents...

...The radicals exploit this dilemma and hold out a way to resolve it: total commitment to "the movement" or "revolution" or "liberation," the hard happiness of certainty...

...People who are antagonistic to intellectual discipline and institutional order are hardly equipped to establish and maintain organizations (note the short, chaotic lives of the "free universities" and the disintegration of student governments at many colleges and universities...

...In resisting this notion, some students reveal their desire to maintain the conditions of childhood, to preserve the liberty they enjoyed in their homes and secondary schools, to extend the privileges of a child-and youth-oriented culture into their mature years...

...The actors in this theatre include not only militants and radicals but also some "successful, wealthy liberals...

...And his assault on authority-on the application of professional standards in judgment of his intellectual development-is a strategy to keep this self-love unalloyed...

...when you teach the adolescent, you teach the subject through the person...

...But visually exciting and socially outrageous events that are part of ongoing political controversy will receive lots of coverage, and so many radicals, who if they want nothing else want attention, stage such events...

...As for the universities, what the radicals have been up to there has made not only for bad theatre but for academic disintegration...

...As universities begin to grant some of these demands, thus tacitly accepting the analogy, the demands escalate to the point where students are now insisting on a voice in electing the university president, a role in choosing the faculty, and even a place on the board of trustees...

...He pays the price of this dilemma in remorse, guilt, soul-searching, insecurity, and confusion...

...The rejection of the teacher's authority implies that the student is as competent to decide what he should do and to evaluate what he accomplishes as the teacher...

...His profession puts him in daily contact with young people who perpetually besiege him with their lifestyles-their special language, their colorful dress, their films, their music, all accentuated further by the mass media markets...

...Conservatives like to talk about the free market, but at least as far as the entertainment industry is concerned, radicals know what sells...

...Brustein feels that freedom of speech and access to the media have provided radicals with a magnificent chance to present ideas and programs, but what many radicals have done instead is to furnish entertainment, with a special emphasis on violent rhetoric...