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be resolved by some sort of political arrangement. After the socialist
failure, however, political religion seems to be finished. This may
turn out to be a new liberation: our spirits are freer, and we no
longer feel the weight of the global solution.
EK:
I would agree with you, but then, one still finds these ideas and
a political naivete on American campuses.
JK:
Yes, maybe because you have not experienced the power of left–
ist groups.
EK:
But do we always have really to be hurt and be dominated, in
order to learn something?
JK:
Unfortunately. Freud was very pessimistic, and events confirm
him. But maybe what I'm stating is a generalization: human beings
have to experience personal failure before renouncing their ideals.
Maybe the French and other socialist experiences have proven that
the ideologies don't correspond to the exigencies of the modern
world. Maybe now people will begin to look more seriously at the
reasons for this failure and then sober up these American leftists.
EK:
Well, we have tried this a number of times.
JK:
I often have been shocked by these attitudes on American cam–
puses. Less so this time.
EK:
For some, it seems to me, the experiences of previous genera–
tions are forgotten.
JK:
Yes. This is true about the Holocaust phenomenon as well as
about the experiences of leftist politics . It is very disappointing.
EK:
What do you think we can do about it?
JK:
Write, and try to explain.
EK:
But then people have to read us.
JK:
Yes, they don't read very much. I've been told about this, and
that the younger generation is very Reaganite.
EK:
Yes, some are. But I have a lot of students who come from
working-class families, and it is interesting that many of them are
more on the right. They want to work and to succeed. They often
are against welfare programs: because they work, they feel that all
others can work too. So, it's mixed. But then you have their oppo–
nents as well.
JK:
Yes. You think that leftists and enthusiasts are not as numerous
as they were some years ago.
EK:
You know very well it's not always a question of numbers. A
small critical mass, a small group of vociferous people who get signa–
tures, can get things moving.
JK:
The left is often very active; it has its rhetoric.
