PARTISAN REVIEW
63
cause of what our parents taught us. We take what they say at face
value. Poverty is wrong. The war is wrong. Democracy, that is good.
When my father says, this isn't a democracy, the loopholes in the taxes,
the Chicago convention, the draft, I say, you're right, father. But he
believes it and he doesn't believe it. Not enough to act like he believed
it.
"The first thing I rejected was school because it is the most ob–
vious kind of cultural control. Parental control is rejected - going to
bed at a certain time, not swearing, wearing certain clothes - but
school control is more threatening. You cut classes. You don't do the
homework. You try to get away with as much as possible. Because like
at fifteen you can't go to the john without a goddamn pass! You can't
leave the school building, one stairway for up, one for down, walk on
this side of the corridor, not that, don't talk in class, don't walk in the
halls, come when a bell rings, go when a bell rings, don't bug your
teachers, show respect, accept, accept!
"Cutting is a terrible problem in the Scarsdale schools because the
kids don't care about what they're taught. Why get good grades 'and go
to the college to become what you don't want to become? So one day
you don't care anymore. No one bothers to explain
why
you should
want to spend your life making money, going to the college, being im–
portant. So you don't care. Then the drugs start. That lasts awhile.
At fourteen I was on grass. You play around. You start to think. You
think, why is this country making me into what I ,'hate? You
begin
to
read and study the Movement and you learn that the control in Scars–
dale is the same all over the country, in the business, in the army, in
the government. The whole country has to get a goddamn pass to piss.
"You want your dignity, you know, your
freedom.
At twelve my
mother takes me to dances at the club, I can't even get it up and she
says, see M--, a nice girl, her father's the big psychologist, go dance
with her, you'll like her, and there's D--, daughter of the successful
lawyer, he can help you. Do what? Help me do what? At twelve? Al–
ready they see me in Scarsdale down the block with the grandchildren
as a liberal Democrat needing a new law firm! It's crazy! God, what
do they expect?
"You learn to hate the System and, maybe too, the country. You
learn about the war and the poor in this country, about our imperial–
ism
and racism, and you think, how will it ever stop
if
I am a cop-out,
if I become a head and drop out. You think, revolution we need, the
whole thing busted up and made right. You see, you want to be free
In
Scarsdale, free to choose.
"If
there weren't the Movement, I think without that, without a
