322
JAMES F. PETRAS AND MICHAEL
SH
of saintly character and an eminent scholar." The students
persecutors.
This projection of violence onto the victims is typical
tarianism, as is the admiration of "firmness" and power in the estaOlJSllo'
ment. Lipset laments the weakening of "authority" on the Berkeley
cam–
pus. Pinning his hopes for the restoration of authority on a new
actiDc
chancellor, he writes in the language of modem authoritarianism:
"Myer–
son already has shown strengtQ and sophistication in dealing with the
criiI
and he commands wide support...." Student political activity is regarded
as abnormal; the use of civil disobedience to obtain constitutional
rights
is condemned for violating bureaucratic prerogatives. But police brutality
and administrative action against students are glossed over or dismiad
as minor "mistakes," and the New Conservatives find democracy
in
the
reign of "saintly," omnipotent bureaucrats.
The New Conservatives do not defend all elites, of course.
They
do not defend authoritarianism behind the Iron Curtain or in
Franco',
Spain. But they are defenders of the more subtle anti-democratic tenden–
cies in American political life, and, in particular, support the bureaucratic
establishment on the university campus.
2
Their political ideas constitute
an ideology.
The New Conservatives' ideological commitment to a defense
Ii
bureaucracy and legality (no matter how inadequate or perverse a
form
these institutions of law and order may sometimes take) leads to intel·
lectual blindness and paranoia. These writers are in the process of becom–
ing oblivious to the undemocratic and illiberal tendencies which bureau–
cratic institutions engender. According to the New Conservatives, argu·
ment or protest against the administrative hierarchy can never be legiti–
mate, for it always stems from conspiracy, psychosis, and other anti·
social forces. Thus they find it necessary to attribute the cause of anti·
authoritarian protest to pathology (Feuer) ; to the naivete' of liberals
and
the cunning of "extremists" (Lipset-Seabury) ;
an~:l'to
"radicals" (Glazer).
Many of the New Conservatives received their earliest schooling
from
totalitarian parties and hard-bitten, isolated political sects, and many
of
them seem to have become so disillusioned with their impulsive youth
that
they are now obsessed with the menace of "extremist" phantoms. Their
personal histories, however, are hardly the central issue. More to the point
IS
the methodological relationship between the Communist Party's pre-
2 Although Professor Feuer defends the political prerogatives of the admin–
istration, he must be given credit for a cogent criticism of the university's educa·
tional policies.
