HAROLD ROSENBERG
backlashers and Birchers. Racist Louise Day Hicks will run for Mayor of
Boston in 1968 and probably win. George Wallace will run for President
in 1968 and probably get 100 electoral votes. Polarization seems to be the
coming trend in American politics. Intransigent, emotional radicalism on
the Left, confusion in the middle, and growing muscle on the Right.
7. Yes. Along with the southern Negro and the alienated white-collar
worker (teachers, social workers) I think the generation under thirty is
the most hopeful portent for the future. There is a lot of simplicity and
silliness in the New Left, but the best of the kids know things-crucial
things-the older radicals and liberals don't know. They know, for ex–
ample, that mechanistic anti-Communism is now irrelevant and only con–
tributes to the general paranoia. They know that decentralization and a
I
democracy of individual participation are the best answers to bureaucracy,
technology and urbanization. They know that the labor movement has
become a full partner in Mills's Military-Industrial complex. They know
that ethics and politics have become totally segregated, and that this must
be changed, not lamented or accepted. They know we must make funda–
mental structural changes, starting at the grass roots, and that the Bell–
Kristol view that all we need is a little adjustment here, a little tinkering
there, is too sanguine.
Additionally, I think the culture-heroes of the alienated young-Dy–
lan, the Beatles, Lenny Bruce, Camus, Joseph Heller, Ginsberg, Stanley
Kubrick and Kenneth Anger-are, in most ways, more healthy than the
heroes of either high culture or masscult.
Finally, a coda to the Left over thirty. Go talk to the kids. Listen
to Dylan's lyrics, read Fanon, visit some SDS campus chapters, even try
a little pot. Empathize with the Movement, and then criticize frater–
nally, because the kids need it, and they are important. Then, hopefully,
I
they will listen to you, when you tell them truthfully that Tim Leary and
Stokely are not the names of their desires.
Harold Rosenberg
Proletarianization is spreading. It now extends far beyond the
category of factory workers. Each profession detaches itself from general
intellectual and human concerns and asserts its autonomy. Since the out-
