NEW RADICALISM
187
that human capacities and spontaneity can be maximized rather than
further flattened. In the Winter 1964
Partisan Review,
Martin Duber–
man characterized the tone of the new radicals as one of "quiet
confidence." This may be true of some, but certainly not of all.
For many, the drive toward change
is
powered by a sense of acutely
troubled urgency, which
is
why some have questioned the old defini–
tions of "political maturity," even when they are given by a Bayard
Rustin, one of the signers of the "Triple Revolution" statement.
Similarly, they tend to believe that to focus
all
one's energies on an
illusory goal like "full employment" or on such other transitionally
important but ultimately inadequate programs as massive public
works, reduced work weeks and greatly expanded retraining programs
is
to be not radical enough. But they are not especially sanguine that
they can convince others in time. It
is
the meliorists-rather than the
radicals-who appear to be quietly confident, though without justi–
fication.
In sum, the root may not continue to be man. John Wilkinson,
who translated Ellul's
Technological Society,
has written an abrasively
provocative paper ("The Quantitative Society or, What Are You to
Do with Noodle?") for the Center for the Study of Democratic
Institutions, in which he gets at the most basic fear of at least some
new radicals. The "enemy"
is
now of a nature and a strength that
no previous American radicals have ever had to cope with. Some
saw it coming, but its actuality is much more formidable than even
the least optimistic envisaged.
As
Wilkinson writes:
... what has happened is that today's version of the quantitative
society, "cybernation," confronts us with the possibility of the
imminent destruction of
all
human values, so that the money
game (which, like a game of poker, is still going on in the
back room) or the accretion of giant trusts seem of greatly
diminished importance.
. . . We have mentioned that the middle class of management
is being automated out of existence as inexorably as the rural
telephone operator. It c:an be seen now that this is a formal
fact and is not dependent on anyone's inability to comprehend
the computer revolution, the last being a charge that Marxist
critics often bring but that, in a different way, is equally
true of them. The inability of even the highest levels of manage-
