THE NEW RADICALISM: ROUND II
The pieces by Iruing Howe and Stephen Rousseas continue
PR's debate: ((Is There a New Radicalism?" The discussion was
opened in the Spring,
1965,
issue by Michael Harrington and Nat
Hentoff, and Mr. Harrington and Mr. Hentoff are commenting now
on each others' positions. Different points of view will be represented
in coming issues.
Irving Howe
The "new radicalism," as far as I can tell, seems largely
confined to the campus, a minority segment of the civil rights move–
ment, and a scatter of figures from the traditional radical past. It has
not succeeded, nor does it seem very interested, in penetrating any
major social group or institution in this country (as compared, say,
with the radicalism of the prewar and war years, which had a
strong base in the trade unions). The "new radicalism" embodies a
curious mood, more mood than idea, a mixture of the very attractive
and very disturbing; and since I've written about it at length in the
current
Dissent,
let me just summarize a few points here.
1. What is most impressive about the "new radicalism" is that it
springs from a genuine moral feeling, a release of outrage in regard
to social wrongs that warrant outrage. Shortly after everyone was
piously bemoaning the lack of commitment among the American
young, a notable segment of the students threw itself into the struggle
for Negro rights with a passion and selflessness that cannot be over–
praised.
If
this rebellion is mostly apolitical and unstructured-the
source of difficulties I will note later- it has the virtue of requiring a
