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decadence . The privileged part of our planet enjoys its domination–
sometimes in good, sometimes in bad conscience-but does not dare
take responsibility for a future that hangs on the decisions of
military staffs and economic power blocs .
Following the Industrial Revolution, first in England and then
on the Continent , there gradually developed a movement for social
control and economic activity that combined revolutionary movement
and pressure for reform . In the name of socialism or of industrial
democracy the violence of capitalist exploitation was attacked and
partially restrained. Now we seem to have arrived at a point where
power and profit dominate society- in new ways, but ways which are
just as savage . We must choose between barbarism and a renewed
collective control over the structures that govern a society, a control
once again predicated upon both a revolutionary thrust and a
program of reforms . Our present crisis arises from our having be–
lieved, during the years of easy affluence and triumphant
im–
perialism, that we could create a new culture that prized diversity,
new forms of personal identity and social relations, without making
a broad direct assault against the centers of power and without
creating any collective program for the future . The moment has come
to abandon the defensive positions and to assume the responsibility
for the counteroffensive .
Today it is difficult to maintain the myth of a middle class or of
good citizens who serve as an influence for stability and integration.
What is left of this comforting image in the Soviet Union when the
victims of repression and their friends are placed, on one side, and the
torturers, informers, and their accomplices on the other? Can we con–
vince ourselves that only exiles practiced torture in Algeria , when we
know that it was practiced without debate by many French officers
and soldiers as well? Dare we condemn the war against Vietnam
without condemning everything in American society and culture that
made the barbarity possible?
We see violence everywhere .
It
would be simpler to talk about
social disorganization or anomie , but these terms are too reassuring
and they are misleading. They allow us to believe that the continuity
of the social order has been weakened by rapid change : the young
