Groping in a Group

...with rare exception, neither the literary nor the analytical quality of the material that subsequently emerged in print proved outstanding...

...The faculty's judgments won understanding and respect largely because students approved of the way the decisions were reached...

...Radicalization" is a matter of style and psychology rather than political commitment, and colleges must respond accordingly...

...Reviewed by Elliott Abrams Harvard '69 Soon after the disruptions at Harvard in the spring of 1969, it seemed that almost everyone on campus was writing a book, or at least a magazine article, about what had happened...

...Zorza wants many paths to choose from, yet admits he is confused...

...Regarding what a college should do, statements made by the author and his fellow radicals indicate that once a crisis has developed, the style of the adults' response is as important as its content...

...I think not, for the needs catered to by the student movement are generally not those of scholars --or even radicals--but of adolescents...

...The author was one of those "radicalized" by the police raid on University Hall (the administration building sds had occupied), and his book gives considerable insight into the group dynamics of "radicalization...

...Zorza misspells the names of several of the most important people in the book, including the key sds leader and the university police chief...

...He remembers that "we dreamed of alternative lives but lacked the courage to find them," that "we did not have the courage to act...

...The other element in "radicalization" besides emotional immaturity seems to be political naivete...

...From the outset it is clear that this is very much a collective process, whose central feature is the formation of a new group identity --the "we" of Zorza's title--for the students...

...Once the faculty overcame the challenge to its legitimacy, it was able to deal effectively with the substance of the situation...

...Harvard gave us many models," and asks, "Faced with all those life styles, all those Harvards, what were we to do...

...The ills of the world," he informs us, "would be solved only by a massive deployment of love...

...In its own way, though, this is a valuable book...

...he wants models of behavior, but resents being told what to do...

...Although he obviously takes the revolutionary potential of the student movement very seriously, I think greater insight into the dynamics of this phenomenon will be found in the works of Freud or Erikson than in those of Karl Marx...

...Though these are minor points, they are further indications of the incredible muddle in the author's mind...

...The book also suffers from some pretentious moralizing and a number of factual errors...

...Throughout the book, Zorza criticizes Harvard both for constraining its students' personal development and for refusing to give direction to their lives...

...Richard Zorza's key theory is embodied in the title...

...One of Harvard's great strengths during its 1969 crisis was that most students, faculty and administrators did consider themselves part of a community--one worth saving and strengthening...

...I might add that computer print-outs do not decide which courses Harvard students take...

...The medium is half the message in this case, for it will determine whether one sounds like a dictator or a thoughtful and concerned scholar...

...at the same time, a significant number of students did find a certain fulfillment in the dramatic group activities of the strike days that Harvard could not provide...

...the students do...

...Zorza is representative of a large part of the student movement, and his book gives the reader a good idea of the sorts of satisfaction students seem to find in collective action under the radical banner...

...In the few days after the University Hall "bust," when everyone wore red armbands and spent hour after hour at mass meetings and rallies, Zorza experienced the "joys of commitment" While his belief that "Harvard had never before considered itself a community" is wrong, it touches upon an important point...

...He complains of "computer print-outs that told us which courses to enroll in" and "the paternalistic educational system," but also declares that "we had little to guide us...

...This is an interesting political strategy, but when Zorza adds that he and his friends "were displaying a delicate political consciousness," we move from the naive to the ridiculous...

...he wants a wide selection of courses, but would eliminate some as "irrelevant...

...Zorza is honest about his and his friends' paralysis...

...It is a right that gives us an identity and allows us dignity...

...Early on he tells us: "The right to say 'we' . . . is more precious than all others to this confronted generation...

...This exaltation of the collective identity, however, represents not so much an outright rejection of individualism as it does a basic fear of it...

...No college administration can compete in this league, nor should it try...

...Unfortunately, not even at Harvard are there dozens of Tocquevilles...

...Walter Mittys of the Left," President Nathan Pusey branded them, and in retrospect his much-maligned assessment seems accurate...

...The student movement could offer amusing group activities: two big rallies in the football stadium, rock concerts in the Yard, bright red fists for your T-shirt, and, of course, a strike against classes...

...he wants a sense of commitment, but not if that involves long-term responsibilities...

...Thus an impersonal presentation of facts to the students serves to counter merely the former accusation, while ignoring the latter...

...To this extent, the student-as-adolescent must be catered to...

...The Right to Say "We", it must regrettably be said, swells the ranks of the mediocre...

...Did Harvard, then, fail its students...

...Leaders of the student movement try to convince other students that the decisions of professors and deans are not only wrong-headed but illegitimate...

...For example, when the Harvard faculty meetings were broadcast live during the strike, students heard a heated debate among intelligent, involved, well-meaning men...

...yet we hated ourselves for being afraid...

...Again, Zorza is a fine representative of his movement...

...The work of a young Englishman (the son of the Guardian's Kremlinolo-gist, Victor Zorza), it is nevertheless written from a wholly American perspective and offers the best digest I have come across of the confusion and self-delusions common to what is often called the student movement...