Review of the Book:
Letters to a Young Activist by Todd Gitlin
Edward J. Dodson
[letters to a young activist is published
by Basic Books, New York, NY / 2003]
I had never heard of Todd Gitlin before being asked to review his
latest book, which says something about my own history as an
activist. The author and I each "came of age" during the
tumultuous decade that began in the early 1960s and shared some of
the same anti-establishment ideals that influenced activists of that
period. Mr. Gitlin's personal journey included a central role in the
establishment of Students for a Democratic Society as a voice for
the young adults of our generation. He emerged from this experience
to earn a Ph.D. and embark on a long teaching career in journalism
and sociology.
What Professor Gitlin offers readers is a lessons learned
memoir on the 1960s struggles. He hopes this book will help the
young activists of today be more effective in their advocacy of
progressive social and political change. He reminds us that what
brought younger persons into the activist ranks in the early- to
mid-1960s was a sense of responsibility and obligation. "We
were trying to build - to be - a better society," he recalls. "The
idea of the movement erased the distinction between public and
private; as a way of life, it was a network of linkages, public
bonds that were so private as to erase this distinction
"
[p.3] This was a peculiar moment in history when a small number of
people shared a commitment to change the course of history. But, in
what direction and to what outcome? Here is an important lesson
learned:
"You do what you can - and in the right spirit. The
wrong motives not only corrupt and betray you, they are more likely
to bring bad results." [p.10]
Even then, he adds, being armed with the right spirit and sincere
motives is not enough. Responding emotionally without a full
understanding of the history, of the forces at play and the motives
of others can lead the activist to run full speed in the wrong
direction. Problems are more easy to see than the solutions to those
problems:
"We all rummage around for forebears, lest we feel
utterly marooned in history. But all such mystiques, whatever their
share of truth, become distortions by the time they get into popular
circulation." [p.19]
Those who had the discipline to learn from the past and came
closest to this ideal of sincere motive somehow were the activists
who managed to escape becoming what Eric Hoffer described as "true
believers," or, as Todd Gitlin describes what amounts to the
same thing, "the herd instinct." He associates this
characteristic with the Old Left, wisely discarded by the thoughtful
in favor of "a fresh - democratic, searching, pragmatic - New
Left that for a time offered vastly more promise."[p.23] That
promise was invariably thwarted by the complex coming together of
societal attitudes, issue-oriented activist efforts, conflicting
value systems, economic class concerns, political estrangement,
knee-jerk anti-communism, the stresses of military adventurism and
ongoing racial conflict. All the while, the overwhelming majority of
the young were only superficially involved. Expanding
experimentation with drugs and a more casual attitude toward sex did
not lead to concerted challenges to the nation's economic system or
socio-political arrangements and institutions.
Despite all of this, Professor Gitlin reminds us that some concrete
changes for the better came out of the "radicalism of the
sixties," in particular the long-term commitment to become
better stewards of the environment. The years have brought him to
another important lesson, applicable for social democracies such as
ours:
"Liberal society needs conservatives.
A good
measure of equipoise is healthy. Someone has to resist unrestrained
social change whenever it moves 'too far' in any single direction -
and the debate as to where too far starts is always useful. Brakes
are the health in the conserving impulse. But when conservatives
blame domestic enemies for epochal extensions of democratic and
individual rights, they are refusing to face the complexity and
strangeness of culture."[p.38]
This brings to mind the great debate between Edmund Burke and
Thomas Paine that erupted out of the French Revolution. One might
fairly conclude (as did Mortimer Adler, for instance) that without
an education in these and other classics of our intellectual and
philosophical heritage, we are ill-equipped for rational discourse.
"The price of intellectual honesty is high, but not as high as
blindness," writes Professor Gitlin.[p.40] Left unsaid is that
the path to intellectual honesty requires one to have an inquiring
mind and something of a disciplined commitment to learning. Only a
handful of philosophers have emerged in history to also become
effective activists. Charismatic individuals too often emerge to
lead others into the depths of depredation under the guise of
bringing an end to worse depredations. To the young activist of
today, Professor Gitlin sets down a powerful gauntlet:
"Ignorance of the past may be an excuse for people
with lesser ambitions than changing the world, but it's no excuse
for you. Paying attention to history
will help you improve on
your predecessors. They - we - made mistakes, which is one (though
only one) reason why the world remains to be changed - and while the
situation you confront is always different from what your
predecessors confronted, the best way to free yourself from their
shadow is to walk a while in their shoes."[pp.42-43]
The passage of time convinces Professor Gitlin that change comes
when the activist combines idealism with realism. "Right action
requires thought: a realistic appraisal of the world of institutions
and powers, of actual and potential adversaries and allies."[p.49]
From whom is this knowledge to be learned? One source in the sixties
were the rapidly evolving college and university communities,
awakened by an arising youth culture from a deep sleep. Another was
the very process of organizing for nonviolent, civil disobedience.
The violent outbursts that came at the fringe of these broader
coalitions also aroused a deeper and long-lasting backlash:
"
the riots, threats and violent rhetoric
panicked much of the white electorate, stampeding them into the
Republican Party, which proved adept at managing wedge issues and
where many of them have lodged ever since.
[P]anic worsened
the white recoil, inflamed northern and western whites, boosted the
Reaganite movement, and deepened the Left's discredit."[p.57]
Another lesson learned. "Our anger was most productive,"
he writes, "when (1) we had good arguments, (2) we stayed
nonviolent, (3) we won a hearing from serious-minded insiders, and
(4) we mobilized outside forces. Then we could afford to offend a
lot of well-meaning bystanders and still get results by making
intelligent nuisances of ourselves."[pp.64-65] I am again
reminded of a Churchillian observation - that democracy is the worst
form of government except for all the rest. As deep we feel is the
corruption, as entrenched we know is the privilege, as frustrated as
we are by the slow, incremental pace of progress, we still
owe a great deal to those who crafted our unique socio-political
arrangements and institutions. Great care must be taken not to
discard all that is good while working to dislodge all that is bad.
Moreover, there is the very real propensity for things to get out of
control:
"In a world bound together by media, investment,
migration and violence, consequences ripple outward far and wide. So
in politics, you need to channel your impulses, frustrate your
spontaneity, think as well as feel, settle for less than the ideal
result, because you live alongside others, because they are the
field of your action, because consequences count and history is
unforgiving."[p.87]
Over and over, the good has been subverted by fundamentalist true
believers who "have their hearts set on destruction."[p.89]
Constructive, progressive movements, on the other hand, "are
not centralized think tanks that adopt and enforce party lines. They
are mélanges, dispersed, polycentric and fluid, their
positions all over the lot.
Movements frustrate our hopes for
orderly reason, and sometimes do more than frustrate them - they
blast them apart."[p.101] In this sense, the fundamentalist and
nominally-conservative Right is not a movement; rather, the Right is
an hierarchical organization, the members of which see themselves as
defenders of traditional values. Their leaders have faith in
centralized power and seek this power in order to prevent a
broadened interpretation of the Constitution's defense of individual
rights against governmental intrusion. Thus, for example, the Right
looks back to the Framers to claim special privilege for religious
sects and institutions but to deny others freedom from having to
financially and otherwise support religion. To the Right, we are "one
nation, under God." Athiests, Deists and Agnostics might be
tolerated in our midst, but this land is a land for believers - and
for Protestant Christian believers especially. The absence of an
equally powerful, well-organized and citizen-supported counter on
behalf of true individual liberty "leaves the Right claiming
the mantle of universal values while defending plutocratic power and
immense inequalities," concludes Professor Gitlin.[p.124]
From this long-time activist, the young are encouraged to "[f]ace
up to America's self-contradictions, its on-again off-again interest
in extending rights, its clumsy egalitarianism coupled with ignorant
arrogance."[p.157] Study the issues, question authority,
challenge power - but recognize "[t]hat the quandaries we
confront now - and for the foreseeable future - are immensely
difficult," and that this "makes the asking of questions a
citizen's duty."[p.161]
I am largely in sympathy with Professor Gitlin's message.
Construction, cooperation and coalition-building is what we need
more of if we are to stand a chance of saving the earth from wanton
destruction. Our only real hope is to do everything possible to
spread by education and dialogue a transnational sense of right and
wrong. As Professor Gitlin states, solving our problems will demand
"of us an unprecedented response."[p.167] There is great
uncertainty ahead for us. Many of us felt a moment of exhilaration
when the despotism of state-socialism imploded across the Eurasian
continent. Little did we know that lurking just beneath the surface
were pent-up hatreds ready to be ignited by the inflamed activism of
ethnic and quasi-religious nationalists. Professor Gitlin takes a
page from Mortimer Adler by his support for a federal world
government, or at least meaningful movement toward that end. If only
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