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contemporary Americans seem to find it more and more difficult
to imagine any alternatives to the values of the system as it is. But
the alternatives are real. Although they might produce a new
s0-
ciety, there is nothing novel about them. They have been proposed
in the long series of modern revolutions Goodman lists in his con–
cluding chapter, beginning with the Reformation itself and in–
cluding such diverse advances as have affected the physical environ–
ment, economic and social life, poEtics and constitutional law,
manners and morals, education and our attitude toward children,
sex, and the family. Mr. Goodman's point is that all of these revo–
lutions either failed of fruition entirely or were compromised. His
axiom is that "a successful revolution establishes a new community.
A missed revolution makes irrelevant the community that persists.
And a compromised revolution tends to shatter the community that
was, without an adequate substitute." This is a very heady propo–
sition, and I hope that sometime Mr. Goodman will spell it out in
detail and with historical
example~.
At any rate one can agree that
the existence of our American non-community is not to be attrib–
uted simply to the nature of modern times, the abundant economy,
the mass society, or whatever. The aging have little trouble in re–
.IOnciling themselves to the idL_ !hat it is the way of the world or
historical fate that revolutions should miss their goals or be com–
promised. Perhaps they do not even mind habitually employing a
false rhetoric that imputes success to all the modern revolutions.
But the young have reason to
be
severer judges; they have more
at stake.
My book called
The Democratic Vista
was my contribution
to the literature which has been studying the Situation. At the end
of that book I muse for a moment over the prospects of "the rising
republic"-a group of children singing around a fire. But my book
is
mostly retrospective and summary. I am grateful to Mr. Good–
man for concentrating with so much force, clarity, and compassion
upon contemporary realities and upon the future of the rising re–
public.
Richard Chase
