Radical Innocence, Radical Guilt We worshiped the revolution like romantic lovers. But a shameless brute came along and violated out beloved. --Gorky
As the Eighties recede, we find ourselves caught in the riptide of a Sixties revival. There are films, histories, and memoirs of what has been made to seem a sort of golden age--an age not only of energy and excitement but also of commitment and belief. This revival recollecting a turbulent youth in the tranquility of its middle years. But the nostalgia is also a political phenomenon. The growing interest in the Sixties coincides with a renaissance of the radicalism that was the decade's dominant trait and is now being used to jump-start the Next Left.
The conventional wisdom tells us that if Leftism has reappeared on the American scene, it is because of the cyclical nature of politics. Just as Eisenhower's holding action in the Fifties led to JFK's New Frontier liberalism in the Sixties, were informed, so the clamped--down Reaganism of the Eighties has precipitated the current radical resurgence. The most popular, if tendentious, expression of the pendulum theory comes from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who applies it to contemporary political culture just as his father, also a historian, did half a century ago.
It is not merely an academic quibble to say that the Left revival now upon his should be seen as intentional rather than inertial. It is not just the weight of history pushing the pendulum but a political movement shoving it ahead for its own reasons. Like the slowly metamorphosing monster of a horror film, the Left has actually been recreating itself during its apparent dormancy since the end of the Sixties, succeeding so well that now it has reappeared stronger than ever. If there is a cyclical dynamic at work in this rebirth, it has less to do with the laws of history than with the laws of Leftism, which since 1917 has alternated between styles of will not bring a revolutionary army into the streets, as in the Sixties. It will involve an offensive of "progressivism" whose targets are the Democratic Party, the church, the universities, and various liberal institutions.
The Left today is as hostile to American power as it was two decades ago; it still believes that what is wrong with America is systemic. It has understood, however, that to be taken seriously, it must submit to a make-over. The change required is not simply cosmetic: there must also be a reassertion of the innocence radicalism lost as a result of its excesses during its previous incarnation. This recovery is being achieved by a mock admission of guilt, which is actually self-exculpation in disguise. If American radicals did wrong in
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