Alan Borovoy How the New Left went in the wrong direction 08-Feb-1995

Alan Borovoy How the New Left went in the wrong direction 08-Feb-1995

"To a great extent, the New Left was conceived and nourished on the principles of democracy. But it wound up promoting a new form of authoritarianism." � Alan Borovoy

How the New Left went in the wrong direction

by A. Alan Borovoy
General Counsel
Canadian Civil Liberties Association

With the recent death of American activist, Jerry Rubin, the last titan of the New Left is gone. (His fellow titan, Abbie Hoffman, died a few years earlier.)

At such a time, there is an irrepressible impulse to evaluate the legacy of the movement connected with these men. The New Left was an influential force in the 1960s. Among its major features were mass demonstrations, draft card burnings, and slogans like "make love, not war". The movement enhanced the political consciousness of all North America.

Yet I am struck most by a pervasive paradox. To a great extent, the New Left was conceived and nourished on the principles of democracy. But it wound up promoting a new form of authoritarianism.

By most accounts, the New Left began in the free speech movement at the university in Berkeley, California. Mass student demonstrations, protesting certain restrictions on campus political activity, brought the university to a virtual standstill. What could be more consonant with democratic principles than a campaign for freedom of speech? It was the same with "participatory democracy", the rallying cry that emerged soon afterwards. The student leaders proclaimed the importance of people participating in the decisions that control their lives. On one campus after another, the students began to demand representation on the governing bodies of their universities.

The movement also spread into the general communities � in the struggle against racism, poverty, and, perhaps most central, the American military involvement in Vietnam. All of these activities were part of a conscious effort to further democratize American society.

But, at some point in the late 1960s, New Left activists were no longer content to propagate their own point of view; they felt an increasing need to muzzle their opponents. Thus, on many American campuses, students shouted down speakers who were defending America's Vietnam policies. These disruptions were not simply a matter of heckling; they were deliberate attempts to stop serious debate. In Canada, a New Left group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), actually strong- armed an American urbanologist off a platform at the University of Toronto because his views were allegedly "racist".

New Leftists defended these tactics on the basis that, against evils such as the Vietnam war and racism, virtually anything could be justified. Increasingly, such sanctimony engulfed the New Left movement. Thus, numbers of student activists harboured few qualms about rampaging the offices, files, and even research of their professors. University property became fair game for vandalization. At a Montreal university, for example, a student protest against alleged racism touched off a fire that caused two million dollars worth of damage to a computer centre. To the New Left, the hated establishment had no rights worth defending or even respecting.

One of the New Left's lingering legacies is the legitimacy it conferred on the idea of censoring the views of the right-wing. Since that period of campus rebellion, it has become increasingly acceptable for the universities themselves to engage in a form of censorship, particularly of expression that is considered racist, sexist, or homophobic. On many campuses today, it has become official policy to stifle speech which is seen as creating, in this way, a "hostile environment". A year ago, for example, a professor at a Maritimes university was suspended for publishing an article that expressed a non-conforming opinion on the subject of date-rape. There was no suggestion � much less an accusation � that this professor had harassed any female students. On the contrary, he had simply expressed a point of view that is offensive to many people.

These developments � from participatory democracy to institutional censorship � characterize an unbroken transition from yesterday's rebellions to today's orthodoxies. A disquieting feature of the New Left's legacy.

Originally published on the Canadian Civil Liberties Association web site at www.ccla.org/pos/columns/Rubin.shtml

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