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BOOK REVIEWS

THE LOST LEFT

THE NEW STUDENT LEFT. Edited by Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale. Beacon Press, Boston, Mass. 288 pages. $4.95.

AMERICA HAS always contained within its borders two realities: one, white; the other, black. The distance between them is, often, geographically negligible. It is, for instance, the distance between Park Avenue and 125th Street, and Park Avenue and 77th. At the beginning and end of those 48 blocks is the freedom of one people and the slavery of another. This contradiction in American life is characteristic, too, of America's social critics. In the American self-analysis, black experience is discounted. It proceeds as in a glass house, sheltered from nature and artificially cultivated. Sadly, the so-called "New Left" has not escaped this historic failing. Typically, though many of the articles in this book purport to put black experience into a theoretical framework, only one of the 23 contributors is black.
The problem of the New Left is twofold. Who they are and what they see--or don't see. For example, in an article entitled "SNCC: An Overview--Two Years Later" Bruce Payne cites the New Left's basic weakness: "They do not have any total view of political and social life that enables them to offer a blueprint for the kind of society they would like to see in the future." The problem, in short, is that they are confused. They are confused as to what "social change" means, what it will look like, and even who will be included. It is understandable then that the prologue of a section called "Agenda for a Generation" boasts a stirring quote by Governor Pat Brown of California: "Make our people safe for students with ideas, and you will be performing a real service for America."
As far as I know, no one has ever mistaken Pat Brown for the Messiah of the "new world that's a-coming." That he could in any way be construed as a spokesman illuminates the unconscious desires of these young white students. They want simply to be acknowledged--to be listened to--to count for something. For, their quest is not to transform American society, but to secure their own identity. And that identity, when subjected to analysis, is right in the middle of the American mainstream.

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