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JAMES GILBERT
language and tactics of the Old Left, since 1964 its influence grew
steadily in the organizations of the New Left, until at Chicago, it
claimed to represent the true spirit and organization of SDS.
The organization and development of the Students for a
Demo–
cratic Society was the fusion of all of the early tendencies of the
New Left. SDS emerged inconspicuously out of the youth affiliate
of the League for Industrial Democracy. Until 1962, it was primarily
a liberal student organization, which gave little indication that it
would become radically opposed to American capitalism. Then,
in
1962, largely under the inspiration of Tom Hayden and others at
the University of Michigan, SDS published the "Port Huron State–
ment." The statement was, without a doubt, one of the most
im–
portant political writings of the decade, a kind of declaration of
majority by the New Left. It documented the failure of the Ameri–
can system, a broad failure to bring social and international peace
and to end poverty and exploitation. And despite the strong advice
of some of the statesmen of the anti-Communist Left, SDS refused
to exclude Communists. The result was a decisive break with the
spirit of the fifties, and a move toward a deeper discussion of Amer–
ican society and the international role of the American system.
Organizationally, however, SDS did not follow up
this
statement with
a more theoretical understanding of American society. It chose,
purposely, to avoid ideology, allowing its activities to become the
basis for its theory. Throughout the period, therefore, its theory
often reflected the momentary demands of the Movement.
The refusal of SDS and the New Left in general to develop a
broad theory of strategies and tactics during the early sixties reflected
a revulsion to the rigid ideology of the past .as much as the uneven
development of a new radical tradition with roots in a middle-class
student movement. In another sense, the absence of theory reflected a
cultural indifference - a hostility to intellectual work - and an
em–
phasis upon pragmatic success. Whatever the reasons, this reluctance
to theorize has had a strong and contradictory influence upon the
Movement. And ironically it led in the middle sixties to a running
argument in SDS, a sort of metaphysical debate about theory itself:
Should theory emerge from the activities of the movement or should
it be the work of Movement-oriented intellectuals?
Without theory, SDS could move into areas largely ignored
