Radical Chic And The New Left
Krieger, Terry
THE ALTERNATIVE February, 1971 Radical Chic And The New Left Terry Krieger Cambridge, Massachusetts-In the 14 December issue of Newsweek, Stewart Alsop pronounces radical chic "dead." It passed...
...That day she was wearing an off-white woolen sweater, on which she wore her Women's Liberation and other buttons, just as a general might wear his medals on his uniform as he reviews his troops...
...They scrawled slogans on the walls-one slogan explicitly suggested that the Center should be laid, which is an intriguing notion-and they fearlessly beat up a few secretaries and staff members who happened to be around...
...In Criticism Of Famous Bounders The Administration could profit from thoughtful criticism of not only its domestic but also its foreign policies...
...The radicals may bring on new faces, raise new issues, and promote new causes, and if they do, they could have a success on their hands...
...Other Americans, which is to say most Americans, know of Leonard Bernstein from his television specials, in which he explains the mysteries of music for the benefit of children of all ages, but they have never heard of Tom Wolfe or New York magazine...
...they were talking with their friends about the last lecture...
...They were putting on their coats and gloves...
...They surrounded and shouted at ' them...
...The editors of the Crimson did not find so much as an inch of space to report or comment on the uprisings in Poland...
...Radicals recently have been proclaiming that the Center has no "right to exist" and they have demanded the representatives of the Center try-in vain of course-to defend its right to exist in a public debate with representatives from SDS...
...They think Senator Fulbright understands international politics, U Thant is unbiased, and the UN is an institution where nice guys gather to promote justice and decency...
...Such criticism should not end...
...At the Union, the Troupe attempted to stage two skits...
...CFIA) Some students are actively opposing the radicals when they engage in disruptive or violent protest...
...The American position continues to deteriorate throughout the world, especially in the Middle East, where our appeasement of the Soviet Union and its Arab clients and our shameful treatment of Israel have resulted in greater Soviet intervention and increased Arab intransigence...
...This does not mean the New Left is finished...
...On 15 December, the SDS marchers intended to enter the Center and demand of its Director, Professor Robert Bowie, that, in the words of an SDS leaflet, "the CFIA debate and explain why the Center should not be closed altogether...
...But while these people keep radical chic alive, they have not been able to prevent it from losing much of its appeal...
...It has reached the point where, to cite one example, a college administrator whom I know well, a law-abiding Quaker who has been active in the peace movement and who is not paranoid, refuses to talk about important matters over the phone because he believes his line is tapped...
...This should concern all Americans who want to preserve liberty...
...Leonard Bernstein's party for the Black Panthers, which is now regarded as the epitome of radical chic, and Tom Wolfe's extraordinary article in New York about it are of interest primarily to intellectuals and writers in places such as New York, Cambridge and Berkeley...
...But on that day in that lecture hall, her troops were deserting...
...The indifference and even hostility of the students to the radical girl in the lecture hall, the opposition of students on both the left and the right to the radicals' efforts to close the CFIA by issuing demands, invading the Center, and barging into a student dining hall to stage lousy political dramas-these and other events indicate that radical students no longer can take it for granted that, in university areas such as Cambridge, other students automatically will come to their support...
...The first was disrupted when four YAF members led other students in singing Christmas carols...
...And although radical chic is on its way out, many people still are exhilarated by all this...
...Although Harvard radicals cannot depend anymore on other students to rush to their side in any circumstances, they continue to be active and to score some successes...
...When they arrived at the Center around 12:30 P.M., they found on the Center steps twenty-five students, most of whom were associated with Young Americans for Freedom and the Harvard-Radcliffe Young Republicans...
...Terrorism and other desperate tactics adopted by some New Leftists reflect both the failure of the New Left to attract substantial and enduring popular support and the stronger commitment of some New Leftists to the movement...
...The students were not applauding or shouting "right on...
...and, if there has been disorder or violence, police and troops are called out...
...They believe American society is sick and that its cure lies only in destruction or "radical surgery," even if destruction results in ruin without a competent doctor in the house...
...Weight Watchers and Spiro Agnew Watches Although radical chic is associated with a political movement, it is essentially a fad, and, like other fads, for example, Weight Watchers, hula hoops, Beatlemania, and Sprio Agnew watches and T-shirts, it mainly affects only those people who want to be involved with it...
...Now, with radical chic moribund and with some of these journalists and academicians belatedly discovering that, whatever their faults, all young people are not cheering Jerry Rubin or bombing federal buildings, it may be easier for more people to appreciate how little solid support the New Left has...
...Bobby Seale and the lovely Angela Davis are to some of them what George Burns and Gracie Allen were to an earlier generation of television and radio fans-although Burns and Allen had a better chance of starting a revolution than do Mr...
...This ruled out Tonto as a suspect, and the police have been searching for two young women, presumably tribal members, who were seen at the Center library the afternoon before the bomb exploded...
...David Bromwich, a Yale sophomore, writes an article you might expect from a Yale sophomore...
...Perhaps the radicals can revive their show in the spring, when the thoughts of some turn to making love and causing trouble...
...This academic year, a bomb exploded late one night in the Center's library...
...An outfit of women revolutionaries calling itself the "Proud Eagle Tribe" took credit for the blast...
...and the poor old Scranton Report gets another kick in the teeth, this time from Professor Robert Nisbet...
...The Harvard administration has yielded to pressure from radical students and their supporters and agreed to spare all Harvard students the gastronomic and moral indigestion that comes from eating "scab lettuce...
...This conception of a New Left movement, drawing strong support from radical chic sophisticates and a militant youth culture, was put forth by certain journalists who are misled by appearances or their own sympathies and by certain social scientists who are ignorant of culture or, at least, confuse culture and politics and who get their information on the "youth culture" from journals and magazines written by people like themselves...
...It passed away, he reports, because it was "silly, sickening, and boring...
...These people think the Black Panthers are heroic liberators rather than audacious thugs, cashing in on the guilt, fear, uninformed sympathies, and-in certain cases-viciousness of white liberals and radicals...
...Just as...
...And in any event, as often as not, the propitiating concession is a capitulation to unreason...
...They regard American cities as no more than collections of problems, even though most of them have chosen to live in the cities and have no intention of leaving...
...With fanatical determination, the girl persisted until only a few students remained in the hall...
...Alsop points out, the radicals' show has become a bore...
...This does not mean that students in Cambridge have developed a new affection for America or that intelligent criticism of the Administration's policies and American society has ended...
...Alsop implies, equivalent to the radical movement or the New Left...
...Fortunately no one was hurt and there was relatively little damage...
...Jones told a reporter for The Harvard Crimson: Great American Series Liberals who want no revolution are forever trying to appease the revolutionaries in order to draw them near, to entice them back up on the raft...
...This is not the case with political movements...
...She has the figure of a Mack truck...
...The anti-Vietnam War movement and the "peace" movement (which are not in all instances the same, either in membership or intent), the civil rights movement, the ecology movement, and that collection of radical movements known as "the New Left" have influenced the nation's laws, its foreign and domestic policies, its political discourse, and its social atmosphere...
...My working-class neighbors in Cambridge have been utterly unmoved by the controversy over radical chic...
...many were hissing at the girl who was shouting at them: all of them were leaving...
...These same observers also viewed every young person with long hair and bell bottoms as a participant in a "youth culture" that is simply the cultural subdivision of the New Left...
...These people read The New York Review of Books and take Psychology Today seriously...
...On another occasion, a large group of radicals and their supporters invaded and disrupted a luncheon meeting of the Center's Visiting Committee...
...I can remember remarking to friends about this time last year how quiet everything was...
...Both skits got bad reviews from the captive audience-one freshman told me the skits were "very gross"-and both skits were disrupted...
...As it turned out, the marchers did not even get a chance to demand of Director Bowie that, to promote clean air, he use Scope or, in the name of the American Dental Association, he brush with Crest...
...My secret ambition, which I am revealing for the first time in The Alternative, is to become President of the Longines Symphonette Society...
...Unlike a fad, which exists in and for the present, a political movement exists in the present but is committed to the future, at least its vision of the future...
...Its coverage of the Vietnam War is what you might expect from a student newspaper that last year editorially expressed its hope for a Viet Cong victory...
...So, we had better wait awhile before we order a casket for radical chic or dismiss the New Left as a significant political movement...
...According to Mr...
...All People Are Hypocrites At least in some matters, all people are hypocrites-and that is fortunate, since we can bear almost anything except telling and hearing the truth-but the radicals in seminar rooms, the revolutionaries on editorial boards, and the activists in "community organizations" seem to go out of their way to cultivate hypocrisy...
...She is a regular participant in radical activities at Harvard and Radcliffe...
...She was trying to do her little bit for the revolution, but the revolution simply was not taking hold with the intellectual proletariat, whose most urgent concern was to find the cheapest and quickest way to get home for the Christmas vacation...
...Rock music from the Fifties and early and middle Sixties is currently experiencing a revival, as is illustrated by the success of the self-consciously unctuous Sha-Na-Na group and the renewed interest in Elvis Presley...
...I suppose they thought that, if you've seen one Eastern European insurrection, you've seen them all...
...Alsop notes, since the appearance of Tom Wolfe's article, many writers and intellectuals have been abandoning radical chic with an alacrity that must be similar to that displayed by passengers on the Titanic when they discovered the ship was sinking...
...But when propitiating concessions are made in the face of violence or disruption, they validate the idea, so often put forward by all sorts of nonviolent people as a justification for violence, that ruthless direct action gets results...
...Alsop,"...radical chic-or the New Left, or call it what you will-was essen-tiallay a fad, and all fads die-" It is true that all fads die-a fad is, by definition, ephemeral-but it is also true that fads can be revived by contemporary "sophisticates" who condescend to be amused by the popular culture of earlier generations, as with the phenomenon of Camp, or by organizations that hope to make money out of nostalgia, as in those television commercials during which entertainers of another era are brought out of cold storage to hawk records that allegedly contain "the best of the big bands" or that promise to recapture "those memory years...
...The December 1970 issue of Commentary blasts away at the counterculture's pretensions and stupidities, about which people who had any direct contact with the counter-culture knew years ago...
...Roger Starr undertakes the weeding of Charles Reich...
...the second was ended when a freshman, Duane Jones, took the batteries out of the Troupe's bullhorn...
...As Mr...
...I say "drifted" because they appear to' be disenchanted with the radicals not because of an intellectual or moral rejection of their means and ends but because of an aesthetic revulsion at their style...
...A fad may have a profound effect on a society's culture, but it can be ignored or rejected by non-faddists...
...On the other hand, when a political movement such as the New Left suffers defeat, many of its members continue to support it, always hoping for future success, and even strengthen their commitment...
...If she would let it fall down-and sometimes, for just a few minutes, she has let it fall down-she would look almost...but she will not let it fall down...
...Other segments persist in disrupting universities, bombing the bastions and "trashing" the outposts of "capitalism and imperialism," and staging political executions, with police officers as favorite victims...
...They set off for Harvard's Freshman Union, where they planned to inflict themselves on the freshmen having lunch...
...The setting is the last lecture meeting of a course given at Harvard University this past fall...
...About 10:45 P.M., with both sides having had a good shout and the SDS still outside, the confrontation at the Center ended, but the "Radical Arts Troupe" of SDS was not calling it quits...
...They need help...
...The Harvard Crimson continued to thrill its readers with stories about the evils of America and the Harvard administration...
...An instance of such opposition occurred on 15 December, when forty SDS demonstrators marched to Harvard's Center for International Affairs (CFIA...
...Citizens who have not been members of these movements and who, in some cases, have been opposed to these movements' objectives have had to obey the new laws and adjust to the new political and social situations these movements have helped to produce...
...In the morning, they denounce the system and, in the afternoon, they pick up their paychecks or welfare checks (given the jobs of certain people, it is often hard to tell the difference...
...But show business' is not a static profession...
...Whether a fad is appearing for the first time, being revived, or, as in the case of radical chic, moribund, it should be distinguished, at least for purposes of analysis, from a political movement...
...One Boston FM station, WROR, now plays nothing but "Solid Gold Rock and Roll...
...On the other hand, when, there is a march on Washington to promote civil rights legislation or to end the war, when there are riots that, as Professor Banfield (Edward Banfield, The Unheavenly City, Little, Brown) remarks, may be "mainly for fun and profit" but that quickly are explained and excused by some as justifiable acts of political protest, when there is a massive letter-writing or intense lobbying campaign, when a political controversy is picked up by the media, or when there are acts of terrorism, such as bombing-in other words, when a political movement of any significance takes action, whether legal or illegal, peaceful or violent-there may be a response that affects people throughout the society: a bill is passed or blocked...
...bout this time last year how quiet everything was...
...She urged them to attend the SDS convention, which was scheduled to be held in Chicago late in December, and exhorted them to join the fight against American imperialism, colonialism, or racism in some place...
...Some segments of the New Left continue to engage in constitutionally protected political agitation...
...Radical students and faculty members want to close down the Center, whose programs, they claim, support American imperialism...
...The movement's programs are directed not only toward retaining old and recruiting new members but also toward influencing the thoughts and actions of people not in the movement, especially those injwsitions of power and authority...
...a policy is adopted or changed...
...Besides, there was other noise in the hall...
...As Mr...
...And some students who are not at all sympathetic to the radicals are no longer willing to let the radicals go unopposed...
...Of Appearances And Sympathies When radical chic was flourishing, it contributed to a cultural atmosphere that led certain observers addicted to surfaces to conclude that the New Left had more support than it actually had...
...A few weeks ago, about one hundred students took over a course presided over by a radical professor, who, no doubt, had hoped the students would seize power- somewhere else...
...Thus they beget upending ruthless direct action...
...These observers believed that the radical chic set really was backing rather than flirting with the New Left...
...It would have ruined the day for both sides if there had not been a confrontation, so, with the aid of bullhorns, the two groups yelled at each other for fifteen minutes...
...THE NEW REPUBLIC Alexander M. Bickel If there is one guy in here who wants to eat and not listen to this, he has the right to ask them to leave-which I did at first-because they came in without permission...
...in the 17 November 1970 National Review...
...Lest you think Mr...
...The writers in that issue react as might a man who has been taken in by the alluring photographs and fast talk of a Florida real estate promoter and who now learns the plot he has purchased is in the middle of a swamp...
...Even in a place such as Cambridge, where revolutionaries, radical intellectuals, and street people have dug in for the long battle against American society, radical posturing recently has not been accorded the applause it used to receive as a matter of course...
...It has not been a topic of conversation in their homes or at Spilewski's Market, George's grocery, Joe Gallagher's fruit stand, Reno's Sub Shop, Shea's Cleaners, or Edie's Bakery...
...During the 1969-70 academic year, they gave a "tour" of the Center, during which they pointed out the offices of the Center's "war criminals...
...A political movement strives to affect a state's political and social structure...
...They talk revolution while enjoying the privileges and pleasures afforded them by a society they profess to abhor...
...her face is invincibly plain...
...The 15 December march was not the first time some radicals had conducted a search-and-destroy operation against the CFIA...
...Don't let these remarks put you off-like all issues of Commentary, the December 1970 issue is worth reading-Norman Podhoretz discovers the young are hypocrites like everybody else...
...When Leonard Bernstein holds a soiree for the Panthers, what happens is that Tom Wolfe writes an article, a controversy develops, and a fad starts to fold...
...Seale and Miss Davis...
...The Unheavenly City is an affront to their ignorance, and they view the book and its author, Professor Banfield, with contempt...
...To take another case where intelligent criticism may help us to eliminate a bad situation, Senator Sam Ervin and others have revealed that Army Intelligence and other government agencies have been keeping watch and keeping files on millions of citizens, including elected officials...
...Jones is someone who worships tradition and sleeps with a night light on, you should know that he went on to characterize himself as "a radical person" who thinks the CFIA is "full of shit...
...The radicals press on, but many of their erstwhile supporters have drifted away or even into opposition...
...After forcing the meeting to disband, some of the demonstrators followed certain members of the Committee and the Center's staff out of the building...
...politicians, who always are talking, talk some more or change the subject...
...Standing before the lecture platform, she began to harangue the students...
...The party and the article give the intellectuals something to think (and gossip) about and the writers something to write about...
...Could it be that Timothy Leary is the Harry Von Zell of the New Left...
...When a fad such as radical chic becomes unfashionable, many of its fans desert it without hesitation-parties for the Panthers are definitely out now...
...For example, the migrant farm workers, who are not fashionable and who do not have money to fly around the country attending parties and rallies where their misery is lamented, continue to live in wretched camps in Florida and elsewhere...
...Some students who are at least partially sympathetic to the radicals' positions are not, if only for the time being, willing to be taken in by any radical appeal or to go along with any radical action...
...One day, a band of Weathermen launched a brief raid against the Center...
...I regret that I cannot report exactly which evil and where, because the girl was firing off the cliches and slogans so rapidly that I could not catch them all as they whizzed past...
...These students would not allow the demonstrators to enter the CFIA...
...and she combs her dark brown hair back and to the sides so that it is straight and rigid...
...the professors walked out, a husky girl, student who had been sitting in one of the first rows jumped from her seat and rushed toward the front of the hall...
...I had seen her before...
...At the end of the meeting, the students applauded as the two professors who together had taught the course left the lecture hall (by the way, the applause was for their teaching and not their departure...
...Let me cite a few examples...
...For a provocative proposal about how to improve our position in the Middle East, see Charles Benson's article, "A Strategic Alternative...
...Radical chic is a fad that celebrates certain radical groups and their activities, but it is not, as Mr...
...They feel that we are all morally obligated to elevate Cesar Chavez to the position to which he aspires: Era-poror of American Produce...
Vol. 4 • February 1971 • No. 4
