70 Year Magazine Archive

Letter From Europe

by Thomas Molnar

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Among the crumbling institutions of our times (courts, churches. parliaments), one in particular shows signs of special degeneracy: the universities. The “revolutionary” spirit of student populations all over the world (needless to say they are well-fed, carefree, bourgeois youth) has now reached the European universities and has escalated there beyond the experience of such towers of conservatism as Berkeley. The hot summer in Berlin has hatched the “Critical University” (Kritische Universität), whose modest organizers intend to set up shop inside the so-called Free University of Berlin, itself created after the war as a center of leftist thought.

Obviously not leftist enough, because the neo-neo-vanguard advertises the following curriculum for the 1967/68 “academic” year: 1) permanent criticism of universities and the practical reform of studies (read: how to riot on campus); 2) intensification of spontaneous (!) political action from centers of militancy (read: how to riot in the streets); and 3) preparation of students for practicing (!) the social sciences (read: how to riot and subvert society).

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