46
MARTIN DUBERMAN
modes for exerting influence. More important still, their philosophy
ran directly counter to the national hierarchy of values, a system of
beliefs, conscious and otherwise, which has always impeded the drive
for rapid change in this country. And it is a system which constitutes
a roadblock at least as formidable today as at any previous point in
our history.
This value structure stresses, first of all, the prime virtue of "ac–
cumulation," chiefly of goods, but also of power and prestige. Any
group - be it Anarchists or New Leftists - which challenges the
soundness of that goal, which suggests that it interferes with the more
important pursuits of self-realization and human fellowship, presents
so basic a threat to our national and individual identities as to invite
almost automatic rejection.
A second obstacle that our value structure places in the path of
radical change is its insistence on the benevolence of history. To the
average American, human history is the story of automatic progress.
Every day in every way we have got better and better.
Ergo,
there
is no need for a frontal assault on our ills; time alone will be sufficient
to cure them. Thus it is that many whites today consider the "Negro
Problem" solved by the recent passage of civil rights legislation.
They choose to ignore the fact that the daily lives of most Negroes
have changed but slightly - or, as in the case of unemployment, for
the worse. They ignore, too, the group of hard-core problems which
have only recently emerged: maldistribution of income, urban slums,
disparities in education and training, the breakdown of family struc–
ture in the ghetto, technological unemployment - problems which
show no signs of yielding to time, but which will require concentrated
energy and resources for solution.
Without a massive assault on these basic ills, ours will continue
to be a society where the gap between rich and poor widens, where
the major rewards go to the few (who are not to be confused with
the best). Yet it seems highly unlikely, as of 1968, that the public
pressure needed for such an assault will be forthcoming. Most Amer–
icans still prefer to believe that ours is either already the best of all
possible worlds or will shortly, and without any special effort, become
such. It is this deep-seated smugness, this intractable optimism, which
must be reckoned with - which indeed will almost certainly des–
troy - any call for substantive change.
