7. The importance of style: The new reformation starts by nailing bold theses to the Cathedral door--with flash bulbs and cameras ready to record the scene. Demands are made suddenly, dramatically, publicly. Instead of working within organizations and through channels and by consultation, the appeal is directly to the mass public. Thus it is necessary to get the attention of the press and TV. Violation of rules and the law is one quick way of doing this. It is a lever that can be pulled to get instant attention. Advertising techniques come to the campus in the service of prophecy not profit. The student activist is the PR expert. The simplistic slogan and banner headline replace the carefully reasoned argument. The style is daring, flamboyant and egotistical. It is a revolt that draws more on Madison Avenue than on convictions about the nature of the historical process.
The style requires leaders in accord with it. It needs the charismatic speaker, the popular folk singer, the crusading star. Protest is also entertainment. A revolt is a "happening," important in its own right and repleat with emotion, even hysteria. Events should be escalated quickly-- piling grievance on grievance and "atrocity" on "atrocity," encouraging the authorities and the police to create martyrs, seeking emotional commitment. The enemy must be personalized and vilified. It is, among other things, a great existential experience.
The goal is quick results--no compromise. It is better to lose with a brave manifesto never achieved than to secure quiet success buried in ambiguities. There is little endurance. And, if there is defeat, escape into private experiences and fantasies always lies ahead.
Style is a central feature of the new political activism. The style affects content--which must be immediate and simple. The style may even become the performance itself.
8. Allies and allied enemies: The new activists can look, within the campus, for support from the few Bohemians and often from the Peace Corps and academic styles as well, and outside the campus, from the Old and New Left, the New Theologists, and the remaining minorities. The essential theme, however, is one of students by themselves largely isolated from external groups. They ask for little help, as the slogan "don't trust anyone over 30" implies.
"Student power," however, does get manipulated by many people for many reasons. The Left embraces the idea, lends its advice and some leadership, and builds up every application of it into evidence that the revolution might really yet come. The New Right takes it as a target to energize its support. TV and the press find it colorful and vivid material. As a result, it gains attention far beyond its actual significance.
The Left, which has given up on