The mere fact that the species has survived so far seems hardly adequate cause for self-applause, nor can we indulge in self-congratulations for our civilization's considerable material and cultural development that has failed to guarantee survival or nurture the bodies and the spirit of all human kind.
If we are to survive and wipe out not only the symptoms, but the causes of injustice and decay, there must be change. There is going to be change. This is inevitable. The quesion that the future asks: What kind of change for the good, the bad, coming rapidly or more slowly, by radical excisement of the old, by amputation and transplant, or mutation?
Some of our institutions have served us well; others served us less than adequately because we have served them poorly. We can believe that we can improve our use of them and thus, bring about a more perfect society. Or we can believe that we must replace them with something new. One of the forms of change is, of course, evolution. The other is revolution, which may or may not be accompanied by violence.
The magnificence of the American system is that it provides for either or both revolution and evolution within its existing framework without the need for violent overthrow of the system itself. Violence not only thwarts the workings of the system but also impedes and distorts the revolution itself.
By transgressing the rights of the majority, violence is a denial of the very civil rights the revolutionists claim for themselves. It is intellectually intolerable that they should attempt to hide under the cloak of the very law, the very system they seek to destroy.
If the violence in our world today is a symptom of the illness against which the intellectual revolts, then consistency demands that he eschew violence in pursuing that revolt. Non-violent revolt is possible, and, indeed, may be desirable' John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were non-violent revolutionaries. Both preached change, within the system, within the philosophy, within the dream. Their revolutions were to be in men's minds; their weapons, understanding, reason, sustained pressure to achieve their goals.
Their strategy was to conquer totally, yet bloodlessly; to win over the mind, and the heart. They hoped their revolutions would succeed quickly, but they knew they wouldn't. So they compromised, reluctantly but realistically, concentrating their revolutionary zeal on an effort to bring about evolutionary change. They knew, as another revolutionist, Thomas Lawrence--the Lawrence of Arabia--put it: "Progress is not made by the single genius, but by the common people. The genius raids, but the common people occupy and possess."
These men--the President who wanted to lead his nation into a new age, the civil-rights leader who wanted his nation to come of age; and the daring adventurer in seemingly another age all saw that their revolutions needed pragmatism as well as idealism to succeed.
Today an entirely different kind of revolution is under way throughout the world. On both sides of the Iron Curtain young people are revolting against the Establishment.
Youth's discontent stems from the same impatience that has motivated each generation when it was young--impatience to get on with the obvious reforms that the Establishment seems reluctant to institute.
With the world's present potential for mass suicide with nuclear weapons and the apparent inability of the Establishment to control it, is there any wonder that the students of today rebel with an urgency unknown to earlier generations?
The Vietnam war goes on, human beings at the grim game of slaughter, while the diplomats plow their ponderous way in Paris. After a few thousand years of so-called civilization, it seems that there ought to be a better way. That, I suggest, is part of what young people are saying--there ought to be a better way.
Trying to draw a parallel between the rebels here and abroad isn't a fruitful exercise because the United States possesses to a unique degree the twin assets of democracy: the acceptance of dissent and the assurance of responsive, and, so far, responsible change. It is against these two elements that we must weigh today's rebellion in our country.
When does dissent go beyond the bounds of reasonable criticism and become a danger to the survival of the society that nurtured it? And if it does go that far, what should society do about it?
Our Constitution guarantees freedom of speech under the First Amendment. The courts remind us that this freedom is not unlimited, even if the Constitution says it is. "The abuses of freedom of speech," as Benjamin Franklin noted, "ought to be repressed." "But," he asked, "to whom are we to commit the power of doing it?" His question remains unanswered today after almost 200 years.
But if dissent applies to acts of conscience, as most of us seem to think it does, should society allow unlimited civil, or even criminal disobedience? If initial dissent does not produce a responsive change, say, in the conduct of a war, should we, as citizens, be entitled then to sabotage the war efforts?
Speaking outside the court, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas declared recently that "civil disobedience is never justified in our nation when the law being violated is not itself the target of the protest." Furthermore, as he and others have argued, as long as the government Constitutionally protects the right to criticize, outright rebellion and wanton destruction can never be construed as legitimate dissent.
Some dissident student leaders argue that democracy does not exist for them at their universities; that their rebellion must be total, aimed at completely paralyzing and over-turning the existing leadership. They do not realize, or they choose to ignore, just how much freedom they possess today in the United States-which, despite some abuse, still compares favorably with that enjoyed by any other students in any other country, at this, or any other, time in history.
Furthermore, as Dr. Sidney Hook, of NYU's Department of Philosophy, points out: academic freedom is not, as many think, freedom of the students to learn what they please; it's freedom of the universities to decide what to teach, and how to teach it. This is the academic freedom that universities have been sheltering for many centuries--freedom from outside pressures, not freedom for inside pressure groups.
The freedom for which we all should be fighting is the freedom of free inquiry, the freedom to study our democratic institutions without fear of harassment by misguided patriots, the freedom to advocate change without facing trial for heresy.
To determine what we keep, what we change, and what we discard, we must pursue full and open inquiry, which may require throwing off old concepts and shibboleths in the spirit of basic research.
back to Challenges of Change - Contents
Cronkite for President - Can we find someone, (someone over 35 years old), who we could most all agree on for our next President?
Walter Cronkite newspaper columns
Gaia Brain: democratic ownership
and free market management of natural resources
to the center of the Gaia Brain/Cronkite Draft page