This is an example, on a grand scale, of what I call “the sanction of the victim.” It is also an example of the fact that men cannot be enslaved politically until they have been disarmed ideologically. When they are so disarmed, it is the victims who take the lead in the process of their own destruction.
Such is the swamp of contradictions swallowing the two most immediately prominent issues of today—Vietnam and the draft The same is true of all the other issues and pseudo-issues now clogging all the avenues of public communication. And, adding insult to injury, the anti-ideologists, who are responsible for it, are complaining about the public’s lethargy.
Lethargy is only a precarious psychological cover for confusion, disgust, and despair.
The country at large is bitterly dissatisfied with the status quo, disillusioned with the stale slogans of welfare statism, and desperately seeking an alternative, i.e., an intelligible program and course. The intensity of that need may be gauged by the fact that a single good speech raised a man, who had never held public office, to the governorship of California. The statists of both parties, who are now busy smearing Governor Reagan, are anxious not to see and not to let others discover the real lesson and meaning of his election: that the country is starved for a voice of consistency, clarity, and moral self-confidence—which were the outstanding qualities of his famous speech, and which cannot be achieved or projected by consensus-seeking anti-ideologists.
As of this date, Governor Reagan seems to be a promising public figure—I do not know him and cannot speak for the future. It is difficult to avoid a certain degree of skepticism: we have been disappointed too often. But whether he lives up to the promise or not, the people’s need, quest for, and response to clear-cut ideas remain a fact—and will become a
tragic fact if the intellectual leaders of this country continue to ignore it.
Since the elections of 1966, some commentators have been talking about the country’s “swing to the right.” There was no swing to the right (except, perhaps, in California)—there was only a swing against tile left (if by “right,” we mean capitalism—and by “left,” statism). Without a firm, consistent ideological program and leadership, the people’s desperate protest will be dissipated in the blind alleys of the same statism that they are opposing. It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for. A merely negative trend or movement cannot win and, historically, has never won: it leads nowhere.
The consensus-doctrine has achieved the exact opposite of its alleged goal: instead of creating unity or agreement, it has disintegrated and atomized the country to such an extent that no communication, let alone agreement, is possible. It is not unity, but intellectual coherence that a country needs. That coherence can be achieved only by fundamental principles, not by compromises among groups of men—by the primacy of ideas, not of gangs.
The task of defining ideas and goals is not the province of politicians and is not accomplished at election time: elections are merely consequences. The task belongs to the intellectuals. The need is more urgent than ever.
(Postscript. Once in a while, I receive letters from young men asking me for personal advice on problems connected with the draft. Morally, no one can give advice in any issue where choices and decisions are not voluntary: “Morality ends where a gun begins.” As to the practical alternatives available, the best thing to do is to consult a good lawyer.
There is, however, one moral aspect of the issue that needs
clarification. Some young men seem to labor under the mis
apprehension that since the draft is a violation of their rights,
compliance with the draft law would constitute a moral
sanction of that violation. This is a serious error. A forced
compliance is not a sanction. All of us are forced to comply
with many laws that violate our rights, but so long as we
advocate the repeal of such laws, our compliance does not
constitute a sanction. Unjust laws have to be fought ideologi
cally; they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere
disobedience and futile martyrdom. To quote from an edito
rial on this subject in the April 1967 issue of Persuasion:
“One does not stop the juggernaut by throwing oneself in
front of it “)
22. THE CASHING-IN:
THE STUDENT “REBELLION”
BY AYN RAND
The so-called student “rebellion,” which was started and keynoted at the University of California at Berkeley, has profound significance, but not of the kind that most commentators have ascribed to it. And the nature of the misrepresentations is part of its significance.
The events at Berkeley began, in the fall of 1964, ostensibly as a student protest against the University administration’s order forbidding political activity—specifically, the recruiting, fund-raising, and organizing of students for political action off-campus—on a certain strip of ground adjoining the campus, which was owned by the University. Claiming that their rights had been violated, a small group of “rebels” rallied thousands of students of all political views, including many “conservatives,” and assumed the title of the “Free Speech Movement.” The Movement staged “sit-in” protests in the administration building, and committed other acts of physical force, such as assaults on the police and the seizure of a police car for use as a rostrum.
The spirit, style, and tactics of the rebellion are best illustrated by one particular incident. The University administration called a mass meeting, which was attended by eighteen thousand students and faculty members, to hear an address on the situation by the University President, Clark Ken”, it had been expressly announced that no student speakers would be allowed to address the meeting. Kerr attempted to end the rebellion by capitulating: he promised to grant most of the rebels’ demands; it looked as if he had won the audience to his side. Whereupon, Mario Savio, the rebel leader, seized the microphone, in an attempt to take over the meeting, ignoring the rules and the fact that the meeting had been adjourned. When he was—properly—dragged off the platform, the leaders of the F.S.M. admitted, openly and
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jubilantly, that they had almost lost their battle, but had saved it by provoking the administration to an act of “violence” (thus admitting that the victory of their publiclj proclaimed goals was not the goal of their battle).
What followed was nation-wide publicity, of a peculiai kind. It was a sudden and, seemingly, spontaneous outpouring of articles, studies, surveys, revealing a strange unanimity of approach in several basic aspects: in ascribing to the F.S.M. the importance of a national movement, unwarranted by the facts—in blurring the facts by means of unintelligible generalities—in granting to the rebels the status of spokesmen for American youth, acclaiming their “idealism” and “commitment” to political action, hailing them as a symptom of the “awakening” of college students from “political apathy.” If ever a “puff-job” was done by a major part of the press, this was it.
In the meantime, what followed at Berkeley was a fierce, three-cornered struggle among the University administration, its Board of Regents, and its faculty, a struggle so sketchily reported in the press that its exact nature remains fogbound. One can gather only that the Regents were, apparently, demanding a “tough” policy toward the rebels, that the majority of the faculty were on the rebels’ side and that the administration was caught in the “moderate” middle of the road.
The struggle led to the permanent resignation of the University’s Chancellor (as the rebels had demanded)—the temporary resignation, and later reinstatement, of President Kerr —and, ultimately, an almost complete capitulation to the F.S.M., with the administration granting most of the rebels’ demands. (These included the right to advocate illegal acts and the right to an unrestricted freedom of speech on campus.)
To the astonishment of the naive, this did not end the rebellion: the more demands were granted, the more were made. As the administration intensified its efforts to appease the F.S.M., the F.S.M. intensified its provocations. The unrestricted freedom of speech took the form of a “Filthy Language Movement,” which consisted of students carrying placards with four-letter words, and broadcasting obscenities over the University loudspeakers (which Movement was dismissed with mild reproof by most of the press, as a mere “adolescent prank”).
This, apparently, was too much even for those who sympathized with the rebellion. The F.S.M. began to lose its following—and was, eventually, dissolved. Mario Savio quit the
University, declaring that he “could not keep up with the undemocratic procedures that the administration is following” {italics mine]—and departed, reportedly to organize a nation-wide revolutionary student movement.
This is a bare summary of the events as they were reported by the press. But some revealing information was provided by volunteers, outside the regular news channels, such as in the letters-to-the-editor columns.
An eloquent account was given in a letter to The New York Times (March 31, 1965) by Alexander Grendon, a biophysicist in the Dormer Laboratory, University of California: