PERSONAL COLUMN

Can the universities survive?

VERNON BOGDANOR

Vernon Bogdanor is a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, Much of the discussion on the ideology of the student revolt has attempted to relate it to traditional political doctrines. The most naive account treats the revolt as an exten- sion of traditional radical politics, as an attempt to press reform upon an unwilling university bureaucracy after persuasion and negotiation have failed. I heard one don of this university remark that, whatever the excesses of the students, they at least stood for 'principles', rather than the 'pragmatism' of their elders. Mr Jo Grimond, on the occa- sion of his installation as Rector of Aberdeen University, is reported as saying, 'No one defends some of the goings on'—it would be interesting to know which of the 'goings on' Mr Grimond would be prepared to defend —but the student movement did, at least, provide a radical element in politics, 'and by its very nature a radical element arouses antagonisms.'

This view completely misses the signifi- cance of the student movement. For student demonstrators do not act as one would expect a radical political movement to act. They do not present a coherent set of political demands, and attempt by persuasion to con- vert others to these demands. Indeed, as Professor John Searle has pointed out, the 'demands', and the often non-existent 'grievances' to which they refer, are not in- tended to be met. Reform is just what the leaders of student protest do not want. At Oxford, for example, the reforms proposed as a result of the deliberations of the com- mittee led by Professor Hart will vastly im- prove the position of the average under- graduate vis-à-vis authority in the university. Most of the rules governing undergraduate life are now to be drawn up by a committee comprising both undergraduates and dons; and the vague clause empowering the Proc- tors to punish anyone whose conduct is such as 'to bring the name of the university into disrepute', is to be replaced by clear and pre- cise regulations. Yet it is at just this point— at just the point when the processes of nego- tiation and consultation seem to be bearing fruit, that the student leaders decide that the university is irredeemably corrupt and repressive, and that a direct confrontation is in order. This is hardly the response of a movement aiming at radical reform.

More plausible is the contention that the student movement is marxist in inspiration; it is not intended that the demands of the protestors be met, precisely because the stu- dent leaders are revolutionaries who will remain content with nothing less than the destruction of capitalism and the universities associated with it. Certainly the student leaders mouth marxist phrases and profess to see crucial links between the universities and capitalism. As the Hart report puts it: In the perspective of this movement, the universities appear both to sustain the struc- ture of a corrupt society and to reflect it.'

But the universities, as well as sustaining and reflecting a corrupt society, represent also the weakest link in that society; they can, therefore, be seized by determined revolu- tionaries, and be made to function as 'red bases' from which guerrilla attacks can be mounted upon the world outside. In this

way, capitalism can be destroyed without the necessity of waiting for the development of a revolutionary consciousness amongst the working class. Writing in New Left Review at the end of 1968, one 'James Wilcox'— widely believed to be a pseudonym for Robin Blackburn, the dismissed LSE sociology lec- turer—wrote: 'Capitalist power is not to be destroyed by a rising tide of consciousness, but rather by the hard blows of popular force.'

Even this madcap theory, however, does not in my view, reveal the true inspiration behind student revolt, nor the psychological forces which motivate the leaders of the revolt. For, despite their protestations of marxism, the student leaders remain funda- mentally uninterested in the condition of the masses; unlike the student left of the 1930s, they spend little time attempting to instil a revolutionary consciousness in the working class. Indeed, the student revolutionaries reveal themselves, in the writings of their most articulate spokesman, Herbert Marcuse, as definitely hostile to the immedate 'materialistic' aspirations of the workers. This hostility is, of course, reciprocated. For the student revolutionaries are not complaining that capitalism does not work; their com- plaint is that it works only too well, smother- ing the revolutionary desires of the prole- tariat with consumer goods and material satisfaction.

Moreover the student leaders show a dis- tressing inability to form a coherent political programme: apart from the systematic mouthing of emotive words—capitalism, bureaucracy and revolution are three of the favourite ones—they give their listeners no hint of what the future socialist or revolu- tionary society will be like. Indeed, we can go further than this; the attempt to formulate a political programme is itself regarded as a sign of that bourgeois degeneracy which the student rebels aim to combat. This is nicely illustrated by a statement of the American student leader Tom Hayden who, when asked by Gore Vidal what his programme was, replied, 'We haven't any. First we will make the revolution, and then we will find out what for.'

It is, I think, this fundamental lack of political discipline—this failure even to attempt to link theory with practice—that marks off the student revolt from other extremist movements such as communism and fascism. This is not, of course, to deny that the student movement could be har- nessed to serve extremist political ends. If, however, we are to understand the student revolt, we must realise that it bears little or no relationship to traditional forms of extremist politics to which the west is accus- tomed. Marxists are making the same mistake as radical dissenters if they think that the student movement bears any relationship to their own political ideals. For the student revolt is not against any particular form of industrial society, such as capitalism, but against industrial society it- self. And marxism, no less than liberalism, is the intellectual product of an industrial society. If we are to look for the intellectual sources of student rebellion, we should look then not at marxian rationalism, but rather search among the more primitive and atavis- tic elements of western thought. Men such as Bakunin and Sorel come to mind as appro- priate prophets of the 'creative destruction' associated with student protest.

Of course, I do not mean to suggest that every student who takes part in a demonstra- tion accepts such a credo. That would be absurd. Only a small minority of student demonstrators are revolutionaries. It is, nevertheless, the minority who lead the demonstrations whose ideology colours the movement as a whole. It is worth asking, therefore, why an attack on industrial society as such has replaced more traditional forms of political protest.

The anarchic stance of student revolt seems to me to arise as a kind of surrogate for true political or religious commitment. Students, like everyone else, need to find a cause outside themselves, in order to make life worth living. With traditional political ideals—Empire, Europe, socialism—seem- ingly in abeyance, and with political choice appearing to be confined to two fairly similar bureaucratically dominated party organisa- tions, students attempt, in David Riesman's phrase, to 'fall into commitment' by searching for new and immediate grievances.

If we regard student revolt as a revolt against the constraints posed by industrial society, many of the puzzling features of the revolt fall into place. It is natural for the revolt to be led, not by working-class under- graduates, but rather by those from enlightened and liberal middle-class backgrounds, undergraduates who can afford to spurn industrial society pre- cisely because they possess a secure income and social status derived from the very successes of such a society. It also be- comes clear why it is often the most intel- ligent students in the social sciences who be- come involved. Potential scientists, doctors and lawyers remain, on the whole, politically passive. They are able to see higher educa- tion as the prelude to a satisfying vocation : they have no doubts about the role which industrial society is allotting them. But for those studying philosophy, sociology and psychology, no such settled future seems in prospect. Many intelligent students find themselves unable to obtain full satisfaction from their course of studies. Lacking family responsibilities and a career orientation, they fling themselves into an attack upon a society which imposes constraints upon them. Their heroes are guerrilla bandits such as Ho and Che, men who have themselves opted out of the struggle to improve and humanise industrial society.

If the student movement possesses the apocalyptic ideology which I have described, how should the university authorities set about dealing with it? There are, unfor- tunately, no easy answers to this question : certainly universities in Britain and the United States have not yet succeeded in find- ing the answer. Superficially attractive poli- cies lose their attractiveness when carefully examined. If the authorities were to 'get tough' with demonstrators, they would risk making martyrs of the student leaders, and alienating the majority of moderate and liberal-minded students whose support the authorities need. If, on the other hand, the authorities were to act permissively, they risk giving demonstrators a prescriptive right to indulge in acts of disruption whenever their demands are not met: and the univer- sities will lose the respect, and no doubt the tolerance also, of the public at large.

Nevertheless, some lessons can be drawn from the short history of student revolt; les- sons which might indicate to Vice-Chancel- lors what ought to be done; and, what is per- haps more important, what ought not to be done. Since those who actually hold a revolu- tionary ideology constitute a small minority of student demonstrators, it is important to avoid a policy of indiscriminate repression. A policy of `law and order', although it might become a regrettable necessity in the univer- sities, can never be sufficient to deal with the problem.

For many of the non-revolutionary demonstrators are muddled radicals, who believe that unconstitutional methods repre- sent the best way of ensuring reform. Many, in Oxford at least, are simply credulous— ready to believe any accusation, however bizarre—and easily misled by the revolu- tionaries. A pupil of mine solemnly assured me last week, without a shred of evidence to back up his accusation, that photographs were taken by university officials of under- graduates demonstrating against the Spring- boks; and that all college deans keep political files on undergraduates. Such credulity is, of course, an extremely disturbing phenomenon in an institution dedicated to intellectual inquiry and the weighing and sifting of evi- dence.

What it does indicate, however, is that university authorities must endeavour to re- move whatever genuine grievances exist, grievances upon which revolutionaries might feed. They should make every effort to rationalise and explain the rules which they wish to enforce, distinguishing carefully be- tween strictly academic issues—the further- ance of teaching and research—where under- graduates cannot be admissed to the decision- making process; and other issues where they might reasonably be expected to play a large part in the drawing-up of rules. Such a policy would have the double effect of bring- ing moderate students into line behind the authorities by allowing them to participate in the process of rule-making; and explain- ing the basis of the rules to the credulous.

If, however, a policy of indiscriminate re- pression would be unjustified, so also would a policy of allowing violence and ruffianly behaviour to continue without taking any action. The danger of a policy of permissive- ness is precisely that it is taken as condoning disruptive behaviour. If, for example. students are allowed to break into university buildings with impunity, it will come to be accepted as a normal reaction following the break- down of negotiations. Nor should students be placed in a privileged position vis-à-vis

the law; if, in the course of demonstrations, they break the law, they should be punished by the police and not by the university authorities.

To steer a middle way between repression and permissiveness obviously requires not only skill from Vice-Chancellors, .but also uncommon good sense from the vast majority of moderate students. One hopes, perhaps optimistically, that this will be forthcoming.

Nevertheless, no one should doubt that the universities face a period of uncertainty and crisis. Caught as they are between the threat of revolution from the left, and a public backlash from the right, can the universities survive as liberal and humane institutions? The issue at stake is no less than this.