In this post yesterday, I made reference to the Port Huron Statement, authored in 1962:

This was an organization that began by agitating for “participatory democracy,” became the largest organization of the left and ended up, a bare seven years later, calling for war against “Amerikkka” and creating the Weather Underground – the first terrorist political cult.

Well, after writing that post (the Times article I mentioned has the funniest accidental lead in Times history), I perused the Port Huron Statement.  It’s long and boring and full of dull revolutionary language, but the very end is more interesting.   

In the peroration at the end, the writers actually outline how and why the university setting is the best place to be revolutionary.  This is not surprising, but it does reveal some evidence for why univerisities are so saturated with this ethos today.  This is what the writers sa about making “the university a potential base and agency in a movement of social change.”

1. Any new left in America must be, in large measure, a left with real intellectual skills, committed to deliberativeness, honesty, reflection as working tools. The university permits the political life to be an adjunct to the academic one, and action to be informed by reason.

2. A new left must be distributed in significant social roles throughout the country. The universities are distributed in such a manner.

3. A new left must consist of younger people who matured in the postwar world, and partially be directed to the recruitment of younger people. The university is an obvious beginning point.

4. A new left must include liberals and socialists, the former for their relevance, the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system. The university is a more sensible place than a political party for these two traditions to begin to discuss their differences and look for political synthesis.

5. A new left must start controversy across the land, if national policies and national apathy are to be reversed. The ideal university is a community of controversy, within itself and in its effects on communities beyond.

6. A new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close-up by every human being. It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so that people may see the political, social and economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change society. In a time of supposed prosperity, moral complacency and political manipulation, a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform. The case for change, for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts, must be argued as never before. The university is a relevant place for all of these activities.