On the one hand, the father was portrayed as highly ethical, intellectually strong, principled, honest, politically involved, and idealistic. But on the other hand, this same father in other contexts was seen as unsuccessful, acquiescent, weak, or inadequate.

The university is seen in this split image also. In an interview I had early this spring with a top Harvard administration official, he talked about how healthy and constructive activism is. Yet, at the same time, he argued that students should not resist the draft because it is not worth it. "It will ruin the rest of their lives," he said. "This will pass. Harvard students have always been able to cope with outside pressures well. They can find ways out." (And they have too. They see their friendly local doctor or shrink.)

It is this kind of hypocrisy that disgusts students. The university tells them to be honest and moral, but, like the radical's father, it is too weak and inadequate to put its beliefs into action--it encourages students to do the same.

The university has also become the target of activist students because it is where the student lives. In part, the reaction is one of guilt, like the black student who finds it hard to justify being in college while his people are in bondage.

The white activist has a similar problem. There is the world, and you are here. What can you do? The first way out is to discover that the world is here too, right here in the university.

II.

THE DISCOVERY of the university opens up new worlds. There is a vast wealth of conspiracy to be uncovered, large numbers of liberal professors to humiliate, and it is not lonely at all. It is fun. It is great fun to manipulate the Establishment, to push it around, to outsmart it. It is what David Riesman calls "mischief" with a consciousness of the absurd always there.

Before, at a university, the pressures to conform meant a lack of commitment. What was cool was to be critical of things from the sidelines. Joining political organizations was not cool. It was better to talk and sneer. But now, in a new milieu, it is exciting to act. It is romantic and it is fun.

Commitment does not have to mean ideological rigidity. All commitment is doing. It is existential, as Simon James (a pseudonym for a Columbia demonstrator) shows in a feature that appeared last month in the CRIMSON and NEW YORK magazine. He writes down his thoughts as he sits-in at President Grayson Kirk's office:

I am not having good times here. I do not know many people who are here, and I have doubts about why they are here. Worse, I have doubts about why I am here. (Note the frequency of the word 'here.' The place I am is the salient characteristic of my situation.) It's possible that I'm here to be cool or to meet people or to meet girls (as distinct from people) or to get out of crew or to be arrested.

Of course the possibility exists that I am here to precipitate some change at the university. I am willing to accept the latter as true, or rather, I am willing, even anxious, not to think about it any more. If you think too much on the second tier (think about why you are thinking what you think) you can be paralyzed. . . .

Certainly it isn't conscionable, to hold [Dean Henry] Coleman captive. But attention is being gotten. Steps will be taken in one direction or another. The polls will fluctuate and the market will quiver. Or being here is the cause of an effect. We're trying to make it Good; I don't know what else to say or do. That is, I have no further statement to make at this time, gentlemen.

There is something that makes us want the market to quiver and the polls to fluctuate. That is why we do things. All Simon James knows is that he wants to make it Good. That is a good thing to know. Don't ask him how he would remake the university. He is honest and he is doing and he wants it Good and he recognizes that things are rotten and that is enough.

Simon James is not really so new. The report of the Muscatine Committee at Berkeley two years ago describes him fairly well, even though the committee's understanding of the depth of his feeling is hopelessly inadequate:

There is much youthful impatience in the search for instantaneous remedies to public and private ills. The unconventional student is inordinately sure that his own picture of the world is the correct one. He lacks the perspective necessary for self-criticism and for an appreciation of his opponent's position. Of course, there are also some who enjoy the notoriety and power offered by leadership of protest movements.