From the Academy

NOW AND AGAIN, indignant friends send me some of the evanescent journals of the “New Left” students. I am not alarmed by them. In general, those publications are wretchedly written, empty of ideas, and animated only by the cry “Pull down!” Such folk will get nowhere, today or tomorrow—not even so far as the young Marxists got thirty years ago. As Dr. Clark Kerr remarked recently, the real drift of this country is conservative today, and the radical students’ only remaining cause is opposition to the Vietnamese war—and even there they are ineffectual, if often a nuisance. About fifteen years ago, the better college undergraduates began to move toward conservative principles. In America, as in Britain, about three decades must elapse before a body of ideas results in successful public action. I am inclined to borrow the title of that very good novel by Mr. Lionel Trilling, and to say that we are in the middle of the journey—though moving in quite a different political direction than that which Trilling describes. Fifteen years from now, the conservatively-inclined students of 1952, or even of 1967, will have become dominant in public affairs and in the academy—supposing our civilization has not gone to smash in the interim. One straw in the wind is Phalanz, a new quarterly being published by intelligéntly conservative students at universities and colleges in and about Los Angeles. The editor is a colored student, Mr. William Allan Barclay, of Pepperdine College: the managing editor, Mr. Peter Schramm, is the son of a Hungarian exile. Chapters of the Southern California Collegiate Studies Conference (associated with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute) at Loyola, Immaculate Heart, San Fernando Valley State, the University of Southern California, and Pepperdine have joined together in this imaginative endeavor. The magazine costs $3.50 a year, and its address is 3853 Recklaw Drive, Studio City, California. As the editors of Phalanx write in their apology for being born, ‘The search for truth has been lost in the modest quest for totality. The educational system [reflected in most journals] has attuned itself to the desire to find a rational answer for every element of man’s behavior. Those things which do not yield to such reason are rejected. The quality of ideas has led to the rejection of ideas. Fact has become lord, and all that does not conform to fact as the system sees it does not [cannot] exist. Once this trend was clearly established, it was a simple matter for liberty to become a negotiable bond for the purchase of security.” It will be perceived that these students are thinking: and as best they may, they are endeavoring to redress the balance, particularly in humane studies. They are not alone. Several other new publications by conservative students have come to my attention. One is AM/PM West: a Political Journal, with Mr. Alan W. Bock as editor and Mr. R. Jan Sollenberger as publisher (both of the University of California at Los Angeles). The first number appeared in March, and it is sponsored by the California Young Republican College Federation, at 626 Landfair Avenue, Los Angeles. It is more immediately political than is Phalanx; one hopes it will grow in size and influence, for its founders are forthright. Also in Los Angeles one comes upon Innovator (Box 34718, $2 a year), edited by Mr. Richard Bray. Despite its name, this is a journal of “libertarianism,” or classical liberalism, swearing by Hayek, Mises and their allies; naturally, its primary interest is economics.

SEVERAL local chapters of Young Americans for Freedom publish their own substantial bulletins or newsletters. One of the more vigorous is Commentary on Liberty (1602 Walnut Street, Room 304, Philadelphia; $2 per year), sponsored by the Philadelphia County Young Americans for Freedom. One contributor, Mr. Dave Walter, invites Playboy (which he dislikes) to join in the good work of restoring genuine liberty—the rights of property-owners, for instance. But he suspects that Playboy is interested only in sexual license. He indubitably is right, for Playboy declined to publish his letter, though it had plenty of space in which to print the epistles of neurotic clergymen who are all for Sexual Emancipation. The Young Republicans of St. John’s University, in Long Island, are getting out an eight-page, double-column publication called the Pachyderm, with Mr. Vincent Leibell as president and Mr. Matthew Corey as editor. (Address: The Young Republicans Club, St. John’s University, Jamaica, New York.)

RK

About the Author

Russell Kirk

Featured Tags

NOW AND AGAIN, indignant friends send me some of the evanescent journals of the “New Left” students. I am not alarmed by them. In general, those publications are wretchedly written, empty of ideas, and animated only by the cry “Pull down!” Such folk will get nowhere, today or tomorrow—not even so far as the young Marxists got thirty years ago. As Dr. Clark Kerr remarked recently, the real drift of this country is conservative today, and the radical students’ only remaining cause is opposition to the Vietnamese war—and even there they are ineffectual, if often a nuisance. About fifteen years ago, the better college undergraduates began to move toward conservative principles. In America, as in Britain, about three decades must elapse before a body of ideas results in successful public action. I am inclined to borrow the title of that very good novel by Mr. Lionel Trilling, and to say that we are in the middle of the journey—though moving in quite a different political direction than that which Trilling describes. Fifteen years from now, the conservatively-inclined students of 1952, or even of 1967, will have become dominant in public affairs and in the academy—supposing our civilization has not gone to smash in the interim. One straw in the wind is Phalanz, a new quarterly being published by intelligéntly conservative students at universities and colleges in and about Los Angeles. The editor is a colored student, Mr. William Allan Barclay, of Pepperdine College: the managing editor, Mr. Peter Schramm, is the son of a Hungarian exile. Chapters of the Southern California Collegiate Studies Conference (associated with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute) at Loyola, Immaculate Heart, San Fernando Valley State, the University of Southern California, and Pepperdine have joined together in this imaginative endeavor. The magazine costs $3.50 a year, and its address is 3853 Recklaw Drive, Studio City, California. As the editors of Phalanx write in their apology for being born, ‘The search for truth has been lost in the modest quest for totality. The educational system [reflected in most journals] has attuned itself to the desire to find a rational answer for every element of man’s behavior. Those things which do not yield to such reason are rejected. The quality of ideas has led to the rejection of ideas. Fact has become lord, and all that does not conform to fact as the system sees it does not [cannot] exist. Once this trend was clearly established, it was a simple matter for liberty to become a negotiable bond for the purchase of security.” It will be perceived that these students are thinking: and as best they may, they are endeavoring to redress the balance, particularly in humane studies. They are not alone. Several other new publications by conservative students have come to my attention. One is AM/PM West: a Political Journal, with Mr. Alan W. Bock as editor and Mr. R. Jan Sollenberger as publisher (both of the University of California at Los Angeles). The first number appeared in March, and it is sponsored by the California Young Republican College Federation, at 626 Landfair Avenue, Los Angeles. It is more immediately political than is Phalanx; one hopes it will grow in size and influence, for its founders are forthright. Also in Los Angeles one comes upon Innovator (Box 34718, $2 a year), edited by Mr. Richard Bray. Despite its name, this is a journal of “libertarianism,” or classical liberalism, swearing by Hayek, Mises and their allies; naturally, its primary interest is economics.

SEVERAL local chapters of Young Americans for Freedom publish their own substantial bulletins or newsletters. One of the more vigorous is Commentary on Liberty (1602 Walnut Street, Room 304, Philadelphia; $2 per year), sponsored by the Philadelphia County Young Americans for Freedom. One contributor, Mr. Dave Walter, invites Playboy (which he dislikes) to join in the good work of restoring genuine liberty—the rights of property-owners, for instance. But he suspects that Playboy is interested only in sexual license. He indubitably is right, for Playboy declined to publish his letter, though it had plenty of space in which to print the epistles of neurotic clergymen who are all for Sexual Emancipation. The Young Republicans of St. John’s University, in Long Island, are getting out an eight-page, double-column publication called the Pachyderm, with Mr. Vincent Leibell as president and Mr. Matthew Corey as editor. (Address: The Young Republicans Club, St. John’s University, Jamaica, New York.)