New York, Feb. 10—The reigning confusion in New York City on the school decentralization issue has had the interesting effect (such often is the case) of increasing the dogmatic pitch of the contenders. Like the Israeli-Arab confrontation, the worse it gets, the more each side claims exclusive virtue, exclusive historical justification, absolute morality. So confused has it become that New York intellectuals were treated a few weeks ago to the not altogether unfamiliar spectacle of one chronic cause-finder, Mr. Dwight Macdonald, publicly changing his mind, and adopting a position exactly contrary to the position he had publicly proclaimed during September. He did this in an open letter to Mr. Michael Harrington, the chairman of the Socialist Party of America, and co-founder with Mr. Macdonald, according to his account, of poverty in America.
At first Mr. Macdonald attributed the intransigence of Mr. Albert Shanker and the United Federation of Teachers to the adamant defense of the civil liberties of teachers. Now he believes the whole thing is a plot against self-governing Negro schools, and that Mr. Shanker has merely been seeking the consolidation of the power of his union.
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