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THE CHARGE OF MORAL AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM
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- OTHER CRITICISMS OF HAYDEN
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THE CHARGE OF MORAL AND CULTURAL RELATIVISMConservative academics interesting in revising history have tried to give a black eye to the 1960s student movements by accusing them of moral and cultural relativism -- of turning a blind eye to oppression if it suits their political ends. Quite the opposite is true, insists Hayden to this day. He responds to the charges of people such as Allan Bloom and David Horowitz thusly: I think Bloom is absolutely right in drawing attention to the deficiencies of the moral climate on American campuses. He is right to say that specialization goes too far, that objectivity masks a moral neutralism, that the teaching and counseling of undergraduates is often under-emphasized. But these trends were not the results of the 60s revolt. On the contrary, they were among the very causes of the early student movement ... On the contrary, one can argue that the finest moment of the university was when students and faculty stopped the university's business-as-usual during a time of national crisis. We were spending $30 billion a year on death and destruction; hundreds of Americans per week were coming home in body bags ... It was honorable to protest that situation, and those who did so should be blessed in our history. What Bloom and others see as moral relativism -- they argue that the student movements essentially defended the right of societies to choose communism -- Hayden sees as merely a shift in morals. The 1960s radicals were not defending Vietnamese (or Chinese, or Soviet) communism -- they were defending their own brand of moral claims, that the United States should not engage in what the SDS felt were immoral activities. Rather than moral relativism, this was actually the mirror image of the moral absolutism that Bloom and his allies defended. Just because it isn’t your morality, Hayden might say, doesn’t mean there isn’t a moral system behind it. When he was interviewed by the journal NEW PERSPECTIVES QUARTERLY, Hayden expanded upon this defense of his philosophy: NPQ: In Bloom's mind, when the current preoccupations of a democratic society become the primary concerns of the university, the university loses the critical detachment necessary to preserve and pass on the core values of Western civilization. Pursuit of knowledge is then eclipsed by the needs of the moment and the opinion of the masses. HAYDEN: Bloom has it backwards. This man who makes so much of being able to distinguish between shadow and substance in Plato's cave becomes blind to the fact that the anguished cry of the students in the 60s was not so very different from Bloom's own lament. The editorials I wrote from 1957 to 1961 in the Michigan Daily were based on Cardinal Newman's concept of the university as a community of scholars, on the remoteness of the curriculum from the real dilemmas of life, on the failure of the university to stand as a critical institution representing inquiry, on the cowardly silence of the intellectual community in the 50s. Bloom continuously asserts that higher education has failed democracy, but it seems difficult for him to comprehend that, at least in the United States, higher education is not separate from democracy. It's an institution that is a full participant in our democratic society. It is not Plato's cave. We live in an economy and a culture where ideas are not separate from improving productivity, improving cultural literacy or improving the quality of life. Higher education is fully integrated into - or contaminated by, depending on how we view it American society. As a result, as long as we have a US Constitution there will be the possibility of strikes or other disruptive activity any time the component members of an institution are treated like numbers or feel their point of view is not represented. OTHER CRITICISMS OF HAYDENEven if individuals agreed with the goals of the SDS, they might be criticized for methods -- such as a willingness to riot at the Democratic National Convention. Many say that the riot was something the SDS planned all along -- certainly, that was the basis of the government’s case against the Chicago Seven. Because of the overturned conviction, this is far from undisputed. However, others maintain that Hayden and SDS were supporters of violent groups, even if they weren’t violent themselves. Critics cite Hayden’s speech to the radical group The Weathermen, who refused to rule out violence as a political tactic, at the Weathermen’s Days of Rage gathering. According to observers, Hayden told the group: "Anything that intensifies our resistance…is in the service of humanity. The Weathermen are setting the terms for all of us now." This would seem to be at least a tacit endorsement of the group’s tactics. The question of whether violence is justified as a political tactic -- and the vexing corollarly question, whether it is justified in an advanced democracy which generally protects freedom of speech -- is not something we will concern ourselves with here. Nevertheless, it is worth reporting and considering that Hayden and SDS were certainly on the edge of the debate. CONCLUSION -- HAYDEN AND DEBATE If there is one thing that we can say about Tom Hayden, it’s this: he isn't afraid to change with the times. He is unafraid of a vigorous and public discussion on policies, philosophies and ideas -- not unlike many members of the debate community. BIBLIOGRAPHYAptheker, Herbert with prefaces by Staughton Lynd and Tom Hayden, MISSION TO HANOI. New York: International Publishers, 1966. Hayden, Tom. activist and former California state legislator, NEW PERSPECTIVES QUARTERLY, Volume 4, #4, Fall 1987, p. 20. Hayden, Tom. activist and former California state legislator, WASHINGTON POST, December 5, 1999, p. B1. Hayden, Tom. activist, Port Huron Statement, 1962, http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/huron.html, accessed May 2, 2002. Hayden, Tom. THE LOVE OF POSSESSION IS A DISEASE WITH THEM, Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. Tom Hayden, REUNION: A MEMOIR, New York: Random House, 1988. Horowitz, David. former radical, THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE, May/June 1997, http://www.theamericanenterprise.org/taemj97s.htm, accessed May 1, 2002. Lynd, Staughton & Thomas Hayden, The Other Side. New York: New American Library, 1966 (pb New York: Signet, 1967). Radosh, Ronald. author of Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left, FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE, November 27, 2001, http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/radosh/2001/rr11-27-01.htm, accessed May 2, 2002. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
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