The Young Radicals: A Symposium
Wolff, Robert Paul
I view this undertaking with skepticism. Perhaps I am influenced by the grotesque product of the Commentary effort, but I think that my objections to a symposium on Young Radicals go deeper....
...But radical is something to do, not to be...
...My doubts are only intensified by the evidences of "a significant upsurge in the interest of young people in politics," to quote the letter which accompanied the symposium questions...
...The Negro problem is, in the language of the philosopher, accidental to left-wing politics, not essential to it...
...But it is no longer possible to claim that their plight is structural to the system...
...But a nuclear war would mean the death of those traditions and principles which I consider worth fighting for: democracy, a concern for the individual, the inviolability of truth, the ideal of the socialist society, the rule of law...
...As Aristotle said about happiness, one becomes radical by directing one's attention to problems and dealing with them in a radical fashion...
...Even the anti-HUAC campaign is a-political, for no question is ever raised about the function of congressional committees in general, or the sources of right-wing strength...
...Nothing else is even remotely as important...
...At best, this desire is neutral with respect to the value of that society, and at worst it implies an endorsement of it...
...These are ills which call for "more of the same," not a "going to the roots...
...Such a symposium presupposes that there is in existence a community of persons with a sufficiently coherent outlook to consider one another as a natural audience...
...Mankind has survived such periods before...
...I take it that the concealed purpose of the third question is to ask whether the techniques of non-violence can be applied to left-wing political activity in America today...
...The central insight of Marx's analysis of political power was that economic power was transformed into political power which was then used in the service of that economic interest...
...Despite the touching faith of some of my friends, I see no reason to suppose that a democratic socialist United States would be any less belligerent than it is today, or any less involved in a cold war...
...I am equally unimpressed by psychoanalytic explanations...
...It has seemed to me that the Administration, in common with virtually the entire spectrum of effective American political opinion, is in the grip of a world view which is dangerous and distorted...
...So this narcissistic mirror-gazing can only waste energy which ought to be devoted to hard work on issues of substantive importance...
...To seek directly to be a radical is almost certainly to fail...
...Yet today the problems of class struggle and economic justice are secondary to, and relatively distinct from, the issue of war or peace...
...The answer is obviously no...
...The answer to the second is simple and again reveals the irrelevance of radical politics...
...This is true, but again it is not the problem which radical thought originally set itself to solve...
...I could even face with philosophic resignation a conservative reaction for several centuries in the West...
...If I were in a position to do so, I would support Khrushchev against the old Stalinists with every means at my disposal, because he appears to be the best Soviet alternative from the point of view of world peace...
...One last word about the rationale of this symposium...
...The same is true for the fight against capital punishment, which has no special connection with left-wing politics...
...But I confess that I do not see the economic or institutional roots of this ideology, and therefore I cannot see any way to combat it (the voice of reason is unfortunately an inadequate weapon...
...Perhaps I am influenced by the grotesque product of the Commentary effort, but I think that my objections to a symposium on Young Radicals go deeper...
...The tradition of political thought which give birth to "left-right" distinctions was and is wholly concerned with national problems...
...Finally, as I shall point out below, the peace movement is utterly a-political...
...Of course, there are many workers today who do not share the benefits of the well-unionized industrial workers...
...The fight is solely against abuses of the existing system, and hence quite conservative persons can join the campaign...
...Rest assured that every true and honest sentence which you print in DISSENT will, in contemporary America, mark a radical departure from existing patterns of thought...
...After all, Jewishness is not a matter of doing something, but merely of beingsomething...
...One might answer that there is an economic problem—viz., the political power of the great corporations in controlling foreign affairs...
...To expend one's energies opening up the ranks of the bourgeoisie (Ivy League schools, managerial levels of business, etc...
...They were starving and oppressed —by miserable working and living conditions and impossibly long hours...
...When one examines the examples cited, one discovers that they are without exception a-political or non-political in character...
...I have already said as much as I wish about the first...
...The Cuban venture illustrated it, and so in general has the President's response to the Berlin crisis...
...Our society may be rotten in many important respects, but I would not want to bet money that its economic efforts will fail...
...I think this world-view is, in the classic sense, a case of ideological false consciousness, and I have found it almost impossible ever to crack through it in discussions with liberals or others...
...The same techniques which have raised the auto worker or steel worker to his present affluence can be employed to aid the migrant worker or chain-store clerk...
...But if you mean to ask whether I would withhold my support from such governments, then I answer that my decision would depend entirely on the viable alternatives...
...Don't worry so much about who's radical, and why...
...The reason, in part, is that the steam has gone out of the issues which first gave rise to radical thought and action...
...Indeed, judging from the virulent anti-communism of much of the Left, I would almost expect such a United States to be more intent upon an anti-Red crusade...
...Commentary can perhaps be excused for its symposium on young Jews...
...This is just the sort of pointless, subjective question that reveals the death of genuine left-wing thinking...
...I find these suppositions very dubious indeed...
...It is, in a way, like the growth of interest in cultural criticism, which on solid radical grounds should be the subject of least interest (as it is directed to the very highest reaches of the superstructure), rather than the focus of radical discussion...
...As for authoritarian government, I "withhold my sympathy" from every government which commits a single act of oppression or injustice or cruelty, which is to say that I have no sympathy for any past or present government...
...Sympathy has nothing to do with the matter...
...The only issue, so far as I am concerned, is whether there will be a nuclear war...
...It presupposes further that the term "radical" has enough content to withstand careful analysis...
...It asks what sort of "personal response" is evoked in me by Lumumba, Castro, et al., and whether I "withhold my sympathy" from movements with an authoritarian bent...
...Now segregation is a totally non-political question, at least in any sense which is relevant to "radicalism...
...It is not even really the case that the Negroes provide a pool of cheap labor, and hence in that sense are involved in a conflict of economic interests...
...The first is the sit-ins and the response to them in the North...
...to the Negro is simply to ignore the radical problem, however much it may be in accord with the interests of justice...
...I am revolted by the reports of injustice and repression in Cuba, but I supported Castro last year and the year before, and I support him now, because the alternatives seem worse...
...I would be uncomfortable in their presence and would rather not be governed by them, but so what...
...How about a symposium on the American ideology, or the problems of arms limitation and reduction, or the sources of political power in our society, or the fate of the non-unionized worker...
...What earthly differ ence does it make how I "respond" to Lumumba or Castro...
...Marx argues that the only way to liberate the Jews from religious persecution is to liberate society from its capitalist form entirely...
...The Negroes desire to be admitted to existing American society...
...Neither conservative, nor liberal, nor socialist political theory has anything much to say about international affairs...
...As soon as a better alternative arose, I would shift my support...
...If there is any problem deserving of study by radicals, it is the analysis of the nature and sources of this American ideology...
...I find this country exceedingly non-political, and I am convinced that the "upsurge" of activity among young people will not, and cannot, be transformed into a genuine left-wing movement...
...I am unconvinced by explanations of our foreign policy which rely upon economic interest...
...It is therefore understandable that one might wonder just what it was to be a Jew...
...I do not know why America has become dedicated to an anti-Communist crusade, nor why even very intelligent and independent men persist in misreading the recent history of Soviet-American relations, imputing to Russia an expansionist aggressiveness which belies the facts, and to America a role of wronged innocent which is simply grotesque...
...Now the problem of preventing a nuclear war is simply not a peculiarly left-wing issue...
...With this very extended introduction, let me turn to the questions of the symposium...
...The fourth question reveals one of the greatest weaknesses of leftwing thinking today...
...In America today, economic power has certainly been transformed into political power, but a look at the relation of export-import levels to the economy as a whole will reveal how silly it is to suppose that our foreign policy is a reflection merely of the economic interests of the powers who control its formulation...
...And radicals might expend some energy looking after their needs...
...European liberals do not exhibit this blindness and conservatism, despite their community of interest and culture with those of the United States...
...There was no question of arousing their interest in Shakespeare or Bach, in "enriching" their lives by inculcating them with a middle class academic ethos...
...Read Marx's description of the working classes in industrial England...
...I am reminded here of Marx's brilliant (and much misunderstood) essay on the Jewish question...
...The last question raises an issue of fundamental importance...
...To apply to a well-paid auto worker of today the categories appropriate to his predecessor in the mills of 1830 is absurd...
...When the class distribution is identical for Negroes and whites, will we cease to be interested in the Negro workingman, as we have already lost interest in his white brother...
Vol. 9 • April 1962 • No. 2
