LEO BERSANI
It
is
nonsense to talk about nonpolitical behavior leading to
political ends. Chuang-tzu's leader is as much a politician as any
other leader, but his behavior
might
be effective only in a society so
closely identified with his peculiar style of leadership that it has
al–
ready
made him a leader. His indifference is a strategy within his
power.
In
the context of American society, this unconcerned, power–
less vegetable would
be
simply a reactionary. Every style of life is
politically significant, and much of what is most radical about the
young today consists in their invention of new modes of political
behavior. Jerry Rubin's appearance before the House Un-American
Activities Committee with painted nipples is not frivolously apolitical;
it is politically explosive. Roszak's distaste for militancy on the Left
is the most explicit expression of his distaste for
everything
disruptive,
even disruption that could
be
politically persuasive. He sentimental–
izes the young by keeping his distance from them, and he reduces
them to impotency by abstracting from their behavior concepts ac–
ceptable to the culture they are rebelling against: communion with
nature, honest fellowship, gentleness. These words have always rep–
resented some of "our" ideals, and by now they mean almost nothing
at all. While Roszak would like to think of these ideals as nonpolitical,
they in fact are inescapably but innocuously political; revolutionary
behavior is what he looks down on as political. This clever substitu–
tion of terms - nonpolitical for a sort of poeticized conformism,
political for anything intransigently revolutionary - allows him both
to reject revolution and to get credit for promoting it. Roszak is our
best
example of the critic's sympathy killing his text. The revolu–
tion he attributes to the young is his own support for the ethic of
acquiescent gentleness they reject.
"The right wing," Jerry Rubin writes, "is the left wing's best
ally." Is George Wallace dreaming of a dialogue with Rubin and
Abbie Hoffman, with the Panthers, with the Weathermen? Obviously
not; and what he offers the radical young is far more useful than a
sympathetic ear. "The right wing are our theatrical directors,"
Rubin goes on to say. "They set high standards for us to fulfill, and
we become giants trying to fulfill their fantasies. . . . We must be–
come everything the
Daily
News,
Birchers, Wallace, Buckley and your
local right-wingers say we
are!"
How can liberal America's invita-
