Notes from the 60s

Abstract

George Kennan's Rebels Without a Program [The New York Times, Sunday magazine, Jan. 21, 1968] is appalling. There is barely a sentence in the article free of false accusation, self-enclosed argument, misplaced indignation. It is a gross misrepresentation of the radical left on the campus -just the sort of patronizing and distorted account which confirms 20 year olds in their view that liberals are incapable of understanding either the new generation or the new problems which confront our society. It is, moreover, a dangerous article, for it lends the weight of Kennan's name to a perspective and rhetoric usually associated with a Ronald Reagan .... I cannot believe that Kennan has read extensively in the position papers frequently issued by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the national organization which represents radical left opinion on the campus. If he had, he could not possibly refer to their massive certainties, their screaming tantrums, their consuming interest in violence for violence's sake.... Because they believe there can and should be less suffering in the world hardly makes them utopians. True, they have no blueprints for creating a better world. If they had, the charge of naivete would apply, for only a simpleton would pretend to have a detailed set of answers for the multiple problems which beset us .... But let there be no pretense that today's youthful radicals have no line of argument. If Kennan will read the literature written by members of SDS, he will find any number of proposals for constitutional amendment or political reform, as well as that very wealth of reasoned argument and discussion he claims does not exist .... It's the old story: when radicals do produce plans for a better society, they're denounced for attempting to straightjacket fluid reality. When they fail to produce plans, they're denounced as visionaries. Those who oppose substantive change can always find some reason for doing so.... -To the Editor, Times, 1968