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Chapter 7 The Rise and Fall of the New Left To examine the history of the New Left movements on college campuses in the late 1960s and early 1970s is to enter a minefield ofinterpretative brawls and extraordinarily contradictory developments. First of all, there is the ideological battlefield on which conservatives and some liberals see utopian dreams descending into a nihilistic nightmare, the "dark side" of illiberal egalitarianism. Opposing this assault are several versions ofleft-of-center reconstruction: first, an argument that affirms the early democratic promise ofthe New Left but regrets the degeneration of idealism as organizations like SDS embraced Third World versions of Marxism-Leninism and, at worst, Weatherman terrorism; second, a point ofview that is kinder and gentler to both the radicalization and the heightened militancy ofthe later period of 1968-73, seeing it as appropriately responsive to the times; and third, a critique of the limitations of the early New Left and a defense of the later movement, particularly insofar as it moved away from a white old boys' network toward an affirmation of Black Power, feminism, gay and lesbian rights, and environmentalism. These last two views reflect a fundamental disagreement about the value and consequences of what came to be called "identity politics."! Such ideological battles rest on what are, indeed, contradictory developments that had become clearer by 1968. By that most traumatic year-which included the Tet Offensive, LBJ's decision not to run, another summer of ghetto riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the escalation of campus confrontations following those at Columbia University, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the Soviet invasion ofCzechoslovakia , the Black Power protests at the Mexico City Olympics, student rebellions throughout the world including a near revolution in France, and, finally, the election of Richard Nixon as president-the American New Left had framed its decision to shift "from protest to resistance" in increasingly ideological terms.2 In looking at the eight campus movements in greater Philadelphia, 194 Chapter 7 the following themes predominate, beginning in 1968 and extending into the early 1970s: 1. The rise of an increasingly Maoist version of Marxist-Leninist ideology within the leadership of SDS and other New Left organizations. 2. An increase in the willingness of New Leftists to engage in direct-action confrontations with government, military, corporate , and educational institutions. Such actions were characteristically nonviolent, but there was a deepening tolerance for those who began to embrace the use of revolutionary violence. 3. The growth of a liberal student activism, both aligned with and yet in tension with the New Left. This important development included the responses of students to the Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy primary campaigns, the 1969 Moratorium efforts , and the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign. 4. The emergence of a Black Power-based Mrican American student movement, which sought an increase in black enrollments, the development of supportive services, the hiring of black faculty and staff, and the creation of various versions of Black Studies curricula and departments. 5. The emergence ofThird World movements inspired by the civil rights revolution among Native Americans, Asians, and Latinos. 6. The emergence of second-wave feminism and the movement for gay and lesbian rights, inspired by the civil rights revolution. 7. The expansion of the hippie counterculture on and offcampus, committed to an expressive, libertarian, communal approach to life and learning, most especially one advocating sexual freedom and drug experimentation. 8. The less publicized but significant emergence of a student New Right, gathering resources in its anticipation of New Left selfdestruction . 9. The emergence of an environmental movement. 10. The rise of a heightened awareness of ethnic identity among white, immigrant stock Catholics and jews. These ten currents mixed and matched, merged and clashed, with individuals shifting and evolving and, sometimes, leaping into a new set of roles and expectations on a dime. The times were truly revolutionary insofar as history seemed to have accelerated; what more normally developed over years or decades seemed to form in weeks or months. A student who arrived on campus an apolitical preppie could find him or herself suddenly engrossed in a "Clean for Gene" cam- .238.76] Project MUSE (2024-04-20 01:41 GMT) The Rise and Fall of the New Left 195 paign and then, just as quickly, flirting with the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) of SDS, chanting slogans about Mao and Ho and Fidel. Some were just flirting with what seemed the flavor of...

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