University of Virginia Library

I

Around them they see only
numbness, apathy and despair,
a war machine increasingly out
of control, and evidence of
domestic repression
everywhere. The signs of new
consciousness look trivial,
self-indulgent and faddish. The
chances of a new society,
apparently to be based on
dancing in the streets or retreat
to the woods, seem just plain
silly, and optimism under the
circumstances sounds delusive
and criminally insensitive.

Revolution by
consciousness is in no sense
equivalent to the present youth
culture. It is a philosophic
concept, based on an
interpretation of American
history, and of the nature of
work and institutions in
contemporary America. Beads
and bell bottoms are indeed
passing fads, like the hula
hoop. But in their moment on
the stage, they are metaphors
for something far deeper, a
growth of awareness, a change
of values, a renewal of
knowledge and a step toward
liberation. Attention is focused
on youth because that is where
awareness is now most
apparent, but the philosophic
change is taking place in all of
us.

This process of liberation must
be conceived as only Part One in a
process of social change. Of course
there must be social change. Of
course there must be structural
change as well; the debate is mostly
about what comes first — structural
reform, radical struggle, or change
of consciousness. If we assume
argue do that the latter must come
first, then the full process might be
like this: (1) change of
consciousness; (2) development of
an actual way of life and a culture
based on the new consciousness; (3)
the rediscovery of non alienated
work; (4) the restructuring of
economic, political and legal
institutions to reflect the new
values. Sooner or later, liberals,
radicals and those who believe in
new consciousness must have
answers to the same existing
societal evils.

The reason consciousness must
initiate change derives from an
explanation of our present
corporate state. Its essence is the
supremacy of purely materialistic
and technological values over all
others, and its use of false
consciousness to prevent those
values from being revived.
Institutional change, without a new
course of values, would thus be an
empty exercise. The "reformed"
structures would be worse than the
old. Real change can take place
only after new values are
introduced, and the only possible
source of such values is man, and a
new awareness and culture created
by him.

Those radicals who currently
emphasized culture, and seem to
ignore politics and economics, do
so because today s "politics" deals
only with the trivial and ephemeral,
and it is only culture which puts in
issue the true political questions
that confront us. Today almost all
public discussion, especially by
politicians is both puerile and
factitious. Mr. Nixon and such
"opposition" figures as Mr. Muskie
talk in meaningless phrases that
merely serve to numb us and
degrade the public forum. There is
an urgent need for a genuine
politics, a politics where real and
not illusory choices are debated.

The scope and dimensions of
that politics may be seen in the
developing new culture, provided
only that one is able to ignore
particulars and think in terms of
symbols. Long hair and bare feet
and unhomogenized peanut butter
are not ultimate statements about
society; they are, it must be
repeated, metaphors. They stand
for values now neglected or abused,
such as personal autonomy and
rediscovery of the natural. A new
social structure would write into
social terms what the metaphors are
now saying. Any future society will
be based on technology and
organization, as the new culture
itself is. When we want to, we will
bake our own bread or live on the
land, but man cannot reject his own
development. Society will build and
operate machines, but it will use
them for human ends.

To achieve these goals, the
community will need a structure
better adapted than our present
government and law. The object of
such a structure must be to
translate the values now symbolized
by the transitory youth culture into
terms that will give them lasting
effect in the post-industrial society.
We cannot retreat from organized
society, but we can begin searching
for ways to make certain that
organizations reflect both the
requirements of technology and
what we are learning about from
our youth — the needs of nature
and man.