PARTISAN REVIEW
381
of rank and standing; and everyman's deeds of honor and chivalry are
familiarly known to all; it 'would not be ... safe to life for a warrior
to
wear upon his back the representations of battles he has never fought."
STUDENTS
The discontent of the students arises not so much from the routines of
the university as from the routinization of
adult
life.
It
is against their
future that the students revolt - a future the contents and quality of
which are foreshadowed in the students' parents.
The student feels the routinized citizen growing inside him as a
second self.
In
time it will absorb his personality like a fungus, and
there will be left of his original "I" only a vague ache, like that which
he catches a glimpse of in the face of his father while the latter
IS
shaving.
Violence by students is thus primarily violence against them–
selves, a ritual of exorcism, designed
to
expel the traitor within - who
whispers persuasively, "Behave decently and succeed."
In
this pantomime the student makes use of the classical arsenal of
identity struggles: costume, hair style, esoteric vocabulary.
As for students' action, its most troublesome aspect as far as adults
are concerned is that defeat is as welcome as victory - and that hence
no threats can prevail. To be beaten up by the police, thrown into jail,
blacklisted, suspended or expelled from school - these are of the high–
est value as obstacles thrown in the path of the treacherous alter ego of
respectability. Could Gerald Ford have become Gerald Ford if he had a
bad record. To be on a police blotter is insurance against becoming
Gerald Ford.
The way to prevent student trouble-making is not through coun–
ter-measures but through providing living models that demonstrate
that thinking can constitute a desirable way of life. But this would
require replacing most university faculties.
Probably, a more practical alternative would be to induct children
into specialized social roles at a much earlier age.
If
by eight or ten, one
already thought like an administrator, an accountant, a history in–
structor, the passage through graduate school into these callings could
be relieved of tension and convulsive seizures.
