NEW RADICALISM
365
formulas for the future. There
will
be all kinds of interim alliances,
and
if
there is change, it will move at many different speeds in
many different areas. But the new Left is, I'm convinced, basically
more in contact with reality than are Harrington and Rustin. The
new Left neither "idealizes" the poor, nor does it believe that the
past
can be used to predict the future. And they do not allow
themselves to be deluded into thinking that a broad-based coalition
can
be
created
now
which, by some act of magic, will operate on an
identity of interest between David Dubinsky and an unemployed black
construction worker, between Walter Reuther and a youth who is
sickened by what this country has done in the Dominican Republic,
between a white churchman wearing his CORE button and the poor
family on the next block whom he has never seen.
I am not optimistic about the chances for radical social change.
To change the picture of the future that Donald Michael has chillingly
-and unpolemically-drawn in
The Next Generation
will require
a great deal of power. The blacks can't do it alone. The poor of any
color can't do it alone. Nor can the young of the new Left. But
they can perhaps start things moving.
Harrington says the new radicals are looking for a "new pro–
letariat." What actually is happening is that, as Sidney Lens has
pointed out, the new Left is attempting to group all the "left outs"
rather than just the economic "have nots." The poor are left out,
particularly the black poor. But so are the young who can find no
personally relevant, honorable place for themselves in this society
except in working to change it. Those clergymen who practice what
they preach are also left out; but they too, if there are enough of
them, can be effective. And as labor begins to recognize the in–
sufficiency of its programs and its present political alliances-forced
to do so by the changes in the definition of work that cybernation is
making-it too can join with the left outs and those soon to be left
out. At that point, if it is not too late, the Democratic party can be
radicalized.
As
Harrington says, "One need no longer be contented with the
vision of a revolution. The more radical task of taking the next
step is at hand." But for that task to be indeed radical, that next
step must be taken before the broad-based coalition which he calls for
can be formed.
