A Word About "Bourgeois Civil Liberties"
Howe, Irving
Objection after objection has been made that by obstructing [Dow Chemical] recruiters, we have been denying others—the recruiter and those who wish to see him—the right of free speech and...
...Mr...
...The institutions our resistance has desanctified and delegitimatized, as a result of our action against their oppression of others, have lost all authority and hence all respect...
...The institutions," he writes, have "lost all authority and hence all respect...
...It is something to conjure with...
...These questions were once faced by the Communists when they said that civil liberties were convenient under capitalism but could be disposed of once they took power...
...is "totalitarian...
...Perhaps we can then each report on our reading and thereby contribute to a dialogue on the Left...
...If Mr...
...Since they are without legitimacy in our eyes, they are without rights...
...And if so, might he not be guilty of elitism, that is, of substituting his own judgments and decisions for those of the people...
...Our critique argues that the social order we are rebelling against is totalitarian, manipulative, repressive, and anti-democratic...
...Might not the ability to do these things be taken as evidence that the U.S., whatever its many and grave faults, is not quite "totalitarian...
...but on what grounds would Mr...
...Finally, a friendly offer...
...It has further been our view that we should fight the hardest and the most consistently for civil liberties, first because we value them in principle and second because any trend to whittle them away would probably hurt us the most...
...How it happens that SDS can hold demonstrations urging people to defect from the army and declaring the President to be a murderer...
...Or even of American students...
...I am prepared to read any book proposed by Mr...
...I know on what grounds Norman Thomas and Roger Baldwin would oppose the suppression of SDS by government or its persecution by enemy organizations...
...Davidson still persist in "abolishing" their authority and rights...
...Objection after objection has been made that by obstructing [Dow Chemical] recruiters, we have been denying others—the recruiter and those who wish to see him—the right of free speech and assembly...
...And if he believes that SDS as a private organization has the moral authority to abolish the "rights" of "the institutions," on what grounds will he argue if other private organizations—say, the American Legion or the Birch Society—proceed on their own to abolish the "rights" of SDS...
...Davidson see any danger that people of good will might draw similar conclusions about him...
...Suppose it could be shown that 98 per cent of the people continue to respect those institutions—would Mr...
...Radicals have traditionally held this conquest to be precious as one that should be preserved and extended in a socialist society...
...No one— even if, like myself, he felt obliged to defend the civil liberties of Communists as a matter of principle—could take seriously their claim to care about freedom...
...Yet to say that does not answer the question: in what way are civil liberties themselves "bourgeois...
...Would Mr...
...Precisely what are bourgeois civil liberties...
...A theory is now being advanced in New Left circles that we live in the U.S...
...Very well...
...The main kinds of nonbourgeois society in the world today are primitive and Communist...
...Davidson, they may not be so important...
...In a sense, this is true...
...Davidson, if he will promise to read Lenin's "Left Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder...
...Davidson and others of his persuasion, who under "fascist fascism" might well have been transformed into lampshades had they so much as uttered a peep of discontent, are, I am happy to say, continuing to shout their denunciation of the appalling Vietnam War under "liberal fascism...
...Davidson declares "the institutions" to be stripped of authority and rights, by what moral and/or political standards does he then propose to denounce them when they violate the civil liberties they claim to uphold...
...In what way does "liberal fascism" differ from "fascist fascism...
...In that Mr...
...Davidson offer some examples of nonbourgeois civil liberties...
...Davidson and his friends that they look into the dismal story of an earlier but similar theory, advanced some 35 years ago under the label of "social fascism" in the Communist movement...
...The issue is whether SDS will try forcibly to prevent recruiters from saying their wretched little piece, even though the majority of students favors allowing them to...
...And if so, how will SDS reconcile that stand with "participatory democracy...
...Davidson cares to reply, space will be available to him...
...Because they reflect the thinking of some people in the American Left, I should like to raise a few questions, and if Mr...
...If Mr...
...Could he then explain how it happens that SDS manages to pour out of its Chicago office—and through the postal system of this very "totalitarian" country—large quantities of material denouncing the society...
...Does Mr...
...Davidson...
...For a majority of the American people...
...In that the rights of organization and protest, action and speech so brutally destroyed by the latter, remain essentially operative under the former...
...Who has appointed SDS the judge of whether the institutions of this country retain their authority and rights...
...Being "without legitimacy in our eyes, they are without rights...
...In the former there are few civil liberties, in the latter none...
...Will SDS, in the name of participatory (or any other kind of) democracy, abide by the voice of the majority or will it continue advocating the forcible obstruction of recruiters...
...I would earnestly plead with Mr...
...But if we no longer recognize their authority or rights, how then can we claim the protection of their rules...
...One thinks of civil liberties as including provisions of the Bill of Rights for freedom of speech, press, assemblage, etc...
...Mind: the issue is not whether SDS holds demonstrations against Dow Chemical, since no one can in principle be opposed to that...
...SDS declares itself in favor of "participatory democracy...
...Our outrage rests on the assumption that he is violating due process and common standards of decency—procedures and standards "the institutions" claim to value...
...The results, as we all know, were disastrous...
...As such they have only raw, coercive power...
...A historical examination would show that civil liberties have often been won through the struggle of labor unions, socialist movements, and liberal intellectuals, and sometimes in opposition to the bourgeoisie...
...under "liberal fascism...
...That these are sometimes violated by the bourgeois state or falsely linked with bourgeois ideology, is true...
...We are 10 COMMENTS AND OPINIONS all outraged by General Hershey's proposal to draft antiwar students as a punitive measure...
...THESE LINES, UNDER THE HEADING "Resistance and Bourgeois Civil Liberties," come from Interorganizational Secretary of SDS Carl Davidson and appear in New Left Notes, November 13, 1967...
...But if no more is involved than bourgeois civil liberties which we can discard upon need, then, Mr...
...Or are only right-thinking folk allowed to participate in "participatory democracy...
...At certain universities—Columbia, UCLA—there have been referenda among the students on allowing Dow Chemical recruiters to appear on campus, and by a decisive majority the students voted in favor of so allowing them...
...but "lost all authority" for whom...
...If it is intolerable that a majority should deny the civil liberties of a minority, it is madness for a tiny minority to try to deny the civil liberties of a majority...
...Davidson declares "the institutions" to have no further authority and rights, could he suggest on which principled basis—that is, more than an outcry that people of correct opinion are being hurt—he would argue against "the institutions" if and when these proceed to suppress him...
...Davidson declares the U.S...
Vol. 15 • January 1968 • No. 1
