AMERICA
17
have experienced the psychological sufferings of the underprivileged than
have experienced the material ones. The large majority on any campus,
including those from "deprived" backgrounds, has known little despair.
Most undergraduates are self-confident, energetic, untried, undefeated.
The world does lie before them like a land of dreams. They have not
known enough private pain to identify on a gut level with the under-
classes. And by the time they have-by the time, as adults, they do meet
with their natural portion of affliction-they will spend their energies
trying to deny and conceal it, for in America calamity is not considered
part of the human condition but rather the result of personal inadequacy.
Thus our adult population, even after encountering its private tragedies,
is no more likely a candidate for protest activity than the campus popula-
tion which has not.
One cannot wish pain upon the undergraduate; it will come soon
enough. But until that experience, one cannot expect deep compassion
for suffering or deep commitment to its eradication-other, that is, than
in its intellectual, which is to say, its attentuated form.
Michael Harrington
1.
Yes, it makes a difference who is in the White House-and
particularly in the area of foreign policy.
There are obviously enormous institutional continuities in American
life, as Dwight D. Eisenhower discovered when his 1952 campaign prom–
ises to repeal the New Deal were shattered by the resistance of the "sys–
tem" itself. And any fundamental change in American life will require,
of course, massive social and political movements and not just a char–
ismatic personality in the Presidency. Yet, the Chief Executive makes a
discernible difference and we should not let a pseudo-Marxist fatalism
obscure it.
The most important expression of this difference is in foreign policy.
On the domestic front, what is possible is determined by the relative
political strength of the contending interests and the President will look
like a fine leader if he has an absolute majority for his programs, as in
1965, and he will appear much more timid when he confronts a Dixiecrat-
.1
Republican coalition, as in 1961 or in 1967. But there is no such preci–
sion of alignment when it comes to international questions and the Presi-
:s
dent can create, rather than obey, his consensus. Thus, Eisenhower could
