William Penn Life, 1969 (4. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1969-12-01 / 12. szám
But we must keep it and our reactions to it in logical perspective. Recently the editor of The Bennington (Vermont) Banner, explained the revolt of the young against their parents’ generation, wrote of the war: “It is not just another war. It has been a military and political and moral blunder of a magnitude without parallel in American history . . . they (the young) rebel at the sins of their parents. And when the sins have been particularly monstrous, the youthful reaction is likely to be that much more shattering.” Ignoring the intellectual arrogance (not uncommon to editors) that essays this questionable interpretation of American history. I find this an intriguing and significant statement, no less interesting for the venom and intolerance that saturates it. On the way to Florida recently, I became confused by highway markers and took a wrong turn that cost us time and trouble. By the Bennington standards, I had committed a sin. The decision to intervene in Vietnam was, I am convinced, a wrong turn, a mistake resulting partly from ignorance, as do most mistakes. But it was a mistake shared by most of our chosen leaders, including many of those most admired by the young. It was, as the Bennington editor says, a blunder. But it was made without the knowledge or intent of evil that marks sin, and we must wonder at the basic goodness of those who would impute sin to those who stumble. I think that any factual assessment of Vietnam will show how decently we stumbled into this trap of history. It seems certain to go down in history as a bloody mistake (though history’s verdict is by no means in yet), but I am convinced that we made it with the best of motives, and that we remain in Vietnam not for pride nor profit, as so many young profess to believe, but because we have yet to find a way to quit without endangering both the people and principles we went to defend. And to infer sin in our decision indicates a misunderstanding of both government and man. There is another interesting aspect to the war which I hope you will consider. In my opinion, our intervention in Vietnam is at least defensible as our intervention in the Dominican Republic. We went to Vietnam—or so we thought—to give people the right to choose their government without external, or externallysupported pressure. In the Dominican Republic we intervened to uphold those who had overthrown the only elected government the country had ever had. But there was little campus outcry against venture, and I can only wonder if it is because it was fought at little cost to the young. I do not blame you for not wanting to fight a war you oppose morally. But moral resentment should not wax and wane with the degree of personal sacrifice involved. You protest that the government lies, conceals and compromises. But ideals alone are often an inadequate vessel for the rough trip through the rapids of international politics. And since neither Washington, Moscow nor Peking is run by holy men, survival sometimes requires compromise with full candor. Neither is Washington run, let me add, by men of omniscience or omnipotence. It is run by human beings, as are the newspapers and great corporations you regard so bitterly. Sometimes they don’t know; sometimes they make mistakes, even, alas, as you and I. You say that you have been dumped into a world you never made. Frankly, I cannot recall a generation having been given the privilege of choosing the shape of the world into which it was born. It has been said that yours is the first generation to grow up unsure that it will have a world to live in tomorrow. It has its tension, of course, as have all eras; we feel them as keenly as you. But in an individual sense (which may be the only relevant one) this has been true of all men since the spear. Whether because of the plague, the Hun or the hydrogen bomb, man has always lived with some lurking fear, and with no assurance that he will have a tomorrow. But before you become paranoid in your fear of nuclear doomsday, remember that we share this fear, and the danger behind it, and your determination that this force must be tamed. You are not alone in opposing the arms race, the ABM, the overbalance on defense spending. You will have help in your fight to control this violence. But remember that man has had these weapons for a generation now, and his fear of them has, in part, kept the great powers from falling on each other. You insist we have given you a rotten system. It is not rotten and we have not given it to you. No generation gives power to the next. You will grow into it, regardless of us. You will control its production and wealth as rapidly as your talents enable you to fight your way to control. You will become its political leaders and set its policies as rapidly as you can convince people that your judgment is sound and your policies preferable. I would be disappointed if you were not impatient with the slow working of representative democracy. It may, indeed, be as bad as you say; Winston Churchill correctly declared that it is an impossible system of government, but the best that man has yet devised. We worry about you because you seem more intent on destroying the system than in correcting it. Your willingness to resort to violence to force the will of your minority on the majority smacks more of the storm trooper than of the reformer. Your intolerance makes me wonder who your reforms are designed to benefit, just as your tactics make me doubtful that you will succeed. The minority that seeks to enforce its will invites the retaliation of the greater violence of the majority. Believe me, I am glad to see your anger at discovering want and injustice, it speaks of something good in you. It will spur you, I hope, to make changes. At the same time, I suggest that much of your shock comes from a delayed collision with reality. You recoil at want because you have never lived in its midst. You resent injustice, violence, and suffering because you have grown up in a comfortable world. You remind me somewhat of the child who discovers that his parents have lied to him about Santa Claus and is furious at them, ignoring the reality of daddy behind the myth. You say the school-book view of America is false, that democracy, equality, brotherhood, liberty and justice for all are myths. You are wrong. They are the ideals, the goals, the vision put before us by the men who started all this. Is our democracy less than a reality because some (your militants, for example) abuse its privileges? Are the ideals of liberty and justice for all less inspiring, less worthy, less believable because we being human and fallible, fall short of them? You reject our middle-class values, but then define them yourself as being materialism, greed, conformity and an obsession with security, which is like our implying that your attitude toward Vietnam is based on cowardice. It is not easy to pinpoint our values, but among them are freedom from fear, want and oppression, the right to rear one’s children in love and conscience, to choose one’s leaders and change one’s government as times dictate, to be free to reach as far as our talents will permit, and to live in our homes in dignity, peace and security. I think it is important for you to be aware of our attitudes and our experience for several reasons. It is good to know where you have been so that you can better decide where you want to go. And it is well for a man to think well of his forebears, those who went before and gave him life. For, as the saying goes, the apple does not fall far from the tree, and the traits you have inherited are those on which you must depend as you begin your work. As a generation, you have good qualities, I think, from which to draw strength in time of stress. □ Reprinted from The Courier-Journal & Times Magazine of June 15, 1969. 8
