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never have occurred to them to be anti-cultural. The SDS po–
litically was anarchist and that was very good, because they didn't
have any leadership and they got rid of all this Marxist junk and
they really behaved towards each other much better than we Trots–
kyites ever did. They were very, very kind, supportive towards
each other. And I was entirely for their contempt for bourgeois
society and their thumbing their nose at it and so on. All that's
fine. But I was not in favor of their anti-cultural stance.
DT:
How did you feel about such things as their urinating on the
President's carpets and defecating in the wastepaper baskets?
You, with your fastidious feelings about these things?
DM:
Are you kidding? I'm opposed-especially those acts, especially
the defecating. I have a special horror of anything like that.
DT:
Well, there you are . Those were the very things they were doing
in the name of their freedom to do anything they wanted.
DM:
That's not anarchism. That's just hoodlumism.
DT:
You make a nice distinction.
DM:
I do not make a nice distinction. Anarchism is a very idealistic
philosophy and the great anarchists have been people- Emma
Goldman was one of the most cultivated women of her day. She
used to lecture on Ibsen and Strindberg. I mean, that's anar–
chism. I think anybody who would pee on anything or shit on
anything is an animal and should be severely humiliated .
DT:
But you believed that they could occupy the buildings: that was
all right?
DM:
I was all for that, yes. Because they didn't do any damage .
And there were no bombs .
DT:
But on what grounds is it all right to stop another person from
pursuing his democratic right to have his education by blocking a
building and making it inaccessible to him?
DM:
Well, there were only four buildings involved .
DT:
Yes, but those four.
DM:
They had the majority of the students with them, didn't they?
DT:
That was after the bust, not before. All you have to do is invite
a police bust and then you'll get the masses of people. There's
nothing like cracked heads to mobilize sympathy for a sit-in.
DM:
We thought there should be no mixing up with the police, no
violence . We should get permission from the college authorities.
In my speech, I said, I do not agree with the idea of closing down
universities or locking them up but I do agree with this particular
thing. Because I think Columbia had become absolutely fossil-
