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to the Administration than to us, but it seems to me that they aren't
going to get anything out of this because they haven't made a real
decision to act one way or another, either with us or with the Ad–
ministration.
RUDD:
You're probably right, and the faculty could remain as power–
less as before. And yet, on another level, on the level of conscious
decision, when you talk to the liberals-even the liberals out for
amnesty-they will tell you that the primary goal at this point is to
return the University to normal, to continue the educational function.
And given this outlook, they adopt tactics and strategy which pretty
much coincide with the Administration's-no matter what petitions
they may sign.
INTERVIEWER:
Do you feel that it would have been possible at any spe–
cific point for the faculty to have played a different role?
RUDD:
No. Well, look, certainly they could have played another role:
when they were attempting to mediate, for instance, they could have
sided with us on the question of amnesty instead of siding with the
Administration.
That
they could have done. But to say "could-could
not" really neglects the historical situation. After all, at this point
the faculty's educational function is basically to transmit bourgeois
ideology. Now I hope that's not regarded as too polemical or too
ideological a statement, but you take even some of the sociology pro–
fessors who are thought to be liberal. None of them are Marxists,
none of them transcend the limits set down on social thought. And
given their role as transmitters of ideology, it's no wonder that when
a group of students challenges basic assumptions of order and political
methods, they react pretty much along the same lines as the most con–
servative, although with some naivete.
COLE:
You see, a number of faculty members were saying, "Well, yes,
we agree that this is right and that's right, and this demand is per–
fectly permissible and should be acceded to, etc." But they differed
with us on tactics. We kept insisting that they make a political choice:
that is, that they say, "Right now it's more important that these de–
mands be met than that the University go back to normal." Their
argument for not making that political choice was that they could not
make a choice which would so seriously disrupt the functioning of
the University. But what we were saying was that things had come
to that pass where the University had to be disrupted to have the
-kind
of politics that even some of these men said were correct. But
they refused to do it; and because they didn't make that kind of free
choice, now they really are going to be powerless.
RUDD:
Besides their being bound to the situation, though, I think they
believed that they were making a conscious political choice by saying
"We understand that
if
the Administration grants amnesty then all
hell will break loose on this campus through the right-wing reaction."
I think they really believed in the right-wing reaction (which never
materialized, incidentally), but that meant, first, that they were accept–
ing the Administration's analysis completely, and secondly, that they
were not understanding the ideological content of amnesty versus pun–
ishment.
INTERVIEWER:
Let's talk about that for a minute. From the outset you've
